Joe Brumbach	Pearl Harbor / Test Pilot
	Mike Danielle	U-2 over Irag / Middle East
	Owen W. Dykema	Carrier-based Corsair in Korea
	Patrick A. Hazel	F-84 Thunderjets in Korea

JOE BRUMBACH - PEARL HARBOR / TEST PILOT

HIS STORY:

I was born on February 25, 1922, on a little farm near the little town of Dixonville, Oregon, just a few miles east of Roseburg. Dixonville at the time actually had a post office. As a boy I was intrigued by airplanes, and did the usual balsa-wood and rubber-band-powered model airplane building. I was also interested in mechanical things, having worked closely with several kinds of farm machinery. My first car was a 1924 Model "T" roadster. We dropped lowered the body (a "low rider"), took the fenders off, cut the windshield in half and "souped" it up, as much as you could an old Model "T". I graduated from Roseburg High School in 1938, when I was just 16 years old. My first job was with the Douglas County Farm Bureau Exchange, an organization that basically redistributed used farm machinery. My job was to go out there every once in a while and start them all up.

One day a Ford Trimotor flew into town. I skipped work that day, paid my two bucks and got my first ride in a real airplane. That old thing was incredibly noisy, even the corrugated fuselage skin rattled. But I did get my first taste of flying.

About that time I joined the local National Guard -- Company D, 162nd Infantry. However, after just a couple of training excursions out into the woods and the mud, dragging my machine gun along with me, I decided that infantry was just not for me. So on March 11, 1940, I went up to Portland and enlisted in the Navy. I was looking for something that would be interesting and would give me some security as well. There was obviously no war on the near horizon so I felt safe.

In boot camp in San Diego I was selected for aviation mechanic's school, across the bay at North Island Naval Air Station (NAS). There they were flying a weird old biplane called a :BG" (Bomber something). But they had a place for passengers so, besides my schooling, I often had the chance to go flying, with some of the school pilots. Eventually I graduated from mechanic's school and got orders to VP-24 at Ford Island, In Hawaii. They were flying Consolidated PBY-3s. This was the typical high wing, twin engined float plane but without the side gun blisters. There I got into a flight crew, as the engineer. My "office" was a tight little room up in the pylon between the fuselage and the wing. There were a couple of small windows but visibility was pretty poor. I had complete control of the engines (mixtures, fuel flow, temperatures, etc.) except for the throttles.

I was there at Ford Island until about March 1941, when we were transferred over to PatWing 1, VP12, at Kaneohe, about 12 miles east-northeast of Pearl Harbor, on the east side of Oahu. We still had the PBY-3s but we almost immediately flew them back to North Island and traded them in for the new, top-of-the-line PBY-5, including the familiar side "blisters". This was still the seaplane but was not amphibious. To take them up on land you had to swim out with some wheel assemblies, fix them under the plane and tow them up out of the water. We only did this for maintenance purposes. Our mission was to fly continuous sector searches of the surrounding waters, to detect and warn against the (highly unlikely) approach of enemy fleets.

Some time in November we were assembled and warned that there was a possibility of an attack. However, no one got very excited because no one could conceive of a foreign power powerful enough to challenge the US Navy. But as a precaution we lined all the planes up at the dock (perfect for strafing) and put extra guards on these. We also anchored four planes out in the bay, with skeleton crews aboard ready for "instant action". Then everybody else went back to the barracks and back to sleep.

On the morning of December 7, 1941 I was out at the hangar. I had just started walking back to the mess hall when I saw some planes flying around the base. Suddenly one banked up strongly and I saw the meatball of the wing. About that same time our four planes out in the bay burst into massive fireballs, instantly killing all the crews aboard. I ran to the barracks and tried to rouse some people to action. It was early on a Sunday morning. On the way back to the hanger, right in front of me, a bomb hit a car and flipped it up into the air, landing back on it's top.

Down near the hanger a PBY was up on wheels. The 30- and 50-caliber guns in the nose and side blisters were armed so I got into the nose and another guy got into a blister and we started firing at the Jap planes. I had never done this before so I had no idea what I was doing. The Jap planes first came down along the dock and took out our carefully lined up PBYs, all of them, and then started bombing the hangars. I saw one plane diving on us, and I saw the bomb detach. Well I just sat back, figuring this was it for me. But the bomb flew just over our heads, entered the hangar and exploded inside. Fortunately for us there were big steel doors on the hangar and they protected us from most of the blast. We were uninjured but our plane was riddled with shrapnel and bullet holes and never flew again.

We continued firing at the planes. One came over close and both of us in the plane, plus a guy standing outside with a 50-caliber gun in his arms, concentrated our fire on him -- and we got him. He crashed right near the emergency entrance to the dispensary. We never who which of us got him and no hero medals were forthcoming.

We all kind of milled around, trying to figure out what to do next. Except for the three PBYs that were out on patrol at the time of the raid, our only "offensive" weapons were gone. Finally the officers got a little organized and dispatched a detachment, with 50 caliber machine guns, to defend the nearby hill. However, it was a largely brown hill and we were all in our Sunday whites so we took a little time off to go back to the barracks and change into our "dried coffee" uniforms. All night long you could see multiple flashes over Pearl-way.

A squadron (VP-44) of PBYs from Seattle was flown into Ford Island. Since there wasn't much to do at Kaneohe I was sent over there. There I saw the massive destruction and death. The harbor was still several inches deep in fuel oil.

We started immediately flying long sector searches, trying to find the Jap fleet and to protect from more surprises. We flew about 18 hours a day, every day for some time. I can't recall how long we kept this up. Finally they decided that I was no longer need so they gave me a 45 pistol and told me to make my way, by whatever means, the 12 miles back to my squadron at Kaneohe. I got a ride into Honolulu and started hitch-hiking. I was quickly picked up by a Japanese guy, who looked like a local farmer. As we went along he kept asking me some very pointed questions, but I told him nothing. Was he a spy? I don't know but he could have been.

The squadron then was ordered to move to an "advance base" all the way over on Kauai. We were now a little over 100 miles closer to the enemy, one of the first US units to actually "move out" toward the evil Empire of Japan. There we were based in rugged terrain, flying off of the beach and living in the nearby jungle in small tents, in the mud and the rain.

About March 1942 I heard that the Navy was going to start taking enlisted personnel for "Aviation Pilot (AP)" billets. The AP designation came about because the Geneva Convention had stipulated only a limited number of "Aviators" for each signatory (country). Well, strictly speaking, an AP was not an "Aviator". So, we had just been attacked by overwhelming numbers of Jap "Aviators" but we were still concerned about skirting the limitations of the Geneva Convention! Go figure. It turned out that I had to slip the duty yeoman $20 but I managed to get a set of orders to that program. My Naval Aviator career was about to be launched!

Finally in August I got orders to Pre-flight School at the University of Georgia and then to NAS New Orleans for Primary Training. At New Orleans I flew, and soloed in the NP (by Pitcairn)(left picture). The NP was a tandem open cockpit, stick-wire-wood-fabric biplane that was the most miserable thing you'd ever want to fly. I think I flew from the back seat. From there we progressed to the N3N, a Navy-built biplane sort of a precursor to the famous N2S (the "Yellow Peril")(right picture). We trained in formation flying in the N3N and then moved on to the Yellow Peril itself, where we trained in aerobatics.

Then I was transferred to Pensacola, to Saufley Field I think, where we flew Vultee Vibrators and SNJs. The picture at the right is the fledgling avaitor that was me at the time. Training in instrument flight was in the SNJs. I was then transferred to Mainside Pensacola for training in seaplanes. There they had a very early version of the PBY called the PTY. It was essentially a biplane PBY, with the two engines still sitting up on the top wing and the long, boat-like fuselage. We also flew a few PBY-1s.

So, in May 1942, just eight months and two weeks from the time I started in flight training, I got my "Wings of Gold". At the same time I was "promoted" to the uncertain rank of Aviation Pilot 1st Class (AP1). Subsequently, while I was waiting around for orders to the fleet, I enquired about flying something, anything, just to keep my hand in. It turned out that they needed pilots to tow targets for ship gunnery practice. They had an N3N on floats and an OSU Kingfisher for that task. I volunteered. I hook on the target well up Pensacola Bay and then come driving down the bay, with the target skipping along the surface of the water, until I could get up enough speed to get off the water. Then I would fly out over the Gulf and let ships shoot at me -- at the target. It was a wild time but it turned out to be a very lucky activity for me. Come orders time I found myself assigned me to the Naval Air Test Center at Anacostia, Virginia. It turned out that they had no one qualified in single-engine seaplanes -- and there I was.

And that was the beginning of a long and exciting experience. I was there hardly 30 days when operations handed me a handbook and pointed at a spanking new (this was still 1942) F6F fighter and suggested that I get in the air. It was the first of what would be many occasions where you had to try as best you could to familiarize yourself with the cockpit and controls, to anticipate the flying characteristics as best you could and, finally, just get in the cockpit and GO! Anacostia had just a 1900-foot runway and if you went off the end you were in the Potomac. At this time I had all of about 300 hours of flying time. It was nervous time but all went well, and I qualified in the F6F and became a sure enough Test Pilot!.

I spent the whole rest of the war in NATC, mostly there at Anacostia. We flew all kinds of different experimental aircraft. For example, there was the XTBU, the XPB4Y-2, an F4F on floats and the SOC. The SOC was a float plane intended for catapult launch off ships. In all I flew about 30 different aircraft types, most of which never went any further. It was not unusual to fly as many as three different types of planes in a single day. After a while you began to recognize that all of them had very similar flight characteristics so you just had to look for any special idiosyncrasies.

One such was a Dutch plane that we were evaluating. Both the handbook and the instruments were in Dutch, so I had no real ground school introduction at all. I flew it all right but I blew out the manifold pressure gage. It turned out that I had been unable to interpret instructions on the blower position lever and had it in high blower at the wrong time. As in most such flights I managed to get that Dutch bear on the ground again with no further excitement.

Somewhere along in here Marion Carl came to NATC but I had little to do with his part of operations and did not get to know him well.

I was married there at Anacostia, in 1944. Near the end of the war they elected to close it down and move us to the new facility at Patuxent River, where NATC is today. In 1945 I received my commission, Ensign USN(T). The good news was the regular commission (USN). The bad news was the "T". Nobody seemed to know what that meant but it lent a definite sense of insecurity to the "regular" commission.

About that time I was scheduled to check out the Ryan "Fireball". This was the Navy's first jet, a combination of a radial prop engine in front and a jet engine in back, capable of flying on either or both engines. To me it looked like an ugly abortion and I was not at all looking forward to flying it. But once again I was saved by orders, this time to Vero Beach, into a night fighter program.

I began to get interested in night fighters. I liked the independence of it -- you were almost always alone, on your own. To qualify in night fighters I had to go through some training in fighter tactics. I was never exposed to that part in flight training. So I was sent first to Melbourne, FL and then to Kingsville, TX.

In 1945, while I was stationed at Kingsville, my daughter was born in the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia. And about this time the war ended.

Vero Beach then sent 4-5 of us to St.Simons, GA, to CIC school, to train in night fighter tactics. There they had an old PBY-5a and, since I was one of the few qualified to fly it, I flew it a lot. One day I was ordered to take a group of civilians aboard and take them on a tour of the Bahamas and the southeast coast of Florida. It turned out that they were checking out a possible rocket launch and range facility. Eventually they selected the old Banana River seaplane base and converted it to the Cape Canaveral rocket launch facility.

In 1947 I was reassigned to sea duty and joined VCN-2 in Key West. From there I went on two Mediterranean cruises, on the Kearsarge and the Midway, both in F6F-5Ns. That was basically an F6F with a radome on the right wingtip. My son was born in July of that year while I was in the Med.

Some time in 1948 we traded in our old F6Fs for brand new F4U-5Ns. At one time or another I had flown every model of the Corsair, from the old three-bladed "birdcage" to the four-bladed F4U-4, but that F4U-5N was a really slick plane. It had lots of power, an efficient two-stage supercharger blower and a real comfortable cockpit. In addition they had elevated the seat a little so it was not so difficult to see ahead when coming aboard ship.

However, I was just getting my first plane broken in, had just 45 hours on it, when I dumped it in the ocean.

It seemed like every weekend our ship would take on a bunch of VIPs of one sort or another and we pilots had to go up and demonstrate operations. I was usually involved in demonstrating a "night CAP", Combat Air Patrol over the ship. One night I got the "Charlie" ("come aboard"), flew up alongside the ship and, following standard procedure, shifted to low blower as I broke to set up my landing pattern. Well just as I shifted blower the engine quit cold. Being just a couple hundred feet above the water there was little time to do anything but level my wings and put it straight ahead into the water, wheels up. I sent up a slow speed glide and just coasted on down into the blackness that was the water. The seas were fairly calm and that beautiful plane just skimmed right onto the surface and stopped.

However, with that big heavy engine way up front it wasn't long before it started a long, nose-first glide to the bottom. I just had time to unhook the seat belt and shoulder straps, strip off my parachute and get out of that rapidly sinking cockpit. Unfortunately I bolted out so fast that I left my life raft in the cockpit, still bundled up in the parachute seat pack. I did still have my white helmet on.

