On the morning of Aug. 4th 1963, as I was approaching the Hawk, tied to the pier at NAS North Island in Sandiego, I sighted a strange long black wing sticking out over the edge of one of the flight deck elevators. I knew we were to sail that morning for a 2 day Operation, but that was all we had been told. After going on board I walked down the hanger deck toward toward the elevator. I stopped short when I realized what that black wing really was. It was a Lockheed U-2A (Dragon Lady) high altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance aircraft. During the early morning hours it had been loaded on board. The wing span was so long it had to be hoisted up and placed on rollers so it could be slid into the hanger bay. One wing tip almost touching the far side of the hangerbay bulkhead, The fusilage just inside the elevator, and the other wing sticking out over the edge of the elevator. I had never seen anything close to being that big before especially aboard a ship. The ship got underway and after clearing the harbour, the U2 was slid sideways out onto the elevator to a point where the inboard wing tip would clear as the elevator lifted it to the flight deck. The wings were so long that they had to be supported by removable struts to keep them from draging on the deck. the struts had wheels and were designed to drop away as the bird got airborne. That day was another of Kitty Hawk's firsts. The U2, piloted by Bob Schumacher lifted from the deck and not only flew away it returned and landed. As it touched down on the deck plane handlers ran out grabbed the wing tips and then supported the wings until it made a complete stop and the struts were reinstalled. This eveloution was repeated that day not once but four times before it finally left the ship. The aircraft had been assigned a side Number of N315X as a code name by Office of Naval Recearch. Its mission was to prove that if overseas ground bases ever became politically unavailable the CIA had a launch and recovery platform any where in the seven seas it might need one. 30