Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds
416
Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds
416eBook
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Overview
Fighter Pilot is the memoir of legendary ace American fighter pilot and general officer in the U.S. Air Force, Robin Olds.
Robin Olds was a larger-than-life hero with a towering personality. A graduate of West Point and an inductee in the National College Football Hall of Fame for his All-American performance for Army, Olds was one of the toughest college football players at the time. In WWII, Olds quickly became a top fighter pilot and squadron commander by the age of 22—and an ace with 12 aerial victories.
But it was in Vietnam where the man became a legend. He arrived in 1966 to find a dejected group of pilots and motivated them by placing himself on the flight schedule under officers junior to himself, then challenging them to train him properly because he would soon be leading them. Proving he wasn't a WWII retread, he led the wing with aggressiveness, scoring another four confirmed kills, becoming a rare triple ace.
Olds, who retired a brigadier general and died in 2007, was a unique individual whose personal story presents one of the most eagerly anticipated military books in recent memory.
Please note: This ebook edition does not include the photo insert from the print edition.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429929097 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 04/13/2010 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Sales rank: | 277,863 |
| File size: | 608 KB |
About the Author
Robin Olds (1922-2007) was a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. A triple ace, he achieved a combined total of 16 victories in the Second World War and the Vietnam War. Born into an army family in Honolulu and raised in Virginia, he was educated at West Point, where he was an All American football player. He fought in Europe during World War II, and was regarded as the best wing commander in the Vietnam War. He was promoted to brigadier general after Vietnam, and also served as Commandant of Cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Christina Olds is the daughter of Robin Olds. She holds a B.A. in English and creative writing from Vassar.
Ed Rasimus is a retired USAF fighter pilot whose books on the Vietnam air war include When Thunder Rolled and Palace Cobra.
Christina Olds is the daughter of Robin Olds, a legendary U.S. Air Force fighter pilot in WWII and the Vietnam War. She holds a B.A. in English and creative writing from Vassar.
Robin Olds (1922-2007) was a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. A triple ace, he achieved a combined total of 16 victories in the Second World War and the Vietnam War. Born into an army family in Honolulu and raised in Virginia, he was educated at West Point, where he was an All American football player. He fought in Europe during World War II, and was regarded as the best wing commander in the Vietnam War. He was promoted to brigadier general after Vietnam, and also served as Commandant of Cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy. His memoir, Fighter Pilot, was published by St. Martin's Press in 2010. Olds' daughter, Christina Olds, who holds a B.A. in creative writing from Vassar, compiled his writings with Ed Rasimus, a retired USAF fighter pilot whose books on the Vietnam air war include When Thunder Rolled and Palace Cobra.
Ed Rasimus is a retired USAF fighter pilot whose books on the Vietnam air war include When Thunder Rolled and Palace Cobra. He flew more than 250 combat missions during the Vietnam War in F-105s and F-4s, earning the Silver Star, five Distinguished Flying Crosses and 20 air medals. He lives in Whitesboro, Texas.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Battle
I couldn't help but feel the excitement. My 479th Fighter Group was the lead, out in front of the two bomber groups and not tied to close escort or stuck at the back of the bomber stream hoping to sweep up the leftovers. Hub Zemke had gotten us where I knew we belonged, at the cutting edge. As a new flight commander, I was ready. I had two kills and wanted more. The weather was good, the sky was clear, we were at altitude and had gone into Zemke's fan formation, so we had a good chunk of the sky under our control. All we needed now was for Jerry to show up. There was no good reason why he wouldn't.
Since D-day, we had been taking the war to Hitler. It was payback time for the indiscriminate abuse he had rained on Britain. We were going deeper and deeper into Germany, and it felt good. With Zemke at the helm, the 479th was finally getting on the short list for the good missions from 8th Air Force. Strafing trains and supply convoys was fine. Bombing the occasional bridge or supply area was necessary. But it was air combat that we wanted. Bombers drop bombs. Fighter pilots fight. It was simply the way it was meant to be.
We hadn't expected any reaction over the North Sea, and we didn't see much going in over Holland. As the force turned southeastward, I edged Blue Flight out just a bit farther to the left. The flanks were the place to see the enemy first. With the 479th across the front of the bomber groups, and the 434th spread to the left, my flight was the farthest left of the leaders. I'd briefed my guys that we would edge away a bit to give ourselves every chance of first engagement. I looked over my left shoulder for Hollister, my wingman. He was forward of where he usually flew, and that wasn't a bad thing. He could always fall back during a fight, but it was damned hard to get back forward once you lagged.