So there I was out there alone on the ocean with nothing but my Mae West to keep me afloat. Fortunately I was in the Gulf Stream so the water was not very cold. The flashlight on the Mae West didn't work, they never did, but I did have my trusty whistle -- with nothing to whistle for.

After a while I noticed some stuff moving around me in the water. I didn't know whether it was floating wreckage from my plane or perhaps -- sharks! At that I really got scared. How I regretted not taking the time to dig out my life raft! I forgot that one of the multiple packages hanging on my Mae West was the so-called "shark repellant" but prevailing wisdom was that it didn't work anyway. So, there was nothing to do but whistle, and even that seemed pretty useless. Finally, after about 2-1/2 hours in the water I began to hear the sound of a ship coming fast. It turned out to be a destroyer sent back to pick me up. I whistled my head off and soon that blessed searchlight picked up my white helmet -- and I was out of there. Back aboard the carrier I was immediately called before the Admiral but there was little I could offer as explanation or excuse -- she just quit, for unknown reasons.

A few months after that I got orders again to shore duty, this time at Pensacola. We night fighters were all weather pilots, most of us had green instrument cards. A green card meant you could authorize your own weather clearance, and not depend on some "lesser" folk in base operations. If you thought it was okay you could go. So the Naval Air Training Command sent me to Corry Field to the instrument training unit.

Well I didn't much like that duty. I found out about a Search and Rescue squadron over at Mainside Pensacola. They had two PBYs, four R4Ds (DC-3) and a few helicopters. I was qualified in all but the helos so I managed to talk my way into assignment over there. Whenever there was a crash we put something into the air in short order. Usually we were in the air within 10 minutes of the alarm, taking off on cold engines and all.

I loved to fly the R4Ds. They were so stable and forgiving that if you just left them alone they would get you back. We used them to transport cargo but in the fall we used them to take Preflight cadets, the drill team, to college football games -- every weekend and all over the country. I saw a lot of college football, on full pay and allowances. From time to time I would pitch-hit for the pilot of the Admiral's R4D. Once we got airborne the admiral would insist that the pilot, whoever he might be, come back in the cabin and play poker with him. I didn't mind that but sometimes the copilot, left up there alone in the cockpit, was a low-time junior officer, perhaps not even R4D-qualified. Probably a significant fraction of the flight time recorded in my logbook for that period was actually "Command-level poker" time.

In 1952 I was again back on "sea duty", this time assigned to VR-5 at Moffett Filed, California, where they were flying R6Ds. This was a nice airplane; four engines, fully pressurized, capable of carrying 110 troops. We also had the world's only two R6O "Constitution" planes. These were double-deckers, capable of carrying a whole fighter squadron, including much of it's maintenance gear.

At Moffett we were based in one of the two old blimp hangars on the east side of the field furthest from the runway. For a brief time, in the fall-winter of 1952, Air Group 19 was based in the blimp hangar nearest the runway. Fellow Warbird Owen Dykema was there, as a pilot in VF-192 but we did not know each other. After all I was a full LCDR while he was just an common Enswine. Across the field from us was the world's largest blimp hangar, including huge clamshell doors on the ends. It was so big it was said that on some days small clouds would gather inside, up near the peak. I believe all three of those hangars are still there today, even though the military presence has been withdrawn.

We flew mostly trans-Pacific routes, often to Japan where we would pick up a load of wounded from the ongoing Korean War. With them came a group of Flight Nurses. For a little while I was assigned the Alaska routes and that was really undesirable duty. Landing in Kodiak was always a genuine thrill. Usually there was so much ice on the ground that you couldn't even run up your engines before takeoff because you would slide all over.

But then the Navy finally realized just how poorly educated I was at the time and sent me off to line school, in Monterey, to get smartened up. After struggling through that school they sent me up to the University of Washington, on what was known as the Holloway Plan. That was not the same as the Holloway Plan of the late '40s but had many of the same objectives, to get Naval Officers better educated. Prior to that the Navy had done a rather poor job of educating their officers on active duty, and many were leaving the Navy to get that education.

There were quite a bunch of us Navy types at the UofW at that time. To get our time in, to qualify for flight pay, we flew the venerable "Bug Smasher", the twin-engine Beachcraft. I was the only green card pilot and, as a LCDR, I was SOP (Senior Officer Present) as well. So I was automatically the duty pilot. I took the troops here and there and acted as their chaperone as well, trying to keep them out of trouble.

When I finished my schooling (now smart) I went to my detailer and told him I wanted to spend my last two years of active duty out in Hawaii, with family. So I got assigned to an Airborne Early Warning squadron based at Barber's Point, and mived my family and I out there. The trouble was, because I was heavy into maintenance I was assigned to the Midway Detachment, the major squadron maintenance facility. There I managed the shops and flew test on an endless parade of WVs and R7Ds. The squadron pilots would fly out to Midway, pick up an AEW plane and fly Midway - Adak - Midway, on Barrier Patrol. We never had enough parts and people so almost nothing worked on those planes, especially the radars. In effect there was no radar "barrier", except as it might have been perceived as such by the "enemy". I had some fierce arguments with the CO over this (be careful, don't shoot down your retirement!).

Well, after a year of that nonsense the squadron gave me a short spell back at Barber's Point but had me scheduled back out to Midway within the year, to that same useless duty. So I said "thanks but no thanks" and retired.

We all moved back to Roseburg and I bought a couple of farms within a few miles of where I was born, out Dixonville way. One of those farms I worked on as boy, earning 25 cents a day. Besides running the farms I got involved in the local Soil and Water Conservation Association, as District Chairman, then as four years as state president, and finally in charge of the Association in seven western states. Meetings, meetings, meetings. I hope we did some good.

Today I am retired from both the farms and the Association and for a while was president of the Southern Oregon Warbirds.

MIKE G. DANIELLE - U-2 SPY PLANE

BRIEF BIO:

Michael G. Danielle was born in Arlington, Virginia on December 10, 1947. After graduation from Florida State University in 1970 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force. He attended basic flight training at Columbus AFB, Mississippi, and received his wings in January 1971. His first operational assignment was flying EC-47 aircraft out of DaNang AB, Vietnam. Upon return to CONUS he was first assigned duty as a KC-135 aircraft commander, until 1976, and then as a T-38 instructor pilot at Laughlin AFB, Del Rio, Texas. In 1979 he interviewed for the USAF U-2 High Altitude Reconnaissance Program and in April of that year began training for the U-2. He served with the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing as a U-2 pilot, instructor and evaluator, a T-38 instructor and evaluator, U-2 squadron commander, and Assistant Wing Director of Operations.

During this time he accumulated over 4100 hours of flight time. His awards include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the four (4) Air Medals, the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Purple Heart.

He retired with the rank of Lt. Col. from Beale AFB, California in 1990, with the same determined, dedicated wife he started with in 1970, the former Pauline Ann Reineke. Mike and Pauline have two children Stephanie and Steven and one grandchild, Brittany.

U-2 DRAGON LADY:

The early C-model U-2 aircraft generally weighed about 21,000 pounds but had 17,000 pounds of thrust, very nearly a one-to-one power to weight ratio, even when fully loaded. The aircraft was a "tail dragger", that is there was a main landing gear directly beneath the fuselage and a steerable tail wheel located under the vertical fin. To keep the wingtips from dragging, "pogo" wheels on spring steel struts were installed in sockets out about mid-wing. These pogos fell off during takeoff. After landing, ground crewmen would manually lift the wings and reinsert them for taxi back to the chocks.

The cockpit was cramped and narrow. The ballistic ejection seat had a D-ring between the pilots legs. Instrumentation was not very standardized because of all the various modifications over years. Many of these aircraft were used by the CIA and there were numerous cockpit switches of which no one knew the function. Some had sinister labels like "destruct" -- we just left those alone. The rudder pedals could be folded down so the pilot could extend his legs over them and get out of the cramped position otherwise required on the extremely long operational missions.

On the left cockpit sill sat a little 6" diameter fan, which looked silly considering the pilot was flying in a full pressure suit for each mission. This fan was used to move air around the cockpit and prevent ice from forming on the canopy during descent. There was a sliding sunscreen on the inside of the canopy to shield the pilot from the intense rays of the sun at altitude. The windscreen was heated with an electric blower.

Pressurization on these aircraft was "iffy" at best and it was rare that you could keep the cockpit pressurized to less than 27,000 feet. Because of this, the pilot breathed 100% oxygen for one hour prior to flight and for the full duration of the flight. Pre-breathing prior to flight was required to purge nitrogen from the blood and decrease the risk of experiencing the bends at the unusually high cockpit cabin altitudes.

The tiny cockpit required a compact pressure suit -- the S-100. This suit operated on a "capstan" system. The garment was simply a tight fitting suit with inflatable capstans which ran down your torso and arms and legs. A full coverage helmet provided pressurized oxygen to the pilot. If the suit inflated due to decompression, the capstans would inflate and squeeze the pilot. I would usually be black and blue all over my back and sides from this suit after a flight in the C-model, even though the suit only inflated during a ground test prior to flight. This abuse was much preferable to having my body literally explode should the aircraft decompress above "Armstrong's Line" (about 55,000 feet).

The C-model had an 80 foot wingspan and 600 feet of wing area, The biggest problem the aircraft had was that the big J-75 engine could push the aircraft up to altitudes where it just couldn't fly anymore. Above 70,000 feet the C-model was a dicey plane to fly. At these extreme altitudes the difference between high speed mach buffet and low speed stall could be as little as four knots. Banks in excess of 12 degrees would put one wingtip into a high speed buffet and the other into a stall buffet.

When flying manually at these high lift coefficients the pilots full attention was required. If the aircraft stalled at high altitude, recovery usually could not be affected without exceeding mach limits. If the mach limit was exceeded, the nose would tuck and the airframe would break in half just forward of the speed brakes. The pilots called this narrow throat in the operational envelope "coffins corner.".

When the U-2 R-model was built about 1970, it was a great improvement both in performance and pilot comfort. The cockpit was much larger -- lots of elbow room. The rudder pedals and seat were fully adjustable. The rocket ejection seat was quite comfortable. The ejection D-ring was still between the pilot's legs and an alternate T-handle was located on the left armrest. The little fan was still there.

The larger cockpit accommodated a better suit, the S1010B, which was an inflatable suit restrained by nylon mesh. When this suit inflated it would become quite rigid, but you could still manually fly the aircraft back down to lower altitudes, where it would deflate. Above all, it wouldn't hurt. The helmet and gloves were fully articulating and pressurized cockpit air would vent through internal piping in the suit to keep the pilot cool during extended ground delays.

But the biggest difference in the R-model was the new airframe. It had over 103 feet of wing and over 1000 square feet of wing area. Even at extreme altitudes the aircraft was quite agile and the stall/mach buffet margin was nice and wide.

Modern instrumentation was the norm. Prominent in R-model U-2 cockpit was a triple display indicator (TDI), which gave a digital readout of airspeed, mach number, and altitude.

In addition there was a very large circular viewport located directly in front of the pilot. This system allowed the pilot, via an electro-optical periscope beneath the aircraft, to see everything in the entire hemisphere under the aircraft, from horizon to horizon and 360 degrees around. This was the primary mode of navigation for all photo flights. In the accom-panying picture the viewport shows an upside- down view of the underside of the aircraft. The landing gear just happened to be down at the time.

Every variant of the U-2 had one thing in common, a black wooden stick about 18 inches long with a hook carved in one end and a cotton swab on the other. These were laid loosely in the forward corner of the windscreen. The early J-57 engines would invariably leak oil in the compressor section and this oil would find its way onto the windscreen. The swab was used to wipe the oil off because the pilot's gloved hand could not reach the forward areas of the plexiglass. The hooked end of the stick was used to retract the A and C-model rudder pedals from the folded condition -- a requirement if you wanted to land the aircraft.

Even though neither the R models nor the TR-1 (a U-2 variant) had leaking engines or folding rudder pedals, whoever had the contract for the sticks still produced them. I think I used the stick once in twelve years, to recover some dividers I had dropped in the cockpit. It was still good for swabbing off ice that formed during descent if you failed to preheat the canopy before starting down. I attended the rolling out of the final TR-1 at Palmdale, in 1989. There, inside the pristine new cockpit, in all it's glory, was that same stick.

Since the average operational mission was nine hours or more, a relief tube was incorporated into the R and TR aircraft. These were attached to a valve in the suit which, in turn, was connected internally to a "Texas catheter" into which your "tool" was inserted as you donned the suit. You would manually inflate the suit slightly to generate a pressure differential and then relieve yourself. If all did not go well you'd just fill your boot.

There was a galley on the U-2R and TR-1. Pilots could heat a tube of pureed food, which was provided in small tubes like those you saw the Mercury and Gemini astronauts using on TV. You could stick your food tube down into a hole on the left side panel, set a switch and it would heat your food. It was supposed to switch off automatically but if you forgot to check it the thing would overheat the tube, which would then explode and plaster the entire cockpit and canopy with the special of the day, and endear you forever with the crew chief.

