Fighter Pilot

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Fighter Pilot Page 26

by Christina Olds


  Although Ella had film projects often taking her back to California, we managed to rent a wonderful old, drafty stone house near the base, which we enjoyed immensely during her visits. The plumbing never worked correctly and the peat fires we set in the fireplace often smoked up the whole house, but bottles of ale, dinners at the pub, and all the good men of the RAF made this a magical year. Had I known what lay ahead, I would have enjoyed it even more.

  13

  F-86s at March Field, the Pitts, and Stewart

  The trip back from England to California was a grind. Military transports were still four-engine piston jobs and a journey across the Pond to the West Coast took a couple of days, not hours. It was good to get home, and Ella was waiting for me in Coldwater Canyon with chilled champagne and a warm bed.

  I reported to the 1st Fighter Group at March AFB, where I was assigned as operations officer for the 94th Fighter Squadron, Eddie Rickenbacker’s “Hat-in-the Ring” outfit. It was Nieuport 28s and SPADs for Eddie and new jets for us. It was a thrill for me in a lot of ways: I was finally stationed close to my beautiful wife, the challenge of the F-86 kept me hopping, and the honor of serving in Rickenbacker’s old unit made me intensely proud. Eddie was a good pal of my dad as I grew up, but in my eyes he had been a superhero. As a kid I sat at the dining table in total awe of the two of them.

  March had changed drastically during my year at Tangmere. The primary organization was now the 1st Fighter Group, which had the 27th, 71st, and 94th squadrons; all had served with distinction during World War II. The 27th was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Jack Bradley and the 71st by Major Jack Hayes, and my boss in the 94th was Major James Lemmon. Lemmon was a tolerant man, which was fortunate, as he put up with our often differing opinions with great patience. The three squadrons were filled with strong personalities, almost all with extensive experience in the recent war. One didn’t so much command men like these as persuade them that your way was better. It was a challenge.

  In the previous year the 94th had transitioned from the P-80 into the new F-86A-1. We referred to them as Dash Ones because they were the first of their breed. Modifications in succeeding Dash models would be incorporated on the assembly line as lessons were learned from these originals. The Sabre was a huge leap forward in aviation technology. She was a single-seat, single-engine beauty with swept wings and six .50 caliber machine guns in the nose. The leading edges of the wings featured movable slats designed to increase lift and reduce speed during takeoff and landing. The engine itself was an axial-flow design, much sleeker and more efficient than the old centrifugal-flow engines. The air entered the nose intake, went through a twelve-stage compressor, and then through the burner cans. There, jet fuel ignited, causing the compressed air to expand. The expansion gave a lot of thrust and was much more responsive than the old-style engines. Along the way the blast of superhot air passed over a turbine, which drove the compressor section up front. All of this sounded complicated, but in truth those engines were far simpler than pistons. The process entailed two simple laws of physics. Newton told us that actions had reactions, and Boyle explained that when you raise the temperature and pressure of a gas it accelerates. Get it all expanding and pushing in sequence and you go fast.

  The new fighters had a lot of glitches, however, some of which were downright dangerous. For one thing, the leading edge slats had to be manually locked in the retracted position after takeoff. This was supposed to happen when our speed reached a point at which the air pressure pushed the slats flush against the wing. Then the pilot pushed a handle to lock the devices. We soon learned that that procedure was not to be trusted. It looked as though things were securely locked, but sometimes they weren’t. Later, when we pulled g’s in maneuvering or slowed down rapidly, one of the slats would release and bang forward. This caused huge drag on one side, slewing the aircraft sideways. The result was exciting, to say the least. A violent roll coupled with a pitching moment was always disconcerting but could be disastrous too close to the ground. We dealt with the problem by humping the jet into half a negative g just after liftoff. That banged the slats back against the wing, and we quickly hit the locking handle before releasing the negative g.

