Space Travel, UDT Recovery

The National Aeronautics and Space Adminisration, NASA, was formed in 1958 and our space program began. The Mercury Project featured 6 flights between 1961 and 1963, whose mission was threefold. 1) Place a manned spacecraft in orbital flight around the earth. 2) Investigate man's performance capabilities and his ability to function in the environment of space. 3) Recover the man and the spacecraft safely. In July 1961, astronaut Virgil Grissom, a member of the Mercury Project, was successfully launched into space then rescued in the water but his capsule sank. NASA reported this: "Flight successful but the spacecraft was lost during the post landing recovery period as a result of premature actuation of the explosively actuated side egress hatch. The capsule sank in 15,000 feet of water shortly after splashdown. The astronaut egressed from the spacecraft immediately after hatch actuation and was retrieved after being in the water for about 3 to 4 minutes." That incident mandated a better, safer method of recovery.

Our Navy's Underwater Demolition Teams, UDT, were tasked with developing a safe, efficient recovery plan to insure future capsules would not sink. RD Russell was in UDT ELEVEN in 1962 as this training and recovery plan was developed. This photo shows RD standing beside the Mercury spacecraft mock-up, used for recovery training. This is not the actual capsule that went into space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although RD did not train for or participate in the actual recovery his UDT TWELVE teammate Nick Nickelson did. On May 16, 1963, three UDT 12 personnel recovered the one-man Mercury capsule by attaching a flotation collar to the capsule within minutes after it landed on target north of Midway Island. Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper manned that flight and completed 22 orbits around the Earth in 1-1/2 days, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. Good job, UDT!

 

As we watched Artemis II launch into space April 1, 2026, on its way to the moon and back with four astronauts aboard, RD reminisced about the early days of space exploration and was most curious about the recovery of the capsule and the four astronauts aboard. I chose this photo to illustrate the size of this 4-person capsule compared to the 1963 one-man Mercury capsule. Our Navy played a critical role in the successful recovery of the Orion capsule and the Artemis crew in the Pacific Ocean this April 2026, just as they did in the 1960s, a point of pride for this UDT veteran, RD Russell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Doyle Russell Joins The Navy April 24, 1962

 

Robert D Russell, SA

By R.D. Russell, 1999

Art illustrations by Barney Steel

On December 7, 1941, my parents were listening to their battery powered radio way out in the middle of nowhere in Colorado. The announcer was telling the world about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the world war that was in the immediate future. Mom and Pop, being good patriotic Americans, knew that they should do their share as to making future citizens to replace the ones that wouldn’t be coming back, so they went into production just as soon as the radio broadcast was over. Twenty years and 9 months later I was a member of Class 29.

Prior to UDTRA was Boot Camp. I had joined the Navy to fly airplanes. At that time if you had a college degree or had completed two years of college and passed a test you went straight to Pensacola. If you had less than two complete years of college but passed the test you went to Boot Camp then to Pensacola. I was in the last group which meant I belonged to a Boot Camp Company but never attended any classes. My days were spent being a go-fer supposedly getting on the job training as to being an officer.

I did, however, attend a lecture that was being given to all Boots and the Big Bad dude giving the lecture was Maxie Stephenson. He stood up on the stage in his starched greens and told us he wasn’t interested in making men out of us but if any of us were already men he was willing to talk. Of course, everyone in the place grabbed an application; it was the macho thing to do.

By the time the swim trials started several days later fear and good sense had overcome the majority of the applicants and they were no shows. There were enough left to still crowd all the decks around the pool. Down at the far end of the pool an applicant was standing with an olive drab shit can over his head and the other applicants were ordered to walk by and slap the side of the can. George Layton was under the can making a grand entrance into Naval Special Warfare.

George had done something or other to upset Filmore who was giving the swim tests so Filmore was using a waste paper basket to retain George’s attention. I got to know George after the swim test, during our remaining time as Boots.

Cigarettes were always a major concern in Boot Camp because you were only allowed to have 2 cigarettes on you and then only in certain areas. George walked around with both shirt pockets full because of his ability to “convince” other Boots to give him their cigarettes.