My favorite was beef and gravy. Once the food was heated you would screw a another small tube onto the end of the food tube, which punctured the seal, and then insert the smaller tube into a port on the side of the helmet. Then you could squirt some into your mouth. Yeah, I know, sounds pretty yucky. But it sure hit the spot in the middle of a nine-hour mission.

The U-2 got it's name, the Dragon Lady, from the pilots, not from the Air Force. It is, in all its variants, the original bear in the air. From ten feet to 60,000 feet the aircraft is a delight to fly. From 60K on up and ten feet on down, it's just,  well ... a Dragon Lady. Pilots were not simply assigned to U-2 flying duty, you had to apply and be interviewed. Basic requirements when I applied to the program in 1978 was 1500 hours total flying time in two different aircraft, 1000 hours of jet time and currently an instructor pilot. During the interview you met the squadron commander, wing commander and a select group of instructor pilots, who all grilled you on your experience and your ability to learn to fly this weird contraption. Your attitude and maturity were also judged.

The interview included three flights in the two-seat trainer aircraft. I seemed to feel at home in the U-2, I think because of my previous tail dragger time in the C-47 and civilian light aircraft time. Later when I was a senior instructor, and involved in the interview process, I found that interviewees fell into two categories, those who had absolutely no trouble catching on to flying the beast and those who couldnt even find the runway with it. There were few, if any, in between.

I was accepted into the 99th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron in April, 1979, one of only twelve pilots in the whole Air Force flying the Dragon Lady. On the day of a new pilots first solo it was traditional to "drink the yard". I guess the yard holds about 5 full beers. Half the base and the whole squadron surrounded you during the ceremony. Half of them were cheering you on and the other half were there to watch you puke. Your name and solo date was duly entered on the squadron heritage plaques at the end of the ceremony. I soloed the U-2 on May 10, 1979. But I disappointed everyone, I didn't puke!

Since there were few U-2s available at Beale for training, and because of the high cost of operating those aircraft, the Air Force allowed all U-2 pilots to acquire half of their required flying time in a companion trainer, which was the T-38. Now, the T-38 had virtually nothing in common with the U-2 but it was a lot of fun to fly. I already had about a thousand hours in the little Northrop jet. I tried very hard to act peeved one time when the Director of Training told me I had to get ten hours of time in the T-38 in the next three days. Well that was like throwing the keys to your corvette to a 16 year old and telling him not to come home until he put 500 miles on the odometer!

FLYING THE "DRAGON LADY"

A typical operational mission begins the day before with the pilot and his mobile control officer mission planning. Our mission planners were highly experienced navigators who didn't fly but just did the planning and mission briefings for those they called the "pressure-breathing primadonnas". On this particular day my mission was in support of the U.S. State Department, a result of a long sought peace accord between two warring states. The plan that had been developed allowed a U-2 to overfly the disputed territory and provide imagery to both sides to verify the accords. The theory was that everyone on both sides would know I was coming and there'd be no fireworks.

In this flight my mobile control officer was also my backup pilot, ready to take my place if I failed to pass the mini-physical given before every flight. He would also preflight the aircraft for me (a necessity because such a task is impossible in the space suit) and follow me around in a radio-equipped vehicle for launch and recovery.

After a high protein breakfast I suited up with the help of two physiological support division (PSD) technicians and began the ritual of pre-breathing pure oxygen. The PSD technicians loaded me up in the van and drove me out to the aircraft, which was pre-positioned at the end of the runway. The aircraft was surrounded by portable lights, hoses, vans and support equipment. The scene looked like a Star Wars set, with the sun just breaking over the horizon.

My mobile gave me a thumbs up, indicating the plane was ready. It was a struggle in the bulky pressure suit to walk up the ladder and climb in the cockpit, but once seated I just raised my arms and the PSD guys strapped me in. Ten minutes later I started the engine and taxied into position. I think the foreign tower controller said, "Cleared for takeoff." Sometimes it was hard to tell, considering the heavy foreign accent.

So I threw the throttle forward, and the jet leaped off the ground in less than 600 feet. In the rear view mirrors I saw the outrigger "pogo" wheels fall away. I pulled the aircraft up into a 30 degree climb. Fifteen minutes later I was passing 60,000 feet. I now advanced the throttle from it's intermediate setting to max power. The U-2 would continue to climb throughout the rest of the mission.

An hour later I was approaching the border of the country I was going to overfly. I needed to orbit there for about 15 minutes to make sure I made the IP on time, and to scan the weather inland. If the weather looked bad I'd go home. Once I crossed the border, we couldn't go in again for another 3 weeks, that was part of the agreement. Radio silence was adhered to. Only to send a few mission codes or in case of emergency would I transmit on the radio. One last check of the engine, fuel, and camera systems and I was ready to go. The big glass hatch under the fuselage was only kept clear of ice as long as the electric heaters keep it warm. The heaters checked good.

I noticed multiple traces of jet contrails over on the other side of the border, some tens of thousands of feet below me. They appeared to be in an area used for air intercept training by one of the foreign states so I didn't think that was unusual. The weather looked good. From my lofty perch I could see at least 200 miles inland, where my photo flight line (PFL) would take me.

Finally it was time to head in. I got a few "hits" on my radar warning gear but that wasn't unusual. And it was all low pulse rate stuff, indicating that they were just searching, not tracking. At the start of the PFL I clicked the camera switch and recorded the time, altitude, and frame count. Through the viewsight I could see the IP, a road intersection and creek bend, right in the crosshairs.

The frame counter started clicking as some 800 pounds of glass in the planes belly began rolling and twisting and photographing the ground horizon to horizon while rocking back and forth to compensate for the aircraft's movement. I could feel the big camera start to dance. From there on it was just navigate, record data, and make sure the camera kept clicking. Believe it or not, one guy actually flew this mission years ago and forgot to turn the camera on. Hard to explain that kind of thing to the State Department. I don't need that kind of attention. My personal before-engine-start prayer always was, "Please God, don't let me screw up."

About an hour into the PFL my neck was aching from leaning forward and staring into the viewsight. I reached around the right side panel and pulled out the nylon bottle of Gatorade. One hundred percent oxygen really dries you out and I had already been breathing it for over three hours. I fitted the little nylon straw on the top of the bottle into the port on the right side of the helmet, fed it into my mouth and squeezed the bottle. It's funny how the taste of orange Gatorade brought a feeling of comfort and familiarity into that environment, the most hazardous and alien imaginable. The outside air temperature gauge read minus 63 degrees C.

At the end of the PFL I switched the camera off and swung back towards home base. I was well above 70,000 feet by then and the sun was intense in the cockpit. I adjusted the sliding sunshade a bit to block most of the sun's rays. Everything above me other than the sun was blue-black. The air was absolutely smooth. My inertial navigation gear told me I had a 4 knot crosswind. That's about all the wind there ever is up that high.

I'd be on the ground in just a few more hours and I was thankful this was a short mission. I have spent over 13 continuous hours airborne in the U-2. In the early days a Lockheed engineer proposed installing a refueling receptacle on the aircraft so it could stay airborne even longer. Rumor is he was murdered by some U-2 pilots.

Up ahead and waaaaay down there I saw a few more contrails. It looked like the fighter guys were really playing hard. I leaned forward to look through the viewsight. I searched in front of me with the viewsight hand controller and increased the magnification. Yeah, there they were, F-4s and a few French Mirage fighters really wringing it out.

Suddenly I heard the intense buzzing of one of the defense systems. The tone was impossible to ignore and literally shattered the peace of this high flight. A scanner had detected an afterburner plume in my 6 o'clock. I reset the warning gear and swung the viewsight around to my rear. I thought it probably was just the reflection of the sun off the water, or one of those fighter guys chasin' after each other.

However, at about 5 o'clock and 20 degrees down I saw two contrail plumes. Hey, those guys were coming up after me! On every "permissive" overflight our constant fear is a breakdown of a foreign country's command and control system which could result in an accidental attack. It sure looked to me like that was what was happening. I clicked off the autopilot and racked the U-2 into a 60 degree bank which, at that altitude, just about let you turn around inside the space of a hangar. I followed the two jets in the viewsight, both Mirages, as they attempted to turn with me.

I know my black airplane is virtually invisible from below -- but not to radar. I could just barely see the pilots' helmets through the viewsight, and it looked like they were maybe climbing through 50,000 feet. I watched the two contrails roaring out of their tailpipes in big billowing puffs - lots of push but not much airspeed. "Hey, this ain't funny, guys." Were they really after me or did they just happen to spot me on their radar and thought they'd take a look? Didn't someone tell them about my mission?

Sunlight twinkled off their missile seeker heads. I watched the two jets increase their turn and then, suddenly, one contrail just quit. Only a thin stream of vapor followed the wingman, who now broke formation and was obviously struggling with a real quiet jet. The Lead followed him down, and I swung my plane back toward home.

I remember once jinking around in a little T-38 jet back in Texas at 35,000 feet and, just like the book says: "High altitude plus high angle of attack plus throttle movement equals - FLAMEOUT!" Just like the Mirage down there, I guess. I couldn't confirm that I was attacked so I didn't start screaming on the HF for someone to call those guys and tell 'em to KNOCK IT OFF!!! Nobody else came up to look at me. I thought I'd just brief the intelligence officer who, hopefully, would pass it up channels and maybe our ambassador would remind their ambassador about the rules of our little game.

Ok, about 220 miles from home base I started packing up the map boards and pencils and dividers, moving them well away from the yoke. A little housekeeping was in order because I sure didn't want anything getting in the way while I was trying to land the Dragon Lady. Now it was time to start down.

You don't pull power way back at such high altitude or the engine will quit. The way to coax the U-2 down is by dirtying up the plane. First step: GEAR DOWN. I manually opened the engine bleed valves, just in case they wouldn't open automatically and put the fire out. The engine pressure ratio gage dropped, indicating the bleeds were open. Speed brakes out. For the first time since takeoff I feel the ship vibrate, and the nose grudgingly lowered slightly.

Spoilers out and the plane rolled hard to the right! One of the spoilers was frozen in the well with moisture. But I'd had that happen before and I was ready with a firm hand to reverse the roll and cycle the spoilers again. This time they both came up and the plane finally seemed to have been cut loose from it's sky hook.

Then I employed the gust control -- a system devised by Lockheed to move both the flaps and ailerons up about 3 degrees above the normal trail position. This changes the mean air chord of the wing, increases the planes speed tolerance and reduces lift. There was a pronounced trim change, nose down, as the gust mechanism moved the control surfaces. This was followed by pronounced buffeting, signaling that I could start reducing throttle, in small increments. About thirty minutes to landing. I had already called home so they knew when to expect me.

Descending through 10,000 feet I opened the face plate on the helmet and turned my oxygen off. Suddenly I was exposed to all the noise and smells of the cockpit. The cool air felt good on my face. I could scratch my nose for the first time in five hours. I unlocked the metal bands on the pressure suit gloves and removed and stowed them. One less thing between me and the plane will be important soon.

In the thick lower atmosphere the flight controls felt heavy. I could see the runway stretching out ahead. Flaps were down. Now the jet that a while back was a dainty ballerina was now a lumbering wobbling & well, Dragon Lady. At this point it was all just stick and rudder. With a good stiff crosswind, and my nose lined up with the runway centerline, I had to use lots of rudder. In the flare the yoke pounded from stop to stop to keep those long wings steady.

Mobile called the altitude of my main wheels above the runway from ten feet on down. "Three feet, tailwheels level," he said. Now all I could see was the long black nose in front of me. More aft yoke ... more ... lots of buffeting. Then -- kerthump -- I was down. Spoilers up to stay on the ground. I was still rolling the yoke in great sweeps of the cockpit to keep the wings level.

As I finally rolled to a stop the wind over the wings allowed me to keep the wings level until the pogo wheels were reinstalled. Because of the narrow taxiways at this base, the ground crew only installed one pogo and one guy jumped up onto that wingtip and rode there as I taxied back to the hard pad. The other wing hung out over the grass and taxiway lights. The local personnel love this sort of thing!

After shutdown I popped the hatch and climbed out. I exchanged my helmet and gloves for a cold beer with my mobile officer - a long tradition in the U-2 community. As I waddled over to the PSD van for the trip back to the showers the camera hatch was already removed and the big camera was being winched out onto a dolly for it's trip to the processing facility. Another ops mission complete.

I retired just as Desert Shield was changing to Desert Storm. We had already deployed to support the mission and, to this day, if I want to know where the U-2s are flying I just turn on CNN. U-2s are always where the action is. Our TDY rotation was 60 days gone, 60 days home -- I sure don't miss that. But I sure miss the Dragon Lady.

OWEN W. DYKEMA - F4U-4 CORSAIR

BRIEF BIO:

Owen W. Dykema was born in Villa Park, Illinois on February 25, 1929. In 1947, as a senior in high school, he joined the Naval Aviation College Program (The Flying Midshipmen). The NACP offered a trade of four years of college for four years of active duty as a Naval Aviator. In 1949-51 he took Basic (SNJ) and Advanced Carrier Qualification Training at Pensacola, Florida, and Advanced (F8F-1 Grumman Bearcat) Training at Cabaniss Field near Corpus Christi, Texas.

