Solo (11 page)

In fingertip formation we communicated by hand signals, as mentioned, and also by a very slight wiggling or bouncing of lead’s aircraft. For example, if lead’s tail end suddenly fishtailed a little bit (accomplished with rudder pedals), we knew to move into “route” formation, that is, loose formation. At that time we could quickly look inside our own aircraft to check fuel remaining, engine temperature, and so forth, and then look back at lead (though number four always looks at number three, who relays
messages from lead when necessary).

When the pilot of the lead aircraft brought his thumb to his mouth in a drinking motion while the flight was in route formation, that meant “check your fuel.” We then each signaled with upheld fingers how many hundreds of pounds of fuel we had left. The flight lead planned maneuvers according to the least amount of fuel among us.

When lead gently rocked his wings, we moved back into fingertip formation.

The lead pilot had to be extraordinarily smooth with the stick and throttles. An erratic movement—especially up or down—could set off a chain reaction.

If we were a
two
-ship formation—I was lead, and you were flying on my right wing—and I suddenly did a quick little dip of my left wing, that would be a signal for a “cross-under.” You’d pull off a bit of power, drop back, add power, cross under just behind my exhaust ports (on the very tail end of the aircraft), and then add power again as you pulled up into position on my left wing—where number three would fly in a four-ship formation. The idea is to cross under quickly.

Another kind of formation—not fingertip—is called close trail. It can be flown in four-ship or two-ship formation. If I were your lead and I suddenly did a little porpoise with my nose (moving it up and down), you would know to slip back behind me and fly with the nose of your aircraft just behind and below my exhaust ports, and you would stay there no matter what I did. For example, I, the lead, might fly a loop or a barrel roll and you’d stay right there. And that would be hard work—for you. If, as number
two, three, or four in close-trail formation, I could not feel the jet exhaust of the aircraft ahead skimming the top of my vertical stabilizer—the highest point on my aircraft—then I was flying too low. While flying close trail, or fingertip for that matter, a pilot learns the skills and limits of a wingman or leader the way I imagine competitive rowers must learn the skills and limits of their teammates.

Sometimes the formation missions were a bit scary. An instructor might have to take over an erratic aircraft. Someone might be closing too fast on a join-up and have to duck under the other aircraft at the last minute for a close miss.

In those four-ship missions late in the program, there would be three of us solo and an instructor flying lead. When we landed, we’d talk about the flight. I would almost be in a state of disbelief: How is it possible that we just did something so amazing and are here now together, talking about it?

A
T THE END OF PILOT TRAINING
, our individual flying grades and academic grades were averaged and we were ranked. The class was given a block of different types of airplanes (the combination differed from class to class) and each of us ranked our choices, with the top pilot getting his first choice and the bottom pilot getting the last remaining airplane.

I was nervous about my assignment—my flying grades were high, but my academic grades, only average. What if all the fighters were gone before my choice came up? What if our block of aircraft had no fighters? Sometimes that happened.

Practically everybody wanted a fighter, and nobody wanted a bomber, especially the B-52. Flying the B-52, we were told, was boring—hours of doing nothing at a very high altitude out of range of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and then a few seconds of pressing a button to release bombs, then more hours of nothing.

Bombers and cargo planes were flown with yokes instead of sticks, and with throttles on the right. A fighter had a stick up from the floor and throttles on the left—like the T-37 and the T-38. The presence of a stick and the placement of the throttles were associated with speed, agility, and adventure. Both the T-37 and the T-38, with a few modifications, had been made into fighters—the A-37 and the F-5.

The Air Force philosophy in my day was to teach each of us to fly a fighter so that we could quickly adapt to any aircraft in the Air Force. The Navy split their pilots into fighter and cargo categories early in their pilot training, as the Air Force does now.

