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

by G. E. Nolly

  “I found it at the BX at Ramstein,” he continued, “and lugged it all the way back to Langley. It probably weighed fifty pounds, and I had to take it into the VOQ with me at every stop, since I couldn’t leave it on the airplane. I shelled out three hundred dollars for that china. Now, here’s the incredible part. When I delivered it to him, he said it didn’t look like the picture in the catalog. It was ivory instead of white.”

  I looked at him in shock. “You’re shitting me, right?”

  “Nope. He didn’t want it, and wouldn’t reimburse me for it, even though I showed him it was the correct pattern number. Here’s the really amazing part – I had declared it with Customs when I came back to the States, and a few days later I received a bill for seventy-five dollars for import duty.”

  “Wow!” I whistled, “Some friend.”

  “Former friend,” Larry responded.

  33

  October 3, 1973

  The best part about the support flying was that we flew all over the western Pacific area. We flew down to Clark Air Base, in the Philippines, and over to Osan, Kunsan and Taegu Air Bases, in Korea. I’d operated into all of those bases during my T-39 assignment, so I was very comfortable in this environment. Most important, we had a lot of trips to Yokota, and I got to see Sam and Johnny practically every week.

  Even though it was usually only a week or so between visits, Johnny looked different, and bigger, every time I saw him. I just couldn’t imagine what it would have been like if I had been in the F-4 squadron on permanent TDY.

  I had expected T-29 flying to be fairly uneventful. I had been wrong. The one thing I hadn’t considered was that I was flying an old, a really old, airplane. Even though maintenance was excellent, being conducted by the Military Airlift Command unit on base, there was no getting around the fact that the airplane was tired. It had been through a lot, and required constant trimming to keep it flying straight. It probably had a lot of bends, buckles and dents in the fuselage that hadn’t existed when the aircraft was delivered new. And the engines, the World War II-era engines, were touchy. Very touchy.

  I was on a repositioning flight from CCK back to Kadena, with the call sign Spear 29. All of our support flying out of Kadena used the call sign Spear, as in “tip of the spear”, signifying Kadena’s strategic geographic importance. Suddenly, the number two engine started banging like it was going to shake itself apart any second. Sergeant Withers, the Flight Engineer, was on it immediately, and had the engine secured in a heartbeat. The problem was, the Auto-feather system didn’t activate, and we were unable to manually feather the prop. I stuffed in full left rudder, and ran the rudder trim to the stop. The aircraft was in a slight turn to the right, and full left rudder wasn’t enough to stop the turn. I banked to the left, and finally was able to control the heading with 15 degrees of bank.

  The problem was the incredible drag of the unfeathered right propeller. It was spinning in the slipstream - backwards - and all feathering efforts by the Flight Engineer were unsuccessful. My left leg was shaking from the continuous pressure of full rudder, and I needed a break. I turned to my Copilot, another Captain, Greg Johnson.

  “Greg, I need you to spell me on the rudder. Get on the left rudder with me, and hold it as long as you can while I give my leg a rest.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  When I was sure Greg had control of the rudder, I eased off and massaged my left leg. I would need to get back on the controls soon enough. First order of business was getting the airplane safely on the ground. We had been flying at 24,000 feet, and were now unable to maintain altitude. We needed to land, and fast.

  I’ve always said I’d rather be lucky than good. Today I was lucky - the weather was severe clear, and we were within sight of Miyako Jima island, which had a 6500-foot runway. I had been navigating by reference to the Miyako VOR, the radio navigation aid, frequency 117.5. Our DME – Distance Measuring Equipment – read 27 miles. There was an airport right in the center of Miyako Jima. A few miles to the west of Miyako Jima Airport, there was another airport, Shimoji Shima. Shimoji had just opened a few months earlier, but it was officially listed as a Private field, and not suitable for our operations. Unless it was an emergency. I could see both airports, and made my decision.

