Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Studak, then a lieutenant and now a resident of Austin, Texas, was assigned to RAF Fassberg in 1948. He was the ramp control officer, responsible for knowing the status of every aircraft on the ramp—if it was empty or loaded, ready to go or down for maintenance. “I had to ensure that aircraft were in commission and loaded, and I maintained the squadron rotation for takeoff order to even out the flying load on a weekly schedule. I directed the engine start times to provide a steady flow of aircraft ready to take off in three-minute intervals. It was a twelve-hour shift with plenty of overtime. I left Fassberg in early March 1949 and reported for duty as a navigator with the 509th Bombardment Wing at Walker. (The 509th Bomb Wing, with its thirty silverplate B-29s, was the only B-29 unit whose aircraft were modified to carry the atomic bomb.) In April, only four weeks after leaving Fassberg, I left with my new unit for 120 days in England. My squadron was based at RAF Lakenheath, while the other two squadrons of our group were at RAF Marham. The 307th Bomb Wing, which deployed to Marham in 1948, had by that time returned to MacDill. While in England we dropped a lot of practice bombs in the Wash, the tidal flats off the Norfolk coast. I finally left England in September 1949 when the Berlin Airlift was officially declared ended.”
The Strategic Air Command publicized its global reach in ways other than deploying B-29 bombers to Germany and England. In July 1948 three B-29s of the 43rd Bomb Group—some units were called “wings,” others were still called “groups”—attempted an around-the-world flight. Two of the aircraft completed the fifteen-day flight, but the third crashed into the Arabian Sea. Soon newer B-50 and B-36 bombers made nonstop flights from the U.S. mainland to Hawaii. The message to the Soviets was clear—the United States could reach any place at any time. SAC still had a long way to go to make good on that promise, but it would get there in a short time.
Chapter 3
“Ramp Rats” The Men Who Kept Them Flying
German mechanics were extensively used to balance airmen shortages. The incentives for German aircraft workers were one free meal per day, inexpensive clothing and free billets.
Berlin Airlift: A USAFE Summary
Things were different then. If a man said he could do the job, the retort from the boss was, “Have at it.” I really think that all of us believed we could do anything.
Tom Etherson, Berlin Airlift C-54 maintenance man and flight engineer
The first things that come to mind when speaking of the Berlin Airlift are the airplanes and their pilots. In the final analysis, they made the airlift happen. Thoughts then turn to the vast tonnages of food and coal delivered and to the number of missions flown. Finally, one recalls the men who died to save Berlin. Often forgotten are the men who kept those airplanes flying—who sealed leaking fuel tanks, busted their knuckles trying to change recalcitrant sparkplugs, swept snow off wings with push brooms, and changed lightbulbs in two-story-high vertical stabilizers. These men worked twenty-four hours a day in rain, sunshine, and snow to keep the airplanes flying, to make the Berlin Airlift a success. Rarely did anyone think to run hot coffee and donuts out to the men on the line. Rarely did anyone ask if they were warm enough out on the open-air engine dock. Rarely did anyone wonder how they could change an engine in the rain and driving snow. But the sergeants and airmen kept working—grousing, yes, even fighting back when the opportunity presented itself. The men on the line, the “ramp rats” of Rhein-Main, Wiesbaden, Celle, and Fassberg, never neglected to keep the airplanes flying.
Master Sergeant Thomas W. Etherson
Tom Etherson was a ramp rat at RAF Celle. Tom was born in 1927 in Blissville, New York, a place, he insists, that no longer exists. He was a less than enthusiastic student, and with the war going on, he was looking for an opportunity to escape into the real world. His opportunity came when he turned sixteen. The Merchant Marine accepted young men at age sixteen, while the army and navy required youngsters to be at least seventeen years old. After learning how to launch and steer a lifeboat, Tom shipped out for the Mediterranean in May 1944, just short of his seventeenth birthday. He found it a long and boring trip. He made one more trip to Sicily and the south of France in 1945, and upon turning seventeen, he jumped ship and joined the army. Tom recalls being among a thousand or so basic trainees ordered to fall out on a parade ground. A sergeant walked down the line of recruits, counting off ranks and ordering men to the left and right. Those on the right, including Tom, were assigned to the Army Air Force. He wound up at Keesler Field near Biloxi, Mississippi, where he acquired the skills of an aircraft mechanic. From there he shipped out to Panama, and in February 1947 he elected to get out of the Army Air Force and went off to New York City. New York was cold and gray when he got there, the streets covered in snow and slush. Tom soon discovered he preferred a warmer climate and promptly reenlisted to escape the cold of New York. Some place warmer turned out to be Tachikawa Air Base, Japan.
