“The Mickey airplane had Curtiss electric props. The electrical motors changed the propeller pitch automatically. With them we could get up to altitude without a lot of prop problems. At high altitude, the conventional props would constantly change their pitch and hunt. Sometimes they would go so fast I thought they’d spin off the airplane. Then I’d shut down the engine and feather the props. The Curtiss props didn’t hunt. They were steady even at forty-three thousand feet. We could get up to that altitude if we burned off enough fuel. We would go as high as the plane would go before we entered China. When we got what we had come for, the Mickey operators would tell us it was all right to turn around. Heading east, we’d pick up the jet stream, and all of a sudden that plane almost turned into a fighter. The trip over took forever, but the trip back didn’t take much time at all.
“My regular photo-recce plane was the Honey Bucket Honshos. The name was painted across the nose of the airplane. My pilot was Captain Zimmer. I was the flight engineer. We would take off from Yokota and head out over the Sea of Japan, climbing all the time. We’d climb maybe two and a half hours, all the way across Korea if we were heading into China. We’d be at forty thousand feet when we penetrated. The Korean missions we flew around twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand feet. The DMZ was always lit up with searchlights. Pyongyang also had a lot of searchlights. When they shot at us, I could see the rounds coming up, looking like corkscrews. The old stuff glowed yellow and didn’t get to our altitude, but the new stuff glowing silver did. Sometimes single MiGs came up and paced us. They seemed to call the altitude down to the AAA. The AAA never shot a barrage at us, only single rounds.
“On June 13, 1952, we were supposed to fly a yoke mission, but it was canceled. I don’t know why. We had already preflighted our airplane and were ready to go. They said that Captain English’s crew could fly part of the yoke and also do photo-recce near Sakhalin. There was no need for two of us to go. Captain English’s flight engineer came over and asked me if he could borrow my watch, since I wasn’t flying—his had quit running. I said OK. He promised to return it as soon as they were down. It was a good automatic watch. It’s probably still running on a skeleton in the Sea of Japan. They got shot down by a Russian fighter near Sakhalin.”
It was grim news but was not totally unexpected by the men of the 91st SRS, who knew that the Russians were touchy around Sakhalin. The navy had lost a P2V six months earlier near Sakhalin. The 91st would lose another RB-29 in October in the Sea of Okhotsk. The unit started with twelve airplanes in late 1950 and with the loss of the two RB-29s, the bean counters at SAC headquarters reduced the squadron’s authorized UE strength to ten aircraft. By 1954, when the remaining RB-29s were replaced with newer RB-50s, only eight of the original twelve remained. Lucky Lidard thought it couldn’t happen to him: “I was young and felt immortal.” But there came a mission in 1952 over North Korea when Lucky nearly lost his belief in his immortality.
“That night we briefed for Pyongyang on Honey Bucket Honshos, aircraft number 929. It was supposed to be a paper route, a leaflet drop. 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 for a big hit on the railroad yards near Pyongyang and take poststrike pictures. Fifteen B-29s would be bombing in a stream. By the time the fifteenth bomber was rolling down the runway, we had completed our taxi checklist and did our run-up. Everything looked good on takeoff and climb out. 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 eight thousand feet. The gunners test fired the turrets and ran their in-flight ready checks over the Sea of Japan. We leveled off at twenty-five thousand feet and took up a heading into our target. As we approached, we could see the flashes from the 98th bomb drop. 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 radar, 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 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,’ he said, ‘set up descent. Depressurize the cabin. Send Sergeant Bjork (the radio operator) into the bay, and get rid of the bomb.’
“ ‘Yes, Sir,’ I replied. As the flight engineer, my responsibility was the supervision of the enlisted crew. ‘Sir,’ I called to Captain Zimmer, ‘go 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 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 over-water 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 told the rest of the crew what our situation was and what I intended to do. Just then, the number three engine started to take oil. I suggested to the pilot 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 as 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 fifteen thousand 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 hung 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 interphone, 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 the pilot that we restart number three so we’d have four engines for landing, but it wouldn’t turn. We were at eleven thousand 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 over 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’m buying.’” Lidard indeed counts himself lucky to have survived his experience in the bomb bay of a B-29. After retiring from the air force, he settled in northern California.
Chapter 10
More Secret Than the Manhattan Project
My first encounter with airplanes and flying was in 1929, I was eleven. I got a ride in a Ford trimotor. That was like going to heaven.
Hack Mixson, air force pilot
Even though the story leaked out of the woodwork two or three years ago, I still find it strange to talk and write about it. While it was happening it rivalled the Manhattan Project for secrecy. In fact, I think it outranked the Manhattan Project.
Squadron Leader John Crampton, DFC, AFC and Bar, Royal Air Force, Retired
Colonel Marion C. Mixson
Distinguished Flying Cross (2), Air Medal (5)
“I was born in Charleston, South Carolina, March 20, 1918. My first encounter with airplanes and flying was in 1929. I was eleven. I got a ride in a Ford trimotor. That was like going to heaven. If an airplane flew over Charleston, I’d run outside to take a look. There weren’t that many airplanes then. Once a German Dornier seaplane landed in Charleston Harbor. It was a monstrous thing, exciting. Aviation was spread pretty thin in those days, but I always knew I wanted to fly. I believe it was my nanny who first called me Hack, and the name stuck with me ever since. I was raised in Charleston, went to the public schools there, and after high school attended Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina. College was a pretty uneventful four years. When I graduated from Presbyterian in 1939, I ended up with a commission as a second lieutenant in the infantry. My brother, Lawrence, was four years older than I. In World War II he served in the navy in the Pacific, where both of his destroyers, the Osborne and the Renshaw, were heavily damaged in combat with Japanese naval forces. I went to work in the family business in Charleston, the Mixson Seed Company, selling seed and fertilizer throughout the southeastern states.
“In the fall of 1939, I soloed a little 45-horsepower Aeronca. What a thrill it was to soar above Charleston on my very own. I’ll never forget that first solo flight. Fortunately, I had a friend, Robert Carroll, who owned several airplanes. The best one was a Rearwin Cloudster made at Fairfax Airport in Kansas City, Kansas. It had a 120-horsepower five-cylinder radial Ken-Royce engine—pretty powerful stuff for that day. Between 1939 and 1941, I flew several hundred hours with Robert and his brother, Edwin. I flew every time I got a chance. In July 1941 Edwin and I took off from Charleston to fly to Los Angeles. We stopped in Atlanta and got gas. Spent the night in Monroe, Louisiana. Went on to Fort Worth, Texas, and had lunch there. It was about ninety-five degrees. Then we headed to Wichita Falls, flying at three thousand feet. I was flying. All of a sudden the old RPM just went down and kept on going down. I said to Edwin, ‘I can’t maintain altitude. I’m going to have to land.’ In those days, the sectional charts showed farm- and ranch houses. Edwin located the nearest farmhouse on the map, I headed for it, and we landed in a field by a rock cairn next to the house. We got out and checked everything and found nothing wrong. We cranked the engine up again, and it ran like a breeze. So we took off and flew to Wichita Falls. The mechanic there couldn’t find anything wrong with the airplane either. Being cautious, we decided not to go on to Los Angeles and instead flew to the Ken-Royce plant at Fairfax Field in Kansas City. They modified the engine so we didn’t have to manually grease the rocker boxes with a squirt gun. We met Mr. Rear-win, the owner of the plant, and his two sons, Ken and Royce, after whom he named the engine. They checked the engine themselves and declared everything was fine. We still had our doubts, though, and flew back to Charleston.
