Escape from Fidel

It was October 1969.  The Cold War was in full swing.  There was a shooting war in Southeast Asia, but on the home front we were heavily engaged in keeping the Soviet Union at bay in Europe.  The Strategic Air Command (SAC) was on alert all day, every day, with 50% of its aircraft on alert; the ICBM force was close to 100% on alert.  At sea, the US Navy had SLBM submarines on station and ready to launch if the order came to do so.  Also at sea were the US Navy "attack boats" that hunted and kept track of Soviet SLBM submarines prowling our own coast lines.  It was a tense and serious game.

Because of the increasing Soviet SLBM threat, SAC forces were increasingly at risk, especially the force located near coastal waters.  In order to counter that threat, SAC adopted what was called Satellite Alert and dispersed part of its alert force to additional bases in order to increase the number of targets the Soviets had to deal with.  Only part of the B-52 force was being dispersed to satellite bases; bases like Ramey AFB, Puerto Rico, had to fly all the way to Florida to get to its satellite bases.  The B-52s from Ramey flew to Homestead AFB, which is some 30 miles southwest of Miami; their supporting KC-135 tankers flew to MacDill AFB, which was about eight miles south-southwest of Tampa.  The tankers also served as logistical support in getting crews and maintenance people and supplies to Homestead and MacDill.  

The following events occurred in October 1969 at Homestead as a Ramey tanker crew was awaiting takeoff clearance for a flight from Homestead to Ramey.

Major Jim Nouss and his crew were at the hold line for Runway 05 waiting for departure clearance.  It was a normal day at Homestead.  SAC had recently moved out of Homestead in a force restructuring, and TAC had taken over occupancy of the base.  TAC was flying F-4Es from Homestead.

F-84E

While Nouss and crew were awaiting takeoff  clearance the copilot noticed a single, low flying fighter turn onto final for Runway 05.  As it got closer to the runway the copilot noted that the aircraft had not slowed to landing speed and that it looked oddly familiar.  The copilot commented over the intercom that the aircraft looked like a MiG-17; Nouss scoffed at the notion.  The aircraft flew down the runway heading at a high speed and, staying low, made a right turn as if to set up for an approach and landing to Runway 05.  The pilot of a F-4E had been taxiing out for takeoff as the aircraft made its low pass down Runway 05; he called Homestead tower and asked if they knew what that aircraft was that just flew down the runway.  The Tower replied that it was an F-84.  The F-4 pilot, a recent returnee from an assignment in Southeast Asia, told Tower that the aircraft was a MiG-17.

Mig-17

There was a few seconds pause; then Tower broadcast on UHF Guard frequency instructing all aircraft on the field to hold their position and that there was a MiG flying in the vicinity.

The MiG-17 stayed low and maneuvered to final approach; the MiG pilot slowed to landing speed and touched down; then the MiG pilot rolled to the end of Runway 05 and turned off the runway.  Everyone watched in awe as all that transpired.  Finally, the security forces rolled up to the MiG and surrounded it, not knowing what to do next.  The MiG pilot shut down and opened the canopy.  After a wait, the MiG pilot exited the aircraft and was met by a rather large security force, all with weapons drawn and at the ready.  After a while, the pilot conveyed to the security force that he was from Cuba and that he wanted to defect to the USA.  

Excitement was at a high level as the pilot was taken into custody and carted off to a secure location.  Having worked in a command post for a while, I can imagine the scramble to send a zillion messages to a lot of interested commanders and answering a lot of questions from incredulous higher authorities about what was really happening:  yep, it is a MiG; yep, we have the pilot; yep, he is defecting; yep, we have him in a secure location; nope, we don't know the status of the aircraft, yet.

Since there are no MiG-17 specialists on a TAC base, the explosive ordinance team was dispatched to the aircraft, along with a towing vehicle, and they dragged the MiG off to a hangar to check it for armament and munitions, and to make it safe for inspection.  Turned out the aircraft guns were loaded and ready to go, but nothing other than external tanks were on the wings.  After the furor subsided, Nouss and crew were finally given takeoff clearance and departed for Ramey AFB, Puerto Rico.

After the MiG was gone over thoroughly by experts and any intelligence gleaned from the inspection, it was returned to the government of Cuba.  Ten years later, on June 12, 1979, the pilot hijacked Delta Air Lines Flight 1061 back to Havana.

  

Kismet

We named her Kismet because it was just fate that we ended up giving her our home to live in.  She was the runt of her litter and would not have survived puppyhood if she hadn't been hand

Kizzy and Ginger

fed.  We called her Kizzy most of the time and for most of her life she was a bouncy, happy little Australian Terrier.  She came to us at about ten weeks old.  Kizzy's Auntie Ginger already had lived with us for over four years.  Ginger became diabetic at about 3 years old; we did not at that time expect her to survive very long.  But Ginger turns out to be a survivor.  

Ginger liked to play and a new puppy to chase around was a real picker upper for her.  I'm not so sure what Kizzy thought of

Auntie Ginger

all of that.  They would tear around the house, from room to room, Kizzy in the lead, until she would dive under a chair or some other low thing and hide from Ginger.  Ginger would try to coax Kizzy out of hiding and then they would tear off to some other hiding place.

