Military Memories
by Lyle Stouffer84th FIGHTER INTERCEPTOR SQUADRON, HAMILTON AFB
What a change from our family “overseas” adventure and our previous stay at Hamilton AFB. I was a company grade officer so not yet eligible for the wonderful on base housing of field grades and yet a growing family from the last assignment when we were in Wherry and then went to Novato to a rental house with more space after Tim was bom. Wherry was going to be less space than we felt we needed so decided to look for something to buy or rent and use our housing allowance for that purpose instead of forfeiting it for government provided housing.
We found what we were looking for on Penny Royal Lane in Terra Linda, just off US 101 and north of San Rafael so not far from Hamilton. Seemed like a good price for an Eichler home and our housing allowance would cover the monthly payments on a mortgage. Eichler homes were noted for lots of glass and decorative wood, circulated heat in the floors, fireplaces and well landscaped all through their developments.
The 84th FIS was just getting into the F-101 after closing out a long session with the F-89J. The number of pilots waiting to enter the transition training was still lengthy so we joined a group of four that started checkout in the T-33 and also started a four group to socialize that included our wives. Joe Pertl, Jim Way, Bud Harrington and Lyle Stouffer and wives became good friends. Joe Pertl and Jim Way had been flying F-89 at Great Falls, Montana but the squadron was folding. Joe Pertl checked out in T-39 aircraft and Jim Way and I transitioned into the F 101. Harrington was still flying the T-33 in the base pool of pilots for the T-33 when he died on evening at the officer’s club bar. Later found that he had a congenital heart defect that had been overlooked but was the cause of his sudden demise in his 30s.
My two instructor pilots for my transition into the F-101 were Jack Layton (later to receive some fame as an early SR71 pilot when it was still a CIA adventure and his roll as a test pilot in the attempts of using the SR71 frame as an interceptor in the YF12 program) and Roger McAlpine.
Both were excellent pilots and my first ride in the F-101 was in the front seat with Jack Layton in ^ the back. We were in an F-101F which has pilot controls in the rear cockpit as opposed to the F-10IB that only has radar operator controls and displays in the rear.
Jack asked to take control and he wanted to show me some capabilities of the aircraft. He put us through a loop and that takes a lot of space because of the angle of attack limitations of the FI 01 that can cause a “pitch up” that takes a minimum of 15,000 feet to recover successfully.
Transition training consisted primarily traffic patterns and touch and go landings and found no problems completing that portion of the check out. Then I was paired with an RO (radar intercept officer) to operate the rear cockpit. We spent many flights on simulated target attacks against T-33 or other F-lOls until we were declared combat ready after filling all the necessary squares.
I was paired up initially with a Lt. Conna Prince and we were assigned to B Flight where Jack Layton presided as the flight commander. Always ground training, flight simulator time, five minute and 15 minute alert (5 min alert when armed with conventional radar or heat seeking missiles and 15 minute when the Air2A rocket with nuclear warhead was aboard) and periodic tactical evaluations and/or operational readiness evaluations initiated by higher headquarters. (Division all the way up to Air Force level.) These were always no advanced notice so we had to be ready at all times and we always did quite well.
Because of his date of rank as captain, Jim Way became the A Flight commander in 1961 after Roger Kimball was named to take an A1 aircraft assignment to Vietnam. In 1962 Jim Way got a Vietnam assignment and I became the A Flight commander. I changed back seater of my crew to Capt. Rip Darden who was the A Flight Senior RO.
A major personal family event occurred on the 12th of January 1962. We were glad that we had the space in our Terra Linda home to welcome Gregg McGowan Stouffer. Now there was a five year old Tim, a three year old Anne and two year old Paul and a newborn to help keep Mary Jo occupied
The US government had an agreement with Canada to help upgrade their fighter force by selling them some 1959 model F-101Bs and F-101Fs. We at the 84th FIS were equipped with 1959 models and were tasked to feny them to Ottawa, Ontario, from Hamilton as they were prepped for transfer. January (just after Gregg’s birth) was the time that A Flight had been tasked to deliver five aircraft that had been declared ready for departure. I was to lead the flight of five to Great Falls, Montana, to refuel. Then on to Wurtsmith AFB at Marquette, Michigan, to again refuel and where foreign clearing customs had been established for a direct flight from there to Ottawa, Ontario Canada.
