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aircraft on a routine
cross-country navigation training flight made a detour to Billings Airport
to collect the Lone Ranger’s horse.
There were no jet starting units at Billings so the pilot kept the engines
running. The horse dealer was right on time and loading began.
Unfortunately, the crew quickly realized that the horse would not fit in
the bomb-bay. It was too long and too wide. Exercising the
spirit of ingenuity which is a Naval Aviation trademark, the crew borrowed
a saw from the dealer and went about removing the fiberglass horse’s
head and
And all four legs. All parts were bundled up and stowed in the
bomb-bay. The crew scrambled on board and the pilot called for
taxi clearance. The request was approved and when the Navy
plane reached the duty runway, a tower operator queried. “Was that
a horse you guys were putting into that plane?” The pilot said.
“Yeah, well, it was sort of a horse.” Cleared for takeoff the
Navy crew expedited the launch sequence, cleverly avoiding further
questions.
The flight to NAS Alameda was uneventful, and the disassembled horse was
delivered (shrouded and in secrecy) to the Ranger. The
“Humpty-Dumpty” condition of the horse presented significant problems
of time and reconstruction, but nothing Brunskill and his crew couldn’t
handle. Although none of the AIMD technicians had ever worked with fiberglass, they obtained books on the material, labored clandestinely and
put Silver back together again. Not even the seams of reconstruction
showed. And a local taxidermy shop had a set of beautiful new eyes
for the white stallion. The project was completed three days before
departure.
In the meantime, in Lander, Wyoming, word of the Lone Ranger, his horse,
and the USS Ranger, had spread among its 8,000 residents. The entire
city had become fanatic fans of the ship. A Lander saddle shop
forwarded an exquisite hand woven horse hair hackamore (very
expensive). Another air expressed a fine western saddle and bridle.
Noting the flawless reincarnation of Silver, CDR Graham summoned CDR
Marshall Bittick, the Flight Deck officer, to the Jet-Shop. Graham
asked Bittick, “Can you fix up one of your “yellow gear” tractors to
safely support Silver and a rider? (Yellow gear refers to all
equipment used to move, start or perform special maintenance on aircraft
on the flight or hangar decks.) It’ll need a quick disconnect so
that we don’t tie up the tractor for any length of time. Plus, it
should have lighting so that the horse and rider can be seen at
night.”
Without hesitation, Bittick said, “Can do, XO. Just give me a few
days>”
“How about two days, Marsh,” said XO. “We want the Lone Ranger
riding when we depart Alameda for WESTPAC.”
Bittick hurried to the task while Graham studied an array of
three-foot-high, rectangular-shaped towing vehicles. One of them
would allow the Lone Ranger to ride again!
It was a beautiful sunny afternoon at the Naval Air Station in Alameda,
California that July afternoon in 1968. At the Carrier Pier on the
west side of the Air Station the mighty Aircraft Carrier USS Ranger
(CV-61) rode rock-steady on the blue-green waters of San Francisco
Bay. Near the center of the pier a fork-lift was lowering a very
large wooden sided crate from a flat-bed truck. When the crate was
firmly stable on the concrete deck of the pier, a Supply Department Petty
Officer checked the manifest one more time, then signed for the 7’x
10’x 4’ crate which was addressed “PERSONAL FOR: CAPT. WILLIAM H.
LIVINGSTON, USN COMMANDING OFFICER, USS RANGER.” After the crate
was hoisted to the #3 elevator and moved on to the Hanger Deck, the Petty
Officer contacted the Captain’s Office for instructions.
“Uncrate it and bring the paperwork to the Captain’s Office,” was
the response. Four sailors made short work of the crate, and as they
did they became wide-eyed and bewildered—as a crowd began to form around
the large gleaming white object emerging from the crate. A perfectly
formed, full sized statue of a white horse---complete with black leather
saddle and bridle trimmed and studded with silver—stood on the Hanger
Deck!
The Captain himself was quickly notified, and soon thereafter the 6’5”
imposing figure of William H. “Tag” Livingston, RANGER’S Commanding
Officer, was puzzling over the stately figure of a horse—and paperwork
indicating the origin of the horse as a Western Outfitting firm in
Wyoming. Leaving instructions for the Supply Officer to contact both
the shipping company and the western outfitters to clear up this
mistake, Captain Livingston returned to be readied for return to
combat in Tonkin Gulf, and in less than four months he had to embark Air
Wing TWO and Commander Carrier Division THREE and deploy back to the
Western Pacific.
A day or so later, about mid-morning, the Duty Officer called from the
Quarterdeck, and very nervously informed Commander H. Edward Graham, USN
– Executive Officer of the USS Ranger – that an Alameda County Deputy
Sheriff was on the Quarterdeck with a “Specific Performance or Arrest”
Warrant naming Captain Livingston as being in violation of the laws of the
State of Wyoming. “Ed” Graham arrived on the Quarterdeck in less
than a minute, and quickly escorted the Deputy back down to his office.
There, after carefully examining the official document, things began to
make some strange sense to the Executive Officer. He, too, had been
confounded by the strange delivery of the big white horse which still drew
crowds of onlookers on the Hanger Deck.. The Warrant stated that a Wyoming
stallion, which was the property of one William H. Livingston of the
USS RANGER, was currently unbranded – in violation of the laws of the
State of Wyoming--, and the said stallion must be properly branded with a
brand registered with the State of Wyoming within 30 days.
Otherwise, the Arrest Warrant would be activated. Commander Graham
considered all the information, and began to laugh—then exploded with
laughter harder and harder..”That Son-of-a-Gun Brunskill is behind
this!”
“Brunskill” was Commander Robert J. Brunskill, USN, who had retired
from a full and significant naval career shortly after the USS RANGER
returned from the Vietnam Combat Theater less than three months earlier.
Bob Brunskill, a highly skilled aircraft maintenance specialist who had
been selected to prove the concept of Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance
aboard carriers, had very convincingly accomplished his............(Next
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