I spent the year wondering what the hell I’d find when I finally went to war.
16
The Phantom and the War
I got my orders to the 8th TFW at Ubon Royal Thai AFB in Thailand with a stop en route to get a quickie checkout in the F-4. Chappie James was deputy commander for operations for the 4453rd Combat Crew Training Wing at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona, so I gave him a call. An excellent pilot and close friend, Major Bill Kirk, was also at D-M as an instructor pilot. Chappie called Bill right away. “Bill, the boss is coming. He needs to get checked out and only has a week to do it!” It didn’t seem a problem to me. So what if I had only five days to learn the F-4 after all the different birds I’d flown in my life. How hard could it be?
I packed up the household goods at Shaw, shipped a footlocker and my personal gear to Thailand, and sent Susie to live with Ella and Chris in Washington, D.C. Both the girls would be in the same school for the first time in four years, Ella was happy and seemed content with the D.C. social scene, so the family was OK. I was headed to the war at last, but there was a lot to think about.
I knew that the war was not proceeding very well and wondered how I’d cope with the Washington bureaucracy pulling the military strings. In the Cuban missile crisis of ’62, when I was buried in the Pentagon, they concluded that a determined but carefully controlled American response was what faced down the Soviets. As a result, the Washington bigwigs and think-tank guys did a good job of convincing everyone in real power that the true objective in combat was not to destroy the enemy but to convince him it was in his best interest to settle the matter by conceding instead of facing escalation and defeat. Persuasion would work rather than the threat of overwhelming defeat.
The air strikes against North Vietnam in early 1965 and the first Rolling Thunder missions were intended to warn Hanoi of worse things to come. The concept was of gradual escalation rolling toward serious consequences. President Johnson, SecDef Robert McNamara, and adviser McGeorge Bundy all believed these early strikes would influence Hanoi’s attitude by focusing on LOC (lines of communication) in the southern part of North Vietnam, the panhandle above the DMZ. The attacks seemed useful for hampering the movement of matériel south, but they didn’t seem to be putting sufficient pressure on Hanoi. America was moving ground troops into South Vietnam, and a significant portion of our air power was diverted to supporting that effort. The Rolling Thunder campaign was handled from the bases in Thailand and the carriers on Yankee Station. LBJ thought that Hanoi would come to the bargaining table under this gradual “pressure.” Rolling Thunder was one part of a four-part strategy intended to bend the will of the Communists: First, stepped-up operations on the ground in South Vietnam; second, civil, political, and economic programs in the South; third, Rolling Thunder bombing of the North; and fourth, offers of negotiations and aid in postwar economic development.
The decision not to apply our military force decisively was balanced by concern that South Vietnam was so weak politically that it could collapse, especially if heavier bombing caused Hanoi to increase its infiltration and direct military involvement. The greatest fear was of provoking Chinese intervention or Soviet retaliation. Finally, Washington was reluctant to risk punishing North Vietnamese civilians the way they had once attacked the cities of Germany and Japan. On paper this looked fine and made sense, but in the battlefields our loss of American lives in a limited war seemed a waste of good men. It was frustrating. I wanted to go in and win the damn thing. Spare everybody the suffering!
Hanoi was already exploiting the escalated bombing with a worldwide PR campaign it knew was triggering growing antiwar sentiment in the United States. The North Vietnamese regime had mobilized its entire civilian population and military to quickly repair what the U.S. was damaging. It armed citizens with rifles and other light weapons to fire at low-flying planes. It increased its aid to the South and its resistance to us in the North. The North Vietnamese weren’t becoming more compliant at all.
I knew I was stepping into a mess. There were few of us who believed that air power could work if truly sensitive targets were left unchallenged. My resolve was to achieve the mission but protect my guys, fight the Washington bureaucrats as hard as I could but still do everything possible within our imposed limitations to make us successful. During the three months prior to my taking over at Ubon, I knew the wing had lost a squadron’s worth of airplanes, and more than twenty pilots were dead or missing. Things had to change, but I had already spent enough time thinking about the problems ahead. It was time for me to fly again!