Kizzy was not without her problems.  Being the runt of her litter, she had to fight to keep everything she took a fancy to.  It gave her an attitude of possessive aggression.  Then, when she was spayed, she became a bit incontinent.  But that was okay; we just adapted the house so that the places she liked to sleep in had absorbent pads around them.  Every once in a while, for reasons known only to Kizzy, if I was holding her and Ginger came into the vicinity, Kizzy would stiffen and literally fly into a snarling rage.  The only solution to calming her when that happened was to put her in her kennel and close off the outside world.  After a few minutes, she would calm down and yip to be let out again.  It was as if she was saying, "I'm okay now."

Auntie Ginger was Kizzy's teacher in what to do and how to do it.  Ginger liked to keep an eye

On guard duty

on what was going on outside in our front yard, and her favorite perch was on the arm of a living room chair.  Kizzy took up a position along side her teacher.  Like Auntie Ginger, Kizzy liked to walk and we would take them both on walks when the weather allowed.  Kizzy liked to be in the lead, and Ginger would do her best to take over the lead.  But Kizzy liked to stop frequently and sniff whatever it is dogs sniff at in other people's lawns.  In any case, Ginger usually got to pick the route we were taking, within reason, of course.

Time passed.  Walks were taken.  Everybody grew a bit older.  Kizzy was about five years old, when life became more complicated.  We noticed that Kizzy seemed to be bumping into things, especially outdoors.  It didn't seem to be an impediment, but it was strange to see her brushing against the the vines and other plant life outside.  She did not do that in previous times.  Then one night things came to a head.  Ginger way lying in a basket both dogs shared.  Kizzy came up to the basket and wanted to get in, but Ginger was already there.  A dog fight ensued.  We got them apart and checked each dog for injuries; Ginger had some wounds.  We took her over to the urgent pet care clinic for a once over.  Nothing seemed to be particularly serious.  We then decided to have Kizzy checked out also.  One of the first things  the veterinarian noticed was that Kizzy's eyes were cloudy; Kizzy had uveitis, which is a painful infection of the eye that can lead to blindness.  

There are any number of causes for uveitis.  At the vet's recommendation, we took Kizzy to an eye specialist in Omaha the next day.  The specialist confirmed uveitis and put her on some eye drops to treat her condition.  More time passed.  Kizzy was not feeling well, and the loss of vision was becoming more pronounced.  Again, we took Kizzy to the specialist for reevaluation  Kizzy had developed chronic active hepatitis which is a liver inflammation.  There was just one treatment:  steroids.  Prednisone was the medication of choice, and even that might not work.  We had been down this road before with Auntie Ginger.  Ginger's ailment was probably similar to Kizzy's but we didn't know it at the time.  Treating Ginger with Prednisone had driven her into diabetes; we had been injecting her with insulin twice a day for a few years already.  Now Kizzy was at that same point.  It was do or die:  treat Kizzy with Prednisone and hope for the best or do nothing and have her put down.  We decided to to treat her.  After four separate treatments with Prednisone, with a week interval between them, Kizzy was found to be cured, more or less.  As expected, she did go into diabetes, and now we were injecting two dogs with insulin twice a day.

More  time passed.  Everyone got older.  Ginger no longer had such a spring in her step.  Neither did I.  Then Ginger began having fits of convulsions.  We could do nothing for her except to hold her and wait for the fits to pass.  Then Ginger began bouts of tachycardia.  That was bad news.  We long knew that Ginger had a heart murmur; now the heart murmur was becoming serious.  We treated Ginger for the first bout of tachycardia, but the veterinarian told us there was no cure and the next bout could result in a fatal heart attack.  We understood.  We agreed that when Ginger had her next tachycardia attack we would have her put down in order to spare her a heart attack.  Two weeks later it happened, and Kizzy had the house to herself.

Still more time passed.  An illness that had been lurking in my DNA began to manifest itself; I discovered that I was slowly losing my ability to do things I needed to do to maintain the house we lived in.  The walks with Kizzy became fewer and fewer for both Kizzy and me.  We took to putting Kizzy in a doggie stroller and took walks that way.  After a while even those walks came to an end. Finally, it looked as if we needed to move to more tolerable accommodations.  We would move to a retirement facility near San Antonio, Texas; Kizzy would go with us.  We would not be throwing Kizzy away for our own convenience.

Kizzy tolerated the trip pretty well and settled in to our new home.  We found a veterinarian who had some experience with diabetic dogs and another who probably had only learned about diabetes treatment for dogs in vet school.  We chose the vet who had dealt with diabetic dogs.  Fortunately, by the time that life event happened I already had several years worth of experience dealing with and even recognizing some of the problems of diabetic dogs.  Since we tested Kizzy's urine a  couple of times a day we had a fairly good idea of how she was doing; her behavior was another clue to how she felt.  Her appetite was yet another indicator:  when she felt good, she ate well; when she didn't feel good her appetite was not so good.

