Flying In the BUFF

By Don L. Brooks

The B-52, or BUFF, first flew in the 1950’s. It has been the backbone of our nation’s strategic force for decades. Conceived as a long-range nuclear bomber, it has evolved through the years into a convention warfare workhorse as well. It served with great distinction during the war in Southeast Asia, helping to break the resistance of North Vietnam to a peace settlement. It has also been a major contributor during the many conflicts in the Middle East. Although well beyond what should be considered a normal lifetime of a combat aircraft, the B-52 has continued to play a major role in our warfighting capability. The amazing fact is that it is expected to serve our nation’s needs for many years to come. Some say the last B-52 pilot hasn’t yet been born. Nowhere else can you find an aircraft that has contributed so much for so long to the defense of the United States. This is the story of one man’s life in aviation, centered on his involvement with the B-52. In many ways, he and the B-52 matured together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jan 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483478449

Book preview

01/08/2018

PROLOGUE

N o, this isn’t some sordid novel about piloting an airplane in the nude. I’m truly sorry if that is what you were expecting. Instead, this is a collection of memoirs from my Air Force career, centered around my time flying in and working on the B-52, affectionately known in many circles as The BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fellow—or something else!). I also have included some of my other experiences after my Air Force retirement. This book is the story of a life in aviation, centered on my involvement with the B-52. In many ways, the B-52 and I matured together. You will find numerous stories about my experiences and the people I worked and played with during a long career in aviation.

The B-52, or BUFF, first flew in the 1950’s. It has been the backbone of our nation’s strategic force for decades. Conceived as a long-range nuclear bomber, it has evolved through the years into a convention warfare workhorse as well. It served with great distinction during the war in Southeast Asia, helping to break the resistance of North Vietnam to a peace settlement. It has also been a major contributor during the many conflicts in the Middle East. Although well beyond what should be considered a normal lifetime of a combat aircraft, the B-52 has continued to play a major role in our warfighting capability. The amazing fact is that it is expected to serve our nation’s needs for many years to come. Some say the last B-52 pilot hasn’t yet been born. Nowhere else can you find an aircraft that has contributed so much for so long to the defense of the United States. And may the BUFF fly on…..

While my previous book, Fly to the Sound of Battle, focused primarily on my wartime experiences in Vietnam, I did include a number of stories from my B-52 days and my tour at Strategic Air Command (SAC) Headquarters. In this book, I will relate additional stories about my days prior to Vietnam and during the remaining years of my time in the Air Force and the Strategic Air Command, as well as a bit of my post Air Force life.

I have often heard, as I’m sure you have as well, about good tours of duty and bad tours in the military. One generally thinks of good and bad tours in terms of geographic locations. While this is certainly a factor, my experience has shown that it is much more likely to be the people you are associated with that have the greatest influence of whether a tour is a good one or a bad one. For example, I’ll bet most of you would think of an assignment to Loring AFB, near Caribou, Maine, as about as desirable as being sentenced to Siberia. I know I felt that way when I first found out I was being sent there. However, due to the people I worked with, the boss I had, and the great friendships I made while there, I find I must include Loring as one of the more enjoyable assignments of my career. The fact that we all faced and dealt with the hardships of life in such a miserable location simply made our friendships stronger. Even today, I stay in touch with some of my friends that shared my pain in the frozen north.

I haven’t the slightest intention to try to make myself out as a great individual of extreme value to the service. I consider myself simply a person that chose to spend a career in the Air Force, going where they sent me and doing my job—and not always to the best of my ability. Did I make mistakes along the way? You had better believe it!!! But I did meet some wonderful people and had some great adventures during the years, some of which I will be sharing with you. And, I was blessed with some exceptional good luck in many of the experiences; otherwise I would not be here to tell these stories today.

I’ve made absolutely no attempt whatsoever to make this some great literary production shedding new light on life in the Air Force. This book is merely a collection of stories, primarily about the people I met and worked with; that I think may be of interest to others, particularly those that also served. Are they accurate? With the exception of a couple that are obviously BS, I think they are true, as best as I can recall after all these years. I’m sure everyone must realize, stories do get better with age!

A number of the individuals I relate stories about are unmarried. I suppose it is appropriate that I explain that this was their choice, they preferred the single life-style. To the very best of my knowledge, none of my friends were anything but absolutely straight. I remember one close friend that remained single his entire life simply put it this way, I enjoy my privacy, I don’t want some female moving into my personal space!

Please note, throughout this book, I have seldom used the real names of the people I mention. I’m sure some of them wouldn’t care, but in many cases the stories touch on sensitive subjects and may bring up some memories that are best not identified to a specific person. For those of you that were there with me, I’m sure you will recognize many of the people, events, and stories I tell and perhaps share a smile or two with me. In any event, ENJOY!