At Davis-Monthan, I linked up with Chappie, Bill Kirk, and another instructor pilot, Tommy McNutt. We got down to work. I had my initial flight in the F-4 and knew that the normal fourteen steps in Bill’s training syllabus would be compressed for my schedule.
On my second flight in the F-4 we were west of Tucson near Gila Bend and had just gone through the usual familiarization maneuvers. We had done high-g maneuvering, rolls, reversals, and routine acrobatics. I loved the Phantom. Everything about it felt right. It was light on the controls and quickly responsive to power changes, and it gave me a feeling of eagerness not normal in an object weighing more than 17 tons.
“Hey, Bill, how about showing me this adverse yaw everybody seems so worried about?” I knew what the principle was, but in this airplane it seemed to present some unusual problems. Basically the idea was that an airplane turns by moving one aileron up and the opposite aileron down, causing a roll. Adverse yaw was a slewing or skidding of the nose in the direction away from the turn. It was caused by the down aileron generating more drag than the one that moved upward. It was usually countered by a bit of rudder. I’d seen it all before.
Bill didn’t sound too eager when he answered, “I dunno, Robin. Uh, well, OK. Let’s get up some speed. Hit the burners, let the nose down, then pull up when you’re close to mach to zoom and get some altitude under us. OK. Now pull up about 60 degrees.”
Up we zoomed like a rocket.
“OK, we’re through 40,000, bring it out of burner and back to idle. Let her slow down like a stall approach. Forty-five thousand, 50,000, don’t touch the ailerons! OK, we’re down to 200 knots, 175, hold it, hold it, 51,000, 150 knots. Now, touch the ailerons. Feel that buffeting? Watch out for the nose slice—”
“Whoops! Oh shit!”
The nose of the F-4 swerved left opposite my aileron input, sliced right, left again, then right, and tucked under violently. The ground spun around, stopped, and then spun the other way. The nose pitched up above the horizon, then slammed under again, the earth spun, and my shoulder harness bit me hard. A few years’ worth of accumulated dust and dirt flew up over my head and lodged on the canopy. We seemed in an inverted tumble. I had seen spins in a lot of airplanes but this was something else. I worked furiously at the controls, but nothing seemed to have any effect. Then both engines flamed out.
We were gyrating like a falling leaf in a windstorm when Bill hollered, “Get out the RAT—the engines are gone!”
At least one of us knew what was going on. I found the handle on the console by my hip and extended the ram air turbine. I heard the small doors thump open as the fan device popped out into the airstream to run the hydraulics for flight controls. We continued tumbling crazily straight down, down, down; sky overhead, then under, the ground appeared, then disappeared, negative g-forces sucked at us, then a slam of positive, down we went. Thirty thousand, 20,000, 18,000, the altimeter unwinding. The bird tumbled, the earth spun, the horizon went crazy, and I kept feeling out all the controls, trying to break the violent stall.
“OK, Colonel,” Bill yelled, “fourteen thousand, we better get out!”
“No, no, wait!” I called back. “I think I’ve got it. Just one more turn!” As the nose went straight down and paused in its gyrations I slammed the stick full forward, ailerons with the turn, and full opposite rudder. The aircraft hesitated, then kicked farther forward in a wings-level dive. I immediately relaxed f
orward pressure, and went neutral on the ailerons and rudder.
By God, that did it! I was back in control; the airspeed was building. I pulled gently out of our dive. We leveled out at about 8,000 feet above the deck, and with Bill’s help, I restarted both engines. Whew! I could hear Bill gulping huge deep breaths in the backseat.
“Holy mackerel, Bill. That was fun! Let’s go do that again!”
I laughed when Bill shouted, “Not on your life, sir!”
