Tour of Duty in the Middle East by Lt. Philip Litfin
Posted by Steve Frazier
on Dec 27, 2011
Our program on December 27th was a talk by Lt. Philip Litfin, USN, who has just returned from a tour of duty in the Middle East. As you know, Philip is the son of our member, Tim Litfin, and graduated from the U S Naval Academy a few years ago. He went through flight training at Pensacola, Fl., and was assigned for a seven-month tour of duty piloting reconnaissance flights over the Persian Gulf, and the other waters surrounding the Arabian Peninsula and Eastern Africa. During this tour, he flew enough miles to circle the globe 17 times.
He flies a revision of the old Lockheed Electra, one of the early propjet airliners. They are equipped as anti-submarine and reconnaissance planes, and each flight is a ten-hour flight over an area of very troubled waters. Part of the area borders on Somalia, so there are boatloads of pirates to find and discourage from any violence, and there are two extremely important sea lanes that must be kept open to insure the shipment of oil from the Arabian oil wells.
Philip gave a short synopsis of the political situation involving the Shiite and the Sunnis, and he said that they feel that they have a God-given right to control traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrowing of the waters between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Sea. It is in the international interest to keep this narrow passage free from national control by any country, and his squadron’s flights over the area provide instant knowledge if any attempt by Iran was started. On Thursday, an article in the Star Trib said that Iran is making threats to close the strait again.
Philip is now reassigned to Pensacola as a flight instructor where he will train new pilots on the planes. The planes are obsolete, and the navy is replacing them with planes in the Boeing 7x7 series.
Pictured here is Philip and his family.
(Story by Tad Shaw and Photo by Steve Frazier)