A few of our student pilots—Dickson, Bynum, and Williams—wanted to fly a big cargo plane, a C-130 or a C-135. (
F
is for
fighter, B
for
bomber, C
for
cargo, T
for
trainer,
and
OV
for
observation.
)

The F-104 I had seen on TV in “the film” when I was a boy was rarely assigned anymore. I wanted a single-seat fighter—an F-100, 101, 102, or 105—and if not one of those, then the relatively new, very hot, dual-seat F-4.

But what about those average academic grades? I was not at the top of the class. Had I come this far to end up in a damn bomber or cargo plane—something that wouldn’t fly upside down and faster than the speed of sound?

The list came down, and slots for my squadron included four F-105s, four F-100s, and, luckily, eleven F-4s. I got an F-4. Nineteen of us got fighters and twenty-three of us got a mix of nonfighter aircraft.

T
HE
F-4
WAS THE FASTEST
and most powerful fighter in the world, and my six-month training course in how to fly it would be at Homestead Air Force Base, just south of Miami, Florida. We’d learn not only the specifics of flying the airplane, not greatly different from flying the T-38, but also its missions: air-to-air combat, air-to-ground, and nuclear. But first came a three-week survival training course at Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington State.

I remember writing home, and saying aloud proudly to anyone interested—or not: “My assignment will be F-4 backseat to Miami.”

On our last day in Laredo, family members came to the ceremony for the awarding of wings. My mother flew on her first commercial flight, as I had a year earlier—to Laredo. There she pinned my silver wings onto my dress blues during the graduation ceremony.

“My, my,” she said. “That little trip to the airport all those years ago—leading up to this. My, my.”

“This is just the beginning,” I said.

We never spoke of war.

F
LYING
J
ET
F
IGHTERS

W
HAT DO YOU DO
after bailing out of an aircraft behind enemy lines or over a wilderness area? I was sent to Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington State to find out. After Fairchild, I’d start my F-4 training at an eight-week radar-operation course at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona (the F-4 radar was operated from the rear seat, and all training at Davis-Monthan would be in a flight simulator), and then I’d be back to Florida for six months of flying the F-4.

During our survival training, I and a new set of comrades—fighter-pilots-to-be as well as air crews of big airplanes—would take a week or so of academic classes and physical training in preparation for several days in the wild.

Within a few days of arriving at Fairchild, I met Buddy Harmon, another F-4 backseater. Buddy, from Alabama, was short and round faced and spoke with a southern twang I’d heard little of—except from my own mouth—in the past year.

During those first two weeks we learned, among other skills, how to get out of our parachute harnesses on the ground in high wind. We were taken in buses to a flat area where a very large wind fan stood ready and waiting. I hooked myself into a parachute harness and lay down on the ground; then the parachute was held up to catch the wind from the fan, the fan was turned on, and I fumbled with my harness releases as I was dragged along, learning how to release myself quickly so as not to be dragged by wind.

We were fed cooked dog, horse, and snake, just to show us that it wasn’t so bad. We had lectures, demonstrations, and practice about how to, among other skills, choke someone with a belt or a short piano wire with handles and how to hold, aim, and fire the .38 pistol, a weapon we’d carry in our survival vests on combat missions. We took judo classes. My mind’s eye could dimly see an enemy soldier. I felt better knowing how to use these weapons, but I suspected that I’d never need them, and I think most of us felt that way.

“Where in hell we gonna get a piano wire?” asked Buddy.

I hadn’t thought about it. “From a piano?”

And then, after a couple of weeks of running everywhere on base (we were not allowed to walk outdoors), we were taken on buses to a training camp in the Washington wilderness, where we were shown how to use our ponchos to build a camouflaged shelter beneath leaves and dirt, how to build a makeshift lean-to, how to trap animals, how to travel quietly and unseen.

On the day before we’d be turned loose in pairs—out
of base camp and into the wilderness with maps and compass and forty pounds of equipment each on our backs to be chased by “enemy” troops with dogs—the fourteen in my group were given a live rabbit. After being shown how to kill it, skin it, gut it, and cook it, we did all that. Then each of us ate about one-fourteenth of a tender, freshly grilled rabbit. That’s the last “real” food we’d have for several days. Packed into our backpacks for our three-day trek in the mountains were two cereal bars and two bars of something called pemmican, a kind of beef jerky.