We went on treating a clearly failing Kizzy for a few months.  Her urine glucose kept creeping up and I responded by slowly increasing the insulin injections she got twice a day.  It looked like a case where the body develops insulin resistance.  Kizzy's appetite continued to be on the "not feeling good" side, and the urine glucose readings remained on the high side.  Then a miracle happened:  Kizzy suddenly became the eager eater she had been in her younger years.  That went on for a couple of days, and then it became clear that the end was near:  she refused all food.  We let her go for two or three more days, but her behavior got worse.  We contacted our usual vet to talk about having Kizzy put down.  Unfortunately, he was not available to do the euthanasia; we had to call on the other vet in town.  I thought maybe she could last another day or two, but that was not to be.  I requested that the vet perform the euthanasia that afternoon.  The vet asked me a couple of times whether we really wanted to do that; I told her that we did.  I brought Kizzy into the vet's office; we waited a bit while Kizzy was prepared for the final act.  We said our last goodbye to Kizzy in one of the examining rooms and then the vet came in with two syringes loaded with the necessary "stuff" for a painless euthanasia.  Once more, the vet asked if we really wanted to go through with it; we said yes.  A few minutes later Kizzy breathed her last.

She lived a good life and we miss her as much as we miss Ginger.

Life in Bernie Sanders Land

In May 1988 my wife and I, along with a couple dozen others, crossed the border between Austria and Hungary.  We were headed for Budapest as part of an economics tour of Europe sponsored by University of Nebraska College of Business Administration.  It was a tour that included Zurich, Vienna, Munich, Paris, London, and oh, yes, Budapest.  We had just seen prosperous Switzerland and Austria; now we were going to get a close up look at how well Communism works.

I had spent 25 years in the US Air Force, and I was a retired USAF Lt Colonel.  There were two active duty USAF captains, space systems engineers, on the trip also; the two captains and I were on the trip because we had just completed a MBA program with University of Nebraska.  It was a reward for the two years, or so, of work we had just put in.

The entire time we were in Budapest we were followed.  No big surprise.  The Communists made it a practice to keep track of anybody who might be, in their opinion, a security risk.  That definitely applied to three American Air Force officers.  Our itinerary in Budapest included some tours of local industrial sites, the American embassy, and some of the local landmarks such as the Hungarian Parliament, Saint Stephens Church, and some typical Communist monuments to the defeat of the NAZIs during WWII.  Along our path sat the still empty shell of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor’s Summer Palace on a high ridge along the west bank of the Danube River.  The Soviet Army had turned the Summer Palace into a shell because the NAZIs used it as an observation post and strong point.  There also were  scars from the 1956 Hungarian Uprising that were quite evident on a lot of buildings in urban Budapest.  I suspect those scars were also reminders of what could happen if dissent became openly expressed.

For most of the countries on our itinerary a declaration that we were a tour group and the passenger manifest was sufficient; however, we all had to submit individual entry visa requests to get into Hungary.  Every member of our tour group had to fill out a detailed set of questions because the Hungarian regime wanted to know how much attention we deserved.  The Cold War raged around us, and unbeknownst to us, a further complication made things even more interesting: the Soviet Army would be in the middle of an annual troop rotation into Hungary, but we didn’t know that just then.

The Communists were a paranoid lot; the regime assumed the worst, what with three military officers in the party.  The border guards knew we were coming and gave us a special welcome.

During the routine stop at the Austria-Hungary border our rail coach was uncoupled from the Austrian train; we were towed out into a large empty switching yard.  Border guards ordered us to unload our luggage; there was no platform to unload onto; it was just rock ballast and iron rails.  A Hungarian train pulled up and we were ordered to board an empty coach.  Well, the coach was not quite empty; at the far end of the coach there were several people standing around chatting in what I assumed was Hungarian.

Most of the tour members went to the nearest compartment and sat down.  I stood by one of the open windows and watched the passing terrain as we left the switching yard and started our journey to Budapest.  It was an amazing sight.  Since this was Socialism, the land was all one big collective farm; since it was May the land was one big expanse of plowed ground as far as I could see.  There was not a fence line or tree to be seen anywhere.

A young man from the far end of the coach sauntered up to me and tried to strike up a conversation.  He told me, in a Middle West American accent, that he had grown up in Chicago.  Yeah, right.  He tried to chat with me for a few minutes but I ignored him.  Finally, he sauntered back to the far end of the coach.  Welcome to the Workers Paradise of Hungary.

The Hungarians were not happy.  The Hungarians had a lot of reasons for their discontent.  Top among them was the fact that Austria came out of WWII on the free side of the Iron Curtain while Hungary was a vassal of the Soviet Union.  Austria might have become one of those vassal states also, but the Western Powers resisted Soviet demands.  However, by treaty, Austria was to remain neutral and not join the NATO alliance.  There was an entire lot of the vassal states that stood between Russia and Western Europe that were not happy; they lived their lives in poverty while their rulers lived comfortably.  Janos Kadar had ruled Hungary since the 1956 Hungarian Uprising had been crushed by Soviet tanks.  Life had not improved one iota in the thirty-plus years since that time.  The state stores featured little in the way of food items:  two or three kinds of sausage and one or two kinds of cheese.  None of the stores had much to offer.

