“7 High”
Recollections of a Combat Defense Squadron “Ramp Rat”
Chapter 8
“Tough Tiger”
Thanks to 3973CDS.com for image
10 August 1963, the comm/plotter in Central Security Control at Zaragoza AB sat at a desk surrounded on three sides by sloped checklists covered with Plexiglas, telephones, 24 hour clock, typewriter and VHF radio microphone. The tip and ring switchboard was to the left of the operator.
The railing around the top of this console was used for leaning and placing of coffee cups and ashtrays by flight NCOs when things were slow and for the clipboards of inspecting officials when things were hot.
Checklists on the console were for the locations of the Brass, like the Base Commander, BDCL, Base Duty Officer and NCOOD, and of course the reserve strike team. Other checklists were for incidents and the time each action completed was written in grease pencil on the plastic covering. Cigarette ashes and a cloth were used to clean these afterward.
There was a whole row of telephones, and the old trick played on rookies was to hang the phones up in the wrong hooks and then let them take over while you went for coffee. When the phones rang, no matter that you picked it up and answered, no one was there, more phones started to ring and then folks would start buzzing the switchboard.
Varnished quarter inch plywood shutters behind the comm/plotter covered windows overlooking the Reflex Alert Area, just across the street at the edge of the ramp.
For access to Central Security Control, the comm/plotter pushed a button on the console that permitted the door to be opened from the outside. The door had a pane of one way glass and floodlights outside the door illuminated anyone attempting entry.
No matter that there were no flight line gates, anybody could have walked up outside, broken the glass instead of ringing the bell, and done havoc from there. The plywood coverings over the CSC windows might have been effective for a BB gun, maybe.
Central Security Control, CSC, was an incredibly busy place during Reflex turn around operations. Reflex B-47s arriving from the States would be preflighted, uploaded with nuclear weapons and placed on alert. B-47s that had been on alert for six weeks would be downloaded and flown immediately back to the USA.
It was very important to SAC that the downloaded aircraft flew back on schedule without any maintenance. This was to verify the “launch ability” of the force.
If there was a download or aircraft problem that might delay a scheduled launch, staff cars with flags would begin arriving at the effected aircraft, vastly complicating the sentry’s duties.
Part of the Comm/Plotter’s job was to make sure that convoy security was provided for every weapon movement, and sentries for aircraft being loaded and unloaded. Each of these activities was recorded chronologically on the AF Form 53, Desk Blotter. Aircraft tail numbers, parking spot, time of posting and name and rank of assigned security personnel were a few of the details that went into the blotter.
This was all happening on top of the usual daily activities of routine guard inspections and changes, vehicle servicing, coffee runs and on day shift clap call and meal breaks if enough personnel were available.
Inevitably, if personnel were available and the weather was nice there would be an increase in the simulated exercises. Warm nights, if the flight commander suddenly disappeared, that was something to watch out for. If the goon squad suddenly needed a vehicle for some “mission”, get ready.
Every Comm/Plotter I knew kept a lined yellow pad alongside the typewriter to log blotter entries when there wasn’t time to type them up properly. The Comm/Plotter’s shift was not over until all the paperwork was signed off by the Flight Commander at the end of the shift, and nothing annoyed a Flight Commander more than having to wait to go home.
If you were five or six pages behind on your blotter during a Reflex turn around shift when the red phone rings, and the news that there is an unidentified KC-135 on final approach sends such a jolt of adrenaline.
This was typically the first indication of a no notice Operational Readiness Inspection, ORI. We could all forget about getting off work. The SAC IG and 16th AF also blessed us with no notice inspections.
There were times at Zaragoza that they had to bring in another typewriter and operator to work out the paperwork backlogs at shift change.
During these inspections it was not uncommon to have several simulated “7 High” exercises turn into a “Red Skin” complete with “Broken Arrow” in progress when the alert klaxon went off.
The fancy Plexiglas checklists were a mess of hurriedly scrawled times and the pages in the yellow pad got more and more confusing. There was no such thing as a break, because no one stepping in cold could figure out what was going on.
By the time the recall was completed, the comm/plotter from the oncoming flight was available to start “working in” to the situation.
Recall for personnel living off base was mostly a fantasy. The average waiting time for a phone installation was over three years, so none of the married folks living off base had telephones.
The town patrol had to notify one member of each flight, and then it was the Christmas tree system. But, the town patrol had to find one member, sober and willing, and then that guy had to suit up and set out in search of the rest of his flight. It was difficult to find anybody at home.
21 August 1963 - Cable 243: In the wake of the Xa Loi Pagoda raids, the Kennedy administration orders the US embassy in Saigon to explore alternative leadership in South Vietnam, opening the way towards a coup against Diem. We now know that President Kennedy was not in Washington when this memo was drafted and his administration moved to send it without his knowledge or approval.
26 August 1963 back home in Indiana, another B-58 crash. This one a hard landing at Bunker Hill AFB, the pilot survives; Bomb/Nav and DSO are killed.
28 August 1963 - Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his I Have A Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of at least 250,000, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Maybe there were political reasons for the casual approach to security at our Spanish Bases, but it was considerably less than most SAC installations. I could speculate that since our Status of Forces Agreement specified no nuclear weapons, that Uncle Sugar tried to make it look that way.
