Magnificent Desolation (13 page)

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O
N
J
ULY
1, 1971, I
OFFICIALLY COMMENCED MY ROLE AS
commandant of the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base. I was welcomed by the forty test pilot students in the program, who were excited and a bit awestruck to have a moonwalker Apollo astronaut as their new commandant—especially since the school was becoming known for supplying a pool of astronauts to the space program. In fact, the name of the school had been officially changed to the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California, to reflect this goal. Two thirds of the one-year program was similar to the Navy’s test pilot program, but the last third of the program was geared to astronaut training. A fierce competitiveness has always existed between the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force. Although it may seem odd to someone unfamiliar with the history of American military, the Navy was flying planes before the Air Force even existed as a separate branch of the U.S. armed forces. In 1971 the Navy was still the U.S. leader when it came to aircraft, but the Air Force wanted to be in charge of America’s fledgling space program, so a space mission simulator had been installed in the school, one of the first of its kind, offering simulations of an entire space mission, including rendezvous and docking in space.

Later that month, at the crack of dawn on July 26, my family and I
watched the launch of
Apollo 15
on a portable TV while on the beach in Carpenteria, California. I was familiar with every step of the launch and watched carefully, but I felt no remorse for not being a part of it. A mere two years earlier it had been me sitting atop a rocket, ready to travel to the moon, but I was now content to be sitting on the beach— or at least I thought I was.

As the commandant of the test pilot school, I was the chief administrator, but I knew the test pilot instructors in the program would probably be teaching me a lot, not having been a test pilot myself. None of the students seemed to mind my lack of test-pilot experience; quite the contrary, they seemed honored to know me. They were a good group of students, and I enjoyed getting to know and encourage them, along with interacting with the instructors and occasionally flying myself. At the time, we were having the students fly advanced supersonic F-104 Starfighter aircraft and the modified NF-104 aerospace trainer rocket-powered jets that could soar to over 100,000 feet, in effect becoming spacecraft in thin air. The exercises tested each student’s ability to fly with extraordinary precision under unusual conditions, including zero gravity high-angle maneuvers, and steep landing approaches, and required the pilots to report on the performance of the plane in those conditions.

As much as the students appreciated my presence out in the field to observe their test flights, and as much as they were fascinated by my moonwalking experiences, they were equally, if not more, intrigued by my early years as a fighter pilot. While a number of them had joined the military to become fighter pilots, few of them had actually seen combat action at war. I had.

I graduated from West Point, number three in my class in June 1951. Thanks to my high academic rating, I had several choices for pursuing my military career. The Air Force was most attractive to me because I had wanted to fly from the time I took my first flight with my father when I was only two years old.

From West Point I went straight to flight training school at Bartow Air Force Base in Florida, and then to Brian Air Force Base in Texas,
where I earned my wings. The Air Force needed pilots of all sorts, but my goal was to become a jet fighter pilot. The competition was intense, and after eighteen months of concentrated training, I qualified as an F-86 Sabre jet pilot.

The Korean War—or the Korean Conflict, as it is often referred to today, although it was definitely a war to those who fought in it— had been raging for a full year, ever since Communist North Korea, equipped by the Soviet Union, invaded Democratic South Korea, backed by the United States. Before long the Chinese also entered the fighting, and it looked as though things could escalate further at any time.

Not surprisingly, with Korea still a powder keg, I put in for combat duty but by the time I arrived there in December 1952, the ground war had slowed and cease-fire negotiations were underway. The battle in the air was still furious, but because their defenses were disintegrating, the North Koreans, Chinese, and Soviets had moved their air bases as far north as possible, north of the Yalu River, the dividing line between Korea and China. American commanders ordered their pilots not to cross the Yalu into China, even if engaged in aerial combat. But the standing orders were often ignored, as U.S. fighter jets gave chase to Soviet-built MiG-15s, their elusive and dangerous adversaries.