Strong ties still existed between Austria and Hungary; Hungary was a remnant of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire.  The Austrians had built a shopping zone in the Pest side of Budapest.  It gave the Hungarian communists some hard currency, and it was a place where the Austrians could buy things duty free to take home after visits.  Hungarian citizens didn’t have much access to the place for a couple of reasons:  They were poor and barely scraping by and the Hungarian government did not allow them access to that special place.  Western visitors or anyone else with money was welcome, however, including Americans.  One afternoon my wife and I, along with the two Air Force captains, decided to check out the special shopping zone to find out what it had to offer.

It was short walk from our hotel.  As we were nearing the zone, I caught sight of someone tailing us from across the street.  Every time we would stop to window shop, our tail would stop too.  When we moved on, he moved on.  He was pretty obvious.  To complete the picture, he was dressed in a very loud short sleeved shirt and was carrying a shopping bag; it was hard not to notice him.  After our third or fourth time doing our stop and go routine, I told the women to go into the store we were in front of; I would remain outside.  After the women went into the store I turned around and stared at our “minder.”  After a couple of minutes, he realized he was busted; he turned around and retraced his steps until I lost sight of him.  I then walked into the store and told my wife and the two captains what had happened.  Such is life in a totalitarian state. 

We finished our tour of Budapest and packed up to leave the Workers Paradise.  The train that would take us back to civilization was an Austrian train, not one of the seedy Hungarian trains, thankfully.  We departed Budapest and headed for Vienna and then on to visit prosperous Munich, Paris, and London.  A lot of the students were watching at the windows as the miles passed by.  When we crossed the border back into Austria the students cheered.

That is life in a totalitarian state.  That is what Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and the rest of the Democrats want for you.

The EB-66

MiG Bait

 In the Spring of 1972 the North Vietnamese offensive into South Vietnam was blunted and the NVA was being driven back.  Still, the NV Air Force was more aggressive than it had been in recent times.  Earlier in the Spring they had tried to ambush a B-52 flight of three that was dropping on Mu Gia Pass.  That mission had a larger than usual support element because the MiGs were becoming such a threat:  in addition to the usual flight of two Wild Weasels and two EB-66s, there was a flight of four F-4Ds that were supposed to be providing protection against the MiG threat. 

It was something like 0300 when the strike went in.  Our ground radar sites were transmitting MiG warnings because of activity between Than Hoa and Vinh.  It turned out that MiG was the diversion.  Another MiG launched undetected and stayed below radar coverage until it got within range of the B-52s that were preparing to puke a lot of Mark 82s onto Mu Gia Pass.  When the MiG got within range, the pilot lit the afterburner and started a high-performance climb toward the B-52 formation.  The Wild Weasel and escort aircraft all saw the bright light of the MiG afterburner appear in the darkness and start to rise.  As best I recall, there was even some quick discussion as to what the light was.  Fortunately for the B-52 crews, one of the Wild Weasel pilots realized what was happening; he lit his afterburner and turned into the climbing MiG.  That unnerved the MiG pilot; he prematurely launched all his missiles at the B-52 cell and dived back into the darkness.  The B-52 crew EWs, and the EB-66 EWs knew there was a MiG about, but it wasn’t until the B-52 lead called that the cell was under attack did anyone else understand what was happening.  Because the MiG pilot had launched his missiles prematurely, they didn’t guide and exploded harmlessly between the first and second B-52.

That and some other aggressive behavior on the part of the NV Air Force prompted a plan to make them pull in their horns.  The plan was to have F-4Ds from Udorn sitting hot cockpit alert and in direct contact with Lion GCI while an EB-66C would troll the northern part of Steel Tiger and play the part of bait to goad the MiGs into coming up and taking a shot.  In broad strokes, the GCI sites would be looking for a repeat of the tactics used against the B-52s and launch the F-4s at the first indication of an attack.  The EB-66 crew, according to the plan, would be warned and would quickly retreat from the area to stay clear of any engagement between the F-4s and MiGs.  Since this was to be a trap, all communications coordinating the effort were highly classified.

I got to fly on the first of the two or so missions that tested that bright idea.  The mission went off on a night near a full moon because the NV Air Force liked moonlit nights to make their attacks.  Everyone was keyed to a higher-than-normal level of awareness, naturally.  For twenty or thirty minutes we hung around the area to the northeast of NKP; the EWs were looking for Bar Locks, height finders and MiG AI radars.  Nothing happened, and we went off to do our normal trolling mission.  The trap was baited and set one or two more times without success.  The NV Air Force wasn’t falling for our setup.  In a way, it was kind of a disappointment after the rather elaborate planning that had taken place.  A possible reason why they did not take our bait surfaced many years later.

Luck, Skill, Daring

The Spring 1972 North Vietnamese offensive into the South was being beaten back, but there was still plenty of fight in the remaining NVA.  It was still unclear whether any of the SA-2s that the cunning NVA had dragged into Quang Tri province were still operational.  Our mission for that night sortie was to drill around in north/south orbit over the Gulf of Tonkin, about 25 nautical miles east of Quang Tri province and generally provide ECM for whoever was working in the area just after dark.  The US Navy was also busy providing artillery support for friendly units in Quang Tri province, mainly because there were a lot more high priority targets than there were fighter sorties to attack them.  Naval gunfire, however, could hang around for hours, if not days, putting artillery rounds just about anywhere in the province they were needed.  From our perspective of 25,000 feet, almost directly over the ships doing the firing, it looked pretty impressive.

