“The unique thing about Thule,” Joe Gyulavics continued, “was landing on a snow-packed runway. At low temperatures, it really was no problem. You could practically brake on the cold snowpack like it was concrete. Of course, you had to be judicious about it. If you steered too fast, you kept on going, as if you were in a car on ice. Our antiskid brakes helped. In spring, when there was melting, it could get touchy at times. Getting ready to take off one time, I taxied up a little apron near the lip of the runway. There was a slight uphill grade, and two KC-97s had sat on the apron before me, running up their engines, melting some of the snow. When I came up the slight incline, the melted snow had turned to slick ice. I couldn’t see the ice from the cockpit. All of a sudden the aircraft started sliding backward and sideways. I had no control. On a tandem gear, this was not a pleasant experience. The nose of the aircraft was rotating, and there were snowbanks all around. I hit the number one and two engines [left outboard engines] and swung around, hoping I would not damage the wingtips or run the tail into a snowbank. I finally managed to swing her around. When we returned from that mission, the crew chief found a sizeable dent in the left wingtip. Things like that only happened at Thule.
“Only once during two deployments to Thule did I meet an Eskimo. It was during Project Home Run. We test-fired our 20mm tail guns as soon as we leveled off, about thirty or forty minutes out. You would think you are out there with nothing but snow and ice below you from frozen horizon to frozen horizon. Because of the total darkness, we couldn’t see anything. You can imagine my surprise when after landing one day I was asked if I test-fired my guns. Yeah, I answered, we do on every mission at about the same place. A couple of Eskimos had come in to the Danish Council carrying several 20mm shell casings. ‘They fell from the sky,’ the Eskimos said. Even near the North Pole, you couldn’t be sure there wasn’t someone out there.”
“Our first overflight mission of four RB-47Es and two RB-47Hs on April 5 was a complete flop,” recalls Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Fields, “and had to be curtailed because our KC-97 tankers developed mechanical problems. Only two KC-97 tankers were at the rendezvous refueling point. Five or six others were very late for takeoff or had aborted for one reason or another. It was pointless to continue, as two tankers could not ever provide half the fuel that was required. So everyone returned to Thule. This prompted General Wheless, the Project Home Run senior officer, to have a face-to-face discussion with the tanker squadron commander to impress upon him the importance of our missions and how he fit into the picture. Thereafter, we never aborted a mission during our stay at Thule for any reason. Our overflights of Soviet territory started in early April 1956, shortly after our Arctic training had ended, and lasted until early May. After the initial tanker-related problem on the first scheduled overflights, we flew a total of 156 flights without a single abort. On one occasion, we had six RB-47s recover into Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska and return the next day. The missions involved both photographic and electronic reconnaissance, with the planes departing in pairs. We mapped not only Novaya Zemlya but also most of the Arctic portion of the Soviet Union including air bases, radar stations, atomic testing sites, and numerous towns and industries.
“One incident happened at Thule that involved one of our most reliable aircraft commanders—John Lappo. John Lappo was about forty-five minutes late returning from a mission. In the command post, I was getting nervous. Colonel Meng was getting nervous. General Wheless was getting nervous. Finally, General Wheless said, ‘Lloyd, let’s break radio silence. I want you to call John and see how and where he is.’ I got on the radio and called John Lappo, saying, ‘John, how much fuel have you got.’ Lappo got back immediately, ‘I have enough.’ I repeated, ‘John, how much fuel have you got?’ And he repeated, ‘I have enough.’ I changed my approach and said, ‘How many pounds of fuel do you have?’ John replied, ‘8,000 pounds.’ That airplane was supposed to have 8,000 pounds of fuel on board when it parked on the ramp and shut down its engines. I knew it took about 6,600 pounds of fuel per hour to fly the RB-47 at his current altitude. So I asked, ‘How far are you from base?’ ‘Forty-five minutes,’ he got back to me. I asked him if he wanted a tanker; one was standing by for just such an emergency. He didn’t want a tanker. His rational was that if for any reason he missed connecting with the tanker, he would be in real trouble. John, and the other two aircraft in his flight, came straight in and landed. During the debriefing, General Wheless asked John, ‘Why were you forty-five minutes late?’ ‘Well, General,’ Lappo responded, ‘it was like this. The visibility was not good at the target area when I arrived, and I didn’t think you would want to send another flight over to finish the job—so, I made another pass.’ To that, Wheless replied, ‘Captain Lappo, I wished I had an air division of pilots like you.’”
