Hamfist Out: The Chill Is Gone (The Air Combat Adventures of Hamilton Hamfist Hancock Book 4)

by G. E. Nolly

  “They fly as attached pilots, get minimum time, and they don’t maintain Combat Ready status. A few intercepts a month, maybe a range ride or two. But they still fly the F-4.”

  I thought about my prospects for getting to Fighter Weapons School if I volunteered for a staff job, and immediately discounted it. Unless I was assigned to the Wing Weapons Division, getting a staff job would be the end of my quest for Weapons School. Of course, the mono took care of that a month later.

  The bitch of it was, if I’d had about 50 hours less F-4 time, I wouldn’t have been eligible for a staff job, since the minimum was 450 hours of fighter time. But, I figured, at least I’d still get to fly the F-4 as a staff pilot, as soon as I was off DNIF.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  16

  May 28, 1973

  Wing Operations and Training Division was where fighter pilot careers went to die. O&T had no single specific mission. Instead, in addition to monitoring flight training activities, it was a catch-all cats and dogs operation that consisted of all of the go-fer jobs that Wing Plans Section didn’t handle. The office was staffed by three Majors – Navigators – who were really on the ball, and three pilots, all ROAD – Retired On Active Duty – Majors.

  I had been instructed to leave CCK and report to Wing Headquarters, back at Kadena. I checked into the BOQ – Bachelor Officer Quarters – and then showed up at Wing O&T to the surprised look of the Chief of the section, a Lieutenant Colonel RF-4 pilot.

  “We didn’t expect to get anyone for another six months,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Ron Basset. Most people call me Ron Recce.”

  Recce was the abbreviation for Reconnaissance, the mission of the RF-4. Ron had flown recce his entire career, first in RF-101s, then in RF-4s. He had more recce time than any other pilot in the Air Force. And he wanted me to call him Ron.

  “Sir,” I said, “I’m not really comfortable calling you by your first name.”

  “Well then, Ham, you’re going to be talking to yourself a lot, because that’s what I answer to.”

  “Yes, sir. I mean, okay, Ron.”

  He smiled.

  At his assignment prior to coming to Kadena, Ron had been the Ops Officer of an RF-4 training squadron at Shaw Air Force Base, back in the States. He had been assigned to Kadena to replace the outgoing RF-4 Squadron Commander, who was due to DEROS just as Ron would be arriving. Ron already had 21 years of service, and had been planning to retire. But the prospects of becoming a Squadron Commander had been too good to pass up, so he accepted the overseas position at Kadena, a three-year assignment.

  But Ron got screwed. While he was en route to Kadena, a local Lieutenant Colonel, the RF-4 Ops Officer, somehow prevailed upon the powers that be and got himself installed as the new Squadron Commander. When Ron arrived on the island, around the same time I got there, he was out of a job. He got shuttled off to become the Chief of the Operations and Training Division.

  To say he was pissed would be an understatement. But he was pragmatic. He knew he was stuck overseas for the next 36 months. So he decided he was going to make the best of a bad deal. He was going to just enjoy himself at Kadena. He wasn’t bucking for promotion to Colonel, so he decided to do the minimum necessary work and let the worker bees, and the ROAD Majors, run the shop. And he was going to fly his ass off.

  When he lost the Squadron Commander position, Ron went up to the Wing Commander and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He cited Title 10 of the United States Code, which specified that the senior pilot would be designated Squadron Commander. Ron was senior to the Lieutenant Colonel who had assumed command of the recce squadron. He told the Wing Commander he was willing to withdraw his request for an Inspector General investigation and his planned complaint to his Congressman if he could fly with the recce squadron like a normal jock and maintain Combat Ready status in the recce mission. The Wing Commander was no idiot. What he had done, taking command away from Ron, was illegal as hell. He gave Ron what he wanted.

  And Ron flew a lot. When he was in the office, which wasn’t too often, he didn’t do much, other than divide up the work assignments to the Navs and to me. If there was a project that wasn’t important, he’d shuttle it off to one of the ROAD Majors.

