By DEBORAH McQUAID
Morning News staff reporter
Just the
presence of Navy patrol aircraft kept the seas around the Straits of Gibraltar safe for Allied ships during World War II.
A young man aboard one of the patrolling PBY-5A amphibians was Vance McBryde.
His plane flew
12-hour missions from Port Leyaute in North Africa through the Straits of Gibralter. The Navy squadron never actually sunk any German submarines, but they kept them skulking beneath the waves and away from the ships.
McBryde, a newscaster for WICU-TV for 35 years, entered the Navy in January 1943 at age 18.
He was a radio operator and gunner, part of a crew of seven. They flew their Catalina aircraft with the first magnetic
aircraft detection system used in the war.
Wit it, they could find a submarine by the magnetic ""signature'' it had, almost like using a magnet to find a nail in the wall of your house. More sophisticated
versions are still used today to search for submarines.
McBryde's plane would fly every couple of days for 12 hours at a time - out and back - from Spanish Morocco to Gibraltar. The plane skimmed 75 feet off the water
at relatively slow speed, flying cloverleafs, looking for German U-boats.
When one was detected, smoke bombs were dropped straight down in a pattern as the submarine moved, plotting its course.
Then another plane would drop actual bombs.
""We never got a submarine, but we kept a lot of them down there,'' McBryde recalled.
""It was very good in theory and it worked,'' he said. ""It was a big job.''
He never hoped to actually bomb a submarine.
""But whatever happens, happens.''
The work was
complicated by the large amounts of metal in the Straits of Gibraltar, and the Germans' use of silent running. The engines of the U-Boats were shut off as they drifted through the Straits with the current.
Two planes
at a time would patrol from dawn to dusk. The Navy blimps would then take over, he said.
""It was a real workhorse,'' McBryde said about the Catalina. It was equipped with a galley and a stove and four
canvas bunks. But the crew was usually too busy with the search routine to take a nap.
Aboard the plane were two pilots, a navigator, radio operator, mechanic and weapons specialists.
In January 1945, his squadron
of six planes, flew to England for anti-submarine patrols in the Irish Sea. He was there when the Germans surrendered. The squadron was sent back to Port Leyaute.
The submarines they had been tracking for so long
turned out to have been there all along.
""After the war, submarines started to surrender. They started popping up all over. They were there,'' McBryde said. That's why it was so important to keep up the
patrols 24 hours a day.
Those patrols would often get monotonous, he said.
""There was plenty of free time.''
There were jaunts into Gibraltar, the British colony that guarded the entrance to the
Straits. There they would visit cafes and go shopping.
""In North Africa, there was not a great deal to do. But we were treated very well. Everyone had a common goal - to win the war, which I thought would
never end,'' McBryde said.
""When you're young, two weeks is an eon. I used to think, "How long am I going to have to do this?'''
No one was surprised when the end of the war finally arrived, he said.
""The people of England were just ecstatic. I felt great about it. I felt even though the war in Germany was over, that the war in the Pacific was going to last a long time and go on and on and on. If we
didn't have the atom bomb, it would have,'' McBryde said.
His squadron boarded three landing ship tanks for the flight from Casablanca to New York City, encountering three vicious storms along the way. ""We
were all very happy to see the skyline of New York.''
During a 30-day leave, he went home to Fayetteville, N.C., where he visited his parents and one of his brothers who was already home from the war. Five of the
McBryde sons were in various locations overseas during the war.
He spent the rest of his military duty at a naval air station in San Diego, Calif., with the ground squadron, working on airplanes until his discharge in
February 1946.
World War II was different than any other war, he said, because it affected everybody in the world. And there was the camaraderie among the soldiers.
""Everyone, both military and civilian,
had a common goal in that war. The common goal that everyone had was that you had to put the world right. You had to get rid of Nazi Germany.''
""I consider I had a very easy time with World War II. I didn't
have to put up with any real inconvenience like the guys in the foxholes. I didn't have any tough duty.
""I always had a bed to sleep in and I had food.
""I wouldn't have missed the experience.''
