Marriage: July 03, 1970
Wife: Linda Sue Cheetham| Birth: January 05, 1951
Children:
Dana Beth Stephenson
Birth: May 17, 1975 Winter Park, Florida | Died: January 10, 2019 Pensacola, Florida
Marriage: October 02, 1999 | Pensacola, Florida
Husband: Nathan Dwight Hall | Birth: July 10, 1974
Children:
Evan Dwight Hall | Birth: March 29, 2011 - Pensacola, Florida
Christopher Taylor Stephenson
Birth: June 03. 1980 - Florence, Alabama
Bob was born in Athens, Georgia September 20, 1947. He was the second child born to Julien H. and Elizabeth R. Stephenson, arriving a little over a year after their first son James Mell.
Early in his life, the family moved from Athens to Valdosta, Georgia, just a short drive from he Florida line. His father Julien began a new career in Real Estate and Insurance.
Bob attended Sillas Malone Elementary school, Valdosta Middle school and on to Valdosta High School. Bob took course in high school that would prepare him for college. He graduated from high school in 1965. He enrolled at Valdosta State College in September of that year. His first year courses were directed towards a pre-med direction. After the first year, Bob needed a break and decided to take a quarter off. Poor choice as it turned out as he soon received a draft notice. The Viet Nam conflict was ramping up, and no longer having a college deferment, placed him in the 'available' category.
Rather than be drafted into the Army, he decided to enlist in the U.S. Navy. With his education including his first year of college, he was able to pick the billet he would fill and he chose Naval aviation.
In March of 1967, he went to boot camp at the Naval Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, IL. From here he was transferred to Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida where he attended the Navy's Aviation Electrician's certification training. From this location Bob was transferred to the Naval Air Station in Agana, Guam. As one might imagine, Bob had to pull the map out to know exactly where Guam was.
After attending the Navy's SERE School training in San Diego for aircrew, he was quickly assigned as the Flight Electrician aboard aircraft #7, designated EC121 or the radar version of the civilian Lockheed Constellation 749 or "baby connie." In this capacity, he was on a flight crew and responsible for all electrical. instrumentation and auto pilot systems.
The Navy's bitter experience with Japanese kamikaze suicide planes late in World War II had generated intense interest in the development of radar systems for long-range detection of low-flying aircraft. Radar picket destroyers had been deployed, but it was concluded that airborne surveillance platforms were necessary for extended detection ranges. Bob's squadron was "additionally tasked with the" responsibility for weather reconnaissance from the International Dateline, west to the Malaysian Peninsula and from the equator north. The squadron received six meteorologists and eighteen aerographers; meteorological equipment was installed on the aircraft; and during the course of a typhoon season, the squadron flew over many hours making geographic locations or "fixes" on tropical storms and typhoons. These accomplishments brought about VW-1 becoming known as the "Typhoon Trackers." Many historians consider EC121 Warning Star model to be the immediate precursor to today’s Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft. It could conduct air space management and air intercept control, warn of SAM activity and provide direct SIGINT support to strike packages as well as airborne early warning.
Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August of 1964, Commander Seventh Fleet imposed additional requirements upon AEWRON ONE for daily night-time early warning in support of combat operations in Southeast Asia. Once again a permanent detachment was maintained in the Western Pacific to discharge these requirements, VW-1 operated out of Sangley Pt. or Cubi in the Phillipines.
Through these years the detachment consisted of 2 aircraft, flying 14 - 15 hour missions on alternate nights providing low bogey detection, “MIDDLE MAN”, “BELL HOP”, airborne intercept control, search and rescue coordination and weather observations from 2300H to 0600H. The mission was generally at 20°N latitude on an East West track between Hainan Island and the coast of Viet-Nam. Occasionally these missions of working directly with the fleet would be canceled and changed to tracking a typhoon. Each crew would be rotated back to Guam approximately every 14 days, usually to perform the squadrons primary mission of typhoon reconnaissance.
On 18 December 1967 VW-1 established a detachment at Chu Lai, RVN, later moving to Da Nang, RVN. Once the detachment was established in Viet-Nam VW-1 was able to increase its "on station time" from 6 hours to 12 hours of AEW coverage for the fleet because of the reduced transport time.
As a result of his time and flight hours with VW1, Bob was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal with two bronze stars, Vietnam Campaign Medal, Meritorious Unit Commendation and the Air Medal {First Strike/Flight} Award recognizing his flight hours in direct combat support missions.
Aircraft I flew on, trailed by a F4B Phantom.
Above in Chu LAi Viet Nam.