Four of the aircraft made the flight on the date scheduled but my aircraft had maintenance problems and 1 had to depart the following day. Lt. Jim Burridge was my back seater on that flight. It went as planned to Great Falls, Montana, but a very bad snow blizzard storm had moved into the Wurstsmith AFB area and ADC advised me to proceed to K.I. Sawyer AFB at Sault Ste Marie Michigan and they would arrange for my foreign clearing to temporarily be accomplished there.
We arrived OK at KISawyer AFB ahead of the storm that was moving in there. We had to remain overnight for a daytime delivery the next day to Ottowa. We had to find a place to stay in the town of Sault Ste. Marie since a KC135 Refueling Squadron had just moved there and there was absolutely not BOQ or guest accommodations available on the base. The next morning the outside air temperature was about 30 below zero. I requested some warming hanger time for the F-101 was advised that the F-106s there were involved in an exercise and no hanger space was available for my aircraft.
After foreign clearing and filing a flight plan, we were all set to depart. The F-101 has a combustion starter for each engine. When I hit the start switch for the left engine the combustion starter exploded. There we sat for three days before an F-101 starter could be flown in from the Air Force supply depot at Mobile, Alabama.
The foreign clearing had expired when we finally were ready to depart so we had to fly to Selfridge AFB near Detroit Michigan to again refuel and use the permanent foreign clearning facility there. We did make it to Ottawa and everyone was happy that that FI01 finally got delivered.
The 78th Fighter Wing at Hamilton had a requirement to provide two pilots to IPIS (instrument pilot instruction school) at Randolph AFB, San Antonio, Texas. I was selected from the 84th FTS and Capt Bob Rayford was selected from the 83rd FIS. We decided that we didn’t want the family separated so soon again so we went as a family to Randolph in March of 1962. The school was only three months long. We found the upstairs of a duplex in north San Antonio. The stairwell was a problem for our little ones but we managed.
The training there consisted of ground school, cockpit simulator and 26 flights in T-38 aircraft.
Six rides in the front seat and 18 flights in the rear under the “hood” learning all that I needed to know of instrument flying to instruct and give annual instrument checks to the pilots of the 84th after I returned.
Things really got busy and serious during my tenure as flight commander. The Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 became a dominating reality and we were required to disburse our six 15 minute alert aircraft to Kingsley Field at Klamath Falls, Oregon. Someone at a high level figured that the San Francisco Bay area would be a prime target if hostilities should break out and Klamath Falls, Oregon, stood a better chance of being overlooked.
There are 168 hours in a week and that first week at Kingsley Field, I spent 158 hours on 15 minute alert. We ate, slept and dressed for action except for flight boots so that we could have been airborne within 15 minutes of proper notification. Thank the good Lord it never became a requirement.
When not on alert at Kingsley, I was back at Hamilton or flying about the western US getting flying time for me and the members of my flight. Then too, I was given the responsibility of checking out two captains in the F-101 who were assigned to the squadron in the midst of the Cuban Crisis.
One was Billie B. Foresman, who later on was a fast burner for promotions and became a major general and a military advisor to Golda Meier, the prime minister of Israel. ( Tragically, he was struck down by cancer and died while still on active duty.) The other was Capt. Joe Powers, who had been away from the flying business and was getting back into it. Getting them through transition kept me pretty busy.
