Silent Warriors, Incredible Courage

by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel

  “That night we briefed for Pyongyang on Honey Bucket Honshos, aircraft number 929. It was supposed to be a paper route, leaflets. I helped load the paper bombs. When we got to the mess hall, we had a message waiting for us: Take your time. When we got back to the airplane, they had yanked the paper bombs and reloaded with M-15 flash bombs. We would follow the 98th Bomb Wing B-29s for a big hit on the railyards near Pyongyang and take poststrike pictures. Fifteen B-29s would be bombing in a bomber stream. By the time the fifteenth bomber was rolling down the runway, we had completed our taxi checklist and done our runup. Everything looked good on takeoff and climbout. As we turned west, I watched the sun set. Soon it was pitch black. We coasted out of Japan twenty-five minutes behind the bomber stream. Engine temperatures and pressures were in the green. We pulled the pins from the fuses of the M-15s and pressurized to 8,000 feet. The gunners test-fired the turrets and ran their in-flight ready checks over the Sea of Japan. We leveled off at 25,000 feet and took up a heading into our target. As we approached, we could see the flashes from the 98th bomb drops. We could also see the searchlights and the flashes from the North Korean flak. Over the initial point, we opened the bomb bay doors and started our photo run. We had some flak, dispensed chaff to mislead their radars, and the flak remained erratic. As we finished our run, the radio operator reported that one M-15 bomb was still in the forward bomb bay. The navigator checked the forward bomb bay and called the pilot over the intercom, ‘The left rack in the forward bay still holds one M-15, hanging nose down from the rear latch.’

  “‘Roger, Nav,’ was Captain Zimmer’s response. ‘Lucky, set up a descent. Depressurize the cabin. Send Sergeant Bjork [the radio operator] into the bay, and have him get rid of the bomb.’

  “Honey Bucket Honshos” RB-29 AC #1929. Pilot Zimmer, copilot Hoyt, navigator LaFrancis, flight engineer Lidard, radio operator Bjork, L. gunner Padova, R. gunner Marshall, tail gunner Robinson, central fire control Riner, and instructor navigator Mickey.

  “‘Yes, Sir,’ I replied. As the flight engineer, my responsibility was the supervision of the enlisted crew members. ‘Sir,’ I called Captain Zimmer, ‘go ahead and head for home. We are in a descent, and I will slowly depressurize the cabin.’ I told the radio operator to go into the bomb bay with the doors open. He started to shake and told me that he couldn’t go out there with the doors open. I looked at him, and I knew the man was so afraid he would kill himself if I forced him to go out there. I called Captain Zimmer and told him that I would go into the bomb bay to get rid of the bomb. When I looked through the port into the bomb bay, I realized that things were worse than I expected. I walked up behind the pilot and told him what I had seen. Every once in a while, the vane on the flash bomb rotated. I had no idea how long that had been going on. If it went off inside our airplane, we would turn into a Fourth of July rocket. It was a magnesium—fifteen million candlepower—bomb. Captain Zimmer accelerated our descent and informed the crew to get ready for a possible overwater bailout. I asked the CFC gunner to come forward through the tunnel and ride in the flight engineer’s seat and attend to the panel while I went into the bomb bay to get rid of the bomb. I then informed the rest of the crew of the situation and what I intended to do. Just then the number three engine started to take oil. I suggested to Captain Zimmer that we shut down number three and feather the prop. One emergency at a time was enough for me. He agreed.

  “I had never been in the bomb bay at night with the doors open. I knew it would be a religious experience. I clipped an oxygen bottle to my flying jacket, adjusted my mask, put a big crescent wrench in one inside pocket, my Stanley screwdriver in the other, pulled on my nylon glove liners, and dropped my flashlight into a leg pocket. When I got to the bulkhead at the hatch into the bomb bay, I pulled a crash ax out of its straps, and I was ready as I was ever going to be. I looked into the bay and decided to walk along a narrow ledge between the bomb rack and the fuselage. I wasn’t going to go down the middle of the bomb bay, over that black nothingness. I removed my backpack parachute. It was decision time. My heart was pounding in my throat. We were at 15,000 feet when I opened the hatch and stared into the black, endless chasm. There was some light from the bomb bay lights, and we were drawing ground fire, which helped to light up the blackness of the night. I went through the hatch slowly, onto the narrow sill, hanging onto handholds. I told myself, ‘Don’t look down.’ Then I said it aloud over and over. About that time I noticed the vane on the huge bomb flipping over almost a full turn. It was windy as a hurricane in the bomb bay. I squeezed my way between the left front rack and the fuselage, hanging onto anything I could grab. I made it to the rear rack.