Layton was a riot to be around whether in Boot Camp or later in the Teams where I was privileged to hear him argue his case in the Rung Sat that the Gook’s ear went to the sharpest knife not the fastest gun, or having him borrow my bedroom for a little ménage-a-trois with a seven foot long snake being number three to him and his girlfriends one and two.

My future officer’s career was becoming more unsavory with every passing day of Boot Camp. Layton and Hile got their orders to UDTRA but I was sent to a Naval purgatory called the Out Going Unit or OGU. Good old OGU was full of every kind of failure that you could imagine. These were the people that the Navy was sending home with a nice separation check for cutting their hair off and other suffered indignities. So it came to be that my first command was 60 of these folks. I answered to a Petty Officer first class but how my company of homeward bound former sailors was run was supposed to be up to me. I even had an XO. The situation totally went to Hell when the PO1 decided that any of my people who soiled their beds at night would wear those soiled bed sheets (fart sacks) tied around their waists for doing number one, tied around their necks if they did number two.

I rebelled saying it was non-productive. We were already getting these people up every two hours and forcing them to use the head. The idea was also not to my liking because I was the one that had to tie those “punishment ribbons” on the poor folks who had to wear them ‘til after evening chow. Perhaps, too, I was starting to get a conscience and I knew this was not what should be done to anyone regardless of the circumstances. The final blow came when someone from back home turned up in my pee and poop company. He had been raised as a foster child and had dropped out of school at the age of 17 to join the Navy and see the world, but now he was on his way out with a “convenience of the service” discharge. I went before my boss and told him that I was resigning my phony commission and that I wanted orders to UDTRA.

Five days before Class 29 started I checked into the Boots Barracks on the Naval Amphib Base for what was to become the adventure of my life. The officers were going through their pre-training phase, learning how to steer an IBS and such while us enlisted were painting buildings, except for Layton who was cleaning bilges over at the Beach Masters. George had managed to get himself some more special treatment.

Training started with the assignment of boat crews. Edmiston, Taylor, Dulin, Jones, Kruger and myself were issued Mr. White as our boat officer which pleased us no end because he had such a totally bitchin’ car. The fact that he could read big surf better than anyone else, even the instructors, was an additional asset.

 

Thus began a time of getting to know each other and the infamous IBS. We all learned to give way when Mr. Wootten was about to lap you in the swimming pool. The future minister always said, “Excuse me,” when he kicked you but it still felt like a Mike boat had run you over. We all wondered what Mr. Wootten’s speed secret was when he swam, but it wasn’t ‘til we were in the Teams that we found out. After finishing Jump School at Ft. Benning you changed from boon dockers foot wear to spit shined jump boots. The supply folks could not find a pair of boots big enough to fit Mr. Wootten. It seems that Woots was born with swim fins masquerading as feet.

Pre Hell Week training was a blur of PT, run, swim, and paddle the boat. One trainee that looked like his head was going to explode after every run was Barney. Barney was a chain-smoking “old guy” off an LSD who arrived at the Phib base one day before training started. At the start of training Barney ran the 300 yards in 71 seconds, coming in dead last. At the end of training Barney ran the same 300 yards in 44 seconds. That is nothing short of incredible.

 

Hell Week was everything it was reported to be. Trainees so wasted that they went to sleep face down in their food tray at the chow hall. The mud flats were fun and games the first time but by the second time everyone had open festering wounds that burned like bee stings when the cold, soupy crap that passed for mud covered every inch of your body. On Thursday there were 75 zombies staggering around with rubber boats on their heads, 150 eye lids had broken glass embedded in them, 150 feet had marched barefoot over rusty razor blades, and 75 crotches resembled raw hamburger.

On one of those Hell nights my boat crew was portaging our IBS behind the Pistol Range when we ran into some piles of broken concrete. The three paddlers/portagers on each side went down like dominoes. Mr. White was under the stern of the IBS and he didn’t know all six of us had gone down. He kept right on going, scooting the bow of the boat on the wet sand, holding up the stern with his head!

