I was a pre-World War II baby. Born on 29 May 1940 in Lafayette, Indiana, it's likely I was conceived at the time France and Great Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, but before America entered the fray on December 7th, 1941. Global conflicts and the military have always influenced my choices in life.

One of my earliest memories at age four was seeing long olive-drab troop trains packed with soldiers, rolling through the Indiana farmland, headed for the West Coast to fight in the Pacific War.

In 1946, at age six and after the War, I had built my first play-version of an airplane (see photograph). At age ten, the Korean War was in full action, and I saw the neighbors* young sons go away again to fight in the Pacific theater.

In the 1950's, the Cold War experience was brought home to me personally. My older brother, after earning an aeronautical degree and officer's commission at Purdue University, was in the Air Force flying the Convair B-36 Peacemaker on interminably long missions, again in the Pacific.

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial earth-orbiting satellite. Sputnik. A junior in high school, I had already made up my mind to join the military. I was studying the Russian language. I had a heavy load of science and mathematics courses; so I applied to my Indiana Congressman, Rep. Charles Halleck, for an appointment to the newly opened (1955) U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. After a battery of mental and physical tests, I was admitted to the Fourth Class at the Academy.

Of some 6,000 applicants, 454 entered my class in May 1958, and 298 graduated on June 6th, 1962. Then Vice-President Lyndon Johnson presented our diplomas, and legendary cigar-chomping General Curtis LeMay awarded our Second Lieutenant commissions (photograph).

I was privileged to be able to choose one of the two pilot training bases which had the new Northrop T-38 Talon for advanced training- After a year (August 1962-August 1963) in the cotton, cattle and oil country of West Texas at Webb Air Force Base, our class was offered a mixed bag of pilot assignments: F-100 Super Sabres; KC-135 tankers; B-52 Stratofortresses; helicopters; and C-130 Hercules. Though I once aspired to be a fighter pilot,

I'd just had a good friend die in the famous "F-100 Sabre Dance", so I opted for the more staid C-130.

My first assignment was to Pope AFB, Fayetteville, NC. The Wing was transitioning from Fairchild C-123 Provider transports to Lockheed C-130 Hercules, and I was to be in the first combat-ready squadron, the 776th Troop Carrier Squadron of the 464th Troop Carrier Wing. First I had to go through C-130 transition training at Sewart AFB, Murfreesboro, TN. I was paired for several months with a Major (name withheld), a crusty Korea War vintage KB-50 tanker pilot. I learned several things from him: how the real Air Force operated, how to play golf and how to roll the dice. Nobody ever said it had to be all work and no play.

Pope AFB was adjacent to the Army's Fort Bragg, home of the 82nd Airborne Division, and the U.S. Army's Special Forces, the Green Berets. Our primary mission was to support these airborne troops in any deployment, all over the world. We were also to provide humanitarian aid and airlift anywhere in the world.

We were soon put to the test. The shattering 8.3 magnitude earthquake of March 27th, 1964 in Alaska, which killed 131, had every one of our crews deployed to Alaska carrying medical units, food, supplies, and re-building equipment.

Regional brush-fire wars soon occupied most of our flying. I had two deployments in August 1964 and March 1965 to the former Belgian colony Republic of the Congo to assist the friendly army fighting the Communist-backed rebels. It was there that I first got the notation in my records that I had experience in counter-insurgency fighting (COIN). Another deployment in April 1965 airlifted supplies to forces fighting in the Dominican Republic.

We also had an on-going commitment to provide airlift in the European and Middle East theaters. On a 90 day rotation in the fall of 1964 to Evreux AB, France, I was happily flying to Finland; Cyprus; England; Germany and the Berlin Corridor (I saw Berlin before the Wall was built, and after it was built); Turkey; Iran; Greece; Libya; Tunisia; and Spain.

On March 8,1965 President Johnson started the massive U.S. military buildup in South Vietnam by ordering in the U.S. Marines. Every available airlift resource was needed in the next several years, and our C-130 squadrons deployed on a two-month rotational basis to airfields at Kadena, Okinawa and Mactan Island, Philippines. Nearly all missions were to, from, or inside South Vietnam, sometimes spending two weeks in-country. These many combat-support flights resulted in numerous Air Medals and further notations of counter-insurgency experience.

