“7 High”

Recollections of a Combat Defense Squadron “Ramp Rat”

Chapter 3

“Kansas Blows”

 

23 September 1961, we departed Bunker Hill AFB, Peru Indiana for Forbes AFB, Topeka, Kansas.  It was great weather for my first flight in a military aircraft.  The “Gooney Bird” was the same one we had seen parked around base operations.

Different, but similar C-47 “Gooney Bird”

Everything about the Gooney Bird is available at:

http://www.douglasdc3.com/index.html

 

We were picked up at the barracks by the “B” strike team with a second vehicle.  These were the standard crew cab pickups with a canopy shell and bench seating in the back.  They dropped us off at the aircraft in front of Base Operations.

 

Parachutes were passed out and we were given a briefing.  As we were climbing aboard, good old Harvey decided to try out the D-ring handle on his parachute, and caused an embarrassing delay in our boarding process.  Typically, he though it was hilarious.  I can still hear his laughter.

 

While the angle of a parked C-47 is readily noticeable from the outside, you don’t really put it into perspective until you enter.  It is really steep.  While there were a few nicer seats up forward, they were not for us.  We had the fold down metal “mess hall tray” type seating in coach, with our gear lashed down to the cabin floor in the center.

 

http://www.douglasdc3.com/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-47

 

This aircraft was at least as old as I was, and after flying in the luxurious comfort of a commercial airliner, quite a change.  We taxied out and stopped on the taxiway.  The crew ran up the engines, the roar of the Pratt & Whitneys was loud and clear with no insulation in the airframe.  It still gives me goose bumps.  There was a little backfiring as the crew brought the throttles back.

 

Immediately starting to taxi, we made the turn onto 31Left and never stopped rolling as the power came up again. 

 

The pitch of the cabin floor disappeared as the tail came up, suddenly it was much quieter.  We left the ground going barely faster than a strike team vehicle.

 

The Gooney Bird was noisy, bumpy, drafty, and I’m still looking for adjectives.  Clunker and old beater come to mind.  Gear was flapping and banging all over the place and with the noise of the engines and rushing air, you had to yell to be heard in the next seat.

 

It was pretty terrific to take off in, like living history.  I must say, flying was still fun, and we had a good flight, directly to Forbes AFB, Topeka, Kansas, USA. They shot the perfect landing, and we were all hoping that Dorothy was right about Kansas.

 

They made us line up in formation in front of the 815th Combat Defense Squadron orderly room, and it looked just like Lackland, with the painted rocks and WWII style buildings.  We were chewed out for something, and they certainly didn’t go out of their way to make us feel at home.  We were FIGMO, right from the start.

 

We were billeted in an old BOQ, and it was quite luxurious.  I was rooming with my buddy and we shared a one bedroom of a two bedroom suite.  We shared a living room and bathrooms with two other guys from our unit, who had the other bedroom. This was living, until we discovered that our quarters had no heat.  But, even with that, it was better than the open bay barracks that the permanent party CDS troops were living in.

 

We even managed a phone in our room, and maybe this would be a good time to say something about the telephone.

 

Back at Bunker Hill during the training sessions in the MMS area we had been taught how to use the SAC phone network to call just about anywhere in the free world.  Basically, you just got the base operator and had your call routed from base to base until you got a base close enough to home to make a local call.

In my case, March AFB and Biggs AFB, had lines that would get me to Fairchild, and then I could just ask for an outside line.  We were allowed to use the system anytime, it was just that we had no priority, and there was the possibility of getting cut off.

 

Also, the base operator often kept a trunk line going.  It was kind of like a chat room.  By calling the operator, often late at night when there was nothing going on, you could ask to be connected to this group that “was talking”, and could consist of folks from all over.  I fondly remember the local girls that would call the base, asking to talk to just anyone and the operator would hook them in.

 

There was a world before the internet, and it could be found on the telephone.  And, almost every post had a telephone.

 

Back in Indiana, I had watched a demonstration where a guard on one aircraft post called all around the world, back to Bunker Hill and the guard on to the adjacent post.  The telephone was one of the tools of the Combat Defense Force. 

