I always wanted to fly : America's Cold War airmen

321 Pages·2001·4.89 MB·English

by  Samuel

I Always Wanted to Fly
I Always Wanted to Fly
America’s Cold War Airmen
Colonel Wolfgang W. E. Samuel
With a foreword by Ken Hechler
To the flyers who gave their lives
during the Cold War from 1945 to
1991 in the service of their country.
In memory of the friends I served
with who did not return from their
last flights.
Contents
Foreword
Preface and Acknowledgments
Part 1: The Berlin Airlift, 1948
1. Men of the Airlift
Colonel Howard S. “Sam” Myers Jr. First Lieutenant Leonard W. Sweet First
Lieutenant Marshall M. Balfe Colonel Harold R. Austin Lieutenant Colonel
Edward Gorski Lieutenant Colonel Joseph F. Laufer Colonel Robert S. Hamill
2. The Bomber Boys
Colonel Joseph J. Gyulavics
3. “Ramp Rats”: The Men Who Kept Them Flying
Master Sergeant Thomas W. Etherson
Part 2: Korea, 1950
4. The F-51 Mustangs from Dogpatch
Colonel Charles E. Schreffler
5. Night Interdiction in the B-26 Invader
Lieutenant Colonel Byron A. Dobbs Jr. Colonel Richard G. “Dick” Schulz
6. The B-29 Bomber War
Colonel Joseph J. Gyulavics
7. B-Flight out of Kimpo: Special Operations
Colonel David M. Taylor
Part 3: Strategic Reconnaissance
8. Taming the RB-45C Tornado
Colonel Harold R. Austin
9. Recon to the Yalu and Beyond
Colonel Howard S. “Sam” Myers Jr. Master Sergeant Arthur E. Lidard
10. More Secret Than the Manhattan Project
Colonel Marion C. Mixson Lieutenant Colonel Francis T. Martin Jr.
11. Challenging the Russian Bear
Colonel Harold R. Austin
12. Flying the Top of the World
Colonel Charles L. Phillips Jr.
13. The Last Flight of 3-4290
Major George V. Back Captain Henry E. Dubuy Lieutenant Colonel Joel J.
Lutkenhouse Lieutenant Colonel Robert J. Rogers
Part 4: Vietnam, 1965
14. Hambone 02
Colonel Ralph L. Kuster Jr.
15. Lincoln Flight
Colonel Kevin A. “Mike” Gilroy
16. Yellowbird
Major Fred E. “Ed” Rider
The Magic of Flying: Concluding Thoughts
Glossary
Bibliography
Interviews, Letters, and Tapes
Index
Foreword
I Always Wanted to Fly is a comprehensive collection of first-person narratives
depicting the heroism of young men who grew up with a compelling desire to fly
airplanes as well as of the changing nature of the U.S. Air Force during the Cold
War. The author is a veteran of many reconnaissance missions against the Soviet
Union and of air combat in the Vietnam War. I found this book to be a series of
gripping stories, told in such remarkable detail that I felt I was alongside the
pilots and crew members, living with them through every thrilling moment in the
sky.
On March 7, 1945, I served as combat historian with III Corps, part of
General Omar N. Bradley’s 12th Army Group, as it advanced toward the Rhine
River near the little town of Remagen, just a few miles south of Bonn. That
afternoon I learned that the Remagen Bridge had been captured by U.S. forces
before the Germans had a chance to blow it up. Second Lieutenant Karl H.
Timmermann, the commander of A Company, 27th Armored Infantry Battalion,
9th Armored Division, had led his men in a death-defying charge across the
bridge and gained a foothold on the east bank of the Rhine River, securing the
bridge in the process. For his leadership and extraordinary heroism, Lieutenant
Timmermann was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. When
I found the lieutenant, he was calmly shaving in the shell of a bombed-out house.
His reaction to my probing historian’s questions? He wondered what all the
excitement was about.
While reading I Always Wanted to Fly, I encountered Lieutenant
Timmermann’s selfless courage and uncommon ability in the individual flyers
who tell their stories. These are the men who flew the Berlin Airlift, who
stopped the North Korean People’s Army in Korea, who probed the Soviet
Union in secret reconnaissance flights, and who fought an air war over North
Vietnam under incredibly confining restrictions. These flyers never hesitated to
act when their country asked them to protect its vital interests. If I were to
question them about their contributions, I am certain they too would ask me what
all the excitement was about.
The reader will find that it is all about nerves-of-steel flyers like Sam Myers,
who stole a city from the grasp of the Russians by carrying life-giving coal and
food around the clock into a freezing and hungry Berlin. And it is all about
food around the clock into a freezing and hungry Berlin. And it is all about
Barney Dobbs, a veteran of the forgotten war in Korea, who spent nineteen
months in a Chinese prisoner-of-war camp after his B-26 was shot down on a
night-interdiction mission.
Author Samuel takes you to Thule, Greenland, a strategic reconnaissance
base during the Cold War, to let you experience at that remote and unforgiving
air base the bone-chilling forty degree below zero temperatures, the ice-fog
obscured visibility, and the raging winds that meant near instant death to any air
crew caught unprepared. As a historian, I find it remarkable that although there
were many losses of aircraft—both U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy—while flying
the periphery of the Soviet Union and during shallow penetrations of their
territory, in the many major overflights by both American and British military
aircraft, not one aircraft was lost. The author not only presents the extent of our
significant losses over the years in the secret war of reconnaissance but also lets
the reader experience the near shootdown of a lone RB-47H reconnaissance
aircraft by North Korean MiGs.
I found Ralph Kuster’s narrative particularly riveting as I remember quite
well the anguish of the Vietnam War, having served as a member of the U.S.
Congress during that period. Kuster flew an F-105 Thunder-chief over North
Vietnam, experiencing the helplessness and loneliness that engulfs a pilot when
his aircraft is hit and he is forced to eject over enemy territory. The story of his
rescue is a graphic account of courage and determination, underlining the
importance and value of training in meeting emergencies.
Author Samuel gives his readers a framing section for the Vietnam period, as
he does for all of the other segments of the Cold War he presents—the Berlin
Airlift, Korea, and strategic reconnaissance—providing enough historical detail
to illuminate the issues of the time and providing critical context for the airmen’s
stories that follow. He also depicts for us a changing air force, moving from
slow, propeller-driven aircraft to jets, from youthful volunteers and citizen
soldiers (Stephen Ambrose’s characterization) to the largely professional,
college-educated air force of the Vietnam era. The well-integrated coverage of
the major conflicts of the Cold War period is presented logically and in a neutral
style. Samuel acknowledges that there were varying opinions and divisions
about the conduct of the Vietnam air war but remains personally neutral on the
subject.
Most importantly for me, though, throughout my reading of I Always Wanted
to Fly, I felt that I was listening to the conversations and vivid memories of real
individuals, of human beings exposed to the immense stresses of armed conflict.
I frequently felt I was sitting right in the cockpit with these remarkable flyers,
and I understood clearly that they really had “always wanted to fly.” Samuel has
produced a well-integrated package of excitement and courage and aviation
history.
Ken Hechler
Author of The Bridge at Remagen