The photos are a bit faded now, and the newspapers tattered, but Mike Wallace’s memories of serving on the USS Hornet during the Apollo 11 recovery mission remain vivid.

Courtesy photo/Mike Wallace

Mike Wallace stands near the command module on board the USS Hornet.

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“We saw them shooting across the sky,” Wallace, 60, said last week at his home in Krum, describing his first glimpse of the command module Columbia. “It was the most beautiful sight you’d ever seen. You could call it a blazing trail.

“Everyone kept saying, ‘There they are. There they are.’”

Inside the command module were astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin, returning from their historic voyage to the moon.

It was July 1969, and Wallace was a young sailor assigned to help an ABC television cameraman. The job placed him on the Hornet’s flight deck and made him an eyewitness to history.

Normally stationed in the Hornet’s engine room as a fireman apprentice, Wallace was pulled from regular duty to serve on a special work party requested by the television network.

“I was the lowest man on the totem pole,” he said, explaining that such work parties were generally filled with low-ranking sailors. Since he had signed up for the Navy only the previous year, he was selected.

“Those old-style cameras had heavy cables,” he said. “I was put with one cameraman, and my job was to keep his cable from fouling.”

Wallace and other members of the work party were told they were to be available 24 hours a day, and they were excused from their normal duties. Each camera crew practiced twice a day so they would be ready when the big moment arrived.

“We were told that they might need us at any time,” he said. “I didn’t have to stand watches, so pretty much all I had to do was practice twice a day.”

The Hornet’s crew spent the days preceding splashdown practicing with a dummy space capsule, Wallace said, adding that he enjoyed the freedom his new job offered.

“It was a blast,” he said. “I bummed a couple of airplane rides and helicopter rides.”

Courtesy photo/Mike Wallace

Apollo 11 command module is pulled from the Pacific Ocean in July 1969.

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The network crews had closed-circuit television, Wallace said, so he was able to stay abreast of the latest developments in the Apollo mission.

“It was kind of exciting, looking up at the moon,” he said.

Then, the moment everyone had been waiting for finally arrived.

“We saw them streak across the sky, and we knew it was time to get in position,” Wallace said. “Then, just as it was good light, we saw them coming down.”

About an hour after splashdown on July 24, a helicopter picked up the three “moon men” and took them to the Hornet. The astronauts were placed in an Airstream trailer that was used as a temporary quarantine facility.

President Richard Nixon had come aboard the Hornet to greet the astronauts, Wallace said.

“I can still see Nixon standing up on the bridge,” he said. “He only stayed on board a couple of hours.”

Wallace said he also got a good look at the three astronauts. Their temporary quarters in quarantine had a communication system.

“You could go up to the trailer and talk to them,” Wallace said, adding that conversation helped the astronauts deal with the long hours of quarantine.

“They were as bored as we were sometimes,” he said. “They were pretty good old boys.”

The Hornet was later decommissioned, Wallace said, although the carrier was allowed to carry out the recovery mission for Apollo 12 in November 1969. Once again, he was on board.

After leaving the Hornet, Wallace served on the USS Enterprise for a short time and then volunteered for duty in Vietnam, where he served on a river patrol boat.

Last week, he sorted through memorabilia packed away from his days on the Hornet. The cache includes several Super 8 movies in addition to stacks of photos, newspapers and a flag that flew from the Hornet.

“I bought a movie camera,” he said, nodding toward the stack of films. “I don’t know if these are still good or not.”

He also has uniform patches from both Apollo missions and two buttons that proclaim “Hornet Plus Three” and “Hornet Three More.”

“These are rare,” he said, picking up one of the buttons. “Only people on the boat got them.”

After Vietnam, Wallace said, he lived in North Texas for a while, but his sister convinced him to move to the Texas coast where he worked at several jobs, including the oil industry. Surviving a refinery explosion and riding out three hurricanes helped convince him to relocate once again a couple of years ago.

Today will bring the 40th anniversary of man’s first steps on the moon, and Wallace said he’s been anticipating the day.

“I’ve got it marked on my calendar,” he said. “I think about it every year when it comes around.”

The passing years may have made man’s mission to the moon an obscure event for many, Wallace said, but he still regards the achievement as a high point in American history.

“I’m a history buff and a military buff,” he said. “My dad was a pilot in the Air Force, a career military man, and all they ever talked about was space travel.

“I can remember Kennedy saying that we wanted to put a man on the moon. I never dreamed for a minute that I would pull them up when they came back.”

Wallace said he is proud of his role in the Apollo recovery missions.

“It’s dear to my heart,” he said of his service. “It’s one of the few things in my life that I’m proud of.”

Wallace said he is often asked if he thinks that the three men aboard Apollo 11 actually went to the moon.

“Did they go? I have no doubt in my mind,” he said. “I would like to see them go back.”

He saw the Apollo 11 command module once again, years after watching it be pulled from the Pacific Ocean. He was in Washington, D.C., to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and made a side trip to the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution.

“The first thing I saw when I went in was the Apollo 11 capsule,” he said.

LES COCKRELL can be reached at 940-566-6887. His e-mail address is lcockrell@dentonrc.com .