In early 1963 I received notification that I was going to be transferred to another F-101 Squadron at Griffis AFB, Rome NY. That move was to occur in late summer of 1963.. .That transfer was cancelled and my stay at Hamilton AFB was extended when Mary Jo showed up on a physical examination with lumps on her thyroid. A biopsy showed that there was a malignancy. The major who had discovered the problem took Mary Jo to an area tumor board that met Travis
AFB. This area tumor board decided that the major was the best qualified in the area to do the surgery. The radical surgery to remove all affected tissue was about a six hour procedure and was accomplished at the Hamilton AFB hospital in July 1963.
My command of A Flight at the 84th had been given to a Capt Dale Cutler who had been a flight test maintenance officer in the maintenance squadron and I assumed duties as a pilot officer in the 78th Fighter Wing Operations. Most of my F-101 flying was done on aircraft requiring test flights although I was still current in the T-33 aircraft.
Mary Jo made a good recovery-so good that on the 14th of July 1964, Kathryn Day Stouffer was born at Hamilton AFB. . Katy was not only the latest but she would be the last to join our family. .
In October of 1964,1 was visited at Hamilton by an F-101 crew (pilot and RO) from the 4756 Combat Crew Training Squadron at Tyndall AFB, Florida. The pilot was Capt. Soapy Walbom, who was to attend AF Command Staff school starting in January of 1965 and the RO was Bob Gaffney, a former RO at the 84th FIS at Hamilton AFB. They had flown to Hamilton to offer me the position of FI 01 ground school instructor and F-101 student flight instructor at the CCTS that had been the responsibility of the departing Capt. Walbom.
The commander of the 4756 CCTS was Lt. Col Joe Joiner and he had sent them and informed them that ADC personnel was prepared to effect the transfer if I would accept the assignment change. I accepted!
4756th COMBAT CREW TRAINING SQUADRON TYNDALL AFB, PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA
We made our move to Florida (third assignment there!) from California in December of 1964. Two big decisions that accompanied the move were accomplished. We sold our house on Penny Royal Lane and decided to purchase a house in Tucson rather than Panama City, anticipating a Vietnam assignment for Lyle and a home base for the family when that would happen. We also sold our 1960 Rambler station wagon and I was to pick up a 1965 Ford Country Squire station wagon in Charleston S.C. on the way to Tyndall.
The move included some time over Christmas with Mary Jo’s parents, Joe and Mary McGowan. We found a house we liked a block away from the one Mary Jo’s sister and husband, Pat and Ken Bayly, owned. Our new purchase was located at 5720 East North Wilshire Drive and we got a good renter for it.
Mary Jo and our family of five (ages 8 years down to five months) remained in Tucson while I flew to Charleston S.C., picked up the new Ford, drove to Tyndall AFB, checked in and then was assigned a house in base housing on Beacon Beach Drive.
Mary Jo then flew to Panama City with all five. Needless to say her hands were full of busy ones and her tales of that trip were numerous and full of unusual events. Never the less we became a relocated family together again.
The former occupant of the on base house that we were assigned was being transferred and was trying to sell a 23’ cabin cruiser. It was too big a temptation not to take advantage of the opportunity. It was wood hulled with a roomy cabin and was powered by a 35 horse Johnson outboard engine and an additional 7 V2 horse outboard for trolling. We were very glad we got it as it opened up lots of family activities that were very well enjoyed by all.
The white sand beaches of Panama City were a real attraction for the inland residents. Fishing, boating and family weekends on Shell Island were very popular during our stay at Tyndall. We were now assigned there as permanent party where our two previous times were temporary school situations where we knew we would be there only a brief time.
The 4756 Combat Crew Training Squadron was theAir Defense Command official training facility for F-101 and F-106 pilots. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities in Vietnam, pilots were transitioned into these aircraft by qualified instructor personnel at the individual fighter squadrons. The demands for pilots to fill the cockpits of the F-4, F 105, F 100, O-l and 0-2 FAC (Forward Air Control) aircraft in Vietnam became so great that training replacement pilots for fighter squadron pilots assigned to Vietnam became too great to be handled by combat ready fighter squadrons. Thus CCTS at Tyndall was initiated to handle this heavy requirement.
