1973-Contin ued

7 December Tarawa, the first of a new class of

amphibious assault ships, was launched at Pascagoula,

Miss.

17 December Iwo Jima departed Tunisia after three

days of flood relief assistance by her helicopters which

conducted refugee rescue, equipment deliveries and

other flood associated missions.

20 December Two women physicians, Lieutenants

Jane O. McWilliams and Victoria M. Voge, graduated

from the Naval Flight Surgeon Training Program, to

become the first women naval flight surgeons.

20 December The Naval Air Engineering Center was

relocated officially from Philadelphia, Pa., to NAS

Lakehurst, N.J., and authority and responsibility for the

air station was reassigned to the Chief of Naval

Material to be exercised through NAVAIR.

Subsequently, on 8 January 1974, the Air Station was

placed under the Naval Air Engineering Center.

Thereby, the basic organization arrangements involved

in relocation of the Naval Air Engineering Center from

League Island, Philadelphia to NAS Lakehurst were

completed although the physical transfer would be

phased over much of 1974. The relocation was part of

the Shore Establishment Realignment announced by

the Secretary of Defense in March of 1973. Thus, an

affiliation between Naval Aviation and the League

Island site at Philadelphia, which began with the

establishment of the Naval Aircraft Factory in 1917,

was terminated except for a few residual aviation ori-

ented functions.

31 December Ellyson Field, NAS Pensacola, Fla.,

officially became the Naval Education and Training

Program Development Center to administer the Navy's

enlisted advancement system, including the develop-

ment of advancement and special examinations as

well as administering and conducting various courses,

studies and training programs.

1974

18 January The Secretary officially named the

Navy's fourth nuclear-powered carrier Carl Vinson.

The name was chosen in honor of Carl Vinson's con-

tributions to the national defense during his fifty years

in the House of Representatives.

4 February VT-4 students aboard John F Kennedy

conducted the final flights of the TF-9J Cougars.

UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION 1910-1995

307

5 February The Naval Aerospace Institute at

Pensacola, Fla., announced that the repatriated Navy

and Marine Corps prisoners-of-war from Vietnam were

scheduled to come to Pensacola for periodic checks of

their physical and mental status.

8 February Skylab IV astronauts Lieutenant Colonel

Gerald P. Carr, USMC, mission commander, Dr.

Edward Gibson, and Lieutenant Colonel William

Pogue, USAF, landed in the Pacific after a record-set-

ting 84 days in space. They were recovered by HC-1

which flew them aboard New Orleans. This event

marked the 32nd astronaut retrieval by Naval Aviators

since the space program began in 1961.

20 February The S-3A Viking ASW aircraft was

introduced officially in the Navy in ceremonies at NAS

North Island, Calif. VS-41 accepted the first aircraft.

The Viking, a highly advanced, carrier-qualified jet air-

craft, was designed to replace the older, propeller-

driven S-2 Tracker which had been the Navy's primary

carrier-based submarine hunter for over twenty years.

I" - I.!

\_

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ADM Thomas B. Hayward, CND, deliveljng remarks at the launch-

ing ceremony for Carl Vinson in 1980 KN-29933