A-10s over Kosovo

by Christopher E. Haave Kimos

  During all of our sorties, our total focus was on the mission. We had no reservations about what our president, secretary of defense, and NATO commanders had tasked us to do. The horror of nearly a million Kosovo refugees fleeing their homes was more than enough reason. I was ever mindful of the great tragedy unfolding on the ground before our eyes. Villages were being burned every day, masses of humanity were camping in the most austere conditions in the hills, and innocent people were being forced to flee their homeland with everything they owned pulled by farm tractors. Families were separated, and, as we learned much later, untold atrocities were being committed.

  Our overarching mission was very clear—find and destroy the Serb military in and around Kosovo, reduce its capability, and inhibit its ability to move and operate. The mission was always very difficult since there was no direct threat of a NATO ground invasion. The Serb army and MUP could—and did—hide from us, commandeering and using civilian vehicles to move around. Hence, finding and attacking a massed military ground force in the traditional sense was not in the cards.

  Life seemed surreal flying home over the Adriatic after the first mission. Fatigue set in immediately after landing. After over five hours in the air, I felt almost too tired to climb out of the aircraft—I vowed to do better next time.

  The most difficult missions were our CSAR or Sandy missions. Capt Buster Cherrey, mission commander on the successful rescue of an F-117 pilot downed deep inside Serbia, was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry. He was recognized by the president of the United States on 27 January 2000 during the State of the Union Address:

  And we should be proud of the men and women of our Armed Forces and those of our allies who stopped the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, enabling a million people to return to their homes.

  When Slobodan Milosevic unleashed his terror on Kosovo, Capt John Cherrey was one of the brave airmen who turned the tide. And when another American plane was shot down over Serbia, he flew into the teeth of enemy air defenses to bring his fellow pilot home. Thanks to our Armed Forces’ skill and bravery, we prevailed in Kosovo without losing a single American in combat. I want to introduce Captain Cherrey to you. We honor Captain Cherrey, and we promise you, Captain, we’ll finish the job you began.[2]

  I flew a mission on 9 June, the last day we were authorized to expend ordnance. We found and attacked several APCs in southern Kosovo near Mount Osljak before my air conditioner control froze in the full-cold position, which forced our return to Gioia. For over an hour I flew in a frigid cockpit and thought my toes would suffer frostbite until the valve somehow freed itself.

  By 10 June my AEW commander wanted me back at Spangdahlem, and Col Gregg Sanders, my extremely capable deputy, was ready to take over. I flew home solo in the A-10 on 11 June, after assembling and thanking all of the fine airmen. I could not find the right words of appreciation for their dedication, hard work, and professionalism. What an unbelievable effort by every one of them—I have never been prouder of an all-ranks group of airmen in my entire life! Readjusting to the parent wing—52d AEW—was difficult, and I immediately turned my energy to helping reconstitute our wing’s force.

  Lessons Learned

  It is important to review observations and lessons learned, in many cases lessons relearned, or lessons validated under fire. In no exact order, here are mine:

  • With solid leadership, training, and equipment, anything is possible. Any clear mission is attainable over time. No one can precisely predict the time necessary to complete an air campaign or any other type of campaign.

  • Realistic training and exercises pay off in combat. Those experiences provide confidence to commanders and airmen at all levels. Realistic training and exercises also help develop tactics and procedures that, in turn, minimize learning on-the-fly and unnecessary mistakes.

  • Experienced pilots are a force multiplier. Both the 81st and the 74th were blessed with mature pilots and high levels of A-10 experience. This is not to say that the young pilots struggled—they did not. However, our combat experience was enhanced and our risks minimized by having experienced pilots leading in the air, reviewing all aspects of our daily operations, and then guiding everything from the daily flying schedule to combat tactics.

  • Combat is team building and teamwork in its finest hour. Our flying-squadron organization worked in peace and war. It was one team, with one boss, going in one direction, and with everyone pulling his or her weight. There were no divisions, no competition, or conflicts between maintenance and operations.

  • Clear communication between the squadron, group, and headquarters is crucial to success. You know it’s a “bad day” when the CFACC invites you for a face-to-face talk because someone in your command has failed to “follow his published guidance.” Such a communications failure makes his job of commanding the air war more difficult.

  • Regular deployments working with allies facilitate future fighter operations in a coalition air campaign against a determined adversary. Knowing and trusting one’s allies before the shooting starts are imperative to the successful execution of an air campaign.

  • General Jumper’s principle of “tough love” saves time and trouble when things get difficult. He emphasizes establishing and communicating expectations and then holding everyone accountable to those standards. Any required action was fair, firm, and quick. I found nearly all of the 40th EOG ready to fight and win; those few that were not were sent packing.

  • There should never be an expectation that A-10s can fly 5,000-plus combat hours in a 360-degree threat without a loss. To have flown an entire air campaign without a combat loss is a miracle, unlikely to ever be repeated, and should never be an expectation of war planners, senior leaders, or politicians.

