The swimming course for Naval Aviation Flight School was extensive and notorious. During my last semester in college, I squeezed in an intermediate swimming course. For the final exam, we had to demonstrate all five of the normal swimming strokes, crawl, breast stroke, side stroke, back stroke, and elementary back stroke for a grade, while we swam a half mile without stopping, which was pass or fail. I was so glad I took this course. While the final exam for this course had presented a challenge to me, now it seemed like a piece of cake.
In the Navy’s swimming course, we had to also demonstrate the strokes. Not the crawl or the back stroke. These strokes were not considered survival strokes as they expended too much energy. The breast stroke, side stroke, and elementary back stroke could be done in a restful manner, though, so were taught by the Navy for this purpose. If we’d found ourselves out in the water someday, they wanted us to be able to swim for a long, long time. I was expert at these strokes. I’d gotten an A on them in my class in college. In the Navy, we were graded on these strokes as such: if you did them perfectly, you passed; if you didn’t do them perfectly, you failed. The criteria were very strict. Many of the fellows could swim like fish and were very good and even fast with the crawl stroke. The Navy was not interested in the crawl stroke or in speed. It was a humbling experience for many of my classmates.
We also had to tread water and perform a maneuver they called “drown proofing.” The test for this was to put on a flight suit and shoes, jump in the deep end, then hold our hands fully out of the water for one minute. If your hands went into the water, you failed.
At the end of the minute, we were allowed to return our hands to the water and were to perform the drown proofing maneuver for a grade. Again, if you did it perfectly, you passed. The maneuver was also sometimes called the jellyfish. You would take a deep breath and put your face in the water. You would round your back slightly and relax everything completely, so that your arms and legs hung loosely down as the tentacles of a jellyfish would hang. You’d stay like that, very still, until you couldn’t hold your breath any more. Then you would, in just a certain way, push with your hands and kick with your feet as necessary to raise your mouth above the water line to exchange breaths. Then go again. We had to do this for around five minutes. I remember being so bored that I almost fell asleep. This test was not a thing to me at all. I float like a cork. Some of my classmates, with a much denser body make up than mine, were suffering acutely and we were only minutes into the test.
Once we were done being evaluated on the drown proofing maneuver, we were allowed to do anything we wanted as long as we stayed in the deep end and didn’t touch the sides for the rest of the total thirty-minute period. Some of the guys continued drown proofing. Some of them sort of swam around, and some of them treaded water in the traditional way. All of them were very active. I was sort of bobbing around, completely relaxed.
In my swimming class back at school, one of the fellows complained every day that he couldn’t do what the teacher wanted because he was a “sinker.” She scoffed at him and made him do it anyway. He complained and complained. He did seem to be working very hard, but she attributed it to an imprecise usage of the proper stroke technique rather than the fact that he may be a sinker. Sinkers, she asserted, are very rare and she thought he was just a complainer. Finally, one day, she said, “Ok. We’ll see if you’re a sinker.”
She made all of us line up at the deep end of the pool along the side. She told us to be very still, so the water would calm down. Then she instructed us to hyperventilate as much as possible, hold a big breath, then release the side of the pool and stand vertically as if at attention in the water. People of average buoyancy, she said, should settle and float with the water line around their nose or mouth. With this test, we’d all be able to see who was a sinker and who wasn’t.
I looked around at my class and there they all were looking like a bunch of crocodiles with their noses just barely out of the water. Me though, I was head and shoulders out of the water! It was embarrassing and some of them started laughing at me and we had to redo the test. She remarked at how unusually buoyant I was. We redid it and sure enough, there was our “sinker” on the bottom of the pool. He walked a little, then he sat down! I knew I wouldn’t even be able to get down there, much less sit and casually cross my legs like he was doing in a direct sass to the teacher. She blew her whistle so he could hear her instruction to come back up. She told him to not expel any air and to do it right. He expressed innocence. She made him do it again, and this time she knelt down and watched him carefully for any bubbles. There were none. Down he went. She called him back up, apologized very nicely, and they shook hands. He really was a sinker. Then they spent some time together while we practiced our laps, learning techniques to help him stay up. He ended up doing fine. She was a real good teacher.
