Last fall, some 27,000 Air National Guardsmen and AF Reservists left their homes and businesses—some for the

third time since 1941—as the Reserve Forces mobilized to meet the Berlin crisis. Shortly afterward, in a

podel operation, a number of the Air Force units were on leir way to Europe. Here's how the deployment went . . .

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The Recall Story

MAINTAIN THE PEACE' —PRESIDENT JOHN P. KENNEDY

46,

what your country can you. . . . Ask what you for your country."

roe of his inaugural, of isident Kennedy could own all that the months d hold. He had not yet

ra. Berlin's status quo os was a far-off land we all had trouble pro-

how many Americans d themselves the question the President last January

speculation. But these months more than 27,000 mal Guardsmen and Air servists ( along with their its in the Army and Navy)

By Maj. James C. Elliott, USAF US AIR FORCE PHOTOS

have met the challenge by leaving their civilian occupations for mobi-lization in the interest of preserving world peace. Many of these men were being called for the third time in twenty years. Some formed "41- 51-61 Clubs."

Yet, this time things were differ-ent. These men were being called not for hot war but to beef up Uncle Sam's tactical and airlift strength—to fulfill an obligation that called not only for fighting if war devel-oped but first to deter war by their presence as "in-being" forces at home and overseas.

Any examination of the timetable the units followed underlines the tremendous task the Reserve Forces

faced on recall. With tension mounting over Berlin, units were alerted in August for "possible re-call." In September, thirty-four units —thirty-three flying units and a tac-tical control group—were ordered to report for active duty on Oc-tober 1.

Thus, on that day, eighteen tac-tical fighter squadrons, four tactical reconnaissance squadrons, six C-97 air transport squadrons, and one tactical control group, plus their supporting elements, were activated from the Air Guard, and five C-124 troop carrier squadrons were re-called from the Air Force Reserve.

Three ANG F-104 fighter-inter- (Continued on following page)

Magazine • January 1962 81

F-84s are towed from the parking ramp to the end of the runway for takeoff at one of the en-route stops during deployment in which 218 planes moved overseas without a single accident.

SOUTH CAROLINA AIR NATIONAL GUARD

I 115111 111

I UlJi 411 i1311114 ustasetel.s, Recalled South Carolina . unit musters as their babe h

named for the late Brig. Barnie B. McEntire, Jr., last May in crash of an F.1

ceptor units—from Knoxville, Tenn., Phoenix, Ariz., and McEntire ( then Congaree) Air National Guard Base, S. C., joined the force a month later, and a few days afterward their sixty planes were airlifted to Europe in the bays of C-124 Globe-masters.

The tac fighter units included the 101st, Boston, Mass.; 131st, Westfield, Mass.; and the 138th from Syracuse, N. Y., all flying the F-86H Sabre. Units with the F-84F Thunderstreak included the 119th, Atlantic City, N. J.; 141st, McGuire AFB, N. J.; 149th, Richmond, Va.; 162d, Springfield, Ohio; 164th, Mansfield, Ohio; 166th, Lockbourne AFB, Ohio; 112th, Toledo, Ohio; 113th, Terre Haute, Ind.; 163d, Fort Wayne, Ind.; 110th, St. Louis, Mo.; 169th, Peoria, Ill.; and the 170th, Springfield, Ill.

The F-100 Supersabre units in-cluded the 120th, Denver, Colo.; 121st, Andrews AFB, D. C.; and the 136th, Niagara Falls, N. Y.

The RF-84F Thunderflash squad-rons were the 106th, Birmingham, Ala.; 153d, Meridian, Miss.; 160th, Montgomery, Ala.; and the 184th, Fort Smith, Ark.

The C-97 Stratofreighter squad-rons included the 109th, Minne-apolis-St. Paul, Minn.; 133d, Man-chester, N. H.; 139th, Schenectady, N. Y.; and the 115th and 195th, Van Nuys, Calif.; and the 125th, Tulsa, Okla.

The tactical control group was the 152d T-C Group, Roslyn, L. I., N. Y., which included units from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.

The Air Force Reserve units in-cluded the 78th Troop Carrier Squadron from Barksdale AFB, La.; and the 303d and 304th, Richards-Gebaur AFB, Mo.; 305th, Tinker AFB, Okla.; and the 77th, Donald-son AFB, S. C. All of the Air Force Reserve units were recently equipped with Globemasters.

Together, they represented a lot of men. And the mobilization of the men meant mobilization of families. Not only the men but their wives and children, too, stood in line for identification cards, photographs, and fingerprints. There was a mad hassle to find birth certificates. Marriage licenses had to be dug out of attics and college degrees from cedar chests. There seemed to

be no end to the number of that had to be completed.

