Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War (7 page)

Another category of flight instrumentation taught at Whiting was how to navigate using radio beacons. Student aviators were taught tactical air navigation, or TACAN, a system used by military aircraft that is many times more accurate and powerful than the VOR system used in civilian aviation. With a range of up to 120 miles at an altitude of 10,000 feet, TACAN provided distance and bearing from a ground station or a ship at sea. Navy pilots are quick to point out that they have to be skilled at radio navigation because, unlike their counterparts in the air force, they cannot follow the railroad tracks home.

After three months at Whiting, Dieter, who never again became airsick after that first flight, returned to Saufley Field for carrier qualifications in T-28s. Before attempting the real thing at sea, the students spent weeks landing on an outlying runway painted with white lines to resemble the shape of an aircraft carrier’s flight deck. The runway was wired with the optical landing system (OLS) used to give information about the glide path to pilots in the final phase of landing on a carrier. Here they practiced approaching the simulated deck at the correct glide slope, air speed, and line-up. The OLS had a concave mirror in which a bright orange light—the meatball, in navy jargon—was visible to the pilot about to land. On either side of the mirror was a horizontal line of green lights. The location of the orange ball indicated the position of the aircraft on its final approach; if the ball appeared above the line of green lights, then the plane was too high; and if the ball appeared below the lights, the plane was too low. The idea was to line up the orange ball with the green lights. In addition to “calling the ball” to determine whether they were on the correct glide path—and learning to react instantly and make necessary adjustments in speed, altitude, or line-up—pilots were taught to follow the directions of a landing signal officer (LSO) on the ground. The LSOs were experienced carrier pilots specially trained to provide landing guidance to the pilot by handheld radio (they had used colored paddles for many years), advising of power requirements and position relative to the glide path and the flight deck. A moment before touching down—and only if the LSO decided that the aircraft was in position to make a simulated carrier landing—the student pilot was given the “cut” order both verbally and with flashing green lights. The pilot pulled back on the throttle, which was manipulated by his left hand while the right stayed on the control stick. As soon as the tires hit the pavement, the flaps were returned to the takeoff position, full power was added, and the plane took off again. If the LSO determined at the last second that the aircraft was not in proper position for a landing, he activated two vertical rows of flashing red lights on either side of the meatball to indicate a “wave-off” and gave the same order by radio. In that case the pilot would add power, regain altitude, and go around to try again. For eight days the students made endless touch-and-goes—the first two days with an instructor in the plane and the rest while flying solo—all with their plane’s
steel tailhook in the up position because there were no cables stretched across the runway like those on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

The day arrived that all naval aviators in training looked forward to with a mixture of excitement and anxiety: their first carrier landing. The thrill came from knowing that this was what set navy pilots apart; and the apprehension came not only from the potential danger—one mistake could send them crashing into the sea—but also from the realization that if they failed to pass carrier qualifications, they would not earn their naval aviator wings. In most cases, fear of failure trumped fear of death.

In a flight of four T-28s, Dieter and three other student aviators departed from Saufley. They flew solo, sans instructors, on the most important day of their training. They headed in formation for a rendezvous at sea with USS
Lexington
(CVS-16), an aircraft carrier with a storied record. Launched in 1942,
Lexington
had been reported sunk by the Japanese no fewer than four times. Each time, it returned to fight again. Tokyo Rose called the ship—the only U.S. carrier painted blue rather than in camouflage colors—“The Blue Ghost.” Now operating out of Pensacola,
Lexington
had a new mission: serving as the aviation training carrier in the Gulf of Mexico to qualify new pilots and maintain the proficiency of active and reserve aviators.

Soon after the planes crossed the coast, the carrier’s wake came into view—a long, whitish line on a big blue canvas. Then, the pilots saw what looked like a postage stamp from the air but was
Lexington
steaming westward into the prevailing trade winds. Air-traffic controllers aboard
Lexington
radioed clearance for the T-28s to enter the landing pattern and make their first approaches. Procedures that the students had memorized in classrooms and practiced on the painted runway seemed different now as they flew the downwind leg, parallel to the ship but in the opposite direction, and then began a long turn on final approach, aiming for the ship’s squared-off stern. Even when they drew closer, the aircraft carrier looked absurdly small in the immense sea.

