[Robert Coats]

Originally Posted by greglepore

Very nice. Forgot you crewed on these. Lived for years under the approach for NAS Willow Grove, they ran a squad of P3's out of there for a long time.

I spend Jan-March of '81 at Willow Grove when they had two P-3 Reserve Squadrons still there. Because the base housing was full every drill weekend, I spend the whole three months off-base at a hotel. Of course, that meant an uphill hike in the snow each way to get to class .

When our orders came through, being a reserve guy, I already knew I was being transferred out of active duty and headed back home to my reserve squadron at NAS Jacksonville. The other poor saps where all regular Navy, and were sweating bullets; would they go to P-3s? Helos? or would 1 or 2 get lucky and head to the S-3 Viking Jet on a carrier? I recall everyone got orders to P-3s, as this was right after Regan was sworn in and the Navy was going NUTS to really clamp down on the Soviet Navy, especially submarines.