Roaring Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (Novels of the Jet Age)

by Walter J. Boyne

  Shannon turned to George Schairer, who stood watching the aircraft, still visible from its trailing plumes of black smoke. “Well, George, you are off to a good start. How many of these things do you think you’ll build?”

  “Well, we’re building lots of B-47s and they’ll be around for a while. I figure we’ll build a couple of hundred B-52s, at least. They should stay in the inventory for ten years, maybe fifteen, so we’ll have a good aftermarket for modifications and parts.”

  That night Vance heard the story about Johnston’s landing at Moses Lake. The YB-52 had flown for three hours and eight minutes, probably a record for a first flight, with Johnston and Townsend checking every system in the aircraft before making a first landing attempt at Larson. They were well down on final when a scramble of Air Defense Command interceptors forced a go-around. On the second attempt they landed smoothly, Townsend deployed the brake parachute, and the aircraft came to a halt before a crowd of awestruck military leaders and plant officials.

  In the debriefing room, the Boeing and Air Force engineers were surprised to find that the enthusiasm of both Johnston and Townsend was guarded. After most first flights, the test pilots are exuberant, and it’s rare that the airplane is not called the best they had ever flown. But both Johnston and Townsend seemed fatigued. One of the engineers, Paul Demchak, asked Johnston, “Well, what do you think is needed?”

  Johnston, deadpan, replied, “New flight suits.”

  Nonplussed, Demchak asked, “New flight suits? I thought you had new flight suits.”

  And Johnston shot back, “If we are going to have to manhandle this son of a bitch around, we’re going to have arms bigger than our legs, and we’ll need new flight suits.”

  Demchak took the point, passed the word to Blumenthal, and the aircraft was rerigged before its next flight.

  Shannon knew how Johnston felt—and how Demchak felt, too.

  September 3, 1952, Kimpo Air Base, Korea

  They called it K-14, and as Major Tom Shannon stepped out from the C-54 transport and looked around, he could see very little improvement over his last base, K-13, some twenty-five miles due south. But it was soon evident that the American penchant for comfort had been working hard. The offices all seemed well equipped, the supply officer had a complete array of flight equipment, and there was even an Officers Club, just varnished plywood interior, decked out with photos and models, but still a cut above anything he’d experienced at Suwon.

  The big difference, of course, was on the flight line, where gleaming new F-86Es had begun to replace the war-weary F-86As. There were now 127 F-86s operating in Korea. About half were here and the rest were with the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing based at his former base, Suwon. The Communists had perhaps five times that number of MiG-15s in the theater. Unaccountably, they had not sought air superiority, being content to engage the Sabres on favorable terms over MiG Alley. Still the threat was always there, and the Chinese continually built new airfields in Korea into which a formidable air force could be flown on an instant’s notice. If the Reds seized air superiority and used airpower to back up their massive infantry and artillery, the UN troops would probably be rolled back down to Pusan—and maybe all the way into the sea.

  As he stretched to rid himself of the cramped muscles from the flight, he thought, I wonder what’s wrong with me. He had finished his last tour in Korea in January, returned to the United States, and married Nancy in February. He took her with him to Nellis and then to Williams Air Force Base near Phoenix, where he had instructed in gunnery. She had been completely happy until he told her he had volunteered for a third tour in Korea.

  That evening would play forever in his mind, for although he had felt like a jackass many times before, the evening brought him to a new height—or depth—in the realm of jackasses. They were getting ready for dinner, and Nancy had prepared London broil, one of his favorites, on the little charcoal grill he’d bought. She was standing next to him, the platter of London broil hot off the grill in her right hand and an open bottle of Paul Masson Emerald Dry Riesling, her current favorite wine, in the left.

  “Honey, I hope you’ll understand, but I’ve got a chance to go back to Korea. It’s my chance to command a squadron.”

  She hesitated for half a beat and said, “You are kidding, of course?”

