Bob Button: Hey, Jim...

I'm sittin' here thinkin' about my friend Butch Voris - August 10th is the first anniversary of his death. This current air show season is also the 60th anniversary of The Blue Angels, that spectacular Navy aerobatics team that Butch created in 1946 - they flew Grumman F6F Hellcats in those days. For decades the Blues flew nothin' but Grumman aircraft. Grumman and Navy aviation were practically interchangeable nouns so it was no surprise when 'First Blue' went to work at Grumman after he retired from the Navy.

That's where we met, Butch and me. I was director of public affairs for space and Butch was my boss. Captain Voris, a WWII Pacific ace with 8 confirmed Zeroes to his credit, handled public affairs for naval aircraft. Col. Frank Gabresky, leading fighter ace in Europe with 38 kills, came aboard a few months later to take care of public affairs for our Air Force customers. You can just imagine spending eight-plus hours a day with two of America's most aggressive fighter pilots.

The damned dust never settled in that office. It was 1969 and we were comin' up on the first lunar landing. Space was my territory at Grumman (we built the lunar module) so I was sorta in the catbird seat. Fact is, I think those two flyin' luminaries just tolerated me so's I'd take 'em along with me to the Apollo 11 launch.

Butch drove a huge old Thunderbird, and at lunchtime we'd pile in that monster and head for more food than is healthy at midday. I'm not a real two-fisted drinker like them Navy pilots, but at first I tried to keep up with Butch - a really stupid idea. They'd usually find me with my head on my desk blotter by 3 p.m. - day is done! I wimped out after those first few wet lunches, ordered bloody shames (tomato juice). The only sign Butch had downed a few martinis was the color of his face - it got a little redder with each one. Otherwise he never so much as slurred a word.

Sometimes you could get Butch to tell flyin' yarns. Like his first kill (which was almost his last). It's November, 1942 and Butch is flyin' his first combat mission. They're at Guadalcanal, flyin' out to intercept a bunch of Japanese Val dive bombers. Only three Wildcats (Grumman F4Fs) got off the ground, so they're greatly outnumbered. But they get some altitude (18,000 ft), spot a dozen Zeroes escorting the bombers and dive down on 'em. Butch is practically vertical, picks out the nearest enemy plane and squeezes the pip to squirt .50 calibers at the guy. Butch is too far out and wrigglin' too much for a steady shot, but somehow he hits the Zero, demolishes its canopy and engine; it flames and heads for the ocean. Butch's first kill on his first mission - heady stuff.

He zooms up, rolls inverted and spots another Zero below him, split esses down on the guy, hits the pipper ... BLAM! Butch's own canopy splinters, 20mm rounds chew up his cockpit, shrapnel tears up his right leg. He rolls over, sees the Japanese Zero on his tail, pulls stick and dives for the ocean - diving's the only way a tubby Wildcat could outrun the nimble Zero. Butch finally pulls out, lookin' for that Zero ... he's gone! Butch was sure he downed that second Zero 'cause he was right on top of the guy's 6 o'clock when he hit the guns ... but nobody saw it happen so it goes as a 'probable.'

He manages to land his crippled Grumman at bomb-cratered Henderson Field, where he's lifted out of the still-smoking cockpit and is rushed off to the hospital. (Picture: Henderson Field, 1942)

Without those martinis I'd never have got Butch to talk that much about his flying adventures. He was much too modest.

Most flyin' buffs and Blue Angels fans know about the mid-air they had at Corpus Christi in July, 1952. They were performing for a group of Navy midshipmen, hopin' to encourage some of them to enter aviation. The team was flying Grumman F9F Panthers, straight-wing jets with tip tanks, circling down toward the shore in its famous 4-plane diamond formation. The air was bumpy, they hit a wind shear, the starboard (#2) Panther's left tip tank crunched into Butch's right side. Butch's plane, #1, was pushed into the port side Panther, #3's, tip tank and down upon the canopy of the slot man, #4, sending him crashing into the water. Butch's plane was a crumpled wreck, its tail nearly severed. "Bail out, punch out ... " came over Butch's radio ... but you couldn't bail out below 2,000 feet in those days or the chute wouldn't open. The slot man was killed attempting to bail out.

So Butch felt the controls to see what he had left, attempting to climb for altitude while his damaged engine screamed, exhaust pouring out both sides of the fuselage where it was holed. Butch got to 2,000 feet and tried to throttle down from full power ... No way! The Grumman pitched up like crazy, tried to roll if he reduced power just a little ... "Bail out!" he heard in his headset. But Butch fiddled a little more with the throttle, nearly lost it a couple of times, then decided he'd try to land - at well over 300 knots; anything less and the F9F went out of control.

The crowd held its collective breath as Butch went into a screaming, curving descent at well above normal cruise speed. He lined up with the runway, giving himself a long final to the ground. Still at more than 300 knots, Butch put his landing gear on the numbers, fully expecting both tires to blow him off the runway and into a fiery ball. But this was Mr. Smooth, First Blue, the most delicate touch in the Navy. He rolled like crazy, gradually slowing the Panther, by now, approaching the runway's end.

Stopped!

Tires okay!

Beautiful!

"And then I did the dumbest thing possible," he told me. "Maybe it was bravado, I don't know, but I ignored the ambulances and fire trucks, gave the jet some juice and taxied to the ramp. I was dyin' inside because I had just lost a friend so I don't really know what I was thinking."

Butch climbed from his cockpit unaided, started walkin' around the severely damaged jet when reality hit. "I got down to mid-fuselage and saw this big hole. When I put my face up to it to look more closely I saw another face lookin' at me from the hole in the other side. You could see right through the fuselage. Suddenly my knees turned to water and I had to hold on to the plane to keep from falling down. I was lucky not to soil myself right then and there."

I cherish those lunchtime stories, and I miss like crazy the wonderful guy who told them. But Butch was more than a big, brazen fighter pilot. He was a gentleman and tons of fun to be around. It was my good luck that after I left Grumman and went back to NASA Butch also went to NASA so we kept in touch. We were in touch right 'til the very end ... He signed a copy of "First Blue" for me, then apologized it took so long. Butch had a red cell problem and was getting blood transfusions every week, yet he felt he had to apologize for bein' late with my book. My God! I was driven to tears when he signed it, "To a Great Friend."

To file under "coulda, woulda, shoulda:"
Butch and I started working on his biography in 1969, but I left Grumman and we lost touch for awhile. That book, "First Blue," is out now, written by a guy named Robert Wilcox. Of course, I suggested to Gabby earlier that I write his biography - we'd call it "Gabby." But, like I said, I left Grumman and lost touch. And you can still find "Gabby" in bookstores, written by a well-known Air Force historian named Carl Molesworth.

Next time..
Bob Button.
8-1-06

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