Even my little experience, at Forbes AFB, I had seen SAC alert loaded cocked B-47s parked wing tip to wing tip on the ramp. We hadn’t liked it, just standing around these things was dangerous, but at least there had been flight line security at Forbes.
At Zaragoza, these B-47s also had a full compliment of JATO bottles strapped on their sides, there were no flight line gates, and generally lax flight line security. Worse, there was not even a physical gate at the Alert Area Access Point.
I had to tell you that so that I could tell you this story.
Some days working in CSC weren’t even as much fun as humping a B-47. One Sunday in September I was so bored sitting at the Comm/Plotters desk at Zaragoza. It was our first swing shift after three day break. The radio and switchboard had been quiet. Tomorrow’s duty roster was ready for the Flight Commander’s signature. The shift blotter was in the typewriter, up to date.
It was such a boring day; I would rather have been in the alert area. The CSC was right across the street from the alert area, and had hinged plywood shutters over the windows. In search of light and air, I opened the plywood shutter, and the window.
The troops on the ramp were enjoying the wonderful summer evening outside. As I was watching, a Spanish taxi cab cruised down the street, through the Alert Area access point, right into the alert area. This was even more surprising, since Spanish taxis were not even allowed on base.
The access point guard, who had been sitting in the shack, bolted outside, and watched in disbelief as the taxi kept right on going towards the alert aircraft. I picked up the red phone and was on the line to the Command Post before the access point phone lit up on the switchboard.
I mashed the mic button on the radio and told the Strike Team and the command post at the same time. “There is an unidentified vehicle in the Alert Area.” When using the SAC red telephone, the rule was to not start talking until all the other phones were picked up. But the Command Post heard me talking to the Strike Team and started the conversation before everyone was on the line.
I started to go through the 7 High checklist when the command post controller stopped me.
“Are you sure? That sounds like more than a 7 High to me.
“Well, maybe it should be a Redskin…”, I waffled.
“Who is reporting this?” he asked.
“Well, I guess I am, I’m watching out the window.”
“And, who are you?”
“A2C Marston, I’m the Comm/Plotter.
Then someone else on the line says, this is Colonel Caldwell, at SAC Headquarters, who am I talking to? I told him again A2C Marston, Comm/ Plotter, but then he wanted to know where. Oh, yes sir, Zaragoza Air Base.
“And, now, what’s going on there?”
“Sir, there is a Spanish taxi cab in the Alert Area. It has a red stripe; I don’t think it is from Zaragoza.”
Realizing that this was much more than I had bargained for, I tried to finish my report to the command post and get off the line, but the SAC colonel didn’t want me to hang up, even when I said I had things I needed to do.
The strike team had been on the front of the alert area, giving a sentry break. They first thought it must been some sort of exercise, but the access point sentry was blowing his whistle, which was echoed all over the alert area, with sentries pointing at the taxi cab.
The Strike Team was in too much of a hurry and poured the gas to the vehicle. If you punched them like that, they would flood and quit, and sure enough, it bucked and died in a small cloud of black smoke, and wouldn’t even begin to restart.
The Strike Team abandoned the vehicle, and all three of them were running at port arms, between the alert aircraft towards the taxicab.
The taxicab, stopped just behind the row of alert aircraft. The access point sentry has given up trying to get me on the phone and with weapon drawn is advancing toward the vehicle from the rear.
Still watching out the window; I’m on the phone to SAC headquarters, doing the play-by-play, and realizing that no good could come of this. I really needed to get off the phone.
“Sir, I need to make notifications, get the Flight Commander and Reserve Strike Team going.”
“Don’t hang up, Airman.”
So, holding the red phone to my ear, I plugged in the switchboard to the Reserve Strike team room in the barracks, and held the ring lever back in a constant ring until it was picked up.
“7 High” was all I needed to say, and the phone went dead, as they headed for their vehicle. Reserve Strike Teams were not kept armed, so they would be headed for the arms room at CSC. We were short handed, and had put the armorer on post somewhere, so there would be no one to issue weapons.
The Flight Commander had been in the MMS area, heard my radio transmission, and would be burning his Econoline pickup toward the Alert Area as soon as he could get out of the gates.
The alert area access control point guard had returned to the gate, and was making such a racket on the switchboard, that I turned off the buzzer.
When the RMST went 10-08, I sent them right to the Alert Area access point, unarmed. They knew something was up, and just did it.
The Alert Area Supervisor had been refueling his vehicle at the motor pool, and when he started it up again and heard this last transmission to the RMST; he was now calling Security Control repeatedly, wanting to know what was going on. I flipped the radio onto intercom and asked alternate CSC to talk to him, then turned down the volume on the radio.
Out the window, I can see the closest aircraft sentry and the rear perimeter guard, who has followed the vehicle halfway across the alert area, have two individuals out of the taxi, spread-eagled on the ramp, the strike team is still two aircraft away huffing towards the scene at port arms.
The strike team and the perimeter guard then get the two individuals up off the ramp, running them, towards the access point, with their hands behind their heads. A shock of adrenalin goes through my system as I recognize one of the apprehended individuals. We were going to be strictly in cover your ass mode now.
The access point sentry watches in amazement as this group comes running back towards him. As they reach the access point, the Flight Commander arrives on scene and the individuals are again spread eagled, just outside our invisible gate.
