We decided not to tell Colonel DesPortes, the wing commander, about the camera mounts until the last minute. He was known to have a short fuse. Jim Combs, the Hycon Tech Rep, saved the day. He took a set of mounts to the McCoy Field Maintenance Squadron; duty personnel there called a sergeant from home at 2:00 a.m. Jim asked if the sergeant could duplicate the mounts which he did with the raw metal on a lathe. They weren't pretty, but they were just what we needed. Jim gave the sergeant $50 cash and asked his commanding officer to write a letter of commendation.
We installed the mounts, closed the hatch and operated the camera to make sure it cleared the heater ducts behind the windows. The new mounts worked perfectly. We never had to tell Colonel DesPortes. The last time I saw those mounts was in a box at Davis Monthan AFB, Arizona. There was a lot of stress over those mounts and a vivid memory for a few of us.
Across the Pacific
In late l964, I was called to the 4080th A&E Maintenance Supervisor's Office. I was told I would be going TDY, but I was not told where or how long. Jerry Fogel, Charlie Couch, Si Lewis, BC Fowler, Jim Lobig and Jim Combs, the Hycon Tech Rep, were also selected for the same TDY.
I went home, told Barbara and she helped me pack. Once again I said goodbye to her and Stacy not knowing when I would see them again. Saying goodbye to my family was always the hardest part of my military career.
Our instructions were to prepare three “B” Hycon configurations, 36-inch focal length cameras, and load them in the doghouses. In addition, we prepared three 70mm tracker cameras in their cases and three “B” configuration lower hatches with windows.
On this deployment we took three U-2s and six pilots. Three pilots flew the U-2s and three backup pilots traveled in one of the two KC-135s. The KC-135 carried a full cargo load of fuel and maintenance personnel to support the operation. We were designated Operating Location 20 (OL 20) and our commander was Colonel Kenneth McCaslin.
The flight from Laughlin to Hawaii was uneventful. The KC-135 had to land prior to the U-2s in order to recover the aircraft, install the pogos and assist the pilots in disconnecting the gear and exiting the aircraft. After refueling the U-2s on the ground, we launched again with three backup pilots.
The next stop was Clark AFB, Manila, Philippines. I was excited to be in the Philippines for the first time. We NEPHO troops had unloaded our cargo, doghouses, test equipment, film and support supplies into a big hangar at Clark. Once we were established there, we only flew training flights, no aerial reconnaissance missions were flown.
As I got adjusted to the area, one scene that caught my eye was the huge mountain on a flat plain twenty miles from the base. The mountain I learned was an active volcano, and years later it erupted and destroyed Clark. I was happy God's timetable wasn't set for the volcano to erupt when we were there.
We learned through the rumor mill the American Ambassador had directed us to leave the country. A short time later the ambassador flew nonstop on a KC-135 to Washington, DC, briefed the administration and returned to the Philippines. It had to have been an exhausting trip for him. The result was we were allowed to stay in the Philippines.
One of the most interesting off-base trips I took was to a local Negrito village. The Negritos, Aborigines of the Philippines, were only about five feet tall, had very black skin and lived in grass huts elevated about seven feet off the ground. I talked to the Negrito chief, whom I found to be quite an interesting fellow. He was dressed in casual western style slacks and short sleeve shirt. The remainder of the tribe dressed in colorful costumes like they were in a Hollywood movie. The chief said his people were employed by the base as guards. Besides their pay, they had a choice of medical care at the base or exchange privileges. They usually chose the hospital care. I was surprised to learn from the chief that his son was a medical doctor and an officer in the US Navy. Looking at the village resembling something from the Stone Age, it was hard to believe his son was an officer in the Navy. I didn't ask the chief how his son made the transition from the village to the Navy.
Theft was rampant at Clark, and I asked the chief why he could not stop it since he was in the security business. He replied, “I could, but the base commander turned me down when I asked him for a truck to haul away the culprits.”
All of us bought blowguns in the village, actually a hollow tube from a plant with a dart inside. Other souvenirs were bows and arrows. I bought a $2 machete, sixteen inches long made from an auto spring with water buffalo horn handle. I still have that machete; I use it to cut up boxes for recycle. BC Fowler became quite proficient with the blowgun. However, when he returned to Arizona, he said the blowgun tube and the bow and arrows had split in the dry Arizona climate.