 

The SAC Red Telephone system was in the day when all telephones were basic black and had rotary dials.  In key locations on the base; Command Post, Tower, Fire Control, Job Control, Central Security Control, Alternate Security Control and others, were red telephones.  When one of these phones was picked up, all the others would ring.  There was no pause in the ring; it was continuous until the phone was picked up.

 

If it was you that caused all these phones to ring, you should have something important to say.  It was most embarrassing and career hindering to knock one of these phones off the hook accidentally.

 

***all these links are rotted.  Find red phone photo.

http://www.stripes.com/photoday/012507photoday.html

http://www.stripes.com/photoday/123108photoday.html

http://www.stripes.com/photoday/051409photoday.html

 

27 September 1961   USAF Boeing RB-47K Stratojet, 53-4279, of the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, loses number six engine during take-off from Forbes AFB, Kansas, crashes, killing all four crew, aircraft commander Lt. Col. James G. Woolbright, copilot 1st Lt. Paul R. Greenwalt (also reported as Greenawalt), navigator Capt. Bruce Kowol, and crewchief S/Sgt. Myron Curtis. Cause was contaminated water-alcohol in assisted takeoff system.^[69]

 

Having been immediately assigned to the missile complex, I missed out on crash site perimeter duties.  It was a lucky thing they didn't have the recon mission aboard.  It could have been a lot worse.

 

October 1, 1961, I was promoted to A2C, (E-3).  I didn’t have my Mother to help me with the sewing, and I did a pretty sloppy job.

At Forbes, we were the lucky ones, issued baby blue helmet liners and assigned to the new Atlas E missile sites of the 548th Strategic Missile Squadron.   I was assigned to Site 9, at Holton, Kansas.

 

The work schedule was brutal; twenty-four hours on and forty-eight hours off.  Of course, travel time and misc bullshit came out of your time.  I was assigned to work with one of the permanent party CDS troops, a rookie A3C.

 

Just getting to the job was much different from working aircraft.  We formed up in a parking lot, with the rest of the crew for the missile site.  This included Launch Officers, maintenance men, and other folks like tech reps and such, and finally us cops, the lowest spot on this totem pole. 

 

Each missile site crew was loaded into a bluebird school bus, with a driver from the motor pool.  In our case, we had to tour downtown Topeka on the way to and from work.

 

There were no cooks on these Atlas sites.  We were issued rations, which usually consisted of one one “picnic” lunch and a box of “C rations”, re-labeled “USAF In-Flight Lunch”.  There was also a rack of frozen trays that we loaded onto the old blue AF school bus for the trip to the site.  These were those good old futuristic frozen meals known as “TV Dinners”.

 

Getting to the site was like the roller rink bus ride from hell.  While it was only about fifty miles from Forbes AFB to Site 9, at Holton, we had to go through downtown Topeka, and it took forever to get there.  Worse, we had to ride with the officers and they liked riding the bus even less than we did. 

 

Because the schedule of the missile crews and the Air Police didn’t match, we never got to know who we were going to be getting on the bus with, and every crew had a different personality.  But, generally, the guys wearing the white coveralls thought we were the white trash, no matter how tidy our fatigues.

 

The Atlas E had a “coffin” type site.  The missile was lying down until time for launch, when it would be raised, “erected”, to launch position, fueled, and then launched.  The empty missile was made of material so light, it could not support its own weight and was kept pressurized to prevent it from turning into an old balloon.  I would imagine this made the fueling process somewhat complicated, keeping the pressures adjusted.  But, we were just ramp rats, lost, out in the country, what do we know?

 

The on duty time was broken up into four hours topside, four hours below, where there wasn’t anything to do but sleep.  It was very noisy, with all manner of machinery running, and really sleeping was just a fantasy.  It was cots around the perimeter of a rather large green room.  In my memory the lights were never turned off.

 

The launch crew cleared us in and out through an reinforced concrete entrapment room, complete with video camera.  Then it was down a rather long tunnel.

 

After passing through the tunnel there was a day room, common area with a small kitchen.  This was the only area below that we APs were permitted. 