A BIT OF HISTORY

I have no intent whatsoever to bore your with stories of my ancestors, especially since this book is primarily about my associations with the B-52. However, there are just a few items of the past that should be recorded, and I think you might find them a bit interesting.

Both my father and mother’s families moved to Texas from Georgia. The War of Northern Aggression (some call it the Civil War, although there was nothing very civil about it) pretty well wiped out all they had; the devastation was complete. Some of the more adventuresome members of each family decided to resettle in the West. Even though the two families had never crossed paths back in Georgia, their stories are somewhat similar. Word got back about the opportunities to be found in Texas so they, along with many other families, made the trek to start a new life.

I can still recall my grandmother on my mother’s side telling of the long boat trip, up rivers and across lakes to get to Texas. What a trip for a young girl! On the last leg of the trip their steamboat hit a submerged log, knocking a hole in the bottom of the boat. The crew plugged the hole with mattresses and they continued on, but they heard that on the return trip, the boat sank!

Life wasn’t easy for my mother’s family. Her dad died early and left her mom to raise the family. My grandmother was a hardworking, determined woman and she not only raised her children well, she saw that they got a good education. My mother became a school teacher.

One of her distant cousins had lived in Texas for quite some time and was a rather successful plantation owner. He was a good man, and when the slaves were freed, most all of them decided to remain right where they were and continue to work as free men on Uncle Tump’s plantation. He had built a one-room school house to educate his and his neighbor’s children, and he asked my mom to be the teacher. She lived in a room right there in Uncle Tump’s house and was considered a member of the family.

As was the style in those days, the cook house was a separate building behind the main house. For many years, Aunt Lizzie had been the cook. The Sunday dinners that Lizzie prepared each week were legendary! All the family and their invited guests would show up for the social event of the week and to partake of the bountiful spread Aunt Lizzie would lay out.

One Sunday, as usual, Lizzie was moving at high speed getting the dinner ready to serve. Her young grandson was in and out, generally getting in her way. He kept calling out, Gran-maw, gran-maw!

Hush up, young-un, can’t you see I’m busy?

The child continued, Gran-maw, gran-maw!

Finally, in extreme exasperation, she said, Young-un, what do you want?

Gran-maw, the house is on fire!

Years later, when Lizzie was getting too old to work, Uncle Tump deeded her the small plot of land her cabin was on so she could live out her days there in comfort, have a small garden, and raise a few chickens. Then, after Uncle Tump died, along came the East Texas Oil Boom and Lizzie’s land became more valuable than she could have ever dreamed. Lizzie lived out her life in a style Uncle Tump never imagined!

The story on my father’s side was similar in many ways. His dad, following an older brother’s move from Georgia, settled a rather large piece of land in East Texas and began to farm it and raise cattle. Since there were ten children, their house was quite large. As my dad’s brothers and sisters grew up, one by one they all left to live their lives elsewhere, leaving my dad to take care of his parents and to run the farm/ranch.

Uncle Tump’s plantation wasn’t too far from where my dad’s family lived. My dad met my mom at a dance. After that, he became a regular out at Uncle Tump’s Sunday dinners. After a respectable amount of time, they were married right there in the living room of Uncle Tump’s palatial home.

Mom joined Dad in his home where they raised their family and took care of Grand Dad for the rest of his days. I grew up in the same house my dad and his family lived in when they were growing up. It was a good place to live and I was most fortunate to have had such wonderful parents.

SITTING ON TOP

OF THE WORLD

L ife was good in the summer of 1959. I was a brand new second lieutenant in the Air Force, having just graduated as a member of the first class of the Air Force Academy. I had a shiny red Buick convertible, money in my pocket, and several weeks of free time prior to reporting in for pilot training. It was the best of times.

A short time prior to graduation, I’m afraid things didn’t look quite so rosy for me and for a number of my classmates. During our last physical exam at the academy, we were told our vision was no longer good enough to permit entry into pilot training. Instead of becoming pilots, we were destined to be navigators. In fact, I had a class date for training as a B-52 navigator. Extreme disappointment doesn’t begin to cover my feelings!

Back when the academy first opened, passing the pilot’s physical was part of the entry requirements. So, we were all pilot qualified when we entered. However, during the four years at the academy, a number of us found our vision had deteriorated to the point that we no longer could pass the eye test.

The existing rules stated that you must pass the vision test to enter pilot training. Once you completed training and had your wings, if your vision then deteriorated but was correctable to 20-20, you could apply for a waiver to wear glasses while flying. The academy flight surgeon, knowing we had all passed the vision requirement back when we entered, decided to pursue a test case waiver for us, so that we could attend pilot training wearing glasses. No one got their hopes up too high, as this had never been done before, but wonder of wonders, it was approved! We were going to pilot training after all!