The g-meter was pegged in both directions, positive and negative. We flew gingerly back to base knowing the bird would have to undergo a thorough check for possible damage to the airframe and engines.
Well, I thought, that was an enlightening experience. I guess the tech order knew what it was talking about when it warned of deep stalls and aileron movement. I think I’ll avoid it in the future. And I did. Bill, on the other hand, must have been out of his mind when he agreed later that week to join me in Thailand. Maybe it was because he knew we’d never have to be in the same aircraft together again.
After five training days it was time to get going, but there was a problem with clearing the base. Although there was a war going on on the other side of the world, peace prevailed at this SAC-controlled installation. Most of us in the F-4 training pipeline, officers and enlisted alike, were on full schedules as students. The only time we could work on out-processing was noon hour during the weekdays. That was the time when the base functions shut down for lunch. I tried twice to get my pay records from base finance, but the line outside the closed door stretched for 50 yards down the sidewalk and my next flight briefed at 1300 hours. Once that was over and debriefing was done, the finance office would be closed. Something was going to have to be done.
The next day at noon I barged past the line to the closed door, entered with a bang, and confronted a flustered sergeant. “Where’s your boss?” I demanded.
“Still in his office,” stammered the man.
“And where is that?” He pointed and I went. A captain sat behind a desk eating a sandwich.
“Come with me,” I ordered.
I walked him outside to the end of the line, turned him around and pointed to the men standing there. As patiently as I could I explained to him that these men were going to Southeast Asia and this was the only time of day they could get their clearances from his office. I told him I was sure both his base commander and SAC headquarters would be fascinated with my report concerning his lack of concern for the needs of the troops and that both entities would recognize the basis of my complaint.
The captain sized up what was said and replied that I wouldn’t have to go to all that trouble. All I had to do was go to the head of the line and his people would take care of my clearance. I glared at the man and told him that wasn’t the purpose of my visit. It was about doing the job for all of the troops. That finally got him in gear and he asked what I expected him to do, since most of his staff were civil servants. I suggested he stagger their lunch hours and keep his air force people on hand during the time when they were needed. He did it. I found out later most of the base functions followed suit.
I still had to complete my training by firing two practice missiles, an AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder, on the range at Point Mugu on the Ventura County coast. The airplane got loaded with the missiles and a travel pod for my gear. We briefed the mission, then flew out to the range, found the target being towed, fired our missiles (I never knew where they went), and landed at Travis AFB near Sacramento. Bill said his good-byes and headed back to D-M solo. I hung around Travis for a day, did more paperwork and prep, then was hustled into a chartered baby blue Braniff 707 loaded to the gills with an assortment of people: old, young, GIs in uniforms of all services, dependents, mothers with babies, you name it. It was business as usual, all on their way to various bases throughout the Pacific. I was just one of the passengers. God, what a contrast to going to war in 1944. I was on my way.
We stopped in Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines. People got off and others got on in a constant, never-ending stream. The cabin began to stink of dirty diapers, vomit, and human sweat. It wasn’t a crammed troopship on an ocean voyage, but it wasn’t much better. We reached Tan Son Nhut, in South Vietnam. Some of the passengers deplaned for good and a harried-looking captain came on board. With an air of authority he ordered everyone to remain on board but announced that the colonel would be allowed to get off. I told him I would stay with my fellow passengers.
We sat there as the plane baked in the sun. The heat inside became nearly unbearable. The baby across the aisle fretted and screamed. His mother, who I learned was on her way to join her husband at the embassy in Bangkok, became frantic. I left the plane and found the captain in the terminal fussing around. He told me it would be another hour or so before departure. As he turned to go about his business I told him to come with me. He knew it was an order. We boarded the plane and I told him to sit next to me. I didn’t say anything. We just sat. He began to sweat. The poor baby screamed louder. One of the women appeared about to pass out. The captain was a prolific sweater. He squirmed and tried to tell me he really had a lot to do. Too damn bad.