It was cold at 28,000 feet, but I could feel my back damp with sweat against my flight jacket. I flexed my hands on the yoke and checked once again that my gun sight was up, my guns were armed, and my belts were tight. I pushed the vent for the puny cockpit heater down toward my knees. I didn't want a blast of warm air fogging the canopy at the wrong moment in a battle. I scanned the horizon, looking for contrails or telltale dots that simply didn't belong there. It was quiet. The only aircraft to be seen were the scattered fork-tails ahead of the spears of contrails from the bomber formations.
I checked Hollister again and caught the back of his head as he peered intently to the north. His wing rolled up slightly with the effort of his straining in the cockpit. It was good. He was doing his job. Radio discipline was good so far. Three squadrons on one frequency were never easy to deal with. It only got worse when the enemy showed up. Critical calls were hard to distinguish, call signs went out the window, knowing who was saying what was impossible. Fear, adrenaline, excitement, whatever. So far, so good.
The engines don't ever purr. They've got a rhythm, a beat that signals the minor differences in props and rpm and mixture. When it's constant and steady, you feel relaxed. When it is loud or too fast or too slow, it jangles the nerves. If it changes suddenly it stabs you instantly into action. It screams that something needs attention right now. The single-engine guys don't know about that pulse, but in the Lightning, you live with it all of the time. There's a continual tweaking, fiddling with the throttle quadrant, watching the gauges, adjusting the props to get just the right resonance between the pair. It's sort of like a team of high-stepping gaited horses staying on the right tempo. My left hand stays near the throttle quadrant, dancing a slow waltz between the power levers while my ears tell me what is getting better or worse. My eyes stay on the horizon.
There's always something that needs doing. The bomber guys have a committee to tell them what, when, and where. They've got manuals and checklists, and a cast of supporting actors to read them aloud and double-check that it all gets tended to. The fighter pilot is driver, navigator, gunner, bombardier, and flight engineer wrapped into one tense, high-strung package. If he's good, he covers it all. If he isn't, he misses some things. I've been pretty good, so far. I haven't missed the major things, and the minor ones haven't killed me. If I'm doing it right, I'll keep getting better. If I'm not, I won't be able to worry about it.
The radio crackles. Has someone seen something? There's no call to follow. Nothing. Just a crackle. I look back to my right and see that we've widened out spacing on Zemke's Bison Squadron. It doesn't bother me. I want to be out here on the edge of the package. I want to see the enemy first. Is that something? Are those aircraft out there coming from the east? I raise my goggles and check the canopy for smudges. One, two, four — there are more!
A dozen things happen at once. I push the props and mixture forward. The engines surge. I pull the yoke and roll left, climbing over Hollister's position. The radio starts to speak and the first word I hear is "Blue ..." I know it's one of my guys and I know what he's going to say. These are my bogeys on our side of the formation, and I don't want to share. I mash on the TRANSMIT button, and the squeal of the two transmissions covers the rest. Hollister is inside my turn and drops below me. The rest of the group are now alerted, and they want to know what's going on.
We're closing fast, and I radio to Bison Lead that we've got a formation at our eleven o'clock and we're checking them. It's more than a formation! It's a damned armada. I've got forty, maybe fifty Me-109s and Focke-Wulf 190s ahead of us. As we get closer, the number keeps growing. The whole damned Luftwaffe is in front of me!
The guns, the sight, the engines, the radios, the flight ... where's my flight? There's Hollister. I knew he'd hang on. Where's the element? Where's the damned element? They've lost us. Fuel! I've still got the drop tanks. I check that Hollister is clear and jettison the tanks. There's a pair of trailing Messerschmitts ahead. They haven't seen us. I'll have the first one before he knows we're here. Is this as good as life gets? I've got more than fifty enemy aircraft in front of me, and my wingman and I are the only ones here! I sure feel sorry for those bastards.
The sight reticle is full of gray-green aircraft. My finger wraps around the firing toggle. My right engine coughs, sputters, and quits. A split second and forty heartbeats — then the second one follows suit. Both engines are dead ... silence ... awww, shit!
CHAPTER 2
My Early Years
My first memories are of sounds: the clang of a halyard on a flagpole, Liberty engines warming up on the flight line before dawn, my father singing with his Air Corps friends in the living room below. By the time I was five, I could name an airplane by the sound of its engine on takeoff or landing. My father sat with me on the front steps of our house at Langley Field, made me close my eyes and name them one by one. P-1s, P-5s, DH-4s, old Keystone bombers, P-6s through P36s, all seared sounds of aviation into my heart.
