Growing up near the South Weymouth Naval Air Station I became somewhat interested in and familiar with planes and jet fighters, because they were always flying overhead. It was a great experience to attend the “Air Shows” back then and in later years, with my son, where we would watch the “Blue Angels”. I got to see all kinds of planes over the years, but for me, there will always be “the plane”. “The plane” is the familiar memorial plane that stood for many years at the entrance to the South Weymouth Naval Air Station and that for many of us growing up back then represented the United States superiority to the Soviet Union.
When I was around 8 years old I remember, while playing with friends, instinctively stopping whenever we would hear a jet fly over. This wasn’t because of the sight of the jet itself, for that was a common occurrence; but instead, we would stop to place our hands over our ears in preparation of the ensuing “sonic boom”. Within seconds after hearing the jet, the craft would zoom overhead and then there would be a large “boom” that signified the jet “breaking the sound barrier”, at least that is what I was told. As I grew older, jets would still do flyovers, but it seemed that we didn’t hear the boom any more. I wasn’t sure if that was because the planes were not allowed to break the barrier or whether technology had changed to prevent the sonic boom. (The term sonic boom is commonly used to refer to the shocks caused by the supersonic flight of an aircraft. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding much like an explosion.)
As it turns out, there are still sonic booms, but through better design coupled with laws preventing planes from causing them, we don’t hear them as often.
I didn’t know it back then but that sound was most likely caused by a Cougar Fighter Plane. The Cougar’s predecessor, the Gruman F9F Panther was the U. S. Navy’s most widely used jet fighter during the Korean War. Unfortunately, the Panther’s overall performance versus Russian designed MiG’s was not good and soon after, Gruman replaced the Panther with a swept wing designed fighter called the Cougar that proved superior to the MiG 15. Starting in the 1950’s, the Navy and Marines assigned particular planes to designated Air Stations and this was the plane flown by the Marine Attack Squadron 322 or “The Fighting Gamecocks” stationed in South Weymouth. In 1959, the Cougar was replaced by the North American FJ3 Fury as NAS South Weymouth’s plane. However in 1960, the Naval Air Station donated, and the Town Of Weymouth accepted, an F9F6 Gruman Cougar Fighter Plane to serve as a memorial and this was “the plane” that stood at the entrance to the Air Base on White Street. Not long after taking its place as the Air Base focal point, another plane, called the Douglas A4B Skyhawk was assigned to South Weymouth. From 1962 until the early 70’s the Skyhawks bore the tail code Z and later 7Z.
White Street, a small side street off of Union Street in South Weymouth, was the main entrance to the Air Base since it opened in 1942 and as the Base grew in size this street would become a busy through fare for Base traffic. Then in 1982, tragedy struck when a young neighborhood boy was struck and killed by someone traveling to the Air Base. The town demanded that the Navy change the entrance location. For their part the town installed a four-way “Stop” sign at the intersection of the tragedy hoping to slow the traffic coming down White Street. It wasn’t until 1987 that the Navy finally received funding and approval to install a new entrance gate off of Route 18 and “the plane” was dismantled.
But the plane was not about what type as much as what it stood for and the Navy constructed a new symbol to adorn the new entrance in the form of the Skyhawk. After the Air Base closed in 1997 “the plane” took its place further up Shea Boulevard at its present location in the Shea Memorial Grove. “The plane” has symbolized many things over the years from the Cold War to economic change and it will continue to do so. Today it memorializes local recipients of the Medal Of Honor and represents a major change in the landscape of Weymouth and surrounding communities.