  Ron wasn’t crazy about staff work, so he decided he would make the job as easy on himself as he could. When a tasking came to his office in the way of any kind of official letter, he simply dropped it in the bottom drawer of his desk.

  “If it’s important,” he announced, “they’ll send a follow-up letter. The rest of the junk,” he proudly pointed to his overstuffed drawer, “will die a natural death.”

  Actually, I discovered, it wasn’t such a bad way to run the office. There were a lot of projects that were total bullshit, and really didn’t warrant any effort. The downside, of course, was that when an important project missed a deadline, we were already a week behind schedule in completing it.

  I quickly discovered that the ROAD Majors were pretty worthless. One Major, nicknamed Flip, was constantly leaving the office early, supposedly because he was feeling ill. More than once, though, he was spotted on the Kadena golf course after leaving work early.

  When Flip was around, he did as little work as he could. One of the O&T duties was serving as OPR – Office of Primary Responsibility – for any suggestions submitted through the Air Force Suggestion Program that pertained to Operations.

  “Here’s the way to handle suggestions that come to us for evaluation,” Flip told me, “We don’t have the authority to approve most suggestions. That would come from higher headquarters. So what I do is figure out a way to deny it. That way I don’t have to follow up on it like I would if I had sent it up to higher headquarters.”

  I thought back to all of the suggestions I had submitted in my previous assignment. I had made a lot of money, and had gotten a lot of career mileage, from those suggestions. If the Suggestion Program monitors at Ubon had operated the way Flip did, I would have been screwed. I didn’t want that to happen to the jocks at Kadena.

  “Hey, Flip, I’d like to manage the Suggestion Program.”

  “Okay, Hamilton, if you want it, you got it.”

  The three ROAD Majors were all in the Sanctuary, past the eighteen-year point in their careers. That meant they were guaranteed they would make it to 20 years for their retirements. They couldn’t be separated from the Air Force against their will, like junior officers could. With junior officers, if there was a surplus of officers, the Air Force could declare a Reduction In Force – RIF – and separate the officers at any time. When a Lieutenant or Captain got RIF’d, he would usually get RIF pay, a few months’ salary. But our ROAD Majors were immune to being RIF’d, and they knew it.

  The ROAD Majors refused to go TDY to CCK. The O&T Division had an officer at CCK at all times, to manage the training activities of the two fighter squadrons. So, when the ROAD Majors didn’t pull their share of TDY, the rest of us had to take up the slack. We would go TDY to CCK for one month at a time, which was nothing compared to what the fighter jocks had to put up with.

  Getting assigned to O&T was a good deal for me in one respect. I didn’t need to worry about missing Sam’s delivery.

  “Listen,” Ron said, “I’m signing this Military Leave Request right now, so if I’m out flying and you need to take leave on short notice, here it is in my desk. You go when you need to go.”

  “Thank you, Ron.”

  “You’re welcome. Remember, family is the most important thing, it takes priority over everything else. You do whatever you need to do to be there when your son or daughter is born. If you’re not there, you’ll regret it your whole life.”

  Ron always kept his office, and his desk, unlocked.

  I appreciated that.

  17

  June 1, 1973

  I started learning the ropes at Wing O&T. I was in totally unfamiliar territory wearing my blue uniform and showing up every morning at 0730. Up until this time, throughou
t my career I had always been wearing a flight suit, and had been operating on “flex time”, showing up at 0300, 0400, whenever I was scheduled. And it usually changed every day. I liked the variety. Now, I would have a predictable schedule, and I was really worried that it would quickly get boring.

  Every morning there was a staff meeting with the Wing Director of Operations. The meeting usually started at 0800, and every department with inputs to Operations had a representative in attendance. There were attendees from Maintenance, Logistics, each fighter squadron, Plans, and, of course, O&T. Because the fighter squadrons were all TDY, Sergeant Molloy was their representative.