At night I hid in my pajamas at the top of the stairs listening to laughter, tales of flying, and songs with incomprehensible words and unforgettable melodies floating up from the living room. I sat for hours on Saturday mornings watching P-12s in a Lufbery over the field pull up into a loop, then dive back through the circle again. My father brought glasses of lemonade and we watched together. He and his pursuit pilot buddies were gods to me, men of steel in planes of wood and cloth. I had to be a fighter pilot.
I was born in Honolulu at Luke Field Hospital on July 14, 1922, to Army Air Corps Captain Robert Olds and Eloise Wichman Olds. My mother came from a line of Hawaii landowners, my father from Virginians traced back to the Revolution, including Regiment Captain Return Jonathan Meigs, George Washington's aide-decamp. Dad had been a pursuit pilot during the war in France before his assignment to Hawaii. When we returned to Washington he became aide to General Billy Mitchell, then moved to Langley, first as student, then as instructor and director of the Air Corps Tactical School.
When I was four, my mother died. I remember asking my father if she was in heaven with all the airplanes. He said yes. My father married again briefly after Mom's death, divorced, then gave us two baby brothers, Fred and Sterling, when he married Helen Sterling in 1933. I grew up surrounded by an extended family of loving adults in comfortable surroundings in Virginia.
There was always my father. He was a tough disciplinarian, a tender caretaker, an unquestioned leader, and a laughter-filled friend. People gravitated to him. My days were shaped by his intense energy and eagerness. He taught me to be tough yet a gentleman. Manners and courtesy were paramount. He took me for my first flight in an open-cockpit plane when I was eight.
The pulp-fiction heroes of G-8 and His Battle Aces were also the real men that moved through my daily life. My father's Air Corps buddies were famed pilots of the Great War. They were often joined by other aviation leaders of that period: Hap Arnold, Tooey Spaatz, Ira Eaker, Fiorello La Guardia, Harold George, Frank Andrews, Bob Williams, Ernst Udet, Roscoe Turner, Edward Mannock, Elliott White Springs, Jimmy Mattern, Beirne Lay, and more. All gathered in our home. I got to meet Eddie Rickenbacker but was too awed to say anything. The gatherings started with tales of flying and progressed to passionate discussions of current events and dreams for the future. They invariably ended in song, led by my father at the piano and Tooey Spaatz on guitar. The brotherhood of pilots impressed me as much as the thrill of flying itself.
As I grew I began to understand the dreams of these early pioneers. World War I made them determined to change things. If they could make air power prevail in future battles, the horror of trenches, endless stalemate, and thousands of casualties with no discernible gain could be prevented. Airplanes could carry the war to the enemy, attack his industrial base and his lines of communication, destroy his transportation system, and quickly erode his will to fight. All this could happen from the air, but with aircraft not yet built. Such was the dream uniting these pilots.
When publicly expressed, their vision met scorn and resistance. The Air Corps leaders were looked upon as lightweight, flamboyant flyboys whose limited capabilities were of no consequence in the grand scheme of land and sea warfare. Airmen could not occupy territory, or rule the sea. What good were they beyond providing eyes for the real fighting forces? What good was bombing or shooting from aircraft? It was laughingly admitted that the Air Corps could probably penetrate enemy territory, but not much farther than good artillery and certainly not as accurately. Billy Mitchell was court-martialed for his outspoken belief in the future of air power and for his criticism of those who denied that potential. My father was one of the men by his side during that trial. The outcome outraged Mitchell's followers and only encouraged them to greater effort. Mitchell died in 1936, but it would be World War II that vindicated his theories beyond any doubt.
In 1934, Roosevelt ordered the Army Air Corps to take over airmail, and Boeing began the development of a new bomber. After an epic struggle with battleship admirals, my father and his peers managed the development of the B-17 in 1935. The first prototypes, thirteen in all, were put under his charge at Langley. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Olds and his B-17s became standard fare in newspapers and newsreels around the world. He led flights on goodwill trips to South America and made the Flying Fortress a household name, also breaking the military cross-country speed record when Howard Hughes held the civilian mark.