I was in the Base Exchange when a crew chief came in and shouted the President of the Philippines had ordered us out of the country. We had four hours to pack up and leave. We did some fast packing of all our gear and loaded the two KC-135s. The crew chief of the KC-135 I was assigned to fly on told Colonel McCaslin he had a load of JP-4 fuel onboard for a training flight with a fighter scheduled for that night. As a result, the plane was overloaded. McCaslin ordered, “Dump it, we have to go.” We taxied to the end of the runway, pointed the refueling boom toward the jungle and shot JP-4 out of the boom. What a scene! The colonel shouted, “Let's go, we are out of time and I don't want an international incident.” The boom operator said, “I'm not finished.” The pilot headed the aircraft down the runway spraying JP-4 as we went. Later, I asked Col McCaslin why he moved to the jump seat. He laughed and said, “I wasn't sure we were going to be able to takeoff.”
On to Andersen AFB, Guam. We stored our equipment in a hangar at Andersen. The base housed all the enlisted men in two-story brick barracks in the jungle at Maroboro, Guam, about ten miles off base. Near the barracks was a small store that sold beer and snacks; it resembled a country store back home. Each day we went to the main base to check in. There was really nothing for us to do, but eat, sleep and drink beer for two weeks. What a life!
Between Maroboro and Andersen was a span of thick jungle. I often wondered if there were any Japanese still hiding in the jungle. When I expressed this to one of our men, he told me I was nuts because the Japanese had been gone for years. World War II had been over for nineteen years. Would you believe it, two years later, two Japanese came out of the jungle and surrendered on Guam.
Colonel DesPortes flew from Laughlin to join us on Guam. He had a yellow envelope with him and he announced, “Here it is, boys. Our orders, but I can't open it until we are airborne.” We loaded the KC-135 with our cargo and were ready to go. Colonel DesPortes learned there was a Russian trawler two miles from the end of the runway monitoring planes taking off from Guam. He said, “We can't have that.” A local KC-135 offered to get rid of the trawler for us, and he took off with a load of JP-4 fuel. He flew directly over the trawler and started yelling, “May Day! May Day!” As was planned, the boom operator sprayed the deck of the trawler with JP-4. The pilot reported he last saw the trawler headed out to sea with the crew washing down the deck.
The runway at Andersen was 10,000 feet and ran downhill to a low area then uphill again. At the end was a 200 foot cliff with jagged rock, and the blue Pacific Ocean beyond. The pilot started down the runway and the plane began sinking; it shook and vibrated so much I felt I had double vision. Si Lewis was in the boom operator's seat where there was a large window. He reported, “The blue Pacific Ocean came up at us, and I felt I could reach out and touch it.” I exhaled and the pilot leveled the aircraft and climbed to higher altitude.
I was sitting next to Colonel DesPortes when he said, “Let's see where we are going.” He tore open the large yellow envelope and announced, “We are going to Ben Ho-ey” which was actually Bien Hoa Air Base, South Vietnam.
It was March 1964 when we landed on a brand new concrete runway at Bien Hoa. A short time later I asked the flight surgeon when we would get our plague shots. He said rather sarcastically, “Ingram, the Bubonic Plague has b
een eradicated for years.”
A local base captain drove up and said they only learned we were arriving an hour earlier. Headquarters had told the captain we had Priority One orders, and they would give us whatever we needed. Colonel DesPortes turned to me and told me to go with the captain to set up the NEPHO shop. The NEPHO guys and I hopped in a pickup truck headed for the hangars. Bien Hoa was built by the French, taken over by the Japanese in World War II, returned to the French after the war, and now the South Vietnamese had custody. The hangars were a sad sight, rusty metal thick with red mud; grease and dirt covered the floor. I told the captain this hangar would not work for us. We needed a 20 feet by 30 feet air conditioned room for our systems and film.