The workload for F-101 training at Tyndall was a new class of four to six pilots every two weeks. The training consisted of a ground school, cockpit simulator, flight training with a pilot instructor through transition and intercept flight training with an instructor RO (radar observer) to
graduation as a combat ready pilot. The new F-101 pilot would then go to his assigned squadron and be crewed up with an RO there.
The ground school was accomplished by two pilot instructors and two RO instructors. My areas were performance and flight characteristics of the F-101, threats to the NORAD (North American Air Defense) forces and F-101 aircraft emergency procedures.
The other pilot instructor covered aircraft systems, engines and related subjects. The two RO instructors were responsible for FI01 aircraft weapons and weapons delivery systems and tactics.
In addition to classroom teaching I would be assigned to the flight training through transition of one student pilot per month and I was one of two pilots that assisted the flight test maintenance officer in accomplishing required flight test of aircraft after engine change, periodic maintenance or certainly other maintenance that required test flights prior to operation use.
The assignment at Tyndall AFB ranks as one of Mary Jo’s favorites. My basic hours were 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days per week, except for night flying, occasional weekend test flights and lots of free time during the week when not actively involved with duties at the squadron.
I bought a used VW Bug convertible as a drive to work vehicle. We purchased a 19 foot Holiday Travel Trailer and when the kids were out of school during the summer, we would live in the trailer parked across the bay from Tyndall at St. Andrews park. I would commute by boat to my duties at Tyndall. Joan and Bill Creamer and their four children were our good travel friends., who also had a 19 ft. Holiday Traveler and a boat.
I was promoted to the rank of major in December 1965. Lots of memories of fishing, boating, water skiing, Shell island, gathering scallops with the kids, oysters on the half shell, a beautiful golf course right on the water, good neighbors with kids of similar ages with ours and just a low stress and pressure assignment.
In the fall of 19661 was advised by the personnel office that I was rising toward the top of the list for a Vietnam assignment since my last date of return from overseas (DEROS) was October of 1960 from Canada. The Vietnam conflict was going through DEROS dates very rapidly as tours there were 13 months or something less for 100 NVN mission people. Rather than go as an 0-2, 0-1, F-105 pilot, I preferred the F-4 so I volunteered to go when the time came in that aircraft. Gene Millsap was in a similar category and he volunteered likewise for F-4s. In December 1966 we both received word that we were being assigned to RF-4C aircraft and a Vietnam assignment.
We immediately contacted 73rd Air division personnel officer from whence that information had come and advised them that we had volunteered for F-4 duty, not RF-4s. We were advised by the rated officer assignments people that General Bennie Putnam, the division commander, had personally reviewed the list of names and approved the six names and would not hear any more about it. We were selected. Majors Stouffer and Millsapp attended the same survival training class at a site in the mountains near Spokane, Washington, in January 1967. We travelled around on snowshoes during the escape and evade portion of the training, ate a freshly skinned and roasted rabbit in the wilds and suffered the near zero degree conditions of the simulated oncentration camp. We were considered ready to proceed to the hot and humid jungle conditions in Vietnam.
We were both assigned to an RF-4C combat crew training class starting in March 1967 at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho.
5720 EAST NORTH WILSHIRE DRIVE, TUCSON, AZ
When I had gotten the notice of a new assignment, while still at Tyndall AFB, we had terminated the leasing of our house on East North Wilshire Drive in Tucson and decided that that was to be the home for Mary Jo and the kids while I served my training and Vietnam tour.
We took care of loose ends and loaded the family in the ford Country Squire and towed the 19’ Holiday trailer to Tucson. Our beds for the trip were there in tow.
