However...I'd like to share with you a story my father told my family at the dinner table one evening after returning home from work as the Officer On Duty (OOD) at Cubi Point Air base (Subic Bay) Philippines in 1978. My brother and I knew he was a great story teller but as he solemnly looked across the table at us he said "boys what happened to a helicopter air crew I dispatched today to the South China Sea is just incredible".

You see he had come home and told us some pretty funny stories about his work before. Like the time a young idiot Navy enlistee was working in the hanger at Cubi Point dropping random nuts and bolts down through the a jet engine compartment on an F4 just for his own amusement. The young recruit later explained he did it because "the nuts made cool sounds as they dropped, kinda of like in a Pachinko machine".  My dad couldn't believe it.  The kid thought dropping loose metal objects down into a multi-million dollar air frame and jet engine compartment "sounded cool".  We all had a laugh as my dad sat shaking his head on  that one. Then there was the story he told us about how a Philipino kitchen worker at the Bachelors Officer's Quarters  (BOQ) had taken out the kitchen trash one night and accidentally locked the local alpha bull macaque monkey in a steel dumpster he placed  the trash in. Apparently he didn't know the animal was in there. The next morning the same man came out to the dumpster preparing to place the first trash of the morning shift in it. Unaware that the trapped monkey was in there he opened the steel door to the gnashing teeth of a very dirty, furious and quite violent animal. The monkey jumped out onto the mans head biting him repeatedly until the man finally managed to shake him off and run away. My dad explained that now when they take the trash out they "make sure the dumpster is empty".

We had heard some funny and fairly dramatic stories about the goings on at the air base  in the past but this time I knew from the look on his face he was dead serious. So began his story. Soon after his shift began as OOD that morning a Philippine radio operator had received a distress call from a Philippine fishing trawler taking on water about 80 miles due east of the Manila Bay in the South China Sea. The radio operator contacted OPM (Office of the Provost Marshal) in Subic Bay and they called my dad at Cubi Point.  My dad dispatched a Naval Search and Rescue helicopter to go and look for the boat.  This was a pretty big helicopter mind you. Now at the time I was only nine years old but as my dad told this story I was riveted and  it was something I have never forgotten.

    The helicopter came upon the disabled trawler just as it was sinking into the ocean. There were four men in the water; a man they believed to be the captain and three others. The person they thought was the captain began helping the frightened men onto the ladder although he easily could have climbed up right away as he was closest. One by one the men went up the ladder towards the helicopter as the captain remained  in the water. According to the crew chief on the chopper,  just as the captain was about to ascend  the ladder he  was in disbelief as a shark "the size of our fing helicopter" appeared and almost literally took the man whole. The captain, and the shark were gone.  The crew chief was the only one that saw the shark. The fishing boat crew  members were in disbelief that the captain wasn't coming up the ladder and according to the crew chief "one almost fell into the ocean looking out the side of the helicopter looking for him".   

After he explaining to his best ability to the Philippinos what he had seen, He said the men were screaming in Tagalog after they realized it was a shark and everyone in the helicopter including the air crew were in a state of disbelief on the flight back toward the Philippines.

After that we had some more lumpia as I speculated on what kind of shark it might have been. I have often thought of that story and what might have attracted the shark. I guess it must have been relatively close to the sinking trawler to begin with and the bailing they were more than likely doing to keep the boat from sinking could have alerted the shark to their presence. Of course the blades of such a large helicopter beating on the ocean water must have been like a massive dinner bell for a shark that size. I'm sure it was a Great White.

 Or maybe even a Megalodon. Yes, I have a vivid imagination. 

If there is a picture that sums up the story my dad had told us so long ago though.....this picture has got to be it.  I don't know who made this, but someone has some serious Photoshop skills.