He received his Wings of Gold on January 31, 1951. After brief training in the F-80 Shooting Star (the Navy called it the TO-1) he was assigned to VF-192, based at Moffet Field, California. With that squadron he flew 47 combat missions in the F4U-4 Corsair off the carrier Princeton, qualifying for two Air Medals and a Navy Commendation Medal. He was released from active duty in January 1953. He subsequently flew another nine years in the Reserves, ending in the F9F-8 Grumman Cougar, a swept-wing jet fighter. In 1962 he quit flying Navy planes and transferred to the Engineering Duty Reserve Program of the Naval Air Systems Command. He retired from the Naval Reserves in 1985, with the rank of Captain.

Owen married the former Enid McKee in their home town of Villa Park, Illinois, on December 22, 1950 (while still a Midshipman). They had three children, Chris, Gail and Neal.

HIS STORY:

AN EPISODE IN BASIC TRAINING

In the spring of 1950 South Whiting Field, near Milton, Florida, in the Pensacola Naval Flight Training Complex, was grinding out beginning student pilots by the hundreds. At the beginning of each flight the silver SNJs would rise from the runway in a seemingly endless stream, then split up and proceed to the various operating areas and outlying fields. To get this mass of airplanes back in at the end of the period without crashing into each other was no mean trick. An outlying field, Pace, was designated as the beginning of the one and only approach "channel" into South Whiting. You were supposed to very carefully approach Pace, looking in all directions, and when you found an opening in the traffic, jump in. Then at exactly 1000 feet above Mean Sea Level and exactly 120 knots, you would proceed on a heading of exactly 090 degrees. That would lead you to a point just south of Whiting. You would then circle the field counter-clockwise until you came upon the active runway and land.

One time an underpaid flying midshipman (me) was taking off in that stream of aerial humanity for an hour of solo landing practice at an outlying field. The takeoff run was uneventful until I noticed that, although my indicated airspeed was over 100 knots I was still heavy on the runway. Things were getting a little tense when I suddenly lifted off and began climbing out. After that everything seemed to be all right, so I went on out to an outlying field and shot a bunch of landings.

On the way back I easily found a place in the channel and was put-putting along eastbound when I saw a strange sight. Another SNJ was flying a hundred feet or so above me, ahead and to the right. The really strange part was that the instructor was leaning out of the back cockpit shaking his fist at me! What the heck?! I checked my instruments again and I was indeed on altitude, airspeed and course. After a while the plane pulled away, with the instructor still gesticulating wildly out of the cockpit, and left me to proceed alone to the field.

As I got closer it became apparent that all the other planes were about 300 feet above me. I finally began to realize that maybe my altimeter and perhaps even my airspeed indicator were malfunctioning. I finally used all the other planes to establish my proper altitude, left on more power than usual, carried what I judged to be a little excess speed, and landed. The roll-out was long but otherwise no problem. With a huge sigh of relief I taxied back to the line and shut down.

By that time I had completely forgotten about the other plane and the wildly raving instructor. Not so him. I hardly got out of the plane before he was all over me like an African ocelot, lashing me with "... slipshod flying ... a danger to yourself and to all others in the pattern ... ought to be immediately drummed out of the service ... etc." .. ad nauseum. His student was standing back of him rolling his eyes and quietly gagging. I never got a chance to say anything but the obligatory "Yes Sir ... No Sir ... Yes Sir."

He immediately dragged me up to the Safety Officer and went through his entire litany, perhaps even madder this time. I could see the Safety Officer nodding, frowning, accusing, judging and sentencing. Before the day was out he would have me on a train back home. A couple of enlisted men in the background were quietly rolling their eyes.

Finally, after a while, everybody seemed to run out of gas, and began quieting down. Almost as an afterthought the Safety Officer asked if I had anything to say for myself. Trusting that the best defense is a good offense I charged in with, "Yes SIR. I believe the pitot-static line on my plane was plugged, giving erroneous airspeed and altitude readings. I am not sufficiently experienced to be able to properly diagnose such problems in the air. At the time the lieutenant waved at me my instruments were indicating 120 knots and 1000 feet. I believe this was a very dangerous situation and I could well have been killed." The two officers looked totally stunned. For several seconds they didn't even move. The enlisted men were engaged in an eye-popping struggle to keep from laughing. Total silence engulfed the room.

Then the Safety Officer began looking for some way out of the hole they had dug for themselves. How could they gracefully recover without letting it appear that they might just possibly have been a bit over zealous? Finally he said "We will check this out and if you are right you will hear no more about it. Dismissed." The instructor was still just standing there, with his eyes bugged out and (I like to think) a small drool running out of the corner of his mouth. I smartly executed an about face (turned around without falling down) and departed.

I never heard from them again so my guess must have been right. There is no indication in my flight jacket of any problem or action, right or wrong. Once again I had (just barely) dodged the silver bullet.

FLYING BEARCATS IN ADVANCED

In the fall of 1950 I was going through advanced training at Cabaniss Field just outside of Corpus Christi, Texas, flying the greatest prop plane of all time, the F8F-1 Grumman Bearcat. There's a picture of one, just after takeoff. The gear are up but the gear doors have not yet closed. (source unknown)

We were organized into a flight of eight, with seven students and a dedicated instructor. I was lucky enough to have drawn Ltjg B.E. Smith. By his direction we called him "Lieutenant". He was a really nice old guy of 26-30 years. In his college years he had been a local hero when he won the big Georgia Tech - Alabama homecoming football game. As he described it, he was in the end zone surrounded by the enemy, with no idea where the ball was, so just in case he threw up his hand. He felt a sharp pain and when he pulled his hand down the football was in it.

And airborne in a Bearcat he was a tiger's TIGER.

Example: The training squadron had a policy whereby, to prevent spark plug fouling from carbon buildup, possibly shorting out and causing engine failure during landing, each flight was supposed to end with some sort of high power maneuver. "They want high power, we'll give 'em HIGH POWER.", sez the Lieutenant. He would often take us right down on the deck for some semi-legal flathatting. There we were, eight Bearcats in tight formation with him leading and us stepped up on him, a total of 18,000 horses bellowing POWER, racing over the King Ranch and Padre Island at about 350 knots and zero altitude.

One time we were boring across Baffin Bay. The Lieutenant was so low on the water you could see the wake his prop was kicking up. Ahead in the distance, when I could afford to glance away from the guy I was flying on, I could see a guy standing up in a rowboat fishing. It was obvious as we approached that something was going to have to give. When we were still about a quarter mile away the guy simply dove into the bay.

Example: One syllabus flight called for high altitude familiarization. Heretofore we had hardly ever been above 10,000 feet, our oxygen masks had never even been plugged in. "They want high altitude we'll give 'em HIGH ALTITUDE.", sez the Lieutenant. By that he meant as high as the Bearcat would go. The -1 model was never really designed for high altitude and had no real supercharger. Somehow, the service ceiling was listed as 38,700 feet.

The Lieutenant arranged so that if any plane or pilot began to act up or feel poorly they were to advise him and then break away, to rejoin us at a designated rendezvous. On the way up, at 30,000 feet, we all rolled over on our backs so in the bar we could reasonably legitimately invoke that old saw, "Thar I wuz, at 30,000 feet, flat on my back, all tied up, when the automatic pilot bailed out with the only parachute."

Four of us finally got those Bearcats up to 37,500 feet. My engine was cutting out, then over-speeding, varying wildly from 1000 to 3000 rpm. We finally stopped at that altitude because that was the limit for demand oxygen. Then we had to come back down very carefully because of the danger of exceeding "compressibility" limits (exceeding the local speed of sound) in a plane known to become almost uncontrollable above those speeds. It did have the so-called dive brakes or spoilers to help recover from such situations but not much was really known about the problem. It turned out that the planes got so cold up there, and we descended at such high speeds, that a lot of paint stripped off. The four planes that got all the way up had to be repainted.

Example: The training syllabus said that to qualify in air-to-air gunnery we had to get more than 5% of our rounds into a target banner (about 6 X 50 feet), towed behind another Bearcat. The tips of the rounds in each plane were distinctively colored and left a smear around each hole in the banner. "They want hits we'll give 'em HITS.", sez the Lieutenant.

Normally the target banner was vertical and you fired as you closed on it from the side. The Lieutenant somehow got our target oriented horizontally, and taught us the dreaded, and I think unauthorized overhead run. You started about a mile ahead and out to the side of the tow plane and about 2000 feet above. The run started with a 180 degree turn until you were flying on a course opposite that of the tow plane and 2000 feet directly above it. When you judged that you were just a little ahead of the tow plane you rolled over on your back and flew inverted. As the tow plane passed underneath, where you could clearly see it and establish your exact position, you then pulled back on the stick and began a "split S" maneuver. This brought you vertically downward on the tow line as it passed underneath.

The secret, then, was to pull back your power (I like to think we dropped gear and flaps as well but I don't think we went that far) and just hang there, as slow as possible for as long as possible, facing vertically downward. As the target slowly drifted by, 500-1000 feet directly below, you could track it exactly and fill it up with bullets. (This must be what it is like to shoot fish in a barrel.) No one back at the base knew of this unorthodox maneuver, officially we called them "high side" runs, and they were astounded at our high scores. We all qualified on almost every flight and many scores were much higher. On one flight I hit 23%.

Having survived, I have to say that was some of the most richly exciting and rewarding flying of my life. To follow such a tiger in such a plane was fighter pilot heaven. Wherever you are today, Lieutenant, you still have my heartfelt respect and admiration.

FLYING THE F4U-4 CORSAIR

In my career in Naval Aviation I flew a number of planes. Except for the twin-engine SNB "Bug Smasher", all were single-engine fighter / attack planes. The best and "funnest" was the Grumman F8F Bearcat. But I got the most flight time, and 47 combat missions off a carrier in Korea, in the Chance-Vought (C-V) F4U-4 Corsair. Its most noticeable characteristic was the inverted-gull wing.

The Corsair had a huge prop, 13 feet in diameter, necessary to absorb the 2200 horsepower of the big Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radial engine. The cockpit was designed around the chief test pilot, Boone Guyton, who was 6-ft. 4-in. tall, so there was plenty of room in the cockpit, even for a 6-ft. 3-in.guy like me.

The Corsair was designed largely in the pre-war years, when design competitions tended to emphasize speed over maneuverability. C-V felt that if the wing joined the fuselage at a right angle the drag would be less, and the top speed would therefore be higher. It was that design goal of high speed that led to the long, narrow, cylindrical fuselage and the inverted-gull wing design. It did prove to be 50 knots or so faster than another plane using the same engine (the Grumman F6F Hellcat).

However, in 1939, when war began to threaten, the Navy came to C-V and asked for some modifications that would make the F4U more combat-ready as well. Among those were: (1) move the fuel out of its vulnerable position in wing tanks and put it up in the fuselage; and (2) increase the roll rate and at the same time lessen the stick forces required to roll the plane.

The first design change involved creating room in the fuselage for a 233-gallon fuel tank. To do that C-V pushed the engine forward a foot and the cockpit aft by three feet, and put that fuel tank right in front of the cockpit. That created an exceptionally long distance from the cockpit to the front of the engine, leading to nicknames for the plane like "hosenose" and "hog". As a further result, when the aircraft was in a three-point attitude, taxiing or flying at slow speeds (as in landing), everything in a rather broad angle ahead of the pilot was obscured. Eventually that created, at least for me, for a great deal of trouble landing aboard the carrier.

The second change involved lengthening and broadening the ailerons, which increased stick roll forces, and aerodynamically balancing those ailerons, which reduced those forces. A great deal of experiment and testing went into design of those ailerons. The final design was so heavily balanced that they were very nearly overbalanced. In the latter case the force of wind across the wing alone could cause the ailerons to move, thereby rolling the plane when least expected. One time that nasty characteristic nearly killed me.

The Corsair also had a few other unfortunate characteristics. Because of the high power of the engine and that big prop, there was a great deal of torque on the plane, particularly at slow speed and high power, as in a takeoff or in a waveoff from a carrier landing. A lot of inexperienced Ensigns and 2nd Lt.'s jammed the power on too fast and torque-rolled right into the ground. That led to the cynical "words to live by" (literally), "Low, slow and over you go in the F4U!".

In addition, it had very dangerous spin characteristics, particularly inverted. Especially in the Training Command lots of Ensigns and cadets spun right into the ground from thousands of feet up, unable either to stop the spin or to overcome the resulting high "g" forces to exit the aircraft, leading to the further nickname "Ensign Eliminator". This also led to the endless barracks argument, "In a spin in the Corsair, is it best to keep the power on full, to create strong airflow over the control surfaces, or to chop it off to get rid of the torque?" The only adequate answer always seemed to be, "Don't get into a spin in the Corsair."