The house we had purchased was nicely configured for a very small family. We didn’t have a very small family. Two bedrooms and a nice big den would not be great for a family of seven. We solved a major problem by remodeling the garage into a three compartment dwelling place for the boys. Each of the three cubicles had a privacy partition from his adjacent sibling, a built in desk for study and a single bed. A narrow hallway down the inside of one of the garage sidewalls gave access to any or all of the cubicles.
Besides having the garage conversion job done, a couple of other significant acquisitions prior to my departing for Mountain Home added to long time family memories. A tiny male minature brown Dachshund puppy named Schatz was welcomed into the family. The second aquisition was the oil painting by William Zivic of a blue eyed racing roadrunner that still graced the wall of each house after Tucson. We acquired the painting from a small gallery in Tucson which was manned by the artist himself.
67th TACTICAL WING, RF-4C CREW TRAINING MOUNTAIN HOME AFB, MOUNTAIN HOME IDAHO
When RF-4C tactical reconnaissance aircraft were first deployed to Vietnam, the training for replacement crews was accomplished at Shaw AFB, South Carolina. It soon became apparent that the need for replacement crews for the 11th Squadron at Udorn Thailand and the 10th Tactical Recon Squadron at Than Son Nhut was greater than the facility at Shaw could handle.
When I entered the crew training at Mountain Home I started in a class of 8 crews and a new class of 8 crews was starting every two weeks. Our class consisted of two L/Cs, 4 majors, and two captains. One of the captains was promoted before we went overseas.
To give an idea of the variety of backgrounds: one L/C came from the Air University at Maxwell, the other L/C was from F 104 tactical evaluation at ADC Headquarters, three majors from F-lOls in ADC, one major and one captain from F-106 squadrons in ADC and the final captain was an Air Force Academy graduate and was current in T-33s but had never been checked out in an operational combat ready aircraft.
We commenced ground school and simulator in March. We were paired up with brand new navigators who were all 2nd Lts except for the one picked for me. He was a 1st Lt. And although he had graduated from Observer training with the rest of the navigators, he had “washed out” of pilot training for lack of practical manual skills before entering navigator training. He was a graduate of Georgia Tech and had gotten his commission through ROTC. His name became a problem between us from the start. William A. Kownacki was adamant that I pronounce his name correctly. When I called him Lt. Cow-nack-ee, he insisted his name was pronounced Cove - not-ski. From that time on I used the Cow nack-ee and he shuddered each time.
We attended different ground school classes since he was learning the back seat duties and I was learning the aircraft, engines, performance, terrain following and terrain avoidance radar displays and preparing for transition check out in the aircraft.
After I completed my transition phase in April, we started simulator sessions together for check list and aircraft emergency procedures.
Then the air work started. We were assigned a variety of targets to locate and definite scale photos and angles to acquire of these targets. We also learned the techniques of area mapping that we would be required to do in the combat zone once we got to Vietnam.
The RF-4C was a very technically advanced reconnaissance aircraft over its preceding systems like the RF-80, RF-84, and RF-101 and so forth. The aircraft major computer utilized data from inertial navigation system, radar altimeter and the variety of photographic and sensor systems to come up with the desired results of switch actions by the aircrew.
The inertial navigation system once locked on to the theoretical center of the earth, we would fly vectors in relation to longitude and latitude and had a direct readout of ground speed. Our headings were true rather than magnetic, therefore the line we would draw on a map was the true direction, in relation to longitude and latitude, that we actually flew. By maintaining a ground speed of 600 knots (10 nautical miles per minute) 540 knots (9 nautical miles per minute) etc we could make one minute interval checks on our map. This was extremely important to fly our preplan on low altitude missions.
The photo sensors consisted of high pan, low pan (side to side horizon to horizon scan) forward oblique, side oblique and split verticals. By setting up 58% overlap the photo interpreters could get stereo photo read-outs from the high pan and split vertical cameras. We carried a supply of liquid nitrogen to cool down the IR (infra red) mapping sensor heads. The even tail numbered RF -4Cs had side looking radar mapping. Interestingly the radar mapping was only on even numbered aircraft and was manufactured by Goodyear Rubber Co. at Goodyear, Arizona.
Since the F-4 Phantoms were called the MacNamara universal aircraft for all services, they all had a tail hook by birth and had an in-flight refueling receptacle located just after of the rear cockpit. The RF-4C was capable of night photography through the use of photo flash cartridges. Either 48 each 1.4 million candlepower or 24 each 2.3 million candlepower was a full load.
Although quite a difference in size, both cartridges resembled an oversized shotgun shell in appearance. Although the intervalometer in the computer launched them for 58% overlap on the split verticals, no sensation that they were being launched could be felt in the cockpits. From the ground, however, it sounded like a Howitzer blast and produced a very powerful illumination.
Tactical Reconnaissance was a new challenge for me. I really liked the Phantom II aircraft and I was fascinated by the recce mission. I breezed through transition, formation flying, day and night in flight refueling.
It wasn’t long after we started our assigned recce training missions that I realized that my back seater was not getting the knack of his responsibilities. The aircraft radar alternated between sector scan (side to side) and vertical scan at a rapid rate. Sector scan was primarily for the navigator to pick out landmarks and thus help guide us to targets assigned. Roads, railroads, rivers, bridges, buildings etc could be identified if the focus, gain control and other turning were accomplished.
Although the navigator did not have a capability of viewing the vertical scan, his sole responsibility was the best possible info from the sector scan. The vertical scan was incorporated into a pitch steering bar instrument so the pilot could use terrain following or terrain avoidance modes to stay out of danger of encountering hard objects head on. I found it necessary to select sector scan in order to help the navigator pick out necessary landmarks.
I was fully convinced that Bill Kownacki was not fine tuning his scope presentation. A “blooming” scope would remind you of meeting a car at night with hsi brights in your eyes.
After several missions with some missed targets, I went to my instructor with the problem. He sympathized and they set up a flight with the operations officer, a Major Hellings with my back seater Bill. After he returned from that flight, Major Hellings went shaking his head to see the crew training commander, a L/C Hubbard . (I don’t remember his first name but we called him Mother Hubbard out of respect for his motherly disposition.)
Lt. Col. Hubbard set up a mission to fly with Lt. Kownacki as his navigator. When he returned from that flight he advised me that he was seeking advice from TAC (Tactical Air command) headquarters at Langley AFB VA. They advised him that if he couldn’t get that navigator ready for a combat tour with the pilot, me, he would have to select one of his instructor navigators to go with me as a crew. All of Mother Hubbard’s instructor navigators were returnees from RF-4C back seater tours in the Vietnam theater of operations.
Mother Hubbard called me in and told me I had a problem. He said he would authorize three extra flights for our crew and that Lt. Bill Kownacki would be the navigator of my crew when we went for our Vietnam tour. Although I didn’t think the three extra rides would make a
significant difference we had to use them. I would hate to say that we were the victims of a white washing, but no matter how badly Bill goofed up, it never appeared in the written reports of each of our missions after that.
To top it off, the completion of the cover-up was when they presented a certificate to Major Stouffer and Lt. Kowanacki as the outstanding crew of the class of 68M-1, Mountain Home AFB, Idaho and etched our names on the to the unit’s Outstanding Student Crew trophy for all to see. Wow!
After school was out for the kids in Tucson, I took a weekend to go to Tucson and bring the family and the Country Squire and Holiday Travel trailer to Mountain Home. We spent some free time camping out and fishing before we completed the crew training and headed back to Tucson.
My assignment in the Vietnam area was to the 11th Tac Recon Squadron at the Royal Thai Air Base at Udom, Thailand. I did have a requirement to attend a final survival course near Clark AFB in the Philippine Islands on the way to Udom.
[ Family Pages ] [ Contents ] [ Previous Page ] [ Next Page ] [ Top ]