Foreword
Recollections of the Enterprise
by
Richard H. Truly
Vice-Admiral, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Growing up in the Mississippi countryside just a few short miles to the east of the
Mississippi River, I began a life-long fascination with explorers and the ships they
sailed. Perhaps because no ocean was visible and certainly few airplanes flew over
Jefferson County, thinking of great travels perhaps became the catalyst for a young
boy's dreaming. For whatever reason, sea voyages and famous aviation firsts seemed
to be the ultimate adventure, and the stories of daring exploit were always associated
in my mind with the famous names of the vessels or aeroplanes.
Although I was not aware of the heritage of her name, and certainly never dreamed
that someday I would actually sail or fly aboard her modern-day successors, the
World War II battle stories of the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier Enterprise
(CV-6) rang through my mind . . . especially her heroic aviators' daring performances
during the famous Battle of Midway, far away in the Pacific.
Years later in the early 1960's, with my college days behind me and fresh out of
naval flight training, I found myself with a set of orders to Fighter Squadron 33 to
fly carrier-based fighters. Those first cruises for me were to be aboard
Intrepid (CVA-11), yet another battle-scarred war veteran with a historic
name to remember, which had steamed and fought in those same vast Pacific waters.
But the talk of the fleet in those days was of the world's first nuclear-powered carrier
. . . the new Enterprise (CVAN-65). Our air group was the first assigned
to her decks following her shakedown cruise, so we went from one of the Navy's
smallest decks to the largest and most modern. Suddenly, we were at sea aboard the
most awesome fighting machine of the age, and one that carried the same
Revolutionary War name as that tiny sloop of Lake Champlain fame! And it wasn't
long before harm's way called . . . I listened to President Kennedy's famous speech
to the nation about Soviet missiles and naval blockades while sitting on the steel
passageway deck just outside Enterprise Ready Room 1, with Cuba just
over the horizon to the South.
I left that first ship-board tour heading for Test Pilot School, thinking that my
association with the name Enterprise was now history. New airplanes and
new adventures were ahead, and with the space age just blossoming, the chance to
someday fly beyond the atmosphere was too great to pass up; thoughts and ambitions
turned straight upward! And sure enough, my time finally came, when serious
experimental flight test of the Space Shuttle began.
The new fleet of Space Shuttles began with a grand tradition, coming directly from
the heritage of exploration on the open seas -- the Shuttles were to bear the names
of earlier historic explorers, and so the names of those earlier research explorers
Columbia, Challenger, Atlantis, Discovery,
and Captain James Cook's Endeavour were to sail again in adventure, this
time on a truly endless sea. But before they could lift off, vital testing had to be
accomplished, and it was to be done by a ship carrying none other than the name
Enterprise, and I was to fly her! Flying aloft and locked solidly to the top
of a huge Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, she performed superbly once her bonds were
severed, opening the way for all the exploits that were to follow.
Those two chances of a lifetime to be in such personal association with the ships
Enterprise spurred my interest in the history of this famous name, which
has been connected with battles and victories, and pushing the cutting-edge of
modern technologies. Arnold van Beverhoudt's research and chronicles take the
reader far deeper than one person's experiences could possibly touch, and he proves
further to have a crystal ball of imagination about the future ... read on and
explore!
Admiral Richard H. Truly
was a fighter pilot aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65) and
was one of the astronaut pilots of the space shuttle Enterprise.
He was later the NASA Administrator. [Photo: NASA]
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