Warriors at 500 Knots: Intense stories of valiant crews flying the legendary F-4 Phantom II in the Vietnam air war.
Warriors at 500 Knots: Intense stories of valiant crews flying the legendary F-4 Phantom II in the Vietnam air war.
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781456761257 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 04/27/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Sales rank: | 437,230 |
| File size: | 440 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Warriors at 500 Knots
Intense stories of valiant crews flying the legendary F-4 Phantom II in the Vietnam air war.By Robert F. Kirk
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Robert F. KirkAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4567-5675-8
Chapter One
First In Country Flight
It was going to be a memorable night for Lieutenant John Peterson. It was going to be his first combat flight in the F-4D since arriving in Vietnam. He had arrived at Da Nang Air Base only a couple of days earlier and spent his time getting a BOQ room, processing all the needed paperwork and getting issued all the necessary flying equipment that he would be needing for his year long combat tour in Vietnam.
Lieutenant Peterson's arrival to Da Nang hadn't been an easy one. It took him the usual three months to complete his Combat Weapons School at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona and the six months of F-4D Phantom II flying training at George Air Force Base in Victorville, California. Then he had to complete three survival training schools before he would be ready to go to Vietnam.
The first survival school was the United States Air Force SERE School. SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape and the survival training school was at Fairchild Air Force Base, Spokane, Washington. This two-week school had one difficult task after another for the trainees to accomplish. It included the escape and evasion course where everyone got captured, no matter how good they were, or thought they were, at evading capture. Next the "prisoner of war" training began where the trainees went through an assortment of training experiences that made one main point very clear: never get captured!
The worst part of the training for Peterson was the "little box." During this experience, he was forced into a small wooden box. He was not sure about the exact size of the box, but it was small, very small. It was approximately 12 to 15 inches deep, 18 inches wide and 34 to 36 inches tall. Peterson's first thought, as three men attempted to cram him into the little box, was one of humor. He was blindfolded with a black hood over his head so he couldn't initially see what was going on. He thought: They can't put me into this little box. I am over six feet tall and too big to get into it. He was wrong, very wrong!
Peterson's emotions began to run wild as the three men forced his large frame into the small, narrow wooden box and then forced the strong wooden door closed against his back and hips. It didn't help that Peterson was a little claustrophobic and hated being in closed places. Very quickly the joints of his body began to ache and his muscles became tense and strained. His immediate fear was not being able to breathe.
Air, his mind screamed to him; I can't breathe, I don't have enough oxygen. Fear and panic began to take over his thoughts. No, he yelled in his mind, I have to stay calm and keep my head. He began to pray, Dear God, please don't let me panic in here, please give me air and help me be calm.
Then his nose felt a small tiny stream of air. Fresh air! It was coming from a small crack between the wooden boards that were used in the construction of the small boxes that lined the walls of the room. Peterson could hear other men in their boxes. Some screamed and bumped or flailed around trying to get out. Some cried and yelled because they couldn't stand the confinement. Peterson placed his nose against the crack in the wood planks that were providing him needed air and vital oxygen and breathed deeply.
Stay calm, he said to himself. I have to stay calm, if I panic, it'll be all over.
The trainees had been told that if they couldn't withstand the training then they'd be washed out of the program and they wouldn't fly in the Air Force. Peterson's greatest desire was to be able to fly in the Air Force. He'd proved that over and over again during Officer Training School, Pilot Training and in the F-4 Training Program. He was determined not to quit now.
I can breathe so I won't die in here, Peterson repeated over and over to himself.
I have to stay calm, I can breathe. This can't last long, Peterson continued.
However, it did continue. Peterson's legs and joints began to cramp with excruciating pain. He dared not try to move. It could get worse. His knees were high up in the box, at least as high as his head. His neck had been bent down to allow him to be stuffed into the box. The cramping got worse. The pins and needles pain came with the lack of blood supply to his muscles. His body was aflame with pain that came from joints cramping and muscles screaming from lack of blood circulation.
His thoughts continued; I can breathe, I can stay alive. I have to keep my mind off of the pain. Think about something else, anything else.
He continued to pray in increasing desperation, God, please don't let me fail this test. Please give me strength to take the pain and not give up and quit. Thank you for the air. Thank you for the air, help me stay calm.
It amazed Peterson how the small pencil-lead stream of cool air gave him so much strength and comfort. Without it he thought he would surely have given up or panicked in that little box.