I responded, “That’s fine. You can get off and so will all the passengers. Show me where they can get relief and a drink of water, and I assure you I’ll have them ready when it’s time to get back on board.” That worked. Everyone had a break in the terminal. We reboarded after another hour and headed to Don Muang airport in Bangkok without further trouble. We deplaned there and were herded as a group to listen to a predictably boring “in-briefing.” It was late in the day when a sergeant told us to report back the following morning for transportation to final destinations.
The next morning, September 30, I got on a cargo-laden C-130 with a number of enlisted troops. We spent the whole day flying from base to base around Thailand, unloading and loading people and supplies. Each stop let in another blast of hot, humid, fetid air. At last, five sergeants and I were dumped with our luggage out the back end of the “Klong” at Ubon RTAFB. I gazed about me with interest and no small amount of growing anger. We stood on a piece of hot concrete a mile away from base ops, the sun beating on us out of a brassy sky. No shelter and no base people to take care of deplaning passengers.
The C-130 did a 180 near us and took off in the other direction. We were left in the arming area at the end of the runway. In the distance I could see the familiar tails of a line of F-4s parked on what I presumed to be the main taxiway. Maybe that was why the 130 had to take off in the opposite direction. Mighty peculiar, I thought. It was quiet as the sergeants sat on their duffel bags and I sat on my footlocker. We waited. A fine greeting for their new commander. I had wanted to find out how replacements were received and I found out. This would be fixed!
A bored captain finally drove up in a pickup. I stared at him. He stared back. I identified myself and asked if this was a typical example of passenger service. He looked at me dully. I suggested perhaps he might give me a lift to wing HQ, since that was now my place of business. Even that didn’t faze him. Without offering any directions on where to take our gear, how to sign in, or where the mess or quarters were, he delivered us to wing headquarters, where we were unceremoniously dumped out. The sergeants stayed with their gear out front, by this time looking a little nervous.
I stalked into the front door of the wing HQ, turned into the closest office, asked where the NCOs should go, and then reported back to the sergeants. They took off. I left my footlocker outside and walked back into the building. To tell the truth, I was having a hard time trying to look angry. There was sort of a “gotcha!” grin sneaking onto my face because I was just too damned happy to be there. Trying to look determined and offended and to show annoyance was just about impossible, even for a ham like me. My happiness at getting to what would be “my” base easily overpowered the lost “new guy” feeling. When I stalked down the long dark corridor from the entrance of wing headquarters I was more conscious of the smell of the r
uddy teakwood walls than of maintaining my pose as an insulted new commander.
An air policeman stood at the end of the corridor outside a door marked COMBAT OPERATIONS. My scowl must have been sufficiently threatening because he didn’t make the slightest attempt to prevent me from entering the nerve center of the wing. I slammed through the door and barely stopped myself from laughing at the look on the faces of the men working inside. There was annoyance at seeing a strange colonel burst into the sanctum, quizzically raised eyebrows at just who the hell I might be, dawning realization that they were looking at their new commander, then chagrin on realizing that no one was with me and that my arrival had been unannounced and unnoticed. They exchanged furtive glances, each man wondering who had dropped the ball, then bent their heads back down to work. It wasn’t me. Don’t look at me! One bright lad must have picked up the phone because 8th TFW vice commander Colonel Vermont Garrison suddenly appeared at my elbow. My old friend was not too happy with me. I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t fair or very good form to arrive without warning.
Pappy was an old acquaintance. We had worked together in the Pentagon and I respected him as an extraordinary pilot. He was an ace in World War II, a double ace in Korea, a wise old sage, and a true Kentucky gentleman. He had a full head of silver hair and personified calm dignity, but today Pappy was mad clear through. He hustled me down the hall toward the front of the building and into a spacious office we would share with a male NCO secretary. Pappy’s desk and mine were separated by a latticework partition sporting a thick growth of philodendrons. The checkerboard floor tile and spare, functional furnishings were not at all pretentious. I liked the place right away.
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