 

 

These and more excellent photos of Atlas E can be found at:

http://www.thekinnears.com/missile.htm

 

548th Strategic Missile Squadron

http://www.548sms.com/

http://www.548sms.com/missilelocations.htm

 

Atlas Missiles

http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Atlas_ICBM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_E

 

One day, I punched a white coverall TSgt that was trying to wake me up to go on duty.  I don’t remember hitting him, just waking up, and there he was, pissed off and rubbing his jaw.

 

Topside, there was nothing to do.  The site was on a country road, hardly any traffic went by.  The Dalton Gang had been the last noise in this county, and they had long since passed into history.  There were no aircraft to watch, no “sixes”, not even any traffic, just complete boredom, and the Hawk, who had followed us from Indiana. 

 

Layers of concrete and steel protected the missile.  The guards were not even required to control access at the gate.  In fact, it only confused things if you even tried to find out who was coming and going.  Not even close to what SAC had taught us about security.

 

At the gate and the personnel entry door, there were video cameras and phone to the Launch Control Center, and the launch crew handled access control.

 

We weren’t exactly sure why we were there.  Assigning Air Police must have been an after thought.  We hadn’t been trained in any special way.  Cut out of the security loop by the missile crews, and posted where there were numerous ground safety hazards.  It would have been easy to have a serious fall from several places.  I remember sitting above the missile entry door and looking down, being scared as hell.

 

On the ramp you could wander around on post.  Here, you could have a serious fall if you were not paying attention.  There was a concrete pond with sprinklers set into it for cooling water that cooled systems below.  There was a small patch of green grass downwind from this, the only friendly spot topside.

 

Atlas E in raised position from topside.

 

http://www.siloworld.com/ICBM/ATLAS/ATE/ATLASE.HTM

 

At the gate there was a pyramid of rotating lights red, yellow, and green.  We never were certain exactly what the different colors were supposed to designate.  Maybe they were intended to indicate launch status, but the different crews used them for different purposes.  Some crews, for example, wanted the sentries to call the Launch Control Center, (LCC), if the yellow beacon was turned on.

 

Up on a little hill on a corner of the site, there was a Quonset hut left behind by the contractor.  Desks and furniture had been cleared out, but phones and some other equipment had been left behind.

 

The phones were lying all around on the floor, and were still connected to the base switchboard.  It was the perfect place to get out of the hawk and catch up on things at home, and back at Bunker Hill.

 

Tempers seemed short all around at Forbes, and my work partner and I managed to get cross wise of a missile squadron Major on the bus ride out one day.  I don’t remember what we did to get him going, but he chewed us out on the bus.  Later, he was even more incensed when we didn’t respond to the yellow beacon promptly.

 

The Major left the LCC, and came puffing up the hill to catch us in the Quonset hut, where I was providing some On the Job Training, (OJT), for my Forbes counterpart, regarding the SAC telephone system.

 

He wanted to relieve us of duty, but we asserted that he was not in our chain of command and had no authority to do so.  After chewing some more, he convinced us to be relieved.  This in turn, pissed off our relief, the other part of the “team”.

 

It was a very tense bus ride back to Forbes.  The Major was really hot under the collar, he made a complaint that soon found its way to the 815th CDS Squadron Commander, a Captain, the gentleman’s name I do not remember, was tired and exasperated of the whole business by the time he got around to us.

 

We were called in and properly chewed out, reassigned back to base, the ramp, and stripped of our Baby Blue Helmet Liners.  This was nothing but good news as far as we were concerned.  Word was out; nobody wanted the missile duty.

 

I don’t remember what flight we were assigned to, but it was back to the good old 3,3,and 3, three swings, three midnights, three dayshift, and three “days” (72 hours minus travel and training and guard mount and milling around) off.  At least we would get a chance to go down town Topeka and look around.

 

For us minors, it was a terrible change from Indiana.  We were only allowed in taverns, and the beer was 3.2 percent, the same as on base.  Especially, since my roommate, Harv was still stuck on missiles, there wasn’t as much fun in Topeka as there could have been.

 

In a Topeka pawnshop, I found a used RCA six transistor AM radio.  This wonderful device, I used many long nights on post.

RCA “pocket” radio

 

***end of funny thing.

 

Finally, about 3am, the convoy was ready to depart.  The Convoy Commander put our vehicle in front.  The convoy moved very slowly and we had trouble staying in front and not running away from the other vehicles. 

 

We had no radio communications with the rest of the convoy, and were too far from Forbes for them to hear us on the VHF radio.  Before leaving Forbes, we were told to call on the radio when we could see the lights of the base.

 

Coming back, with the slow convoy, the drive took forever, and when we saw lights on the horizon, we made the call way too early, not realizing we still had a long, long way to go.

 

When we discovered our mistake, we could no longer contact Forbes on the VHF radio, due to terrain.  The convoy was very slow, and we were out of radio contact for quite a while.

 

The MMS patrol had been waiting at the back gate, and had, evidentially, been very impatient.  By the time we finally arrived, they had departed, leaving the back gate unlocked.  We didn’t think this was very impressive security.  We might have mentioned this when we finally arrived back at CSC to a rather ugly attitude from a completely different crew than when we departed.

 

So, it was back to the ramp and the B-47Es of the 40th Bomb Wing.

The alert parking area was B-47s wing tip to wing tip.  This didn’t seem very prudent to us.  Worse, there were no hardstand telephones for the aircraft guards.  Security seemed to be an afterthought.  The main effort seemed to be to concentrate on the chicken.  Alert aircraft sentries didn’t even walk around their aircraft, but stood in front like statues. 

The Alert Area is shown with a dotted outline, basically just north of the middle of the ramp.  There was a taxiway “Alpha” adjacent on the east edge.  For an Alert, aircraft would taxi north on Alpha and make a 180 for take off on 13.

 

The intersecting runway was closed when I was there.

A better diagram is available in pdf format at:

http://www.naco.faa.gov/d-tpp/0910/00424AD.PDF

 

One swing shift in the alert area at Forbes that I remember went like this.  Early on, while it was still light, one of the perimeter guards had been fooling with one of those giant CO2 fire extinguishers on wheels.  There was a line of them parked on his post.  There are a lot of good uses for these devices, besides putting out fires.  Many experiments in cryogenics have been carried out with them, as well as being able to cool a six pack in no time. 

 

So, I don’t know what he was doing, but he got one of those things stuck in the on position.  With the large horn on the output, these things made a lot of noise in that configuration. 

 

Everyone in the alert area knew what was going on right away.  He couldn’t get it shut off, and for some reason decided to drag across the Alpha taxiway into the weeds.  There was laughter and jeering from the other posts and this fool is out there pulling a roaring fire extinguisher on wheels through the weeds, when the area supervisor pulls up and he is caught red handed.  He was quickly relieved.

 

Some poor sap that had thought he was going to be on strike team now found himself stuck on a perimeter.  With one more unhappy camper, life in the alert area gradually went back to normal.

 

There was maintenance being performed on one of my assigned aircraft, and I was warming my hands on the exhaust from the MD-3 and shooting the breeze with some maintenance guys.  It’s getting dark now and several lighting carts are running around this aircraft, as well as numerous pickups and metro vans parked in the vicinity.

 

When the guard on the post next to mine came over, I assumed that he just wanted to bullshit, but he starts to read me off about how he doesn’t like the way I’m running my post.  At first, I thought he was bullshitting, but when I discovered he was serious, I told him to get back on his post, before I kicked his ass.  He left, but for reasons I couldn’t understand, was pissed off.

 

Not too much later, a red Fire Squadron pickup pulled up to the Alert Area Access Control.  Especially after the fire extinguisher incident, this was not unexpected at all. 

 

Back home, at Bunker Hill, if we saw a vehicle clear access control and proceed into the area, we could be pretty sure that the occupants had just been checked out.  That was what the access control point was for.

 

So, if you watched the vehicle clear the access point and the vehicle gave the headlight code as he entered your post, the procedure would be to let him drive up to you for a security check. 

 

I was surprised when every post challenged this vehicle, even though he gave the proper headlight code at each post.  Still, at every post he was made to get out of his vehicle, put his security badge on the ground, back up and spread eagle, the whole routine.

 

My post was about the fourth that he came to, and it was evident that his job was to check the fire extinguishers.  This was totally realistic SAC overkill, after the fire extinguisher fiasco.  They probably checked every fire extinguisher in the 2nd Air Force.

