Back to the Bennington

Back to the Bennington: Tales in the Wake (published by Merriam Press) is the author's memoir of his service on the aircraft carrier USS Bennington (CVA-20), during a Mediterranean cruise, 1953-54. Includes much of the history of the ship during this period with additional information from crew mates and other sources. Clark describes his Navy years on the USS Bennington and with FASRON 77/VR-24 Detachment (Naples, Italy) as "a series of 'rewardingly-exciting' experiences-experiences upon which I constantly reflect and for which I'll be forever thankful... " From the book: "An aircraft carrier's flight deck has been called the second most dangerous place on earth to work, and rightly so... [Dozens of aircraft and scores of men] are crammed onto little more than [a few] acres of hardened steel armor plate. Searing jet exhaust can cook a man or blow him overboard. At times the air is so hot that he can't breathe. Jet intakes can pull a man off his feet and devour him. An unwary sailor can fall prey to a spinning propeller's razor-sharp, invisible arc. On the flight deck men move in many different directions in what appears to the uninitiated observer to be chaotic. Yet nothing is as organized as the flight deck of a U.S. Navy carrier. It's like an orchestra, with each section devoted to performing a part of the overall symphony of carrier operations." -Excerpt from "A Guide to Carrier Flight Deck Operations."