As a photographer I was assigned to different tasks and locations.
One of my assignments that day was to photograph the capsule being lifted on board the Yorktown by Yorktown sailors. But before that I went up to the navigators deck. Everybody was out looking for the capsule splashdown.
Click
here to hear the "fireball" comment between NASA and the Astronauts
as the Astronauts headed straight for Earth and the USS Yorktown.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/ktclips/ap8_13_reentry.rm
Nobody that I know actually saw the parachute even though the capsule and its parachute came down directly over the Yorktown. Maybe we should have been looking straight up!
I was up on the Yorktown's island, aft of the bridge. I asked a signalman, "do you see it?" He said, "yeah, what are you blind? A blind photographer?" He pointed. " There it is, floating in the water. Over there!" (Sailors always talked to each other with such kindness.)
CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite reporting that
Apollo 8's splashdown trajectory was so accurate that the Yorktown's captain
ordered some evasive maneuvers to eliminate the possibility the Apollo 8
would actually "land" on the flight deck
(This was at a time when America actually believed CBS News, before Dan Rather turned CBS News into a disgrace.)
From the
Book: Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft
"The craft flew an entry curve to a point over northeast China, slanted to the southeast, and landed on target in the mid-Pacific. So accurate was the landing that it worried one of the chief mission planners and data watchers in Houston. Bill Tindall wrote to Jerome B. Hammack, head of the Landing and Recovery Division:
Jerry, I've done a lot of joking about the spacecraft hitting the aircraft carrier [Yorktown], but the more I think about it the less I feel it is a joke. There are reports that the C Prime command module came down right over the aircraft carrier [stationed at 165 degrees 02.1' west longitude and 8 degrees 09.3' north latitude] and drifted on its chutes to land [at 165degrees 1.02' west and 8 degrees 07.5' north, only 4,572 meters] away. This really strikes me as being too close. . . . The consequence of the spacecraft hitting the carrier is truly catastrophic. . . . I seriously recommend relocating the recovery force at least [8 to 16 kilometers] from the target point.
The craft came down in darkness on Friday, 27 December (6 days, 3 hours, and 42 seconds after launch), flipping over on its nose as it landed. Until Borman punched the button that inflated the air bags to upright the spacecraft, its flashing light beacon was lost to the sight of the recovery helicopters. Mission ground rules required a daylight recovery, so Borman and his crew waited 45 minutes for the swimmers to open the hatches. A few minutes later, the helicopter deposited the crew on the deck of the U.S.S. Yorktown for the last lap of - in Borman's words - "a most fantastic voyage."
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As the crew on the USS Yorktown below waited for splashdown, passengers on a jetliner viewed Apollo 8's re-entry while flying above the USS Yorktown...
"In my 26 years of airline flying, this is the most spectacular, sensational thing I've ever watched," says Captain James Holiday of the scene. Skipper of Pan American flight 812 from Fiji to Honolulu on December 27, Captain Holliday was piloting his Boeing 707 across the Pacific at the moment of the Apollo 8's re-entry. Suddenly he spotted a tiny pinpoint of light a bit below and left of the star Capella. Immediately he announced the sighting over the public address system, and the passengers and crew could see the spaceship over the left wing tip. "We watched as the color of the capsule brightened to pinkish red," said Holliday, "and we noticed a tail similar to that of a comet forming directly behind. The tail was short at first, a dull orange streak. As Apollo 8 gradually came closer in the star-filled black sky, its glow changed from soft orange to yellow and, finally, to incandescent white. The orange red tail grew longer and more vivid. It did not flare; it was perfectly straight and of constant thickness, like a slash made by an artist on a piece of black velvet. We estimated the length of the tail at 125 miles. "We watched the spacecraft for three minutes By that time I had turned the plane around a full 180 degrees to follow it. When it neared the splashdown area (where the USS Yorktown waited), the tail grew shorter and the brilliant white light diminished in intensity. Suddenly it went out, as if somebody had snuffed out a candle-the Paul Bunyan of all Roman candles. Click onto picture and hear the astronauts talking with ground control and talking about being a "fireball". We never saw he three leading characters of this drama. There was no musical score, nor was one needed. But the set was fantastic-and we had the best seats in the house. ©National Geographic May 1969 |
helicopter squadron had already located them but could not drop any swimmers
into the water until daylight due to sharks. As they sat there, Borman
found himself quickly getting seasick. 
Color
Picture: Practice before the real recovery.
Official NASA Photo water egress training
and dated Oct 19, 1968.
Lovell's face shown
with its engine and
its supplies of fuel and power and oxygen. Now the command module is
very vulnerable. And the velocity is increasing dramatically, rising to
24,695 miles an hour.
147:00:42
Apollo lands in the Pacific with a tremendous impact, 1,050 miles
southwest of Pearl Harbor and less than three miles
from the Yorktown. It
turns upside down, leaving the men dangling in their straps for four and
a half minutes. Then large bags on the command module's tip inflate, and
the craft flips upright. Seasickness assails one of the crew as the
craft bobs in four foot waves.
circle overhead, waiting
for daylight. The helicopter skipper radios to ask if the moon is made
of Limburger cheese. "No," Andres replies, "It's
made out of American cheese." With the first light of dawn,
December 27, frogmen fasten a flotation collar to the command module so
that it cannot sink. 