The captain replied that the only air conditioned building on the base was the NCO Club and Base Communications. I asked to have a look at the Base Communications building. It was a brick building with large green doors. The captain pounded on the doors, and a staff sergeant dressed in a nice, clean 1505 uniform appeared. The captain introduced me and explained we needed a shop for our operation. The sergeant said, “Well, we can't give up our office.” The interior was divided by a wall creating two equal size rooms. The captain asked what I thought about the space and I responded, “This is it!” The captain called to the staff sergeant and ordered him to move out. We moved our doghouses into the hangar and our film equipment into the Base Communications building. When we saw him again, the sergeant was stripped to the waist, sweating profusely and sending us a “Go to Hell” look. We flew 33 successful missions before one “B” configuration failed.
Now about the rats; I learned that Southeast Asia is home to an extremely large population of enormous rats. They were about fourteen inches long excluding the tail and weighed up to eight pounds. At night some of the guys would trap a rat in a wire cage and spray paint them different colors each day. The rats only came out at night, and once they actually did trap the same rat a second time. One night we heard a loud, horrific scream from the next hut; we learned one of the rats had found its way into the bed of one of the troops. The poor airman almost tore the hut down getting out of there. Two days later, we were all told to report to the flight line for our plague shots. I said to the flight surgeon, “Hey Doc, I thought you said the plague had been wiped out.” He smiled and shouted, “Next!”
One day Colonel DesPortes came to our shop and said he had been ordered to go to Bangkok, Thailand to brief Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, on our operation. The colonel was slightly inebriated, well, really tight as a banjo string. He was obviously nervous about the McNamara briefing. Jim Combs, our Hycon Tech Rep, went over everything Colonel DesPortes needed, and by the time they finished their preparation, a whole bottle of booze had been emptied.
Three days later Colonel DesPortes returned with a smile on his face. The briefing went well. He had news that I was glad to hear. In May 1964, Fogel, Couch, Lewis, Fowler, Lobig and I rotated back to Davis Monthan AFB, Arizona. As we left Bien Hoa, I thought to myself how glad I was to leave. Little did I know that I would be returning later with Bobbie Black to support the Drones. On that TDY we were there for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year, and we saw the Bob Hope road show. I left Vietnam in January 1965 and vowed, “This is it for Vietnam.” Once again I returned to Vietnam in 1966 on permanent change of station orders.
The Next Chapter – Special Operations Office
In late 1969, Lt Col Warren Boyd came to our shop from the Special Projects Office (SPO) at Robbins AFB, Georgia. I had first met him at The Ranch when he was a 1Lt U-2 pilot. He was now second in command at the SPO, and he asked if I wanted to transfer there. I told him I would talk to my family and get back with him. Barbara, Stacy and I discussed the transfer and all were in agreement to go to Robbins in January 1970.
The SPO was located in a large building at Robbins behind what was called the Green Door. Colonel Peter Economy was our boss, a quiet man who had a gift for languages and musical talent. Everyone in SPO had to have a Black Clearance which is higher than Top Secret. Part of the mission of the SPO was to interface with vendors who had contracts with the Air Force. My vendors were in Palo Alto, California, Norwalk, Connecticut, Boston, Massachusetts and Davis Monthan AFB, Arizona.
One day Col Economy came to my office and announced the Under Secretary of the Air Force, John L. McLucas, would be at SPO the next day, and I was designated to brief him on the camera system in the U-2 program. The colonel told me to wear my blues and look sharp. The Under Secretary had a doctorate in physics and had been president of Penn State University.
When I went home that day, I thought about what Under Secretary McLucas might ask that I don't know about our camera systems. I wasn't stressed or nervous. The next day Col Economy stuck his head in my office and said, “Bob, you are on.”
When I walked into the large conference room, I discovered it was wall to wall with generals, colonels, GS-15 civilians, one Lt Col and two Majors. I was the only enlisted man in the room. The Under Secretary was about six feet tall and looked every bit like the PhD that he was. He shook my hand and politely said, “I'm happy to meet you, Chief.” He asked a lot of good questions, easy ones for me to answer. After about twenty minutes, he shook my hand again and said, “That was a very good briefing, Chief.” He announced he was ready to leave and the entourage left the room like a vacuum had sucked them out of the door. Col Economy commended me on the briefing. Hal Benton, a civilian GS-15, asked where I learned all that information. I replied, “After fifteen plus years, if you don't learn something, then you're pretty dumb.”