Now, I knew I had to get off the red phone. And, it was a damn good thing that I had started this out as a 7 High.
The Reserve Strike Team arrives at the access point, and the Flight Commander sends them to begin pushing the taxi out of the alert area by hand.
Again, I plead with the SAC Colonel, that I need to close the window and get to work, and finally he relents.
After hung up the red phone, the room suddenly seemed eerily quiet. It took me a few seconds to realize that I had turned the radio volume down and muted the switchboard. Turning up the volume revealed complete chaos.
I had thought that alternate CSC had been picking up the slack, but units were calling, doubling with each other and confusion was in the air. Responding to the Flight Commander was my first priority, and he didn’t sound happy.
Looking at the silenced switchboard, it is totally lit up, with a lot of them flashing; indicating folks are beating on the phone. There were circuits lit up that I hadn’t ever seen lit before and some that were not even identified on the board.
The checklists hadn’t been started, and I will need to fabricate a time line for the blotter. This will need to match with the times the command post has entered in their log. This was a tricky situation, calling the command post and asking what time they had for events to fill in your blotter, you needed to have some cred with those guys to get cooperation, they were officers and we were ramp rats.
As always, there was always that nagging worry that the red phone could begin that constant ring with more bad news any second.
One of the next items on the checklist was to notify the duty officer, and Capt T was not happy to hear from me. “Marston, They have YOU assigned Comm/Plotter?” His tone implied that whoever had made Marston a comm/plotter was insane. It was just his luck, it was just my luck he was duty officer.
Capt T arrived, still in civilian clothes, to debrief me repeatedly. This time I was golden, Capt T’s fury would be directed at the Air Police NCO who had hired a taxi in Madrid to drive him back to Zaragoza and somehow ended up in the reflex alert area.
I didn’t hear the conversation, but my Flight Commander stood up for me. When questioned on his choice of comm/plotters. The flight commander’s response indicated that he had put me where he could keep an eye on me. Captain T could see the logic in that.
As I was leaving, Capt T asked me where my tough tiger pin was. So it came to his attention that I had somehow managed to avoid Tough Tiger School. I had been scheduled earlier, but had been excused due to the Tiger’s troubles during pregnancy. It wasn’t long before I received orders to attend the 16th Air Force Air Police Academy at Torrejón AB.
That taxi from Madrid waited patiently to get paid, parked right outside the main gate for several days.
17 September 1963 President Kennedy sent a personal telegram to the Ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, to put a brake on the coup that Lodge and his friends in Washington DC were planning. Kennedy appealed to the ambassador that Lodge should act more like a diplomat than a coup leader. He also informed Lodge that he was sending the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara and General Maxwell Taylor to South Vietnam on a “fact finding” trip. This mission was meant to lay the foundation for beginning the withdrawal of US troops.
7 October 1963 ten of us were loaded aboard the 16th AF courier flight for Torrejón AB. This was my third C-47 ride, I was an old hand by now. We had an easy flight, but I don’t think there was anyone on board looking forward to three weeks of “Tough Tiger School”.
Unidentified Kosa type Airman with “reenlistment haircut”.
Each of the three SAC bases in Spain sent 10 men to make a class of thirty. This was a three-week course. It says 178 hours on my undated graduation certificate. It covered the Ramp Rat's bible, SAC Manual 205-5, along with small unit tactics, map and compass reading, “combative measures”, military formations and drill, firing ranges, all put together with lots of inspections.
We were housed in a barracks belonging to the 3970th Combat Defense Squadron, our Torrejón equivalent. It was a nice barracks with two person rooms. My roommate absolutely won the party championships. He was hardly ever around, spending all his available time getting to know downtown Madrid.
It was real strange to be living in the barracks again, but life soon settled into a routine of cleaning, formations, inspections, marching, classes, cleaning and polishing. So it was that I was living in barracks, when my 20th birthday rolled around. There had been a lot of water passed and ground covered in these last three years since I watched the Texas evening and the lights of the base through the barracks window at Lackland AFB on my 17th.
The daily schedule at Tough Tiger School was a mix of inspections, drill, classroom training, firing range and combative measures.
Combative measures consisted of PT drills and self defense training. We were divided up into pairs and somebody thought it would be funny to pair the skinniest guy in the class with the heaviest. I don’t know if this was done for entertainment in every class, or we were just lucky. It was a lucky thing that most of the big guys were easy going.
One of the drills was to pick up an unresponsive prisoner off the floor. With the weight difference, I didn’t have a chance until I discovered nipple twisting. Then I could have him on his tiptoes in a flash.
We all had marks on our forearms from using table knives practicing taking a knife away from a suspect. This was long before Indiana Jones, and we had all decided that we were going to use the .45 that we had been issued when attacked with a knife, to hell with trying to take it away.
One of the other fun things at Tough Tiger School was the pugil sticks, which I hated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pugil_sticks
Due to the lightness of my ass, I was constantly getting knocked on it. We had to wear these sweaty, smelly helmets, and one fellow hit me so hard the helmet was spun around backwards. I couldn’t see a thing while he proceeded to knock me on my ass again, and the rest of the class laughed their ass off.
