The White Falcon - 22.09.1967, Side 1

Twin Boys For Bechtles’
For Air Force First Lieutenant Jerome and Kathy Bechtle, twin sons
came as a complete surprise on the morning of September 14. First to
arrive was Eric (left) who weighed in at five pounds eleven ounces fol-
lowed by Scott weighing four pounds one ounce.
Both boys are reported in fine condition and mother just fine and ex-
tremely pleased with her first children. Father is reported as being
very proud and “unable to work”.
The Bechtle twins were the first for 1967. There was one set born last
year at the Station Hospital and one set in 1965.
Eric and Scott’s parents are from the Buckeye state, father hailing
from Marion and their mother from Cincinnati. First Lieutenant Bechtle
is currently the Operations Control Officer for Air Forces Iceland.

White Falcon Photo by George Cates

U. S. NAVAL STATION, KEFLAVIK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, ICELAND
Volume VII, Number 37 Friday, September 22, 1967
VP-11 Planes Patrolling
North Atlantic Sealanes
White Falcon Photo by George Cates
A LETTER OF COMMENDATION was presented to Paula Case in the
Disbursing Office Monday, September 18 by Captain Ralph W. Hart,
commanding officer, U. S. Naval Station Keflavik. From December
1964 to August 1967 Mrs. Case served as payroll supervisor for the
Station. Captain Hart noted that throughout this period Mrs. Case de-
monstrated her many professional and personal qualities which were
considered commendable. Mrs. Case and her husband, Navy Chief Petty
Officer David Case will be leaving Iceland for a new duty station at
Rota, Spain this month following a brief leave period in Tennessee and
Wisconsin.
Christmas Nailing Dates
Announced By Post Office
This week postal officials re-
leased the dates gifts should be
mailed from here to insure state-
side delivery in time for Christ-
mas and the dates for packages
mailed from the states to Iceland.
Christmas gifts from the states
going to overseas areas should be
mailed between October 16 and
November 11, if regular postage
rates are used, and not later than
December 11 if sent airmail.
Packages from Keflavik to the
states cannot be mailed later than
November 30 using regular mail
and December 15 using airmail
for insured Christmas delivery.
Space available mail (SAM)
should be mailed between October
21 and December 1. This mail,
carried at surface postage rates,
can be letters, voice recordings,
post cards, greeting cards and
some parcels. The mail travels by
surface to East and West Coast
aerial ports for dispatch overseas
by air on a space-available basis.
Post office officials urge that
gifts be securely packed in car-
tons of wood, metal, or double
faced corrugated fiber board.
Fragile items should be surroun-
ded by cushioning materials such
as excelsior shredded paper.
Mailers are urged to check with
their local post office for details
on sending flammable items and
other restrictions as well as size
and weight limitations to certain
areas.
Care should be taken that pack-
ages are wrapped securely and
addressed correctly using the five-
digit Air, Army or Fleet Post Of-
fice numbers. To further insure
delivery, both mailing and return
addresses should be placed inside
the package also.
Twelve sleek aircraft of Patrol
Squadron ELEVEN (VP-11), the
“Pegasus” squadron made its ini-
tial arrival September 10 with the
arrival of an advance plane which
was followed by the remaining
eleven P3B Orion’s on the 13, 14,
and 15th.
Commanded by Commander Ro-
nald Dale Hartell, VP-11 replaces
VP-44 which arrived in Iceland
this past July.
Patrol Squadron FORTY-FOUR
arrived in Iceland this past July
and conducted wide surveillance
operations in order to gather in-
telligence information about ship-
ping and unidentified submarine
activities in North Atlantic wa-
ters, a job now performed by
V-P-ll personnel. VP-44 planes
and crews left Keflavik last Fri-
day for their home base, Naval
Air Station, Brunswick, Maine.
The colorful history of Patrol
Squadron ELEVEN began with
its first commissioning in 1924.
The U. S. Naval
Air Station at
Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii was
homeport in
those days with
flight operations
consisting pri-
marily of search
and reconnais-
sance in the vin-
cinity of Ka-
neohe and the
Johnson Islands.
Officially desig-
nated VT-29D14 at the time, the
squadron flew CS-1 single-engine
CDR. Hartell
torpedo bombers from land ba-
ses.
From February 1943 until April
1943 the squadron was at San
Diego, Calif, for rehabilitation,
leave and reforming. Regrouped,
it went back to search, reconnais-
sance and convoy operations in the
Central and Southwest Pacific.
On this second tour, VP-11 was
engaged in “Black Cat” operations
which cost the enemy approxi-
mately 100,000 tons of critical
shipping. Painted black, the Cata-
linas would locate their target and
strike by night in dangerous but
devastating masthead level glide
bombing attacks which insured
hits on the target.
For its “Black Cat” operations
in the Bismark Sea between Sep-
tember 1943 and February 1944,
Patrol Squadron ELEVEN be-
came one of the first Patrol
Squadrons in Naval history to re-
ceive the Presidential Unit Cita-
tion.
During a tour in Malta in 1956,
Patrol ELEVEN established a
new fleet record by flying more
than 1,000 hours of anti-subma-
rine training missions in each of
Story for Today
The rather plump women step-
ped on the scale which happened
to be out of order, and put in her
penny. The indicator went up to
75 pounds and stopped.
“Whaddya know,” shouted the
interested small boy who had been
watching her, “she’s hollow!”
two consecutive
months. In Nov-
ember 1956, VP-
11 won the U. S.
Atlantic Fleet
Battle Excel-
lence and Effi-
ciency “E” a-
ward for 1956-
57. Awarded on a
competitive ba-
sis to outstan-
ding units of the
fleet, the cove-
ted “E” was won
again by Patrol
VEN for 1957-58.
CDR. Myers
Squadron ELE-
September 1966 saw a new task
for VP-11, the P3B “Orion” tran-
sition. The first group of ground
support personnel departed for
VP-30 at Patuxent River, Mary-
land this date thus ending the
“Era” of the SP2H Neptune for
Patron ELEVEN.
In late November 1966 the first
increment of pilots traveled to
Patuxent for the transition. The
first group finished in late
January 1967 and returned to
Brunswick. Subsequent to this,
two other pilot increments jour-
neyed to Patuxent and were com-
pleted tp March and April respec-
tively.
After two separate SPRING-
BOARD deployments in March
and April by the first and second
increments respectively, VP-11
settled down for four months of
operational training and qualifi-
cation type flying in preparation
for their next deployment to
(Continued on Page 5.)