Page 86 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2022 - Online Magazine

Joseph Dial Four-Tour Survivor
efore graduating from
Lubbock High School, Joe
BDial had signed up to join
the Navy. “I’d never seen the
ocean!” he said. In September
1968, he began basic training
for the Navy in San Diego, and
within months, he was deployed
to Vietnam.
Joe’s first tour was on the USS
Kearsarge, an antisubmarine
vessel stationed in the Gulf of
Tonkin from Mar.–Sept. 1969.
Then, after two weeks leave, he
was sent back to Vietnam where
he served on the USS Hancock
for three more deployments in
three years. The Hancock was a
WWII aircraft carrier launching
and retrieving dozens of planes
a day. Joe became a Catapult
Petty Officer whose job was to
86 Lubbock Senior Link
with a “Happy Heart”
by Tracy Cole
use a wire rope called a
“bridle” to catapult the
planes off the ship for
their missions. His job
also included “picking
up pilot body parts”
from the deck. “The pilot
would come in, and if
the plane went down, we
cleaned the deck. Navy
officers are the best, and
they were trained to save
the aircraft, so even if
they’d been hit by a SAM takeoff and giving the signal
(surface-to-air missile), to launch. On one particular
they’d try to make it back launch, he gave the thumbs up.
to the ship.” “Stabilizers up, flaps
down; we’re clear,”
As Topside and the plane took off.
Petty Officer Within seconds it was
and aircraft back down. The bridle
launcher, Joe’s had failed. Once the
job was one deck was cleared of the
of the most plane and the deceased
dangerous crew, Joe was met
in the Navy. by two Marines with
M16s and arrested for
Crashes were manslaughter, watched
common. It was on for 24 hours around the
the USS Hancock that clock, and presumed guilty until
he met Jim Reese from Littlefield, proven innocent for a week.
TX, a friend who “saved my butt
many a-time.” “I was a nervous wreck. I was
“C’mon, Dial” sure I was going to Leavenworth,
but I consoled myself by saying,
Joe remembered one pilot. “I was ‘At least I won’t be on the ocean.’”
standing in his blood and swore
he was still alive. He smiled at Jim Reese to the Rescue -
me. I stood there in shock, staring Again
at the body, then I heard, ‘C’mon,
Dial!’” It was Jim Reese, “C’mon Days passed, and Jim Reese
Dial. Nothing you can do about was done waiting. He told the
it.” Those words got Joe through JAG Officer (military lawyer), “I
some traumatic times. can’t launch without Dial.” He
told Joe, “Quit worrying about
During the last few months of his it! Give me your paperwork.”
deployment, Joe was responsible Joe’s Bridle Launch Records
for checking that stabilizers were were detailed down to the serial
up and flaps were down before number of the aircraft.