Another Close Call



Phantom Area Ubon RTAFB

It was another day just like the others on the flight line. This time I was with my buddy John Smith and we were eating our usual fried egg and cheese sandwich at the flight line snack bar. 

Looking straight down the taxiway between the 2 sets of revetments we saw a very strange sight. A 25th Phantom was taxiing in with the front half of the centerline tank missing as well as the outboard halves of the stabilators.  There were also a few missing leading edges. Reckon she pulled some pretty heavy “Gs”.

This wasn’t the airplane that took the barrier and bent the tail hook although I saw that one too. I don’t remember a lot about what happened because it was a B flight plane and I was in A flight and we had to go recover our airplanes which were on their way in also.

Maybe someone reading this will have a better recollection. It is possible that this was the same day that LtCol. French, the 25th CO, got shot in the helmet.

A Close Call

It was a day like any other on the flight line. Jammers jamming loads under the wings, fuel trucks fueling and crew chiefs crew chiefing, all under the hot Thai sun.

We got the missions off as usual and while they were gone we tended to other stuff like helping out on the grounded birds, policing up the revetments or just screwing off. When the word came down that the birds were coming home we got ready to recover them.

I had my routine down pretty good. Since 786 wasn’t parked in a revetment sometimes I could marshal it in by taxiing across the adjacent spot and do a sharp 120° turn. I usually got her pretty close to straight. If the other spot was occupied then we would nose it in and spin it around with the Coleman.

As I said this particular day was like any other but it really wasn’t. I was under the fuselage putting the locks on the gear when I noticed a hole in the engine bay panel, the big one just below the afterburner.

The hole was about two or three inches around and looked like small arms damage. It just missed the missile that was hanging there by less than a foot. I showed the crew and within a few minutes we had the panel open.

The engine bay door is really a double layer affair. What looked like small arms damage was a 57mm explosive shell that penetrated the outer panel and detonated before penetrating the inner layer. All of the afterburner pigtails on the bottom of the engine were shredded as well as other damage. The pilot didn’t flinch. He just said, “it’s a good thing I didn’t need the AB, huh?”

Once I got to Ubon things happened pretty fast. I was put to work right away on the flight line. Hot, noisy and dangerous. Completely alien environment for me. It didn’t take too long to get into the swing of things.

The short timers were a little depressing though. “2 digit midget, one digit midget, FIGMO, back to the world”, etc. Once into the routine I really didn’t give a crap about being “short”. I was having too much fun.

The work we did wasn’t routine. Stateside was routine. I never forgot what we were doing. Live bombs hanging on the wings made it perfectly clear. Napalm canisters, 500 pounders, CBU’s, gravel pods, laser guided 2000 and 3000 pound bombs was some pretty heavy shit (no pun intended).

 

I was there about a week or so when I was summoned to the flight office to meet Chief Miers. Luckily my haircut was OK but I looked like crap from working. Doc Blanchard said don’t worry, the chief was an OK guy. Having never met a CMSGT in person before I was scared shitless anyway.

I went into the office and reported. He told me to have a seat as he was expecting someone. I didn’t mind because the place had air conditioning. A few minutes later 2Lt. Sherbinski, the new maintenance officer, arrived for his inbrief. Although he didn’t report it seemed obvious that this was the first Chief he met as well.

Chief Miers talked to him, not with him, for a few minutes. When he was finished with the briefing Lt Sherbinski stood there as if expecting more information. The Chief looked up at the Lt, waved his hand at him and said, “That’ll be all Lieutenant”. Sherbinski saluted, did an about face and left. I almost crapped myself. Here is a sergeant dismissing an officer like he was God. Of course I found out later that he was.

It was my turn next but to my surprise the Chief couldn’t have been nicer to me. I don’t remember seeing him around too often but I was very impressed with him and I always measured other chiefs I worked for by CMSGT Miers.

 

About 2 or 3 years later I was stationed at RAF Mildenhall, UK working in Transit Alert. One day a WB-57 landed and my crew took care of it. After it blocked in, the canopy opened and in the back seat was, now, Capt Sherbinski. Small world. We reminisced about Ubon for a while and had a few laughs.

That incident stayed with me because it reinforced the brotherhood I belonged to. Where else can someone you know from way back drop out of the sky and say hello. There are many similar incidents in my career but that’s for another time.

 

 

How I Became a Member of The Wolfpack.

December 16, 1969 was the day I was “born”.

My life started on December 31, 1950 but I was born at Lackland in 1969.

Basic is a dim distant memory, much like how we remember our early childhood.  I have a few stories of my time there but that’s for another time.

Tech school at Sheppard AFB, TX was 12 weeks of learning to be an airman and retaining enough knowledge from the instructors to not hurt myself. Again there are stories from those days but that’s for another time as well.

My tech school classmates all got assignments to neat places like Myrtle Beach or California or Europe etc. Me, I got Cannon AFB, NM; a mere 300 miles west of Wichita Falls.

522 TFS                               F111s.

As it turned out Cannon was probably the best thing to happen to me. The F111s were still coming from the factory and we didn’t have many at the time so I was farmed out to Base Flight (T33A and C54), tire shop, wash rack, TA and the 524^th TFS (F100C & D). Occasionally I would get some experience on the F111 but not too much. Believe it or not I learned more in the tire shop than anywhere else. (I watched a guy who "knew it all" set an F111 on its tail when he screwed up the refuel.) 

One day I was feeling frisky and decided to ask the First Shirt how to go about volunteering for Viet Nam. I got all spiffed up, haircut and clean uniform, and went to the  orderly room. When I got there the shirt handed me my orders for Phu Cat AB, RVN. The AF beat me to the punch. Lucky for me because most of the wing and all of my squadron was moving to Mountain Home AFB, ID. Everyone that is except me.

Next: TDY enroute to George AFB, CA for FTD, 30 days at home then off to Nam.

I wasn’t scared or worried about dying because, hell, I’m in the Air Force. What's the worst that could happen?  My family was very concerned, I found out later, and a high school friend even suggested I should go to Canada with him.

Instead, I got on a plane in Philly and headed off to my war. It was 1971 and there was still a lot of protesting going on but that didn’t bother me.

I flew on a Pan Am 707 into Cam Ranh Bay. It was a great trip; fuel stop in Anchorage (they opened the bar for us and didn’t card anyone).

Change of Plans

When we got to Cam Ranh it was raining and the marshallers were wearing flak vests and helmets. Pretty exciting stuff. A couple of NCO’s from all the services came aboard to collect their personnel. The AF guy called a bunch of names, including mine, and told us that we were being diverted to someplace called Ubon, Thailand. Phu Cat was closing and we were needed elsewhere. I was pissed because I volunteered for Viet Nam, not Thailand. Not all of us were lucky enough to come to Ubon. Several F4 guys went to Bien Hoa to work on AT-37s. We had a rousing reunion when they came to Ubon for R&R.

That's how I ended up in A flight 25^th TFS, crew chief assigned to F4D 65-0786. There I met some of the greatest people I would ever meet. Time has dimmed the memories but they are still alive and Facebook has rekindled those memories.