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the world was stunned. The shock reverberated through America. Our army and navy were seen to be living in the past. While Britain gallantly went it alone, America had time to build, yet we were still not ready when Japan struck Pearl Harbor. It took another two years before U.S. air power could be said to have a meaningful impact on the campaigns waged in Europe and the Pacific. As world war loomed, my father was tasked by Hap Arnold to build an organization to ferry new aircraft from factories to their operational units. The ferry system grew into the Air Transport Command, an invaluable player in the Berlin airlift after the war, and later the Military Airlift Command.
In high school at 6'2' and 190 pounds, I was a natural for football. I made the varsity and was chosen captain, followed by election to class president for three years. Hampton High won the Virginia state championship in 1937. Subsequently, full football scholarships were offered by Virginia Military Institute and famous coach Earl "Red" Blaik at Dartmouth at the end of my junior year. But I believed the only legitimate way to fly airplanes and not have to work for a living was to get a regular commission through the United States Military Academy. I would earn my wings, join the Army Air Corps, and become a fighter pilot. Simple as that!
To pass the academy entrance exam I enrolled at Millard Military Prep when I graduated from Hampton High in '39. Studies kept us busy, but the radio kept us informed of world events. When news of Hitler's invasion of Poland hit I wanted to go after him myself. There had to be a way to get into battle right away, and not wait four more years! The next day I sneaked off campus in my prep uniform and went to the Canadian legation in Hampton, determined to join the Royal Air Force. I filled out an application and handed it over. The fellow in the office eyed me sharply and asked, "Son, how old are you?"
"Twenty, sir!"
He knew better. "Well, you need your parents' permission. Have them sign your application."
I went home to my startled father, who said, "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in school!"
"Dad, please sign this paper. I want to join the RAF."
Nothing doing. He sent me back to Millard.
By March 1940, we found a congressman in Pennsylvania willing to appoint me to West Point. Only problem was I needed to live in his district to qualify. I headed to Uniontown and lived for ten weeks in a small, shared room at the YMCA, worked for an army recruiter, and swept a grocery store at night. The decaying town and grim faces of local mine workers made me more determined than ever to get into the air.
On June 1 my father delivered the news: I had passed the entrance exam and was accepted! We raced up the stairs to my room, gathered my belongings, and caught the last train to D.C. I was the first Olds to go to West Point, and the family was suitably proud. Millard Prep had given me a head start on plebe year at the academy, but I was determined to increase my preparation, rising before dawn to do push-ups and run laps around the parade ground at Langley. One month later I crammed with a bunch of other Point-bound boys into one compartment on the D.C. train to Penn Station. I think I saw a couple of girls dabbing at their eyes among the families waving good-bye, but mostly I saw my dad standing stoically behind the group. We locked eyes and he nodded to me.
Boyish chatter on the way to New York quickly turned to discussions of France's recent surrender to Germany. Roosevelt was already warning the American public that our nation wouldn't tolerate Hitler's suppression of free Europe. Would we make it to the war in time? West Point would provide me with a commission, but would it adequately prepare me for what lay beyond? Carrying a rifle on the long gray line was not my ambition. The last hours before the Point seemed etched in slow motion. We walked from Penn Station to the ferry terminal, rode across the Hudson River, boarded the train from Weehawken, arrived at the spare gray West Point stop, and fell silent when we saw the grim faces of our reception committee. I stepped down from the train and my boyhood ended.
"You, mister! Stand up straight! Get your raggedy ass in line!" Uniformed, white-gloved upperclassmen screamed into our faces. "You are worms not fit to crawl on this earth! You only THINK you will be officers! By tonight, half of you lily-livered maggots will run home to Mommy! You're a disgrace!"
"Yes, sir!" we yelled back. I could hear confusion and panic in some of the nonmilitary kids.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Fighter Pilot"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Robin Olds with Christina Olds and Ed Rasimus.
Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Acknowledgments,
Preface,
1. Battle,
2. My Early Years,
3. Pilot Training,
4. Off to War,
5. A Small Event Called D-day,
6. The Heat of Many Battles,
7. Victories — at Last!,
8. Mustangs and Mayhem,
9. R&R, Second Tour, and Home,
10. Going Home,
11. Life in the Fast Lane,
12. Exchange with the RAF 1948,
13. F-86s at March Field, the Pitts, and Stewart,
14. Landstuhl to Libya,
15. Pentagon to Shaw,
16. The Phantom and the War,
17. Bolo,
18. Rolling Thunder,
19. The Ending Battle,
20. The Painful Way Home,
21. The Academy,
22. IG and Out,
23. Final Landing,
Index,
Advance Praise for Fighter Pilot,
Copyright,