In the spring of 1966 while back at "Pope Pea Patch" for a breather from jungle flying, a group of us experienced combat crew members, and others who transferred in from other Air Force units (mostly Strategic Air Command) were given orders to join a new unit at Pope, the "STRAYGOOSE" detachment. "What in the world was that," we all asked.

We soon found we would be flying specially-equipped HC-130E Skyhook aircraft with the Fulton Recovery System installed. The Skyhook system was designed to drop a bundle to a downed pilot who needed rescue. Within the bundle was a jumpsuit and harness attached to a 500 foot nylon braided line, and at the other end of the line was a large balloon to be filled by the pilot with helium from a compact bottle. After dropping the bundle, the aircraft would return in about 20-30 minutes and snatch the line, and the pilot, out of the jungle or his Uferaft and reel him in to the back of the airplane. The system had been tested on a de Havilland DCH-5 Buffalo and on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, but this was going to be the first combat deployment for it in a long-range, modem Lockheed C-130 Hercules.

Rescueing downed pilots deep behind enemy lines was ostensibly our primary mission, in support of the Joint Personnel Recovery Center (JPRC) in Southeast Asia. Rescue helicopters at that time did not have the range to go deep into Laos or North Vietnam, so we trained and became proficient in pick-ups (no, not just in the local saloons). We studied low-level flying tactics, anti-aircraft avoidance, and means of escape and evasion.

Deemed combat ready, our six crews and four Skyhook aircraft and support personnel went to the Pacific. We arrived at Ching Chuong Kang Air Base at Taichung, Taiwan, in September 1966. CCK was the home of the 314th Troop Carrier Wing, and it was to be our maintenance base and home away from home. We barely had time to enjoy the noodles and rice and ice cream (an extreme rarity in the Vietnam War) before we deployed to our permanent base at Nha Trang, South Vietnam.

Nha Trang had once been a delightful French sea-side resort town, with white sand beaches and inexpensive restaurants serving langouste (lobster) and excellent imported French Sauteme wines. Now the French were gone, the beaches had barbed wire containments, and the city was occupied by a conglomeration of allied military forces.

Nha Trang was home of the U.S. Army's 5th Special Forces Group Airborne. They conducted a commando training center there, providing forces for conducting raids and covert operations into North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. These raiders were members of MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command Vietnam-Studies and Observation Group). We learned at this time that we would be augmenting and eventually replacing a clandestine C-123 unit called First Flight which was supporting SOG.

Besides our Skyhook rescue mission, we would be carrying men and supplies into forward airstrips (photo), dropping propaganda leaflets, and re-supplying , inserting and extracting SOG personnel behind enemy lines.

Early in January 1967, SOG headquarters in Saigon requested a Combat Spear (Straygoose) mission to re-supply an OpsPlan 34A road watch team, which had been inserted some four months earlier into North Vietnam. Their task was to provide surveillance of the North Vietnamese men and materiel moving down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to South Vietnam, and radio this data to SOG. Numerous teams had been inserted and this one reported it was out of food and supplies.

Since our SG-5 crew was next up for a combat mission (first in-first out, sound familiar?) on this 16th of January 1967, we started the briefing process with a detailed analysis of the drop zone location. It was in the middle of the jungle, behind a low ridge of mountains, 90 miles southwest of Hanoi. We would have a TOT (time over target) of 0100, with a 30 second leeway either side. Our signal to identify the drop zone would be a cross of 5 lighted flare pots, to be lit 30 seconds before our TOT, and extinguished 30 seconds afterward. We would drop five pallets of [unspecified] supplies within one minute, from an altitude of 1,200 feet.

We next sat down at the huge planning table and prepared our track of ingress and egress. Since the route would be flown at night, low-level of 500 feet above the terrain, avoiding early warning radar and known anti­aircraft batteries and SAM (surface-to-air) missile sites, we plotted it with a very, very fine pencil and a magnifying glass. Our aircraft was equipped with terrain-following and terrain-avoidance radar. However the software to run it was from a McDonnell F-4 fighter, so we did not have the performance capability to match its climb or turn commands. Our navigation equipment was also minimal. We had Doppler radar to give us course and speed, and we had Loran-C navigation. Unfortunately there was only one Loran-C station in SE Asia at that time, so we could not get a cross-fix. We only knew we were somewhere on one line on the chart.

