Usaf Air Commando Secret Wars from Laos to Latin America

By Eugene D. Rossel

The Air Commando secret wars happened mostly during the Vietnam War time frame and was a global effort involving USAF volunteer personnel who were given official military orders that did not necessarily specify the country they served in, and civilian clothes were many times authorized. Later they had great difficulty proving that they served in many of these countries, which affected their future VA care.

These operations were used to strengthen normally a poor country with little military resources and training with secret warriors frequently being there doing some of their legwork behind the scenes. All the operations were tight-lipped, frequently forbidden to tell families where you were and what you were doing. As an example; Capt. Bob Simpsons death, the first fighter pilot KIA in Vietnam in August 1962, became a total fabrication of where, why, and how and took a number of years before the government came clean because of my efforts.

Secret wars have a long history, and they will continue because of the interest of more-powerful nations with their less fortunate brethren.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514480052

Eugene D. Rossel

Lt Col Eugene D. Rossel USAF Ret was influenced early in his life by air power as he lived just outside Scott AFB, Illinois, where the military flight path flew right over the family farm and later in the family home in Mascoutah, Illinois. While in high school, he joined the USAF Reserves to fly and see the world. He was commissioned a second lieutenant when he graduated as an engineer from St. Louis University in 1959. He wanted to fly, and as his eyesight worsened, he went from pilot to navigator category to a nonrated officer though in his career he was put on a noncrew flight status and jump status in our secret wars. Early in his career he volunteered for a top secret organization that went from Jungle Jim to Special Operations and he was totally involved in secret wars, either in planning or involved, around the world to include Vietnam, Latin America, Laos, and Europe. After he received a MS in Logistic from AFIT he got into more mundane activity of space and missile engineering. He retired with thirty-four years of total service and worked in space and computer science companies. During this time he wrote for the Air Commando Association for about eighteen years and later the Forward Air Controller Newsletters. He helped Australian veterans, who fought with us in Vietnam, to get some 150 USAF Air Medals which were denied them in Vietnam. He continued work for Veterans on his website, www.specialoperations.net. Travel In the military I was stationed and lived in a number of garden spots in the world. I spent about thirteen years overseas to include Vietnam, Thailand, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Laos, Spain, and Germany. I have been to over fifty countries and have been involved in two wars in Southeast Asia and was in Panama in 1964 during the riots. Most memorably experience was Vietnam in 1962 as a young lieutenant and all the shock that comes with a war, the secret war in Laos working with the CIA as a civilian in mufti and attending Laotian functions with the Russians and Chinese in ’69–’70 (who at the time were not exactly friends and who were supporting the enemy who also were part of the three headed Laos Government) and attending the Special Forces Jump school for the Americas in Panama as well as being run out of Ciudad de Panama with Panamians screaming kill the Gringo (I was he).

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Eugene D. Rossel.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016905105

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-8003-8

                Softcover       978-1-5144-8004-5

                eBook            978-1-5144-8005-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of non-fiction.

Rev. date: 07/14/2016

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Contents

Preface

List of Illustrations

Introduction

1. Background

a.   Early History of USAF Lt. Col. Eugene D. Rossel

b.   The USAF

c.   Jungle Jim and Farm Gate

d.   Vietnam

e.   Latin America

f.   Laos

g.   Spain

h.   Los Angeles USAF Station

i.   Retirement

j.   Australia

2. Vietnam

a.   WW II Air Commandos

b.   Vietnam War Air Commandos

c.   Backseater

d.   Our Airplanes

e.   Death Reporting

f.   Coming Home

3. Latin America

a.   The 1964 Riots

b.   Our mission

c.   Venezuela

d.   Bolivia

e.   Colombia

f.   Brazil

g.   Dominican Republic

h.   Cuba

4. Our Secret War in Laos

a.   Mufti and cover story

b.   Secret wars

c.   The three-headed government

d.   The war

e.   CIA

f.   Air America and Continental Air Service

g.   US military

h.   US embassy

i.   The Ravens

j.   The Lao military

k.   The Hmong and the PDJ

l.   The UN

m.   Support from Thailand

n.   The Enemy—Pathet Lao, Chinese, NVA, Russians

o.   Drugs and gold in Laos

p.   Vientiane, Laos

q.   History of Project 404 and beginning of air operations in Laos

r.   Project 404/Palace Dog History (Declassified 1980)

s.   Project CHECO Report

5. Spain

a.   Some History of US relationship between Spain

b.   US military bases and facilities built after 1953 when Spain was isolated from the rest of Europe

c.   The Combat Grande Program to modernize the air defense of Spain

6. Africa

7. Future of Secret Wars

a.   Brief history of the Air Commandos from WW II to the present from government websites