Combative measures were normally scheduled as the last activity of the day, and afterwards, sweaty and smelly, we would retire to the airman’s club for beer and chili. We normally spent several hours at this activity before returning to the barracks to begin getting ready for the next inspection.
The first and only fart lighting I have personally witnessed occurred later, in the barracks at Torrejón. After watching for a while, my perception was that the wearing of shorts during this activity was dangerous, due to the trapping of inflammable gases. Barracks life was always entertaining.
At the range, all those hours that I had practiced back at Bunker Hill paid off. The policy was that those with low scores had to clean the weapons, and I certainly never got that duty.
One day, I was firing in the number two position, next to one of the cadre instructors and I accidentally put a round into his target. When it came time to score the set, he had an extra round, with everything in the black, and I was all in the black, but one round short. He somehow got the impression that I was a smart ass and had done it on purpose.
I saw no reason to straighten him out and the next firing set I put a round into his target, on purpose this time. When we scored the targets, he started yelling at me, I told him they were pity shots to help him qualify. I thought he was going to spontaneously combust.
When they finally decided to let us out for the weekend, I took the bus downtown to Madrid, with some of my classmates. I knew about a couple of places and took them to the bumper cars, where we really had a good smash, us against some local kids that really knew what they were doing.
After that exercise, we got into a taxi, the driver suggested, “Calle de Fucky Fucky?” The group was unanimous, go for it. I have no idea what the name of the street actually was, but there were a lot of bars.
As the evening progressed, I learned about anise and subsequently tried to walk through a glass door at a bar, “Something del Mar”, and knocked myself out.
The feeling of waking up broke in a foreign city and not having any idea where you are. That is the feeling of freedom; kind of free, kind of scary. I vividly remember walking along the calle in the bright morning sunshine, wondering how to get back to the base. I must have figured it out, so I did learn something at TT school.
I would have accidentally been honor student, except for sabotage. I knew who it was. It wouldn’t have looked good to complain.
When it got down to the last few days of class, I discovered to my surprise that my scores put me right near the top of the class. Coming down to the wire, it looked like I would be Honor Student, a fact not appreciated by a NCO member of the cadre to whom I had been especially flip. So I wasn’t especially surprised when I received ten demerits on the last day. My inspection shoes under my bunk had been kicked and I was gigged individually for each boot and shoe not being shined and aligned.
I think he was surprised that I didn’t complain, but I was just happy to get the hell out of there and back to my nest at 25 Juan Pablo Bonnet in Zaragoza. Barracks life sucks.
We had an uneventful, but bumpy ride back to Zaragoza AB on the C-47 courier flight. Nobody puked.
2 November1963 South Vietnamese coup: South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated following a military coup.
We now know that in reality, the US had also undergone a coup. This entire affair had been orchestrated by the CIA with the tacit cooperation of Henry Cabot Lodge, our Ambassador in South Vietnam. President Kennedy was horrified, and convinced that his government was out of control. . See, “Why he died and why it matters”, by James W. Douglass.
4 November 1963, I was issued a Good Conduct medal. Who would ever thought that would happen? If Harv and Oop could see me now, what a laugh they would have.
15 November 1963, special showings of the film “Gathering of Eagles” were arranged at an elegant theater in downtown Zaragoza not far from our apartment. Cine Eliseos is still there at Paseo Sagasta, 4.
Cine Eliseos had a standup bar in the lobby for the gentlemen. Seating was luxurious, with a small table between seats. Smoking was permitted in the theater. Very polite and well dressed waiters delivered beverages and tapas right to your seat. This was the most elegant theater we had ever seen, and a startling change from the base flick that was an improved Quonset hut design. I had seen some fancy theaters back in the States, but never with bar and restaurant services.
The Film, “Gathering of Eagles”, with Rock Hudson, Rod Taylor, Mary Peach and Barry Sullivan. The film glorified the Strategic Air Command mission and had some excellent aircraft photography. The story line was a bit lame in spots, and some scenes were not very realistic. Especially the opening ones where the unidentified KC-135 was allowed into the parking area and met by a lone SSgt in a crew cab.
In reality, they would stop on a taxiway, surrounded by the strike team, and throw out a smoke canister to designate the simulated broken arrow/redskin exercise as their hello greeting.
We liked the movie anyway. Here is the Wikipedia link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gathering_of_Eagles
The B-52 minimum interval takeoff scene from “Gathering of Eagles”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq6Hpxyrhyo
Here is a scene where Rock Hudson having a little trouble stopping a B-52. Notice the Combat Defense Force Strike Team in the first few seconds. Looks like an International Harvester crew cab, a “cornbinder sixpac”. The CDF troops all appear to be wearing brand new B-15 jackets.
***(clip missing) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeBBeGLo_ug
This is a clip from “Strategic Air Command”, 1955, with Col James Stewart and Harry Morgan(Col Potter) as a NCO. It doesn’t really belong in this part of the story. But, the B-36 photography is terrific and wonderful, since we’re watching videos, take a look at the Aluminum Overcast fire up, taxi, and take off.
***(clip missing) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRxkYmfcX28
6 November 1963 - Vietnam War: Coup leader General Duong Van Minh takes over as leader of South Vietnam.
20 November 1963 was our last day shift, and we were happy to be headed for Barcelona. A newly assigned A1C member of the flight had shipped his POV to Spain. It was a huge “vista cruiser”. Buick’s version was actually called an “estate wagon”, it was a big, fancy Buick station wagon. He had been misinformed about being able to sell a vehicle on the economy and didn’t yet realize how big a mistake he had made.