Their first two approaches were touch-and-goes with tailhooks still retracted. At touchdown they went to full power and zoomed off the angled deck that jutted from the port side. They soon realized that calling the ball on the OLS and following the instructions of the LSO, both of which were strategically positioned on the aft port corner of the flight deck so their
signals were visible even when the nose of the aircraft obscured the pilot’s view straight ahead, were the same as what they had so painstakingly practiced. After everyone made two passes, the LSO radioed the pilots to lower their tailhooks for an arrested landing, commonly called a trap or a recovery.

The arresting cable system on an aircraft carrier is an essential component of naval aviation, allowing planes to land in a short distance aboard a ship at sea. As utilized by the early naval aviator Eugene Ely for the first shipboard landing of a plane in 1911 (aboard the cruiser
Pennsylvania
), the rudimentary system consisted of pulleys and sandbags for deadweights. The recovery system had been mechanized and modernized over the years. A plane’s tailhook—all carrier planes have one, which folds up under the fuselage when not in use—catches one of four cables stretched across the flight deck. The force of the plane’s forward motion is transferred through the cable to the arresting-gear engine below deck. As the cable unwinds, the huge, hydraulic engine is designed to facilitate a smooth, controlled stop of the plane. But generations of navy pilots may dispute that the stop is smooth and controlled, given that a screeching halt from speeds greater than 100 miles per hour in two seconds is so abrupt that they’re thrown against their seat harnesses in a “violent collision” that sounds and feels “like a high-speed automobile accident.”

After four traps on
Lexington
—each time they were quickly positioned for a deck launch off the bow—the students headed back to Saufley, exhausted but exhilarated. They were not yet fully qualified for carrier flight operations, however. Not until advanced flight training at their next base would they be shot off the flight deck by a catapult.

As primary flight training came to an end, there was a “big choice” for Dieter and the other students in his class: which types of aircraft to request for advanced flight training and for eventually flying in an active-duty squadron. They were given three choices: jets; multiengine aircraft that were mostly land-based patrol planes; and A-1 Skyraiders, the last single-engine propeller-driven aircraft still in use on carriers. Each student was given a form to fill out listing his first, second, and third choices.

Notwithstanding the choices given the students, the navy used two main criteria in making these assignments. First and foremost came the needs of the service, which changed weekly. One week there might be no
openings for jets, which a sizable number of students in any class wanted to fly; the following week, when the next class received assignments, there could be a dozen jet openings. Also, students received—or did not receive—their requested assignments on the basis of their class ranking. Even the top students faced uncertainty about the selection process: at the time they listed their choices, they did not know the number of pilots needed in each program that week or even their own class ranking. If the top student in the class requested jets and there was at least one opening, he would get it. But if the same student requested jets in a week when there weren’t any openings, he would be assigned to multiengines, a disappointment for anyone who saw himself as the fleet’s next hot jet jockey. An added twist was that a student would end up in A-1 Skyraiders, which took just three new pilots every few weeks because the program was winding down (no new A-1s had been built since 1957), only if he listed them as his first choice. Balancing the popularity of jets and the limited A-1 openings was the fact that some naval flight students listed multiengines as their first choice. These students included some who already knew they would not relish flying off carriers in all types of weather, and others anticipating a career after the navy in which having multiengine experience could help them land a job as a commercial airline pilot.

As for Dieter, he wanted only the A-1 Skyraider. With a big engine spinning a huge propeller, it had the deep, throaty sound of the World War II plane that had swooped low over his house in the Black Forest. At Pensacola, he had watched Skyraiders taking off and landing, often with open canopies right out of the goggles-and-scarf era.