I was assigned to the 16th Fighter Squadron of the 51st Interceptor Wing at Suwon Air Base, located about twenty miles south of Seoul. By then, American pilots regularly flew all the way north to the Yalu, where they could often catch the enemy at lower altitudes, or better yet, still on the ground at their air bases. We affectionately but respectfully referred to that area as “MiG Alley.”

I flew a total of sixty-six combat missions over the war zone while I was stationed in Korea. Many days, I was simply patrolling the air, hunting for MiGs that might be heading south toward our troops, often seeing little more than the mountainous terrain below and the blue sky above. It was never a joy ride, though. I was constantly on alert. Occasionally, I’d spot white exhaust contrails high overhead, or the glint of the sun reflecting off a wing below, and I knew that I was
not alone in the sky. MiGs were nearby, lurking, looking for their opportunity to blow me to bits.

The Soviet-built MiG-15 was a formidable foe, and had a definite advantage over our American-built fighter jets. In a dogfight, the planes were closely matched because of our technical superiority, but the MiG could fly more than 2,000 feet higher than our F-86 Sabres, which had a maximum altitude of 49,000 feet. They could also fly faster, since their planes were stripped down for combat and carried a smaller fuel load than ours. The MiG was a wicked fighting machine, too, fortified with a 37-millimeter cannon that could send an F-86 screaming to the ground with one strike; it also housed two 23-millimeter automatic guns that could make Swiss cheese out of a plane in a single burst of fire. Because of the MiGs deadly firepower, the one thing a U.S. pilot avoided at all costs was letting a MiG get on his tail.

I shot down two MiGs while in Korea, my first kill coming on May 14, 1953. The guys at Edwards loved to hear me tell about it, always wanting me to embellish the story, but I never did, because it was a rather inglorious engagement. I was flying just south of the Yalu when I spotted an enemy fighter jet flying straight and level, probably oblivious to my existence. I trained my guns on him and fired. The MiG spun hard and headed for the ground, the pilot quickly ejecting from the cockpit. The camera on my gun recorded the entire incident, clearly showing the plane being destroyed and the pilot’s desperate ejection. Photo frames from that film sequence appeared in the next issue of
Life
magazine. When my father found out that I was the one who had brought down the MiG, he could not have been more proud.

My second battle with a MiG nearly took me out of this world— literally. On June 7, 1953, I was scheduled for a mission with three other pilots attached to the 16th “Blue Tail” Squadron (the tails on our planes had a checkerboard design with a blue stripe), but as we taxied to the runway, my number four wingman aborted, leaving three of us in the formation. Just ahead of us, taking off from the runway, were four Sabre Jets from the 39th “Yellow Tail” Squadron in a Tiger flight formation commanded by Marine Captain Jack Bolt. But their number
four pilot also aborted, so I radioed my Wing Commander to take leave and join up with the Yellow Tails. I took to the air in formation with the Tigers, but they were flying the new F-model Sabres with a 20-knot airspeed advantage, with more power and a bigger wing than my F-86 E-model. Try as I might, I was having a hard time keeping up with them.

When Bolt’s team dove toward a broad valley farther to the north, I followed them all the way, trailing at a distance. I soon found myself flying north of the Yalu, alone. With my airspeed indicator pegged, and the F-86 approaching Mach 1, the speed of sound—a prohibited speed for my Sabre—I streaked below 15,000 feet. My aircraft began to roll and became more difficult to control as I pushed it to the limit, following the Tigers into heavier air. I grasped the control stick as hard as I could, holding on for dear life, trying to maintain my airplane’s stability. Finally, the heavier air slowed me down enough that I could regain control of the aircraft, but I was still flying mighty fast.

Ahead of me, Bolt and Company leveled out at about 5,000 feet, as they streaked right across an enemy airfield, blasting away. Some MiGs immediately rose to do battle, while others were racing along the runway taxi ramps, preparing to take off.

“Tiger Three,” I called, “I’m behind you.”

Just then, from seemingly out of nowhere, a fighter jet angled across my sight from right to left, climbing toward the Tigers. The plane was not one of ours. I tried to remain calm, knowing that if he kept going, he’d fly right into my gunsight. But if I didn’t get him, he’d be on the Tigers’ tail. Not good.

I pulled back on my controls, trying to slow down before he saw me, but I was too late. The MiG pilot spotted me and had banked hard in my direction; he was coming after me. I quickly realized as I saw him turn that as fast as I was moving, I was going to fly right past him, and then the faster, lighter MiG would be sweeping around behind me, precisely where I didn’t want him to be. My only hope of avoiding being hit was a high-G right turn that would send me cutting across
him as he banked to the left. It was a dangerous move that pilots called a “scissors,” in which two opposing aircraft keep crossing back and forth, each trying to turn more sharply than the other, hoping to get the advantage.

The MiG and I ripped through one set of scissors turns and banked so steeply on our sides that our wing tips nearly pointed straight down toward the ground. In my peripheral vision, I saw the enemy runway flash by, then trees and green fields below. But I had no time for sightseeing. The MiG pilot had rolled off to avoid a high ridge below us. This was my chance; it might be my only chance, since I was flying so close to the enemy base. Enemy anti-aircraft fire filled the air around us.

I tried to fire, but the aiming dot on my gunsight jammed, probably due to the violent twists and turns I’d been putting the plane through. With my left wing tip still pointing toward the Earth, I used my plane’s nose as a sight and pressed hard on my trigger, firing a short burst from my .50 caliber machine guns. I saw something spark on the MiG. I rolled off my wing back to a position parallel to the ground, and slammed the throttle of the F-86 wide open so I could shoot across the ridge behind him. I saw the MiG in front of me, in a steep right turn. One of us was going down. I fired while he was still climbing and saw the tracers sparking across his wing.
Don’t let him go!
Smoke billowed from his wing. The MiG rolled out of the turn and dove. As he did, I fired two more rapid bursts of ammunition. The enemy plane’s nose came up as my shots struck and his plane looked as though it was momentarily suspended in the air as he stalled out.

I saw the canopy over his head pop open and the flash of his ejection flare. The pilot sailed out of the plane and was gone. Whether his chute had time to open, I’ll never know. I did see the now pilotless MiG slow in the air, heel, and then plunge toward the Earth.

I would have loved to have stuck around a while to determine the damages I had inflicted, but I was about twenty miles north of the Yalu, close to the enemy base, and there were more Russian and Chinese planes in the skies, with still more rising off the runway. I was low
on fuel too. I turned south and climbed, picking up “the Manchurian Express,” a jet stream that helped whisk me down the Korean peninsula toward home.

As I landed my aircraft, I knew I now had a conundrum. I was so thrilled that I had downed a MiG, but if my commanders discovered that I’d been above the Yalu when I brought it down, it would not be an officially recognized kill. My buddies knew, though, slapping me on the back and cheering me on. It was time for a drink. No, actually it was time for several drinks, and I enjoyed every one.

When my gun camera film was examined, it was clear that I had destroyed the MiG but it was unclear which side of the Yalu River I had been on when I brought it down. The Air Force presented me with an Oak Leaf Cluster as well as the Distinguished Flying Cross I had received for dropping the first MiG.

After Korea, I was assigned to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada as a gunnery instructor. During that time, I married Joan in 1954, and she accompanied me on my three-year assignment in Bitburg, Germany, in 1955, where our first son, Mike, was born. I flew F-100 Super Sabres while there, and we trained regularly on how we could deliver nuclear weapons inside the Iron Curtain, the Soviet-controlled bloc of communist nations. I had a number of tension-packed, harrowing experiences there, too, but nothing thrilled the guys at the test pilot school as much as those life or death days in Korea.