April 14, 1956, overflight of Noril’sk by three RB-47E photo reconnaissance aircraft of the 26th SRW.
John Lappo’s decision to make a second run against his assigned target was not an idle one. He and his two accompanying aircraft had come a long way—and he was not about to come back empty-handed. Writes the former air force historian R. Cargill Hall, “Of all the SENSINT missions during Operation Home Run, the one flown on 14 April 1956 was probably one of the most audacious and dangerous—the city of Noril’sk, deep in the interior of Siberia. The city had been founded by Stalin as a slave labor camp, a Gulag, for the purpose of exploiting the rich nickel deposits in the area, and never been open to visitors from the West. John Lappo piloted the lead aircraft, Charles ‘Bud’ Mundy flew the second and Franklin Roll piloted the third RB-47E. The aircrews knew nothing of Noril’sk’s history, to them it was just a name on a map and a set of coordinates. They remembered their flight instructions—one pass and haul ass out of denied territory, a God-like edict in the reconnaissance community, never to be violated. When passing over their assigned target, it was covered with Arctic haze. Lappo decided to make a second pass. On the second run over the target, the haze had lifted, and they turned on their cameras. They had arrived at noon, when the sun angle was just right, casting long shadows in the snow, permitting precise calculations of building sizes, shapes and heights. Then they flew south on the Yenisey River to image the town of Igarka and turned north to photograph the port of Dudinka, from which the nickel was shipped to Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula.” Making that extra pass over the target cost Lappo’s flight precious fuel, making their return to Thule a very close thing. There were no tankers planned for their return flight, because one could never count on them being there because of possible high winds and ice fogs at Thule. So what they had in their tanks had to take them back home—they made it, but barely. “Once on the ground the aircrews were debriefed in a secure room. The developed film was flown directly to SAC headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, and to CIA headquarters in Washington, DC.”
RB-47E photo reconnaissance aircraft during Project Home Run, April–May 1956. Captain John S. Lappo, an intrepid flyer, on April 7, 1959, flew an RB-47E like the ones shown here under the Mackinac Bridge with just 155 feet clearance. That spontaneous decision cost Captain Lappo his wings.
Lappo had violated the God-like edict for flying reconnaissance and coming home alive of “One Pass—Haul Ass.” Lappo’s well-meant maneuver soon had the commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command on the ropes. “Lappo’s 360-degree turn to make another pass,” recalls General Rhodarmer, “caused a flap. I was never quite sure how Washington got word of this deviation, but I do know that the air force vice chief of staff, General Thomas White, came under heavy pressure to respond to this unauthorized coverage. General White called me into his office and told me that there was a great urgency to get a message to General LeMay in Omaha, pronto. He told me what he wanted in the message, and wanted me to hand-carry it ‘Eyes Only’ to the SAC commander. The letter was short and to the point; it stated that SAC had no discretion to deviate from authorized targets, and that violations of this nature risked the aircrew over denied territory a
nd could jeopardize future authority for conducting overflights. It further stated that General LeMay had to make this extremely clear to the aircrews. We only had one secretary with the clearance to type this letter. When General White read it and signed it, he said, ‘You made the point.’ As I turned to leave to hand-deliver the letter to General LeMay, General White said, ‘You better have your iron suit on when you see him.’ I immediately got a T-33 and flew out to Omaha to deliver the letter to General LeMay. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Herring, my counterpart at SAC, already knew I was coming—but not the reason why. As soon as I landed, I was taken to the command section. The SAC vice commander was there and expressed an interest in what I had. I told him the message was Eyes Only for General LeMay. He said, ‘Go right in.’ It was the first time I had ever met LeMay, and he was not at all what I expected. He was quite cordial, did not bark at me or throw his cigar. He opened the letter and read it. Then he picked up a pen and wrote, ‘I have looked into this matter and I support my aircrews.’ That was it. I jumped into my T-33, flew back to Washington, and delivered the reply to General White. That was the last I ever saw of that letter.”