  “I looked at the shackle holding the bomb and tried my screwdriver in the release slot. I couldn’t turn it. I tried to turn the release with my crescent wrench. It wouldn’t move. Then the wrench slipped from my grasp and dropped away into the dark. I hacked at the shackle three or four times with the crash ax before it too spun off into the night. I wedged my twelve-inch Stanley into the latch of the shackle, and, holding the shaft with my left hand, I planted my left foot on the handle. I hung on for dear life with my right hand and pushed with my foot. Suddenly, the shackle released, and the M-15 disappeared into the night. I started to count as the bomb left the shackle—one thousand, two thousand, three thousand. At the count of fifteen thousand, a brilliant flash of white filled the darkness below and behind us and stayed bright as the bomb fell away. I gave a hand signal to the navigator to close the bomb bay doors. When they whoosh-whumped closed, I struggled my way back through the hatch and into the ship. Once on the intercom, I informed Captain Zimmer that I was repressurizing to get some heat in the aircraft and to let us remove our oxygen masks. I suggested to Captain Zimmer that we restart number three so we would have four engines for landing, but it wouldn’t turn. We were at 11,000 feet over the Sea of Japan. I set up three-engine cruise and realized I was shaking and soaked in sweat.

  “By the time we arrived at Yokota, I had recovered my sense of immortality and joked over the intercom about having to pay for the crescent wrench and the crash ax. Captain Zimmer laughed and called for the before-landing checklist, and then he added, ‘We’ll go to town tomorrow for dinner, Lucky, and I am buying.’”

  A B-29 bomber of the 19th Bombardment Group, 1950, based at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, with typical nose artistry. After F-86 fighters, B-29s had the highest number of MiG-15 kills in the Korean War. However, the MiGs also took their toll of the bombers, forcing them to night operations only. Over the period of the Korean War from July 1950 until July 1953, the 19th SRS flew 1,995 reconnaissance sorties by RB-45C, RB-29, and RB-50 aircraft.

  Lidard indeed counts himself lucky to have survived this experience in the bomb bay of a B-29 bomber. After retiring from the air force, “Lucky” settled in California—until he was called “West” to join his flying buddies who had gone before him. Courage has so many faces—one of them was named Arthur “Lucky” Lidard, master sergeant, United States Air Force.

  THE 19TH TACTICAL RECONNAISSANCE SQUADRON (1955)

  The RB-45C was powered by the early model of the J-47 engine. The engine had to be pulled every 25 hours of flying time for a complete overhaul. I was right over the spot where a friend of mine had crashed two weeks earlier. My number 3 engine seized. Flipped us over. Scared the hell out of me. I rammed the power back up and rolled it level. My navigator called, “You son of a bitch, what are you doing up there? I got her down safely.

  —Colonel Harold R. Austin, in Wolfgang W. E. Samuel, I Always Wanted to Fly

  In July 1953, with the signing of the armistice agreement leading to a ceasefire in Korea, the RB-45C reconnaissance detachment at Yokota Air Base deactivated. The aircraft returned to their home base in Columbus, Ohio, and shortly thereafter transferred to the Tactical Air Command. SAC’s focus when it came to reconnaissance was the new RB-47 configured to do both photographic and electronic reconnaissance. The RB-47E photographic version of the B-47 bomber ca
rried the same camera suite carried by the RB-45C, so there was no loss in capability; and there were just too few of the RB-45s for SAC to continue to operate them. However, USAFE’s 47th Bombardment Wing at RAF Sculthorpe in the United Kingdom was equipped with B-45 bombers, so it made sense for the tactical air force to operate this small number of reconnaissance aircraft and co-locate them with the B-45 bombers. The former SAC aircraft first transferred to Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, where they had their tail guns reinstalled and the aircraft underwent an inspection and repair cycle. Then the plan called for the aircraft to be flown to RAF Sculthorpe, where they would be assigned to the 19th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, attached to the 47th Bombardment Wing.