Shortly thereafter we launched out to sea just south of the Hotel Del rocks. The tide was way out and we were joking about the nonexistent surf and about how the other boat crews were having hallucinations but we were just fine. Then, when we looked to sea we thought we were hallucinating. A humongous wave was roaring straight at us and we just ignored it. Must be one of those spooky things the other crews were seeing.

It was for sure real and it for damn sure flipped us; so much for staying dry that night. After a lifetime or two, Hell Week ended and since my right foot was the size of a football due to some weird infection, and Devine’s butt looked like a Nestles Crunch bar with the crunchies picked out, they sent us both to sick bay. While the rest of the class celebrated completing Hell Week that weekend, Skinner and I were soaking in tubs of hot disinfectant…total bummer.

Later during the week following Hell Week Taylor and I went out for a victory dinner in Coronado. He insisted upon buying me steak and mushrooms. Coming off a cattle ranch, steak was the last thing I wanted. To make matters worse Taylor also insisted that the steaks be cooked rare. Where I came from you cooked steak in a skillet and it crunched when you ate it. Rare meat was what you put on the trigger of predator traps. So there I was eating coyote bait and toad stools and calling it a celebration.

Things got serious after Hell Week. Before and during Hell Week the trainee had to quit in order to leave. After Hell Week you could be dropped and a lot of men were. Between Hell Week and San Clemente you learned diving, explosives and all that secret stuff we still can’t talk about.

Once at San Clemente total and complete frogman reality set in. The water was cold to the point of being numbing. The instructors became unpleasable, screaming, never satisfied tyrants. Screw up and you were on the “Big Iron Bird” headed back to the mainland. We lost a bunch more classmates at San Clemente due to their inability to function in a combat situation.

I have a favorite memory of San Clemente. There was a dry night problem where they took us by truck a goodly distance from camp and we were to sneak and peek our way back. Tony Cannon was my “swim buddy” that night. After being dropped in a bunch, Tony and I sat down to let the crowd thin out before starting our trek back to camp. Sit turned to lay down and lay down turned into going to sleep. We both woke with the realization that we had just done a no-no.

Off we went running, stumbling, falling, cussing each other for letting this happen, making more noise than a couple of Brahma bulls with tin cans tied to their tails. Our navigation was dead on. We came back exactly on camp with the only problem being there was an airport between us and the huts and Mr. Sudduth had sworn to drop anyone he caught crossing the runway. We were told go around either end but don’t you dare cut across. Tony and I decided the key word was “caught”. If Mr. Sudduth didn’t catch us we could still make it back to camp on time. First we sneaked across the taxiway and nothing happened so Tony zipped across the runway. I waited a bit, looked and listened, and took off after him.

That was when all Hell broke loose. Up ‘til then the runway lights were very dim; they became super bright. The stillness of the night was torn apart by the shrieking engines of the Star Ship Enterprise as it prepared to make a touch and go. I was caught in its landing lights like a deer on the highway. My legs wouldn’t move and the edge of the runway was now on the horizon. That was how it seemed at the time anyway. I went by Tony at warp 6 and kept right on going off the edge of the cliff above the camp, my legs still churning away just like in the coyote and road runner cartoons. Cannon and I made it into camp and since nothing was said I assume no one but us ever knew of our little transgression.

It has been almost 40 years since we were all alive and together on San Clemente and since then I have seen heroic deeds accomplished by some of our classmates. I saw Craig Marley pull five sailors out of big surf when two landing craft flipped at the same time. I saw Barney save the life of an Admiral who just had to go on ops with us. I saw Kibler rescue an unconscious SEAL officer and swim him off a hostile beach in Viet Nam. Class 29 never lacked for hard charging water warriors. Kelley, Rand, Russell B.T., and Wardrobe are highly decorated Viet Nam combat veterans.

To all of Class 29, it was both a privilege and an honor to go through training with you.

