thedrifter
11-03-08, 09:07 AM
Living at Full Speed on Land, at Sea, in the Air
By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 2, 2008; C10
In 1930, 8-year-old Cranford Dalby took his first airplane ride. He went up with his father, who hustled up customers for barnstorming pilots around Fort Worth.
Young Cranford was captivated by flight and 12 years later was back in the skies as a Marine Corps pilot who would go on to make a major contribution to aerial warfare. He learned to land a plane on a flight deck by practicing on a converted sidewheel excursion steamboat pressed into emergency duty on the Great Lakes.
During World War II, he participated in the Guadalcanal and Solomon Islands campaigns, but he made his greatest contribution to aerial combat after the war.
In 1948, he was one of 15 Marines assigned to a Navy missile test center at Point Mugu, Calif. The Navy was trying to devise a way to launch rockets from submarines.
Col. Dalby, then a captain, organized an informal "Marine Guided Missile Unit" with his fellow Marines and sought to put the rockets to a different use.
"Dalby, the senior Marine and a fighter pilot, was quiet, persistent, thorough, and immensely curious," retired Marine Lt. Gen. Victor H. Krulak wrote in the 1984 book "First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps." "He was the right man for the job and, as it turned out, he made history."
Combining high-tech experimentation with workbench tinkering, Col. Dalby's Marines devised an early computer- and radar-guided system that could automatically release a bomb from an airplane with pinpoint accuracy. The pilot wouldn't even have to see his target on the ground.
"Dalby's little group had stumbled onto a new continent in the world of Marine all-weather close air support," Krulak wrote. "Here, in their hands -- the fruit of their own resolve and genius -- was a system that, once perfected, would be able to drop bombs accurately in the dark and in bad weather."
Col. Dalby's remote bombing device, called the AN/MPQ14, performed with consistent success, surprising many members of the military brass. By the time of the Korean War, Col. Dalby returned to the cockpit with a nighttime Marine fighter squadron called the Flying Nightmares. The new radar-controlled device was widely used throughout the war, on as many as 100 missions a day.
"Suddenly close air support was available around the clock and in the worst of weather," Krulak wrote. "In truth, a new era had dawned."
Marion Cranford Dalby was born in Fort Worth on July 28, 1922, and grew up in Texas and New Mexico, where he learned to shoot quail and rabbit for the family dinner table. He used the Spanish he learned as a boy to help train members of the Dominican Republic air force in the 1940s.
He flew fighter planes in Vietnam -- his third war as a combat pilot -- but he also spent enough time on the ground to compile an official military reference guide to Vietnamese junks, or civilian boats plying coastal waters.
He retired from the Marines in 1970 to join Stanley Associates, a military contracting firm. He helped introduce computers to military logistics planning in the 1980s, and the once-tiny company was eventually managing all field logistics for the Marine Corps and later for other branches of the military.
Col. Dalby retired eight years ago but kept busy with sailing, collecting and advanced computer modeling until his death Oct. 1 of a heart attack at his home in Alexandria. People often commented on his youthful appearance and thought he was a good 20 years younger than his age of 86.
For years, he sailed his 42-foot clipper, the Marisol, to the Caribbean in the winter, sometimes for weeks at a time, and he taught new sailors at the Washington Sailing Marina. He acquired miniature guns and had a museum-quality collection of Pueblo Indian pottery.
He made frequent visits to Indian villages and struck up friendships with many native artists. He helped bankroll the Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, N.M., and passed on tips about artists to its proprietor, Leroy Garcia.
Garcia and his wife, Tammy Garcia, visited Col. Dalby and his wife, Elizabeth Baldwin, in August, when the National Museum of Women in the Arts opened an exhibition of Tammy's pottery.
Col. Dalby gave them a ride in his sports car, and it was clear he wasn't slowing down a bit.
Ellie
By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 2, 2008; C10
In 1930, 8-year-old Cranford Dalby took his first airplane ride. He went up with his father, who hustled up customers for barnstorming pilots around Fort Worth.
Young Cranford was captivated by flight and 12 years later was back in the skies as a Marine Corps pilot who would go on to make a major contribution to aerial warfare. He learned to land a plane on a flight deck by practicing on a converted sidewheel excursion steamboat pressed into emergency duty on the Great Lakes.
During World War II, he participated in the Guadalcanal and Solomon Islands campaigns, but he made his greatest contribution to aerial combat after the war.
In 1948, he was one of 15 Marines assigned to a Navy missile test center at Point Mugu, Calif. The Navy was trying to devise a way to launch rockets from submarines.
Col. Dalby, then a captain, organized an informal "Marine Guided Missile Unit" with his fellow Marines and sought to put the rockets to a different use.
"Dalby, the senior Marine and a fighter pilot, was quiet, persistent, thorough, and immensely curious," retired Marine Lt. Gen. Victor H. Krulak wrote in the 1984 book "First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps." "He was the right man for the job and, as it turned out, he made history."
Combining high-tech experimentation with workbench tinkering, Col. Dalby's Marines devised an early computer- and radar-guided system that could automatically release a bomb from an airplane with pinpoint accuracy. The pilot wouldn't even have to see his target on the ground.
"Dalby's little group had stumbled onto a new continent in the world of Marine all-weather close air support," Krulak wrote. "Here, in their hands -- the fruit of their own resolve and genius -- was a system that, once perfected, would be able to drop bombs accurately in the dark and in bad weather."
Col. Dalby's remote bombing device, called the AN/MPQ14, performed with consistent success, surprising many members of the military brass. By the time of the Korean War, Col. Dalby returned to the cockpit with a nighttime Marine fighter squadron called the Flying Nightmares. The new radar-controlled device was widely used throughout the war, on as many as 100 missions a day.
"Suddenly close air support was available around the clock and in the worst of weather," Krulak wrote. "In truth, a new era had dawned."
Marion Cranford Dalby was born in Fort Worth on July 28, 1922, and grew up in Texas and New Mexico, where he learned to shoot quail and rabbit for the family dinner table. He used the Spanish he learned as a boy to help train members of the Dominican Republic air force in the 1940s.
He flew fighter planes in Vietnam -- his third war as a combat pilot -- but he also spent enough time on the ground to compile an official military reference guide to Vietnamese junks, or civilian boats plying coastal waters.
He retired from the Marines in 1970 to join Stanley Associates, a military contracting firm. He helped introduce computers to military logistics planning in the 1980s, and the once-tiny company was eventually managing all field logistics for the Marine Corps and later for other branches of the military.
Col. Dalby retired eight years ago but kept busy with sailing, collecting and advanced computer modeling until his death Oct. 1 of a heart attack at his home in Alexandria. People often commented on his youthful appearance and thought he was a good 20 years younger than his age of 86.
For years, he sailed his 42-foot clipper, the Marisol, to the Caribbean in the winter, sometimes for weeks at a time, and he taught new sailors at the Washington Sailing Marina. He acquired miniature guns and had a museum-quality collection of Pueblo Indian pottery.
He made frequent visits to Indian villages and struck up friendships with many native artists. He helped bankroll the Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, N.M., and passed on tips about artists to its proprietor, Leroy Garcia.
Garcia and his wife, Tammy Garcia, visited Col. Dalby and his wife, Elizabeth Baldwin, in August, when the National Museum of Women in the Arts opened an exhibition of Tammy's pottery.
Col. Dalby gave them a ride in his sports car, and it was clear he wasn't slowing down a bit.
Ellie