Even War Time Can Be Fun,
From the nightmares of a student loadmaster assigned to C-130 Squadron at Sewart AFB, Tn.
It was August 1964 and we, that lived in the barracks, were getting ready for bed as it was about 11:00 PM ..
Then the phone rang. Because it was on the wall next to my bed, I was the one to answer it.
A booming voice said.."This is a recall...Pack your bags and be in the briefing room in 30 minutes".
Well, we all groaned as we had been having practice drills like this for a few months now.
I figured..what the heck, so I packed up what little I had and put on my flight suit and drug my B-4 bag to the briefing room.
We sat there for nearly an hour before the squadron commander came in and told us about the crisis in the Tonkin Gulf and that we would be launching within a couple hours for Southeast Asia.
By 3 AM, we had the wheels up and were on our way to Clark Air Base, in the Philipines.
This turned out to be a big rush and when we finally got to Clark, they did not have any quarters for us. So it was decided to open all unused base housing and provide cots for us and that was our living quarters. Now you have to remember , this was before airconditioners..so the heat and humidity were killing us..we couldn't sleep very well and the mosquitoes nearly carried us off.
It was about 3 days before we started getting it together and began flying into Vietnam and Thailand.
Someone told us that the Sqadron Commander said we could grow beards, so a lot of us tried but I was just a young pup and only needed to shave about once a week so my efforts were a bust..but within a week. some big wig said to "cut that out" so everyone had to shave again..oh well.
Before we left Sewart AFB, we had all been required to qualify with the colt .38 Special. When we arrived in Clark AB, we were given a box and were told , "here are your weapons"
So we opened the box to give them out and low and behold what did we have but Colt 45 Automatics. I had never even held one much less fired one...I managed to buy a box of ammo and one saturday, I went to the range and this old Major showed me how to load and fire the weapon and how to break it down for cleaning..I never knew his name but many thanks to him.
There was such a back log of cargo to be hauled that we flew day and night for the first 2 weeks..by that time, we had hauled everything left to be hauled and the Military Air Transportation Service, (MATS), weenies could not bring it into Clark fast enough to keep us busy. So, we started flying Training missions to maintain currency for the pilots and navigators
The powers that be,planned and drew maps and looked around the area and came up with a few low level training routes for us to fly ending with a simulated airdrop and escape.
Never did we think we would enjoy a low level training route so much as we did these.
This was a time for the pilots and navagators to practice their skills of flying and navigating and have some fun at the same time.
Our route took us over the inland waterways of the Philippines, over the island of Corregidor and then over the mainland.
That was the route but the low level part was the best...we were so low over the water , we had a rooster tail and had to climb to clear a sailboat, and when we came to Corregidor, we could see two men sitting on the top of the highest hill and we had to climb to clear it ..and the two men dove off the top of the hill as we got there..we nearly split a gut laughing as we dropped back down on our route.
At one point, we flew over a school house and the kids were out playing and running around and when they saw us, they started to throw rocks at us ...we were suddenly afraid, they could have hit us because of our altitude. I never knew just how low we were but I could look out the side window when we were over water and see our own rooster tail in the water. And if we made a turn, we had to climb some to keep the wings out of the ground.
It did not take too long before the word got back to HQ and we had to start doing it right. But the fun of the beginning flights was exhilarating even though as I look back, Dumber than a box of rocks. The danger of the what we were doing just was never thought of.
Picture a C-130 Cargo plane flying over a grass hut at around 10 feet over the roof..at 250 knots...what do you think happens, you got it, grass hut now becomes a grass cloud. It was funny as heck, then, but as I got older, "BOY WERE WE A BUNCH OF IDIOTS" but such is youth. We were all young and indestructible back then. Or at least WE thought so.
We survived our little escapades but only by the Grace of our Good Lord.
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