Air force pilots fly whatever airplane they are given. In a period of one year, the 91st SRW lost eight of thirty-three B-45 aircraft assigned, 24 percent of the force. In most cases, all aboard the doomed aircraft perished. This was the sort of attrition that flying units experienced in combat in Korea and later in Vietnam. But this was peacetime flying in the early 1950s. Austin coped with day-to-day stress by focusing on those aspects of the airplane that gave him pleasure, and the RB-45C was a pleasure to fly when compared to any piston-engine powered aircraft of the day.
Men such as Hal Austin were trained to fly anywhere, anytime, and prevail, no questions asked. Hal’s turn came on May 8, 1954. By 1949, Austin had become a charter member of the newly formed and rapidly expanding Strategic Air Command flying the RB-45C reconnaissance aircraft, first out of Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, and later out of Lockbourne AFB, Ohio. In those early years, Hal frequently deployed to England. “Flying was a thrill in the nearly empty skies of postwar Europe,” Austin wistfully recalled. “I never made more than two or three radio calls on an entire mission. In between those two or three calls I flew at whatever altitude I chose. One of my jobs was photo mapping the Rhine River basin and Spain. What a way to see Europe. In 1953, I transitioned from the RB-45C to the RB-47E. It was a sleek aircraft with swept-back wings, a raised cockpit which provided fighter-like visibility, and lots of speed. I loved flying the B-47. It was an aircraft of advanced design which eliminated many of the troublesome shortcomings of the RB-45C.”
RB-45 APPROACH SPEEDS GEAR AND FULL FLAPS
RB-45C approach/stall speed chart, displayed in the squadron mission planning area, with gear down and full flaps. The aircraft’s empty weight was 50,687 pounds; takeoff weight with a full fuel load was 110,721 pounds. The planes used J47-7 to -15 engines with 5,000 pounds of thrust.
In April 1954, Crew S-51, a select aircrew, of the 91st SRW, consisted of Captain Harold Austin, his copilot Captain Carl Holt, and Major Vance Heavilin, the radar navigator who sat in the nose of the aircraft and had to eject downward in an emergency. However, this was a great improvement over the RB-45C, which provided no ejection seat at all for the navigator. Hal’s crew deployed with seven other RB-47E crews that March from Lockbourne to RAF Fairford, near Oxford, England. Fairford was a Battle of Britain base, many of which were used by SAC bombers deployed to England on Reflex. Reflex deployed squadrons of B-47 bombers to bases in Morocco, Spain, and England for periods of three weeks at a time, where the crews sat “alert” for two weeks, and the remaining time was spent on R&R, rest and recreation. C-54 transports were made available to the bomber crews when on R&R to take them anywhere in Europe where they might want to spend their time relaxing. A nice reward for sitting for two weeks in a bunker waiting to respond to the sound of a klaxon. We reconnaissance crew members, time permitting, took advantage of the program and flew on these R&R flights as well; popular destinations being Denmark, the ski areas of Germany and Austria, London, and Spain, for those not pulling Reflex duty in England or Spain. In later years, I flew out of RAF Brize Norton, another Battle of Britain base.
RB-47E reconnaissance aircraft refueling from a KC-97 tanker. The KC-97 tanker squadrons were usually part of a wing, providing support to their own B/RB-47 aircraft. That relationship, of the men knowing each other, would save the life of Hal Austin’s crew on an upcoming overflight mission.
Hal Austin and his crew spent a couple of weeks familiarizing themselves with the local area by flying short training flights. There was enough off time for the crews to enjoy the nearby historical sites near Oxford, and of course London. The Columbia Officers’ Mess, donated during the war by a patriotic and generous Englishman, fronted Bayswater Road across from Hyde Park. Speaker’s Corner was within walking distance, as were many of London’s noteworthy tourist attractions. There was no better, certainly no cheaper, place for aircrews to stay in London, and Hal and his crew took full advantage of the opportunity. The 55th Wing reconnaissance crews came through England so frequently that for long periods we had a suite of rooms reserved at the Columbia Club just for us. Fairford’s March weather was exceptionally bad in 1954, and the eight RB-47E photo reconnaissance aircraft were recalled to Lockbourne after only two weeks. During that period, however, they flew long-range reconnaissance training missions as far north as Spitsbergen, high above the Arctic Circle. Hal Austin and his crew, accompanied by five other RB-47s, returned to Fairford that April and again were directed to plan a flight to Spitsbergen.