  “No. I hate to leave you, but I can’t pass up this opportunity.”

  The grace that stood her so well on the dance floor now paid off in the swift movement of her hands, as the right dumped the London broil in his lap, her left deftly pouring the wine over his head.

  Jumping up, he knocked the table over and, rebounding, fell backward over his chair. From the floor he pleaded, “Jesus, Nancy, there’s no need for that.”

  “There’s no need for anything, obviously, especially me. Well, I’ve got two little surprises for you. One is, I’m leaving, tonight. The other is that I’m pregnant, due in seven months.” She stormed from the room, pausing at the door to say, “Marie had it right all along. I never should have slept with you, either.”

  For the next thirty minutes, sincerely contrite and utterly humble, he had been on his knees, pleading with her through the locked bedroom door, promising to get the orders canceled, begging her to stay. The door didn’t open until the horn of a taxi sounded and she left, suitcase in hand. Her parting words were, “Well, you’re some big ace; you’ve shot down thirteen planes and two wives.”

  Since then he had heard of her only through Jill, who told him that Nancy never opened any of his letters or telegrams, and threw out his flowers and presents without looking at them. Jill told him frankly that he was the biggest jerk in history, and so did his father, who sided entirely with Nancy. Even Harry, who normally supported him no matter what he did, now took Nancy’s side and told him so.

  Harry told him, “Dad feels like I do. You had a terrible experience with Marie, and now you are treating Nancy badly. She’s pregnant, and just when she needs you most, you run away to play soldier again.”

  Tom knew that they were all correct, that he had acted badly, and that his was a sad and stupid case. But as he stood surveying the familiar scenery, the busy mechanics working on the jets, aircraft in the traffic pattern, and the unforgettable weird mixture of Korean farm odors and the scent of hot jet engine exhaust, he knew something else. He knew he had to be here, that this was his job, and sad and stupid as he might be, he was going to do it.

  It was like coming home to be back with the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, even though most of the people he had known before had rotated out. Where there were once mostly veterans of World War II, the 4th now had a large component of new pilots, fresh out of flying school, and compared to them, Tom felt he was an old man at thirty-four.

  But he was an old man with experience and within the first week, even before he had flown his first combat mission, he had identified three major problems. The first he could not do much about—there were simply too few F-86s in the theater. The second was more worrisome, however, because even the low in-commission rate sapped the Sabre strength even more. Parts were in short supply, and the logistics train was endless. Requests for parts had to go through the chain of command, through Japan, Hawaii, and then back to the United States, where the depots, working as hard as they could, would try to fill the request and get it shipped back over. The problem was that requests were lost and others took four months or more. In the meantime, the worst thing for maintenance and morale went on—cannibalization of parts from one airplane to another. The third was the way the flights were flown. Too much time and, worse, too much fuel were used in assembly and cruise, making the few F-86s that were available to patrol MiG Alley even less effective.

  Still, he was the new guy, and despite his four kills on his last tour and his thirteen total, he’d have to prove himself again. It was always that way—you came in as a new guy and were treated with formal respect and deference until it came to the flight assignments; then you were under suspicion until
you proved yourself.

  After his first three combat missions, he identified a fourth problem. His flight commander, Greg Frey, an affable major, didn’t seem to be able to find his way into the fights they listened to on the radios. Tom heard the reports of engagement coming in, they all did, and Frey would lead them in one direction and then another, never quite finding where the combat was going on. When they got back to base, they’d hear the other squadrons talking over their fights and their kills, and Tom vowed that when he commanded a flight—and it would be soon, given his record—he would mix it up on every engagement. No more milling around, but straight to the sound of the guns—or at least to the sounds of the radio calls.

  Two weeks later, Frey was rotated home after one hundred missions—and no kills. Since everyone, from the wing commander down, was satisfied with Tom’s performance, he became flight commander and, like all good leaders, called a meeting of his flight immediately.

