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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Actually John, I did. A long time ago I wrote a
full manuscript of my experiences in the Air Force from basic training through
the day I drove out of the main gate at Dover. But I thought about it and
decided the story really wasn't about me, but was about the mission. I suggested
to my friend Bob Dorr that he write a book about the troop carrier mission and
he came back and said "why don't you do it?" I had given Bob some information
for a book he wrote on the air war against North Vietnam. I got a clearance to
go into the Air Force historical records since I spent a lot of time in DC but
then I found out that Ray Bowers had written the official history of the
tactical airlift mission in SEA and it was about to be published. I put a letter
in AIR FORCE magazine asking for C-130 veterans to contribute and heard from a
number of people such as John Butterfield, Frank Gawell and Dan Reider (who
I finally met in 2005 just before he passed away a few months later.) I soon had
enough material that I didn't have to go into the archives, which was probably a
good thing since a lot of things were still classified at the time and they
would probably have blacked out my notes. One particular treasure was the
account about the role the C-130 crews played in the POW release in Hanoi since
it had never been made public. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I wasn't happy with the title the publisher gave
and there are some errors in the finished product, namely in terms of some
aircraft numbers. I used a list I found at the USAF Museum and Lars Olausson's
material, which was less complete then than it is now. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>All in all, though, I was pretty pleased with the
finished product. I did have one problem though. Presido Press put out a book
about the same time by Moe Morrison called C-130, the Hercules and even though
it was totally different from mine, it got wider notice. Mine was in B. Dalton
but a lot of other bookstores didn't carry it. It sold about 2,500 copies and
they're pretty hard to find now, and if you can they can cost a bundle.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Sam </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=jreves@comcast.net href="mailto:jreves@comcast.net">John Reves</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=airlifters@topica.com
href="mailto:airlifters@topica.com">airlifters@topica.com</A> ; <A
title=herkybirds@topica.com href="mailto:herkybirds@topica.com">Herkybirds</A>
; <A title=464thTCW@topica.com href="mailto:464thTCW@topica.com">464th TCW</A>
; <A title=tctaamembers@troopcarrier.org
href="mailto:tctaamembers@troopcarrier.org">tctaamembers@troopcarrier.org</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, November 22, 2008 10:40
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: (Airlifters) 44 Years
Ago</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Qute a yarn, Sam, and very interesting. You
should make an account of all your experieces and memories in book
form. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Meanwhile, happy T day everyone!!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>John</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=sammcgowan@troopcarrier.org
href="mailto:sammcgowan@troopcarrier.org">Sam McGowan</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=herkybirds@topica.com
href="mailto:herkybirds@topica.com">Herkybirds</A> ; <A
title=airlifters@topica.com
href="mailto:airlifters@topica.com">Airlifters</A> ; <A
title=464thTCW@topica.com href="mailto:464thTCW@topica.com">464th TCW</A> ;
<A title=tctaamembers@troopcarrier.org
href="mailto:tctaamembers@troopcarrier.org">tctaamembers@troopcarrier.org</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Friday, November 21, 2008 8:42
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> (Airlifters) 44 Years
Ago</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Today is November 21. Forty-four years ago I
was a young Airman Second Class loadmaster trainee at Pope AFB, NC. A little
over a week earlier I had laid awake late on Saturday night listening to the
Grand Old Opry on my transistor radio in my room in the aircrew barracks
until the wee hours of the morning. I was in the 779th TCS but lived in an
778th room along with Carl Edison and Charles Zelinski. They were both TDY
to France and I had the room to myself. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I had barely gone to sleep when the alert siren
started going off and the telephone down the hall started ringing. I jumped
out of bed and into my flight suit and grabbed my mobility bag and headed
for the squadron. I don't remember for sure how we got there, but I imagine
a bunch of us jumped into Paul Thompson's Ford. Since it was Sunday morning
rather than a weekday, we had a pretty good idea the alert was for real even
though we'd been having practice alerts in anticipation of the wing's
upcoming ORI for some time.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>As soon as we got to the squadron we started on
the callout list. Since we lived in the barracks onbase we were the first to
arrive, along with a few younger officers who lived in the BOQ. I was still
in student status and was on a crew made up of students. When I called the
engineer assigned to our crew, Don Mayer, he accused me of playing a joke on
him! Like a lot of other people, he'd stayed late at the club on Saturday
night and was barely asleep when I called. It took a couple of calls before
I finally convinced him it was for real.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>During a practice alert once everyone had
assembled the wing command post would eventually call down and cancel the
alert and everyone would be released. This time was different. Instead of
sending everyone home, crews were sent to the flight line and assigned to
airplanes. It had become pretty obvious that the wing was really going
somewhere this time and most of us had a pretty good idea where. For several
weeks the newspapers had been carrying stories about the hostages held by
Simba rebels in the Congo, and we assumed the alert had something to do with
that. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Once the squadron realized the alert was for
real, the senior loadmaster, TSgt Virgil Nelson, went to the squadron
commander, Lt. Col. Gibney, and asked that the student loadmasters be
assigned to crews to go on the mission. Col. Gibney thought about it but
decided it was against regulations since no one knew where the crews were
going and we weren't designated as combat ready. The regs were clear that
only qualified aircrew members designated as combat ready were allowed on
combat missions. (As it turned out, some of the other squadron commanders
interpreted the regs differently and some of our buddies in the other
squadrons did go out with crews with instructor loadmasters.) </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Those of us who hadn't gone felt sort of left
out as every airplane on the base - literally - departed for parts unknown.