Peterson lost all track of time while in the box. He didn't know if he was in there for 30 minutes, an hour or for half a day. When the door was opened by three men posing as Communist prison guards, he was overcome with thankfulness. Like a cork from a bottle his body popped backward from the small-enclosed area. Two men caught him, grabbing him under each arm, as his body left the box and fell toward the floor. His muscles were paralyzed. He couldn't move his arms or his legs. He could breathe more freely now and again that gave him comfort. The two men, without saying a word, dragged him into a dark small room about the size of two phone booths. They dropped him onto the floor and closed and locked the door behind him. He was to spend considerable time in the solitary confinement of this small room. He was out of the small box and he was very thankful for that.
The Fairchild Survival School had many other challenges that Peterson and all others had to complete successfully. However, for Peterson, none were like the "small box." He faced many personal demons that day in the box. Fear and pain came upon him like never before. Like most pilots Peterson had been a controller all his life, yet while in the box he was helpless except for his thoughts and his faith. He learned how important these were in times of trouble and need. This was especially true in times of total helplessness. This hard lesson served him well in the months to come.
Peterson became reasonably well settled at Da Nang. He was excited about his first combat mission. It was to be a night mission over Laos. He knew few details concerning the mission; however, he didn't like the weather that had settled in over Da Nang the last few hours. It was raining like hell and the clouds hung over the tops of the mountains just a few miles north of the base. The visibility would decrease then get a little better and then decrease again. At best it would increase to about two miles visibility and then go down to about a half a mile. Peterson wondered what the minimum weather would have to be before a mission would be canceled. So far, there had been no talk of it.
Peterson checked the status of his personal belongings before he left to go to the mission briefing. Flight crewmembers were required to leave their billfolds and all personal items in their quarters. No personal family pictures, letters, etc. could be taken on the mission. This was to prevent the personal items from being used as propaganda should the crewmember be shot down and captured. Under the Military Code of Conduct, if a crewmember was captured, he was to give the enemy only three items of information. These three items were the crewmember's name, rank and military serial number. No other information was to be provided to the enemy.
Peterson heard the call outside his door that the crew van was leaving to head to the squadron building. He grabbed his hat, opened the door and headed for the van. The weather was not getting any better and with the thick clouds it was hard to tell if the sun was even shining. It was getting dark even though it was only 1730.
Peterson arrived at the squadron building and immediately went into the mission planning room. He was a little early for the mission briefing because he wanted a little extra time to plan and make sure he was prepared for the mission.
The dark sky and the rain reminded Peterson of his second survival school training. It had been at Homestead Air Force Base, Florida and it was Sea Survival Training. It had been cold and rainy during his training there. The training was to prepare aircrew members for the eventuality of possible ejection from their aircraft over water. Aircrew members were taught to head for the water if their aircraft was damaged by enemy fire, because the United States Navy owned the waters around Vietnam. These waters were patrolled at all times and rescue teams were constantly standing alert to pick up downed airmen. However, ejecting over water had its own set of challenges, but with proper training the survival of crewmembers was improved by ejecting over water.
There were all sorts of tasks required in water training. These tasks included jumping off high towers into deep water and swimming under a parachute that had been hung over the water in a swimming pool, its nylon cord hanging under the water. This trained the aircrew members in the proper procedure to prevent getting tangled in their own chute when they hit the water. Training was provided on how to retrieve the pilot's survival kit from the seat after ejection from the F-4. The training included how to extract the small one-man life raft, inflate and crawl into it, without puncturing the raft. This was not an easy set of tasks to accomplish. Even with training, Peterson almost didn't survive the experience.
It was cold and raining on the day of Peterson's training at Homestead. The wind was blowing and the wind chill index made the temperature seem even colder. Peterson and his fellow airmen boarded a large sea craft and headed out into the ocean. The training began when they were out of sight of land. Each aircrew member put on a parachute harness with a survival kit attached to it. Two men were selected from the group and attached to a set of rails running off the stern of the craft. On separate command, each crewmember was dropped into the boiling current coming off the craft's propellers. The crewmember was to stay in the wake of the boat with one side of his parachute harness attached to a cable running from the craft. This was to simulate being drug by the parachute in the wind after ejection if a clean separation was not achieved.
It was soon Peterson's turn and down into the foaming water he went. Being pulled, rotating through the boat's wake up to the surface and then down under the water was frightening to Peterson. He disconnected as soon as possible from the cable that was pulling him through the water. He watched the craft pull away from him as he struggled to keep his head above water. He pulled on the cord that attached the survival kit to his parachute harness. The kit was heavy as he slowly lifted it toward the surface. While retrieving the survival kit, he had to constantly kick to keep his head above the waves. Finally he pulled the kit to him and fumbled to open it. He yanked the small rubber one-man dinghy out of the kit and pulled on the device to inflate it. Almost instantly the raft inflated. He then attempted to crawl into the small raft.