“Two weeks later Robert Carroll, who owned the plane, and I set off on the same trip. Same itinerary—gas in Atlanta, overnight in Monroe, lunch in Fort Worth, even sitting at the same table. It was ninety-five degrees again. As we flew along, heading for Wichita Falls, I said to Robert, ‘See that farmhouse down there? I landed right in that field.’ By that time, the old engine slowed down. Robert landed within a hundred feet of the same rock cairn. We went all through the engine, and everything checked out again. Then we flew to Wichita Falls. The same mechanic who checked the engine two weeks earlier checked it again and declared there was nothing wrong with it. This time we decided to continue our flight to Los Angeles, spending the night in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“We left early the next morning. As we crossed the New Mexico–Arizona line, all of a sudden the cockpit filled with smoke. Smoke in the cockpit is scary. We decided to put it down and landed about seven thousand feet up on a mesa. We did a bad landing and stripped the landing gear. There we were—in the middle of the Zuni Indian Reservation—with a busted airplane. I saw some Zuni Indians and walked toward them to ask them for help, but when they saw me coming, they ran away. Luckily, a guy came along in a Buick convertible on his honeymoon, taking the back trails. He gave me a ride to St. Johns in Arizona. There I found a fellow with a flatbed truck who agreed to take the plane, Robert, and me to the factory in Kansas City for twenty-five dollars. He didn’t know how far Kansas City was—about a thousand miles. Once we got to Kansas City, we gave him an extra fifty dollars. The problem with the plane? One of the new oil lines which automatically lubricated the rocker boxes had malfunctioned, causing the smoke in the cockpit. In Kansas City, at the Rearwin factory, they fixed our plane. Mr. Rearwin built a good engine, but his modification was bad.
“In December 1941 I was called to active duty at Fort McClellan. I put a letter in through channels to transfer to the air corps. I had three hundred hours of flying time, I wrote, and I should be in the air corps, not in the infantry. I think my first letter got thrown in the trash. Then I sent a letter directly to the Army Air Corps. Four days later I was at Maxwell Field in Alabama, getting a physical. Two weeks after that I was at a small airfield near Fort Worth, Texas, to begin training in the PT-17. I went on to the BT-13 and after that to little twin-engine plywood planes, AT-10s. After I graduated from pilot training, I was sent to the 13th Bomb Group at Westover, Massachusetts, a B-25 outfit. Out of Westover I flew antisubmarine patrols along the Atlantic coast.
“In July 1943 I was assigned to the 461st Bomb Group, which was forming in Boise, Idaho. Before I knew it, I was a B-24 flight commander, since I had more experience in that airplane than most others, which wasn’t much. I was still a second lieutenant and less than a year out of flying school. My crew—there were ten of us—were all experts in their fields and great guys. Sam Gilio was the engineer and waist gunner. He had been a prizefighter as well as a mechanic for American Airlines for ten years. Sol Adler, the radio operator, spent ten years at sea, copying Morse code. Sol would sit, looking like he was asleep but copying everything that came in over the radio. My bombardier, Howard Kadow, was a jeweler from Brooklyn, New York. Howie was brilliant. The copilot, Tom Lightbody, was an Irish cop from Pelham, New York. Hank Wilson, a lawyer, was the best navigator there ever was. And Gino Piccione, Ed Miller, Her
b Newman, and Chester Kline were our gunners. The four gunners were all pretty young, eighteen or so. Ed Miller, the largest man on the crew, was the ball turret gunner. Usually the smallest man took this position. We ten trained at Fresno, California, and at Wendover range in Utah. We finished up about Christmas of 1943.
In February 1944 our group deployed from Florida to Dakar, North Africa, and then to Marrakesh. We flew a couple of missions out of Tunis and then moved to our permanent field south of Foggia, Italy, Toretta 1. On April 13 I was formation leader for the 461st Bomb Group in an attack against an aircraft plant near Budapest, Hungary. Our escort fighters, P-38s, didn’t show. I didn’t think we would make it back from that mission. We were viciously attacked by waves of enemy fighters, firing rockets, cannon, and machine guns. They came at us head on and from all sides, flying abreast, firing their rockets into our formation. Rockets tore off the wing of one aircraft; out of control, it collided with another. Both exploded. A third aircraft went down. Of the remaining thirty-five B-24s, thirty were damaged. I was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for that mission. In June 1944—I was a captain by then—we finished our twenty-five missions. I was told by my group commander, Colonel Lee, ‘If you take your crew home and come back, I’ll make you a squadron commander.’ I took them home about the time everybody else landed in France. When we returned in September, Colonel Lee, who had by then been promoted to general, gave me the 764th Bomb Squadron.
I Always Wanted to Fly Page 18