“Duty in Japan wasn’t bad. I worked on the C-54 aircraft engine maintenance docks. We had two men per engine plus the people needed for the general maintenance inspections, about fifteen men total per aircraft. We worked an eight-hour day, five days a week. The aircraft and engines were run through the wash rack before being towed into the covered docks. We used the checklists of Pan American Airlines. Our working conditions weren’t bad. Living conditions weren’t bad either. A Japanese houseboy took care of the barracks for a pack of cigarettes a week. He made my bed and ran a rag over my shoes. The chow was plenty good, and there was lots of it. The vegetables were grown on a hydroponic farm since the local produce was grown using human waste, called “honey.” Most of the meat came frozen from the States, and the milk was made from powder. Our recreational facilities were great. A round of golf cost a quarter, with a nickel tip for the caddie, who, by the way, was female. The train into Tokyo was free. Although we had firebombed the city during the war, there was little evidence of it in 1947. The Ginza was a shopper’s heaven. You could get anything from oil paintings to good copies of American money. One of the canteens had been an exclusive club before the war, the Bankers Club. I felt pretty smoked strutting through the place. Not far from the Bankers Club was a bathhouse. Little girls with short slips led us into a huge tub made of marble. Once they got you into the tub, any thought of what might be under that slip soon faded. The heat made my entire body go as limp as a wet noodle. After that, one of the sweet things would give me a cup of hot sake. That’s all she wrote. It took two of the girls to get me out of the tub. I couldn’t even stand up. What did they do then but shower me with cold water, which caused my brain to think I felt great, although a little wobbly in the legs. Right about that time the army MPs would show up and write us up for not wearing a tie—professional jealousy, of course, because the air force wasn’t required to wear a tie with a summer uniform, but the army was. After the MPs wrote us up, we’d get a couple of rickshaws and head for the railroad station to get back to the base.
“I think I got the word that my outfit was going to Germany the end of September. The leisure life came to a screeching halt. One hundred–hour inspections had to be pulled on thirteen airplanes. I started to put in long hours. No longer was I free to take it easy when my engine was done. I had to help in other areas that still needed work. I turned twenty-one and celebrated my birthday at the Enlisted Men’s Club. The Japanese beer came in large bottles, and I must admit I don’t remember how many I drank and how I got back to the barracks that night. When I awoke my mouth tasted like someone had dumped a honey bucket in it. I didn’t see anybody in the barracks, so I thought I was late for work. I hustled down to the maintenance area. No one was around. So I thought I must be early. I went to the maintenance dock to wait until everybody showed up. I dozed off. When I woke up, I saw a guy pulling guard duty. I called out, ‘Hey, where the hell is everybody?’ He was so startled, he almost fainted. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he said. ‘This is Sunday and no one is working today. Get your butt out of here.’
&
nbsp; “The day came when we said goodbye to Nippon. I heard if you saw Mount Fuji when you left, you would return. I tried to look out the other side of the airplane so I wouldn’t see it, but the plane turned, and there Fuji was. Since I owed the barracks boy a couple of cartons of cigarettes, I wondered if this was an omen. Our first stop was Kwajalein atoll. The natives evacuated from Bikini lived on one end of the island in a tent city. They lived a sad life, and I don’t think they really knew what was happening to them. Our next stop was Guam, North Field. As the plane approached the airfield, it looked like we were flying into a cliff—a little scary. There were no facilities on Guam, so we slept in the aircraft. The mosquitoes buzzed around inside that C-54 sounding like the engines were running. Our next stop was Hickam Field, Hawaii. After we serviced the aircraft in the rain, we found the NCO club. It must have shocked the waitress because all of us wanted fresh milk. Most of us hadn’t tasted fresh milk in a year or two.