So we went back to the basics. Our primary navigation mode became map-reading! The Lockheed C-130 Hercules thankfully was designed with large cockpit windows and lower side windows for ease of vision in getting in and out of small unimproved airfields. This was used to our advantage, because we had three pilots, two navigators, an electronic warfare navigator, two flight engineers, two load masters, and a radio- man...lots of eyeballs.

After planning our route around the known enemy defenses, and plotting the easily visible landmarks such as isolated mountains, river junctions and small towns, we next had to consider the weather. One of our requirements was that the moon had to be more than half-full. We had to have about 10-15 miles flight visibility. The forecast for this night was marginal, but do to the urgency, we opted to go.

Continuing the briefing, we covered communications. We would have no fighter escort. We would maintain radio silence other than several quick code bursts to headquarters of success or failure. Our own GCI (ground-controlled intercept) radar sites would only know that a "friendly" would pop up at 0100 at a certain location about 90 miles southwest of Hanoi.

We reviewed our escape and evasion procedures, knowing it was one looong walk out (would we trust one of our own to come in and pick us up? Yes, better than a bamboo cage). All insignia and identifying personal articles were collected in bags and held for us. We checked our green mesh survival vests for the emergency radio, the E&E survival kits and the Smith & Wesson Combat Masterpiece .38-caliber revolver (the enlisted men also had M-16 rifles, which was the total of armament on our aircraft).

Normally for our cross-border missions we would fly to Nakhom Phanom Air Base (NKP), Thailand, on the border of the panhandle of Laos. It was a forward field nearly on the same latitude as the DM2 (demilitarized zone ) between North and South Vietnam. It was heavily used by commando allied aircraft interdicting the flow of munitions and troops along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Also, the friendly "Sandy" Douglas A-l Skyraiders were there, providing air cover for rescue operations. We used this base to rest before the night missions and it was many miles closer to our target.

However due to the secrecy of this mission and it's deep penetration into northern Laos and North Vietnam, we would start and end the flight at our home base of Nha Trang. We would fly up the coast to Danang, then over Laos to Udom Air Base, Thailand. Instead of landing we would make a low pass over the field as if we were landing, then depart on a low-level route to the north. On return we would again pass over the field before proceeding to our home base. Hopefully this would confuse any spies, but it made for a seven- hour long mission.

The night of January 16th we launched for our mission. For once the weather man got his forecast right...visibility was marginal at best. This was the dry season in interior Vietnam and Laos, and the farmers were burning off their rice fields. We had progressed perhaps half of our route to the target, and our Doppler radar failed. This and the poor visibility was cause for an automatic abort of the mission, so we returned to Nha Trang.

Remember first-in, first-out? Nobody else did, for we were told we had to do it again until we got it right. So we crawled into our air-conditioned barracks ( a real rarity in Vietnam) and slept the day through. That night the weather man came in smiling like a Cheshire cat, with a forecast of 15 miles visibility and a bright moon. The mission was on.

We launched shortly before midnight. Everything on the airplane was working perfectly, and the crew was full of adrenalin, feeling the fear and excitement of being in enemy territory in a large unarmed transport. We droned along at 500 feet, observing orange flashing anti-aircraft fire tracking us on the right as we proceeded up the 250 mile track in Laos to our target in North Vietnam. The gunners did not seem to have a clue to our altitude as the shells exploded well above us.

Our navigator. Captain Les Smith, commented "Wow, that sure looks close." And Major Howard Reeve, the aircraft commander responded "No, it's way off. They're just firing for effect." Captain Smith came back with "Well, it's effective as hell as far as I'm concerned!"

Our speed of 250 knots would take us about one hour to get over target when we crossed into northern Laos, We were easily able to pick out the lights of towns (Vientiane and Luang Prabang come to mind on the way in, and Dien Bien Phu on the egress); silvery river junctions and dark mountains stood out plainly.