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Since we had a number of weeks prior to our pilot training entry date, one of my classmates and I decided to make a road trip down into Mexico. What a wonderful trip it was! My friend, I’ll call him Rex, had opted for a used Volkswagen instead of a new car, which turned out to have been the perfect vehicle for our trip. We traveled down the west side of Mexico to Guadalajara, across to Mexico City, then on down to Acapulco. Along the way, we met people and had experiences that created memories we will never forget.

Rex had friends in Mexico City that insisted they were going to fix us up with dates. Well, that was OK with us. Sure enough, we were told that they had a good friend whose daughter was going to be married soon, and that some girls from out of town were coming to her wedding. We were to be the escorts for a couple of these young ladies.

My friend and I got all suited up and drove over to the address we had been given. I’ll swear, it looked like something from a movie set—a big ivy covered stone fence with an iron gate across the driveway. Well, the gate was locked and there was no one around. We looked for a bell, but didn’t see one. So now what do we do? Since we had no better idea, in our suits, we climbed over the gate and walked up to the mansion and rang the doorbell!

A rather distinguished looking gentleman opened the door, looking at us in a very surprised manner. We told him who we were and why we were there. Since we were expected—but not in the manner by which we arrived—we were invited in to a good deal of laughter. The man told us that they did have a button down at the gate to ring a buzzer, but they hid it to keep it from being stolen. Somehow, the logic in this escaped me.

We were introduced all around, and quickly found out we were in the home of one of the wealthiest families from the States. Our dates were from Canada and England, and had been classmates of the bride while she was attending finishing school in Switzerland. Knowing we were in high society, Rex and I did our best not to screw up too much!

Since everyone we had seen so far were Caucasians, we were rather surprised when the groom arrived—he was Mexican! Of course, he was warmly greeted by all in attendance. I was rather surprised that the daughter of this obviously prominent North American family was going to marry this young Mexican man. While he appeared to be a very nice individual, he was dressed rather plainly, he wasn’t even wearing a dress shirt and tie! I overheard the bride’s father offer to loan him a shirt and tie, but he refused.

Before long, Rex and I were introduced to the groom. He was quite interested in what we had been doing and about the trip we were on in his country. During our discussions with him, we mentioned that we had visited the cocktail lounge of one of the better hotels in Mexico City. We had been impressed with what a nice hotel it seemed to be. He agreed, saying that he thought it was the best hotel in Mexico City. I was rather surprised that this ordinary looking young Mexican would be familiar with such a regal hotel. He said, Oh, yes, I know it well. I live there. Dad and I built it, then Dad gave it to me!

Rex and I made our way on down to Acapulco. We had a great time there doing all the tourist things. There was a minor earthquake early one morning while we were there, but it didn’t amount to much.

Earlier when we had been in Mexico City, we had run into this fellow American during one of our cocktail lounge visits. He was alone and we struck up a conversation with him. He seemed a bit lonely and was eager to talk to a couple of young fellows from the States. I would guess he was perhaps in his early thirties, and had served a tour in the Army. After a bit, we learned that he had been the owner of a rather prosperous business in the States. Things were going well for him until his young daughter was diagnosed with some sort of incurable illness. While the doctors offered no real hope, they did say that a change in climate would be the best thing for possibly improving her quality of life and maybe extending it for a few years. They said the best chance for her was to live in the mountainous region near Cuernavaca. So, he sold his home and business and moved his family to Mexico. When he found out Rex and I were going to Acapulco, he insisted that we stop by his home for a visit.

On our return trip from Acapulco, when we got to Cuernavaca, we followed the directions he had given us and found his rather palatial home with no problem. He did, indeed, have a very nice villa in which to live. He couldn’t believe we really had taken him up on his offer and had come to see him and his family. The young daughter that had caused them to relocate to Mexico was a real sweetheart. It tore at our hearts to know that such a wonderful little girl had such a limited future.

Before long, he had called in his friends and we had a regular fiesta in his pool side yard and patio. While Rex and I had only intended to pay a short visit, then head on up to Mexico City for the night, our host said absolutely no way, he wasn’t about to hear anything of the sort. We were his new friends and were to stay in his guest house overnight. Needless to say, a few bottles of tequila were consumed during the evening!

The next morning, Rex and I had a bit of a delayed start on our trip back up north. We finally got the VW on the road and were doing our best to make up time. The highway north of Mexico City that we were on was a toll road and in great condition, so we were moving along well. As we approached a toll booth, there were speed bumps in the road to insure everyone slowed down for the booth.

Just past the bumps, we saw a large white Imperial with Florida plates over on the side of the road. As we were passing it, the two ladies inside, seeing we were North Americans, frantically waved us over. We stopped to see what they wanted.