  Miyako – my mother-in-law’s name. I thought that was a good sign.

  I chose Miyako.

  I tuned our communication radio to Guard frequency, 243.0.

  “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Spear 29 on Guard declaring an emergency. We are in a descent to an emergency landing at Miyako Jima.”

  I received an immediate reply, in a thick Japanese accent.

  “Spear 29, this Miyako Jima Tower. You cleared to land, runway 04. Wind 090 at 10, altimeter 29.82 inches.”

  “Roger. Thank you.”

  I turned to Greg “I have the airplane.”

  “Roger, you have the airplane.”

  I reduced the power on the number one engine, and was able to slightly ease off on the rudder during the descent. I visually set up for a ten-mile final, altitude 3000 feet. That put me on a three-degree visual glide scope. The long final descent meant we would need less power on our good engine, since we wouldn’t be maintaining altitude. It was a little easier on my left leg. A little.

  I made a good landing and cleared the runway in the direction of the nearby buildings. As I turned off at the intersection, a truck with a “Follow Me” sign met us and guided us to our parking spot. I set the parking brake, shut down the left engine, and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  “Thanks for your help, guys,” I said, turning to Greg and the Sergeant Withers.

  In return, they told me what a great job I did.

  I tried to act modest, but I knew they were correct.

  34

  October 3, 1973

  Back at my original flying squadron, Lieutenant Colonel Milner had DEROSed about two months ago, replaced by a local Lieutenant Colonel, Jim “Robby” Roberts. I had flown on Robby’s wing when I’d first arrived at the squadron, and he seemed like a pretty good guy. Then, a week ago, Cocktail Collins DEROSed, and another Lieutenant Colonel had arrived yesterday to take command of the squadron. He was going to be introduced at today’s morning Staff Meeting.

  When I walked into the Staff Meeting room and saw Scooter Scoville seated at the table, you could have knocked me over with a feather. He had been the Ops Officer of my squadron at DaNang, during my first tour in Vietnam. Even though he was an OV-10 jock and I was in the O-2 section, I had gotten to know him really well. In fact, I had flown in his back seat on the return leg of my champagne flight, after my airplane had been shot up and I’d recovered at an emergency airfield. And now he was a Squadron Commander.

  “Hamfist!” he yelled, as soon as he saw me, jumping up from his seat to give me a big hug. “Great to see you!”

  “Great to see you, Scooter, I mean, Colonel.”

  “Are you in my squadron?”

  “No, sir. I’m full-time at Wing O&T.”

  “Which squadron are you attached to for flying?”

  “Neither, sir. I’m flying the base T-29.”

  “I had heard you’d gone to F-4s,” he said with a puzzled look.

  “I did, sir. I flew my second tour out of Ubon. Then I was assigned as a jock in the squadron you just took over. But when I got transferred from your squadron to O&T, they wouldn’t put me on the attached flier list.”

  “Well, we’ll just see about that.”

  Later that day I received a call from Major Riner.

  “Ham, can you come down to Ops? I need to talk to you.”

  “Sure,” I said as I looked at my schedule, “I can be there in about ten minutes.”

  “Thanks.”

  I drove the short distance to the T-29 Ops Building, and he was waiting for me.

  “What’s up, sir?” I asked.

  “I just received a request, more like a demand, that you be assigned as an attached pilot to your old fighter squadron.
”

  I didn’t know how to respond, but I think my face gave me away.

  “I know that’s what you’ve wanted ever since you were assigned to O&T,” he continued, “but I sure hate to lose you as an Aircraft Commander. You do a great job for us and, well, we really need you.” He paused. “Would you consider becoming dual-qualified, maintaining status in the T-29 in addition to the F-4?”

  “Wow! I didn’t know anyone is allowed to be dual-qualified,” I answered. Back when I was in Undergraduate Pilot Training, a couple of the IPs were dual-qualified in the T-37 and T-38, but it was a rarity. The closest I had ever come to being dual-qualified was flying two models of the F-4 – the F-4D and the F-4E – when I was at Ubon.