  Ron wanted each of us to take turns attending the staff meetings. The ROAD Majors simply said they weren’t interested in participating, and there wasn’t much Ron could do to force them. So the Navigators and I took turns attending.

  Every attendee had to be ready to answer any questions that arose, which usually centered around the previous day’s flying activities. For the O&T Division, there were a lot of reports to digest before the daily staff meeting, so whoever was going to attend the meeting usually came to work at 0600 or sooner, to be totally prepared.

  The first time I attended a meeting I was really a fish out of water. At one point, the DO looked in my direction.

  “What were the results of the Qualification mission for the new pilot,” he looked down at his steno pad, “that would be Captain Andrews?”

  I knew that there had been a mission to the gunnery range the previous day, and I knew that the FNG, Captain Andrews, had been in the flight. But I had no idea if he had qualified for Combat Ready status. And I didn’t even know where to find the information. I looked through the sheaf of reports on my lap and drew a blank. I glanced over at Sergeant Molloy, and received a blank look. I squirmed in my seat.

  “I don’t have that information right now, sir. I’ll get it to your office as soon as we finish up here.”

  He nodded. I wasn’t sure if he was satisfied with my answer, or if he was sizing me up and concluding I was just like the ROAD Majors.

  As soon as the meeting ended, I rushed back to my office and went up to Bill Steers, one of the Navigator Majors, who had become my mentor at O&T.

  “Bill, how do I find the information on Captain Andrews’s Qual ride yesterday?”

  Bill picked up a clipboard with a ream of teletype messages.

  “Here you go,” he pointed to a line in the teletype message, “this is how we decode the message.”

  Bill spent the next fifteen minutes explaining what all the previously indecipherable segments of an Air Force message meant. It would take some adjusting, but I was starting to see the light. And I was able to find the information for the DO. I looked at the report, then hurried to the DO’s office.

  Amy, the DO’s secretary, was in the outer office. We had been introduced when I began my assignment to O&T, but I hadn’t really had any contact with her until now.

  “Good morning, Amy. Colonel Wilson had asked me for some information about yesterday’s range mission, and I have the answer for him.”

  “Oh, you must mean the Qualification mission for Captain Andrews.”

  She sure didn’t miss a thing. I nodded.

  “Just a second,” she said, disappearing into the inner office. Shortly she reappeared. “Colonel Wilson will see you now.”

  “Thank you, Amy.”

  I entered the DO’s office, stood at attention, and saluted. Colonel Wilson returned my salute.

  “Relax, Ham. When you come into my office to give me information I’ve asked for, there’s no need to report and salute. If we did that, we’d be saluting all day.” He paused. “So, how did Andrews do?”

  “Sir, he qualified on the range mission, and is now Combat Ready in all three DOCs.”

  “Thanks, Ham. I’ll let you know if I need any more information.”

  “Yes sir.”

  I turned to leave his office. As I got to the door, Colonel Wilson called to me.

  “Ham, any idea how his bombs were? What kind of CEA?”

  The CEA is the Circular Error Average, which is the average, in feet, of all the bomb deliveries for a pilot on any particular mission. For example, if he had a 20-foot miss and a 30-foot miss on two deliveries, he would have a CEA of 25 feet.

  There was another statistic that was used as a measure of fighter pilot accuracy, the CEP. The CEP is the Circular Error Probable, which is the smallest circular error that encompasses 50 percent of all the pilot’s deliveries. If the pilot, for example, had one 10-foot miss and a 100-foot miss, his CEP would be 10 feet.

  “Sir, Captain Andrews had a CEA of 55 feet.”

  Colonel Wilson looked satisfied. “Any idea of his CEP?”

  I could see he was evaluating me, to see how thorough I was in my research.

  “His CEP was 22 feet, sir.”

  “Thank you, Ham. Good job.”

  I had passed the DO’s first test.

  18

  June 1, 1973

  Bill spent the rest of the day explaining pretty much everything we would be doing in O&T, and where I would need to go for additional information. One of our duties was managing the scheduling of the Ie Shima bombing range, off the coast of Okinawa.