 

Anyhow, when the fire guy drove onto my post and flashed his headlights and then proceeded with only parking lights, I let him drive up to me and checked his SAC Form 138 and exchanged the daily codes.  He said, “You’re the first one that hasn’t made me spread eagle, do you want a cup of coffee?”  So I went around to the passenger side, got in and had a cup of coffee, and he checked the fire extinguishers on my post. 

 

We shot the breeze for a few minutes, and as soon as he drove off, the idiot on the post next door was over again, fuming about he didn’t like the way I didn’t challenge, and getting into the vehicle, and yada yada yada.

 

We had words and I again suggested that he get back on his own post, else he could get hurt.  This went on for a while, and I finally started blowing my whistle, and he had to scramble to get back on his post before the area supervisor arrived.

 

The area supervisor spent a long time on his post and then moved over to me.  Right off, he asked if I had threatened to shoot the guy next door.  I said, “Well, I did remind him that he was an armed intruder on my post.”  The SSgt told me, “He has been told to stay on his post”, and here at Forbes, we challenge!  “Every Body, Every Time!”  I could only say, “OK, Sarge, I got it.”

 

It wasn’t but about an hour later, when I observed an individual walking from the alert facility, in which we lowly air cops were not allowed at Forbes, towards the rear of my post, the tail of the aircraft with all the activity.  

 

As he approached, I was at the rear of this aircraft, in the shadow of a metro van, and challenged him from there.  He obviously hadn’t been expecting to meet a sentry at the rear of the aircraft, but I had surprised him about 30 feet from the aircraft. 

 

It went completely against the grain, and seemed like trouble, but I went through the procedure, even though I could see that this was a field grade officer wearing a security badge. 

 

“Take off your SAF form 138, attach it to your hat, put it on the ground, back up and spread eagle”.  Only this time, because he was kind of close to the post of the idiot I had been having so much trouble with, I had him move to his left before the spread-eagle, so as to insure he was as far from bozo as possible.

 

The officer started to complain but I just told him, “Sorry, Sir” and chambered a round in my carbine.  Down he went.  “Bozo” next door was trying to blow the pea out of his whistle by now, and a member of the flight crew that was standing by with the aircraft started around the aircraft towards me, and I had to challenge him.

 

He didn’t know whether to stop or not at first, and we were having a situation.  When he did stop, I told him to spread eagle, too.  The other aircrew member started yelling, and we were having a bit of a standoff, when the passing strike team arrived, followed by the area supervisor.

 

The Lt Col, who turned out to be the Deputy Commander for Maintenance, (BDCM), was insisting that I had intentionally picked out a puddle to put him down in, and that I was going to be paying for his uniform.  Well, it had been raining, and there were puddles all over the ramp, but I hadn’t been thinking of that, really.

 

Before long, the Flight Commander and Duty Officer arrived on the scene.  Now there really was a lot of traffic on my post.  These were mostly vehicles with rotating red beacons.   The SSgt, Alert Area Supervisor was particularly aggrieved.  I was relieved and hauled into CSC to be “debriefed” and have my young ass chewed again.

 

The fact that the Squadron Commander was getting to know my name violated all the principles of invisible learned during basic training.  But, on the bright side, I worked a lot of gates after that night.

 

The flight line gates at Forbes didn’t have nice gate shacks like Bunker Hill.  No door, for a starter.  No heat.  No table and chair.  It was a freezing little wooden box with only a direct line phone to CSC, and a row of eight by ten black and white glossy headshots of the chain of command and various base brass.

 

Beginning on the left was; President Kennedy; Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.  These were the only two in civilian clothes.  The photos continued with a bunch of stern looking Generals; Chief of Staff, Curtis Lemay; General Thomas Powers, SAC Commander, 2nd AF Commander, then came the Colonels; Wing Commander, Base Commander, BDCM (oh yeah, I recognize him), BDCL, all the little BDs, they were the local brass that you were supposed to recognize when they drove up to your gate.  I hoped they didn’t recognize me.

 

I remember staring at McNamara’s mug shot. Wondering about this guy, with his wire rimmed glasses and vitalis hair.

Besides the President, his was the only photo in civilian clothes.  What did you have to do to get a job like that?  How did he come up with this crap that put us on alert?  He was the one that gave the order that nobody could leave the armed forces indefinitely?  He looked like a smooth used car salesman to me.  He had given up the head job at Ford to work for the government. 