All the way to Barcelona, with he, his wife and child, jammed into the back seat. of the VW we listened to how great the vista cruiser was and how it would blow this little cramped VW off the road. Having experience with the Spanish driving conditions I had no problem with entering into a bet with him. He thought for sure that they could beat us back to Zaragoza, after they picked up their Buick.
Arriving in Barcelona, we checked into a hotel, dropping off the women, while we did a little prowl on the Rambles. The US Navy was in town and it was very strange for us to see uniforms off base. With the Navy in town, prices were up, but the bars were rocking.
We had heard plenty of war stories, and knew for sure a few of the places to visit. We started with the “Upstairs PAN AM”, and went on from there.
The Navy boys had Cinderella Liberty. A concept we had never heard of. At least a few of them were still in the Owl drinking with us when the hour rolled past. Considering the events of the next few days, I wonder how much trouble they got into for not making it back to their ship.
Midnight is still dinnertime in Spain, and we partied on, knowing that we would be in the same deep shit when we got back to the hotel. After discussing the situation, we decided there was no sense going back now. We would never get another chance to do Barcelona.
We did catch hell when we got back to the Hotel. The next day, hung over, with very grumpy wives, we drove back to Zaragoza in the rain.
22 November 1963 our thirty-six horsepower VW beat the Buick estate cruiser from Barcelona to Zaragoza by over an hour.
Arriving at the Gebhardt’s apartment, their Portero told us that our President had been assassinated. We didn’t believe him.
We went upstairs and put on AFRS to hear the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas. There was an immediate recall of all personnel to the base.
22 November 1963 - John F. Kennedy assassination: In Dallas, Texas, United States President John F. Kennedy is shot to death, Texas Governor John B. Connally is seriously wounded, and Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson becomes the 36th President. All television coverage for the next three days is devoted to the assassination, its aftermath, the procession of the horse drawn casket to the Capitol Rotunda, and the funeral of President Kennedy. Stores and businesses shut down for the entire weekend and Monday, in tribute.
We were to be on alert, 12 hours on, 12 hours off, for many days. AFRS played dirge music continuously for days, interrupted only by the news.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination
24 November 1963 - Jack Ruby kills Lee Harvey Oswald on television.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_harvey_oswald
24 November 1963 -– Vietnam War: New U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam militarily and economically.
25 November 1963 – President Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Schools around the nation do not have class on that day; millions watch the funeral on live international television.
29 November 1963 – President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.
What had happened to our country? It was hard to tell from our perspective in España. At the time, we were kept too busy to spend much time thinking about it.
Fifty years later, I recommend “JFK and Unspeakable”, “Why he died and why it matters”, by James W. Douglass.
10 December 1963, at Zaragoza, we decided to go all out for Christmas to fend off all this gloom. We purchased another Alladin heater, and fuel jug, for a total of three, so we could actually heat the whole apartment, rather than just two rooms.
The AFEX set up an annex for Christmas trees and decorations, we purchased a tree and spent way too much on American lights and decorations, rather than the cheaper stuff available at SEPU.
When we arrived at our apartment with a tree tied on top of our coche, our portero was astonished. Topping that was the outrageous thought that we intended to bring a tree into the building. Clearly we were loco, but he patiently helped us get it up the stairs anyway.
All the neighbors thought we were totally nuts, and this Christmas tree business confirmed it. These Americano barbarians had killed a tree and now they are bringing it into the building. If it was firewood, we needed to cut it up first, estúpido Americanos.
About this time, we discovered that our ignorance of the language was generally considered to reflect on our general intelligence. The Tiger had discovered that feo didn’t mean fair, and that those ladies in the beauty parlor had been being mean and rude while smiling at her.
31 December 1963, we certainly hoped for a better year and had a splendid party to celebrate. This changed our neighbor’s impression of us, I’m sure. More vehicle paint was removed even though we warned our guests not to throw that cheap gin out the window.
Besides playing those country and western albums and drinking, there were games and jigsaw puzzles played on the floor. This later activity turned into a contest to spit shine the tile floor using neutral kiwi and/or Johnson’s paste.
We AP’s were proud of our boot shining prowess. The players chose individual tiles and we happily shined away as we smoked, drank San Miguel, and shot the bull. Forever after that not all tiles on the living room floor were equal to the proud few.
1 January 1964, Zaragoza, España, the local policia, strolling by, noticed our party and came up and knocked on our open door. We showed them our party permit; they saluted, wished us a good morning, and departed. Out of respect, members of the party decided to defer an experiment they had been working out on the damage a champagne bottle tossed out the window would do to a parked vehicle below.
5 January 1964, I was working “B” Flight, as Comm/Plotter for SSgt Wilcox. Major Meade had returned to the squadron and Capt T had moved to Operations, and he wasn’t a happy camper. His office was in the CSC building and he in was in and out of control, and kept bumping into that damn Marston.