He'd been warned it would be difficult to climb into the small dinghy and to be careful not to puncture it with the sharp metal parts of his parachute harness. Peterson tried to pull himself out of the water and into the small craft. On his first try he wasn't successful. He gathered all the strength he had in his body and struggled again to attempt to pull himself into the raft. Up and into the dinghy he went as he pulled his shoulders over the end of the raft. Then he heard a terrible sound. It was the sound of air rushing out of the raft. Damn it, he thought. I have torn a hole in this damn thing. He was right. Within seconds he found himself back in the water and the raft had become only a heavy rubber weight.
What am I going to do now? He thought. In training the instructors had discussed how to repair the raft if it became punctured. However, that required a knife and he'd left his back in the BOQ room. Now his concern was to keep his head above the water and to come up with some kind of plan. Just then he saw a small boat coming toward him. He started waving his arms to get their attention. He had no way of knowing that they were coming to check on him and make sure he was okay. Quickly the boat came up to him and someone asked how he was doing.
"I punctured the damn raft and I don't have a knife to repair it," Peterson yelled to the men on the boat.
"I have a knife," one of the men told him. "Try not to lose it in the water."
The men brought the boat close to Peterson and handed him a small knife. Peterson opened the knife and pulled the deflated raft up out of the water and started looking for the puncture. He soon found it. It was a hole about a half an inch long. Peterson then started looking for the repair kit that was stored somewhere in a compartment on the raft. He found the compartment and the repair tool. It was two pieces of metal with rubber gaskets around each of their edges and a threaded steel shaft running through both sides with a wing nut on the end. The repair tool was too big to go through the puncture hole so Peterson had to cut the hole bigger so one end of the repair tool could go inside the raft and the other side would stay outside. The wing nut would then need to be tightened to make a tight seal. While bobbing up and down, Peterson took the knife and started the cut.
Don't drop the knife or the damn repair tool, he kept saying to himself.
Don't cut the hole too big or it won't seal, he continued.
No one could hear him talking to himself, but it helped him concentrate as he worked to repair the raft.
There, it's done, Peterson remarked to himself. Now let's see if it will hold air.
Peterson began blowing into the inflation tube on the raft. All the while he was struggling to stay afloat and keep his head above the waves.
How much air do these damn things hold? Peterson thought.
It seemed like it took an hour to blow the raft up. In reality it took only minutes.
When Peterson filled the raft with air he signaled to the circling craft that he was going to try and climb into the raft again.
"Be careful," one of the men yelled to him from the boat. "There is only one repair tool on the raft."
No pressure here, Peterson thought.
Peterson carefully pulled his body weight up and over the side of the raft making very sure that nothing metal touched the small dinghy. He was in. He turned around and positioned his large frame in the small craft as best he could. He had to pull his legs up to his chest to fit into the small raft.
"How are you? Is it holding air?" one of the men yelled to him from the boat.
"Yes, it seems to be holding," replied Peterson. "Here's your knife back. Thanks a lot for your help."
The boat pulled close enough for Peterson to hand the knife back to its owner.
"Thanks for not losing it in the water," replied the man.
The boat quickly moved away from Peterson and disappeared over the horizon.
The small one-man dinghy rolled with each wave. It rolled up and down and side to side.
The wind blew and with each dip of the dinghy Peterson was drenched with water. He rapidly became very cold from the water and the wind. There was not much he could do but to stay in the dinghy and wait for this exercise to come to an end.
Peterson began to get sick from all of the pitching and rolling motion. One moment he could see the horizon and then only water and waves around him. He'd never been much of a sailor and really didn't care for water.
Peterson became colder and colder. A science major in college, he knew that under these conditions he could suffer hypothermia. He glanced at his fingernails. They were a dark bluish, purple color.
Oh crap, he thought, I'm going to die from exposure out here.
That wasn't the first time he thought he might die from the training in survival school. He had to remind himself several times that this was only training.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Warriors at 500 Knots by Robert F. Kirk Copyright © 2011 by Robert F. Kirk. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword....................xiiiPreface....................xv
Duty, Honor, Country....................xix
1. First In Country Flight....................1
2. A Milk Run....................23
3. Run to the Coast....................33
4. The Failed Run....................45
5. Hitting the Ground....................57
6. Escorting B-52s and North Vietnam....................69
7. Loss of a Friend....................81
8. Deadly Mission....................103
9. Hell at 500 Knots....................113
10. Hill Tops....................131
11. Jerry's Big Watch....................143
12. Vertigo, Not Home Yet....................153
13. Hung Bomb....................167
14. The Trip Home....................177
Epilogue....................199
The F-4 Phantom II Fighter-Bomber....................201