  Another problem was the control system. The ailerons and elevators were fully hydraulically boosted. That was fine unless you lost hydraulic pressure through engine flameout or failure in the hydraulic system. We were supposed to be able to fly the bird without boost, but that wasn’t always so. I was lucky and never encountered that one.

  There were some difficulties with pitch control. These first-generation aircraft had conventional elevators on the horizontal stabilizer. At high Mach numbers they were prone to stresses the engineers hadn’t anticipated. Failure of an elevator on one side made for an interesting ride home, sometimes by nylon or else by the grace of God. Later models would have a full flying tail plane or slab rather than fixed and movable sections.

  Major Hayes of the 71st FIS Squadron was reassigned and I was given command of the squadron. It was sad leaving the 94th, but squadron command was a new challenge. I soon found the morale low and attitude poor within all ranks of the squadron. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. My limited contacts with Major Hayes had left a sour taste in my mouth, and the conditions in his squadron tended to back up my opinion of the man. Fortunately, the unit had some great guys, so it didn’t take long to get things running smoothly.

  The squadrons tended to be measured by the amount of flying time racked up each month. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone if training was actually accomplished; it was the total hours that mattered. I thought the practice wasteful and was determined to change things in my squadron. At a meeting with the maintenance, armament, and supply sections, along with the squadron ops officer, I announced my plan.

  “OK, troops, we’ve got eighteen aircraft assigned. I want only five aircraft on the first scheduled flight each day. Four will fly the mission and then an hour later I want five more. If the fifth plane isn’t used as a spare on the first go, it can be used to fill in the second go, and so on and so forth during each flying day, initially for six such flights a day. Ops will publish a daily order and you will know how to configure the birds for the training mission to be flown. There will be no trolling around the sky building up useless time. Each flight will have an assigned mission and each flight will do just that. When we need to schedule more than one flight at the same takeoff time, for whatever reason, you will be advised days ahead of that requirement.

  “Now, to get started, we are going to work the pilots’ butts off out at the Dry Lake Gunnery Ranges. I want each flight loaded with exactly 110 rounds of color-coded ball ammo. Note the color in the aircraft form and make sure no two aircraft in the same flight carry the same color. We will start with strafing. Squadron pilots will rotate as the range duty officer for five days. That duty will be rotated. The range officer will assure the strafe targets are up and range time is available for each scheduled flight. We will phone to let him know the lineup. He will score the targets and call the results back to us, so by the time the flight lands we will have everyone’s scores.

  “I emphasize, I do not want you men to produce a flight line full of in-commission birds by eight o’clock each morning and then spend the rest of the day playing catch-up. Every man in the squadron will know exactly what we plan to achieve each day, with what resources, and when. If you maintenance troops have five birds ready to go at six in the evening, they go on the next day’s schedule. And you guys go to the club or go home. No working late into the night to see how many birds you can put out on the line the next morning. I want only those five. GOT IT?” They got it.

  We quickly settled into this new routine, and it was gratifying to see the squadron pull itself together. Our missions were productive, there was no wasted time, and, without even trying, we were so far ahead of the other two squadrons in both useful and total flying time it wasn’t even a contest. Best of all, our aircraft were better maintaine
d, their availability soared, the troops were happy and proud of the squadron. Even group headquarters took notice.

  So did the 27th Squadron, which then doubled its schedule in an effort to outdo the 71st. I suspected they were indulging in a bit of time padding and sent one of my people up to the control tower for a couple of days to log their actual takeoff and landing times. We then checked the times the squadron turned in officially. Surprise! As an example, one of their planes took off and landed after an hour and forty minutes of actual flight. What was the pilot doing during that time? He logged two hours and fifteen minutes. That wasn’t the worst case. One pilot went on a weekend cross-country and came back Sunday evening. He logged forty hours in three flying days, and without drop tanks. In my view, that might have been funny if it weren’t downright criminal.

  I understood that competition was the breath of life among fighter pilots and that many things were done in the name of one-upmanship and unit esprit. Unfortunately, the rivalry got out of hand. Many commanders fostered and actually encouraged it, while the duty of serious training and efficient operations took a back seat to squabbling in the sandbox. It took a long time for the practice to be stamped out.

