ABC, the American Broadcasting Company, the pool network, feeding all the others, brought tons of television cameras, switchers, etc. I think they brought their entire production rooms all installed in big truck trailers which were hoisted aboard and chocked down on the hanger deck just like another big airplane. ABC technicians were getting bored as we waited for the astronauts return. The Yorktown crew had scheduled a "talent show". This is when the most musical guys would play their guitars, sing, tell jokes for the crew some dark night. With a crew of several thousand that meant there were 5 or 6 guys who were really great musicians. We loved the talent shows. ABC said, "we’ll set up our cameras, video tape it, just like it was an Elvis concert." It was great. ABC filmed our guys singing, fading in and out , close ups, multiple cameras. It made the Yorktown musicians look big show business acts...but of course we were just deck hands, aviators and black gang, playing our guitars and singing. But with millions of dollars of equipment and ABC’s experience they made our "talent show" look like a Las Vegas blow out.

From the USS Yorktown ship newspaper "despite a driving rain the Christmas Talent Show on December 25 moved to Hangar Bay 3 and went on smoothly...Dallas Townsend of CBS and Ron Nessen of NBC gave the latest "news" from a special David and Walter broadcast that never could be...The swift moving show closed with the annual Christmas Message by Capt. Fifield and all hands joining in to sing Jingle Bells."   YorkTownCrier  January 3, 1968

We waiting and waited. No Russian submarines to hunt today, our primary  job on the high seas.  To help us kill time while waiting for the astronauts, the Captain authorized a "swim party."  He actually stopped the Yorktown dead in the warm equatorial water, 1,000 miles from Hawaii and let us Yorktown sailors jump overboard! 

What an odd sensation.  Instead of the Yorktown roaring through the waves at 30 knots  the Yorktown rocking gently in the water at a dead stop.

A few of our Marines took up position on the flight deck armed with their rifles to shoot any shark that might come by.  The two swim calls the Captain permitted were cut short. The first was cut short because of rough water.  The second was cut short because a shark appeared in the water near our shipmates.

With no Russian subs to hunt and time to kill we would go out on the sponson and look at the sunset. I remember talking to my beloved friends from 2nd Division and we of course would talk about home, our sisters and brothers, or dads and moms and how much we missed being with them. Speaking for us all, one boatswains mate seaman said, "Its like right now, after all the work is done and the sun is setting that I miss my old girlfriend the most and think about her." A lot of us lost girlfriends or wives because we were in the Navy and away from them and the women had moved on. We all felt deeply in our heart what he was saying because we all had lost someone because of our service to our country, the Navy and the Yorktown.

Up on the Moon, our three American brothers were seeing what no Man had seen before.  The front and backside of the moon.  For this they needed a chart. 

This chart was presented afterwards to the US Navy's Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Thomas Moore.  This is the actual chart that the Apollo 8 astronauts used to view the sky while in Moon orbit in December 1968.  (click Star Chart to make full size) 

star chart used by astronauts aboard Apollo VIII flight for visual navigation while circling around the lunar equator of the moon, December 1968.
Prepared by the nautical almanac office of the U.S. Naval Observatory

Nothing to do but wait. We were told this was the riskiest space trip yet. 3 Americans were going to fly to the moon, travel around behind the moon and then return to Pacific where we would pick them up. The $64 question; would the capsule actually GO AROUND the moon or would it just keep going into space forever.

The Apollo 8 was to be recovered by the Yorktown and the whole world was going to see it live on t.v.

Ron Nessen of NBC News and the other pool correspondent were live on the air across the world and were filling time. The Yorktown didn’t sit still but continued to move in the Pacific and turned to port, went forward for a time, then turned to starboard. Most of the turns were quite extreme so the ship would "heel" On the 1MC, the bridge would warn us the ship was about to make an extreme turn so we would know that we would "heel" to one side or the other. This was important news if you were hanging from a rope painting, or were mixing chemicals in the photo lab.

If the Yorktown would turn to port, then the ship would "heel" or make an extreme lean to starboard. All sailors know that; heard the 1MC announcement and got ready for the "heel to starboard."

On worldwide t.v. Ron Nessen said, "its a curious thing. Whenever you hear the announcement ‘heel to port, the ship TURNS starboard. I wonder why they say that." (After we picked up the Apollo 8 , while cruising back to Hawaii at a dinner for the astronauts with the officers and press, Capt Fiefield repeated what Nessen said and said, "not only did Ron Nessen make that boner, but he did it while the entire world was listening." It was good natured joke and the Apollo 8 crew, the assembled press and the Yorktown officers laughed heartily. Ron Nessen just sat there with a scowl on his face.)

"Splashdown was scheduled for an hour before dawn, Pacific time on Friday December 27th.  This would be the first time NASA had attempted a landing in the dark.  When early flight planning had suggested keeping the astronauts in lunar orbit several more hours so that the spacecraft could splashdown in daylight Borman fought this.  "I didn't want to spend any more time in lunar orbit than absolutely necessary.  Any prolonging of the mission simply increased the chances of something going wrong."  When other argued that a night landing meant no one would be be able to see problems at splashdown, he countered, "What the hell does that matter?  If something doesn't work we're all dead and it won't make any difference if nobody can see us."  p. 229

They were to fall from an altitude of 240,000 miles.  At the moment they hit the earth's atmosphere, their speed would be over 24,500 miles per hour-a world speed record.  The craft was aimed at earth's atmospheric edge.  Like a stone skipping over the water, the capsule would plow through the upper atmosphere, leap up above it once, than plow back down to fall towards the Pacific Ocean.  If the angle of approach was too shallow, however, the spacecraft would bounce out of the atmosphere and fly past the earth, never to return.

If the angle of approach was too steep, it would continue to plow downward, burning up in a fiery conflagration".  Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8  The First Manned Flight to Another World  ©1998 p 299

See the USS Yorktown sailors retrieving the astronauts from the Pacific and fly them aboard the USS Yorktown 2 minute movie

Remember and Honor your Service aboard "The Fighting Lady."
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See the NASA movie about Apollo 8
and see the actual movie of the Astronauts being brought aboard the USS Yorktown