In May, my review of “The Shadow of War,” Jeff Shaara’s novel about the Cuban Missile Crisis, appeared in The Active Age. Subsequently, I was copied on an email to Shaara from Dave Leiber, a Butler County resident who experienced the dramatic event up close as a young U.S. Marine. I reached out to Leiber to learn more.
Leiber told me he graduated from Waterville High School in northeast Kansas in 1960. An athlete for the Yellow Jackets, he received a scholarship offer to play basketball at Butler County Community College. However, being more interested in “seeing the world” than academics, Leiber followed a buddy into the Marine Corps in October of that year.
After Advanced Infantry Training at Camp Pendleton — Leiber told me that in the Marines, you were always an infantryman, regardless of any specialized training you subsequently received — Leiber was assigned to Marine Occupational Specialty 6511, Aviation Ordnance. This explains his later connection to the missile crisis.
In September 1961, Leiber was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, N.C. His squadron was deployed to Puerto Rico for a month to provide live fire opportunity for Marine pilots of the A4D-2N Sky Hawks. Each Sky Hawk could carry a maximum load of 4,500 pounds of ordnance consisting of bombs, missiles, rockets, napalm, 20 mm cannon and two different tactical nuclear weapons.
In October 1962, Leiber’s squadron received orders to deploy to the USS Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, boarding the ship off the coast of Florida as it steamed south. The Enterprise was one of five Second Fleet carriers participating in the “quarantine” of Cuba, a phrase used instead of “naval blockade” for political and diplomatic reasons.
On the evening of Oct. 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy spoke to a national television audience about the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba.
Leiber told me that during his first three days on board the Enterprise, his crew got approximately three hours of sleep as they loaded ordnance onto the Sky Hawks for a potential strike mission into Cuba. After the aircraft were armed, Navy and Marine pilots occupied the planes during their shifts, with sealed orders on their mission in the cockpit.
When I asked Leiber if his squadron was advised as to the purpose of the deployment to the Enterprise, he said they were not initially. His squadron only learned of the crisis after three days of constant effort to equip and arm the Sky Hawks.
I also asked Leiber if he was worried for his personal safety and the well-being of loved ones back in Kansas. He told me that the initial days of his deployment were so intense that the only thought he had was getting his mission accomplished successfully.
Leiber is now 83. He retired from farming and working in the aircraft industry in Wichita. He is proud of his service in the Marines and on the USS Enterprise and deservedly so. Although Leiber did not necessarily see the world, as he intended upon enlistment, he was part of an important effort to save it.
(And, by the way, Leiber received an acknowledgement and nice reply from Shaara.)
Contact Ted Ayres at tdamsa76@yahoo.com.