  “It’s within the purview of the Wing Commander. Colonel Wilson said you were specifically requested by the new squadron commander, and the Wing Commander approved it. You won’t maintain Combat Ready status in the F-4, but you’ll fly attached with them and also fly the T-29 with us, if you’re agreeable.”

  “Absolutely. Thank you, sir.”

  Because I had been out of the F-4 for less than six months, the local checkout to regain my currency was brief. I went to the Life Support section, the same section where I had been in charge just a few months earlier, and received my parachute harness, helmet, oxygen mask and survival vest. Then, I received recurrent ejection seat training and took a closed-book aircraft systems exam.

  And, the next day, I took a local Qualification check-ride.

  After thinking I would never fly the Phantom again, I cherished every flight.

  35

  October 31, 1973

  At 1800 hours, I received a call from Ron.

  “Ham, I just received a call from the DO. We need to get to Wing Headquarters ASAP.”

  “Okay, Ron. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

  “As fast as you can, Ham.”

  I looked around the BOQ to see what kind of creative outfit I could make. Obviously, this was going to be a no-notice Halloween party, and I felt a little sheepish not having a real costume.

  I knocked on a few doors at the BOQ to see if anyone had anything I could borrow. Finally, one of the guys had a dress that he had found in a closet when he moved in. It must have been about a size 16, because it fit me perfectly. I didn’t have a long hair wig, so I wrapped a towel around my head, like a woman who had just gotten out of the shower.

  I looked in the mirror, and realized what an incredibly ugly woman I would make. But, it was funny. It wasn’t all that creative, but it would have to do.

  As I drove to Wing Headquarters, I realized how cold my legs felt, wearing a dress. Maybe if I’d had some stockings I wouldn’t have been so chilly. Then again, I had hairy legs, which provided some insulation. I realized I had no idea how women put up with it.

  I entered Wing Headquarters and ran headfirst into the DO, Colonel Wilson. He was not wearing a costume. He was in his flight suit, and he did not look pleased to see me in a dress. Fortunately, I was not the only one to show up in a costume. About fifteen minutes after I arrived, it was clear that most of the wing staff was in attendance. At least half of them were in some sort of costume.

  “Gentlemen,” the DO announced, “we’ve just been notified that the Arabs have embargoed all oil to the United States. Our wing will not be receiving any more fuel for the remainder of the year. We need to get by on the stores we currently have, and we still need to accomplish all of our training. Your task,” he looked around the room, making eye contact with each of us, “is to figure out how we’re going to do it.”

  I had been aware of the Yom Kippur Arab-Israeli War that had started a few weeks earlier, but I hadn’t realized the dramatic effect it would have on our operation. Now it hit me with full force.

  A Major from the Logistics Plans department had somehow come up with a figure, in gallons, of our current fuel supplies. A few of the guys had hand-held calculators. It was amazing what the little devices could do. They could add, subtract, multiply, divide. Amazing. The guys had gotten them at the Pony Store outside the West Gate at Yokota. I decided I needed to visit the Pony Store on my next visit to Yokota.

  A Lieutenant Colonel from the Maintenance squadron came up with some fuel figures for operating the F-4.

  “Just starting both engines on the F-4, letting the engines stabilize at Idle, and then shutting them down uses 30 gallons.”

  This was looking grim.

  We broke up into working groups, and I teamed up with Bob Miller, a Captain from Logistics Plans, who had a calculator.

  I left the group momentarily and went to my office to retrieve the latest training report. Each crewmember had training items, like a specific number of refueling missions or low-level bomb deliveries, he was required to accomplish during the 6-month semiannual training cycle. My report detailed what every pilot and WSO had accomplished so far, and what training events remained.

