My Life in England and Supporting NATO

Once again in today’s world we are focusing on Europe and the trauma we face with differing political ideologies that exist in an ever-changing world.  As a young man back  in 1956, I was first introduced to NATO as an Air Force pilot while deployed to the UK in support of our commitment to NATO and European defense against the forces of the Soviet Union during what was known as the Cold War. 

It was a confusing time, and I didn’t fully grasp the situation and the complexities associated with maintaining world peace.  All I remember was sitting in an aircraft loaded with a nuclear device and listing to the aircraft radio waiting for direction regarding a target and who would the enemy be.  Was it the British, the French, or the Russian’s?  

We knew there was a squabble between the Britts and the French over control of the Suez cannel and we had a briefing that the Russians were massing on the Turkish border.  We were briefed that we may be going to war, and we needed to identify our next of kin and write a brief note with our money and identification enclosed and give it to the Operations Officer.  Well, that seemed to clear up after about 24 hours and the worlds negotiators resolved the issue without our war.  After that I went back to being part of the Strategic defense force fighting the Cold War. 

After a few more years in SAC, I was assigned to a Medium Tactical Bomb Wing in the UK.  In 1960, my wife and I moved to England to be a part of the 47^th Bomb Wing located at RAF Sculthorpe near Newbery England.  We were there as part of the 3^rd Air Force and the U.S. commitment to NATO’s obligation to defend Europe and the UK against hostile Eastern European countries involved in the Cold War.  There were F-84’s in France and Germany, F-100’s in the UK and our B-66B bombers in the UK.  All were part of the NATO Force that represented the United States first strike capability dedicated to NATO.  And the Cold War went on. 

        We took our commitment seriously and honed our response capability frequently.  While we lived on the Base, we were required to be an active part of a response capability 24 hours a day.  We took the charge seriously and lived with it to the extent that an alarm horn was installed in the hallway just outside of every crewmember’s home.  Should a strike response be required, the horn was activated, and we responded by rushing to the squadron ready to go to war.  This was a family affair and we developed our family process should the need arise. 

As I remember it this was tested frequently and almost always it was in the middle of the night when we were sound asleep.  In my family, I had my long johns at the bottom of the bed with my socks and boots nearby.  My flying suit was hung on the wardrobe door and my jacket and helmet were at the bottom of the stairs.  While I donned the underwear, boots and flying suit my wife ran to the bottom of the stairs, grabbed the jacket with one arm and the helmet bag ready for me and my arm insertion.  She would have the front door open to facilitate a rapid exit.  I’m sure it looked and was like a rerun of a Dagwood and Blondie cartoon.  But it worked and I would be getting a target briefing with my crew in less than 15 minutes. 

We picked up our parachutes and rode the crew bus to the aircraft where a bomb crew was waiting for us to load a training device, preflight the aircraft and await further instructions.  With the radio on we were given start engines times and taxi instructions.  Sometimes it all stopped and we were graded on our response but there were other times that we closed the hatches, started the engines and taxied to the active runway.  It seems to me that this always happened in the middle of the night and we were half asleep practicing the rote response we trained for on a daily basis.  There were times we taxied to the runway, were cleared into position then told to return to the ramp.  I remember one night the alarm sounded and my wife and I did our thing with perfection.  She opened the front door and fog bellowed into the house like smoke from a smoldering fire.  My thoughts were great, this won’t last long, we won’t be flying in this mess and I can go back home and resume my nights nap. 

After our briefing, the loading exercise and our preflight were completed we ran our checklists and started the engines.  We called for taxi instructions and were given clearance to the active runway.  When I arrived at the departure end of the runway, I was told to take the left side of the runway after another aircraft took the right side.  I could see one runway light ahead of me and knew that was only about 100 feet or so and I was sure we wouldn’t fly in this fog.  The guy on my right was cleared to roll and shortly after, I was cleared to go.  I counted the lights as the started passing on my left and noted that they really were passing fast and I should soon be told to abort and return to the ramp.  Well, I wasn’t and when I looked at the airspeed indicator it read 160 and I knew I was going to fly.  My first response was oh s—t!  I’m going to fly tonight and off I went into the nights swirling fog. 

It was rotate, gear up, flaps up and climb power with a radio frequency change to Anglia Control. Then it was off to Nice, Southern France and our simulated target before returning to fog shrouded ole England.  After that departure and a call to the squadron ops I was told that when we returned, we would get a tanker orbiting Hopton beacon over the North Sea.  I liked aerial refueling and enjoyed the formation flying aspects and challenges it presented.  The tanker would orbit at 22 thousand feet and we could get wet (jet fuel) and dry (no fuel) hookups.  The 2 thousand pounds of fuel we would upload would give us time to practice on the tanker, lots of fun. 

After our successful bomb run on Nice, we turned Northwest, climbed to about 43 thousand feet and enjoyed the ride home.  I was encouraged to find out that the fog was lifting and the refueling area was reported clear so that was going to take some more of the pressure off since the weather worry was gone.  It was a quiet ride home since the French Air Traffic Control was almost always on strike and didn’t communicate with us even if we tried to talk to them.  It was radio silence till we approached the UK and contacted Anglia Control for clearance into the British controlled air space. 