  The 18th TFW managed the range, but there were a lot of users, such as the Navy, the Marines, and some of the fighter units at bases in Korea. So O&T was the one-stop center for assigning range times.

  This actually required quite a bit of coordination. If the range was already reserved for all the daytime slots except 1500, we needed to coordinate with flight scheduling to ensure that the range mission for the 18th TFW would be scheduled for a 1330 takeoff. That assumed an en route flight time of an hour 30 minutes to get from CCK to the range. Then we would need to coordinate for a post-mission in-flight refueling at 1545, assuming a range exit at 1530 and 15 minutes to get to the refueling rendezvous point.

  Coordinating refueling required calling the KC-135 Refueling Squadron, which was also located at Kadena. It usually took several phone calls to make sure there was a tanker aircraft available, with the available fuel load, and that the airspace required for the refueling track was not reserved for any other activity. Refueling airspace reservations required a call to PACAF – Pacific Air Forces –– headquarters. And since PACAF Headquarters was located in Hawaii, six hours ahead of Kadena, all communication with them had to occur during the morning in Kadena.

  And, of course, if any of these scheduled times conflicted, we needed to start all over again. Maybe we’d need to call the Marines and see if we could trade time slots at Ie Shima. This was really, really different from anything I had done before!

  O&T also scheduled entry into the Warning Areas, which were used for live-fire activities. Again, there were a lot of users, and they all came to O&T for reservations.

  Then, we had counterparts at the Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighter squadron, located at Naha Air Base, at the south end of Okinawa. The JASDF had a variety of fighter aircraft, and we would periodically perform joint exercises with them. These exercises were highly orchestrated events, and the Wing Weapons Section handled the implementation of the exercises. Our job at O&T was to interface with our contemporaries at the JASDF squadron to make sure the resources were available at the scheduled time.

  By the end of the day, I felt totally spent. I couldn’t wait to get off DNIF status, so I could at least break up my work schedule by getting back to flying the F-4.

  I was in for an unpleasant surprise.

  19

  June 15, 1973

  I had made really good progress on my PME, having just completed the final section of Air Command and Staff College. Now that I had gotten into the habit of studying every night, I decided to visit the Base Education Office to see what other course options there were. I had heard that the Industrial College of the Armed Forces offered a correspondence course, and thought it would really look good on my record. And I’d heard it was a really go
od course, with actual hardbound books, unlike the paperbacks I’d received for Air Command and Staff College.

  “Hi,” I said to Mary, the secretary at the Education Office, “how do I sign up for ICAF?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you’re not eligible. It’s reserved for Field Grade officers, Majors and above.”

  I think the disappointment clearly showed on my face.

  “Captain,” she continued, “have you considered working on your Master’s Degree?”

  Although I knew there were college course offered through the Education Office, I hadn’t been aware that it was possible to get a Master’s Degree on base.

  “What kind of Master’s do you offer?”

  “Actually, we don’t offer it, we just help manage it. The courses are offered through the University of Southern California. You can get a Master’s in Education or Systems Management.” She paused. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I recommend Systems Management. I got my Master’s in Education, and the only job I could get was as a secretary here in the Education Office.”

  “Okay, how do I sign up for Systems Management?”

  Mary proceeded to help me fill out the forms to register for my first course, and to apply for Tuition Assistance. The TA Program allowed me to take my courses at almost no cost. The Air Force would pick up the cost of tuition, while I would be responsible for the rest of the expenses, such as purchasing textbooks.

  The really neat thing about the courses were that they were not sequential – no course was a prerequisite for any other course. That way, a student could start any time a new course began. My timing was perfect – there would be a course starting the next Monday.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect when I showed up for class, which began at 1800 and ran until 2300, twice a week for ten weeks. My first course was Human Factors, which promised to be really interesting. A lot of the examples involved aircraft cockpits, and about half of the other students were pilots.