Sarasota man helped track Apollo 11 back to earth

[Editor's note: A reference to the USS Hornet CVS-12 being involved in the Doolittle Raid was removed. The USS Hornet CVS-8 was involved in the surprise raid on Japan.]

SARASOTA — Tired and war-weary, the crew of the USS Hornet had one more job to do before it returned from a seven-month tour off the coast of Vietnam.

And it was a doozy.

In May 1969, Sarasota resident Jack McGarry, now 71, a Navy radar operator, waited with bag in hand on the pier at the Long Beach Naval Complex — since closed — for his first assignment aboard the Hornet.

Unbeknownst to the new enlistee, he was about to become part of the valiant ship's history, when the Hornet was ordered to recover the crew of Apollo 11's moon mission three months later.

"Everyone was very excited about our upcoming role as the primary recovery ship and the historical significance of the USS Hornet picking up the astronauts from the first moon landing," McGarry said, while paging through photos of the recovery in three blue, weathered albums. "With all the press, TV coverage, President Richard Nixon, and other dignitaries onboard, how could you not be excited? I will never forget that special day in my life."

Aboard the ship were recognizable faces: Nixon, National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, Press Secretary Ron Ziegler, Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman, Apollo 8 astronaut Col. Frank Borman and Adm. John McCain Sr., whose son, naval aviator John McCain III, was still being held as a POW (1967-1973) in North Vietnam. They joined about 2,000 sailors and hundreds of media who welcomed the space travelers back to earth 900 miles southwest of Hawaii.

The crew practiced the pickup 18 times with a boilerplate training capsule that came aboard in San Diego.

"Once we got to Hawaii and took on some new provisions, we went out for three or four days in the Hawaiian waters, and practiced navigating and locking on and tracking our radar system to a capsule," McGarry said. "It was a full-blown rehearsal, where we had the helicopters and search planes in the air. These exercises were called 'Sim X' — simulating exercises — and we did nine of them initially over a three-day period off of Honolulu."

McGarry's job was to find the capsule on radar — about 150 miles downrange — and pass tracking information, bearings and ranges to the navigation bridge, so they could maneuver the ship to the splashdown site.

The practice capsule weighed an estimated 10 tons, he said, and was hoisted onto the starboard deck by a crane used for recovering downed aircraft and boats.

"It was heavy, but we had the equipment to snatch it and pull it out of the water," he said. "The Underwater Demolitions Team — frogmen — they would hook the cables to it. We did it many times on the boilerplate taking it out of the water and lowering it into the water."

When the day came to pick up Apollo 11, McGarry and the rest of the sailors wore their dress whites.

The UDT frogmen, known today as Navy SEALs, were the first in the water to put a collar around the capsuled named "Columbia" that ferried moon walkers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and Command Module pilot Michael Collins to the moon and back in 8 days, 3 hours and 18 minutes.

McGarry said NASA was concerned about the three P's: pathogens, the president and the press. If "moon germs" had compromised the Hornet, those aboard would have been stuck at sea for at least three weeks while the ship was decontaminated, McGarry said.

Fortunately, the mission was nearly flawless.

McGarry was relieved from his station in time to snap pictures of Columbia as it was raised to the elevator deck, including a selfie in front of the capsule onboard. He said aluminum flaked off the bottom of the capsule as it dried.

The astronauts remained quarantined inside an Airstream trailer for three weeks, while the ship returned to Pearl Harbor Naval Base. President Nixon met the men, and as a special treat, they participated in some re-enlistment ceremonies, McGarry said.

"The irony of the thing, life takes you in different directions, this was vintage World War II technology back then," he said. "I went through a year and a half of electronics school. I really enjoyed it, and I learned a lot and I worked as a radar technician and an operator. When I got out of the Navy, I went back to college under the GI Bill. I got my engineering degree at the University of South Florida."

McGarry worked at Florida Power & Light for 30 years.

Last year, out of nostalgia, he pulled his old albums out and reminisced at the incredible Apollo 11 photos.

"It makes me proud," McGarry said. "When you compare it (the computer power needed to run Columbia) to the horsepower in your watch, compared to your phone, compared to anything else, it's just amazing they were able."

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota man helped track Apollo 11 back to earth