  • Pilots will forever resist political restrictions that defy the principles of war and air and space power doctrine. However, they will unhesitatingly follow those restrictions to the letter. These pilots deserve to have the rationale for the restrictions explained, particularly when lives are at stake. They also deserve to have those restrictions regularly reviewed for operational necessity.

  • The quality of our parent wing’s maintenance, effectiveness of its training, courage of its pilots, and superb quality of its leadership enabled the 52d AEW to fly more than 3,500 combat sorties for over 15,000 hours in F-117s, F-16CJs, and A-10s against a determined enemy and in a high-threat environment without any combat losses and with exceptional effectiveness. But this absence belies the high threat! The Serbs had a fully integrated, robust, and lethal air defense system and used it cunningly, firing over 700 missiles and millions of rounds of AAA.

  • Many people sacrificed much to support the air campaign. Our wing had over 1,200 of its 5,000 active duty personnel deployed for up to six months. The families left behind took care of our children, sent us care packages, and prayed for our safe return. I will never forget seeing all the yellow ribbons tied around trees at Spangdahlem AB when I came home.

  As everyone should know, freedom is never free—it puts at risk and may cost the lives of our soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. There is no better air force in the world today than our United States Air Force; the hardworking, dedicated airmen of all ranks deployed all around the world make it great. Since we are back to our expeditionary roots—not off chasing some new idea—and doing what we have done well for most of our history, we must have an expeditionary mind-set. Finally, NATO’s tremendous value and the role it plays in this rapidly changing and dangerous world cannot be overstated. NATO proved false the prediction that it could not stay together until the end—and did so convincingly.

  Redeployment, Beddown, and Maintenance

  Maj Dave Brown

  All those maintainers assigned or attached to the 81st EFS during OAF put forth the necessary effort and were directly responsible for keeping the aircraft flying—24 hours a day for 78 consecutive days. Both obvious and not so obvious things went on behind the scenes during this conflict.


  To say we showed up, did our jobs, and went home would in many aspects be correct. However, that statement would not do justice to all the individuals who went the extra mile and gave their all every day. Their total commitment was demonstrated not only during the campaign but also during the months leading up to it. When the 81st FS left Spangdahlem in January 1999 for a 30-day rotation at Aviano to support Operation Joint Forge, our jets were already in good shape. Despite having to deal with serious parts shortages and an aging airframe, our maintainers did everything within their control to keep our A-10s fully mission capable and at the same time support an aggressive flying-training program. Our crew chiefs kept their deferred discrepancies—those identified, noncritical aircraft problems whose correction had been delayed to an appropriate time in the future—to a minimum. Our maintenance schedulers worked our phase flow at a healthy 220-hour average, and our time-change items were all in compliance, with nothing deferred or coming due in the near future.

  We usually looked forward to a trip to Aviano. This one was no different. It was to be a short 30 days in northern Italy supporting Bosnian overflights. Aviano was a “full up” air base with nearly all the comforts of home. Maintenance support was available, to include supplies and equipment. Aviano also had a base exchange, commissary, and eating establishments on and off base. As tensions began to heat up in the Balkans, we were extended for an additional 30 days, while political efforts attempted to resolve the crisis. As we got closer to the March deadline, we were extended indefinitely. We immediately added a couple of A-10s to our forces at Aviano, bringing our total to eight; by the time air operations commenced on 24 March, we were up to 15 Hogs on station—all ready for the fight.

  Aviano AB was crowded with over 150 airframes of various types on station. We had one hardened aircraft shelter that heldtwo A-10s—one CANN aircraft and usually one that was undergoing unscheduled maintenance due to an in-flight write-up. The other 13 Hogs were parked outside—up to three per hardstand. This created an additional workload for the maintainers by requiring additional tow jobs at the end of the scheduled flying period; it also necessitated some creative planning during launches. We continued to generate more and more sorties, as well as CSAR alert lines. Due to our 24-hour CSAR commitment, we did not enjoy the eight- to 10-hour down period to maintain our aircraft that many of the other units had. We usually flew our tasked sorties during the day and then assumed nighttime (airborne or ground) CSAR alert. Most other flying units had either a day mission or a night mission. Due to our capabilities, we had both. We would postflight our last sorties of the day and immediately start reconfiguring jets to cover the night CSAR alert tasking. This dual tasking presented many challenges and resulted in a full schedule—one that challenged our aircraft, aircrew, and maintenance resources every day.

  This pace continued for the next couple of weeks with our pilots flying long sorties—often exceeding seven hours. Aviano continued to receive and bed down additional fighter aircraft. By 7 April, it had over 170 aircraft on station and was looking for a place to park more F-16s. To help reduce our sortie length and make room for more aircraft at Aviano, the 81st looked for a new location further south that would be closer to the KEZ. We were tasked to send a senior maintainer on a site survey trip to several southern Italian air bases. CMSgt Ray Ide, our rep, evaluated three bases during a 12-hour trip on 6 April 1999. When he came back he said, “Gioia del Colle will work, but we need about a week to spin it up to minimum standards.” There were no munitions on base, no munitionsstorage or buildup area, no dedicated facilities for use by maintenance, and virtually no back-shop maintenance support in place. By the next day, rumors were rampant, and most folks anticipated relocation in about two weeks.

