VP-26 Leaving Rota, Spain and Returning to the U.S.

The top two photos are of Rota, Spain. The next two photos are of  Naval Air Station Port Lyautey, Morroco. The bottom three photos are of  Argentia, Newfoundland. In spring,we fly from Rota to NAS Port Lyautey, Morroco to refuel and then to Argentia, Newfoundland where we refuel and spend the night before flying back to NAS Brunswick, ME.

Once back in Brunswick my job is to continue to work on all the squadron aircraft and to continue flying with crew 10. It enables me to learn aircraft electric systems that I'm not already familiar with. On Nov 16, 1960 they promote me to Aviation Electrician's Mate Third Class (E4). That comes with a raise in base pay and a raise in flight pay. Plus Chief Cunio recommends me for $30 a month in Proficiency Pay. Wow! It's like rolling in dough!

The promotion makes me assess my work in the electric shop. The Chief or one of the senior petty officers usually tell me what aircraft gripes to work on. It's time to change my attitude. Time to volunteer to check out any gripe that needs someone to troubleshoot and repair it. At first, I ask the senior petty officers or the Chief for help, soon I start reading the tech manuals and the wiring diagrams and discover it isn't that hard and you actually remember what you learned from reading them and figuring it out yourself. After a few months, most of the autopilot and compass problems are given to me and  the Chief has me training the new E2 and E3 men assigned to the shop.

AE2s Plecinoga and Balog have completed their four years and are discharged. AE3 Damstra is promoted to AE2. The manpower of the shop is changing. New guys without P2V experience are being transferred in and need to be familiarized with the aircraft. This year we fly through the winter in Brunswick and are told we'll be going back to Rota in the spring. That winter Diane Doris and I get married. Diane was my off and on girlfriend in high school. In Brunswick we rented a small three room apartment in downtown Brunswick. Brunswick had very wide streets. The snow would be plowed into the center of the main street. That winter it was plied up so high the city would cut turn around slots through the piles for the cars! After a few months, AE2 Gettle is transferred to a new duty station. He and his wife owned an 8 X 35 foot 2 bedroom house trailer and offered to sell it to us for $1300. That seemed like a good idea as we were paying $75 a month for the apartment. We lived in that trailer for five years at three different duty stations. Then we sold it for $1300!