Sergeant Webber was my partner in the wilderness. He would eventually be a crew member on a cargo plane. Together, he and I were to navigate through the cold Washington wilderness for two days, sleeping under our two ponchos (snapped together into a small tent) and running from “Communist soldiers” manning dogs on leashes—out to get us. Our job was to stay ahead of them, navigating with our compasses and maps through manned checkpoints in the woods to a final staging area. If we were caught and released, or if we were late to a checkpoint or missed one, a card we carried would be punched. Three punches and we’d have to repeat our last three days of the wilderness program. A few days before we arrived, a pilot, taken to the hospital because of exposure and exhaustion, had died from pneumonia.

The Washington mountains in our area were not high; they were climbable, steep hills. We wore regular, government-issue combat boots. Had snow been forecast, we would have been issued snow boots—inflatable rubber boots, designed to keep our feet warm and dry.

Unforecast snow fell our first night out, blanketing everything. We had many fallen logs to cross and we were carrying those forty-pound backpacks. I remember how difficult it was to stand after slipping to the ground, and near the end of our trek, when we’d take a break to rest, I could imagine curling up and going to sleep, or just lying still, not moving.

On the first night, I left my wet gloves outside the tent flap. The next morning they were frozen.

“Webber, have we got time to build a little fire and thaw these things out?”

“I think I hear the dogs . . . hear that?”

After the two days and a night running from the enemy and navigating through the wilderness, we all, about thirty of us, converged. But for the last hundred yards or so before being automatically captured, we had to crawl on our stomachs through a large field. If one of us hit a trip wire, a flare ignited, and the offender’s card was punched.

After capture, we were herded into a fenced-in compound commanded by “Communist soldiers” wearing uniforms and small-billed hats with red stars on the front. Our job was to organize for escape. Within the first few hours we were gathered into small groups and lectured on the glory of Communism and the evil of capitalism. I argued with the lecturers. An enemy officer pulled me aside and said, “Academic situation.” This was code for “We are no longer playing war. I have something important to tell you.” He told me I should not argue. To do so would guarantee my being picked for interrogation. My argumentativeness would be seen as a sign of weakness, not strength.

We were put into wooden boxes, each about the size of a small telephone booth—just under six feet tall by about three feet square. We had to stand (but I couldn’t stand straight, being six feet two) for twelve hours, overnight. We were given water but no food. At some point during the stay in the large box, we were each taken out and put into a box just big enough to hold someone wedged in on hands and knees. This was for, as I recall, a few hours. Then came interrogation. We’d all been given secret information about our units, and our job was not to squeal. After the interrogation—two guys holding sticks and hollering—one of the guys called an academic situation and told me I’d done fine.

I remember, while in the big box and awaiting my time in the little box, hearing a voice nearby that I’d never heard, a southern, nasal, Gomer Pyle twang: “I ain’t getting in that box. I don’t care what you say. I ain’t getting in that box. I don’t care what you do. You can punch my card a thousand times. I ain’t getting in that box. You can kill me, but I ain’t . . .”

After three days of no food except for the cereal, the pemmican bars, and one-fourteenth of a rabbit, we were all marched to a gathering place by a road, where a mush of some sort was being cooked in large metal trash cans over fires. We were allowed one ladle each, and I remember how hot it was, how it burned my tongue, how it tasted with no salt. We were then bused back to Fairchild Air Force Base.

We rode along, listless, but then someone saw a sign advertising hamburgers. “Hamburger,” he said. “Milk,” said another. “Mashed potatoes.” “Biscuits.” “Apple pie.”

I remember standing before a mirror after a shower in my quarters. I could see the outlines of my ribs. My lips were split from being chapped. My palms were covered with small cuts because after my gloves froze and I could no longer wear them, I held on to branches of small fir trees while slipping and sliding down hillsides, and sometimes a branch would cut my hand or finger.