I had been on comm/plotter duty long enough by now to be skeptical when the call came in. We had two sentries posted, with a vehicle for communications, on a C-124 with nuclear weapons aboard that was parked in a remote location reserved for hazardous cargo aircraft at the end of runway 12R. Two sentries were required due to the SAC two man policy.
It was a midnight shift and just about the time it started to break false dawn, I got a radio call from the guards on the C-124. “There is an unidentified object located under the wing of the aircraft”. “There is also fluid leaking from this object.”
I tried to talk them out of calling a 7 High, which because of the circumstances could easily turn into a Redskin, but the sentries were adamant on the radio, they hadn’t noticed this object when they took over the post, and they didn’t know how it had gotten there.
After the flight commander launched out of CSC, like it was a big deal, and there seemed like no alternative, I called the Command Post and declared a 7 High on the special weapons aircraft C-124 parked on 12R.
The strike team and flight commander arrived on the scene not long before Capt T arrived at CSC. Nobody was telling me anything on the radio, except we were setting up a perimeter and control point like for a broken arrow. The command post was on my case for more information. Protocol demanded that SAC be given an update within a proscribed number of minutes.
The aircrew and maintenance personnel for this aircraft were shaken from their slumber, not at all happy after having enjoyed the delights of Zaragoza the previous evening, and directed to reported to their aircraft. The line from my ear to SAC was red hot while they drove out to the aircraft, only to discover that the leaking object in question was indeed the “honey bucket”.
The flight commander was embarrassed and so were we all. Capt T was disgusted with the whole business.
By now, I felt like I had discovered the secrets of keeping the Comm/Plotter job. First, make sure that the paperwork was ready for signature by the end of shift. This required note taking and typing skills.
Second, and more important, make sure there was a fresh pot of coffee for the oncoming Flight Commander, and Comm/Plotter, and make sure it is GOOD coffee.
I made more coffee during my comm/plotter duties than anyone on base, except the cooks. I wasn’t that fond of coffee, and someone finally took me aside and showed me how to do the job properly. That task included at least wiping out the coffee pot, and cleaning the coffee basket, and lining it with paper towels, something that many GI coffee makers seemed to miss.
Once a comm/plotter had a reputation for making a good pot of coffee, and typing a clean blotter, his job was secure.
One of the popular sayings of the day was, “I’ve used more ink to sign my paychecks than you have drank GI coffee”. This was used in disputes when time in grade was the issue.
Not very long after the 7 High on the C-124, another incident endeared me even further with the good Captain T. It was before guardmount, there were a lot of troops in the training room, where guardmount was often held. We all had our weapons and were just waiting to be briefed and put on post.
Our armorer was showing some of the TDY personnel how to shoot a pencil across the room with a .45 automatic. This was a sport that I had mastered, having all that time to practice in the office. You simply dropped a new pencil down the barrel of your .45, gave it a little Kentucky altitude, and pulled the trigger. A good shot could stick it in your ear from across the room.
This foolishness was going on while we waited, and our armorer had the bright idea to drop a carbine round down the barrel of a .45 and see how far that would go. In spite of the shouts of “No”, before anyone could stop him, he pulled the trigger, and the carbine round went off.
It was amazing how quickly a room with 30 people or so was emptied so suddenly. There was a stampede for the exits, and It seemed that now it was just the two of us in the back of the room, by the armory. It was poof, and there was just the two of us, the armorer and I, and that fine odor of recently fired gunpowder.
Capt T, whose office was in the next room, appeared in the doorway, looking like the Osborne Bull. Setting eyes on me, he instantly knew it was my fault, whatever had just happened. “God dammit, Marston, what in hell have you done now?”
When the weather was nice and there was nothing going on, I would beg the flight commander to let me take a strike team to get out of the office occasionally. One nice morning I was assigned to a strike team.
As per the standard operating procedure at ZAB, I stashed my carbine under the seat of my assigned vehicle, so I would only have to pack my .45 for guardmount. After guardmount, while I was busy getting the break in comm/plotter started, a certain airman that hated my skinny little ass, stole my carbine out of the vehicle and turned it in to Captain T as a lost weapon.
I had to go to his office to get it back. When he saw who the carbine belonged to; Captain T threw that carbine at me, pointy end first. I thought I did good just to knock it down, and it went clattering across the tile floor of the guardmount room. The good Captain was totally disgusted that I hadn’t caught it.
13 January 1964 USAF Boeing B-52D Stratofortress, 55-060, Buzz One Four, of the 484th Bomb Wing, Turner AFB, Georgia, suffers structural failure in turbulence of winter storm as blizzard socks the East Coast, crashes approximately 17 miles SW of Cumberland, Maryland. The bomber comes down in a small valley on Elbow Mountain in a state park. Pilot, co-pilot, eject, survive. Navigator, tail gunner, eject, die of exposure. Radar nav fails to eject, rides airframe in with two nuclear weapons on board. The pilot, Maj. Thomas W. McCormick, 42, of Hawkey, West Virginia, telephoned the Air Force in Washington, D.C. from a farmhouse near Grantsville, Maryland, saying that he was apparently the last of his crew to bail out, having heard the other seats leave the aircraft before he ejected. The US Army sends a 15-man team of bomb disposal experts from Fort Meade, Maryland, and the USAF dispatches a 35-man rescue team from Andrews AFB, Maryland.[145] Both bombs survive intact and are recovered.[41] The Stratofortress was also carrying two AGM-28 Hound Dog air-to-ground missiles. The aircraft was returning from a 24 Hour Airborne Alert mission (referred to a "Chrome Dome" mission diverted to Westover AFB in Massachusetts for repair of inflight maintenance issues, spending the night at Westover before returning to Turner AFB. Main article: 1964 Savage Mountain B-52 crash
29 January 1964 I was awarded the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon.
The award had been recently authorized, and the orders show a who’s who of the 3974th Combat Defense Squadron.
