"What are we going to do, hijack ourselves?"
Love it!
-Curt
________________________________
From: WILTON via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
To: mercedes list <mercedes@okiebenz.com>; WILTON <wilt...@nc.rr.com>
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 1:55 PM
Subject: [MBZ] OT - another non-political B-52 tale - FINALE & QUICK
DEPARTURE
FINALE & QUICK DEPARTURE
By Wilton Strickland
The night of 29 Dec was very uneventful, except for my herding/shooing
a gaggle of large ducks into the operations building and Hat Colonel's (a
colonel who would come out to the snack "hooch" and take names of air
crewmen not wearing hats) office just before we boarded the crew bus for
another and last trip to Hanoi, .
My target was Thai Nguyen Steel Mill and Rail Yards 35 NM north of
Hanoi. I was #2 in the last cell of three B-52's to cross the target area.
The bomb run was unusually quiet - not a single SAM nor round of AAA was
fired at my aircraft. They were out of ammo, and we were out of targets. I
had seen photos of the complete destruction in the areas struck by B-52's
since the 18th and did not think there was another target left in North
Vietnam worthy of a B-52 strike. We had finally fought the war for 11
days/nights the way many of us thought it should have been many years
before - strategically, overwhelmingly and decisively. I was confident that
it was finally over, and that we had won it as we departed the Hanoi area
for the last time. I was elated by the victory, but I was deeply saddened
by thoughts of the more than 58,000 Americans who would never go home and
the tremendous waste the entire tragic fiasco had been, not only for us, but
for thousands of Vietnamese, as well.
For most of the following day, there was much speculation among the BUFF
crewmen at U-Tapao as to whether or not we would go to Hanoi again that
night. I kept saying that I thought we would not - that I thought the
campaign was over. About mid-afternoon, while I was sitting outside
sunning, the navigator on my temporary crew came to the door of our room and
called out to me that 17th Air Division commander, B/G Sullivan, wanted to
speak to me on the phone. En route to the phone, I wondered if he were
calling about the ducks we had herded into Hat Colonel's office the night
before.
The General thanked me for the outstanding manner in which the other two
members of my regular crew from Kincheloe AFB, MI, and I had performed as
individual substitutes on other crews during the Linebacker II campaign. He
also thanked me for having the courage to express my concerns about the
faulty tactical plan at the pre-mission briefing on the night of the 19th.
Then he told me that, if we three from Kincheloe could be at base operations
in 30 minutes, we could fly to Guam that night aboard a KC-135 tanker, join
the other two members of our Kincheloe crew there and fly a B-52 from Guam
to the Boeing Plant at Wichita, KS, on Jan 1st or 2nd . He added that,
because he was giving such short notice, if we could not make it - if I
could not find the other two & get to base operations in time - we could
possibly go a couple of days later. (To me, that meant that another crew
may fly the bomber to Wichita. I not only wanted to get home as soon as
possible, but I had stuff in a storage room on Guam that I could take home
much more easily in a BUFF than as a passenger on a tanker. I wanted to
make sure WE were flying that bomber to Wichita.) I assured The General
that we would take the assignment and be at base operations in record time.
After I got off the phone, I ran as fast as I have ever run a couple of
blocks through the crew quarters area, hoping that I would be able to find
the other two guys. Luckily, I found them sitting outside in the sun.
I quickly told them the plan and, "Let's go, now!"
They jumped up to go inside to get their bags, while I ran back to my
room to pack mine and don a flight suit. While I was throwing my things in
bags ('never did really pack for this trip), I heard a vehicle horn sound
outside. I opened my door and looked out to see my two guys on a
commandeered Air Force fireman's pickup truck. The fireman was driving, and
they were all yelling for me to hurry. I finished throwing my things in the
bags, and off we went to base operations.
At base operations, it was "hurry up and wait." We had been in and out
of Thailand (back and forth between Guam and U-Tapao) several times flying
the airplane (BUFF) ourselves, but suddenly now we had to get in line with
all the other "cattle" and go through customs to depart as passengers on a
KC-135. When we finally got to the customs counter, the staff sergeant
inspector instructed us that we would have to dump everything out of our
bags, and as he "cleared" each item, individually, he would hand it to us to
put in the bags. Soon after this process began, the electronics warfare
officer (EW) on my crew pulled a very small Swiss Army knife out of his
pocket to fix a problem with a fingernail. The customs guy saw it and told
EW that they would have to confiscate the knife, or EW would have to put it
somewhere in a bag where he could not get to it.
I laughed incredulously and asked, as I gripped with both hands my
full-size knife still in its pocket to show him, "What about these
switchblade knives we're wearing right here in these pockets on our inner
left thighs?"
He replied, "Oh, that's OK, that's part of your survival equipment." We
laughed heartily as EW stuffed the tiny knife into his bag.
On Guam a couple of days later, after we had joined the other two
members of our Kincheloe crew there, we had to stop by Customs on the way
out to a B-52D before flying it to Wichita. Another staff sergeant
inspector stepped up into the bus with his sniffer dog to brief us on the
search procedure.
As he started to tell us to bring all of our bags in, dump everything
out, etc., I interrupted him by asking, "Are you going to work us over like
the guy did in Thailand a couple of days ago?"
He then asked, "Oh, did you just come out of Thailand?"
"Oh, yes," I replied, "They went through everything, piece by piece."
He quickly decided there was no need to "do it again." Then he looked
at his clipboard and said, "Just let me run through these questions: First,
do you have any knives or guns?"
I quickly answered, "Yes, we each have a switchblade knife in a pocket
here on our left, inner thighs, there's a .22 caliber rifle in every seat
pack/cushion on the airplane - at least 10 of 'em - and there are three
hatchets in the crew compartment. We're flying the airplane. What are we
going to do, hijack ourselves?"
He waved his hands in frustration as he backed out of the bus and said,
"Have a safe flight."
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