8. Air Commando Documents

Thomas Clines

Sources

Glossary

Preface

While in grade school, I used to write to the local newspapers on either questioning something in their paper or providing them a bit of history on our small town, and they would publish them. In high school, I occasionally wrote an article for our school paper. In college, I majored in electrical engineering, and we were always writing reports for our different technical classes. In Latin America, my boss Colonel Robert Gleason had me write a specialized communication plan for Latin America, which was viewed at a number of levels in the USAF but never accepted. This was my first real rejection. I served as the secretary for the Panama Canal Zone Professional Engineering Society and had to put out various reports. While stationed with the USAF Special Air Warfare Center at Eglin AFB, Florida, my boss Col. Burton Sam recommend that I write a book on counterinsurgency communications, and it turned into a 230-page book, which was sent worldwide in six continents. I received a favorable review from it. Our major command Tactical Air Command (TAC) called me and asked me who gave me permission to write this book, since I didn’t have their approval. After I told them Colonel Sam, my boss, told me to write it, he didn’t say anything else. HQ TAC nine months later came out with a similar book, which paralleled mine.

Later in Laos, the CIA was interested in my communication book and was interested in talking to me about a job with them. This sounded interesting, but I was still well invested in the military. Of course, we didn’t have computers in those days, and it took a lot more time and effort to produce these works. While in grad school, my thesis partner and I wrote a thesis on a public law (three hundred pages) and how it affected USAF procurement. While in Spain, I produced a pamphlet for our engineers working with the Spanish Air Force. For the remainder of my USAF career, I had to assign my subordinates to write things that I had to evaluate.

I have been submitting USAF Air Medals decorations for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) fighter pilots who served in Vietnam as forward air controllers (FAC) flying small airplanes low and slow to find the enemy and then direct our fighters to hit the enemy. They couldn’t get the USAF decorations during the war because it was a political thing with their governments. It required a lot of coordination with both the Australians and the New Zealanders to get their information to put in the Air Medals. To get decorations after the war, you must go through your congressman and then a variety of investigation, particularly for foreign military personnel. With the help of Flt. Lt. Garry Cooper, RAAF, I was able to get the information to submit to my congressman for Air Medals for our RAAF FACs. It is a time-consuming effort particularly when your country is involved in another war, and these late after-the-war decorations no longer enjoy any priority particularly if it is a foreign person. To date, the RAAF has received 127 Air Medals, and currently I am working on fourteen RAAF and fourteen RNZAF more, waiting for the air force’s decision.

Upon my retirement, I wrote for about eighteen years for a quarterly veteran magazine called the Air Commando Newsletter, which I normally filled about 25 to 40 percent of the thirty to thirty-six pages newspaper type format. I wrote mostly about our people and what we did in our secret wars. Many of our readers, as well as a number of authors, recommended to me that I write a book about the Air Commandos. At the time, I pondered these recommendations, but I thought there were too many books on the Cold War already, and what would I call it? I continued to get the recommendations to write something and then I made up my mind about writing something on the secret wars I participated in. I would title it about the organization I was in and the countries I was involved with.

People I got to thank for encouraging me to write this book include Col. Robert Gleason, Walt Boyne, Jim Boney, Charlie Jones, Heinie Aderholt, General Pete Piotrowski, Colonel Cochran, Ed Maloney, POF, John Connors, many living and dead Air Commandos, my wife, Anne Handberry; Mallory Jackson, the artist who also designed the cover; and my family whom I want to answer the question What did you do in the war, Dad?

I never felt that I was a good writer, though I liked to write, and people who read my material, particularly Air Commandos, in the ACA Newsletter liked it and always encouraged me to publish something on our activities.

Much of the material in the book came from previous articles I wrote for the Air Commando Association, notes I kept during my long military career, interviews of many Air Commando Warriors who served with me or were involved with the subjects such as Ravens, FACs, CCT, AIRA, ARMA, Air America, CIA, DIA, SAWC, Laotians and Vietnamese I served with and information from the Internet, magazines, newspapers, and books on the war. Information over the years sometimes is blurred by memory, but I tried to maintain references of the stories in the book.

I included in chapter 8 Air Commando Documents, which I considered historical documents that the Air Commando community probably no longer had access to that I have kept over fifty years. I used many of these documents in my research for writing articles in the Air Commando Newsletter. Many contain the names of our people, and that is an item that makes people read articles if they are in it. It also has many things like operations, places, aircraft data, pictures, stories, etc., which many of our people still have cherished memories. Also many of these documents are no longer available, and historians of aviation history of Air Commando can use it to complete our history.

This book follows my air force career with my interest in aviation stemming from living near an air force base in Southern Illinois, joining the USAF Reserves at seventeen, and my being commissioned a second lieutenant in the air force after graduating from Saint Louis University (SLU). From there, my career in secret wars took me around the world from Florida, starting with Vietnam, Latin America, Laos, Spain, and then returning to California to finish out my career with satellites and missiles. It was a career I wouldn’t trade for anything. We didn’t make a million dollars, but we had a million dollars’ worth of experiences.