In the cockpit the control stick stuck up between your legs and your legs stuck forward into twin "tunnels" that ended in the rudder pedals. On the control stick was a funnel-shaped device called a "pee-tube"(of obvious utilitarian function). On a left console (forward - aft) were the gear, flaps and arresting hook levers, the engine control unit, including throttle, prop (rpm) and mixture ratio controls, the trim tab control wheels and the wing fold controls. On the right console were the radios and circuit breakers. All such fighter and attack planes had to be flown "right-handed".

In the front of the cockpit was the flight and engine instrument panel. Just above that was a row of armament switches and the gunsight. And above that was a thick, flat plate of bullet-proof glass (which saved my life in Korea), fronted by an aerodynamically shaped windshield. The gun sight reflected a yellow reticule off the flat glass, for our use in aiming the plane for bombing and shooting.

The cockpit was roomy and relatively comfortable. You sat on a seat cushion on top of a seat-pack parachute. There was a spare oxygen bottle in the chute that was embedded cross-wise, just under the seat cushion. When you sat on the cushion the bottle would stick up slightly and cut across your legs, at about mid-thigh. In a long flight it would eventually cut off the blood circulation into your legs and they would tend to "fall asleep", from mid-thigh on down. Sometimes that became very uncomfortable.

You were strapped into the seat with both a seat belt and shoulder harness. Both were kept tightly cinched up at all times in flight. However, the shoulder harness was attached to the back of the seat via an inertia reel. During flight the inertial reel could be unlocked and you could freely bend and twist (not too fast) from the waist up, but when returning to land it had to be locked. One time landing aboard ship I failed to lock it and it worked, as advertised. It stopped me from doubling up full forward and smashing my head into the instrument panel. However, I did end up in position to read my altimeter from a distance of about one inch.

After a couple hundred hours in that hog, flying it and making appropriate use of all the surrounding gadgetry became second nature. You didn't climb into that airplane and go fly it, you strapped it on and went where you wanted to go, and did what you wanted to do.

FLYING THE CORSAIR IN THE FLEET

My checkout flight in a Corsair was at Moffet Field, California, in July 1951. I was teamed with an older, more experienced squadron pilot. We started off with 20 minutes or so of loose formation flying, just to get me familiar with the feel of the plane. He then signaled me to fall in behind him, in a loose trail, and so we could do some mild aerobatics -- just follow him. All went well until he led me into a loop too slow. At the top he just snuck over, and started down the back side. But I was too slow and stalled out, and immediately began an INVERTED SPIN!

I took a few milliseconds to consider my plight: (1) I am an Ensign in the "Ensign Eliminator"; (2) I am now an experienced Corsair pilot with all of a half-hour of "experience"; (3) the conclusion of the barracks argument had always been, "Don't get into a spin in the Corsair, especially inverted"; and (4) "What did I ever do to get to exactly this point in space and time?". I don't recall a great deal of fear at the time. Then I recalled that I had always supported the view that it was best to pull the power off, to eliminate that massive torque. Now was the time to put my money where my mouth was.

I pulled the throttle back to idle, pulled the stick full back and hit full rudder opposite the spin. Everything got very quiet. I was still inverted and the nose was still swinging around the horizon, but it seemed to slow, and to wobble. All of a sudden the plane flopped over into a normal spin. Stick full forward, again opposite rudder -- the spin slowly stopped and I was diving for the earth, regaining speed and control. I had made it, I was still alive, and maybe good for a few more years! Power back up and I was flying again. Everything was back to normal, except for a massive hot flush of adrenaline slowly dissipating in my blood stream.

REALLY FLYING THE CORSAIR:

The real challenge of the Corsair was to bring it aboard a carrier. With that long "hosenose" and the cockpit set way back it was very difficult to see ahead when in the "three-point" attitude, like when landing or taxiing. In the early days of World War II the plane was restricted to land-based (Marine) operations only, largely for that reason. The adjacent picture shows me of today critiquing me of a half century ago in my struggle to bring that bear aboard. I was in that approximate position in a Corsair about 100 times, landed 82 times, including five at night, and only crashed once, barely scraped the barrier.

That barrier engagement was largely because I had not yet learned how to orient my approach to let me to see around and over that big nose. The position shown in the picture is what the LSO would call "LIG" (Long In Groove) or simply "sucked". I'm sure it would have resulted in a waveoff. You may be able to see that, from that position, I simply would not have been able to see the ship. After some very difficult times I finally learned that if I kept the plane in a steady bank, if I kept turning all the way in, I could easily keep the ship in sight. The crucial lesson was: never get LIG, never be caught flying "straight and level" until after the cut. Once I learned that, landing aboard was a piece of cake. (Background picture by Stan Stokes, overall picture courtesy of the News-Review, Roseburg, Oregon.)

VF-192 had a squadron patch, usually worn on the leather flight jacket, called the "Golden Dragon". It looks like a (silver) dragon falling off the bow of a carrier. Rumor had it that that particular design was chosen to commemorate a "cold cat-shot" (catapult bridle starts pulling the plane toward the bow but then breaks, leaving the plane to take off under it's own power). The legendary plane was the Bearcat and legend has it that it made it. After VF-192 appeared in the movie "The Bridges at Toko-Ri", doing all the flying, the squadron began to call themselves "The World Famous Golden Dragons".

I was in the third division of the "Golden Dragons". We elected to have a special division patch made up to commemorate the farcical Police Action in which we were involved. We were the Keystone Kops of the UN Police Department.

The end of June 1952 was an exciting, even history-making time in Task Force-77 in the sea of Japan. As those of us in the trenches understood it, the U.N. allies had ruled out attacks on the electric power system and network in North Korea as long as there was a chance that we might have ended up taking it over. However, by the June 1952 it had become amply clear that we were going to settle for some kind of armistice that left everything north of the 38th parallel to the Communists. So the high command decided that was an appropriate time to take out all generating capacity up there

The power plants were the only remaining targets of any significant, concentrated value in all of North Korea. As a result, as you might expect, they were heavily defended, with all sorts of anti-aircraft guns, of all types. Our hope was that, after a couple of years of ignoring them as targets, the North Koreans might have become complacent, and might actually have diverted some of the idle defenses elsewhere. The plan was to hit them all at once, throughout all of North Korea, and knock them all out in a single massive strike. They got four carriers on the line on Sunday, the 22nd, and that single massive strike went out on Monday the 23rd.

Although they launched almost every available plane from the four carriers, I somehow failed to get on the schedule. In particular the guys who went way up north, to hit the Suiho plant on the Yalu River, had an exciting time. This plant was only about 40 miles from the big MIG base at Antung, across the river in Manchuria. F9F-2 Panthers from VF-191 were flying high cover on that raid, but no one really expected that they would be capable of shooting down any MIGs. Air Force F-86s were up there for that. The surprise worked. The antiaircraft defenses were heavy but many were caught napping, and it wasn't all that bad. Amazingly enough, no MIGs showed up. I don't believe there were any losses from those raids.

The problem began, however, when damage reports late Monday began indicating that, while we had totally destroyed two of the plants, the Suiho and the Kyosen, and pretty well damaged a third, at the Fusen Reservoir, the fourth, the big hydroelectric plant at the (famous) Choshin Reservoir, was still operating. (According to my maps from that time, the name of the reservoir in question was indeed spelled Choshin.)

We all immediately began clamoring to launch a second massive strike as soon as possible, at least as early as possible Tuesday morning, to knock that plant out before they could beef up the defenses. This was the last significant remaining source of electric power for all of North Korea, and the element of surprise was gone. A child of six could predict that this remaining plant would soon be the most heavily defended site in the world. Since I was one of the few who had not flown on Monday's strike I was assured a place on this second strike.

By nightfall we were all really upset. Word finally came through that we would indeed strike the Choshin plant the next day, first launch. Unfortunately, that still would give the Commies all night to prepare their best reception. And as luck would have it, I was indeed assigned to that strike. As the evening wore on we began getting reports from the night pilots who had been scouting the area that every road and railroad they could see had convoys of lights, all converging on Choshin. We fully expected that by Tuesday this would be the most strongly defended target we had hit to date. The ship's operations people were estimating 10% losses (acceptable). So I was looking at a 1-in-10 chance of getting killed the next day!

I don't think I slept at all Monday night. Lying there in my sack, I was never so scared or lonely in my life. I kept thinking how this might be my last night, my last few hours on earth, and I was spending it lying there alone in a bunk on a ship far from home in the Sea of Japan. The ship and the squadron were already fully anticipating the loss of several pilots tomorrow and they were not particularly concerned that one of these might be me. They were already geared up to perform the necessary notifications of next of kin, to adjust the squadron roster to fill in the empty spots (my place), and to go on operating as though I had never existed.

As advertised, we were up very early Tuesday morning (who slept?). I really felt rotten, and so did everyone else on the strike. Nobody talked about it, though, or shared their fears. As far as I could tell, I was the only one so scared. By 0430 we were in the cockpit and ready to go.

Unfortunately, the weather over the target was poor so we were put on hold. For 3-1/2 incredible hours we sat there, strapped in the cockpits, fidgeting, worrying, panicking (isn't the waiting always the worst?). I could just see hundreds of AA guns arriving at the plant, setting up, stockpiling the ready ammo, firing a few checkout rounds, getting ready for me (not us, me). Finally, around 0800, the word came: "LAUNCH ALL AIRCRAFT"! Sink or swim (survive or not), here we come!

Due to a number of illnesses I ended up flying on the skipper's wing. The strike consisted of about 40 planes, from all of the Princeton squadrons. Our skipper led the strike, so I was number two onto the target. We made the kind of attack where we all lined up generally in a circle around the target and peeled off into our dives like in an Esther Williams movie. Everybody fired their guns at the defenses on the way down, so the enemy gunners tended to keep their heads down, from the time the first guys (the skipper and I) started firing until the last, tail-end Charlie pulled out of his dive. In addition, if they were firing back at us during our dives, they had to keep rotating their aim as we came in from all parts of the compass.

The really sensitive parts of the attack were just before and after our defensive firing, just before the first plane went in, when everyone was close in and surrounding the target but no one was yet into their dive, and just after the last guy pulled out, when the ground defenses could safely pop up out of their bunkers or tunnels and fire at everyone going away. Of course, gun emplacements off to the sides of the target area would be firing all the time.

The skipper and I were exposed to the first sensitive period the longest, as we led everyone else into diving position around the target. The skipper was a real professional and I knew he would do it just right regardless of the danger. We were exposed to the ground fire at closer range and for a longer time than anyone else in the strike. Who more appropriate than the skipper and I to number among the "acceptable" 10% losses?

Nevertheless, I knew without a doubt that I would fly my wing position and do my best to hit the target regardless of the fear. With anything less, "cowardice in the face of the enemy", I would never have been able to live with the shame. I would never again have been able to look my fellow pilots, my friends or even my family in the eye. Perhaps most important, I realized I would not have been able to look myself in the eye, ever again. It was preferable to be killed in the strike than to demonstrate cowardice in the eyes of my own personal world. So I was between a rock and a hard place, which simply dictated that I go out and get killed, if that was to be my fate. There was no way out.

The morning was bright and clear -- cheery actually. I kept looking around to savor the view. As we approached the target the AA began appearing. In true form, the skipper flew up alongside the target, past it and began circling back, to line everyone up in the circle surrounding the target. Good tactics. The trouble was that the skipper and I (and a few others) were sitting up there like ducks in a shooting gallery, for what seemed like hours (just a few minutes). The AA was extremely heavy, with white and black (the heavy stuff) puffs appearing all around, and orange tracers drifting by from all quadrants. At times the big stuff was close enough to hear the sharp "crack!" over the noise of the engine and the wind. That was probably within 50-100 feet of us.

I was scrunched up into as small a ball as possible, there in the cockpit, looking over at the skipper and silently screaming at him to "GO, MAN, GO!". He just kept calmly (unafraid? - hardly) flying around the target, looking over his shoulder to be sure everyone was in his proper position for the attack. So far there were no losses that I could see, though I failed to see why not. How could they have missed us in that shooting gallery? It was at this time that one of the AD's from VF-195 got his tail shot off. The pilot got out, though how or where I never found out.

Finally the skipper seemed satisfied, waggled his wings and went in. I dutifully followed, with an enormous sigh of relief, at least to get moving and defending myself. We rolled into the dive and I began concentrating on the target, lining it up, putting the proper lead into it, and firing all guns almost continuously. It's hard for me to believe that I was doing all this while racked with such fear. Apparently fear is not necessarily paralyzing. Finally I reached the proper altitude and everything seemed right on, so I dropped my bombs.

Just then my windshield exploded into a million fragments of plexiglass, blown back into the cockpit by a 400 mile-an-hour wind coming through a large hole. I thought: "So this is what it is to die!" However, I seemed to still be flying, though still hurtling earthward at a great rate. I paused a moment (a few milliseconds?) to thank God, first that I was still (apparently) alive and in no pain, and second that I had followed squadron doctrine and lowered my goggles as we approached the target. The shattered plexiglass rained all over me and over my goggles, right in front of my eyes, but cut nothing!