 

HOO-YAA

 

 

The McConnell Place

 

Doyle Russell bought his first house for his family of six in 1946. It was a substantial, good looking house with matching outhouse, big, nice barn, chicken house and shed set on 160 acres of open land in Weld County, Colorado, just west of Pierce. At the time he purchased it his friend and farmer Harry Boyd was living in the house so taking possession and moving Frances and the four kids into their new home took some time as Harry Boyd moved his belongings out at the same time the Russells moved in. Bob's sister Mary, nine years old at that time, remembers this, "Moving day was Hell.  The only two of Doyle's friends and neighbors who took the time and effort to help us move that day were Alex Keenan and Charlie Cozad.  Several had promised Doyle that they would  be there.  Only Charlie and Alex showed up with their old farm trucks. That really hurt Doyle's feelings a lot because Doyle had been so darn good to everyone in the community--helped with castrating and dehorning and helped two neighbors dig the basements for their new house foundations.  That was way back when no one had back hoes, etc., and other power equipment.  They used a work horse that pulled a "slip" which was a big scoop about 3 feet wide with a horse  hooked up in front and two handles in back for the operator to aim down at the next few inch-layer of dirt and scoop up a shovel full and then the horse would drag its load out of the hole and go to the dump pile and dump it out and then repeat this lots of times.  It was strenuous work but Doyle never charged any friend or neighbor a penny for his assistance.  It rather soured Doyle on his un-neighborly Nunn community neighbors when they failed to return the favor."

The owners/sellers of the house and property were Cecil S. McConnell and his wife Emma who had lived there about forty years. In fact, they homesteaded that piece of land, filing their intentions in 1905 and receiving their completion certification in 1912. They raised five children there to adulthood. I don’t know the circumstances of their moving out and having Harry Boyd move in prior to selling the place to Doyle but I did read in Cecil McConnell’s obituary in 1960 that he farmed in the Greeley area for years after selling his homestead. 

 

 

 

That whole year of 1946 and most of 1947 Doyle and Frances worked hard making the McConnell place their own. They both kept diaries and wrote of moving equipment and animals from east of Nunn to the new place and cleaning, painting, and furnishing the rooms after they moved in.

 

 

 

 

 

The Russell family lived at the McConnell place for the next seven years until buying a larger farm in Larimer County in 1952 and slowly moving all their possessions north and west, one truckload at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This story is not about their years living at the McConnell place, although that would make a great story about trying to make a living on that acreage of ever-shifting soil where the wind had its way. Doyle grew some fine wheat but almost every summer as the heat built up and the storm clouds rolled across the Rockies the hail stones fell and pounded the wheat into the ground, destroying Doyle’s main source of income in a matter of minutes.

This story is about Emma Carolina Fransen McConnell, the woman who immigrated to the U.S. from Sweden, married Cecil McConnell of Manhattan, Kansas, and homesteaded in Weld County, Colorado. I learned about her from my husband, Bob Russell, who was only four years old when he moved into the house that she built, one cement block at a time. But I am getting ahead of my story.

Emma Carolina Fransen Larsson was born on September 16, 1874, in Björsäter, Östergötland, Sweden, the daughter of Lovisa Hellström and Frans Larsson. I don’t understand why most records show her last name as Fransen yet her father’s name was Larsson. She married Cecil Stanley McConnell in Denver, Colorado, on January 3, 1908, when she was 33 years old. 

 

Cecil had already filed a homestead application on September 27, 1905 with the Department of the Interior at their Denver office for the 160 acres that would forever more be known as the McConnell place.

 

Cecil McConnell was the same age as Emma and appears to have come to Colorado with his brother George and their father James Culbertson McConnell after their mother’s death in 1901. I would love to know how Cecil found Emma. Maybe through mail order.

 

George also filed on a homestead not far from Cecil’s but he soon moved on to Oklahoma while their father farmed the Weld County land.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cecil and Emma had to build a house to fulfill their homestead requirements but they didn’t have money for that, so Emma drove a team of horses pulling a wagon from farm to farm in Weld County, milking cows. She continued this hard work as she became a mother year after year until there were five children. I don’t know what Cecil did for work in these early years of their marriage but my mother-in-law described him as small and sickly.

 

When they had saved enough money they bought a kit house, possibly from Sears & Roebuck. There were wood framed kit houses available but this one was a concrete-block house made with “Rusticated Concrete Blocks” advertised as more sanitary than wood.