List of Illustrations

Fig. 1 Rossel German genealogy to 1600

Fig. 2 The 1800 German birth certificate of German grandparents

Fig. 3 My father and mother

Fig. 4 My forefathers

Fig. 5 Okawville, Illinois

Fig. 6 One-room grade school on the prairie

Fig. 7 Mascoutah, Illinois

Fig. 8 Cardinal Francis George

Fig. 9 Student to USAF officer

Fig. 10 My father in WW I

Fig. 11 My two older brothers in WW II

Fig 12 Jungle Jim and Colonel Cochran

Fig. 13 Southeast Asia and Vietnam

Fig. 14 Technical Sergeant Thanh, VNAF

Fig. 15 Our hooches at Bien Hoa AB, Vietnam

Fig. 16 Vietnamese money and US script

Fig. 17 ZAP Patch and EBF Hat

Fig. 18 Howard Air Force Base, Panama Canal Zone

Fig. 19 Panama City, Republic of Panama

Fig. 20 The White Rose

Fig. 21 My Spanish family

Fig. 22 Parador of Alarcon, a former AD 700 Moorish fortress

Fig. 23 Meeting with astronaut Mike Collins

Fig. 24 Pres. George Bush Letter for the RAAF AM and B-17C memorial

Fig. 25 US embassy driver’s license and ID cards issued to Project 404 personnel

Fig. 26 Map of Laos

Fig. 27 Long Tieng in a well-concealed valley

Fig. 28 The 1970 flag of Laos called an Erawan

Fig. 29 Gen. Vang Pao (VP), a charismatic soldier, a great leader, a Hmong Patton

Fig. 30 General VP’s headquarters at Long Tieng—about fifty thousand Hmong lived here

Fig. 31 Vertical Runway

Fig. 32 Map of Spain

Introduction

Secret Wars

During the Cold War

The US military has always been a magnet for those young men and women who sought travel and adventure but couldn’t necessarily afford this luxury. After WW II, with the United States becoming a superpower and our involvement in conflicts around the world, it afforded the chances of many young people to achieve their goal as being either a volunteer or a call-up by the draft in the US military. I was caught in this dilemma coming from a small town, and without being born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I jumped at it at first chance. But first, I had to get an education. I went to Saint Louis University (SLU) near my home and was able to get what I wanted, since in those days, it didn’t cost you an arm and a leg to get an education. Plus, support from some wealthy individuals in my small town also helped. So my life adventures began.

This is a history of the Vietnam era Air Commandos seen through the eyes of one of the first volunteers for the program originally called Jungle Jim in 1961. It covers the time when Col. Ben King was the first commander of the organization, following in the footsteps of the WW II colonel Phil Cochran, who was the first Air Commando commander in 1943. Colonel Cochran was made famous in the Terry and the Pirates comic strip where he was called Flip Corkin and which was written by Milton Caniff, an old college buddy of Cochran. The 1961 organization only took volunteers in the early stage that had to answer yes to five top-secret questions, primarily involving accepting high-risk assignments where the US government might deny your existence, to be accepted into the unit. The motto of the organization was Any Time, Any Place. The organization was formed in early 1961 at Hurlburt Field in Northwest Florida now called Hurlburt AFB.

In 1959, I was commissioned by the USAF as a second lieutenant and sent to Keesler AFB to attend radar school, since I flunked the aviation eye test to become a pilot/navigator. It was a real change from college life, since now I was making money and life was a little more relaxed. After radar school, I was sent to a radar site on Eglin AFB in Northwest Florida. It was a great assignment, and all my classmates in school wanted this assignment, and it was perfect for me in the short run, since I wanted warm weather and none of the cold and humid weather found in my hometown in Southern Illinois. This didn’t last for a long time because I joined the air force for travel and adventure, and adventure at that time was out of the United States. There was a dream sheet for all officers where you could express your desires of where you wanted to go and what jobs you preferred. They didn’t give you everything you wanted, but I made sure that my dream sheet was updated every six months. Finally, the big day came when I was called in by personnel for volunteering for a new super top-secret job and assignment. After answering five top-secret questions with a yes answer for the Jungle Jim program, the air force would forever change my life. When told of my selection in my specialty, I wondered why, being a very inexperienced officer, I was chosen from ten others who had years of experience. I think my enthusiasm about the job was the primary reason I was chosen, plus my education and my answers to the questions. This was the beginning of my involvement with secret wars.

During this time, our secret wars were primarily fought by the CIA and the military and were a result of the Cold War environment. Secret wars were small forces covertly used under the cover of clandestine operations of training, military assistance, spying for any of our needs that had plausible deniability, and normally in civilian dress using embassy or false identification. A cover story was normally given for our presence in the country. Of course, anytime the news reporters got wind of any operations of this type, they came to expose it. Additionally, there were agents of our adversaries, such as Russia, China, and others, seeking to find out our intentions or to neutralize our efforts. Sometimes there were mutually interests such as the Russians wanting us to provide pictures of the road that the Chinese were building through northern Laos.

Secret wars are not new in the world of conflicts going back before Christ and further. They will continue today and in the future with successes and failures with people getting killed or held as pawns in conflicts. They are needed to save nations such as Israel and others.

This is an e-mail I received from John Wiren on secret wars.

John Wiren, [e-mail], Air America first in Laos Flying T-28

Gene

On the subject of aviation, I would like to point out some facts that are conspicuous by their absence. Since you were more directly involved, you should be cognizant of these events. In a recent Air Commando newsletter there was a fine article on Gen. Vang Pao and the use of aerial support against the Pathet Lao and NVA. Let it be known that the initial cadre of VPS air force was from Air America, not Thai, Meo, Air Commando or Raven. In May of 1964 there was a small group (6) of Air America pilots recruited by the Agency and the US Embassy, who had flown the AT-28 and with prior experience in the matter of combat, interdiction and SAR. This was a very successful program that went on for several years until the US military and local components got up to speed. We never lost a pilot and only two aircraft. Let’s give credit where it is due! Cheers, John Wiren (former Air America president).

You are right, John, and we’ll put it in the next ACA Newsletter.

Secret wars are not included in the DOD Dictionary of Military Terms, and covert operations are the closest terms that define what secret wars are about. According to the US Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, a covert operation (also as CoveOps or covert ops) is an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor. It is intended to create a political effect that can have implications in the military, intelligence, or law enforcement arenas. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation. See Covert-operation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_operation.

Background from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_Forward_Air_Controllers and my assignment to the area under Project 404

On 23 July 1962, the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam signed the Geneva Accords guaranteeing the neutrality of the Kingdom of Laos. One of the provisions of the Accords called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Laotian soil. North Vietnam had troops still remaining in Laos from the end of the French Indochina War. The United States had a small number of advisors, which it withdrew from the country.[2]

The North Vietnamese deliberately ignored the Accords because they were intent on keeping their supply corridor, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, to continue their war against South Vietnam. North Vietnam’s representatives repeatedly stated they had no military presence in Laos, even though they had at least 4,000 troops stationed there from the end of the First Indochina War onwards.[3]

Prince Souvanna Phouma, the Prime Minister of Laos, asked for American help to counteract the North Vietnamese. To avoid the appearance of unilaterally violating the Accords, US President John F. Kennedy directed the United States Air Force to perform covert operations in Laos to help the Lao fight the North Vietnamese communists.[4]

USAF covert operations

To begin an operation in great secrecy, the US Air Force originally forwarded four sergeants from USAF Combat Control Teams in 1963. These sergeants turned in their uniforms and military identification and were supplied with false identification so they could work in civilian clothing. This process was designed to preserve the fiction of American noninvolvement dubbed plausible deniability. Once civilianized, the Butterflies flew in the right (co-pilot’s) seat in Air America Helio Couriers and Pilatus Porters. They were often accompanied by a Lao or Thai interpreter in the back seat. The Air Commando sergeants directed the air strikes according to US Air Force doctrine, using the radio call sign Butterfly.

Two of the Butterfly Air Force combat controllers were Master Sergeant Charlie Jones, soon joined by Technical Sergeant James J. Stanford.[8] Another of the Butterflies was Major John J. Garrity, Jr., who in future would spend several years as the éminence grise of the American Embassy to Laos.[9] They and their successors, ran air strikes without notice or objection until General William Momyer discovered that enlisted men were in charge of air strikes. At that point, he ordered their replacement with rated fighter pilots. By that time, the number of Butterflies had escalated to three pairs.[10] Both the impromptu strike controlling and the Butterfly effort ended with General Momyer’s tirade in April 1966.[11]

Development of rules of engagement by the Embassy also threw more reliance on increased control over the in-country close air support. So did the introduction of an integrated close air support system for Southeast Asia in April 1966.[12] Also, beginning in April 1966, part of its effort to better direct air strikes, the US Air Force installed four tactical air navigation systems in Laos to guide US air strikes. One of these was emplaced on a mountain top at Lima Site 85, aimed across the border at Hanoi.[13]

Palace Dog

A successor operation, code-named Palace Dog, began replacing this original Butterfly effort in 1966. Palace Dog consisted of Project 404 and Raven FACs.

Ravens: The Ravens were airborne fighter pilots in unarmed light aircraft who flew observation missions in civilian clothes, marked enemy targets with smoke rockets, directed air strikes onto them, and observed and reported bomb damage assessment post strike.[14] They were based in five Lao towns: Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Pakse, Savannakhet, and at Long Tieng on the Plain of Jars.[15]

Project 404: This was the code name for a covert United States Air Force advisory mission to Laos during the later years of the Second Indochina War, which would eventually become known in the United States as the Vietnam War. Project 404 began in 1966, as a successor after the completion of Operation White Star, was smaller in scope, and was an adjunct to the various covert ground operations succeeding White Star. Because Laos was ostensibly a neutral party to the conflict between the United States and North Vietnam, the airmen did not wear United States Air Force uniforms but instead worked in civilian clothing.

I was assigned to Project 404 from August 1969 to August 1970 in Vientiane, Laos. I worked in the air attaché compound as a civilian with embassy ID cards and formally addressed as mister and was able to travel all over the war-torn country in supporting the Raven program and worked with many different USAF and Laos agencies. It was a most interesting assignment and one never to be forgotten.

Chapter One

Background

Early History of USAF Lt. Col. Eugene D. Rossel

Ever since I was young and could remember, I was told we were originally German immigrants from either the Rhineland or Baden-Baden. After talking to various members of my family, I knew we were from Germany but wasn’t sure where. I spent a number of years trying to learn where we came from in Germany. I started from an early age trying to find out our roots, and I had no idea what to do, since I didn’t know genealogy or I had no written records to go by, only family stories. I later searched for family birth records, marriage records, and death records. I started to have some luck, and after years, I got to Hallgarten, Germany, which is near Frankfurt and is also in the Rhineland. In 1974, I visited Hallgarten and actually found some people named Rossel, who turned out to be genuine relatives. There were war monuments in the local Catholic Church from WW I and WW II that had our name and other names of people living in communities in Southern Illinois, which was predominately German. Due to this, I was able to track our lineage back to 1600 with no element of militarism. It appeared as if brother was killing brothers from the names on the church’s war monuments. The genealogy chart (Rossel genealogy) is part of my research and finding on our family history as immigrants of Germany to the United States.

Fig.%201%20Rossel%20Germay%20Geneaslogy%20to%201600.jpg

Fig. 1 Rossel German genealogy to 1600

I concentrated on when my family came from Germany to the United States in 1850. Now Joseph Rossel and Catherine Bender, both from Hallgarten, Germany, (see birth certificates) were married in Okawville, Illinois (near St. Louis, Missouri) on December 9, 1854.

60859.png

Fig. 2 The 1800 German birth certificate of German grandparents

They had a log house outside of Okawville, Illinois, in the 1860s and ran a general store as well as farmed. Now according to reports we heard, passed down by our aunts, Catherine complained about being scared out on the prairie when wild cows would come up and rub themselves against their log cabin home at night. Joseph Rossel developed and increased the size of his farms and had two Germans working for him, both with Jewish names. They were probably from Hallgarten and knew Peter at some time. A question arose: were we originally Jewish as we were Catholics? That question hasn’t been resolved. John Rossel was their son and he married Barbara Griesbaum on September 8, 1885. They had nine children, and Anthony, my father, was born on March 23, 1895. He married Anna Trost in 1920.

47508.png

Fig. 3 My father and mother

47821.png

Fig. 4 My forefathers

My parents lived on one of our Rossel grandparents’ farms outside Okawville and had seven kids of whom I was the second youngest.

47957.png

Fig. 5 Okawville, Illinois

The farmhouse in those days did not have electricity, indoor plumbing, or water, and were heated with coal stoves. We used outhouses and coal oil lamps, pumped our water, and stoked the stove with coal all the time that I was in Okawville.

Our farm was just outside Scott AFB and in the flight path of the military airplanes, which came right over our house. I was quite young in WW II, but I did see some of the major airplanes we used in the war and was always amazed at these aircrafts. I attended school in Okawville for the first grade, but we later moved to the outskirt of the river bottom because my father died about a year before. We had to attend school in my second grade at the Zetsche school, which was a one-room school with thirteen students spread across eight grades and was taught by Florence Henderson, a new seventeen-year-old recent high school graduate from Nashville High School.

48108.png

Fig. 6 One-room grade school on the prairie

It was in the war years, and it was difficult to find teachers because they were working for the war effort or were then fighting in the war. I think she did an excellent job with her age and experience, and we all thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. In recent years, when I was able to find her to thank her for her efforts and I mentioned we all thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. For some reason, this turned her off, so our discussion was short. Our house was three miles from the school, and we had to walk six miles to and from school each day in rain, snow, heat, and cold weather. No one ever tried to molest us, and we survived.

In the third grade, we moved to Mascoutah, Illinois, and our house was in the flight path of the airplanes landing at Scott AFB, and at times, we thought that they might land on our house. This house was really exciting because now all we had to do was push a button for lights, and we had running water in the house, but we still had to heat it with a coal stove (my Mascoutah home, 212 W State St.). I went to the local Catholic school and graduated in 1951 (HCS grades 5–6, 1948–1949).

48263.png

Fig. 7 Mascoutah, Illinois

I next attended St. Henry’s Seminary in Belleville for two years, and one of my classmates, who sat right behind me, was Cardinal Francis George.

Fig.%208%20Cardinal%20Francis%20George.jpg

Fig. 8 Cardinal Francis George

I decided this wasn’t a life for me, so I next attended Cathedral High School in Belleville, and when I was seventeen, a USAF recruiter for the Air Force Reserves came to our school to talk about the USAF Reserves. It took five minutes of his talk, and I was ready to join because it gave me an opportunity to travel, fly, and see the world. It took three days begging my mother to sign papers to let me join, since I was still seventeen. I joined the Air Forces Reserves and was forever known as prop top at school. I graduated from Cathedral High School in 1955.

The USAF

I then attended Saint Louis University to get a degree in electrical engineering. I joined the USAF Reserve Officer Training Command (ROTC) and later got a commission as a second lieutenant in the USAF when I graduated Saint Louis University (SLU) in 1959.

48543.png

Fig. 9 Student to USAF officer

I wanted to fly, but my eyes could not pass the USAF eye test for pilot training.

When I graduated from high school, they advised me to study history in college, but I knew there was no money in studying history and the money was in engineering at the time. Furthermore, I wanted to go into the military. I graduated in July 1959 with a BSEE, but I was not allowed to be in the graduation ceremony, since I had to take two extra courses in the summer, and at that time, unless you got your diploma in June, you couldn’t participate with your class in the graduation ceremony. I was commissioned at the end of July 1959, and I had orders to report to Keesler AFB, Mississippi, at the end of August 1959 to begin my military career.

Our family’s military career in the United States began in WW I when my father was drafted into the Army. I have no idea what my Germanic ancestors’ military history might have been, since Germany was always involved in some type of war. I have no record of my family service in Germany, if any. My father went through US Army basic training in 1918 and was discharged in ninety days since the war ended.

48665.png

Fig. 10 My father in WW I

He saw no action in WW I, but the ninety days he was in the US Army really paid of later when he died in 1943 from ruptured appendix, which doctors at the time did not have a lot of experience with. The fact that he was a veteran, the government gave my mother approximately seventy dollars a month, which sustained us for some time. Seventy dollars was enough at that time to survive. My three brothers all served in the military. My oldest brother, Larry, served in the navy and tried flight school but ended up skippering a boat. He never left the United States. My brother Maurice went into the Army and attended paratrooper school. He was headed on a ship to Asia when the war ended and so he went to Japan for his enlistment, which might have affected his life, since he died with seven different types of cancer. I served in Vietnam and Laos, and my brother Jerome served in the USAF and only served in the United States in the ’50s.

Fig.%2011%20My%20Two%20Older%20Brothers%20in%20WWII.jpg

Fig. 11 My two older brothers in WW II

My brother brought a Japanese parachute back, and I always wanted to try it by jumping off the roof of our house. Luckily, I was never able to try the parachute from the roof of the house. My younger brother joined the USAF and spent two years in Alaska, a place I never wanted to be assigned near as it was really cold.

I first joined the Air Force Reserves at Scott AFB, Illinois, in 1954 and became a radio operator on a C-119 Flying Boxcar. My active duty air force career began on August 31, 1959, when I reported to Keesler AFB on the Gulf Coast in Mississippi. It was a real wake-up coming from Southern Illinois. Mississippi was not too friendly if you were black. I had a friend who was a black second lieutenant who went through cadet training with me in Tennessee in 1958, and he couldn’t even go outside the base with us to eat or anything else. The young black lieutenants at Keesler AFB who were navigators and who wore their flight suits off base were always harassed by the local police. Most black officers wanted out of Mississippi. I was at Keesler to attend a six-month short course in radar, which was only for electrical engineers.

This was normally a year’s radar course, but they changed it for a couple of years to six months for electrical engineers. Keesler was a great place because we had an excellent officers’ club and were allowed to live off base and we stayed at a local hotel. We were making money and lived a good life with a lot of warm weather, drank, partied, had time for women, and learned some new stuff. We all got our future assignments when we arrived on base, not when we were ready to graduate, and I got Eglin AFB, Florida, which everyone wanted, since it was an R & D base. All the others went to some remote radar site on a mountaintop in the United States or overseas, and I was stuck on a test site in God’s country.

I arrived at Eglin AFB in February 1960, and it was a large place with a lot of auxiliary fields and was the biggest air base in the world at the time with almost 850 square miles of land ranges and something like 17,000 square miles of water ranges. Within a short time, I was the radar officer for one of the newest height and search radars used in testing all aviation and missile test flight on the ranges at Eglin. It was exciting to be involved in some of the air force’s flight testing of shooting down drone aircraft with missiles and fighter aircraft. They had a Range 52, which was a large ground range, and they had almost monthly demonstration for the base of what they did at the range. It was real exciting and was a rather expensive demonstration, but the air force was blessed and had lots of money at the time. Fort Walton Beach, which was the nearest city, was a lot of fun during the summer with its white beaches and all the tourists. We spent some good time in Pensacola with its beaches, and Trader John’s bar, home to the navy folks, was one of our main hangouts. I was getting a little tired of being at one place, and since I got in the air force to see the world, travel, and be involved in exciting things, I volunteered for overseas with Spain being my top priority.

Jungle Jim and Farm Gate

I was called in by personnel, and they wanted to talk to me about a top-secret program in September 1961. They did not specify exactly what the program was, but I had five top-secret questions I had to answer yes, and if at any point if I said no, I would be let go.

I was put on a three-hour alert for the assignment. In October 1961, they sent me to Randolph AFB, Texas, for a psychological and psychiatrist testing. Test given are shown in (chapter 8).

We next went to one-month survival training at Stead AFB, Nevada, in November and December, when it was really cold. First, we had classes to train us on how to resist integration by the enemy, how to live on the land and survive.

Vietnam

We were still on three-hour alert when we got back to Eglin AFB, and on January 1, 1962, we reported into Hurlburt Field, Florida, to become Air Commandos. I wanted to go to Vietnam, since we had a detachment there, but my boss was more experienced, and I think he wanted to get away from his wife. The top-secret document on Jungle Jim sending to us to Vietnam is shown in figure 12, as well as Colonel Cochran’s brief history as being the first Air Commando commander in WW II.

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Fig 12 Jungle Jim and Colonel Cochran

Col. Philip Cochran was the first commander of the Air Commandos.

My boss’s wife was drinking heavily and was calling the commander, and they had to get him back to the States, and I was sent to replace him at Bien Hoa AB, South Vietnam (about twenty-five kilometers from Saigon) for six months.

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Fig. 13 Southeast Asia and Vietnam

I left at the end of April and flew in a Boeing 707 and got to Vietnam in twenty-four hours. This was really thrilling for me, as this was my first overseas assignment and in a combat zone. The VNAF then formed a cadre of seventy-two Vietnamese enlisted to ride in our aircraft, and they were led by a TSgt. Nguyen Thanh, who had no English language training but spoke the best English of any Vietnamese who had attended English language school. He was a natural linguist.

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Fig. 14 Technical Sergeant Thanh, VNAF

This covert operation went on to about July 1963, and since the whole world knew about it at this time, it was declassified.

What was funny about Bien Hoa, when we had orders to go there on November 2, 1961, hardly anyone knew where Vietnam/Saigon/Bien Hoa was? It was really new to most people. I guess war is how we learn our geography. We worked in old French hangars and had to get a lot of our parts made by the VNAF depot on base.

We got about 25 percent of parts we needed from the States and were using a lot of WW II and Korea aged equipment. As one Secretary of Defense said, we go to war with what we have, not what we want. We lived in wooden hooches, normally four to a hooch, and our beds had mosquito net over the beds to keep us from getting eaten alive and wooden shutters for cooling.

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Fig. 15 Our hooches at Bien Hoa AB, Vietnam

We did have electricity and running water for a shower. Each hut had sandbags on each corner, but when you looked at them, they normally had rats as big as small cats in them. I would have been scared to jump in them if the Vietcong (VC) ever attacked. The field in front of the hangars on the flight line was fenced off because when the French were there, they mined part of the field. We kept our distance from the fences. The Vietnamese had a three-hour siesta for lunch, and we had one hour and then back to work. Boy, was that a drag in the tropical hot humid weather. When we first got there, the Vietnamese tried to work American hours, and production just fell off. They went back to their normal siesta hours within a month. Their effort was appreciated.

We were paid in script money, so we couldn’t trade on the black market with greenbacks.

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Fig. 16 Vietnamese money and US script

Food was lousy at the chow hall, and what I missed most were milk, ice cream, hamburgers, and fresh watermelon. Booze was cheap. They used WW II milk machines, and it produced a chalklike milk, which I couldn’t drink. We were told by the medics not to eat the local food for our personal health. Within two weeks after this warning, I was eating at Rosie a small canteen next to the flight line. They had fresh hot French bread and butter and Vietnamese fried rice, which had everything in it, and it was delicious. I never got anything from eating there, but looking at the open window in Rosie’s kitchen, I could see rats running on the windowsill, but after a while, I accepted all this, just hoping they weren’t putting them in the fried rice.