Our orbit took us from a point near the DMZ down to about Huế.  Weather was good on the northern end of the orbit, but thunderstorms that formed over land south of Huế were marching out to sea and beginning to obscure the southern end of the orbit.  About the time we started a turn back north we would enter the blow off from the storms.  It wasn't a problem, except that we were in clouds during our turn back north.

We had made about three complete circuits of the orbit; all the while the US Navy was pounding away below us.  Sure would not want to get in the way of what they were doing.  It was time to start a turn back northbound; we were in the clouds, in a left turn; and then we lost all AC power.  Losing AC power meant that most of the equipment on board stopped working:  the radar, the N-1 compass, the EWO's suite of jammers, the automatic fuel balancing system, the pilot's attitude indicator.  We still had cockpit lights and a radio, but just about everything else important stopped working.  We were in a left turn, but now the pilot no longer knew the angle of bank or the position of the nose.  We started descending.  I watched the airspeed building and the altimeter was unwinding.  The pilot said over intercom that he  had no attitude indicator.

I tried to assist the pilot by using the checklist to find anything that would help the pilot to control the aircraft.  That was a useless effort:  no references at all to immediate actions to take in the event of an electrical power failure.  In fact, there was one action that should have been taken, but it was not mentioned in the checklist:  switch the battery power switch to "INVERTER" to provide a limited amount of AC power to the pilot instruments.  Down we went in a tightening descending turn to the left.

It was probably only a minute or two in that tight descending turn, but as I watched the altimeter unwind and the airspeed build it seemed as if we would soon have to use our ejection seats if the pilot did not gain control of the aircraft.  Finally, several thousand feet below our initial altitude, we broke out of the clouds and the pilot picked up the lights of Huế; with visual orientation, the pilot regained full control of the aircraft and leveled the aircraft.  Now what?

We were in clear air, but were surrounded by clouds above and to the south.  Da Nang was south of our position, but was obscured by heavy rain showers.  To the east, the South China Sea was relatively clear but completely without visual reference; trying to fly into that without instruments was risky to say the least.  One of the Wild Weasels also covering the same area we were in heard of our predicament and made a visual join up with us.  He offered to lead us around the clouds to Da Nang, but the pilot chose not to follow him for fear of losing visual contact before we could get visual contact on Da Nang.

The pilot kept us in the clear skies east of Huế for the next several minutes; as we flew toward Huế the pilot picked up the lights of Da Nang to the south.  Looking out my small window, I agreed with him that it was Da Nang we saw out there to the south; he turned toward the lights.  At the same time he contacted Da Nang approach control and told them we were coming in to land.  We began a visual descent toward Da Nang.


All my navigation equipment required electrical power so I was reduced to keeping a close eye on the altimeter and airspeed, along with looking out my small side window, trying to pick up any visual clues to our position.  We would be landing to the south on the main Da Nang runway; as we descended to pattern altitude, it was clear that the runway lights at Da Nang were not lighted; the pilot called Da Nang approach and asked to the runway lights to be turned up.  A long pause ensued; the runway lights did not come up.  Again the pilot requested the lights to be brought up, yet the airfield remained dark.  Assuming the pilot was busy working on getting us on the ground safely, I came on the UHF radio and informed Da Nang of our problems with lack of navigation equipment and that we needed the runway lights immediately.  Another long delay ensued and then the runway lights slowly brightened; the pilot lined up on the runway.  In another three minutes, or so, we came over the runway threshold and the EB-66 touched down.  A FOLLOW ME truck met us and led us to a parking spot near Base Operations.

AC-119 Stinger

We went through the after landing checklist and the pilot shut down the engines.  We disembarked the aircraft and waited for transportation to Base Ops.  As we stood on the darkened flight line waiting for a ride to Base Ops, we could see AC-119K gunships firing on targets to the west of Da Nang.  We were informed that Da Nang AFB was under threat of attack by NVA artillery rockets and those gunships out there in the dark were hunting for NVA teams bent on launching rockets against Da Nang AFB.  It was impressive watching the Stingers firing on ground targets.

Stinger firing

Finally, a couple of F-4E aircrew arrived to transport us to the wing command post and then to a room for an overnight stay.  As usual, we were put up in the room of someone who was on leave.

It was strange being a target, there at Da Nang.  Everyone else, including air crew, were issued a steel helmet and a flak jacket.  We over nighters had nothing like that.  All night long, we could hear F-4Es taking off on combat sorties.  Since we didn't know what inbound NVA artillery rockets sounded like, we spend a fair amount of time listening as the F-4s were taking off.  The gunships must have done their jobs, however.  Da Nang was not attacked by NVA rockets that night.

