Captain Royce Williams was decorated with the Navy Cross yesterday (20 Jan) in San Diego by SECNAV:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/top-gun-shot-down-4-170646332.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/top-gun-shot-down-4-170646332.html
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Tailhooker Awarded Navy Cross
- Thread starter Renegade One
- Start date
I saw a better shot of his uniform elsewhere (retirement photo maybe?). They definitely are NFO wings. Here’s a bio that says he has 250+ NFO hours and says he was “the first NFO CAG,” but doesn’t identify the platform/why he would have earned the wings.
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Good find on that bio. That answers the questions, me thinks. Thanks.
Edit: BTW, I love the last bullet of his bio: "Double engine fire in F4. Had RIO eject. Returned F4 to base on one engine, on fire in afterburner. Allowed engineers to study and correct cause of several similar incidents where both crew members ejected and the planes were lost."
Fuck yeah!
Edit: BTW, I love the last bullet of his bio: "Double engine fire in F4. Had RIO eject. Returned F4 to base on one engine, on fire in afterburner. Allowed engineers to study and correct cause of several similar incidents where both crew members ejected and the planes were lost."
Fuck yeah!
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I saw a photo of a shadowbox in his home. Displayed pilot, NFO, SWO and aircrew wings. I assume the SWO pin is the result of a Qual earned on a disassociate tour before they put an end to it. Aircrew wings? He is of an era before NFO wings and he may have had the very similar looking Observer wings, pinning NFO wings when they came along. The real twist to his career is how a fighter pilot in Korea manages to fly as a NFO and essentially retires as a pilot.
Just impressive all-around.
On the subject of American aviation heroes, I just finished reading Lightning Down by Tom Clavin. The subject of the book is a WW2 P-38 pilot named Joe Moser, who was one of 168 allied aircrew imprisoned at Buchenwald after being shot down on his 44th sortie. I honestly didn’t know that any aircrew were sent to a concentration camp until I read it. I visited Buchenwald when I was stationed in Germany, and several of the key buildings are still preserved in the state he describes them.
VAQ folks will appreciate the fact that he grew up in the Ferndale/Bellingham area and lived there until he died in 2015. Here’s his obituary: https://amp.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article47754620.html
On the subject of American aviation heroes, I just finished reading Lightning Down by Tom Clavin. The subject of the book is a WW2 P-38 pilot named Joe Moser, who was one of 168 allied aircrew imprisoned at Buchenwald after being shot down on his 44th sortie. I honestly didn’t know that any aircrew were sent to a concentration camp until I read it. I visited Buchenwald when I was stationed in Germany, and several of the key buildings are still preserved in the state he describes them.
VAQ folks will appreciate the fact that he grew up in the Ferndale/Bellingham area and lived there until he died in 2015. Here’s his obituary: https://amp.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article47754620.html
I honestly wonder if at the very beginning, it used to be a lot looser with regard to both who was an NFO and how they got qualled. And whether, like you said, he'd earned observer wings and then swapped them out after some NAVADMIN or other.
I also imagine there may have been periods of RIFs with surges for Korea, draw downs and then Vietnam, etc. It may have been he stayed on active duty and avoided a RIF by taking NFO orders.
I was in San Diego last weekend/friday. Wish I had known about this.
Reminds me in some way of my class's MiG killer debrief.....was "Diz" Laird. Had kills in both WWII theaters, was fully lit by the time we were all back on deck having burgers in the early afternoon (much to his daughters chagrin), and burned down the club with us until 0200 ish. He told us about shooting down a Japanese bomber and watching the crew fall out like "sacks of potatoes". And strafing German trains in rail yards. He died a few months ago. I can't imagine the sack of brass he carried around, and how much that must have hurt his back.
Reminds me in some way of my class's MiG killer debrief.....was "Diz" Laird. Had kills in both WWII theaters, was fully lit by the time we were all back on deck having burgers in the early afternoon (much to his daughters chagrin), and burned down the club with us until 0200 ish. He told us about shooting down a Japanese bomber and watching the crew fall out like "sacks of potatoes". And strafing German trains in rail yards. He died a few months ago. I can't imagine the sack of brass he carried around, and how much that must have hurt his back.
IIRC I read that he was DQ'd as a pilot but was still able to fly, late 60's if I recall after NFO's became a thing in '65, and he subsequently became a CAG officially as a FO.
Observer wings have looked like their current form for over 90 years, the full history of Naval Aviation wing insignia is here. The first set of Observer wings were a half wing (1922-1927):
Followed by silver Naval Aviator wings (1927-1929):
Before they finally settled on the Observer wings we have today that a few folks still wear (shout out to @FlyinSpy!).
The Observer wings you are thinking of were three different wing insignia that were used for only 2 years by the Navy at the end of WWII, from 1945-1947. These wings are the pretty obvious basis of the NFO wings we wear today, with the compass rose/radar scope/crossed artillery replaced by the shield. The navigator wings were used by enlisted USMC KC-130 Navs and are still worn today by the few that are left.
Naval Aviation Observer (Navigation)/Marine Aerial Navigator wings:
Naval Aviation Observers (Radar) wings:
Naval Aviation Observers (Tactical) wings:
