“We did lose one of our aircraft. Captain Hill was flying in the local area when his engine flamed out and would not restart. He elected to eject instead of trying a dead-stick landing. USAFE gave us another aircraft, an F-100C, so we could continue our training. We had other incidents. Major Dowdy’s brake chute deployed at 50,000 feet in afterburner. The chute burned off before he could release it. I took my last RF-100A flight on June 27, 1958. Then we closed out our operation in Europe. Captain Hill transferred to B-47s, later to U-2s. Major Dowdy and I went off to Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. I heard later that our two remaining Slick Chick aircraft were transferred to another country in Asia for overflight purposes.”
The F-100 was the mainstay of the tactical forces during the so called Cold War years, deployed both in Europe and Asia. The famed high-speed Misty FACs flying out of Danang Air Base, South Vietnam, flew F-100 two-seaters, built as trainers but employed in the Forward Air Controller role, and produced several US Air Force future chiefs of staff and major air command commanders. The two-seat F-100 was also the initial choice for the Wild Weasel mission to kill North Vietnamese SAM sites; however, it was soon replaced by the more survivable and lethal F-105.
PROJECT HOME RUN: RB-47S OVER SIBERIA (1956)
To this day, the SAC Thule missions remain one of the most incredible demonstrations of professional aviation skill ever seen in any military organization at any time.
—R. Cargill Hall, “The Truth about Overflights”
The Cold War had some truly cold aspects to it, speaking from a climatological perspective. Waged from air bases near or above the Arctic Circle, the US long-range reconnaissance war against the Soviet Union was essential to ensure national security. The two principal air bases from which the polar reconnaissance missions were flown were Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska, just above the Arctic Circle; and Thule Air Base, on Danish Greenland, at approximately 78 degrees north latitude, on Baffin Bay. Both man and machine were put to severe tests in winter. Flyers and maintenance men who served in these inhospitable climes never forgot the conditions under which they had to get aircraft ready to fly, especially at Thule. Cold froze the inside of the nose when anyone stepped out of a vehicle or a building. Vehicle tires shattered like glass. Static electricity dogged nearly every move made in the dry Arctic air. In temperatures below minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit, the simplest function became difficult to execute. Closing a valve, or opening a hatch—operations that under normal conditions required little thought—became difficult to perform and were carefully planned. Aircraft landing at Thule could close the airfield with ice fog for hours or even days at a time. To maintain aircraft in such a hostile environment and to fly them routinely were challenges that required skill, perseverance, and a little bit of luck. Cabin fever, combined with deep boredom, became another enemy. Given enough time and the right circumstances, such conditions could drive a man to the edge of his sanity.
At Thule, the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing maintained Operating Location 5, OL-5, in support of its standard PARPRO electronic reconnaissance flights. A comparable setup existed at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, where the 55th SRW maintained OL-3. From these two locations, the 55th SRW launched year-round electronic reconnaissance flights to maintain and update the Radar Order of Battle, ROB, maintained at SAC headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. Life in the remote and hostile Arctic world was controlled by the environment. Each building at Thule was built like a cold storage vault, with large ice house–type doors and three-foot-thick walls perched on three-foot-high pillars. Many buildings had their own water supply, delivered by truck and pumped into freshwater tanks. Water used for washing was drained into an intermediate tank and then reused to flush toilets. The final waste was eventually pumped into a truck and shipped out. In the spring, snow and ice melted, including mounds of frozen human waste from truck spills and water that had accumulated as a result of the constant drip, drip, drip from access pipes. The ensuing putrid smell often pervaded the entire air base. Colonel Joseph “Joe” Gyulavics, an RB-47H pilot and close friend who flew out of Thule on several occasions, put it this way: “It was pretty gruesome living.”
Water was a precious commodity and used sparingly when the winds were blowing. It wasn’t that water was scarce; to the contrary, there was plenty available from a nearby freshwater lake. The problem was delivery. Water was delivered by truck. When the winds were blowing, or the base was closed by ice fog, the trucks could not operate, and each building had to make do with what water was available in its tanks. Showers were short. None of the routine luxuries of the lower forty-eight states applied at Thule. Going to the toilet was frequently a dreaded undertaking. Manual flap-valve pumps were used to pump wastewater into the toilet. The user then had to manually pump the waste into a tank. This required frequent opening and closing of the valves, and the pumps frequently backfired and splattered waste onto the individual. The only flush toilet in Thule was in the Officers’ Club, which didn’t open until three o’clock in the afternoon. Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Bailey, a 55th Wing Raven who flew out of Thule, recalled, “We sat around with our legs crossed, miserable, in pain, and unable to stand straight when the time came, waiting for the club to open—just to use that one, regular toilet.”
Another Thule phenomenon was the suddenly arising winds, referred to as phases. The intensity of the Arctic winds was defined in terms of their velocity—Phase I, II, III, and IV. Phase IV winds were the most dangerous, threatening human life and requiring outdoor activity to come to an immediate halt. Phase II and III winds closed down flying operations, and Phase I winds resulted in a warning to aircrews attempting to land at Thule. In actuality, any phase usually resulted in the closing of the base and outdoor activity coming to a halt. It wasn’t just the winds that closed the base but also the accompanying loss of visibility due to blowing snow, and the danger of freezing to death. The transition from lower to higher wind velocities could occur quickly. An effective warning system was devised by using the base radio station, KOLD, which operated twenty-four hours a day. Everyone working outside carried a small, portable radio to receive warnings. Phase wind warnings and freeze notices were announced on KOLD. Warnings such as “Flesh will begin to freeze in forty-five seconds” were common. Warnings considered not only the outside air temperature but also the wind chill factor. In anticipation of the sudden occurrence of a phase, every building was stocked with water and emergency food. Once a phase hit, it was nearly impossible to go anywhere.
Colonel Joseph Gyulavics, far left, and his crew of copilot, radar navigator, and three Ravens (the guys who sat in a capsule located in the former bomb bay and operated the electronic receivers and direction finders to locate Russian radar sites) in front of their RB-47H electronic reconnaissance aircraft. Silver King was a modification program that upgraded the electronics used by the Ravens. This crew photo was taken at Forbes Air Force Base four years after Project Home Run was flown.
The final hazard at northern locations such as Thule was psychological. The dark season played with a man’s mind. At 77 degrees north latitude, darkness was a significant factor. “Some people,” noted Colonel Charles Phillips, “suffered severe psychological problems during the November–February period when near total darkness prevailed. On the shortest day of the year, December 21–22, if the weather was clear, I could see a glimmer of light to the south for a few minutes at noon. Otherwise it was dark around the clock.” Colonel Gyulavics recalled, “We had slot machines in the Officers’ Club which could keep people busy for hours. And there were free movies every night. But it got to where we didn’t even bother to go to see a movie anymore. We adapted as best we could. A few came close to the edge, but I am not aware of anyone actually breaking under the stress of living at Thule.”
KOLD-TV and radio station at Thule Air Base, Greenland. A life saver for many caught outside by a suddenly arriving high-velocity wind storm.
Recalled Lieutena
nt Colonel Lloyd Fields at the 2001 Early Cold War Overflights Symposium, “I always wanted to be a pilot. As a boy on a tobacco farm in Georgia I could see airplanes flying overhead and wondered what it would be like to fly one of those aerial machines. In high school I acted on my dream and went down to the army recruiting office to find out what it took to become a pilot. I learned I needed two years of college. Thereafter my goal was to get a college education and make my dream come true. During my second year in college in 1941, I signed up for a government-sponsored pilot training program. After thirty-five hours of flight time I received my private pilot’s license. About the same time, an Army Air Corps recruiting team visited the campus, and I signed up. At age twenty, on July 12, 1941, I entered the Army Air Corps. Flight training took place at the usual places in Texas, and after I received my wings and was commissioned a second lieutenant I was assigned to the 305th Bomb Group, Heavy, at Salt Lake City, Utah. Equipped with B-17s, the group was commanded by a demanding Colonel Curtis E. LeMay. In 1943, the 305th Group participated in some of the roughest aerial combat then known to man over occupied Europe and Germany. After completing twenty-five combat missions, I returned to the United States to train B-17 crews scheduled to fly over Germany. At the end of the war I flew for a while for American Airlines until the summer of 1947, when I was offered a regular commission and returned to active duty. I was assigned to MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida, flying B-17s and B-29s equipped with special reconnaissance cameras. [Colonel Fields was assigned to the 55th Reconnaissance Group at MacDill, the same group that Colonel Marion ‘Hack’ Mixson was assigned to at that time.] We photomapped large parts of the United States and South America.
“In 1950 I began training to fly the new swept-wing six-engine B-47 bomber. Although I was assigned to the 367th Bombardment Squadron, again at MacDill Air Force Base, because of my reconnaissance background I soon found myself involved in a top secret overflight mission in 1952, flying as the copilot of Colonel Patrick Fleming. On October 15, 1952, Colonel Don Hillman overflew the Chukotskiy Peninsula of Siberia. Colonel Fleming and I overflew Wrangel Island, then I served as Fleming’s backup. Both of our aircraft were modified B-47B bombers. In late January 1956, I was stationed at Lockbourne Air Force Base, near Columbus, Ohio, flying RB-47E photo reconnaissance aircraft with the 10th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron. I was summoned to the office of Colonel William J. Meng, the commander of the 26th SRW. I commanded the 10th SRS, and the wing as a whole was part of the 801st Air Division commanded by Brigadier General Hewitt T. Wheless. When I arrived in Colonel Meng’s office, he asked me to be seated, then he asked the vice wing commander and his secretary to leave. After their departure, he advised me that General LeMay, the SAC commander, had directed him to select one RB-47E reconnaissance squadron of sixteen aircraft [fifteen squadron aircraft plus one spare] to perform a special mission. He added that our photo reconnaissance aircraft would be augmented by four RB-47H electronic reconnaissance aircraft from the 55th SRW at Forbes Air Force Base in Topeka, Kansas. All of the aircraft would proceed to Thule, Greenland. The special mission involved reconnaissance overflights of the Soviet Union—and the assignment would be voluntary. The question posed by Colonel Meng: ‘Would you volunteer your squadron?’ My response: ‘I would be pleased to volunteer my squadron.’ I had no doubt that Colonel Meng knew I would immediately volunteer and that I had participated in the overflight of Wrangel Island and the Chukotskiy Peninsula flown on October 15, 1952.
“Colonel Meng decided we needed to make a survey trip to Thule. Because I had flown the 1952 mission over Soviet territory, I basically knew what to expect. The code name assigned to this mission was Home Run. Its purpose was to conduct photo and electronic reconnaissance of the Soviet Arctic from Banana Island, as we referred to it because of its shape, Novaya Zemlya, to the Bering Strait. We proceeded to Thule by way of Goose Bay, Labrador, in early February 1956. Thule Air Base is north of the magnetic North Pole and only about seven hundred nautical miles from the geographic North Pole. It is the northernmost operational air base on earth, located close to an Eskimo village of the same name. We arrived at Thule in midafternoon, but the place was cloaked in total darkness as the sun had set around November 15, the previous year, and was not scheduled to rise again until February 15, 1956, a few days after our arrival. When we landed, the temperature was minus 42 degrees, which is pretty cold for a Georgia boy who had never even seen a flake of snow until he was twenty-one years old.
“We found Thule to be a compact and efficient place, home to about 3,200 officers and airmen. On arrival, we received a briefing and orientation by the base commander. I made the mistake of asking why all the Arctic parkas had big numbers on the back and was told that some of the parkas had ended up being worn by female Eskimos. Base officials subsequently identified each GI parka with a serial number on the back, and if it went missing, you better had reported it stolen. We completed our initial survey and returned to Lockbourne in mid-February, training intensively for the next four weeks. On March 21, 1956, we arrived at Thule Air Base with sixteen RB-47Es and four RB-47Hs from the 55th SRW.” Two of the 55th SRW crews came from the 38th SRS, and two came from the 343rd SRS, the squadron I later flew with for five years starting with the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. All told, twenty RB-47 reconnaissance aircraft and twenty-seven KC-97 refueling tankers operated out of Thule during Operation Home Run, a small base not designed for traffic of this magnitude—yet the air and maintenance crews made it work.