Getting out of Dodge

Next morning we began the task of getting our EB-66 fixed and out of Da Nang.  Korat, our home base in Thailand, already knew we landed at Da Nang with an emergency, but we had to work out the details of getting the aircraft operational again and out of Da Nang.  We were informed that a small maintenance team would be flown in on another EB-66, along with their best guess as to what it would take to get our bird flying again.  They would be arriving in the afternoon.  In expectation of leaving, we had our aircraft refueled and ready to go just as soon as the repairs were checked out and the bird was flyable again.  Unfortunately, the only fuel load we knew was a full load for a sortie out of Korat, and we couldn't find any other pre-planned fuel load.  The fuel load we usually used was too much to allow immediate landing at Korat so we resigned ourselves to dumping wing fuel when our arrival at Korat was assured.  Messy, but it worked.

After all the details for getting us out of Da Nang had been worked out we went to a large dining hall to get something to eat.  Another complication arose:  we were in South Vietnam; the only currency that we were allowed to use was military scrip produced by the US Government.  In Thailand, where we operated from, we used US dollars in our clubs; scrip was not needed and was not used.  However, it just so happened that I had some scrip from a previous trip through South Vietnam; it was just enough to buy us something to eat in a Da Nang dining hall.  We whiled away the rest of the day near our aircraft, waiting for maintenance to be done on it.  Our objective was to be out of Da Nang before darkness set in.  

Another complication was that the NVA were plinking at aircraft coming and going from Da Nang with their SA-7 shoulder launched missiles.  Everything low and slow was a target, and for the first few miles after takeoff and climb out we were in the low/slow category.

It took longer than expected to get a maintenance team to Da Nang, and Da Nang was a busy place.  The NVA had a major attack directed at multiple locations in South Vietnam.  Lots of armed aircraft and munitions all over the place.  It literally was a combat zone.

Finally, the maintenance team arrived, did their work, and checked their work.  Everything worked as expected.  It was time to leave.  Unfortunately, it was after dark; our EB-66 had been tucked back into tight quarters during the day to keep NVA observers from spotting it; it had been maneuvered into its revetted parking place with a tug; getting out of that parking place in such tight quarters in darkness would be challenging, to say the least.  The pilot told our marshaler we would taxi out of the revetments rather than be towed.

It was a tight fit; it was dark; visibility was restricted by the aircraft structure.  I kept an eye on the left wing while the EWO kept an eye on the right wing.  Things started out well; we came out of the revetment and made a left turn; we began taxiing through the maze of revetments toward a taxiway that would give us access to the runway.  Several more tight turns began putting the left wing closer to the revetment walls.  Along the route the EWO informed the pilot that the right wing had plenty of room.  All the while, I was telling the pilot that the left wing was getting pretty close to the revetment.  Apparently, only the good news was getting through to the pilot because at some point the marshaler gave the pilot the HALT signal and walked over to the left wing tip.  the fiberglas wingtip fairing had been crumpled against the revetment wall.  The pilot asked me why I let him do that; I asked him if he had heard me warning him that the left wing tip was getting close to the revetment.

The marshaler told the pilot that damage to the wingtip fairing was minimal; the pilot maneuvered the aircraft more to the right and we successfully escaped the revetment maze.  We made our way to the south departure runway and took off.  For the first couple of miles we kind of held our breath in the hope that no SA-7 missiles would find us.  Nope.  Not even a near miss.  We climbed to cruise altitude and flew the hour or so to Korat.  

Once we were inside Thailand the pilot dumped the wing fuel to bring us down to landing weight and we started down for Korat.  We were marshaled in to the EB-66 parking area.  I could see one of the maintainers already had a left wingtip fairing in one hand and a speed wrench in the other.  It had come from one of the five aircraft that were not flyable due to various ground accidents. 

Good Friends

We have known George and Sue Ann for a long time.  In fact, they are the oldest friends we have.  I first met George when he came on the tanker crew I was on; that was in the Spring of 1964.  George was the copilot and fresh out of pilot training, along with the usual stops for KC-135 upgrade and Survival training. 

Our boss was an old hand in the flying game; he had flown B-29s and some other aircraft  before getting to the KC-135.  His name was Ernest P. Vicchio, and he was a senior captain, not far from becoming a major.  George always referred to him as “Ernie.”  Not to his face, of course.

We were a good fit.  Everyone got along well and knew their jobs.  George was a competent copilot and a gregarious soul.  George was then a young bachelor.  I was newly married to Linda; we hadn’t been married a year at that time.  After our first ground alert tour of duty I invited George to our house for a late breakfast of pastries and coffee that Linda had put together.  Apparently our hospitality made an impression on George because he would recall that morning many times over the fifty-plus years we knew him.

I knew that George had been dating a very pretty Air Force nurse; Linda and I had met her once or twice.  She was impressive; she and Linda hit if off from the start.  We double dated once or twice.  A little more time passed; we had to fly to Spain and spend a couple of weeks refueling B-52s on airborne alert.  It was George’s first TDY (temporary duty).  We did the usual things for a trip to Spain:  flew a lot and took whatever chances we could to take a bus to Madrid to take in the sights.  

Sometime during the two weeks in Spain, George had a serious chat with me.  His relationship with very pretty Air Force nurse was becoming more serious.  They were thinking about marrying.  George asked me what I thought.  I told him that I thought that marrying Sue Ann would be great choice.