Here I was now in the Navy bobbing listlessly around the pool, trying to stay out of the way of my exhausted and thrashing mates. One of the instructors noticed my relaxed attitude and barked at me to help my classmates.
“Instruct them. Teach them how to do it!” he roared.
I knew I could never. They were probably pretty dense as far as body make up. They were all in tip-top physical condition and very little to no fat to help with this problem. I didn’t have much fat myself. If I did, I think I might have had trouble getting my hair wet! I can’t teach someone how to float. It comes naturally. I tried to impart the generally accepted techniques which they all knew, but in their exhausted states had forsaken a bit for thrashing and splashing. My instruction seemed to calm them and those that could speak, commented on how could I just talk normally? I’d been in the water the same amount of time they had. I tried to explain relative buoyancy to them, but they weren’t really receptive to scientific discussions. They calmed down though, and the splashing and thrashing subsided a bit.
I was still lolling around and another instructor started talking to me. He wanted to know how I learned to swim so well and the next thing I knew he was flirting with me and asking me out for a date. I didn’t see anything too wrong with that so I accepted. Every Naval Aviator has a story about his swimming course – usually it has to do with its difficulty and severity. Part of mine has to do with making time with a good-looking swimming instructor.
I went out with the instructor later. He was a really nice guy, but we didn’t really have all that much else in common. We went out twice and then he didn’t call again. I didn’t mind. It was fun, though. He was a perfect gentleman and showed me a couple of nice evenings.
The hard parts of the swimming course were to come for me. One of the tests was to jump off a ten-meter-high tower, feet first into the water. You had to cross your arms and legs in just such a way and land vertically. This was so scary to me! It took quite a bit of everything I had to step off that ledge. That wasn’t all though. Once we landed in the water, we had to stay down under, and swim under water all the way to the other end of the pool. It was a standard Olympic sized pool. We had to swim the length under water after jumping off the tower. This proved to be almost impossible for me.
I was so buoyant that as soon as I hit the water, I bobbed to the surface like a fishing float. If any part of your body broke the surface of the water, you failed. I failed it again and again and again. Jumping off that stupid tower became like nothing with so many repetitions. I just couldn’t stay down under the water.
I had to go to “stupid swim.” This was the technical term (maybe it was actually “remedial” but we all called it “stupid”) for all the people that couldn’t pass the tests during the normal period. I jumped and I floated. I jumped and I floated. I jumped and I floated. I jumped and I floated. I tried everything. If I expelled all my air so as to not be quite so buoyant, I couldn’t make it the entire length. I tried swimming the length in one breath. This was easy. I could do it with no problem. It’s just that part of my body, usually my behind, would break the surface. I know this because there was an enlisted man who worked at the pool with the instructors, who took sadistic delight in the failure of any of the officers. He used a long pole to poke at the swimmer that broke the surface of the water and therefore failed the test. I was swatted on the backside by his pole too many times to count.
I was getting close. The instructors tried to help me develop techniques to keep myself going down. This was difficult. I was swimming at a downward angle all the way to counteract the buoyant tendency of my body. This caused my forward motion to be slow. Holding enough breath to make it had to be balanced with letting just enough out to not be too buoyant to begin the maneuver after jumping from the tower.
I was almost to the end. I thought I had it. I could hear them cheering for me even though I was under water. I was touching the bottom of the pool with my chest. It’s how I knew I was under enough to keep my rear end or foot from breaking the surface at the shallow end. Then all of a sudden with only a few feet to go, I felt that pole hit my foot. I came up in disbelief and dismay. I was very near to tears. The instructor was furious. He started screaming at the enlisted guy, who protested that my foot had broken the surface.