I even had the presence of mind to waggle the stick from side to side to see if I still had control, and it seemed that I did. Next I had to find out if I was going to be able to pull out of the dive. I was already going down too fast and was too low to have much chance of bailing out. But the nose came up nicely and I was soon past horizontal, climbing out of the target area and, especially, out of that shooting gallery. The plane seemed to be flying normally. Apparently I had only the hole in the windshield and no other significant damage.

And that's what it turned out to be. What a relief! I was off the target, still alive, and with nothing more than a scratch, a hole about 8 inches in diameter in the windshield. Apparently something had gone through the outer, streamlined windshield and bounced off the flat plate of bullet-proof glass just behind it. It apparently had bounced up and over the cockpit and the plane, causing no further damage. What a relief to see that same fine morning and know that I again had a chance of seeing many more! I had this howling wind in the cockpit but that was no problem at all.

Without further ado we flew back to the ship, and I brought it aboard, hole and all, in a Roger pass (no signals required from the Landing Signal Officer). Just taxi that hog back into a convenient parking spot and get out.

What a day! Despite it all, there I was, still alive, and on the way back to Yokosuka for a few days of R&R. Did I need that R&R or what?

BRIEF INTELLIGENCE

Secret mission? What's a secret mission out here on this ship in the middle of the Sea of Japan, who we gonna tell? Are we gonna do something illegal that we'll have to keep from everyone to avoid a Court Martial? Why me?

It was evening and I had been sitting at a desk in the Junior Officers' Bunk Room, writing yet another letter to my wife, when the squadron duty officer came in. "Skipper wants to see you and Fred in the ready room -- now." When Fred and I got there we found eight other squadron pilots, the skipper, and an array of squadron and ship's intelligence officers. Eight of us pilots made up the second and third divisions of the squadron. George and Walter were probably there as spares, in case somebody's plane was down.

After we had all grabbed a cup of coffee and settled down the skipper announced, "Okay, guys, intelligence has asked us to carry out a very special mission. It is so sensitive that it is classified secret. Absolutely no one is to know about it except those of us in this room-- not now or in the near future. Duty Officer, make sure nobody comes in that back door until we are through with this briefing.

"We'll use napalm only on this strike and we'll go in at tree-top level, to assure accuracy. We think eight planes will be enough for the job. We have "volunteered" the second and third divisions, with Hank the overall leader. George and Walter will be the duty spares. Now for those of you who may not know him this is Commander Shultz, head of ship's intelligence. Listen carefully to him, this is a very important mission and we can't afford to screw up. Commander Shultz ..."

The Commander stepped up to the front, carrying the usual sheaf of papers. "Yesterday by secure message from fleet headquarters we got word that the North Koreans are planning a major offensive. As a measure of it's importance, we have learned that essentially all of the upper brass of North Korean intelligence have gathered in a small town near the east coast to plan the strategy. Some pretty prominent people are there, all concentrated in one place.

"We can assume that if such a major offensive is fully planned and executed we will lose a lot of our guys on the front lines. Let me say that again, the lives of a lot of young American men depend on our breaking up this offensive before it can be adequately planned and put into motion. And it all comes down to you guys, kill them before they can kill our guys, right?

"The reason this mission is so classified is that we have spies actively in place in that small town and any indication of the kind of information we have could lead to their capture and death. They have done a great job for us and at the very least we owe them all we can do to protect their identiy. So what we tell and show you here simply cannot leave this room.

"Our friends tell us that the intelligence brass have been staying in a small, two-story barracks building in the town of Sinjui -- here." He pointed on the map to an obscure place on the east coast up near Manchuria. "They have observed the comings and goings there and tell us that in the morning the Intel guys all regularly rise not before the sun is fully up, and go to a mess hall across the road for breakfast. Our plan is to saturate that barracks with napalm just at the crack of dawn, while they are all still in their beds. We leave the planning on how to do that up to you."

At that the skipper stepped up, "With all that brass in one location you can be sure the town is ringed with every sort of anti-aircraft fire. So we have to make a surprise, single run attack -- quickly in-and-out. The town is about a mile over a small ridge from the coast. Inbound you guys will fly right down on the water to avoid radar detection, then pop up over the ridge, hit the barracks building, and get right back out to sea. Our in-place spies have supplied us pictures of the barracks building and the surrounding area. They even gave us some taken from off-shore."

We all gathered around the briefing table. Laid out there was a series of remarkably clear pictures. The ones of the barracks showed a new-looking two-story building, bright in the morning sun. There were just eight windows, four on each level. The pictures taken from the sea showed a small ridge featuring two prominent peaks. "When you pop up between those peaks you will see exactly this picture of the barracks, again bright in the morning sun."

Hank picked it up, "As we approach the shoreline we will string out in trail, about 500 feet apart, so each can do their own careful aiming. My target will be the window on the far right, second story. The rest of you guys in my division will take windows successively to the left, covering the whole second story. Doc, you take the window just under mine and your division take the windows successively to the left of yours, covering the whole first floor. That way we can be sure to fill all the rooms in the building with instant flame, before anyone can move. My division will set the upper story on fire but you guys in the second division should still be able to see your targets below. Now we don't want any duplication or omission of targets so take a close look at these pictures and clearly identify your window. Dyke, where is your target?" I pointed to the widow on the ground floor, second from the right.

"That's right. Everybody else see their targets? Okay, that's it for now. Try to get some sack time, the duty officer will wake you at 0300 for a pre-dawn launch."

Fred and I shuffled back to the JO Bunk Room, self-consciously not talking about the up-coming mission. In the Bunk Room several guys asked what all the hush-hush was all about but we valiantly kept our mouths shut. I crawled into my sack but sleep was slow in coming.

Much too early the duty officer was shining a flashlight in my face, hissing my name, "Dyke -- Dyke -- it's 0300. You're on the 0500 launch."

Fred and I staggered down to the ready room. Everything was bathed in red light to preserve our night vision. We slugged down a quick cup of coffee, to get reasonably awake, and stuffed down a couple of sugar donuts.

Then we crawled into our flight gear. It was mid-summer so we needed only our "G-suit". Over that we would wear just our May West and a crash helmet. We would hardly be above sea level today so we did not need an oxygen mask.

Hank again went over the mission. We had to be very careful in our right-on-the-water navigation. We had to hit our "feet dry" crossing of the shoreline exactly or when we popped up over the ridge we would have to spend time searching for that little town, in full view of enemy radar. The resulting active air defense could be crippling. Neither could there be any helpful radio chatter on the way in. That left the navigation challenge entirely up to Hank, if he missed the exact shoreline crossing we could all be at high risk. But there were those clear identifying peaks, Hank just had to compare the shoreline coming up to the picture and we would be in.

"Remember," Hank reminded us, "when we get about a mile off the coast you guys all drop back in trail, until we have that 500-foot spacing. As we start climbing off the water I'll put on nearly full power. After we clear the ridge, and start downhill to the target I'll keep that power on so by the time we reach the target we should be holding just under 300 knots. It's all going to be in one shot so be ready, aim carefully, and put your napalm right through your assigned window.

"Remember, the guys sleeping in those rooms are setting up a plan to kill a whole bunch of our guys, in some kind of major offensive, so let's get them before they get our guys."

We all knew what it was we had to do. We shuffled around and talked quietly, and slugged down a little more coffee. Finally the ready room speaker blared, "Pilots, man your planes." A little shiver passed through me but then I was on my way to the flight deck. What the heck, I'm young and indestructible and this is just another exciting adventure, let's go!

The night was as black as the ace of spades, with high cloud cover obscuring any moon. The ship had small "dustpan" lights that shed a little light on the deck and there were a few small lights on the island but it was only with some difficulty that I found my plane. There under the fuselage hung the 1000-pound napalm tank. It was obviously too dark to do any kind of external preflight inspection of the plane so I just climbed on into the cockpit. So often my life depended on the unstinting care and feeding offered by squadron mechanics and plane captains -- tonight was no exception.

It was with some comfort that I eased into the cockpit. I had spent some 400 hours sitting in this tight space flying this plane, it was like a second home in here, like visiting an old friend. The plane captain helped me into parachute harness and shoulder straps. I stuffed maps and pictures into the side compartment, strapped on my knee pad, plugged in my G-suit and maneuvered the crash helmet over my head.

Then I turned on the battery and the instrument panel sprang into view, a reddish glow from a dozen instruments. I checked hydraulic pressure, set altimeter and trim tabs, and scanned circuit breakers and switches. Then switch off and wait. The night closed in and a damp, chilly wind swept through the cockpit. Waiting is always the worst part. The ship began a turn into the wind.

Finally the Air Boss speaker on the island blared, "Pilots start your engines." The plane captain on the deck signaled with his lighted wands that all was clear so I hit the battery switch, set the mixture control and throttle for start, and pumped the prime lever. When I hit the start button the engine ground over slowly and puffs of smoke curled out of the exhaust pipes -- but no start. I wobbled the throttle a little, added a few more strokes of prime, and again hit the start switch -- some gasping but no start. The thought flashed through my mind, "Hey, if I can't start, the duty spare can take my place and I'll just go back to the warm, bright wardroom, and another hot cup of coffee." Almost in response the engine caught and roared to life.

After everyone was well warmed up and all instruments were checked out and set, the deck crew began waving their wands, signaling us to start taxiing forward to the catapults. Normally we made our takeoffs from a deck run but visibility along the flight deck was so bad at night that it was policy to use the cats. As Doc and I moved into position the taxi director signaled to spread my wings -- down, locked and checked, thank you. I watched Hank and his four guys shoot off into the gloom. Then we were on the cats, fastened down to the bridles. Alongside me the lights on Doc's plane flared into full brightness and he surged off the deck.

I lowered my goggles, advanced the throttle to full, checked that everything was operating okay, sat back hard against the seat, and turned my lights on full bright. To counteract the thrust of the cat I wrapped my left hand securely around the throttle grip, so it wouldn't slip back and pull the power off during the shot, and tucked my right elbow into my belly, so my arm wouldn't jerk back and put the plane into a steep "up" attitude. I'm ready, fire me off.

There was a powerful jolt and an urgent thrusting against my back. A couple seconds of that and I was off the deck and flying. One of the problems with the Navy-issued helmet and goggles was that during a cat shot your head would be pressed back a little and the helmet and goggles would slip up. About the time you left the deck the rubber grommet along the bottom of the goggles was right up over your eyes. The first two seconds after I left the deck were occupied with reaching up with my throttle hand to pull them down so I could see.

And what a sight! I thought the deck was pretty dark but out here there was -- nothing! I saw no evidence of a horizon and had no idea how straight I was flying or how high I was above the water. The darkness was almost physical as it crowded in over the windshield and into the cockpit. Fortunately, there was my bathed-in-red instrument panel, right there in front of me, reassuring me that I was flying okay and was some 100 feet off the water. I rolled the canopy closed as quickly as I could.

Looking around a bit I could see Doc's lights ahead of me, and off to the left the lights of Hank's division, catching up and joining on their leader. Doc and I cut into the inside of their circle and soon they loomed up in front and to the right. Doc eased into his division lead position and I snuggled in on his wing. Jim and Fred came sliding up from the left and settled in as well. Hank turned away from the ship and took up our pre-plotted course.

I always thought that my night vision was not up to par. In the only night vision test I ever took I was the very last to identify all the dark, obscure objects on the test screen. Tonight I had to focus strongly and concentrate to see Doc and to hold my position on his wing. I knew the water was just below us -- somewhere down there. Doc's plane was showing dim formation lights on the wingtips and a turtle-back light on the upper fuselage just aft of the cockpit, all facing rearward. The lights clearly showed where Doc was but were of little help in guessing his distance away from me. His plane was little more than a slightly darker smudge against the black night. From time to time I would recognize that he was MUCH TOO CLOSE and abruptly back away! Focus -- focus -- focus!

I sweated that way for about 30 minutes until I began to notice that I could see the rest of the guys as well. Behind us the sky was beginning to lighten, I could see the reflection off Doc's plane. The flying became easier and I relaxed a bit.

With more light in the sky I could occasionally look away from Doc. I could see the coastline coming up. It looked to me like we were right on, headed directly at the two little peaks that were our goal. The thought flashed through my mind that this must be exactly where the spies stood in their little fishing boat to take the pictures of the ridge. When, just a couple of days ago? After a while it became light enough that we could clearly see that we were right on course. Hank had done it, we were coming in at exactly the right place.

Hank signaled us to string out. I took off a little power and began to fall back. About 500 feet behind Doc I added back enough power to stay with him. Then Hank added on more power and we began the climb over the ridge. I turned on the Master Armament switch, adjusted the brightness of the gun sight in the windshield, and charged my guns. I was as ready as I would ever be -- let's go do it!

The sight as we topped the ridge was breath-taking! There in front of us was the little barracks building, exactly as we saw it in the pictures. The sun was just peeking over the horizon and the side wall and the eight windows were in full illumination. The spies must have stood right here on this ridge, just below us, to get the pictures we saw. Could that have been just yesterday morning? Who were they, North Koreans, CIA -- anybody I knew? Might they be down there right now, watching us, cheering us on?