The only airplanes that didn't go were the ones in maintenance. The flight
line was practically deserted, as was the squadron. After a few days the CTU
decided to send out a navigational training mission to Bermuda with one of
the airplanes that had been in periodic maintenance. There wasn't a single
qualified loadmaster left on the base but someone, I don't remember who,
decided that since I was on flying status and a qualified C-130 aircraft
mechanic, I got fly as scanner. It was the first time I ever went out by
myself as part of a flight crew. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The alert was on Sunday morning the week prior
to Thanksgiving week. The entire wing had departed on a classified mission
and no one knew where they had gone. We thought they had headed for Africa
to drop the 82nd, but as it turned out, 464th airplanes were scattered all
over the Atlantic and Europe, where they went to replace the Pope rotational
squadron at Evreux, France which had actually been assigned to a rescue
mission. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The Pope rote squadron did fly the mission on
the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I won't go into the details here. If anyone
wants to read about it, go to my home page at <A
href="http://www.sammcgowan.com/home.html">www.sammcgowan.com/home.html</A>
and click on the Airlift History link and you'll find a link to an account
of the mission. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>We found out either later that day or the
following morning that our guys had dropped Belgian troops on the airport at
Stanleyville and as the word spread around the base, pandemonium broke out.
The only time I had seen such excitement had been one night in the base
theater when we were watching the first movie to be made about Vietnam - it
was actually made in Vietnam - and a formation of C-123s had dropped ARVN
troops to rescue the hero. Talk about proud! There is a web site called
Talking Proud but they don't even know what the word really means!. That had
to have been the most exciting day in troop carrrier history, at least in
the post-World War II period. Our very own guys, our friends and instructors
and in my case, my roommates, had flown a heroic mission and had saved the
lives of people who had been held hostage simply because of the color of
their skins. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>When the newspapers came out the following day,
the excitement turned to a dark mood as a general feeling of hatred toward
our brothers in MATS emerged. The New York Times and other papers had
carried headlines that read "MATS RESCUES HOSTAGES!" Bullcrap! Those
airplanes weren't MATS!! They were TAC C-130Es assigned to the 464th Troop
Carrier Wing - OUR WING! MATS played no role whatsoever. And in truth,
MATS hadn't. Although the airplanes and crews were TDY to 322nd Air Division
which had recently transferred to MATS, they had been sent on a mission for
USAFE and once they reached Africa, they came under the control of Strike
Command, of which Tactical Air Command was one element. Even the 5th APS
loadmasters and combat controllers and 322nd AD command personnel who had
gone on the mission had switched to Strike Command control for the mission.
We were not just mad, we were incensed! We were so incensed that Charlie
Watkins, an engineer in the 776th, called up a the Pentagon and blessed out
a general. I'm not sure where Charlie was when he made his call. I don't
think he was at Pope but was somewhere out on the road and made his call on
the AUTOVON line. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>On Thanksgiving Day we found out that our guys
had done it again that morning while we were still sleeping. They had
dropped the Belgians at Paulis and effected another rescue. That was just
icing on the cake.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>A few days later the crews that had gone out
started coming back in, and we started hearing stories about things that had
happened. One was about a friend ours in OMS named Slackerman who had run
afoul of the new line chief TAC had sent down to Pope from Lockbourne to
straighten out flight line maintenance. The OMS troops called him Be No,
because the first thing he had told him was that "there will be no 3-day
passes," "there'll be no more time-off," etc. and etc. "until maintenance is
straightened out." I don't remember what Slackerman had done or if he had
already lost his stripes or if he lost them for what he did, but he came
into the open bay barracks where they all staying at a base somewhere,
possibly Lajes, and pissed all over Be No Young! Another story was how the
guys who flew the mission hadn't had a bath in days and when a thunderstorm
came up, they all stripped off their flight suits and fatigues and ran out
naked into the rain with bars of soap for the bath they'd had since they
left Ascension Island on the way to Africa. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I'd like to have been a fly on the wall in the
Officers and NCO Clubs at Sewart and Langley to hear the conversations there
about what the Pope crews had done. The Sewart and Langley guys were the
C-130 vets, but Pope had only had Herks for less than two years. The 464th
had kicked off the Vietnam War with their C-123s with assistance from the
Sewart C-123 squadron (which transferred to Pope.) Now they had flown a
spectacular headline making mission in Africa. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Regardless of what folks thought at the other
TAC bases - and the MATS bases for that matter - there is only one word
to describe the emotion at Pope and it is spelled P-R-O-U-D!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Sam McGowan</FONT></DIV><PRE>Use "Reply" to respond to the author of a message,
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