On May 6, 1954, only days after the Russian’s May Day Parade in Moscow and the overflights of what appeared to be more than a hundred Bison and Badger jet bombers, Austin’s aircraft and the five other RB-47 aircraft took off in the early-morning hours for their distant target. The countryside reverberated from the throaty roar of powerful jet engines until all six B-47s had faded into the morning mist, leaving behind a shroud of black smoke, covering the base, caused by the water-alcohol injection into their engines to gain an additional 1,000 pounds of thrust per engine. Slower KC-97 tankers had departed earlier that night to meet them at a prearranged rendezvous point off the coast of Norway. That evening at the local pub, some older Englishmen confessed that they thought World War III had started when they heard the Yank airplanes taking off.
The six RB-47Es were outfitted with the same camera suite as their RB-45C predecessor. They flew in loose trail formation, called Station Keeping, on a great circle route north out of England. Past the Faroes, over open ocean, the bombers refueled from their waiting KC-97 tankers and continued northward between Ian Mayen and Bear Islands until reaching their target area. When they turned their cameras on, the navigators noted in their logs that they were at 80 degrees north latitude, where the ice never melts. They were only miles from Franz Josef Land and just a few minutes’ flying time east of their target, Spitsbergen. The small crew of the lone Soviet Knife Rest early-warning radar on Franz Josef Land must have come to life when the American RB-47s showed up on their radar screens. The 3,500-mile flight took nearly nine hours of flying in an ejection seat, a seat not built for personal comfort but for saving lives in an emergency. On returning to Fairford, the crews slid down the aluminum access ladders from their cramped cockpits, feeling every bone in their bodies, or so it seemed. Time for a good stretch, a hot shower, and a “yard-of-ale” at the officers’ mess. But maintenance logs and numerous chores had to be completed before the flyers could leave the smell of JP4 jet fuel behind them. Austin and his crew didn’t know that the feint they had just flown over Spitsbergen, and the one earlier in March, were major rehearsals for a mission Austin and his crew were slated to fly two days later, on May 8. They also did not know that three RB-45Cs, manned by British aircrews, had flown a night reconnaissance mission deep into the western Soviet Union only ten days earlier. Russian air defense commanders had been fired as a result of not shooting down those planes, and in case of another overflight the Russians could be expected to pull out all stops.
“In the early morning hours of May 8, Carl, Vance, and I had an ample breakfast at the club. We stopped by the in-flight kitchen on our way to the secure briefing area to pick up three box lunches and two thermos bottles filled with hot coffee. It was going to be just one more training mission,” Austin thought. “We intended to pick up our charts and then go out to the aircraft for preflight, have a short cigarette break, and get ready to launch. As we entered the secure briefing facility, we were met by our wing commander, Colonel Joe Preston. ‘What does he want?’ I thought. The colonel turned to me and said, ‘Please follow me.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied. We followed Colonel Preston into a classified briefing room built for target study for bomber crews, providing security from sophisticated listening devices. Colonel Preston held the door for us as we entered the room, which was definitely out of the ordinary. He closed the door behind us and left. In the briefing room were two colonels from SAC Headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The colonels had no smiles on their faces and immedia
tely got down to business. One of them, a navigator, handed Heavilin a strip map. We looked it over and saw where our flight was to take us—over the Kola Peninsula past Murmansk, southeast to Archangel’sk, then southwest before turning west across Finland and Sweden back to Fairford. We were stunned, to put it mildly.
“‘Please sit down gentlemen,’ said the second colonel. He wore pilot wings. Neither of the colonels wore a name tag on their blue Class-A uniforms. ‘I will give you your mission brief, weather, intelligence. You will photograph nine airfields as annotated on your maps.’ Later, I learned that the purpose of the mission was to determine if the Soviets had deployed their new Bison bombers to any of these airfields. ‘You will launch in a stream of six aircraft, just as you did on the sixth. Three aircraft will fly the Spitsbergen route. You and two others will proceed to your turning point one hundred miles north of Murmansk. You, Captain Austin, are number three. The other two will turn back at that point. You will proceed on your preplanned mission. The entire mission from taxi to exit from the hostile area will be flown in complete radio silence—no tower calls, no reporting back when reaching altitude, no radio contact with the tankers, no radio calls if anyone has to abort. Radio silence is essential to the success of this mission.’