These two middle aged ladies, delighted to see fellow North Americans, asked if we knew anything about cars. They said they had crossed the bumps at a rather high rate of speed and their engine had died and wouldn’t restart. Well, Rex and I looked under the hood, but couldn’t see anything wrong. I tried the starter and absolutely nothing happened. Figuring it might be an electrical problem with the starter, we thought maybe we might be able to do a push start. (This was back in the days when you could still start a car by pushing it!) I got behind the wheel of their car and Rex positioned the VW at their back bumper. I’ve often wished I had a movie of the little worn-out VW pushing that massive Imperial—it must have really looked funny! It was a classic visual image I’ll never forget! However, it worked! In no time, I had their engine running and we were on our way.

Rather than leave them, I drove their car on to the next large town with Rex following in the VW. On the way, I found out these two ladies had decided to take a driving vacation to see Mexico totally on their own. With virtually no preparations, away they went. The one lady told me that the car hadn’t been running very well ever since they had hit a dog a week prior. Apparently, they had knocked a hole in the coolant system and the engine had overheated before they got it repaired. Talk about two people that had no business on a trip like they were on….babes lost in the woods.

We located a garage in the next town with what seemed like a competent English speaking mechanic. He found the problem right away and assured us it would be easy to fix. With that, Rex and I, needing to get back on schedule, wished the ladies good luck and bid them farewell.

About an hour later, as we are making our way on down the road, I noted a white car rapidly overtaking us. Sure enough, it was our two lady friends. They honked and waved as they blew by us at a high rate of speed. Not too long after that, we topped a hill only to see the Imperial over on the side of the road again. We stopped and found out that they had run out of gas! They refused our offer of help, they said we had done too much for them already. Besides, they had given a little Mexican boy on a donkey ten dollars to go get them some gas! They said he seemed like a nice young man, and that we shouldn’t worry.

We never saw them again. I hope they made it back to Florida.

After our trip to Mexico, we stopped by my home in East Texas, and then continued on to Virginia to join other friends attending the wedding of another classmate. This classmate was getting married to a colonel’s daughter at Langley AFB. Wouldn’t you know, the colonel and his wife didn’t drink or tolerate alcohol in any form or fashion? So what did they do? They scheduled the wedding for seven in the evening on Friday, right after Happy Hour at the Club! It was a glorious affair! At the reception afterward, someone (?) added a bottle of vodka to the punch bowl. Yes, a great time was had by all!

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Finally, my vacation was over and it was time to begin pilot training. You simply cannot imagine how excited I was! My training was at Moore Air Base, down in the Rio Grande Valley, near McAllen, Texas. After in-processing and being assigned a room in the BOQ (bachelor officer’s quarters), we began ground school. It was all very interesting and enjoyable, but I, like most of the others, couldn’t wait to actually begin flying.

At long last, the day was finally approaching for us to start the flying portion of our training. A number of us that were on the glasses waiver had inquired as to when we would receive our glasses. No one seemed to know what we were talking about nor was very interested in helping us. Since nothing was being done, one of my classmates called his father, a colonel in the Pentagon and a close acquaintance to some of the senior staff. Well, that did it! That evening when I got back to my room after class, there was a note on my door instructing me to be at Harlingen AFB at 0700 the next morning to be fitted for glasses! The others that had the waiver had similar notes. By the next afternoon, we all had our glasses and were ready to go flying! Of course, the next morning when I actually was being shown how to strap into the cockpit for my first flight, my instructor couldn’t believe it when I reached into my pocket and pulled out my glasses. Lieutenant, what the bloody hell are you doing? I just smiled and showed him my waiver.

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Pilot training went all right for me, I suppose. I didn’t set any records, but I didn’t wash out either. I look back on it as some of my most enjoyable times. We first flew the T-34, a small single-engine trainer, for about thirty hours. Then, we moved on to the T-28, a much larger single-engine trainer, with performance similar to some of the early WW II fighter aircraft. I’ve always been glad to have had the opportunity to fly the T-28, one of the last of the propeller-driven trainers. The very next class after mine flew the T-37, the first of the jet trainers to be flown in primary pilot training.

While I never flew the T-37, I heard a lot about it from my friends that did. From all accounts, it was a great plane and a lot of fun to fly, but it did have some interesting characteristics. For one thing, a spin in the T-37 could be about as exciting as anything you would ever want to do. One student, up on a solo flight, accidentally got into an inverted spin and almost didn’t get it recovered before he ran out of altitude. Since he was so low, he pulled back on the stick as hard as he could, trying to avoid hitting the ground. He made it, but seriously over-stressed the aircraft, popping many of the wing rivets. I saw him over at the club that night, still shaking and hitting the booze pretty hard. Later, he decided to go into town. On the way, he ran into a deer and wrecked his car. Just wasn’t his day, I guess.

