Saturday Stories: B-52 Stories

Flying in an airplane may be safer than driving in a car, but I think those statistics depend on how often you are in an airplane. When your job is to fly in an Air Force bomber during wartime, you may find yourself wishing for the danger of driving in a car on the ground. My father was a career Air Force officer. He spent most of his first sixteen years in the military in a B-52 as a navigator. He did five tours in Vietnam. He rarely talks about the things that happened during his missions. When he brought up a few stories while talking to my sons, I grabbed the chance to record them. I am hoping I might get a few more out of him some other time, too.

The first time Dad was sent overseas, he went on a ?cadre? tour. That meant that the entire wing of B-52 crews, tanker crews and even all of the maintenance crews from his base went over as a group. There were three bases set up for the US to use for B-52s. One was in Thailand, one was in Okinawa and one was on the island of Guam. Dad ?got? to go to all three bases at least once. After Dad's first tour, the USAF started mixing crews from different bases to form fighting squadrons.

Dad told the story of a man he greatly admired. He had saved the life of another crew member and had earned the Airman's Medal. Many times, the bombers returned to the bases damaged. The main bases were separated from the planes by the runways. The planes and ordinances were in a highly secured area. After the planes landed, the crews were bussed back over to the main base. One night, this same officer was getting on a bus after a mission when a severely damaged plane missed the runway and landed in a twisted wreck on the land just past it. The man grabbed his coat and threw it over the razor wire surrounding the plane area, climbed over and dashed to the rescue. He jumped up and reached in the broken front windows and pulled out the co-pilot. The gunner also made it out of the plane, but then it exploded. All other crew members were killed. That officer was one of the few people to receive a second Airman's Medal. Dad was relating how you never know how brave you are until you are in a situation that calls for bravery.

Often, in order to complete a mission, the bombers needed to be refueled in flight. Tankers from a closer base would rendezvous with the bombers for a mid-air fueling. One time, for some reason, the tankers were late and the bombers were getting dangerously low on fuel. Usually, the bombers would swing around so the tankers could hook up with them. In this case, Dad, the Navigator, steered the entire flight of bombers straight at the oncoming tankers. The tankers met them in time and they swung around to fuel to bombers. In perilous situations, rules were often bent or broken, but lives were saved.

On another occasion, the gyro of the compass in the plane was precessing, which means that it was slowly moving instead of keeping a steady direction. Dad was in the lead airplane of his cell, so it was his job to lead them and keep them on course. They had finished their bombing run and the navigators in the other airplanes were apparently sleeping; not noticing that the planes were slowly, but surely drifting way off course. In order to safely return to Guam, in this instance, the planes had to turn north. Finally a control tower voice came on the radio and asked, ?Hey! Are you guys ever going to turn north?!? At that point, Dad realized something was really wrong and with the tower's help, they made it home. Otherwise, they would have run out of fuel somewhere over the Pacific.

Dad was often in the lead airplane. He flew under cell leaders or wave leads (airborne commanders) that had a lot of experience. It was his responsibility to get the entire group of bombers accurately to the bombing sites and back home again. There was no leeway in the flight plans. Enemy fighters and surface to air missiles got in the way, but still the missions had to be completed.

The flight-suits the men wore had all sorts of zippered pockets. The crewmen kept food, a switchblade and other survival items on them during the flights. They wore long underwear under their suits despite the jungle heat, because it was cold at 30,000 feet. Their planes were pressurized, but they had oxygen masks attached to their helmets that could be hooked to tanks in the airplanes if they suddenly lost pressure.

Dad saw other planes shot down. He saw other crews die. In total twenty-eight B-52s were lost during the ?Conflict.? The planes Dad flew in were never damaged. I am so thankful his guardian angel was on full alert during those years!