‘

Cg

neither continue retraction nor be extended.

The aircraft had sixteen

hours of fuel remaining and a tentative decision was made to send it to
Guam for a crash~landing,

However, the landing gear was finally extended

and secured in a locked down position and the aircraft landed safely at
Eniwetok,.
Until the end of April the major accident rate was ten per 100,000
flying hours, the H-19A mishap on 15 April the only blemish on the record.

The F-84 accident on 14 May virtually skyrocketed the rate to

eighteen accidents per 100,000 hours, thus nearly doubling the rate in
the last hour of a four and a half month operation.

A total of 11,207

hours were flown by Task Group 7.4 aircraft during this period.

;

On IVY,

a shorter, less complex operation, a B-50, an F-84 and an L-13 were destroyed and two lives were lost.
ed as a flight safety success.

Therefore, CASTLE could well be regardIt was doubtful whether so many aircraft

had ever operated from such cramped quarters and under such unusual cim
cumstances as the eighty-odd aircraft stationed at Eniwe tok during CASTLE,
During shot periods more than ninety aircraft were frequently stationed
at EFniwetok,

B.

,

ROLL-UP

Due to the numerous shot delays most roll-up plans were made long before the end of Operation CASTLE.

The pre-roll-up planning had been so

thorough that the usually monumental task of redeployment of hundreds of
men, approximately eighty aircraft and thousands of pounds of equipment
and supplies, turned into a strictly routine, but back-breaking job.
Every piece of equipment and materiel had been earmarked for its new home
and method of transportation weeks before the last shot was detonated.
Therefore, when NECTAR, the last shot, was fired on 14 May, Eniwetok was

AFwo/HC

Select target paragraph3