Below is a note from John Clubb, about his friend Ensign Chris Mims an OCS classmate and shipmate. Mims was aboard Liberty 603, an E2C Hawkeye, when it crashed into the sea during night flight ops from the USS Midway in the early morning hours of August 17th 1985.
In 2014 I stumbled on John's writing about his friend from OCS while digging around on the internet to learn anything I could about what happened that night, and more about who these men were. First, it was the USS Midway mention and how he could not look at it - that caught my eye. When I saw the name 'Mims,' I paused, I was about to learn more about at least one of the men we lost that night.
For those who don't know, I was fairly new aboard the USS Towers, and was rousted out of my rack in the middle of the night by someone shouting, "get on deck, aircraft down, rescue stations..." or something like that. I don't think I truly woke up until I stepped through the hatch and saw something that my mind wrested with processing. An E2C aircraft afloat next to the ship, seemingly close enough to touch. What took a moment longer to process was two men still in the plane, water chest deep. They were unconscious.
Fast forward through the drama of the minutes that followed. Five of the seven men aboard that plane were rescued, two were lost, Chris Mims and Kevin Kuhnigk. Both were lost and presumed dead, their bodies never found.
Kevin was a high school football star from Nebraska. A headstone located in Bakersfield CA, marks an empty grave. His mother died a few years later, and is buried near his headstone at a cemetery in Bakersfield CA. His father lived until the early 200's. I have not been able to find more than that.
In 2014, while digging for information on Chris Mims, I found a post from John Clubb, Chris' AOCS classmate. I sent an e-mail, and we connected and later talked on the phone through tears a few times.
Here is what he wrote about his AOCS classmate and friend, Chris Mims:
“It's been thirty years now Chris. Jack, Pat and I still miss you. Jack can't drive by the Midway without turning his head away because to look at her is to be reminded of his lost brother. I've reached out to Pat and he won't return my phone calls. I don't take it personally because I know that to talk to me would bring his own pain crashing back into his life. Heartbreak by association. To look at us you would have never believed Kentucky, Texas and South Carolina boys would adopt an obnoxious Brooklyn boy as their brother. But we did and then we lost one of the best parts of our new family. In the crucible of naval aviation training our bond was formed in sweat and stress and it can't be broken. Pat will come around someday and we will pick up where we left off. Jack is quiet. I forgave you for leaving me. They still struggle. My first real and true brother. We've been mad not because of us but because we wanted you to still be here with us. Older paunchy men talking about the glory days and still busting on each other like we did in Jack's BOQ room every Friday night. We wanted you here to share our lives with you. Good, bad and ugly. We were loyal to each other and we still are."
"With God's weird sense of humor I can only imagine he put you in charge of his docks and his boats. But knowing you, you're wearing a bright yellow life vest just in case you fall into the water. You won't take it off until you with your New York sense of mistrust get it in writing that you won't drown again."
"Thirty years is a long time for the waves of pain to still come crashing into my psyche. I think it's finally done then I walk down to the Midway in San Diego and I think about you in that big ocean at night alone and the tears start again. I won't go onboard the Midway yet. To stand where your airplane left the deck for the very last time would be too much. Maybe someday."
"There is lots to laugh about in my memories of you. The nasally irritating voice, the inability to drive because you grew up on subways and city busses, the insistence on driving while all of us hung on for dear life. The way you and Jack went at it with your baseball and football team loyalty. We would give anything to have that again. We will be together again and we will in unison yell, 'shut up Mims'. Until then watch over us.”
I told John that Chris was not alone that night. Everyone aboard Towers was there, ready to rescue and silently praying they'd find a way out.
I have since learned all of us there that night carry a piece of Liberty 603 within us. Some days it hurts more than others.
Hurt because we were not able to bring them aboard.
Hurt because, despite knowing why we couldn't do more - we will always feel like we should have.
Fair winds and following seas Kevin & Chris.
I write this and created this so that it does live on - somehow to be found my some, or many some day in the future and their names and story will survive.
Not all American military losses happen in combat. Some are lost while standing on the front line of freedom.
The cost of our freedom is extraordinarily high, it always has been and always will be.
Those who have seen that price paid in person will never forget, nor should any American.