  SrA Nick Kraska working on a jet (USAF Photo by TSgt Blake Borsic)

  Shortly after I arrived at work on Thursday, 8 April, I was tasked to visit Gioia del Colle for a more in-depth site survey. I was accompanied by some Sixteenth Air Force logistics reps. We arrived at our destination late that night and were ready to get busy the next morning. We had all day Friday to look at the base. From a maintenance perspective, I could tell instantly that we had our work cut out to make it suitable. We would be able to use only one of the hardened aircraft shelters for the entire maintenance package—which had now grown to 22 A-10s (18 from Spangdahlem and four from Pope). This increase also meant that additional personnel and equipment would be required. We went toe-to-toe with the Italian air force and were able to gain a second shelter. We would still be a little crowded, but we were definitely much better off with the additional shelter and would be able to set up our back-shop support in one shelter and run the flight-line maintenance-support section and mobility-readiness spares package in the other.

  Eventually we would add a small garage-type building that would house our nondestructive-inspection, wheel-and-tire, and repair-and-reclamation sections. This arrangement would be the extent of our shelter facilities for the duration of OAF. Since we were unable to get any more hangar space to work our CANN aircraft or to conduct any heavy maintenance, we would have to be creative with pallet bags and tarps to cover and protect areas of the CANN aircraft from the elements and debris.

  On Friday, 9 April, we not only learned that we would redeploy to Gioia del Colle, but also got the other “good news” that we would do it on Sunday—in two days. Our focus instantly changed from the site-survey mode to the advanced echelon (ADVON) mode, and we knew we were way behind the power curve. I now had a day and a half to prepare to receive 18 A-10s with more to follow shortly as the 74th FS Hogs made their way across the Atlantic from Pope to Gioia. To further complicate our planning, we learned that we would have to vacate Aviano on Saturday by 1200 due to a large local war demonstration expected to take place at the main gate that afternoon. Our list of “must haves” was instantly growing. We had located initial work areas, located billeting to accommodate 400 personnel as we stood up an expeditionary operations group, and worked a contract shuttle bus for the one-hour trip between our accommodations and the base. We wrapped up what we could on Friday and Saturday and then proceeded to pick up our ADVON team of aircraft maintainers on Saturday afternoon. Sunday was coming way too fast. We managed to sneak in a pretty decent meal at the hotel before hitting the sack early in preparation for the big day that lay ahead of us.

  Sunday the 11th went really well. We recovered (parked and performed postflight inspections) all 15 A-10s from Aviano and three more from Spangdahlem as scheduled. We were now waiting on the transportation system to catch up. Our relocation had not been without problems. Because our initial request for airlift had been denied, we had contracted for commercial trucks to supplement the assets the US Army Transportation Command had in Italy to move our equipment from Aviano to Gioia del Colle. We had nearly one-half of our equipment on the road by the time we convinced the decision makers that this approach would not get our sortie-generation equipment to us in time to meet the schedule for six CSAR alert lines that night, and our tasked sorties for the next day. We were finally allocated some C-130 airlift and were able to get a limited amount of key equipment to Gioia, but it remained far from an ideal situation. One of the redeployment’s most frustrating moments was the excitement of seeing our first C-130 on final, anticipating the delivery of our much-needed sortie-generation equipment, only to find that some of our materiel had been delayed to make room for a combat camera crew. The crew was there to cover our activity at Gioia del Colle as we began to regenerate our jets. Cameramen were absolutely our last priority since they weren’t among the things we needed to have on station to get our A-10s ready to fight—but I figured they would at least be able to take some nice pictures of our 18 static-display aircraft the next morning if the stuff they had displaced didn’t make it.

  The flow of equipment and tools from Aviano could not have been worse. We had gone into great detail in planning the order we needed to receive the equipment at Gioia del Colle, but since the operational method
s varied among the numerous transportation contractors we used, some shipments unexpectedly took longer than others to make the trip. Some trucks had two drivers and did not stop en route. Others had only one driver who took two or more days to make the trip due to overnight stops for rest. It appeared that almost everything showed up in reverse order. The one movement we had control over was the equipment we used to get the jets out of Aviano. After the Panther launch, we loaded that equipment onto the C-130s, and it made it to Gioia shortly after the Hogs arrived. That limited C-130 airlift support probably saved our efforts and allowed us to meet Sixteenth Air Force’s aggressive timeline.

  A-10s and crew chiefs at Gioia del Colle AB (USAF Photo)

  Keeping track of everyone was another redeployment challenge. We did not have a personnel accountability (PERSCO) team on hand to track the people who were showing up from Aviano and Spangdahlem. An Air Force PERSCO team would normally complete all personnel actions required to support deployed commanders, such as reception processing, casualty reporting, sustainment actions, redeployment and accountability of Air Force personnel, and management of myriad other personnel-related programs. Without their help, we did everything we could to catch everyone on their way in, get a copy of their orders, and record some basic information that included their room assignments.