“We got our first glimpse of the land of the big PX as the sun was setting. The sunset made the Golden Gate Bridge look red. We landed at Fairfield-Suisun (later renamed Travis Air Force Base). We had a briefing by the commanding officer about what not to do in the land of plenty. I was shocked to find that the beer bottles were only one-third the size of the Nippon bottles. Also, the girls were not impressed with how many cigarettes I had. At roll call the next morning, we were a sorry-looking lot. Someone unfolded a large banner. It read, ‘Golden Gate in ’48, Salt Mine in ’49.’ I guess this didn’t impress the old man very much, because I never saw the banner again. From California we went to Kelly Field in Texas, where the aircraft were winterized. We had four days in San Antonio. Those living close by were allowed to go home for a couple of days. I didn’t go, because New York City wasn’t considered close by.
“Next stop was Westover Field in Massachusetts. We were not allowed to go into town because our transfer from Japan to Germany was supposed to be a secret movement. The military police would look the other way when we walked out the gate. I was in a bar at Chicopee Falls when the radio announcer said the 317th Troop Carrier was passing through on the way from Japan to Germany to join the Berlin Airlift. He went on to say that you could recognize the troops by the 5th Air Force patch they wore. Then the beer really started to flow. So much for a secret movement. After Westover, we went to Newfoundland, the Azores, and then to Wiesbaden, Germany. In Wiesbaden I started pulling fifty-hour inspections. The maintenance docks were ready. I had chow and went to work. The maintenance area was set up between the runway and the taxi strips. When it rained, which it did for a week, we got wet—the maintenance docks had no overhead shelters. So we worked in the rain and slopped around in the mud for about two weeks until the inspections were completed. Although the docks were waiting, there was no room in the barracks. My buddies and I found space in the attics of an old German barracks. It didn’t matter much since we were tired at the end of our shift. The food made up for it. The chow was great. The fact that it was served by pretty German girls made it seem that much better.
“One morning we were replacing an oil cooler, a messy job, when a man walked up with no hat, no insignia on his flight jacket, and a stub of a cigar in his mouth. One of the NCOs said, ‘Hey, you can’t smoke here.’ The stranger replied, ‘Don’t sweat it.’ He questioned us on how we were doing and what we needed most to keep the airplanes flying. Everyone had his own wish list, but no one thought to tell him that we had no winter clothing. When the stranger left the line, the chief came out of his tent, where he kept a huge potbellied stove going at all times. He asked us if we had seen a general. We asked him what the general looked like. It turned out that the cigar smoker was General LeMay.
“A plane caught on fire in the nose dock one night. Since we didn’t have the luxury of the wash racks as we had in Japan, an airman tried to improvise by squirting gasoline on the engine to clean off some of the muck. The docks were equipped with explosion-proof lights, but unfortunately the explosion-proof light cover in this dock was cracked. Poof. The dock burned. The engine and the deicer boots close to the engine burned. When the fire was put out, the aircraft was towed to one side of the dock. The next night the plane was still sitting there. I was told by the guy who sat by the potbellied stove to get the navigation taillight off the burned aircraft. I was standing on the back of a weapons carrier when the expediter and aircraft scheduler drove up—an officer. He was the one who checked on the status of each aircraft. He called out, ‘Hey you. Will that aircraft be ready for the next block?’ Now, ‘Hey you’ is not the proper way to address anyone who has been out in the cold all night, especially when the questioner was sitting in a heated vehicle. I told him it sure would be.
“The expediter said, ‘Say, sir.’
“I said, ‘Sir!’
“He called in the tail number and drove off, never giving me another look. I have a feeling that both the expediter and the guy who set the engine on fire disappeared forever, because I never heard or saw either one of them again.