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In the BOQ room next door to mine lived one of the more colorful characters I’ve ever met. He had played tackle on the West Point football team and was a giant of a man. Somewhere along the way, he had picked up the nickname, Gropo, which somehow seemed to fit him well. Gropo feared no one. If anyone gave him any trouble, Gropo’s standard response was, I’m going to stomp your ass! and he probably would have!

Gropo’s roommate was also a bit of a character. While Gropo was as big as a horse, Keith was quite small, but very strong and in great condition. One of Keith’s tricks was to drink a can of beer while standing on his head. Now think about that just for a minute. Your top lip is now on the bottom and your throat muscles have to push the beer uphill! It sounds impossible, but I saw him do it many times. Anyway, the two of them really made quite a team.

One Friday night after Happy Hour, four of us were going into town. Another classmate, Jack, was driving; I was up front with him. Gropo and Keith were seated in the back. While Jack and I were in pretty good shape, the two in the back were almost out of it. All of a sudden, what should we see but Keith’s face peering in the windshield at us! As we were going down the road at sixty, Keith, noticing Gropo asleep, had climbed out the rear window and onto the roof of the car! Jack was scared shitless! He wanted to stop as soon as he could before Keith lost his grip, but he knew if he slammed on the brakes, Keith would be thrown over the hood into the road in front of us! He got us stopped without incident, and we all pried loose Keith’s grip on the window frames. Jack was really shaken, but Keith was laughing his ass off at the great stunt he had pulled. Gropo? He simply told Keith that if he did anything like that again, he was going to stomp his ass! I’ll have more about Gropo later on, as our paths crossed more than once.

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My roommate, another academy classmate, had purchased an Austin-Healey sports car just before graduation. He teased me without mercy about my Buick, calling it a big chunk of Detroit iron. However, whenever he had a date, he would frequently ask to borrow my car, as he found it extremely difficult to make out in his Healey. One night, he had my car and I was driving his. Keith was riding with me as we headed into town. Going down the road in front of us was an old pick-up truck, traveling well below the speed limit. Just as I was starting around him, he decided to make a left turn. I swerved and hit the brakes, but still clipped him with the right front fender. He was a Latino, and his first words to us were, I make the signal!

Keith responded, Bull shit you make the signal!

When the police arrived, the driver also told him that he had made a signal. The cop said to me, He says he made a signal, but there are no turn indicators on his truck and the window is rolled up. I don’t know how he did it.

The Healey was drivable, but I felt like hell thinking about what my roomie was going to say when he saw the damage to his car. Actually, as it turned out, he took it much better than I expected.

A couple of days later, I got a phone call from a Latino lawyer. He told me he was representing the driver I had hit and was wanting to hear my side of the story. Needless to say, I was very nervous. After a bit, the lawyer asked me if by any chance I had an older brother that had gone to Texas A&M. When I answered yes, he exclaimed that my brother had been his classmate and was one of his best friends. He ended up inviting me to his home for dinner; he got me back my insurance deductible from his client!

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Another rather interesting student lived upstairs from me. Bill and his roommate were both black. In 1959, there were very few black officers in the Air Force and fewer still that were fliers. While I had grown up around blacks back in East Texas, almost all of them were either farm workers or hired hands, with very little or no education. During my four years at the academy there had been no black cadets. So, for the first time in my life, I meet a black lieutenant with a college degree going through the same training as I was. I must admit, I found it most interesting getting to know him. Bill had a great personality and was easy to get to know. Plus, he was an excellent student pilot.

When we finished our primary training, we moved to a different base for basic training. We were permitted to pick out assignment, based on our class standing. Bill was fairly high in the class, so he got his first choice. I was rather shocked that he, being black, picked Craig AFB, at Selma, Alabama!

I didn’t see Bill again until we crossed paths at survival training almost a year later. One evening we had a chance to talk, and I finally was able to ask him why he had picked, of all places, Selma. Bill laughed and told me that since he had grown up in the North, he had never experienced firsthand what it was like to live as a black man in the South. He had heard all the stories, but felt he needed to try it for himself. He said that he knew the training was only six months long, and he figured he could tolerate anything for six months. Then he told me it turned out to be one of the best times of his life!

The word got out in Selma right away that there was a black student officer at the base. The people in town were well familiar with student officers and they were obviously very familiar with blacks, but they didn’t have much experience with black student officers. He said he never pushed it—if a store or restaurant had a sign, Whites Only, he didn’t go in, but if there was no sign and he needed or wanted to go in, he did. He said he got along with the white community with no problems. But, with a big smile, he then said the black community treated him like a king! The very first Sunday he was there, he attended the local church. He received several invitations to dinner. In fact, he never ate Sunday dinner alone the entire time he was there. They all wanted him to meet their daughters. Then he related the big news—he had met and married one of the young ladies from Selma!

