Well, there's not much to tell, but here it is.
In late October 1962, I was about to finish the flying phase of B-52 Combat
Crew Training School (CCTS) at Walker AFB, Roswell, NM. I had flown my last
training mission and went to the base the following morning to plan for my
final check ride (performance evaluation flight), which was scheduled for
the next day. As I parked my car, I noticed much more activity than usual.
Entering the building, I was surprised to see all of the instructors wearing
side arms and flight suits. When I inquired about all the activity, my
instructor told me about the President's speech of the previous day and that
all of the instructors were on alert. The Cuban Missile Crisis was on - I
had missed news about it the previous day because of my long flight. The
instructors told us students to be at a meeting at the Officers Club at 1300
(1:00 PM).
At 1300, the school commandant informed us, The school is closed; go to
your home bases immediately. Several of my classmates who had been on B-47
crews went back to their old units and went on alert with B-47's, some of
which dispersed to municipal airports or remote sites out in the desert. My
wife, Alice, the children and I left New Mexico early the next morning. My
home base was to be Robins AFB, GA, but my B-52G unit there was temporarily
at Loring AFB, ME, because of runway repairs at Robins. Not knowing if I
may have to go on to Loring soon after arriving at Robins, I drove Alice and
the children on to her parents' home near Nashville, NC, before I went to
Robins.
The administrators at Robins were not very concerned about my going on to
Loring - 'told me to get the family settled, etc. The following weekend, I
drove back to NC and took Alice and the children back down to Robins. There
we bought a house and moved in. On base I did lieutenant gofer jobs.
'Drove down to McCoy AFB, FL, for a two-week airborne guided missile course;
'even flew as a passenger aboard an Air Force C-54 to deliver top secret
emergency war order materials to a planning officer in our unit at Loring.
In December, a couple of other trainees I drove back to California to attend
another two-week guided missile course. By January, the rest of my unit had
returned to Robins, and by mid-January, I finally started flying B-52
training missions again - I had not been in the airplane for at least 2½
months; needless to say, I was really rusty and did not perform very
impressively on these first few missions. I passed a check ride, anyway,
was declared combat- ready and started pulling ground alert duty about
mid-February '63.
Wilton
- Original Message -
From: Dan Penoff d...@penoff.com
To: Mercedes List mercedes@okiebenz.com
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2014 6:15 PM
Subject: [MBZ] Cuban Missile Crisis - Wilton?
I have been listening to Robert Caro's fourth book on Lyndon Johnson's
life, which in this volume covers the mid 50s through the end of his
presidency. Pretty interesting stuff for a very scary period of time.
While listening to the portion that covered the Cuban Missile Crisis, I
was wondering if Wilton was doing his B-52 stuff at the time and would be
interested to hear his experiences, if he can divulge them.
Wilton?
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