“Then the pilot colonel reviewed the weather at the altitudes we were supposed to fly, the camera turn-on points noted on the strip maps, and he briefed us on expected opposition. ‘Only MiG-15s,’ he said. ‘They can’t reach you at 40,000 feet. No contrails are expected to form in the areas you will be passing over.’ That information was important to us if we didn’t want to streak across the sky looking like a Times Square ad. ‘You’ll be flying through a clear airmass. The weather couldn’t be better for this mission.’ The briefing over, Heavilin started to annotate his chart. ‘Don’t do that,’ directed the navigator colonel. ‘Everything you need to know is on those charts.’ The two SAC colonels measured their words carefully, only saying what needed saying. They answered no questions and offered no additional comments. On the way out, one of the colonels reemphasized the need for absolute security before and after we returned from our mission. We could not discuss any aspect of the mission outside a cleared area, we were given to understand, nor with anyone not having a need to know. No talk about the mission, period.
RB-47E overflight route on May 8, 1954. Map courtesy of Harold Austin.
“Colonel Preston met us as we exited the building and drove us to our aircraft. An aircrew was already there, just finishing preflight. From the looks of it, they were none too happy to have been asked to do our job. As they slid down the ladder from the crew compartment, the pilot said to me, ‘The aircraft is cocked’—a bomber term—and he, his copilot, and his navigator walked to their crew car without saying another word and drove off. We climbed into the aircraft and strapped into our seats. Everyone of us was quiet, I recall, tending to our own thoughts.”
Major Heavilin noted that his map had been annotated with radar offset points, such as lakes and other natural and manmade features, that would show well on the radar scope. Austin was number six in line, last for takeoff. “I taxied after number five moved out. Number one lined up at the end of the runway, set his brakes, and ran up his engines. The other five aircraft sat in line on the taxiway, waiting to take their turn on the active. When number one received the green light from the tower, he released his brakes, and the aircraft slowly moved down the runway. The other RB-47Es launched at two-minute intervals, buffeted by the violent jet wash from the preceding aircraft. When I took the active, a trail of black smoke from the exhaust from the other five pointed the way for me.”
A B-47E bomber taking off from RAF Bruntingthorpe. The engine exhaust from a group of B-47s taking off in quick succession would cover the runway area in a black cloud of smoke. The J-47 engine powered the B-45, B-47, and F-86, and was the best there was at the time.
Takeoff data computations were in front of Austin and Holt, strapped to their thighs. They were a team, no longer individuals. Prompts and responses were automatic. As the copilot Holt called the checklist:
“Throttles.”
“Open. All instruments checked,” Austin responded. Austin slowly moved the throttles to 100 percent. The exhaust gas temperatures (EGTs) were within limits, he noted, glancing down the row of gauges on his instrument panel. Fuel flow was stabilized.
“Steering ratio selector lever.”
“Takeoff and land.”
“Start, six lights out.” Austin released the brakes of the shuddering aircraft, which began its slow roll down the 12,000-foot concrete runway. Carl Holt quickly turned left and right and checked the engines. He saw black smoke coming from all six and reported to Austin, “Engines and wings checked.”
They continued their takeoff roll. When the aircraft reached 70 knots, Holt called out, “70 now.”
Heavilin responded, “Hack.”
Fourteen seconds later, their acceleration good, Heavilin called out, “S-One now.” Decision speed—their last chance to ground abort. Austin’s eyes were on their EGT gauges, compass, and airspeed indicator. Temperatures looked good. Speed looked good. They continued their takeoff roll. He held the aircraft down. It wanted to climb because of ground effect before it had sufficient airspeed to sustain flight—a novice trap that had cost lives. Austin could feel the plane grasping for its element. At the 7,500-foot marker, the 180,000-pound aircraft strained to rise, and Austin let it go.
“Unstick,” Austin called. The nose rose slightly, and the aircraft began its long climb heavenward. Climb speed was looking good, Austin noted mentally.
“Landing gear,” Austin called, and Holt placed the gear lever in the up position. They were at 185 knots indicated and gaining speed.