Bill went on to fly B-52s for a number of years and then became one of the first black airline pilots.

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Once we were in the T-28 phase of flying, we began to fly short trips to enhance our navigation skills. For some in our class, the idea of venturing away from the local flying area was a terrifying thought. What if I got lost and couldn’t find my way back? The very idea of having to rely on your navigation skills caused a few guys to almost become physically ill.

One day, we were scheduled to fly a rather simple solo cross-country trip. The first leg was almost straight north to San Antonio, then west to Hondo, and finally southeast back to Moore Field. One student I’ll call Dan Matthews was extremely nervous about his ability to find his way around this circuit. In fact, he was so nervous, he forgot to check his heading system for accuracy. Since he had failed to set and verify it, instead of heading north, he was actually going northeast!

Soon, he was approaching the Gulf Coast, but he didn’t know it, as a solid cloud deck was below him. As the clouds grew higher, he climbed in order to stay above them. Before long, he was up to his maximum altitude for flight without oxygen and could see nothing but clouds below him. As he continued on, at last he found a hole in the clouds and decided to spiral down through it. When he got lower, he realized that there was nothing below him but water! Scared shitless, he made one of his first smart moves of the day, he remained under the clouds and reversed course. After what seemed an eternity, he finally saw land ahead of him. Then he spotted a rather large runway on an island. He began to circle the field and made a radio call on guard channel to any control tower that might see a T-28 circling around. He received an immediate answer from Matagorda Tower. He then almost broke down with relief as he told the tower operator that he was a solo student from Moore Field that had become lost and asked them what he should do. Their response was to land immediately.

Meanwhile, back at Moore, no one had missed Dan, as he wasn’t yet overdue. Imagine the surprise in Flight Ops when they got a phone call from Matagorda Island advising them that one of their students was there and that someone should come and help him find his way back home! From that day on, Dan was known as Matagorda Matthews.

Shortly after that experience, we began night flying. Once I finally got the hang of how to land at night, I actually enjoyed night flying. Of course, we had to learn how to do night navigation by map reading. After our instructors were satisfied we knew the basics, we were scheduled for a night solo cross-country trip. Again, there was a lot of apprehension among some of my classmates.

The route was fairly simple, with the last leg bringing us back to Moore Field from the north. When we reached the Rio Grande Valley, there were a series of towns stretching from Brownsville all the way up the river to beyond Rio Grande City. At night, most of these towns looked alike. Moore Field was north of McAllen, but which town was McAllen?

One student couldn’t find the field and was frantically flying up and down the valley trying desperately to find the base. Finally he remembered a bit of advice his instructor had given him. If you really got lost, there was an air defense radar site down on the coast that could give you a heading to the base. He gave them a call. They had him do a series of turns for identification, then told him to fly south. After a few minutes flying south, the lights of the towns were all behind him. He called the radar again and they once again instructed him to fly south. A short time later, the radar called him, asking why he was still flying in circles, he should be headed south. He never received that call, he was too far away, flying south deep into Mexico!

After a bit of time, he realized that something was seriously going wrong and reversed his course, heading back to the north. He spotted the lights of the towns along the border and passed over them as he continued north, looking for signs of the base.

Suddenly, his whole world lit up as bright as the noonday sun! There was a jet interceptor on his wing with his lights on, identifying the bandit that had crossed over the border from Mexico. After the pilot of the jet saw it was a USAF T-28 and got his number, he roared off, leaving the student still lost.

Finally he spotted the rotating beacon at Moore Field and headed for home. He was the last one to land, but he certainly had the best story to tell!

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The various student classes at Moore all participated in the base intramural volleyball competition. Even though I’m not nearly tall enough to be a really great competitor at volleyball, I’ve always loved the game and have worked hard to be as good as I could be at setting and serving. As it turned out, we did have a number of players in our flight section that were quite skilled at the game and we managed to finish in first place. This is the first of several volleyball stories that I will relate throughout this book.

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I suppose it is only fitting to include a couple of stories about young single lieutenants and some of our drinking games. Several of us had heard about a beer drinking challenge where one was to drink an ounce of beer a minute for an hour. That didn’t seem too tough, so a couple of us decided to try it one night. We soon discovered that one of the rules was that you weren’t allowed to take a pee-break! We almost wet our pants, but another student and I both made it. Once we finished, we both made a mad dash to the restroom, after which I needed a beer!