  “Gents, we’re changing tactics. So far, from what I’ve seen, we’ve been flying defensively. From now on it’s going to be pure offensive flying. Instead of being spread out, like we’ve been doing, I want everybody closed up, with the wingmen close enough to read the itty-bitty numbers on the lead’s tail. The flight leader—that’s me—and the element leader, that’s you, Mellinger, are going to be the shooters.”

  Captain George Mellinger looked pleased; he’d been a wingman for twenty-six missions; now he was going to be a shooter. Tom continued, talking in short bursts, moving his hands to show what he meant, inoculating the other three with his enthusiasm.

  “Greenberg, you are going to fly on my wing. We’ll go out this afternoon and do some rat-racing and I’ll show you what I mean.” Marty Greenberg, a second lieutenant fresh out of Nellis, smiled, almost stunned with pleasure after getting the best job for a new guy in the squadron.

  “And, last but far from least, Sam, I’d like you to fly George’s wing.”

  Lieutenant Sam Norton snapped an informal salute, said, “Roger that; George has no worries now.”

  Pleased with their reactions, Tom went on. “We’re going to try some new tactics as well. I want us to practice these before I ask permission to use them—I’m afraid I’ll get turned down as some crazy new guy reinventing the wheel. If they work out, we’ll have the data, and then try to persuade the CO to go along.”

  Tom wouldn’t have dared to try this in most outfits, but the 4th FIW was commanded by Colonel Birch Matthews, a twenty-two-victory ace in World War II and one of the most respected airmen in the theater. Matthews’s easygoing personality permitted him to allow innovations even as he kept discipline fine-tuned for combat.

  The first change Tom introduced was simple. In the past, the F-86s had joined formation over the field, then climbed as a unit to about 43,000 feet, then slowed to about Mach .84 until they were in the combat area. Tom had them take off and immediately begin clawing for altitude, forming up in the climb. Then, when they reached 43,000 feet, they flew at Mach .90. The difference was subtle but effective; they reached altitude with twenty minutes more fuel for combat, and when they reached the MiG Alley they were already at speed, ready for combat.

  Within two weeks, all four members of the flight had scored victories, with Greenberg’s at the very end of a mission when they had run into one of the “Honchos,” the experienced MiG pilots who knew how to fly and fight.

  Shannon had led that attack, and the MiG had turned in to them, beginning a long duel that carried them down from 40,000 feet, turning in a spiral descent that brought them ever closer to the Yalu. All through the fight, Greenberg had, as usual, stayed glued to Shannon’s wing. When the MiG broke to the left for a final run to the Yalu, Shannon called, “Marty, this one’s yours. You do the shooting and I’ll cover your tail.”

  “Roger, moving in.”

  Greenberg moved farther to the left, lined up the fleeing MiG in his sights, and fired a long burst that cut the fuselage in half right at the cockpit.

  Shannon called, “You can stop firing now, Marty; congratulations. Let’s go home.”

  The victory came long after the time when they formerly would have had to have left MiG Alley, using the old tactics. When Tom briefed Matthews on his new procedures, showing him the increased mission times, the CO adopted them for the entire wing.

  The parts problem was not as easy to solve. Tom asked for and got additional duty as maintenance officer, and he pored over the requisitions, seeing how certain key parts—generators, thermocouples, IFF (identification, friend or foe) boxes, radios, slats, and other hard-used items, went on the requisition lists—and stayed there for weeks and months. Even ridiculously routine items, such as washers, nuts, and bolts, were scarce. Every once in a while, a C-54 would drop out of the sky from Japan and off-load a seemingly random selection of parts, never enough to bump up the in-commission rate, which was down to a miserable 68 percent of the F-86s in commission on average. If the figure fell to 50 percent or below, the war in MiG Alley would be over—there wouldn’t be enough Sabres to do battle.

  Over the next week, even the combination of dedicated mechanics and the marvelous technical representatives—tech reps—from North American, working night and day, began to lose the battle, and the in-commission rate dropped down to 57 percent.