Hank started zooming down from the crest of the ridge, lining up on his window. I spotted mine and began setting my gun sight on it. There was no evidence of any life stirring around the building or in the nearby gun emplacements.

When the lead Corsair neared the little two-story barracks building I saw his napalm tank drop away. As he skimmed over the roof it crashed through a window in the top floor, and a massive ball of orange-black fire erupted from both the front and back of the building. Silhouetted against that flame was his wingman and his falling napalm. It crashed through the window just to the left of the first, and a second ball of flame erupted.

Number three Corsair was right on top of those two. His napalm missed the next window over but crashed through the wall, and a third ball of flame erupted. Number four hit near the last window on that level. By the time the first division cleared the roof the whole top floor was fully engulfed in flame and heavy smoke billowed skyward.

My division leader followed the track of the leader but dropped slightly earlier, putting his napalm further down and into the first floor window. I didn't see it hit because I was right on his heels, lined up on the second window over, judging to drop -- about -- NOW -- then pulling up to plunge through the billowing smoke and fire, hopefully clearing the roof by a safe margin. For a brief moment I was fully engulfed in the red-black flame and smoke -- with a wrenching bump I was clear.

Ahead I could see the five Corsairs skimming over the tree tops in a tight turn to the right, turning back out to the coast. I jammed on the full 2200 horsepower and pulled harder, trying to cut inside and make up some of the distance between us. Just off my right wing-tip the tree tops and a scattering of houses flashed by. A few people looked up, frozen in horror. On the outskirts of town a soldier wrestled to bring his gun to bear. I looked back and saw the entire building enveloped in a single massive column of flame and smoke. For sure, none of the inhabitants survived that morning.

The entire attack, from the time we cleared the ridge in the east until the last man cleared the building, had taken only about 20 seconds. Of that, only seven seconds were involved in the actual attack. Flying at 500 feet per second (340 miles per hour) and separated in line by about 500 feet, our eight napalms had struck the building at the rate of one per second -- boom - boom - boom - boom -- boom - boom - boom - boom! Absolutely no chance for the air defenses to come awake, much less to man their guns. Another couple of minutes and we once again cleared the ridge, this time outbound to the sea, and home.

Amazing, everything went just as planned! We were in and out, there was no anti-aircraft fire, and there was no damage or losses to any of us. I never even fired my guns.

And so we did our part. From spies to U.N. headquarters to fleet headquarters to ship to squadron to us troops. What kind of "dark of the night", sneaking around skullduggery must have gone on, perhaps just the night before, to get all that hard copy info and those fine pictures out to us? A submarine? And they all trusted us to make all the risk worthwhile! Despite the circuitous route and all the urgency we all worked smoothly and quickly together and it all came off as planned, and as we had all hoped. Later the spies told us that we did indeed catch all the intelligence brass in bed, and ended the threat of a major offensive. We had no way or reason to question that assessment.

There was also no way we would ever know just how many of our guys we saved that day. There was no major offensive in the next few months but we could not claim that was because of us. No medals for any of us heroes either, since the attack simply never happened, right? What attack?

BACK HOME -- FLYING THE PITTS

But all that was then, this is now. Today is February 25, 1994 and it's my 65th birthday. Man, 65 sounds really old. Isn't that when you are supposed to signal time out and take a seat on the bench, or even in the audience? (Was that a ref's whistle?)

Between my 20th and 33rd birthdays (when I was young) I was a fighter pilot in the Navy. All military pilots are taught some aerobatics as part of their basic training, and fighter pilots essentially fly aerobatics for a living. Between my 45th and 47th birthdays, now a civilian, I flew an (almost) aerobatic Beechcraft out of Van Nuys airport in California. Frequently, on a quiet Saturday afternoon, I would gas the Beechcraft up part way, to minimize weight, go out alone into Apple Valley, just across the San Gabriel mountains to the north, and fly about 45 minutes of aerobatics.

Now it is 18 years later and I'm now 65. Are those fun days gone forever? Is it time to ease off the throttle, and just sit back and coast along? Well maybe not. For my birthday my wife gave me an hour of flight time, with a qualified instructor, in one of the finest aerobatic airplanes ever, the Pitts Special. Let's go fly!

The airport is once again Van Nuys, the Pitts is owned by Thomason Aircraft Corporation and the instructor is Randy Gagne, a long-time member of the Canadian competitive aerobatic team. He has some 17,500 hours of flying time, mostly in aerobatic planes. Every other year or so he flies in world competition. But he envies my military fighter time.

The Pitts is a sweet little biplane no taller than myself, with a wingspan not much wider than your average two-car driveway. It's a very sexy-looking fire-engine red with flashy white piping. It has a 260 HP Lycoming engine and, with that light weight, it can more than do all known aerobatics. The good-lookin' dude standing alongside in the adjacent picture is none other than yours truly.

This version has two cockpits, front and back. The instructor goes in back. The front cockpit is so small that it takes 15 minutes or so to squeeze in my 6'3", 220 pound frame. All back and seat cushions are out. I struggle into a tiny, but hopefully adequate parachute. I don't even want to look at it, I know I'm going no matter what.

Then come the seat belt, shoulder harness and "crotch strap". The latter is there especially to hold me in under negative "Gs", like in inverted maneuvers. Randy says, "Trust me, if you have to get out of the plane in the air you'll make it." (Who cares, let's go.)

So out to the runway and off we go. Weather conditions around the airport are typical mid-San Fernando Valley, a dull brown in smog and haze, with visibility reduced almost to three miles. However, we soon climb out of that and the sky takes on a bold, deep blue. The mountains are a mixture of soft gold-browns and sharp greens. It's winter in the Golden State.

I'm fretting to myself, after all these 18 years will I remember how to fly aerobatics, or will I find that this is just another fond memory of my youth, now forever out of my grasp? Worse, will I get sick and throw up all over the cockpit and myself? I have no fear for my safety but I truly fear messing up, proving to myself that it is indeed time, or past time, to hang up the helmet and goggles and get out of the way.

But Randy says, "Don't worry, it's like riding a bicycle, it will come back to you right away. You do all the flying. Just be gentle, she is very responsive." So I'm flying again, and I gingerly test the controls. Ms. Pitts wiggles appreciatively to every touch. "I can hardly wait", she whispers.

Out in the aerobatics area Randy says "You fly it, I'll just keep you out of serious trouble and tell you what you need to do to improve the next one."

So I elect to do a barrel roll and before I have time to reconsider, sweet Ms. Pitts and I are into it. The nose comes up steeply and we start rolling to the left. 45 degrees from our original flight path our wings are vertical. At 90 degrees we are level and inverted (as in the adjacent picture) and have slowed to near stall. We continue to roll and drop through until we end up wings level and heading the same direction as we started. It won't win any international competitions but for my first aerobatic maneuver in 18 years, not bad, not bad at all! And I feel great. "Not bad," Randy tells me, "but let me show you one." He shows me a perfect one and I take a moment to feast on humble pie, then perform two cheap imitations. Blues and greens switch positions and back again.

"Now try a hammerhead turn," says Randy, "I'll tell you when to kick rudder." So up comes the nose, until we are flying vertically upward. Gs are off as we coast on up. Now we seem to be just hanging there, motionless in a field of blue. The Lycoming is trashing away but unable to hold us much longer. "Now", says Randy. I push full left rudder and, without giving it a second thought, apply the necessary forward and right stick to hold the wings in the vertical plane while Ms. Pitts slowly rotates on her left wingtip. Now pointed vertically downward, "thousand one, thousand two", gradually apply Gs to pull out and there it is. My first hammerhead turn in 18 years and, in that light, not bad at all. The stick maneuvers at the top were left over memories, for some reason still resident in my left brain and right hand, ready and waiting for all these years.

"How about a snap roll?", says I. A snap roll is a maneuver in which the wing on one side is stalled, contributing no lift, and the other is still flying, contributing lots of lift. The radically unbalanced lift whips you around in a full 360 degree roll in about 1-1/2 seconds.

I pull back on the stick and feed in hard right rudder. Ms. Pitts starts to pitch up and to the right and then - there it is - a brief shudder as the right wing stalls out, and we are spinning on our way. About three quarters of the way around the automatic response again kicks in and I briefly apply full left rudder and stick, then back to neutral. Ms. Pitts abruptly stops spinning, wings level and nose on the horizon, Lycoming humming, flying along as if nothing had happened. Was that an accident? Back stick and right rudder ... up and away ... spin ... brief left rudder and stick and we're out again, wings level and nose on the horizon. Once more? No question, I can still fly that one as though I never stopped flying aerobatics. I am in no way a Randy Gagne but, as we used to say in the Navy: "Good enough for government work." ("You okay," asks Randy? "S'awright", says I.)

"How about a lomcevak?" I have never flown one of these but have always been fascinated by them in the air shows. I've seen lots of them from the outside but never from the inside. Such a maneuver is definitely not safe in the heavy Navy planes, and probably impossible in the minimal aerobatic Beechcraft. It seems to be nothing less than a totally out-of-control 100 mph tumble through the sky. Randy tells me that it is actually a fully controlled maneuver, more like a combination of inside and outside snap rolls. "You fly it all the way," says he, "All you do is ... stick over to the left ... hard left rudder ... then back stick ... reverse to an inverted snap ... now you just fly your way out of it." (R-i-i-gh-t.)

So here we go, and we pitch up into a left snap roll. I slam against the belts as the blue rapidly swims underneath, then above. (Didn't we just tumble end over end there?) In the midst of all this chaos Randy says "Oh yeah, this is a good one. Now we'll just fly this off ...". the blues and greens tumble and swirl about us and the seat belts grab tight then let go. I get the picture of Randy and I hanging on to a full-spirited bronco. Then we fly out of it into the normal, sane sky, with the Lycoming humming comfortably and all colors back in their proper places. Marvelous and exciting - I love it!

All of this so far has taken only about 45 minutes yet I am already feeling somewhat exhausted and over stressed. To my infinite relief I find that there is still no need to locate the barf bag. A few loops and slow rolls later I suggest that we end this session. I'll be back another day.

On the way back I look at the tops of the green mountains as they slide underneath and think how absolutely marvelous this has been. It was tremendously exciting and fun. But more, it was sort of a catharsis. For nearly an hour I proved to myself that I am not necessarily over the hill. I'm not too old to do some of the most exciting things I ever did as a youth, and I have neither forgotten how nor become incapable of doing so. I'm still a participant. Who says you can't go home again?

Randy says that one of the guys currently flying the aerobatic competition circuit is 79 years old. "Give me five hours and I'll have you flying right with him." So I have at least another 14 years or so before I'm really old. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll be dead by then.

I smiled all the way through the landing and debrief, even while paying the $200, and all the way back home. My wife tells me I smiled all through the night.

P.S. On October 25, 1997, Randy was instructing an airline pilot in aerobatics in a German-built EXTRA 300 aircraft, in this same aerobatics area. For unknown reasons the plane struck the ground, and both aboard were killed. Randy died doing what he loved to do.

(My further adventures in Korea are contained in the book, Letters From the Bird Barge. To order a copy, return to "Home Page" and click on "Book Sales".)

PATRICK A. HAZEL - PILOT - F-84

BRIEF BIO:

Patrick Hazel was born on May 31, 1929 in the abandoned mining town of Jerome, Arizona,. He was attending the University of San Francisco when, on May 7, 1951, he decided to join the Air Force, to become a pilot. He was immediately assigned to "boot camp" at Lackland AFB, Texas, and later at Goodfellow AFB, near San Angelo, Texas. He then proceeded to Bainbridge, Georgia, for primary flight training (T-6) and then to Bryan AFB, just north of Dallas, Texas, for basic (T-28 / T-33). He received his silver wings and was designated a 2ndLt in December, 1952. Advanced was at Luke AFB just outside of Phoenix, Arizona, where he settled in to the F-84 Thunderjet.

Pat pulled a one-year tour in Korea, flying the F-84 in both fighter and attack roles. Upon returning to the U.S, in April 1954, he was assigned as a radar controller at Morro Bay, California. After four years of active duty Pat left the Air Force, with the rank of Captain. He spent and additional few years in the Air Force reserves, instructing in T-33s and F-84s and flying the F-80. He left the Reserves in 1967, with the rank of Captain.

Pat married Betty J. on March 12, 1955. Together they have five children, Mary L., Lisa K., Janice L., Jennifer Ann and Patrick K.

HIS STORY:

During my sophomore year at the University of San Francisco, I decided to quit my studies, join the USAF Cadet program and become a pilot. I didn't know much about aircraft but knew that I wanted to fly. In May of that year I enlisted and was soon on my way to Lackland AFB, Texas, for "boot camp". A rude shock shortly after arrival was when we were informed that whether or not I was successful and actually became aircrew, I was hooked into the USAF for four years.

On completion of basic airman training I was assigned to Goodfellow AFB near San Angelo, Texas. There, with 300 others, I waited for six months for a Cadet class to open. There was nothing to do but swim every day and go dancing at night -- a great time in my life.