During Project Home Run, crews fought outside temperatures of 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit or lower with fur-lined parkas, bulky mittens, heavily padded flight suits, and clumsy mukluk boots. Maintenance had a particularly difficult time with tasks that required them to remove their bulky Arctic mittens. One man held a stopwatch with a second hand, while the other man worked. They completed tasks in stages, switching off to keep their fingers from getting frostbitten. Photo- and electronic reconnaissance aircraft frequently operated in pairs. However, the planes did not fly in formation or even in sight of one another. All aircrews were briefed individually, and because of a strictly applied need-to-know security rule, no aircrew knew exactly where the others were going. The Thule missions of 1956 photomapped the islands of Novaya Zemlya and their atomic test site. These aircraft flew behind the Ural Mountains and across Siberia and confirmed that the Soviet Union’s northern regions were poorly defended against air attack. Subsequently, many of the SAC bomber routes against the Soviet Union were planned to cross the top of the world. Throughout this difficult operation, not one RB-47 was lost as a result of accident or to Soviet fighters. Not that the Russians didn’t try on occasion. Colonel Joe Gyulavics remembered “a bunch of fighters coming up out of Novaya Zemlya. We heard them launch. The Ravens picked up the fighter radars on their receivers. I saw the contrails of the Russian fighters, but they couldn’t overtake us. An interesting time. We thought we were invincible and immortal. We never thought of a downside.”
Noril’sk smelters imaged by a 36-inch focal length camera mounted in Captain John Lappo’s RB-47E. A close-up of the smelters is on the left.
Colonel Burton S. Barrett, one of the RB-47H Home Run aircraft commanders, at the Early Cold War Overflights Symposium in 2001, noted that “sub-zero cold does strange things to men and machines. It seldom snows at Thule. The snow at the base is that which blows in off the polar ice cap, it just never melts and accumulates. Jet fuel in a minus 40 degree environment weighs 7 pounds instead of 6 pounds per gallon, making the aircraft fuel load 107,000 pounds instead of the normal 98,000 pounds. The heavier fuel meant a longer takeoff distance, but ironically the cold air makes the jet engine produce more thrust, causing a shorter takeoff distance. In such cold conditions, engines of motor vehicles were started just once and never shut down, because the engine oil would freeze in five minutes or less. I’ll never forget the cold at Thule. I was never so cold in my life.
Project Home Run overflight sectors and flight tracks for April 27 and May 6 overflights.
“Looking back at this operation, I would say that our success depended on two things—navigation and air refueling. Navigation in the Arctic presents a difficult problem as the magnetic compass arrow just turns in circles. All Home Run navigators had to learn the grid system. Grid navigation was first developed by the Strategic Air Command’s first operational unit, the 46th Reconnaissance Squadron under Maynard White, back in 1946. Once learned, it was a relatively simple thing to navigate across the pole and get back to where you began. The grid heading for the runway at Thule was about 90 degrees different from the standard heading, so I just told my navigator that after leveling off I would give him control of the aircraft to plot our course. Air refueling was the second crucial item for success of our operation. The KC-97 was a conventional aircraft using high-grade aviation gasoline in its four propeller-driven engines. They had to carry JP-4 jet fuel for our RB-47s, but if they had to lighten their aircraft for any reason they would just pump the jet fuel overboard because they couldn’t burn it themselves. As good as the cold was for jet engines, it was very hard on the KC-97’s internal combustion engines. The ground crews had to put heaters on these engines at least six hours before takeoff to get them warm enough to start. Normally we took on 20,000 pounds of fuel from a KC-97. When the tanker orbit moved further north, they could only give us 15,000 pounds. A flight of two RB-47s normally required the support of five tankers.”
