Looking for Aviatiion Repair and Overhaul Unit #1 veterans
Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 4:40 pm
AROU#1 was a US Navy unit which served in the Admiralty Islands for eighteen months during WWII. The island on which we worked is named Los Negros, and it is north of New Guinea and two degrees south of the equator, with 180 inches of rain per year, and lots of sunshine. I was editor of a yearbook, titled _Two Degrees from the Middle_, which has photographs of all of the 1500 or so men, and a narrative that tells most of what we did.
We had skills and equipment which would have allowed us to build or repair any type of aircraft. Our mission was to remove damaged planes from aircraft carriers, repair the planes, and fly them out to the carriers for further service. However, the mission was flawed from day one: instead of bringing the damaged planes back for us to repair, the crews of the aircraft carriers simply pushed them over the side.
Fortunately, someone realized that these skilled men should be doing something worthwhile, instead of vegetating on a tropical island. Every airplane which came off the assembly lines was already obsolete, needing a hundred or more updates to incorporate the newest designs. While the new, but obsolete, planes spent a month or more on jeep aircraft carriers enroute to the South Pacific, revised drawings and new parts were being prepared and flown out to us. Our job was to bring the planes up to date and fly them out to combat aircraft carriers.
If anyone is interested in our yearbook, I have a copy, and can share photos from it. It would be nice to see if there are any survivors from AROU#1; it would be good to exchange notes with them.
Ruupert N. Evans
We had skills and equipment which would have allowed us to build or repair any type of aircraft. Our mission was to remove damaged planes from aircraft carriers, repair the planes, and fly them out to the carriers for further service. However, the mission was flawed from day one: instead of bringing the damaged planes back for us to repair, the crews of the aircraft carriers simply pushed them over the side.
Fortunately, someone realized that these skilled men should be doing something worthwhile, instead of vegetating on a tropical island. Every airplane which came off the assembly lines was already obsolete, needing a hundred or more updates to incorporate the newest designs. While the new, but obsolete, planes spent a month or more on jeep aircraft carriers enroute to the South Pacific, revised drawings and new parts were being prepared and flown out to us. Our job was to bring the planes up to date and fly them out to combat aircraft carriers.
If anyone is interested in our yearbook, I have a copy, and can share photos from it. It would be nice to see if there are any survivors from AROU#1; it would be good to exchange notes with them.
Ruupert N. Evans