1 Feb 1964 Marston makes A1C with 28 months time in grade. On my first hitch, who would have thought? Not my old buddies, Harvey and Oop, from Bunker Hill, that’s for sure. I don’t know how my name got past Capt T, but I made sure to give him a cigar.
We scheduled the promotion party to end all promotion parties. This was a multi-flight party that was for everyone that was promoted that cycle. An entire bowling alley downtown Zaragoza, was rented. It was our last swing shift, but the party had started after day shift, so things were rolling real well by the time we got there.
It was after three when they wanted to close the place. The swing shift stragglers took the remains of all the different kinds of booze and consolidated it into just a few bottles and set out in search of adventure.
The first stop was the Coso. We parked outside and waited while some of our amorous friends went upstairs. The girls were hooting at us out of the windows. One of my mates got to looking in my glove box while we were waiting and noticed that I had almost a full book of gas coupons. This was real money, and it was decided we could go to Barcelona on our 24-hour break, and be back in time for work.
There were several flaws in this plan, but long story short, I wrecked the car and was hauled into the BDCL office in disgrace.
I lost the comm/plotter job, and I was back on the ramp, waiting to be busted back to A2C. If there was a bright side, the weather was good and the B-47 was a pleasure to hump.
Back on the ramp, there were still the hard core confirmed ramp rats. These guys scorned any off the ramp job as being for the kiss ass folk. But even they were impressed with the knowledge I had picked up in my experience as comm/plotter. I had a better understanding of what was going on and what might happen next.
As aircraft guard it gave me plenty of time to bullshit with the guys. It was pretty common for two aircraft guards and one perimeter guard to have a little bullshit session during hours of darkness. This gave me a chance to get caught up on all the latest news that you would never hear around CSC.
It was common for permanent party airmen to marry the local prostitutes. For them, it was a win/win situation. The guys got to draw separate rations and a housing allowance; the girls received an allotment and a considerably higher standard of living.
Airmen required permission from the Squadron Commander to get married, which would have been impossible to get, but if the girl claimed to be with child, there wasn’t much they could do.
The guys had names for some of the working girls on the Coso. Captain Hook and Giggles were famous, and “Tu Fini, GI?” was a common expression, like “So to Speak”.
Many of these girls were supporting families and continued to turn out on the calle while the old man was at work to further supplement their income. When the husband transferred back to the states, in some cases the girls were sort of passed down to other airmen. One time I remember, the girl went back to the states with the airman, but showed up back on the calle a few months later, saying that she hadn’t liked it in America.
While condoms were available in the AFEX, this was a time in Spain when no birth control devices were sold or mentioned. You could not even find a Playboy magazine off base. So, in spite of Capt T’s outbursts at Commander’s Call, “If you are going downtown, use a condom, it’s just that god damn simple”, accompanied by boom, boom, boom, of his fist on the podium, veneral disease was rampant.
Clap call was held at the base hospital, and CDF personnel requiring to report were relieved from post to do so. This also meant that they usually got to be the first chow hall relief, whenever sufficient personnel were available. This led to some contests between ramp rats to see who could have gonorrhea the most.
At least one friendship was broken and a fistfight between armed sentries ensued on the ramp when an airman bragged to his roommate that he had given a certain girl the clap and that was why his roommate was now infected.
7 February 1964 - The Beatles arrive from England at New York City's JFK International Airport, receiving a tumultuous reception from a throng of screaming fans, marking the first occurrence of "Beatlemania" in the United States.
9 February 1964 - The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, marking their first live performance on American television. Seen by an estimated 73 million viewers, the appearance becomes the catalyst for the mid-1960s "British Invasion" of American popular music.
It was uncommon to have an A1C humping aircraft, and the TDY troops were easy to impress.
Even though the .38 caliber revolver Smith and Wesson had been phased in, I still had my permanent assigned .45 from comm/plotter duty. With a little hangman’s noose made from parachute cord hanging from my holster, I was super cool.
The Ridgway hat was mandatory for CDF at Zaragoza, but not all the TDY personnel had them. I wore a both a Tough Tiger pin and A1C, that’s three, count em, three, stripes, on my hat. God’s gift to parked aircraft, regaling the TDY troops with all the war stories. For example:
Sentry: “Who’s there?”
Aircraft Commander: “Captain Marvel.”
Sentry: “Well, advance, MF, and meet Superman.”
We had to memorize aircrew names from our SAC Form 380’s and always looked for possibilities.
Another of the bad habits we passed along to the TDY troops was the Queen Anne salute. I had spent plenty of time working on this back at Bunker Hill AFB. It hadn’t been designed for the carbine and some shortcuts were necessary, but still the trick required a bit of practice, and in the darkness, we could hear curses and carbines clattering on the ramp. Damn good thing we didn’t have bayonets.