George proposed; Sue Ann accepted.  Time passed.  Plans were made.  Our daughter, Krista Lynne, was born.  Their wedding was held in the Ellsworth Air Force Base Chapel; that was far from the homes of both George and Sue Ann; the hospital commander, a doctor, stood in for Sue Ann’s father and gave the bride away.  Linda and I were part of the wedding party.  That was in 1965. It was a great time.

More time passed.  We got a new boss; our new pilot was a “good ol’ boy” by the name of Ernie Davis.  We were tagged for a special mission to Guam; we had to fly out to California and join another crew.  Our task was to fly a load of cargo for B-52s flying out of Guam.  The day before our mission was to launch, we all went to San Francisco to take in what was then becoming a habitat for Flower Children.  Our pilot led the expedition since he had recently come from the base we were launching from.  Our crew got the second leg of the flight from Hawaii to Guam; it was a night crossing over a stormy Pacific Ocean.  It kept George and me busy all night long.  George and I were having some recollections of that trip just a few days before his passing.

Soon after we got back to Ellsworth, George was assigned to another crew.  The people in charge were impressed with George’s performance and started the grooming process that would take him from being a copilot in the right seat to pilot-in-command in the left seat of the KC-135.

George and Sue Ann were instrumental in helping Linda and our children while I was on a year assignment to Southeast Asia. Sue Ann and Linda always had been close, especially then.

Over the next five years, or so, George became an aircraft commander, and later, attended flight instructor school for the KC-135.  He was a member of the initial group that opened a new squadron of airborne command post operations at Ellsworth.  He was instrumental in my returning to Ellsworth after my year in Southeast Asia. 

He had his own overseas assignment, but not to Southeast Asia.  His was a “career broadening” assignment to the air defense business.  It was a non-flying job and ended with a remote assignment to Galena, Alaska, on the banks of the Yukon River.  He returned to the airborne command post at Offutt and began a career that took him to a job in the Pentagon. Along the way, six children were born to George and Sue Ann.

I retired from the Air Force; George retired also.  Yet we kept contact over all the years.  We visited George and Sue Ann; they visited us.  We met in Hawaii twice in a kind of reunion and enjoyed ourselves immensely.  By that time the wear and tear of time was taking over all four of us.  We never visited again, but we kept in contact.  At some point, I can’t recall now, George mentioned that he had ejected from a crippled T-33 while in pilot training.  That qualified him as a member of The Caterpillar Club, but I don’t know if he ever made a membership application.

November 18^th was the last time I will ever get to talk to George.  He was the same jovial guy I had known for over fifty years.  I guess that was a good way to end a friendship.

Hele on to Kaua'i

We have visited four of the major islands of Hawai'i: Oahu, Maui, Hawai'i, and Kaua'i.  Kauai the oldest of the main occupied islands that make up Hawai'ian Archipelago, and it is our favorite.  It is also the most heavily eroded -- but then some five million years of exposure to the sea and wind will do that to you.  Kaua'i is rugged, to say the least.  The only road way to speak of follows the coast line, more or less, from Ha'ena on the northwest side of the island clockwise to the US Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands on the southwest side of the island.  The sheer face of the Napali coast (Napali means "the cliffs" in the Hawai'ian language) prevents the road from encircling the island.

Kaua'i is further along than the other bigger islands in the process that will ultimately reduce them all to low coral atolls, but its highest peak, Mt. Wai'ale'ale, is still some 5000 feet above sea level.  Unlike some of the newer islands, you don't see black sand beaches on Kaua'i—at least we didn't—although there are some gray beaches around Port Allen that are the result of mixing volcanic black sand with the whiter stuff; the whiter stuff being the result of coral and sea shells having been ground into small bits by erosion and parrot fish poop (white sand is parrot fish poop, believe it or not).  The fact that it is further along in the erosion process is what makes it so rugged and much of it nearly inaccessible. 

The view of Kaua'i here was taken by an astronaut aboard a space shuttle a few years ago.  In it you can clearly see Waimea Canyon on the western side of Wai'ale'ale.  It is a rift zone that didn't quite get to the point of shearing off and falling into the Pacific Ocean.  To the west of Waimea Canyon, where the white strip of beach stops, is the Napali Coast:  sheer cliffs that rise a couple of thousand feet above the ocean, deeply eroded, and covered in lush vegetation.  On the north shore, to the west of Hanalei Bay, is Tunnels Reef.  Tunnels Reef is that last little bit of what appears to be land jutting out into the Pacific Ocean.  It's really a reef and, reportedly, the best snorkeling on the island.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to confirm that.  On the day we visited that part of the island the Pacific Ocean was crashing over the reef and making conditions inside the reef favorable only to surfers.

I'm not a fan of helicopters, usually.  They tend to be noisy, the ride is choppy—and they don't glide very well.  Still, they have their good aspects.  Kaua'i is best seen from helicopter.  It didn't take much convincing to get everyone on board for a helicopter tour of the island, and Blue Hawai'an had a chopper big enough to take six people on a tour.  Much to my amazement, the Eurocopter Eco Stars that Blue Hawaiian flies are much nicer than the military helicopters I'm used to.  It was an exciting 50 minutes or so circling the island.  On days when the weather permits, they take you to the top of Mt. Wai'ale'ale so you can see the beauty of 3000 foot cliffs and waterfalls everywhere.  The waterfalls are always flowing, thanks to an annual rainfal of 400 to 500 inches.  I wonder how many days there actually are when you can fly over Mt. Wai'ale'ale.