One of our prime spots to hang out was at the Robin Drive-In, located in McAllen. Everyone would show up in their cars, order beers (Lone Star and Pearl, of course!) from the car hops, and talk to girls that would also come by, hoping to meet guys. One night, I was there with one of my classmates from the academy. Since the female action was slow that night, he and I decided to see who could drink the most beer without having to go pee. Well, we sat there in his car, matching each other, beer for beer, until the pain was almost too great to tolerate. Finally, as the Robin was about to close, we decided to call it a tie. He and I sprinted to the back where the restrooms were located, only to find they had already locked them for the night! What the hell, modesty has ruined more kidneys than liquor, and all of South Texas is a latrine!

Across the Rio Grande was the nearest Mexican town, Reynosa. Naturally, we spent a considerable amount of our free time (and money!) there! Just across the bridge was one of my favorite lounges, Trevino’s. It really was a nice place; clean, comfortable, good music, and great drinks at a good price. They always had crackers and spicy cheese on the bar for snacks. For those that may not know, mescal is liquor quite similar to tequila, except I personally think it is a bit harsher. Also, one will typically find a cactus worm in each bottle of mescal. The tradition at Trevino’s was, if you got the last drink out of a mescal bottle, you also got to eat the worm with your cheese and cracker!

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Upon completion of my primary flight training at Moore, I moved on to Greenville AFB, Mississippi, for basic training, flying the T-33, a single-engine jet trainer called the T-Bird. It was a wonderful experience and I had a great time flying the T-Bird. Again, I had some problems at times, but got through the program without too much difficulty. One of the hardest things to learn was how to steer the plane on the ground! The T-Bird didn’t have a nose wheel steering system, you steered it with differential braking. If you didn’t do it correctly, the nose wheel would cock, requiring ground crew assistance or, if you had room, a special technique to uncock the wheel, using a lot of power and skillful brake applications.

One interesting part of the program was the fact that we had some foreign students in our class. There were two Iranians and a dozen or more Germans flying in our section. While the Germans were good students and spoke pretty good English, it was always an exciting adventure to fly in a formation with one of the Iranians. You never really knew what they said nor what they were going to do next!

I suppose almost every pilot has, at one time or another, had an extreme desire to buzz their home. Well, I was no different. My home in East Texas was well within the range of a T-33. In fact, a high school friend of mine had also trained there and had flown over his home, so I just knew I had to do it. Obviously, I was afraid—not of crashing but of getting caught! That would have been an instant end to my flying career.

Well along into the program I was up on a solo flight. I decided that this was the day to go over home. All went well, I made one low pass over the house—we lived well out in the country—circled around once at a higher altitude, then headed back to Greenville. I sweated for a few days, hoping that no one had reported me. I couldn’t wait to hear the response from my parents. A few days later I found out that they hadn’t been home that day! My grand airshow was for naught! Do I dare temp fate again?

Right toward the end of pilot training, I only needed to complete a few more hours of flying before graduation. I was scheduled for a solo flight with no specific items to accomplish. The temptation was too great, so away to Texas I went, one more time.

This time, as I crossed over the wooded area just east of our house, I spotted Dad and a number of his helpers bailing hay out in the field. I passed right over their heads. When I came back around a bit higher, I saw Mom out in the yard, waving a kitchen towel at me. I rocked my wings in acknowledgement and flew back to Mississippi, mission accomplished!

One afternoon, near the end of the program, I was scheduled to assist out in mobile control, a sort of additional control tower near the end of the active runway. The instructor I was with had just made the comment about it being a rather slow day when the emergency call came in that two of our planes had hit together in flight. The wing of one plane had knocked the nose off of the other. The plane without a nose was uncontrollable and both pilots successfully ejected. The other plane was still flyable and they were coming back in to attempt a landing. With binoculars, I watched their approach. I could see that the tip tank was missing and the outboard few feet of the wing was drooping a bit. Everything seemed to go OK until they touched down. As the plane slowed and the wing lost lift, those last few feet of wing bent all the way down to the runway. The main spar was broken; lift was the only thing that had been holding the wing up!

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While all of us were a bit crazy, one of the guys in my class was beyond crazy. Jack was older than most of us, with more time in the military than anyone else in our group. He constantly kept us entertained with the outlandish stories he could tell.

Jack bought a new MG sports car one day, and that night he headed into town to show it off. He stopped by one of the local bars frequented by a number of us, parking his new car in front—right next to a fire plug! After a bit of time had passed and a number of brews had been consumed, fire sirens were heard in the street outside. As a group of the patrons went to the door to see what was going on, our hero was greeted by the sight of a fireman grabbing an ax and preparing to smash in the windows of the locked MG so they could attach a hose to the fire plug. Jack, with a loud yell, ran over and tackled the fireman, just as the driver’s side window was shattered.

The end result was Jack not only lost a window, but he got two tickets, one for illegal parking and one for obstructing a fireman in his duties!

I lost track of Jack after graduation, but many years later I crossed paths with another pilot that had been stationed with him during the war in Vietnam. He told me a story about Jack that I have a hard time believing, but he assured me it was true.