  Shannon called in John Henderson, the hardworking North American tech rep, and asked him what he thought.

  “It’s just red tape, Tom. North American has all the parts we need boxed and ready to go. The problem is in the supply chain. They are computing replacement requirements on a peacetime basis, instead of using the figures we send them about combat. So stuff is backing up at our end.”

  Tom looked at his six pages of closely written notes, which listed all current parts deficiencies of the 4th. “What if I offer to buy these out of my own pocket, and pay the shipping costs? Would North American send them?”

  Henderson laughed. “Good one, Tom. There’s about fourteen million dollars there. If North American garnishees your wages for the next two thousand years, we might come out even.”

  “I’m not kidding, John. The Air Force would pay for them eventually; you know that. It would just be us, you and me, putting our necks on the line. But what if we ordered them, and North American chartered an airplane to deliver them here. How long would it take?”

  “Well, it would take more than one airplane, that’s for sure, three for sure, four maybe. But if we ordered today . . .”—he stopped to think, factoring in the cruising speed of the DC-4s that would be used, the stops that would be made—“. . . maybe six or seven days. But you know this is totally illegal; you don’t have the authority to buy the parts, and I don’t have the authority to say ship them.”

  “A perfect fit. We can be cellmates at Leavenworth. But the 4th will have the parts.”

  “Well, if we are going to do it, let’s do it right. The mechanics are short on tools; let me gin up a list of wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, and what have you, enough for you and the 51st as well.”

  “Let’s double the parts order. The 51st must need the same stuff we do; we’ll ship half of it down there. What do the Brits say, ‘In for a penny, in for a pound’?”

  Henderson grinned, shook his head, and said, “Well, we’ll probably be in for twenty years and that pound will be a chunk out of our asses. Let me send the list in. I’ll tell John Casey what I’m doing, and he’ll back us up, for sure.” Casey was the top North American guy in the theater, a square-shooting take-action type. Shannon knew he’d not only approve; he’d facilitate the action.

  “Tom, are you going to tell your boss, Matthews?”

  “No, if I did he’d either have to agree and put his own neck on the line or overrule me. I don’t want to put him in that position.”

  “We could go to jail for this, for real.”

  “Hell, that would just make my wife happy! But I’m going to cover myself. When you tell me that North American is shipping the stuff, I’m going to send a mess
age to the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Vandenberg, telling him what I’ve done. And I’ll copy everyone in the chain of command, all the way down to Matthews.”

  “Tom, you have balls, no question about it. I just hope the Air Force lets you keep them.”

  Still shaking his head, Henderson took the lists and walked down to the tent where North American kept its communication gear. An hour later the order was back at North American, being filled. Two hours later, Shannon was standing at a brace in Matthews’s tent, watching his boss explode as he waved Tom’s message around.

  “Are you out of your mind? Messaging the Chief of Staff? Don’t you think he’s got a few other things on his mind? Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “I didn’t want you going to jail, Colonel.”

  “Well, that’s for sure where you are going. And we’re starting with confining you to your quarters except to fly.”

  For the next four days, the in-commission rate continued to drop, and grounded F-86s were idle, spotted in their pits around the field. On the fifth day, the rate hit 50 percent, and one of the three scheduled missions was canceled, the first time ever for the 4th. There just were not enough airplanes to fly.

  On the sixth day, C-54s began landing at Kimpo, offloading supplies. By that evening, the in-commission rate had jumped back to 75 percent, and Matthews called Shannon into his office.

  “Tom, that was either the dumbest or the greatest trick I’ve ever seen. Right now, looking at these in-commission figures, I think it was the greatest. Forget about the court-martial; forget about being confined to quarters. I can’t get you a medal for violating procedures, but I’ll do better than that. I want you to lead the whole 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing tomorrow, every plane that can fly! I’ll fly your wing, and we’ll get us some MiGs.”