  In early 1954, the 19th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, Night Photo Jet, from Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, flying former SAC RB-45Cs, and led by its new commander, Major John B. Anderson, flew its aircraft en masse via Goose Bay, Labrador, and Reykjavik Air Station, Iceland, to RAF Sculthorpe. The planes arrived at Sculthorpe on May 8. Major Anderson and the 19th TRS aircrews were met and greeted by Colonel David M. Jones, the 47th Bomb Wing commander. Colonel Jones, soon to be promoted to brigadier general, was a World War II veteran of the Pacific and European Theaters of Operation. Jones, then a captain, was the pilot of aircraft number 5 of James Doolittle’s Raiders—the air raid that changed the war in the Pacific. He later flew B-25s in North Africa, was shot down over Bizerte, Tunisia, and became a POW in Stalag Luft III, a camp near which I grew up as a little boy. The 19th was attached to the 47th Bomb Wing, with its three squadrons of B-45A/C bombers and one squadron of KB-29 tankers, probably the most powerful air wing stationed at the time in continental Europe. The attachment of the 19th was purely for reasons of aircraft maintenance and supply—operational control of the squadron resided with the 3rd Air Force, headquartered at South Ruislip Air Station, near London. Soon, the 19th TRS crews were involved in extensive photo mapping of Europe. One of its members was Captain Francis T. Martin Jr., a radar navigator with extensive combat experience in the RB-45C over North Korea, Communist China, and Russia. His former pilot, Sam Myers, entered RB-47 conversion training after their tour of duty in Japan ended. Frank chose to remain with the RB-45 program. A welcome assignment to England allowed Frank to take along his family, and made it an easy choice for him to stay with the RB-45.

  Francis, who went by Frank, was a farm boy, born in 1928 in Roslindale, Massachusetts. “While I was still in high school, my family moved to the country, to Medway, where my father and I raised chickens for eggs and meat. We had a rabbi kill the chickens, and I had a delivery route in Boston where we sold kosher food. I continued to commute to Boston to finish my schooling. The war got everyone interested in aviation, particularly us youngsters. My father had been a torpedo man in submarines in the First World War, and several of my uncles served either in the army or navy during the war with Spain, in the Philippine insurrection, and the First World War. I wanted to become a navy flyer, so I joined the navy. Then the war ended, and they just discharged our whole class. At age eighteen I decided I wanted to start a career in photography. I heard that the Army Air Forces would give you your base of choice if you enlisted, so I did. In 1946, I was sent to the photo school at Lowry Field, in Denver, Colorado. When I graduated, I stayed there as an instructor. I really enjoyed air force life, so I decided to try again and applied for pilot training through the aviation cadet program. It turned out I had insufficient depth perception, disqualifying me, but I was offered a slot in the navigator aviation cadet program, which had just opened at Ellington Field in Texas. I graduated in 1951 and continued with my training, qualifying as a bombardier/radar navigator. Since I had expressed an interest in photography, I was assigned to the 322nd Reconnaissance Squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The squadron flew the new RB-45C photo reconnaissance jet. Within weeks of my arrival at Barksdale, the squadron transferred to Lockbourne Air Force Base near Columbus, Ohio.