  Our group commander moved on and Lieutenant Colonel Jack Bradley took over the outfit. One day it was announced that all three squadrons would put up twelve aircraft each and he would lead us in an out-and-back cross-country. He would lead the 27th, his old outfit; I had the 71st on the left, and the 94th was on the right. The plan was deceptively simple. We would line up all thirty-six aircraft on the runway in flights of four. Each would follow the flight ahead as closely as possible, which meant almost half the gaggle would be on the roll before the lead flight became airborne. That also meant we would be eating one another’s exhaust and fighting the jet wash of all the birds in front. Then Lead would circle the field just once while the three squadrons formed up in the positions briefed. The whole mass would then climb out on a heading for Las Vegas to the northeast while maintaining close formation. I had deep misgivings about the whole scheme.

  The J-47 engines on the F-86s gave off black smoke at full power. Thirty-six of them all together created a dense, choking black cloud. We could not see anything ahead with any certainty. The smoke coupled with the turbulence produced by all those in front made for one of the hairiest formation takeoffs any of us had ever experienced.

  Once off the runway, we struggled to play catch-up to Lead. I kept the 71st flights of four in trail position and stayed down low during this maneuver. That was comfortable for my guys and had the added benefit of keeping us down where we could cut across his circle for join-up. It also placed us in a position where he couldn’t see us and offer some caustic advice on how to fly our aircraft.

  Once in position, we climbed out over Cajon Pass, crossed Victorville, and sailed out over the Mojave on our way to Vegas. We kept climbing, still in close formation. The F-86 was a great little fighter, but a pilot had to be on his toes to keep it happy at extreme altitudes. We reached reasonable cruising altitude and still climbed. I think we leveled at 44,000, each of us struggling to hold position. None of us dared gaze around to enjoy the view. Keeping formation took total attention and a delicate hand on both stick and throttles.

  My sense of time told me we ought to be just about over Vegas when Lead suddenly made a hard turn to his left. There was immediate pandemonium! Twenty-four aircraft were turning into my squadron. There was no way I could pull the power back far enough to stay in position. I pushed the nose down as smoothly as I could just in time to have the 94th Squadron sail right over our heads from their position on the right. It took a good twenty-five minutes to catch Lead as he headed back the way we had come. I still remember his angry orders for me to get my unit back into formation.

  When we approached Cajon Pass, headed southwest, we were still at 44,000 feet. Lead announced we were going to make a pass across the home airfield and suddenly pushed his nose down sharply. March Field was only some 30 miles ahead at that point. All thirty-six of us, still in close formation, tried to follow suit. The dive angle was steep and our birds began to shudder as we approached the F-86’s limiting Mach.

  Each of these early Sabres had its own little peculiarities of engine and airframe. Over time each pilot had developed his own techniques to cope. I don’t know what the hell he thought he was doing, but my number Two suddenly lurched past me; his aircraft porpoised once or twice, then snap-rolled violently as he passed right over me. I felt a bang but my bird seemed OK. I lost sight of number Two. Aircraft everywhere were pulling up and out of the melee. I did my best to keep Lead in sight but admit I pulled the power back a tad to avoid losing what control I had. I could see March over my nose and watched in fascination as Lead, with his wingman in tow, crossed the field at an extreme rate of speed and then pulled up to avoid the low hills across the way at old Camp Hahn. His wingman actually blew dust during this pullout. I still followed at a respectable altitude and distance and went up as Lead rose in a steep climb. Up and up he went, then did a wing over and came right back down at me.

  For God’s sake! Suppose the whole group had been able to stay with him? Did he think they had? Did he ever look over his shoulder for a wingman?

  Debriefing was grim. All of us got our butts chewed for failing to maintain formation. We weren’t worthy of calling ourselves fighter pilots, and on and on. I looked around and saw that no one else was going to speak, so I stood up.

