Page Sixteen

When we left base camp, we were given three days and two nights to travel, on snowshoes most of the time, about thirteen miles to reach freedom road. We would set up parachutes as tents at night. The "enemy" was on skis and halftrack vehicles (skis on the front and tank tracks on the rear) and their job was to catch us. If caught, the penalty was to stay in the same area for eight hours. This meant getting to the next stopping point at 2 a.m. instead of 6 p.m., our group of 4 avoided captures, but there were some close calls. I won't go into any more details except to say that porcupine does taste like pork.  

Back in Lake Charles, we would complete several types of training flights. The most important one was the radar bomb scoring (RBS) flight. A radar station on the ground would track us and, from a tone interruption at simulated bombs away, score where the bomb would have hit if there had been one. We mostly used Tampa. Atlanta, and Oklahoma City. Tampa was easy because of the land/water contrast. The layout around Atlanta made the target identification above average. Oklahoma City was very difficult and was rough when trying to maintain a good scoring average.  

Two experimental type flights, which we luckily never got involved in, turned out to be disastrous. The first was to come in at treetop level, under radar, and at a point prior to the target, make a steep climb. At a predetermined '"G" point, the bomb would be released and head for the target. The plane would continue up and make an inverted 180° (immelmann i.e. a turn in which an airplane in flight is first made to complete half of a loop and is then rolled half of a complete turn) heading away from the upcoming explosion. This type maneuver caused damage to the wing roots and was stopped. This resulted in all B47's being grounded, pending modification.

The second experiment was to try a night mass refueling over the Gulf. I won't go into detail about this except that 4 KC97's and 4 B47's were involved. Two of the B47's collided, both going into the Gulf, with 4 of the 6-crew members lost. As far as I know, this was never tried again.

Before I go any further, let me explain one thing that might be confusing. Most people have probably seen TV scenes of B47 and/or B52 crews at alert stations, ready for immediate takeoff, with planes loaded, if the whistle blew. These alert areas did not exist before I got out and our assigned bomb was at a remote location. This meant we would leave from our base, land, pick up the bomb, takeoff and head for the target. Or, more exact, head for our refueling tanker.

I am going to wrap this up by talking about three events that illustrate how things seldom go as planned.

The first is about a special mission "planned" to be flown out of Goose Bay, Labrador. Next is concerning a forty-five day temporary duty tour in England. Last, is a running account of my last flight with the Air Force, including some events leading up to it.

Goose Bay Mission  

The Goose Bay mission was planned for our B47's from Lake Charles, and KC-97 tankers from their base, to gather in Goose Bay. From there, the tankers would proceed to a refueling area and orbit. The B47's would follow later, refuel, and continue to a predetermined point prior to returning to Goose Bay.

Things started going bad for us while I was taking a radar fix on the bridge between New Albany and Louisville. The radar image started to fade and continued to do so. It stayed good enough to get a land/water contrast fix when we reached the St. Lawrence. This sufficed to provide a final heading to Goose Bay. However, this was just the beginning of the incidents.

As we contacted the tower, we were informed that a KC-97 had skidded off the side of the runway and was in a snow bank. We were given the option of going back to Limestone, Maine or landing under the existing conditions. With our radar problems, I had no desire to backtrack to Limestone, so we landed with no further problems.

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