“That night we got our first snowstorm. In the morning everything looked grand. When we reported for work to the guy who sat by the potbellied stove, he sent one of his clerks out to tell us to sweep the snow off the wings. We got some rope, tied it around our waists, and with a man on each end to keep us from slipping off the wings, we swept off the snow. We were moving along fine and having fun dodging the snow that flew over the wings when we saw this fellow walking toward us. It was a navy chief. He looked like he had stepped right out of a recruiting poster—creased blue pants, leather flying jacket, scarf, visored cap. Next to him we looked like the Germans loading the coal on the C-54s. He told us to clean the snow off his airplane. I told him we would as soon as we got finished with ours. In the meantime, he should get back into base operations and stay warm. When we finished our last aircraft, we went back to our maintenance dock and went to work. A little later a guy came running up, saying, ‘Look at the navy.’ Out on the wing was the well-dressed chief, trying to sweep the snow off his plane and trying to keep from slipping off the wing at the same time. There were two or three officers standing around mumbling and snarling that they were late for takeoff because the chief had not cleaned the snow off the wings.
“That evening when we had buttoned up the engines and I was washing my hands in gasoline, I felt a sharp pain in the knuckle of my right hand. I noticed a tip of metal sticking out of it. With my dirty fingernails, I scratched it out. I didn’t think anything about it because my knuckles were scratched and scabby anyway. A few days later the most ugly sore I’ve ever seen appeared on my hand. The entire hand blew up like a balloon. I went in to see the guy who sat by the potbellied stove and told him I needed to see the medics. He asked me what was wrong. I showed him my hand. He said, ‘You wise guys from New York will do anything to get out of work.’ When I slipped away to the medics, the medic looked at my hand and said, ‘We have to show it to the doc.’ The doctor said that the hand was infected from the lead in the gasoline. Lead could cause blood poisoning. He gave me a bottle of sulfa pills and told me to keep an eye on my arm. If a blue streak appeared, I was to get right back to him. He also said I was to report to the first sergeant for light duty. He didn’t want me to go back to the flight line until the hand was completely healed—heartbreaking news. The first sergeant, the guy who sat by the potbellied stove, and I were not the best of friends, and when I told him I was restricted to light duty, he said, ‘Go hit the sack and see me in the morning for duty.’
“That afternoon I tried to guess what sort of duty he would have me do, probably cleaning latrines. I couldn’t do clerical work. More guys worked in the orderly room than on the flight line. The first sergeant told me to get out of my filthy fatigues because I was getting grease all over his orderly room. I changed into a class-A uniform. It was ten in the morning. I was told to go to the headquarters on a bike and pick up distribution and leave it with the mail-room corporal. I didn’t ask what else, and he didn’t say anythi
ng else. After I dropped off the distribution, I took off for chow. Went to a Gasthaus where the night crew hung out and started to enjoy Wiesbaden. The hand healed up a little too quickly, but I kept the bandage on anyway.
“After a while, I saw myself back on the flight line. We were preparing to move the outfit to Celle. My job was to park and service aircraft when they returned from Berlin. Not a bad job—at least I wasn’t anyplace near the guy with the potbellied stove. We left for Celle on December 22, 1948, a day I’ll never forget. We were rousted out about five in the morning, had chow, and loaded our possessions—one barracks bag for each man. Our tools and other equipment were loaded up the night before. In fact, we loaded up anything that was not bolted to the floor. But it turned into the usual SNAFU, hurry up and wait. I think we were waiting for the guy’s stove to cool off.
“Just before we could get noon chow they decided to load our aircraft. The flight to Celle was only to last about an hour. The plane was colder than a grave digger’s ass in Alaska. The heaters required a sparkplug to generate heat, but no one ordered any. The one-hour flight lasted five hours. The copilot was TDY from Washington, D.C., and must have needed the flight time. It was dark when we got to Celle. The potbellied stove was radiating, but first we had to unload the aircraft and service them to continue their round-trips to Berlin. We got to our barracks about one in the morning. We had beds, but the mattresses were still in Wiesbaden. We slept the best we could, thanks to our heavy GI overcoats. About six in the morning, I got up and made for the latrine. It was dark, and the barracks had no power. I found a commode by the light of a Zippo lighter. I was wearing one-piece fatigues, and when I dropped them I was damn near naked. When I sat down I noticed this cold air, like standing outside in the wind. I sat down and then jumped three feet into the air. The toilet seat was gone. I sat there in the wind on the cold porcelain seat. The windows in the latrine were broken. I cursed the damn Krauts.
I Always Wanted to Fly Page 9