One balmy quiet evening about 2200, I was bullshitting with a couple other sentries on the front row of the alert are, we were watching a pair of F-102’s landing from the south, on runway 12 Right. Just as they were about to touchdown, they suddenly punched on their afterburners and went almost straight up.
Hijinks like this were very unusual, and as we swiveled our heads, we saw two unlit F-86’s complete their landing on the same runway from the north, in the opposite direction, 30 Left. The Spanish F-86’s had no radar and were not supposed to fly at night. They had been sneaking in, after dark and landed on the wrong runway.
We could only assume they were looking for 30 Right. Imagine the consequences if they had collided above the alert area.
During the day shift, there was not so much gabbing with neighboring sentries. It got pretty hot and whenever there was a compressor cart near my post, I would slip the hose down inside my boots and crack the air a little. It was foot cooling heaven.
The Spanish Air Force had acquired a Boeing 707, and we watched it doing touch and go all day long, day after day, on the Spanish side. The pullouts were steeper and steeper until they must have been dragging the tail.
Permission from the tower was required to cross to the Spanish side of the base, and we seldom did. I remember one time, while on strike team we crossed, but don’t remember the purpose of our trip.
On the ramp, I went back to packing lunch. Bocadillos, sandwiches made from pan, and a thermos with either coffee or soup. This treat always made the shift a little easier. I still love the peanut butter and jelly bocadillo with coffee.
28 March 1964 was the first broadcast of Radio Caroline, and I was ready with the crew chief’s headset wire to an alert B-47 wrapped around my trusty RCA transistor radio. Radio Caroline began broadcasts from the ex-passenger ferry MV Fredericia, anchored in international waters three miles (5 km) off the coast of Harwich, Essex, England.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Caroline#1964-1968
http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#home.html
http://www.radiocarolineband.com/
Radio Caroline quickly became one of our favorite radio stations at night, for the popular music they played. Nothing was more popular, especially in the UK, than the Beatles.
One rainy midnight shift, all was quiet on the ramp. I was sheltering in the front wheel well of one of the two B-47 alert aircraft I had been assigned to guard. With my portable radio tuned to “Radio Caroline”, it was necessary to stoop just a little to look under the B-47 to see the rest of my post and the alert area. Being careful not to lean against the tires; which had little imbedded wires that would tear cloth or skin you could stay out of the rain and still have good visibility.
Like any good sentry, I was continually watching the nearby perimeter and taxi way lights carefully for any sign of a blink that would indicate a person walking between the light and me.
Suddenly, the red revolving light just in front of the wheel well door on the B-47 started up right in my face. Startled out of my wits at first, I could now hear the hydraulic systems powering up. Somebody was starting up this aircraft.
Talk about thoughts flying through the mind. Had I been asleep, and somebody crawled aboard? Maybe it was maintenance? No, there was no crew or maintenance vehicle parked nearby. Feeling extremely foolish, holding my carbine at port arms, I called up into the aircraft, but received no response.
Feeling for sure that I was screwed, I started blowing my whistle to beat hell.
The strike team and area supervisor arrived and were suspicious that I had done something, but there was this B-47, all lit up and ready to go. They got on the radio, called a 7 High, and the aircrew and maintenance and brass all descended on my peaceful post. I would be plenty busy for the rest of my shift. Later, the crew chief told me that rain water had shorted out a cannon plug, basically turning on the key of the alert loaded aircraft.
There were more rumors than usual going around the squadron at the time. The base was closing; the B-47’s were going to the graveyard at Davis Monthan AFB, and the CDF troops we were all being shipped to Elmendork AFB in Alaska to cross train as cooks, good stuff like that always traveled through the ranks, just to keep the circuits open. There is always a good deal of bullshit circulating in the tom tom underground on any airplane patch.
14 April 1964, still waiting for my demotion paperwork to come through, I received orders to report to Morón AB. There were two days travel time authorized, report not later than 11 May. This time I had a family to move.
We felt like we had just been getting to know Zaragoza and hated to leave, but I was not unhappy about trying to move out from under the cloud hanging over my head.
There was a group of airmen with families making the move and we decided to travel to Seville in a group. A convoy was formed. I don’t remember how I got roped into this.
We purchased a roof rack for the VW, found a Spanish moving company to move the stereo and a few other items, sold the refrigerator and one Aladdin heater to our Landlady. She was very proud to have the only refrigerator in the building, and placed it in her living room so that you couldn’t see the dent.
9 May 1964, the USAF gypsy caravan set out from Zaragoza, with all our possessions crammed into and piled atop of our vehicles. It was pretty awful, with the speed of the convoy dictated by the slowest. There were breakdowns, crying babies and diapers, it was pretty awful and I have managed to put the memories of this trip in a lost place.
The Tiger and I probably had more time on the road from Zaragoza to Madrid than anyone else in the convoy, but we had never traveled south to Seville, pronounced “Sa-vi-a”. We were going to Morón AB. At ZAB lots of folks had called it Moron, but it was pronounced “Ma-rohn”, named for the nearest village, Morón de la Frontera.
One last thing, “Captain T” went to Torrejón. God bless him.
“7 High”
Recollections of a Combat Defense Squadron “Ramp Rat”
Chapter 8
References