The North Sea is a cold foreboding body of water that washes the shores of Northern England and for those who live there and along the coast of Norfolk County it’s a summer playground.  The natives holiday along the shore and enjoy the rocky beaches and all that the area has to offer.  We lived in the area and enjoyed life on the coast road in the village of West Runton and the sea washed against the cliffs behind our cottage.  At night while in bed we could hear the waves wash the shore and every evening we were comforted by the sound of the RAF flying a reconnaissance mission along the shore in their famous and reliable World War 2 Lancaster.  All of this is a walk through some of the best years of our lives, but I digress and must continue with my story of some memories from our life in England. 

Where was I in this tail of a young pilot’s adventure and reflection on life’s lessons so often learned the hard way? There I was on top of the world at 43 thousand feet and in command of everything around me.  I was flying a jet so high in the sky and at a blistering speed of 480 knots, the world was at my finger tips.  I was approaching the North Sea homing in on Hopton Beacon and looking for a KB-50 tanker somewhere ahead at 22 thousand feet.  I tuned the refueling frequency on the radio and called the tanker to arrange our rendezvous and subsequent refueling.  He as outbound from the beacon about 20 miles east of Hopton and over water.  As I continued out to sea on my Northwest heading, I found the tanker that appeared as a speck over the water so far below.  My heart was pounding with anticipation, anxiety, and my plans for an exciting and spectacular fighter attack on the helpless bomber below. 

What was my plan? I was thinking, thinking about my airplane and it’s capability and the thrill I would have pushing it through the maneuver.  I talked to the navigator who had the tankers beacon painted on his radar and told him that I had a visual on the tanker and would make the descent and subsequent rendezvous visually.  The Gunner was ready with the descent and refueling checklist and just waiting for me to call for it.  Now my descent and refueling plan unfolded.  I decided that it would be fun and exciting to roll the plane over and pull the nose through into a steep dive and do something like what is known as a split S maneuver diving in on the tanker in a fighter like manner, what a thrill I was going to have!  The Navigator and Gunner were behind me, behind an instrument panel and could not see out the forward windscreen.  To my knowledge they didn’t know what I had in mind other than I was to make a visual rendezvous.  As someone once said on TV, “and away we go” and we did.  I rolled the aircraft and pulled the nose through into a near vertical dive and called for the checklist.  The Gunner responded and read Fuel Selector Switch—my response was Takeoff and Land.  This was to ensure the engines feed fuel from all the fuel tanks thus assuring the engines had plenty of fuel.  The fuel selector switch was a wafer switch which rotated either left or right.  One direction was fuel from all tanks and the other direction was fuel for both engines from the forward tank.  Well, you didn’t want to switch to the forward tank because that’s the first tank you empty.  My forward tank was empty.  Obviously I wanted fuel from all the fuel tanks.  Well, it didn’t happen that way.  Ole hotshot Dave in his excitement and anticipation and keeping the tanker in sight while upside down, racing toward the sea, I switched the fuel selector to the forward tank.  Surprise!!! Down I raced screaming through the air toward the North Sea.  It seems that the engines didn’t like this maneuver and decided to go on strike because they had no fuel.  There was a deafening silence as the engine quiet.  Only the rush of an aircraft falling through the air at horrendous speed toward the sea below me and the Gunner reading the checklist echoed in my ears.  I kept telling the Gunner to standby with the checklist and pondered, what do I do now?  First, I uttered my favorite phrase, OH! S—T!  I immediately knew what I had done and knew what I had to do to correct it.  I had to act fast and return the fuel selector to Both Engines All Tanks before the engine generators fell off line.  Thank you Lord I did it.  Then I placed both engine ignition switches to Air Start and all the time the Gunner kept reading the checklist and I kept saying STANDBY.  The throttles were already in the idle position for my eye-popping descent and thank God one engine started.  Still heading for the deep sea I frantically worked to keep the tanker in sight for the rendezvous while doing memory items for an engine relight.  I was closing in on the tanker at some 400 knots when the second engine started.  I was saved and wasn’t going to swim for another day.  The tanker was happy to see me and I hooked up for about 2,000 pounds of fuel.  The tanker said that they had plenty of time so I was offered the opportunity for numerous dry hook ups.  Normally I would have stayed with them and played air refueling but my body wasn’t willing.  I thanked them for the gas but declined sticking around—said I had to RTB (return to base) and thanked them again. 

I headed for the Base and started my approach with a GCA, (Ground Controlled Approach).  There wasn’t any cockpit chatter and I landed safely, deployed the Drag Chute and rolled another 8,000 feet, turned off the runway and parked in the Drag Chute jettison area.  I set the parking brakes and dropped the chute.  The only conversation was checklist challenge and reply.  When I was cleared to the hardstand for parking, I tried to release the parking brakes (to release the parking brake you had to depress the rudder pedals) but couldn’t get my legs and feet to respond.  My legs were bouncing uncontrollably, and my feet were useless.  I’m not sure how long I sat there till I stopped shaking but it seemed like forever.  I had learned a valuable lesson that guided the rest of my flying career.  I was still alive and I knew that my “fun” stupidity had endangered the lives of my two other crew members.  I’m still apologizing for that to this day.  The lesson, THERE ARE OLD PILOTS AND BOLD PILOTS BUT THERE AREN’T ANY OLD, BOLD PILOTS.  This real life story was from my mid-twenties and the lesson guided me for the rest of my flying career.