Two minutes before drop time, we slowed the airplane to 115 knots, opened the back cargo door and prepared to drop the five heavy pallets. One minute, and we "popped-up" to 1,200 feet. Thirty seconds to go, and suddenly we saw the lighted flare pots in the form of a long cross. We were only a few hundred yards out of alignment, so we kicked the rudder and made a shallow turn to line up.

"GREEN LIGHT. Just 15 seconds off our planned TOT. Verbal, mechanical and electrical signals immediately dumped the load in a matter of seconds out the aft door, drug by heavy cargo parachutes. "RED LIGHT". The navigator signalled the end of the drop zone, and the loadmaster declared "LOAD AWAY". As we popped up, we pilots could plainly see the lights of Hanoi some 90 miles away. But we still had not been detected.

Buttoning up the cargo door, we turned left off the target and accelerated to 250 knots and started our descent to 500 feet for radar avoidance for the egress south back to Laos, Thailand and South Vietnam.

Suddenly the sky lit up with tracers and flashes as various caliber (23 mm and 37 mm) shells exploded around us. We ducked and dodged left and right for what seemed like minutes (really a few seconds), and soon found ourselves back in the serenity of the quiet, moonlit skies, coasting along the ridge tops and karst peaks and down in the valleys. A damage report on interphone said "No hits, no damage, let*s go home/ The radio operator sent his specially coded "Mission Successful" message out, and we all took a deeeep breath and wiped our sweaty hands.

Three and a half hours later we made our recovery back at home base of Nha Trang. Intelligence was surprised (really 1) by the report of anti-aircraft fire at that position. We told him he should have been there. Our compassionate flight surgeon had provided the de-briefing team with some BushmilTs medicinal whiskey, so we all congratulated each other on this first successful C-130 resupply mission over North Vietnam.

Our crew soon received a personal message from General William Westmoreland, Commander of U.S. Forces in Vietnam, commending us for flying a critical combat mission in support of unconventional warfare operations in a hostile environment [unclassified version]. For this mission, the entire crew of SG-5, six officers and five enlisted men. received the Distinguished Flying Cross. We also heard from the team on the ground...four of the five pallets had hit directly on the drop zone, and the other was a hundred meters to the left (needed more windage?)

I had six more missions over Laos, North Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin, dropping leaflets and supplies. There were many in-country flights, re-supplying the Special Forces SOG teams at forward air strips. I was also the unit intelligence officer, and helped plan several attempted Skyhook rescues of downed pilots. Regrettably, one pilot was captured before we could get there, and the other lost contact and was presumed killed.

I recall one numerous event of interest: our mascot was a white duck called “Maynard," even though he should have been a [stray]goose. We brought him from Pope Air Base, and he was familiar with every officer's club and bar we frequented. His favorite drink, I believe, was a martini, very dry (shaken, not stirred). In any event, he died of cirrhosis of the liver. His owner, on another crew, buried him at sea from 20,000 feet while on a psychological warfare (leaflet) drop over North Vietnamese waters.

As our time in Vietnam wound down to stateside rotation, we began receiving replacement crews from the U.S. We briefed and trained them on what we had learned. But the war was getting hotter. We later learned that one of these crews, S-01, was lost on a mission over North Vietnam on 28 December 1967. The crash site was finally found in November 1992. One of my gnawing memories is.....did we miss something in our training and briefing of these replacement crews?  There is now a memorial to this only lost crew of a Special Operations Combat Talon I, (the MC' 130E) at the headquarters of the Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field, Florida.

I had five years of active duty and I was told I would be stuck in transports for the duration of the war. Therefore I resigned and separated from the Air Force in August 1967, not looking back. I enrolled at Purdue's graduate business school, but after one semester of boring economics and statistics classes, I decided to try the airlines. An application to Western Airlines in early 1968 netted me an interview, and in April 1968 I was hired and trained to be a flight engineer on Boeing 720B's. I have completed thirty-one years of service with Western and Delta Airlines, and I will retire in June 2000.1 look forward to fly-fishing, study, writing and travel (my suitcase is always packed...guess I had too many years on reserve or commuting). I wish the best to those who follow.  

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