  “Yeah, Olds, what do you want?”

  “Sir, perhaps given today’s performance, we should fly combat formation.”

  “Combat formation? Ah, what do you 8th Air Force guys know about combat formation? Anyone else have anything to say?”

  That ended the meeting. My number Two had dented the top of my vertical stabilizer when his bird went out of control. He had lost part of his elevators. We were lucky that day. No one was lost and all had landed safely, if somewhat shakily. There were lessons learned by all of us except possibly Bradley.

  * * *

  On June 25, 1950, North Korea stormed across the 38th parallel and invaded the South with a massive force of ninety thousand troops. The news was a bombshell. By 1950, the United States already had army and air force units stationed in South Korea to support the ROK military, and the massive blow put our own troops in direct contact with the invading forces. It took only a day or two for America to take action against the North Koreans, and our intentions were sanctioned by a unanimous vote of the United Nations Security Council. The Russians made the grave error of walking out on the debate, and the vote was taken without them.

  The war that followed was grim. The North pushed down to the southern tip of the peninsula. We held on to a small bit of territory surrounding a place called Pusan, mounted an invasion at Inchon, and pushed back. Our troops went almost to the Yalu River separating Korea from China. Then China entered the fray and pushed us back to the 38th. At that point both sides dug in and faced each other. U.S. forces would spend the next three years attacking and counterattacking, up one mountain and down in battle after battle. It proved futile and costly in human lives. We lost over thirty-six thousand Americans. Washington would not call it “war” but referred to it as a “police action.” Whatever Korea was, I would miss it completely.

  At March, the 1st Fighter Group was ordered to move all three squadrons to Victorville and reopen George Air Force Base. We did it in mid-July. All of us thought we would be deployed to Japan or Korea to take part in the intense fighting, but it was not to be. To my disappointment, in September the 71st and 27th squadrons were ordered to Griffiss AFB near Rome, New York. There, we would become part of the Eastern Air Defense Force.

  Air defense against what, for God’s sake? Russian bombers over the North Pole? There was a war in Asia and we were patrolling the extreme northeast U.S. Worst of all, we deployed baggage, furniture, kids, and wives to the East Coast while the Pentagon sent the 4th Group out of Langley all the way from the East Coast to
Japan. The 71st stayed at Griffiss for just three months, August through October, before we were transferred again to what we soon called the “armpit of America,” Greater Pittsburgh Airport. The conflict with Korea created a sudden demand for pilots, and my experienced troops were drained off quickly. I put my own name at the top of every list, only to have it removed by someone at higher headquarters. I was furious and frustrated. I tried repeatedly without results.

  I was made base commander for the unit at Pittsburgh. I don’t know if that was meant to pacify me or to punish me for my repeated requests for combat assignment. Suddenly, my job entailed herding a bunch of engineers and command administrators through the design and construction of new base facilities. The construction part was interesting. The office hours were not. I wanted the roar of engines, not the sound of clacking typewriters, an inside view of a heavy overcast, not a mountain of papers. I was a fighter pilot, not a paper pusher.

  Ella had been warned when I proposed to her in 1946 that I was and always would be a fighter pilot. She seemed comfortable with that and we were so in love that nothing could have kept us from getting married. Now here I was, an honest-to-God desk driver, barely a pilot and certainly not a fighter pilot. My poor wife. Our move from California impeded her acting career in Hollywood because she started commuting from Los Angeles to New York as soon as I got to Griffiss. She kept her house in Coldwater Canyon while she fulfilled her contract obligations to Universal Studios for two more movies. She rented an apartment on Park Avenue in Manhattan in order to be near me, and we spent as much time there as we could. Television was emerging and the National Broadcasting Company’s headquarters were in New York City. One thing naturally led to another and Ella immediately started appearing in TV shows, including the premiere of the Pulitzer Prize Playhouse with Charles Coburn in October. We made the most of that apartment and had great fun mingling in the glamorous high society of the city.

 

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