  “At Lockbourne I was quickly checked out in the RB-45. The Korean War was in full swing, and by December 1951 I was flying photo reconnaissance out of Yokota Air Base, Japan, over North Korea. That time I flew twenty-one combat missions. Upon my return to Lockbourne I ended up on Sam Myers’s crew, and I went back to Yokota with him for a second combat tour. Our missions were pretty straightforward, mostly day photo missions over North Korea. There was a small percentage of special missions. On several of those we flew up the Yalu River from Antung [Dandong] until we could see Vladivostok. The pilots could actually see the MiGs taking off at Vladivostok, but the MiGs could never catch us. On the daylight missions up the Yalu we always had navy fighter escorts, F9F Panthers. Then we flew night-radar deep penetration missions into China as far as Mukden [Shenyang]. Other missions, day and night, we flew along the Kurile Island chain and along Sakhalin Island. For the night missions we flew aircraft number 8027—the black bird. Some of us got jumped by MiGs near the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin. The B-45s made out all right, but some of the others in our squadron, the slower RB-29s, didn’t do so well.” On June 13, 1952, an RB-29 flying out of Yokota Air Base was shot down over the Sea of Japan by Russian fighters with the loss of twelve crew members. Another RB-29 was downed on October 7 near the Kurile Islands with the loss of eight, followed by a third RB-29, downed on January 12, 1953, over Manchuria. Three more crew members died. The RB-29 reconnaissance crews from Yokota Air Base were taking a real beating, frequently not escorted by fighters, flying alone, and very vulnerable. In contrast, the RB-45 and RF-86 jets could usually out climb and outrun Russian and Chinese Communist fighters, as a result only losing that lone RB-45C on December 4, 1950.

  Martin continued, “In January 1953 I transferred to TAC, along with our airplanes. Most of the RB-45 crews of the 19th TRS at Shaw Air Force Base came from Lockbourne. When all of the RB-45s finally arrived from SAC and had their tail guns reinstalled, the squadron went into an accelerated training program. In May 1954 we transferred to RAF Sculthorpe, and I stayed there until 1958. We had less than twenty airplanes in the squadron and had some supply problems with spare parts. Everybody was saying we couldn’t do our mission. So, two or three times we got the entire squadron off the ground, every airplane, to show that we could do our mission. In June, only a month after our arrival at Sculthorpe, one of our aircraft set a record for the most flying time in the B-45 for a thirty-day period—108 flying hours. We did a lot of photo-mapping in Europe, Norway for example. That was very difficult because of the steep mountains rising sharply from sea level to thousands of feet. If we had a camera focused for sea level, it wouldn’t be in focus for higher up. When you do mapping work, they get very, very stringent. It was a difficult mission for us, but we did it. We did some work in North Africa too, and we even did some archaeology work for some of the colleges in England to help them with their digs. From the air we could see outlines which were not readily discernible on the ground.

  Sam Myers, Frank Martin’s pilot, at Yokota Air Base, Japan, in 1951. Martin, as the navigator, sat in the nose of the aircraft and did not have an ejection seat, so it was nearly impossible for him to get out of the aircraft in an emergency.

  “On March 27, 1955, my squadron flew three deep-penetration missions over the Soviet Union. The pilots were Major John B. Anderson, our squadron commander, and Captains Howard B. Grigsby and Robert A. Schamber. I was the radar navigator on Anderson’s aircraft. Our copilot was First Lieutenant John D. Flynn, and our gunner was Technical Sergeant Lee W. Bryant. The aircraft with the longest route, which was ours, had to recover in Germany for refueling. We didn’t have enough fuel to make it back to Sculthorpe. Our routes were essentially the same as those flown by the Royal Air Force in 1952 and 1954. Our mission planning was highly classified, very secret. We did not know the routes of the other crews. It was all kept very quiet. Somebody else did all the map preparation and planning for us. We just took what Intelligence gave us. We didn’t know until the last minute where we were going.”<
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  At the time when Anderson’s crew was planning their overflight of the Soviet Union, I was assigned as an airman at Detachment 2 of the 28th Weather Squadron. My duty station was outside the air base in the small nearby village of South Creek, where the 47th Bomb Wing command post was located, and other essential wing elements necessary to command and control the wing during emergencies. Our weather detachment did not provide daily weather briefings to the aircrew; rather, our function was to look at the bigger picture and provide weather forecasts to commanders and planners, and to the B-45A bomber crews sitting on nuclear alert. So, being a German speaker, I found myself translating old German weather records for countries east of West Germany—of course having no idea why I was asked to do that. None of us at the detachment knew about the overflight when it took place, or learned of it afterward. No one talked about things like that.