  Bob and I went over every pilot and WSO remaining training event, and calculated how many sorties each crewmember would need to complete his training for the semiannual period. Then we added up all the sorties, and multiplied that number by the number of gallons of JP-4 fuel used on an average mission. We broke the results out by air-to-air missions, which lasted 1.5 hours, and air-to-ground missions, which were 2.8 hours.

  It took all night to arrive at a final solution, but we were fairly certain that we could get all of the remaining training accomplished, but just barely. It would require a lot of monitoring of each day’s activities, and every pilot would need to maximize his training on every mission.

  Although it took a lot of effort to develop the plan, that was the easy part. Implementing the plan was going to be the challenge.

  36

  November 3, 1973

  Colonel Wilson sent me to CCK to make a mass presentation to the fighter squadrons to explain the fuel challenges we would face, and the training plan. He accompanied me. This was my first time getting up in front of a large group of people, and I was understandably nervous. Even though I knew pretty much every jock in the audience, it was still intimidating.

  I had prepared some 35-millimeter slides to show our current fuel reserves, typical fuel usage on an air-to-air or air-to-ground sortie, and sample event sets that could reasonably be accomplished on each sortie. When I finished my presentation, I asked if there were any questions. A Major from the back of the room spoke up.

  “It sounds to me like you’re going to try to micro-manage every sortie we fly. Maybe you’re not flying with us enough to realize that it’s the Flight Lead who determines what events will be accomplished on every mission.”

  Before I could answer, Colonel Wilson responded.

  “Major,” he said, “I think every Aircraft Commander, and every Flight Lead, should be allowed to determine what training to accomplish, when he owns the airplane and fuel. But right now, the 18th Tactical Fighter Wing owns the airplanes and the fuel. Like it or not, every one of you are going to be puppets on a string, performing the training we direct, when we direct it, and flying sortie lengths that we direct.”

  A groan went up from the audience.

  “Guys,” he continued, “I don’t like this a one bit more than you do. But this is the peacetime Air Force now, and our job is to train to be ready to go back to war at any time. And what needs to be accomplished on that training is already established in the regulations. We’ve been dealt a really shitty hand, and all of us need to pull together to make the best out of a lousy situation.”

  “So,” he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the podium, “let me put it to you this way. You’re all adults. We’re all on the same team. Perform the training that you, as an Aircraft Commander or Flight Lead, determine you need to do to remain Combat Ready. But log the training we tell you to log, and fly the sortie lengths we tell you to fly.”

  A cheer arose from the audience.

  “And I pity the crewmember who repeats what I just said, outside of this room.”


  We left the stage to thunderous applause from two hundred jocks.

  37

  December 17, 1973

  Sam and Johnny were going to be arriving soon, and I knew my time would not be as free as it had been up until now. I went back to taking only one course per academic term, since now I was on track to finish up all twelve courses before my DEROS.

  I had been periodically checking in with the Base Housing Office to see the status of my application for on-base housing. A week earlier, they advised me that I would be able to accept the keys to an on-base house on this day. I went by to pick up my keys, and also requested some government furniture.

  When Sam and I had lived on-base at Yokota, we had accumulated a few items of furniture, but not really very much. A bed, a console stereo, a television, a bookshelf. That was about it. So we would need to borrow living room and dining room furniture, a washer, dryer, another bed, some lamps, plus assorted chairs.

  The Sergeant escorted me to the warehouse, and I picked out the items that I thought would meet with Sam’s approval. They all looked pretty much alike, so it wasn’t too difficult. The Sergeant assured me that everything would be delivered later in the afternoon, and we could return or exchange any items at any time. This was a great example of the way the Air Force took care of its people.

  I was really anxious for Sam and Johnny to arrive. I placed an Autovon call to her to let her know we now had a house.

  “Honey, we’re now, officially, on-base residents.”

  “That’s wonderful, Ham. And in two more days, I will officially be a civilian. Actually, an Air Force dependent.”