“During the first week at Thule,” Lloyd Fields continued to describe his participation in Project Home Run, “all of the aircrews underwent Arctic survival training in case we had to bail out or were shot down. We learned how to build igloos and how to obtain water using slow-burning candles. I was surprised how warm an igloo could be. We also found that flight operations at Thule required careful navigation and fuel conservation. The closest suitable alternate airfield in the event of an emergency was approximately 1,200 nautical miles away at Goose Bay, Labrador. Although there was a closer emergency field at a nearby Danish weather station, it was just an airstrip with no supporting facilities of any kind. I was in charge of the 10th SRS aircrew and equipment, but not the KC-97 contingent out of Lockbourne. Major George Brown provided the briefings on assigned overflight targets. Weather support was provided by a SAC team of meteorologists, which was absolutely outstanding. Soon after completing our survival training, we began flying our first missions.”
A flight of KC-97 refueling tankers on their way toward the Home Run refueling area.
Thule-based reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union were long and required abundant tanker support. “At times, we took off from Thule and recovered at Eielson Air Force Base. A few days later we would fly a mission in reverse and recover at Thule,” Joe Gyulavics recalled. “‘Long’ means that the flights were over nine hours in duration. Over nine hours meant that the aircrew had to sit in their ejection seats for that entire period of time. Tanker support was provided by KC-97 refueling aircraft. For a reconnaissance mission flying over the polar ice cap to reach its targets in the Laptev and Kara Seas usually required the support of several KC-97s. Refueling was critical. We launched up to five tankers an hour before we took off, to be able to take the fuel off of at least three of them. One tanker usually developed engine problems and had to turn around before he got to the refueling area. Sometimes two wouldn’t make it. I worked out light signals with the tanker crews, since we never used our radios on these flights, so if I met one or two of them heading back prematurely, I would get behind them and get whatever fuel they could offload. At the final refueling point, high over the polar ice cap, they could only give us 10,000 pounds each if they wanted to make it back to Thule themselves. On the return leg we didn’t refuel, so we had to have enough fuel to make it back on our own. To rely on a refueling on the way back was too risky because of possible high winds and ice fogs. We loved our tanker buddies, who were always there when we
needed them. They could only surmise what we were doing or where we were going, but they knew that after flying ten hours or more we had covered at least 5,000 nautical miles.”
Of course everything relating to overflights of the Soviet Union went through the hands of Major General Roger Rhodarmer, then a lieutenant colonel on the Air Staff, the “legman” for overflights wherever they took place, regardless of aircraft type. He recalled at the Early Cold War Overflights Symposium, “It was the spring of 1956, we were expecting to hear about a big overflight from Thule, Greenland, across Siberia, to Fairbanks, Alaska. It was Friday afternoon, late, and I got a call from the Special Security Office telling me that I had a message. I went over, and the message was about a big flight of RB-47 aircraft into Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. But the numbers of aircraft involved were numbers we had never discussed, beyond anything anyone in the Pentagon had considered. So I called General [Frank] Everest’s executive officer to see if the general was still in his office. He was. I went over and knocked on his door, opened it, and Everest was sitting there dictating. He looked up and said, ‘What the hell do you want?’ I said, ‘Sir, SAC is going with fourteen aircraft to Eielson.’ He said, ‘What?’ And he jumped up and headed for the map on the wall so I could show him the route. ‘That’s way too many, too many. We can’t do that.’ He punched the red phone and reached General [William H.] Blanchard at SAC headquarters. They jawed for a minute, and Everest got him to cut the number of aircraft in half. The first number scared Everest and me, that the Soviets might go to war over this kind of big overflight. I prepared and sent a code-worded message to Thule, Greenland, where the operation originated from. In a single mission flown on May 6 and 7, 1956, six RB-47s took off from Thule, flew in daylight over the North Pole into northeastern Siberia, and continued at 40,000 feet, exiting Soviet airspace over Anadyr on the Bering Sea. The flight was remarkably successful. We learned a lot from this flight, and not just from the photography. We learned that the Soviet air defenses in the far north were not too well connected. Of course it didn’t take the Soviets long to put it together afterward.”
Silent Warriors, Incredible Courage Page 21