“I don’t care!” the instructor howled at him. “Don’t you see how hard she’s been working? I wanted her to make it to the end. She was so close it would have given her confidence.”
The enlisted man stubbornly said, “Her foot broke the surface. She’d have to do it again anyway.”
The instructor’s face was a crimson red as he grabbed the pole out of his hands and sent the man away. I had to climb up that stupid tower and do it again.
“You can do it!” he encouraged. “You were so close. Just keep swimming down!”
Up I went, determined this time. Not like I hadn’t been determined before, but I felt so good about his support. All my mates in “stupid swim” stopped to watch me, and all the instructors stood by too. I had an audience and I could really feel them all pulling for me. This was such a silly thing. They knew I could swim better and longer than anyone here, but I still had to pass this too. Off I went.
Swim down, swim down, swim down, swim down. I just kept saying it to myself over and over and over. Suddenly wham! I saw stars as I bumped my head on the far end of the pool. I’d had my head down and was so intent on what I was doing that I ran full steam into the end of the pool. I came up to the surface holding the top of my poor head in pain, and greeted the cheers and hurrahs of my audience. I’d finally done it!
The other test that really tested my mettle in swimming was the Dilbert Dunker. It was a torture device from Hell whose sole purpose was to drown student Naval Aviators. I knew it then and I feel it today. It was awful and anyone that says it was fun is a big liar.
They dress you up in all this flying garb – flight suit, gloves, shoes, helmet, and a life vest that doesn’t have any way to get air into it anymore. You’re so encumbered by all this stuff that it’s not an easy thing to walk up the stairs to the ramp for the Dunker.
The Dilbert Dunker is a cockpit that they strap you into. It has a seat and a stick and a power lever. The thing is way up high on some rails. When the instructor lets it go, you ride this thing down the rails until it hits the water. As soon as it does it turns upside down! With you strapped inside! I’m not kidding! Most of the nightmares that I have to this day involve this horrible contraption to some degree.
Once you are upside down under the water, you are to unstrap yourself and push down as hard as you can to get clear of the “airplane” then swim on up to the surface. I was worried about my buoyancy problem and sure enough, it was not easy for me to push hard enough to completely clear the airplane. I had to do the test again. I was successful the second time though. It was not easier. It was just as scary the second time as the first, and I still wasn’t crazy about it when I had to requal in swimming every so often after that.
Just as we were finished with our swimming quals, they had a new torture device for us to try out for them. It was not volunteer. It was the Helo Dunker and it was worse than the Dilbert! It was a huge cylindrical shaped thing that was laid out on the inside like the inside of a helicopter. There was a place for a pilot and a copilot and several places along the side in the back for “passengers” to sit. We had to do this test four times, passing each part of the test perfectly in order to pass the whole test.
Test one was to get out of the nearest exit. This proved to be not too bad even though the Helo Dunker hit the water and rolled maddeningly slowly until we were all finally under water. If you got out before you were completely submerged, you failed.
Test two was to all go out the main cabin door. This was a little trickier, but a little choreography went a long way to make this test also, not so bad.
Test three started to get dicey. They blind-folded us. We had to wear these swimming goggles that someone had spent quite some time taping with black tape so as to be in complete darkness. To the last Naval Aviator, I don’t think there was one of us that wasn’t going to tell that they could see a little bit by crossing your eyes and looking down your nose. It was the only thing that kept you sitting still while the damnable thing clunked down to the water then rolled who knew which direction in its lazy, slow way. The thing that we didn’t know that first time with the blindfolds, was that as soon as you’re under the water, the darn things suck up tightly to your face and your view that you thought you might have, is suddenly and completely gone. We had to get out of the nearest exit like we had the first go around. It was weird being in the dark, but not so bad.