 

 

 

When Doyle and Frances asked Emma how long it took her to make the blocks for the house she answered “On a good day I could make two blocks, on a bad day, just one.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kit probably included bags of cement for the basement walls but they would have needed help forming and pouring those walls. Bob said his family never had a leak in those basement walls.

 

 

 

The photographs of the finished house tell the story of how much work Emma put into that house, forming the blocks one at a time, waiting for them to set up, removing the forms, then setting them in place along the top of the basement walls.

 

 

Bob says it was a cold house and that the wind blew in around and through those four large windows on the north side of the house. He recalls waking up to find such a thick layer of snow on his quilts through which he couldn’t see the quilt pattern below.

In the basement there was a coal furnace and coal storage on one side and on the other food storage for glass jars of canned goods and home cured meat. The main floor had a kitchen and a large bedroom. Upstairs there were three bedrooms, one for Ken, one that Mary and Gladys shared, and Bobby had the other one. And there was an attic.

Bob believes the barn was built at a later time, all wood construction.

 

Emma McConnell died in February 1948, just two years after the sale of her life’s work. Although the Russell family moved to Larimer County in 1953 they all revisited the McConnell place from time to time and took photographs. Once they found solar panels had been installed! The last time Bob and I were there we had come from the annual summer celebration in Nunn and had our two youngest grandchildren with us in the car. They were very young, perhaps four and two. As we detoured from our usual route home to revisit the McConnell place we found the roads to be just as bad as Bob remembered them, blow sand obliterating tracks, ridges and troughs for a roadway making us fear becoming stuck. I recall Bob saying, “This is dumb. No way should we be out here with no one around and our two little grandbabies in the back seat.” That was about eighteen years ago. I believe it’s time for me to make a little road trip and see if the McConnell place is still standing.

Mayan Ruins in Mexico 1988

 

In just four days, on February 9, 2025, NFL Super Bowl #59 will take place in New Orleans pitting the Kansas City Chiefs against the Philadelphia Eagles, a game highly touted for its record-breaking possibilities and behind-the-scenes drama. I am very excited to watch this game, and it brings to mind another highly anticipated Super Bowl, XXII, January 31, 1988 in San Diego. The Denver Broncos, our favorite NFL Team, played against the Washington Redskins and our hopes were high for the Broncos to take home that much sought after trophy.

 

Just a month earlier, December 1987, I started a new job as a brewer with Anheuser-Busch in Fort Collins at their newly constructed brewery located just a few miles southeast of our home. My world dramatically changed from that of an over-the-hill lumber sales person whose work future was grim to that of a forty-year-old woman given an opportunity to learn new skills with a respected employer who paid really well. I had won the job lottery!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In January of 1988 I was totally immersed in the intensive training at the brewery and our son, Patrick, was away at college so Bob saw an opportunity to fulfill a longtime dream of exploring the Mayan ruins in Mexico. I’m sure the cold January weather in Colorado had something to do with his choice of longtime dreams to pursue. He and his friend Bill West share many interests and Mayan Culture is one of them, so they put together a plan and soon found themselves on a plane bound for Cancun. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 You may wonder what this has to do with Super Bowl XXII? On January 31, 1988, Bill remembers that everywhere they went that day in Cancun and Chichén Itzá Bob asked if anyone knew the results of the Super Bowl game. Bill pointed out to Bob that in the big scheme of things the results of the football game had little to do with their activities in Mexico and the score results could wait but Bob persisted and finally learned that the Broncos lost to the Redskins 42 -10, not even a close game. This was the third time the Broncos had played in the Super Bowl and it would not be until ten years later that they won their first, Super Bowl XXXII, when they defeated the Green Bay Packers 31-24.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From what I heard about their time in Mexico I don’t think the football game put a damper on Bob’s and Bill’s fun at all. Upon their return to Colorado after a week-long trip Bob and Bill told Carol and I bits and pieces of their exploration of the ruins, the great meals, a flat tire in a taxi, acquiring a new friend named Bud who was in Mexico by himself, even a party with some pretty women from Washington State, participants in an Apple Growers’ convention, but knowing these guys I suspect there were stories that went untold. Bob brought back a handful of silver bracelets and several rolls of undeveloped film. Bill and Bud both took photos, too, and shared their photographs with us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed all the photos they took and the stories that accompanied each photo. Thirty-seven years have elapsed since I heard those stories so I have forgotten most and will let the photos speak for themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was talk of another trip like this, a visit to the pre-Columbian Chaco Canyon area of New Mexico. It is now the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Bob and Bill never made that trip to New Mexico and that time of travel and off trail hiking has passed. But their inquisitive minds and insatiable curiosity are very much alive, I'm happy to report.