Thule Air Base, Greenland, on a good day in 1956. The runway, the base installation, and the nearby Eskimo village are clearly visible.
Major George A. Brown was one of two planners for all of the reconnaissance missions flown. He recalled at the Early Cold War Overflights Symposium that “none of the top commanders or operations officers were permitted to fly any of the missions for security reasons. General Wheless understood why, but one or two of the lower-ranking commanders felt that, as during World War II, they should have been allowed to share the hazards encountered by their crews. Air force headquarters had issued that directive for security reasons.” As General LeMay liked doing, he flew to Lockbourne Air Force Base, Columbus, Ohio, soon after the crews had returned from Thule and personally oversaw the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross to each one of the reconnaissance crews who had flown in Operation Home Run. The KC-97 tanker crews, who made the entire operation possible, received Air Medals.
RB-47H electronic reconnaissance aircraft in 1956 on their way to Thule Air Base, Greenland, for Project Home Run. Four aircraft from the 38th and 343rd SRS participated, piloted by B. Barrett, AC, and D. Waller, CP; R. Campbell/J. Gyulavics; D. Grant/D. Wells; R. Hubbard/C. Aslund.
I think that R. Cargill Hall, the National Reconnaissance Office chief historian, succinctly summarizes the achievement of the Home Run operation: “To this day, the SAC Thule missions remain one of the most incredible demonstrations of professional aviation skill ever seen in any military organization at any time.” I second that opinion.
FATE IS THE HUNTER: THE SHOOTDOWN OF RB-47H 53-4281 OVER THE BARENTS SEA (1960)
Finally, about six hours after their shoot-down, John McKone sees, low and far away over the waters, the tiny dot of a plane. As it moves closer, he can hear its propellers. Then he can see that it is dark green. Finally he can make out a red star on its fuselage. He frantically waggles his signal mirror, but the plane stays steady on its course. Had it seen him?
—William White, The Little Toy Dog
Colonel Charles L. Phillips, then a lieutenant colonel, was assistant director for operations for the 4083rd Strategic Wing at Thule Air Base, Greenland, in 1958. Charlie was a World War II veteran, like so many of the aircrew who served in SAC. In 1945, he flew twenty-nine combat missions against Japan in B-29s out of Saipan, dropping firebombs from altitudes too low for high-altitude antiaircraft guns to be effective, and too high for Japanese automatic weapons fire to reach them. That tactic was one of General LeMay’s innovations. In the process, pilots discovered the jet stream, which could almost bring to a standstill a B-29 bomber flying into the wind. Charlie’s missions had been grueling fifteen-hour flights, and he sympathized with the RB-47 reconnaissance crews, flying similarly lengthy missions out of Thule. In the B-29, Charlie had been able to get out of his seat and stretch his legs, but the RB-47 aircrews had no such luxury; they were confined to thei
r ejection seats for the duration of their flights.
“While at Thule,” Phillips recalled for me during our interview, “I lay on my cot in BOQ 713, listening to the howling winds outside. I thought of my next-to-last combat mission, my twenty-eighth, which I flew on August 6, 1945, the day the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. I ran out of fuel after an unexpected encounter with the jet stream and had to ditch my aircraft. I was apprehensive about putting the big bomber in the calm waters of the Pacific. My crew tumbled about considerably when I did, but fortunately only one of us was severely injured. On August 9, the second atomic bomb was dropped by a B-29 from Tinian. Still, peace negotiations with the Japanese dragged on. On August 14, I launched along with three hundred other B-29 bombers against the Japanese army arsenal at Osaka. I expected to be recalled at any moment because I thought a peace agreement was imminent, but it didn’t happen. We dropped our lethal load of high-explosive bombs and watched as the Japanese arsenal below us was reduced to rubble. Shortly after we landed at Saipan, the Japanese surrendered. I know it was August 14, 1945, in the United States—the fifteenth of August on Saipan.”
Silent Warriors, Incredible Courage Page 22