I want to thank the Air Force families, my wife Barbara, my daughter Stacy and the many friends who supported us during our separation. I am proud to say I can still call many of those fellows my friends today.
Jose F. (Lops) Lopez
Los Angeles, California
Wife: Irene
Lightning Bug Mission
I was on my second TDY at Bien Hoa Air Base, Vietnam (known as OL-20) in 1966. Somehow I was “volunteered” to go to DaNang Air Base to help with a couple of missions for the Lightning Bug Project. The project consisted of a Firebee reconnaissance drone that was air-launched and controlled from a DC-130 aircraft. The Firebee drone was flown on low-level photographic missions over North Vietnam. Following the drone's recon flight, it was directed to a recovery area where its parachute was deployed. The Firebee was then recovered from the landing location, on land or at sea. It was my job working out of the NEPHO shop to be part of the recovery team to remove and safeguard the film magazine from the camera attached to the drone.
Getting ready for a mission launch.
Promotion party celebration - Jose Paz (A2C to A1C) (left), Jack Owens (second from left) and Jose Lopez (fourth from left).
Left to right: Jack Owens, Chuck Dreiling, TSgt Dan Reyna, Jose Lopez.
Our main transportation to the town of Bien Hoa.
On one particular mission, the Firebee was launched toward North Vietnam. A squad of US Army soldiers and I boarded a CH-3C helicopter. I carried my tool bag in one hand and my AR-15 on my shoulder. Our chopper was escorted by six Huey helicopter gunships. We flew from the base over thick green jungle. After we were airborne for a time, our pilot received information from the C-130 regarding the landing location of the drone and we headed in that direction. The remote guidance systems in those days were slightly less than exact. The drone we were chasing landed in a small village in the middle of the jungle instead of a large safe area as planned.
The pilot found a small clearing to land our helicopter and some of the Army troops jumped out and set up a defense perimeter. The remainder of the troops and I headed to the village where the drone had landed. The Huey gunships stayed overhead and circled our location for our protection. We cautiously scanned the village area for VC but the only people we found were a few scared villagers yelling and running around in panic. We found the drone; it had landed in a fenced area near a villager's hut. I went directly to
the drone and removed the film magazine while the soldiers attempted to calm the villagers. We returned to our helicopter and headed back to DaNang. The chopper pilot reported that while we were in the village he heard a radio transmission from a flight of B-57s asking the Huey pilots if they had VC's trapped in the area. The B-57s were itching to level something with all the ordnance they had onboard. The Huey pilots replied they had not seen any VC and the B-57s continued on while we returned to the base.
One of the Army soldiers reported the village chief claimed our drone had killed one of his pigs, but I never saw any dead pigs. The chief demanded payment for the pig and one of the officers took care of the payment. Once we were back at DaNang I handed over the canvas bag with the film magazine to a waiting officer; my mission was complete. I was now free to enjoy a cold Ba-mi-ba (33), a Vietnamese beer.
James D. Manis
Waikoloa, Hawaii
During our deployments, one of the U-2 pilots usually flew a C-54 that carried many of us of the NEPHO Unit to our destination. On one deployment to South America, Captain Charlie Knapp was the navigator. He was charged with mapping the flight plan for the pilot, Major Ed Emerling. To pass the time of the long flight, I played cards with some of the guys. We did notice that the plane was circling a lot. Major Emerling called for Captain Knapp to come to the cockpit for a consultation. When Captain Knapp returned to the cabin, I asked him if there was a problem. He rather sheepishly responded that he had mapped the flight over Cuba instead of the destination in South America. That was at the time when there was already quite a bit of activity in Cuba. We wanted no part of that. Captain Knapp had probably mapped quite a few flights to Cuba in previous months. Prior to becoming officers, both Major Emerling and Captain Knapp had been enlisted men. When we landed, in the presence of all of us on the flight, Major Emerling asked Captain Knapp, “I know how you got to be a Captain, but what I want to know is how you became a Staff Sergeant?” Of course, all of us who were witness to this had a good laugh at Captain Knapp's expense.
Remembering the Dragon Lady: The U-2 Spy Plane: Memoirs of the Men Who Made the Legend Page 17