Doyle's Farm Equipment

 

When Robert Doyle Russell joined the Navy in April of 1962 he left his parents’ home in Larimer County, Colorado, a farm/ranch where he and his family had lived since 1953.  RD’s father, Doyle J Russell, was a dryland farmer who grew Hard Winter Wheat, “Turkey Red”, a grain that grew well on dry land with no irrigation water as long as a few rains came at the right time of year. Doyle also raised cattle, sheep, hogs, chickens, and kept a milk cow. He was a successful farmer because he was a hardworking man, never borrowed money, bought used farm equipment, and carried crop insurance. Also, his wife raised the chickens and milked the cow, sold eggs and cream, and canned fruit and vegetables for winter use.

 

 

 

And then the State of Colorado created I-25 Interstate Highway that cut right through Doyle’s land. No longer was he able to pasture his cattle on the east portion of his property then bring them home at night. Nor could he drive his tractor directly to those eastern fields for crossing the interstate that way was illegal. And I am sure that losing his right hand man, RD, to the Navy, affected his ability to keep up the farm. Consequently, when RD came home from the Navy he was shocked at the change in his dad’s place. 

 

 

Doyle, being the resourceful man that he was, had sold the cattle and created a junk yard on his land. He soon became quite successful at acquiring automobiles, trucks, and other vehicles that people didn’t want or could no longer park in front of their homes, and then he sold off parts. Sometimes he sold entire vehicles but said he made more money parting them out. As the junkyard grew he accumulated all sorts of “stuff” that he could resell and he enjoyed it so much, loved talking to people who stopped in, made lifelong friends that way. And he made more money selling junk than selling cows.

 

But the junkyard was unsightly! It was an embarrassment to his family. He filled the yard by the house with things easily stolen, like bicycles, kiddie cars, and tools. And covered acres and acres with vehicles, furniture, tires, piles of wood scraps, all sorts of odds and ends. Doyle was not embarrassed, as far as I know. He knew right where everything was and could walk directly to it if someone came searching for a car part or TV or posthole digger. He kept track of his inventory in his mind, never made lists or maps.

 

 

Once, in the 1970s, he granted permission to a group of artists who wanted to paint what they saw out there on the farm land littered with treasures. I understand that, for I have often seen the beauty there myself. I loved the way the native grasses grew up around the old farm machinery. When I saw that equipment parked out back of the house my imagination caught fire. I could visualize Doyle preparing some fields for planting, lightly plowing others for summer fallow.

 

 

RD once told me how, at a young age, he learned to balance while standing on the back of the wheat planter, aka grain drill, as his dad pulled it with a tractor across the plowed fields. RD’s job was to make sure flow of grain into the soil was not plugged. Had he tripped and fallen into the machinery he would have been seriously injured so learning to balance and ride that rickety, bouncing planter was essential. Later in life, when he went through Underwater Demolition Training in Coronado, California, he realized that his years on the farm had prepared him well for the challenges he faced in the Navy.

 

I thought about the photographs I wanted to use to illustrate this story and I remembered that an artist I admire when asked the secret to his success as a landscape artist answered (and I paraphrase) “I paint what I see then remove everything that isn’t necessary.” So, I am not showing all the junk in Doyle’s yard. Instead I am seeing the beauty in the old farm equipment. And I see the images of Doyle making a living with a few pieces of used farm equipment and a whole lot of hard work.