 

When you don’t have anything to do for hours on end, except try to keep warm you had plenty of time to think. 

 

I had seen plenty of better gate shacks than this.  Even the outside lighting was inadequate and the sentry needed to have a flashlight in hand for every vehicle.  The lame GI gooseneck flashlights were terrible by today’s standards.  In those frigid conditions I memorized the Air Policeman’s Creed, and can still recite it today.

 

The only nice gatehouse I worked at Forbes AFB was the entry point to the missile maintenance area, across the highway from the main base.  One midnight shift on that post I didn’t see one single human being from the time I was posted until I was relieved in the morning.  Thank you, Bell Labs, for the invention of the transistor.  My little RCA radio kept me from going nuts.

 

At Forbes, the strike team was not allowed to give breaks, or even stop, but drove around and around a predetermined patrol route.  This was worse than humping the ramp.

 

27 October 1961 one miserable midnight shift I was assigned to a strike team.  Six of us in a crew cab pickup.  Our A1C Team leader was suffering from a bad back, and he was hurting, driving around and around.

 

He had thought he was “short” but there was a crisis in Berlin and all short timers had been extended indefinitely, and his plans were ruined.  Morale was pretty low in that truck.  I for one hadn’t understood that they could just keep you in the Air Force indefinitely.

 

From the National Security Archive, “First Strike Options and the Berlin Crisis 1961”

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB56/

 

November 1961 Berlin, Germany Stars & Stripes photo

http://www.stripes.com/photoday/062906photoday.html

 

 

 

 

 

“7 High”

Recollections of a Combat Defense Squadron “Ramp Rat”

Chapter 3

 

Appendix “A”

Memory Work

 

 

Air Policeman’s Creed

 

I am an Air Policeman, I hold allegiance to my country, devotion to duty, and personal integrity above all.  I wear my shield of authority with dignity and restraint and promote by example high standards of conduct, appearance, courtesy and performance.  I seek no favor because of my position.  I perform my duties in a firm, courteous, and impartial manner.  I strive to merit the respect of my fellow airmen, and all with whom I come in contact.

 

 

 

Recollections of a Combat Defense Squadron “Ramp Rat”

Chapter 3

 

Appendix “B”

References

 

Forbes AFB history

http://www.strategic-air-command.com/bases/Forbes_AFB.htm

http://www.kstope.ang.af.mil/history/history_forbes.htm

 

The Hawk

http://www.greglasley.net/zonetail.html

 

Excellent photos of Atlas E at Fairchild AFB

http://www.thekinnears.com/missile.htm

 

548th Strategic Missile Squadron

http://www.548sms.com/

http://www.548sms.com/missilelocations.htm

 

Atlas Missiles

http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Atlas_ICBM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_E

 

40th Bomb Wing History

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/agency/40bw.htm

 

B-47E description

http://www.b-47.com/history/ch11/b-47ch11.html

 

1 July 1960; RB-47 shot down

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1881

 

RB-47H

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=385

http://www.b-47.com/history/ch21/b-47ch21.html

 

ERB-47H

http://www.b-47.com/history/ch22/b-47ch22.html

 

3973CDS.com job knowledge

 

 

 

 

Recollections of a Combat Defense Squadron “Ramp Rat”

Chapter 3

 

Appendix “C”

Air Force Terminology

 

MD-3 - Self-propelled generator set used to provide power for starting aircraft, heating water, etc.  I would like to have one of these babies today to use as an emergency generator.  MD-3s could be raced by taping down the switch in the handle, and standing above the front wheels pushing down on the tongue to engage the propulsion.  Of course this is a ground safety violation and no air force personnel would do such a thing.

 

SHORT - An airman was described as “short”, as in short-timer, when approaching the end of enlistment.  A black and gold short time ribbon was obtained from a VO whiskey bottle.

 

GCA - Ground Controlled Approach.  Evidently, the GCA at Bunker Hill was notorious for being inaccurate.

 

TDY - Temporary Duty Assignment

 

C-Rations - WWII vintage canned food

 

BOQ - Bachelor Officer Quarters