It was not just in Dieter’s imagination that the A-1 seemed like a throw-back. Designed during the last year of World War II, the Skyraider had entered service in 1946 as the optimum carrier-based attack bomber, designed to outperform the enemy’s best propeller-driven fighters while carrying to target a bomb load greater than that of the four-engine B-17 Flying Fortress. The Skyraider was the creation of the aircraft designer Ed Heinemann, who during his illustrious career at Douglas Aircraft designed more than twenty combat aircraft for the navy, including many that became legends, such as the SBD Dauntless dive-bomber. Heinemann, a self-taught engineer, described his approach to aircraft design as rather straightforward,
explaining that he took the most powerful engine available and built a plane around it. In the Skyraider, Heinemann outdid himself, using the largest radial engine ever put in a single-engine U.S. military aircraft that went into production. The Skyraider had the same 2,700-horsepower Wright R-3350 engine that powered larger multiengine aircraft such as the B-29 Super-fortress, C-119 Flying Boxcar, and DC-7. The A-1’s power and stability allowed it to carry aloft a payload greater than its own weight. After missing the war for which it was designed, the Skyraider saw action in Korea. During that campaign, a squadron aboard the aircraft carrier
Prince ton
took up the challenge that a Skyraider could “carry everything but the kitchen sink.” Under one wing a kitchen sink was attached to a 1,000-pound bomb, and both were dropped on the enemy near Pyongyang in August 1952.

There was a trade-off with the A-1: along with its ability to carry great loads for long distances, there was its lack of speed. With a normal cruising speed of 180 miles per hour, the A-1 was a slow mover in the supersonic age, when jets routinely operated at more than twice that speed. In homage to an earlier era, the A-1 was dubbed the “Spad” after a famous biplane of World War I. Being a holdover from another time and place was part of the plane’s charm, contributing to tradition and nostalgia—not only for Dieter but for the other pilots who signed up to fly Spads and the crews who maintained them. A “typically cocky Spad jockey” possessed an abundance of “style and derring-do,” and became accustomed to landing at a new base, shutting down the roaring engine that drove a fourteen-foot propeller and smelled of burning oil, only to have gawkers who saw “sleek jets every day and couldn’t care less” come over and stare at the A-1 asking endless questions. “Hell, everyone drives a Ford,” one Spad pilot remarked, “but how many Model T’s do you see on the road?”

After turning in their list of aircraft choices, the students were told they would receive their assignments when they reported to Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, located on the Gulf coast of Texas some 700 miles from Pensacola.

Dieter heard scuttlebutt that the limited Spad assignments were “first come, first served” in Texas, and that one would have a better chance by being early on the scene, before all the available slots were filled. However, no one could leave until their order to proceed to Corpus Christi came
through, so the opportunities for a head start were not good. Dieter, though, was dating the daughter of the Saufley base commander, and she told him one night that his class would receive their orders in two days at exactly 3:00
A.M
. Dieter planned his getaway.

When the lights came on in the barracks at three o’clock, Dieter was fully clothed under a sheet. As soon as he had his orders in hand and while others were milling about discussing their travel plans to Texas, he hurried out the back to a waiting bicycle. The NAVCAD cadets were still not allowed to have cars on the base, and Dieter had already learned that lesson. He biked to a nearby car dealer’s lot. Dieter had sold his VW van, along with his surfboard, and had saved enough of his monthly pay to buy a used Porsche Speedster. The dealer had agreed to let Dieter keep the car on the lot for a while. The old bathtub coupe, with a ski rack on the back, was already fueled and packed with his belongings. Dieter slipped behind the wheel and “made one beeline” to Texas.

When he arrived, Dieter scrambled to be first to check in. He was surprised to find himself in line behind a classmate who also wanted Spads. It turned out that the other guy was also dating the base commander’s daughter, and a day or so earlier had bought his airline ticket to Corpus Christi. As luck had it, they were both assigned to Spads, and had the same young woman to thank.