I, along with Captains Simpson and Walker, developed the first USAF Air Commando unit patch in Vietnam called a ZAP Patch.

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Fig. 17 ZAP Patch and EBF Hat

We occasionally went down to Saigon in a bus with guns locked to the bus floor in case the Vietcong attacked us on the road from Bien Hoa to Saigon, which was about twenty-five kilometers away. I don’t think we could have ever gotten to the guns if the VC had attacked the bus on the road.

Several things happened that are of interest during my six months at Bien Hoa. Madame Nhu, the sister-in-law of President Diem, visited the base.

She was beautiful, but many of the Vietnamese didn’t like her because she was a powerful woman and Catholic; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Nhu.

At the end of six months, which we did not receive TDY money because of unit rotation to save USAF money, we flew back to the United States in a propeller-driven C-118. It made a steep takeoff from Bien Hoa to avoid area D because of its suspected danger. We island-hopped and it took seven days to get back to the United States. We stopped at Wake Island, Johnson Island, Hawaii, and one other island. We flew around seventeen thousand feet over the Pacific, and it was a rough ride when we had thermals.

Latin America

I arrived back from my Vietnam tour on a late Saturday night in October 1962 and couldn’t get to sleep until about four in the morning, and at about eight in the morning, I had knocks on the door and thought it was some of my buddies in the BOQ who wanted to hear about my trip. I didn’t want to get up and I told them to go away. I keep telling them this, and they keep telling me that they were the air police who had orders from my boss for me to report to work because our whole base and aircraft were leaving for Opa-locka, Florida, for the Cuban crisis. There went my twenty-five days of leave I thought I was getting. The crisis eventually ended, but I wasn’t happy going from one conflict to another.

In January 1963, I attended the ninety-day USAF Squadron Officer School for junior officers at Maxwell AFB, Alabama. At the time, we had air force officers from the Cuban AF in Exile, Vietnam, Republic of China, Ethiopia, Greece, Iran, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Philippines, and Thailand enrolled in the class. The Cubans were the most interesting, and one lived next to me. They were on the telephone with the CIA almost every day. The purpose of the school was to develop leadership of young officers. Sometimes after this I was sent temporarily to the Panama Canal Zone to the 605th ACS at Howard AFB Panama Canal Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panam%C3%A1_Pac%C3%ADfico_International_Airport (chapter 8).

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Fig. 18 Howard Air Force Base, Panama Canal Zone

It was a great assignment. It was very interesting working with a number of different countries, a great commander, many parties, and the Panamanian lifestyle.

I was sent down permanently in January 1964. Shortly after this, on January 15, 1964, the Panamanians rioted in the Canal Zone. In the process, about twenty-one people were killed, mostly Panamanians and a few Americans. We were totally caught unprepared for the Panamanian riots. This resulted in Panama being put off limits for about seven months. It was quite dangerous to go downtown during this time, since the Panamanians were really worked up. I went into Panama one night and got chased out with kill dirty gringo, and I was the gringo. There were all kinds of problems in the Canal Zone during this time.

During my assignment to Panama, I got to travel to Colombia and spent a lot of time there helping the Colombian Air Force. I really like Colombia, but it was a dangerous country even then. I went to Ecuador, which was a rather poor country. I also went to Belize, Puerto Rico, San Salvador, and Venezuela. I had the fortune of attending the Army Special Forces Latin America jump school at Fort Gulick on the Colon side of Panama.

I jumped out of C-46 which was a WWII aircraft. I got my jump wings, but I put in a lot of effort in getting them after volunteering in three different countries to go to jump school.

Colombia and Venezuela were the most interesting countries. Venezuela was having an election in which the Communists threatened to blow everything up. We went down to help them out with equipment, and they had 99 percent of the people voted.

In Panama, we always had a lot of parties, and one Panamanian girl, Mayan Correa, was really a live one who partied with us. When I visited Panama in February 2012, some forty-five years later, she was now the governor of the province of Panama.

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Fig. 19 Panama City, Republic of Panama

I left Panama in 1966 to attend an eight-month communication electronic course at Keesler AFB. Originally I had an assignment to Utah, which I asked my former boss Colonel Gleason in the Pentagon to get me out of this for an assignment back to Florida, which he was able to do.

In September 1966, I reported to the Special Air Warfare Center (SAWC), which is now called the Air Force Special Operations Command. This was an exciting assignment. I was put on jump status and made twenty-seven parachute jumps from C-123, C-47, C-46, U-10, and UH-1 helicopter. I had a very good job, since I could affect future communication plans for worldwide USAF special operations forces. I initiated a committee for future communications and wrote a 230-page book on special operations communications, which had worldwide distribution. Even the CIA was interested in it and they talked about hiring me.

I had to investigate a near accident of a jumper that went out at twenty thousand feet for a joint high-altitude low-opening (HALO) demonstration