Eventually, my turn came and I moved to Bainbridge, Georgia, for primary flight training. I was assigned to Class 52H and we flew the North American T-6G Texan. This was the final version of the T-6 and it was quite heavy. By that time I just knew I was born to fly. I'd been a keen aeromodeller but I had never had an opportunity to fly. I soloed after an average number of flights and completed my primary training in about six months. All of our instructors were civilians and they were absolutely first class. Many were ex-bush pilots or crop dusters.

I did get well and truly reamed out by my instructor on one occasion. I had been having trouble with spin recovery for some time, so I decided on my next solo flight I would sort it out. I climbed to a good safe altitude and practiced until I felt I had it under control. On landing, I told my instructor that I had spinning nailed. After a few gasps and grunts he lined me up against a wall and really chewed me out. Spins in the T-6G were quite dangerous and were never to be attempted by solo students.

The most important thing I learned in primary, the hard way, was to trust your instruments. My first solo night instrument flight was from Bainbridge to Columbus, Georgia, and back. On the return leg, I looked back and saw the lights of a city, which I thought was Columbus. If that was correct then my compass was apparently in error by about thirty degrees. I corrected for this and soon ended up over another small town. I was able to identify my location by diving down to read a prominently illuminated sign identifying the Hotel Macon, in Macon, Georgia. I was indeed lost. Following proper procedure, I called the base and advised them that I was "temporarily misplaced" but that I could see aircraft in the Bainbridge traffic pattern, and would come on home. I was told to stay put, the standard procedure was for an instructor to come out and find me and (ignominiously) lead me back to the base.

The next morning, in the Briefing Room, I had to stand up and describe the previous night's events. The flight commander informed me that I was not "temporarily misplaced" but was lost, and then left the room. I'm sure my instructor was not too happy about the whole thing. There were questions on how I had been able to read the hotel name without descending below briefed minimums but that was soon forgotten, and I moved on. My final check ride was with a junior officer who was considered the best T-6 pilot in the Air Force.

My next posting was to Perrin AFB, just north of Dallas, Texas, for basic training. There we were to fly the new North American T-28 Trojan which was equipped with tricycle landing gear. However, there were not enough of the new trainers so some of us were assigned to an older version of the Texan, the T-6D, which we flew for about four months. It was much lighter and was a great aerobatic aircraft.

I managed to get just one flight in a T-28 before moving on to the jet-powered Lockheed T-33A tandem-seat trainer, at Bryan AFB, Bryan, Texas. I spent another three months in the T-33 training in general handling, instrument, formation flying and aerobatics. The T-33 was an eye-opener to me as it had so many check-lists. Not being mechanically inclined, I had quite a time with them until I finally sought out an engineering officer. He explained what actually happened to the engine and systems when I did certain things and after that I had no problem.

The class stayed together throughout this course until, in December 1952, we were awarded our wings and became 2nd Lieutenants. We were then separated to either advanced multi- or single-engine training. I was assigned to the 3600th Flying Training Wing at Luke AFB, Arizona, to fly the Republic F-84 Thunderjet. At the time, most of the guys were hoping to go to the new F-86s but I didn't care as long as I got single-seat fighters.

When we arrived at Luke the gate guard, when he heard we were going to fly the F-84, wished us good luck. At the time there had been a number of accidents with F-84s. Those early F-84 models, the -B and -C, were badly underpowered. They were fitted with a 4,000 lb thrust Allison J-35 engine, the same one that underpowered the T-33. As newer versions were built the thrust was increased but the operational weight increased as well. The -D model had 5,000 pounds of thrust. In addition, the control system was changed from hydraulic to mechanical, to save weight.

The F-84 was a straight-winged bird with 230 gallon tip tanks. It was armed with six 50 caliber guns, and could carry 24 rockets under the wings. It was much slower than the swept-wing F-86 Sabre. Maximum speed in a clean condition was around 600 mph and maximum operating altitude was 32,000 feet. At this height, the aircraft was "twitchy", but was equipped with adjustable flight control sensors which made it much easier to fly.

The final model, which we eventually flew in Korea, was the F-84G. In addition to the weapons mentioned above it could carry two 500 lb bombs under the wings, inboard of the landing gear. The J-35 engine thrust was increased to 5,600 pounds but the maximum take-off weight had grown from 14,100 to 22,000 pounds. To get airborne on a hot day in Korea from a 9,000 feet runway it was common practice to use a rocket booster system strapped under the rear fuselage (JATO), which was jettisoned after take-off. All versions of the F-84 had a very roomy cockpit with everything in easy reach. Visibility in all but the F-84G was somewhat restricted by canopy structure but the G model had a bubble canopy, with superb visibility all around.

After the usual ground instruction and cockpit familiarization I went off solo, with an instructor following me in another aircraft. A dual-seat F-84 trainer was never built. Very early in this first flight I fell in love with the F-84. I asked the instructor if I could cut loose and ring the plane out. He okayed it and, on this my first flight in the F-84, I ran through the full gamut of aerobatic flight. I had a wonderful time. It turned out to be the most forgiving jet I ever flew. On that first flight, while inverted at the top of a loop, due to my lack of attention, I stalled and started falling inverted. I pushed the stick into every corner, to no avail, so I finally let go of it. All by itself the aircraft rapidly fell through straight ahead, rolled over and recovered to normal flight in a shallow dive. However, my instructor was not impressed, and told me so in a number of choice words!

Like most high speed aircraft, if you red-lined the airspeed it would tend to tuck a wing under. A couple of pilots were killed at night due to this phenomenon. The quick solution to recovery was simply to open the air-brakes and slow down. In the gunnery training phase, the aircraft proved to be very stable gun platform. We also practiced level flight bombing from various altitudes and dive bombing. The instructors would lead a flight of four in trail at low level through the canyons, some so narrow that you had to stand on a wing to get through. If he managed to lose you you flunked the course! It was very difficult in the number four slot, so he would be a little more lenient with that position.

That course lasted about three months. Then I was assigned to the 310th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, 58th Fighter-Bomber Wing at K-2 Airfield, Taegu, Korea. The adjacent picture is our squadron patch.

Luckily, we went by sea and were transported on a ship which also carried service families en route to Japan. It was just like being on a cruise ship with full waiter service in the dinning rooms and plenty of time to enjoy the voyage with minimal duties.

When we got to Korea, in April 1953, we found that there was not enough flight gear to go around. However, you were free to buy your own if you wished, in the local black market, including your 45 caliber pistol! Normally we wore only a flight suit, speed jeans ("g" suit) and a hard helmet. Since most of our flights were at low level we had no need for an oxygen mask. In addition, although we operated only over land, we always wore a Mae West. In the winter we also wore a "poopy suit" ( a waterproof thermal suit), in case we came down in the sea. The adjacent picture shows a couple of us in front of "Ops". I am the good-looking one on the right.

By this time, peace talks were in progress between the United Nations and North Korea. Our squadron was well above established aircrew staffing levels and the few combat missions available were eagerly snapped up by the veterans, aiming to get their 100 combat missions in so they could get rotated home. This was very disappointing to me. Just prior to my arrival the Wing had been flying around-the-clock bombing missions.

Interestingly, the F-84 has received little publicity regarding its participation in the Korean conflict. It was one of the first combat jets to arrive in Korea, in 1951, and it helped to stem the invasion from the North. B-29 bombers were brought in to make both day and night raids over North Korea and against the enemy troop concentrations. Using its fighter capability, the F-84 units, all designated as Fighter Escort Wings, were charged with escorting the B-29s on the daylight raids.

Then the Russian Mig 15 jet fighter appeared on the scene. Initially it was thought that the F-84 would have no chance against this high performance swept-wing jet. However, pilots soon discovered that the Mig-15s couldn't turn as tightly as the F-84, and so the Mig-15 had to deploy speed brakes to effectively engage an F-84. Of those Mig pilots dumb enough to do this, the F-84 pilots shot down thirteen, while defending the B-29 formations. Eventually, the F-84s were replaced by F-86s in the Escort role and the F-84 units were re-designated Fighter-Bomber squadrons, and were used primarily in the ground attack mode.

The Truce was signed on July 27, 1953. One little known fact pertaining to the truce was that we agreed not to upgrade our airfields or equipment. As usual, our side stuck to that agreement while the enemy did not. Compared to aircraft based in Formosa (Taiwan today), our F-84Gs were several updates in arrears. And all the while the North Koreans and Chinese continued to improve their facilities and to bring in more aircraft and equipment.

For the remainder of my one-year tour, I did nothing but routine patrols and training flights. Many of the training flights involved improving our bombing techniques, both high angle dive bombing and low level attacks. A dive bombing run started from about 22,000 feet, with mandatory recovery by 5,000 feet. We used a moving pipper to track the target. I never did get an opportunity to do any air to air firing. For our low level training, we used an army range set in a bowl known as "The Coffee Cup". We had to dive down one edge, shoot at the target and pull very hard to clear the cliffs on the other side. We found a narrow canyon leading into the bowl, so we would fly down this canyon virtually standing on a wing, roll wings level, fire a short burst and pull up vertically. Lotsa fun!

Availability of flying hours in the F-84 were very limited so, to offset this, I acquired my Instructor's Rating. This put me well up the flight roster but most of the additional flying was in the T-33.

Living conditions in the huts on the base were not too bad. The adjacent picture shows my cozy army cot. Note the array of wine bottles on the desk. To improve things, we built a fairly basic officer's club right on the flight line. Eventually the Inspector General required that we relocate it to a less obvious site. We took part of a barracks block and the squadron members created what was probably the best officer's club in Korea with bar, dining room and lounge. Most of the furnishings were scrounged and imported from Japan.

One of our training missions set me up for a memorable incident. The Wing Commander decided that the entire wing would practice formation flying one day. We formed up and headed up towards the 38th parallel to do a patrol in strength. While we were en route, I suddenly realized that I had a fuel flow problem. Normally the tip tanks would be used after take off, then the wing tanks and then the main fuel tank, mounted in the fuselage. My instruments showed that I was drawing down the main tank. After checking my fuel transfer valves and having my wingman look me over for leaks, I informed the leader of the situation and received permission to head home. But it soon became obvious that I wasn't going to get there.

Below me was an airfield, K-47, at which we were forbidden to land. Thinking that I had little choice I called the tower at that field and, as luck had it, one of the controllers was an ex-F-84 pilot. He told me that I could make it in provided I made the first few feet of the runway and hit the brakes right away. Well, the runway was mostly pierced steel planking with some dirt at either end. Compounding the problem were power lines at the approach end of the runway. The other end of the very short strip terminated in a railway embankment. Obviously, the field was normally intended for light aircraft.

On my first approach, in an effort to clear the power lines, I came in much too high and fast to chance it. My fuel gauges were now reading EMPTY so I cleaning up the aircraft and hauled around into a very tight circuit at low altitude. This time I scraped over the top of the power lines almost in a stall and aimed to clear the boundary fence by the absolute minimum. Meanwhile, a hoard of Koreans had lined the fence on the approach end to watch my daring landing. When they realized how low I was going to be it was just like the parting of the Red Sea!. I planted my wheels in the dirt, which slowed me down a little and, using maximum braking, I eventually came to a halt only halfway down the runway. Of course, the steel planking and the strong braking had shredded my tires. A ground crew came out to replace the tires and check the fuel system. They could find nothing wrong and I still had ample fuel left.

When I returned to Taegu the squadron ops officer told me I was in deep trouble for landing at the strip. He didn't believe my story about the fuel indications. However, the aircraft was set up with the engines running and sure enough, the gauges repeated the problem. In the briefing room the following morning, the subject of discussion was short field landing techniques. As the meeting came to a close, the wing leader had me stand up and said that if anyone had any questions I was the one to ask. With that, he left the room and I never heard another thing about it.

One of the real highlights of my tour was the visit paid to us by that true sex symbol of the time, Marilyn Monroe. That was just a few years after her famous "nude-on-velvet" picture came out, a major revolution at the time. There she is in all her (heavily clothed) glory, in front of our Ops building.

At the end of my tour, in April 1954, the bottom fell out of my world. At that time, a number of radar bases around the USA were being operated, as an experiment, by ROTC officers. Unfortunately, it wasn't working out very well, so about a hundred of my fellow fighter jocks, and I, were made radar controllers at these bases. I was assigned to a unit at Morro Bay in Northern California. Each month I got just five hours of flight time, to keep my flight status. This was mostly in either Beech C-45s or North American B-25s, out of March AFB near San Bernadino or Hamilton AFB in Marin County, CA. Being the only single officer there, I regularly pulled double shifts and couldn't wait to get out of there. I took the first job that came up and became a public relations officer covering most of California and adjacent states. When my four years were completed, I left the Air Force.

In 1956 I joined the Air Force Reserves where, for three years, I flew as an instructor in T-33s and F-84s at Hamilton AFB. I also got the opportunity to fly the F-80, the single seat version of the T-33. With its tip tanks removed, it was a wonderful aircraft in which to perform aerobatics. I left the military and flying in 1959, still with the rank of captain. However, I was still in the recallable Reserves and so I was not fully released unril 1967.