Kaua'i is called the Garden Isle because agriculture is—or was—the main industry.  Sugar cane was grown all over the place where you could plant the stuff.  Unfortunately, lower priced competition slowly strangled the sugar cane industry so that there is no commercial operation still operating.  No matter, the sugar cane hauling bridge over the Wailua River is getting an upgrade.  Talk about timing!  I suppose the renewed bridge will have a function, however.  The traffic of so backed up on the one main road that they have "contra-flow traffic" between Lihue and Wailua.  Contra-flow traffic means that the center lane of the three-lane road is open to southbound traffic in the mornings and open to northbound traffic the rest of the day—weekends and holidays excepted, of course.  Someone gets paid to go out there every morning and set up traffic cones to mark the center lane as southbound and then remove them around noon.

Still, Kaua'i remains the Garden Isle.  Coffee is starting to take over from sugar cane in some of the drier parts of the island.  Coffee grows in semi-arid conditions and all the large islands have micro climates that result in there being a rainy side and a dry side to each.  The east or windward side of all the islands is the rainy side and that's what you see in most pictures you see of Hawai'i.  The west sides are pretty dry—dry enough for coffee, cactus and agave to flourish.  Don't believe me?  the thing that looks like a tree in this picture is really the flower stem of an agave plant.  The Mexicans make tequila from agave plant, but, so far, no one has tried to do that on Kaua'i.  They do however, have a distillery that makes rum.  Pretty good stuff too.  Look out Puerto Rico.  Rum, by the way is made from sugar cane so that industry might see a come back.

This particular scene is on the south side of Kaua'i where it is drier.  The place where this picture was taken is at an overlook to an ancient lava tube called Spouting Horn.  This isn't the only lava tube in the islands that spouts seawater from the crashing surf, but it likely is the biggest.  Actually, there are two lava tubes, but only one spouts now.  Way back when sugar cane was king, some sugar grower dynamited the other lava tube because its salt spray was damaging his sugar cane crop.  Now its more like a big saltwater pool in the lava that rises and falls with the surf and tide.

Since this is on the south side of the island, the wind and surf don't pound like they do on the east side, where our condo was located.  They have some pretty good snorkeling and the fishing is pretty good too—or so I am told.  This fishing boat went out less than a quarter mile before dropping anchor off Spouting Horn.  There are lots of good game fish as well as food fish in these waters:  ono, opah, ahi, opakapaka, just to name a few.  For a long time I didn't understand why the yellowfin tuna was called ahi (ahi means "fire" in Hawai'ian).  I finally learned that back in the old days, when Hawai'ians fished from canoes with a bone hook and twisted coconut fiber fishing line, when they hooked a yellowfin and it made a dash for freedom the fishermen would hold the line against the edge of the canoe to give the fish more drag to pull against.  The yellowfin run was so powerful that friction would make the edge of the canoe smoke from the force and speed of the run.  So the yellowfin became ahi, fire, because of the power of its run.  Now you know.

As far as snorkeling goes, I agree that you get to see a huge variety of fish in the reefs.  We saw lots of tang, surgeon fish, goat fish, angel fish, and the famous Humuhumunukunukuapua'a.  Oh, yes, and some pufferfish too.  The water was pretty clear and Poipu Beach and the sand slopes gently into the water.  We heard that the water was clearer a day or so earlier, but conditions the day we were there were pretty good by any standard I'm used to.

Since tourism is the main industry in Hawai'i nowadays, everyone seems to be trying to rebrand what once was into something to catch the tourist eye.  The sugar plantation at Kilohana is a fine example of that.  The centerpiece is the 16,000 square foot mansion that sugar baron Gaylord Park Wilcox had built in the 1930s.  It was a three bedroom affair and all three bedrooms were expansive, to say the least; they take up the whole second story.  All the rooms are large, and the fine dining restaurant, Gaylord's, takes up most of the ground floor level.  The grounds are spacious, but that is only a small part of whole spread.  This was a sugar plantation and it is situated on the slopes of a volcanic cone that rises above the floor of an ancient volcanic caldera that is miles in diameter. 

Nowadays the current owners are developing various orchards of citrus, bananas, papaya, rambutan, lychee, and other tropical goodies.  I have been familiar with rambutan for some time. I first encountered them in Thailand; the Thais were selling them and eating the the white pulpy berry that hides under that red hairy husk.  I didn't know what they were called and simply called them "hairy berries."  Turns out that rambutan is the Malay word for "hairy."  They are related to lychees and have a similar flavor.  Pretty good, but a little work getting them out of their wrappers.

Since this was a plantation and wide-spread, there was a narrow gauge train that ran through the property and assisted in most aspects of the crop cycle.  It certainly was used during the harvest; mature sugar cane is a huge grass and heavy.