Short video on the EC 121
In 1969 Bob was transferred to VA196 and a new aircraft to him, the A6 Intruder. It is there that he met his future wife Linda, who lived in Parkland, Washington.
The Grumman A-6 Intruder was an American, twin jet-engine, mid-wing attack aircraft built by Grumman Aerospace. In service with the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps between 1963 and 1997, the Intruder was designed as an all-weather medium attack aircraft to replace the piston-engined A-1 Skyraider.
After a brief training period to "get up to speed" on the electronic systems on the A6, he was sent out to the USS Ranger aircraft carrier on station off Viet Nam January 1970. As was Bob's luck, The Ranger was in Australia on a break, so Bob was sent to DaNang where he worked Shore Patrol for two weeks, and then he was flown out to the Ranger when it returned "Yankee station". Bob was now maintaining and servicing all electrical, instrumentation, and inertial navigation systems on the A6. He also worked the flight deck, "on call" during flight ops.
A little history. Arriving on station on 3 December 1967, Ranger commenced another period of sustained combat operations against North Vietnam. During the next five months, her planes hit a wide variety of targets, including ferries, bridges, airfields, and military installations. Truck parks, rail facilities, antiaircraft guns, and SAM sites were also treated to doses of Air Wing 2's firepower. Bob Hope's Christmas Show came to Ranger in the Tonkin Gulf on 21 December. Another welcome break in the intense pace of operations came with a call at Yokosuka during the first week of April. Returning to Yankee Station on 11 April, Ranger again struck objectives in North Vietnam.[3]
At the end of January 1968, USS Pueblo was seized by North Korea. Ranger turned north and proceeded at full speed from the tropical waters off Vietnam to the frigid waters off North Korea. The ship had been on the combat line in Vietnam for one month and was due to for rest and recreation. At the conclusion of the North Korea deployment, the ship had been at sea for 65 days. The carrier stopped at the small Japanese port of Sasebo for several days, then proceeded back to combat operations.
VA196 has a storied history. The Main Battery, as it was called, deployed seven times in combat over the jungles of Vietnam. On most missions, the Intruders flew as single aircraft, at night, deep into enemy territory. With an average deployment cycle of over eight months, VA-196 flew more sorties and suffered greater losses than any other sea-going squadron. While serving in the Vietnam theatre, VA-196 participated in LINEBACKER I and II, Operation END SWEEP, and provided air cover from the deck of USS ENTERPRISE (CVN-65) during the evacuation of Saigon in April of 1975. The squadron was decorated 31 times with the Vietnam Service Medal.
Upon returning to Whidbey Island, Bob continued seeing Linda and they were married in Tacoma, Washington July 03, 1970. Bob Was honorably discharged from the Navy 6 months later when he and his new bride moved back "south" to Winter Park, Florida.
Bob and a navy budding opened a speed shop in Winter Park, Florida which they ran successfully until the first gas crisis. The business was closed and Bob got back into college at a well know private college, Rollins College. He finished the last two years in one year and graduated with honors in Marketing and public relations.
Soon after, he was hired by Chevrolet Motor Division in Jacksonville, Florida as their Consumer Relations Manager. After a little over a year, he was transferred to Tampa, Florida as that service area's Area Service Manager. Within two years he was promoted and moved to Florence, Alabama as a District Sales Manager. In less than another two years, he was promoted to the Zone's Distribution manager, in Birmingham, Alabama. He was responsible for determining what dealere recieved for the amount and type of new vehicles shipped to them monthly.
In 1986 he was promoted again as the Northwest United States consumer manager for Chevrolet in Portland, Oregon. THere he managed that Regions' consumer relations departmen, and interfaced with GM's lawyear on all litigation in that region.
That lasted until 1990 when he was sent back east to Memphis as a metro Account Manager overseeing all the major Chevrolet dealers in his marketing area. In the following years, he was the Regional Passenger Car Manager and the Regional Marketing Manager for the Memphis Region.
General Motors reorganized in 1993 merging all of it’s division into one company under the banner of General Motors. During this restructuring Bob was named Market Area Manager for Cadillac, Oldsmobile and Pontiac for the Memphis Region. His final assignment with General Motors was to be a Marketing Area Manager for Cadillac, Oldsmobile and Pontiac.
He retired from General Motors April 2, 2002. In 2007, he and his wife Linda moved to Athens, Georgia to be able to be of assistance to his mother and her brothers in their later years.
Bob is now fighting several medical issues caused by exposure to agent orange while he was in Viet Nam.
