\"Assistant Chief of Naval Operations\" John Hayward Hand Signed TLS Dated 1959 For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "Asst Chief of Naval Operations" John T. Hayward Hand Signed TLS Dated 1959.

ES-4674

John Tucker "Chick" Hayward (15 November 1908

– 23 May 1999) was an American naval aviator during World War II. He helped develop one of the two atomic bombs that was dropped on

Japan in the closing days of the war. Later, he was a pioneer in the

development of nuclear propulsion, nuclear

weapons, guidance systems for ground- and air-launched rockets, former batboy for the New York Yankees, Hayward dropped out of high school and lied

about his age to enlist in the United States Navy at

age 16. He was subsequently admitted to the United States Naval

Academy at Annapolis, from which he graduated 51st in his class

of 1930. He volunteered for naval aviation. During World War II, he served at

the Naval Aircraft Factory in

Philadelphia, where he was involved in an effort to improve aircraft

instrumentation, notably the compass and altimeter. He attended the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School

of Electrical Engineering, and studied nuclear physics. In June

1942, he assumed command of a new patrol bomber squadron, VB-106, equipped

with PB4Y-1 Liberators, which

he led in a daring raid on Wake Island, in the Solomon Islands campaign,

and in the Southwest Pacific Area.

Returning to the United States in 1944, he was posted to the Naval

Ordnance Test Station at Inyokern, California, where he joined

the Manhattan Project,

participating in Project Camel, the

development of the non-nuclear components of the Fat Man bomb, and in its drop testing. After the war

ended, he travelled to Hiroshima and Nagasaki as part of the team investigating

the bomb damage, and during Operation Crossroads, he

led the effort to photograph the nuclear explosion at the Bikini Atoll. In 1949, he assumed command of VC-5, the first

naval nuclear bomber squadron. In March 1949, he took off from the

carrier USS Coral Sea in

the Atlantic in a Lockheed P2V Neptune bomber

carrying a dummy Little Boy pumpkin bomb, flew across the United States to make a

simulated attack on a test site in California., and flew back to Patuxent

River, where he landed after a total of 23 hours flying. In August 1950, he was

at the controls of the first carrier landing and takeoff of an AJ-1 Savage heavy attack bomber. From June 1951 to May

1953, Hayward was head of the Military Applications Division of the Atomic

Energy Commission, where he conducted atomic weapons laboratory work

at Los Alamos National

Laboratory. In June 1953, he assumed command of the escort carrier USS Point Cruz,

and was involved in the rescue of a baby who was found abandoned in the trash

at a U.S. Army depot. In June 1954, he became the first naval aviator to

command the Naval Ordnance Laboratory,

where he was involved with the development of the Mark 52

naval mine and the Mark 90 nuclear bomb, a

nuclear depth charge. He was

Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Research and Development, and then

Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Development. In 1962 he assumed command of

a carrier task force which included the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.

He commanded the Antisubmarine Warfare Force, Pacific Fleet, from 1963 to 1966,

and then was president of the Naval War College from 1966 until 1968.