As the story goes, Jack was an F-4 pilot flying almost daily missions into North Vietnam. One day, they were briefed that Jane Fonda would be flying into Hanoi on a Chinese airliner and that all allied flights were to totally avoid the area. So what does Jack do? He went looking for the airliner with the intent to shoot it down!

Well, he found it and moved into position behind it, missiles ready to fire. Both his back seater and his wingman were pleading with him, Jack, you don’t really want to do this!

Yes, I do.

No, Jack, this isn’t a good idea!

Yes, it is.

Apparently, what finally convinced him to not fire was when his wingman mentioned that his action would make Jane a martyr and a heroine to be worshiped by the war protestors.

Like I mentioned, I just can’t believe this is a true story, but knowing Jack, I wouldn’t put it past him.

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As we approached the end of the program, some of the guys in my class began to plan our graduation party. In order to procure a rather large supply of cheap booze for the party, one of our instructors and one of the students made a cross-country flight to Laredo AFB, Texas. There was nothing illegal about this, as cross-country navigation flights were a part of the required training. The problem was, there was no good place in the small cockpit for the large box of alcohol they had purchased. They ended up with the instructor flying the return flight with the student in the back seat holding the box in his lap.

It was after dark when they arrived back at Greenville, with most of the flying activity of the day finished. When the instructor attempted to lower the landing gear, nothing happened; the wheels wouldn’t come down! He tried all the alternate procedures with no success. He called on the radio for assistance, but no one could come up with anything that would get the gear down. It was beginning to look as if they would have to belly the plane in on the runway with the gear up. By now, the base was totally alerted to the emergency, and everyone from the wing commander on down was out to observe the immanent crash landing.

The instructor told the student, When we start our approach, I’m going to jettison the canopy way early. You start throwing bottles of booze out. It won’t look good at all for us to have all that alcohol in the plane when we slide to a stop!

Just as they were making their final preparations for the approach, the instructor decided to try the gear handle one more time. Wouldn’t you know it? The gear came down successfully and locked into place!

Of course, they now had a different problem. With the whole base there to meet them, how were they going to hide the booze until the crowd dispersed? The student managed to unstrap his harness as they taxied in and stashed the bottles all around on the floor of the rear cockpit, covering them with his flight jacket. After the excitement all died down, he remembered he had left his jacket in the plane and returned to get it and their precious purchases!

The graduation party for my class was a roaring success, with everyone proclaiming it the best party ever. The next morning was when we learned that one of our classmates had driven his car into a train on the way home and had been killed.

It was hard to understand exactly how it had happened. He had been one of the chief organizers of the party and hadn’t been drinking, since he was looking out for everyone else. The railroad crossing didn’t have any warning lights and it was rare for a train to be on that track, so you can imagine he wasn’t expecting it to be there. Also, the rail car he ran into was an empty flat car with almost no silhouette. It is entirely possible that he never saw the train at all.

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I finished fairly high in my pilot training class. We were able to pick our first duty assignments based on our class standing, so I got my first choice. I, like almost everyone else, wanted to fly fighters, but I knew I was in it for a career. During those days, the emphasis was on Strategic Air Command, so I decided that would probably be the smart choice. This was especially interesting to me when I saw there were B-52 copilot assignments available. Previously, the only pilots going into the B-52 program were experienced pilots from other aircraft. My B-52 class was one of the first to accept pilots straight from pilot training. Of course, the fact that really sold me was that the base of assignment was Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, only about fifty miles from my home.

Before reporting to Barksdale, however, I had quite a bit of additional training ahead of me. There was a special weapons course at Wichita, Kansas, survival school at Stead AFB, Nevada, B-52 ground school in California, and B-52 flying training at Walker AFB, New Mexico. Altogether, I was going to be on the road for six to seven months before my scheduled arrival at my new home in the spring of 1961.

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Everyone had heard all the horror stories about the survival school at Stead. It was indeed an experience to dread, and the thought of actually having to attend the course could strike terror in the hearts of the strongest of men. Well, I survived survival school, but I must admit, it was just about as tough as I had been told it would be. Some even said they would resign from the Air Force before they would go through Stead a second time!

The climax of the course, after prison camps, interrogations, escape and evasion training, etc., was an eight-day trek through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was late November and there was about two feet of snow on the ground. I had seen a pair of snowshoes once before, but here I was, scrambling up and down the hills, through the woods, and over the rocks and streams with a pair on my feet—sometimes!

We were tired, cold, and hungry for the entire eight days. I don’t think I’ve ever been so miserable in my life. We slept on the snow in sleeping bags. Actually, the bags were pretty good. They were the mummy type that you could close up all the way, except for a small hole to breathe through.