“Flaps.” Holt put the flap lever in the up position and kept his hand on it, simultaneously watching the airspeed. They were at 210 knots at 20 percent flaps, and he continued flap retraction. The aircraft’s nose started to pitch down, but Hal had already cranked in nose-up trim and smoothed out the predictable perturbation.
“Climb speed,” Holt called.
“Climb power set.” Hal set it to 375 knots indicated. They continued with their checklist as they climbed straight ahead to 34,000 feet. Their mission didn’t officially exist. They had filed no flight plan, which was nothing new to understanding British air traffic controllers.
Holt continued to check that the HF radio was on, the APS-54 radar warning receiver was set to the nose/tail position, the chaff dispensers were on, and the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) transponder was on standby. He called, “Altimeters.”
“Set, Pilot.”
“Set Nav.”
They reset their altimeters to 29.92 inches of mercury. When they passed over open water, Holt tested his guns. They fired. “I guess it’s a go,” Holt said over the intercom. Hal clicked his mike button twice on the control column in response. A little more than one hour into their flight, the navigator picked up the tankers on his radar at the briefed air-refueling orbit and gave Hal a heading and altitude. The tanker pilot saw Hal approaching from above and departed the orbit for his refueling track. At the two-mile point, Hal pulled back on the throttles to decrease his rate of closure. They were 500 feet below the tanker and slowly eased in behind the KC-97 Stratocruiser, its four engines churning at maximum power in a slight descent. Hal looked up at the tanker looming ahead and above and moved into the observation position. He watched for light direction from the boom operator—two amber, one green, two red lights on the belly of the KC-97. He saw the forward amber light come on, urging him to move in closer. He moved in slowly. The green light illuminated, and he held his contact position. He could see the boom operator in the tanker flying his boom toward the open refueling receptacle located right in front of Hal’s cockpit window. The aircraft pitched in the wake of the turbulence generated by the KC-97.
An RB-47 reconnaissance aircraft in the process of refueling. This takes some serious flying by the pilot
. The distance between the two aircraft is the length of the refueling boom.
“Contact,” Hal muttered into the mike implanted in his oxygen mask. Normally, he would have said it out in the open over the radio. Not this day. The green light illuminated on the air refueling panel, and Austin and Holt knew they had a good contact. The tanker transferred fuel into the empty tanks of the receiver at the rate of 4,000 pounds a minute until all of the RB-47s internal fuel tanks were filled, causing an automatic pressure disconnect. Hal dropped away from the tanker, saluted the boom operator, and initiated a climb to 34,000 feet to rejoin his two companion aircraft. Three lone RB-47s, high above the cold Atlantic waters. Soon, someone would pick them up on his radar. Time passed slowly, or so it seemed. The aircraft was on autopilot and flew itself. Not much for any of them to do but listen to the static on the HF radio for a possible recall. No recall came. The three aircraft flying in a trail formation turned east toward the Barents Sea. Hal, Carl, and Vance got out their box lunches and ate their ham and turkey sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, drank their cold milk, and put their apples aside to be eaten later, if there was time. They had coffee. They were at 40,000 feet.
“How much further to the turn?” Hall asked his navigator.
“Oh, four minutes and thirty seconds, I’d say,” Vance responded. They put on their oxygen masks, tight. Their compartment was pressurized to 14,000 feet. Should they get hit and lose pressurization, anything loose would be flying into their faces, so they made sure that everything was tied down, buttoned, zipped, or out of the way. “On my command, turn to a heading of 180.” Hal clicked his mike button in response to the navigator’s direction. “Turn now,” the navigator called out to Hal. The big aircraft turned surprisingly easily toward the Kola Peninsula, the Soviet Union. The other two RB-47s who had preceded them made their 180-degree turns to the left, away from land, and headed home. “We coasted in over the Kola Peninsula at 40,000 feet at twelve o’clock noon Greenwich mean time,” said Hal Austin, looking down at the floor when I interviewed him in his comfortable California home. His voice was terse, his facial muscles tight. “We were about 4,000 feet above our optimum altitude for our weight. Our first targets were two large airfields near Murmansk. The navigator turned on his radar cameras at the coast-in point and started the three K-17 large area visual cameras in the bomb bay. The weather was clear as a bell. You could see forever. Perfect picture-taking weather.”
Silent Warriors, Incredible Courage Page 18