Test four. Like Test two, we all had to go out the main door and like Test three, we were blindfolded. This was the one that separated the men from the boys, so to speak. We were all worn out from the stress of the thing to start with, and this last test was extremely difficult. During all four tests, we also had to rotate around to the different seats. No one seat was really easier than any of the others, I’ve decided, but switching around all day long helped with the disorientation that occurred. I practiced my “choreography” for the seat I was in over and over in my head. All the way down, I was totally focused on my task. I hated the blindfold. I was scared stupid by the whole thing. Down we went and as soon as the motion stopped, I started doing what I was supposed to do. Everything was going very well. Hand over hand, I was finding what I was supposed to find. Suddenly, wham! I was kicked in the face by a booted foot and my goggle strap was broken. I got a peek as they came off my face of my classmate groping hopelessly along the bottom, or was it the top, of the Dunker. I saw stars as the kick had smarted. I grabbed the hated goggles and put them right back on my face and held them there to finish the test. I knew I shouldn’t pass, but I really hoped no one would have seen what happened and I’d slide by. I finished what I was supposed to do and emerged to the surface.
No luck. They’d seen everything. I was motioned to the line to go do it again. I complained. They ignored me as they handed me a new pair of goggles. My classmate, who had kicked me, was still down there. They let him struggle for a moment or two longer, then went down to get him. They hauled him to the surface by the scruff of the neck choking and sputtering. They motioned for him to go to the “redo” line also.
I’d had enough. I was totally humorless at this point. They’d debriefed us that my classmate had not done what he was supposed to do and had gotten disoriented. This caused him to get in my way and kick my goggles off. Sorry, but since they came off, they couldn’t pass me on the test, even though it hadn’t been my fault. I forget what I said to that poor guy, but it was not pretty or friendly. I’m pretty sure he thought better of moving his feet at all for fear of kicking me again. This time he did what he was supposed to and so did I and we finally passed the test. What an ordeal.
The final thing that we had to do with the swimming tests was to swim a mile fully clothed using the survival strokes. We were not allowed to touch the sides or the bottom during this test, so there was no pushing off after each lap. You just had to sort of stop swimming, turn around, then go again. There was no time limit that I can remember. The test was one of endurance, not speed. We were allowed to use any stroke we wanted, but the survival strokes were the obvious recommended choice.
There were about thirty of us in my class. They split us up into two groups and had each group start in half the pool, so, there were around fifteen people all swimming laps at the same time. Each time we got to the shallow end, as we turned around, we were to holler out our number that we’d been assigned. Mine was “21.” The instructor would tally for us so we didn’t have to count the laps needed for the mile. They’d tell us when to stop.
One of the guys in our class was some sort of swimming champion who would have been more notable in the swimming class except that he had no idea how to do any strokes except the horribly strenuous butterfly and the crawl strokes. He was very fast. This did not impress our instructors and this fellow complained regularly about this. The mile swim was to be his glory. He had swum some sort of long-distance thing in Hawaii one time. This measly little mile would be a piece of cake.
I’d only swum a half mile at a time before, and I wasn’t fully clothed at the time, just a normal bathing suit. I’d never swam a mile all at once before in my whole life. Since there was no time limit, I figured I could do it, though, so I wasn’t too worried about it. They blew the whistle and off we went. I selected the breast stroke as this is my most relaxing stroke. They highly recommended the elementary back stroke, but right away I could see that my classmates were going to be splashing and kicking. I wanted to see where I was going. I swam around my classmates again and again. My breast stroke was very strong and I could maneuver easily around my less sure classmates.
I could see my classmate from Hawaii in the other lane using the unrecommended crawl stroke. He was really showing off. He was so impeded by the rest of the throng in his lane, though, that he was only going a little bit faster than I was with my breast stroke. He finished in a record breaking forty-three minutes. I blew them all away by finishing at forty-five. He was spent and winded, breathing hard for several minutes after he got out of the pool. I was tired, but not at all winded. I really feel like I could have kept going for a long time. It sold to me the benefits of the survival strokes as they had taught them.
In conclusion, if you ever meet a Naval Aviator, they tried to drown us, but they weren’t successful. This is a point of pride for all of us.
