Laging Handa - Always Prepared (1960)

[Music] At Sunley Point the other day, several newsmen like myself from the Times, the Chronicle, the Herald, the Evening News, the Free Press, the Mirror, the Bulletin, and from the Radio and Television dawned May Wests. Our mission to see firsthand a defensive arm of the US 7th Fleet assigned to guard free word allies in the Southeast Pacific. We all felt that this contraption was to impress us. The May West is not a comfortable vest at [Music] all. Safely strapped into our seats, we flew in an anti-ubmarine airplane converted into a transport. We made casual conversation during the trip. I was chafing under the May West and was about to remove it. But I saw the US aircraft carrier Hancock, our destination, floating like a small toy in a wide expanse of an unending sea. I tightened the May West around me as our plane dove for a landing. We were hooked and we all agreed that getting hooked when landing in a carrier is the best thing that could happen. [Music] We were a little bit wobbly on our legs when we left the [Music] plane. The skipper of the USS HongK, Captain Fred Bakutis, gave us vital statistics. The Hancock displaces 45,000 tons, is 898 ft long, sails at a top speed of over 30 knots, carries two fighter squadrons, and four bomber squadrons with a crew of 3,000. She wears a main armor belt 3 in thick of laminated steel. From our vantage point on the island structure, we watched the flight deck where a pair of catapults will hurl jet planes into the air. This is the 35tonon Sky Warrior, a twin jet bomber. This we dubbed the flying saucer. It is an early warning aircraft equipped with radar. The Skyhawk, a fast jet interceptor fighter, can be airborne in 30 seconds. [Music] Alternating from the port to starboard catapults, all 60 planes of USS Hong Kong can fly to any designated target in half an hour. [Music] These planes carry powerful weapons like these [Music] fireballs. They can strafe targets or fire rockets like the side winders and sparrows which seek their quarry. [Music] Landing or recovering the planes looks easy, but it isn't. Hitting the deck to catch their landing hooks at more than 180 mph requires perfect coordination of the pilot and the landing crew. [Music] The planes come in every 30 seconds. Getting hooked, one has to experience pressures three and a half times the pull of [Music] gravity. Heat. Heat. [Music] Time to go home. And sitting in the plane which was catapulted into space from the carrier Hancock like a pebble from a slingshot, I realized that the defensive arm which the US 7th Fleet has stretched from Hawaii to the Indian Ocean is powerfully real. [Music]