Most bases did not have quate housing facilities. Many no BOQs or enlisted men's b. at all. That meant hotel and rooms had to be mustered for "out-of-towners." Mess halls had operated on a one-week a-month schedule suddenly pressed into seven-day-a-week . ice.

Legal problems multiplied complexities. Wills, powers of torney, and other documents to be executed. Mortgage paym. for families suffering drastic s cuts had to be eased. Allotm. had to be made.

Families unfamiliar with gm. ment-sponsored moves suddenly came experts. And most of wives, though accustomed to la, week ends, found their husb new schedules much more dem ing than before.

Although most pilots were ready combat ready, they fi new demands on their skills—on bombing ranges, in rocketry, gunnery. They flew long-range gational missions and p

82 AIR FORCE Magazine •

3. Obtaining the necessary ies for the kits wasn't easy, Dmehow, some way, and from where the supply officers and noncoms dug them up. Dse poor supply folks! The

and Reserve clothing allot-3 were naturally far short of emands for Regulars. The Re-fs, for instance, might have required to have only two sets tigues, while Regulars might four. GI underwear, towels, the like had never been

ad. .dical personnel also were . Everyone got physical and 1 exams. Immunizations, of e, are as much a part of mobi-m as putting on the uniform. ese were just some of the prob-But they underscore the mu!-of obstacles the units faced.

e new units scheduled for de-lent had the added responsi-of reactivating bases overseas. s something like playing a pionship football game on two ent fields. e had to take over bases over- just eighteen days after we recalled," explained Brig. Gen.

Donald Strait, Commander of the 108th Tactical Fighter Wing at Mc-Guire AFB, N. J. He said it almost as though he himself could hardly believe they had done it.

"It was rough," he admitted. "We had to provide billeting and mess-ing facilities, establish base ex-changes and servicemen's clubs, and get a whole base in operation. No, it wasn't easy. Of course, we didn't have any furniture to speak of—it was still on the ships bringing it over. And we didn't have any vehicles.

"Remember," he added, "we were doing all this, processing our men and their dependents, and flying our heads off, too. In that month before the deployment, the squad-ron flew 500 hours. Normally you'd stand down and get ready for some-thing like this, get the maintenance caught up. But we couldn't operate that way because we had to fly all those new missions.

"That month we had thirteen engine changes—replacing older en-gines with later-model, more pow-erful ones. We had to install 'em, check 'em, and then test-fly 'em.

(Continued on following page)

83

THE RECALL STORY-10 MAINTAIN THE PEACE'

And all that took a little time, too." While all this was going on, Air

Force and TAC set about planning the deployment. "Operation Stair Step" they called the move. Gen. Walter C. Sweeney, jr., the tall, hard-charging Commander of TAC, was handed the responsibility. General Sweeney insisted that per-fection would be the rule. Fresh in his new post from an assignment as Commander of SAC's crack Eighth Air Force, the General seemed to have his finger in every phase of the operation. He worked around the clock doing it, the personification of a "take-command" fellow taking command. That included such items as checking one night on billeting arrangements for a group of incom-ing pilots, all lieutenants and cap-tains, who were to ferry the T-33s across the pond. Such interest in the welfare of his men did more than anything else, perhaps, to guarantee a successful deployment.

Midnight oil was common at TAC Headquarters at Langley. Flight plans grew. Because the Air Guard had no in-flight refueling training—or on some aircraft not even the capability—the planes would have to island-hop across the Atlantic. That meant the F-86Hs and T-33s would take the northern route, through Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, and Scotland. The F-84Fs and RF-84Fs would take the New-foundland-Azores-Spain route.

No RF-84Fs had flown the Atlan-tic before. Thus the Air Guardsmen became pioneers. Nor had but a handful of the Guard pilots flown across any ocean before.

But by the time the planes started across, the loose ends were as co-ordinated as a well practiced chorus line. The top-priority deployment had the support of many commands. The Navy and Coast Guard had ocean station vessels along the routes. Air Rescue Service, manned mostly by Air Force Reservists called to temporary active duty to take part in the operation, provided "duckbutt" support with rescue air-craft. ADC's vast radar network, plus its RC-121s, played a key role in guiding the fighters over the Arctic route. SAC gave KC-135 tankers to the operation generously. The tankers were being used mostly 84

for communication relay, rather than as aerial gas stations. But, in an emergency, they might come in handy. And so they did! MATS worked overtime, too, carrying sup-plies and personnel to the staging bases and the "bed-down" airfields overseas where the units would be stationed. Air Weather Service ex-ercised their WB-50s, providing up-to-the-minute weather over all routes.

Lt. Col. Sam Burgess, chief of TAC's command post and a veteran of many years in directing overseas movements, hand-picked move-ment-control-team ( MCT ) leaders who would be stationed at the staging bases along the various routes. Maj. Robert Tulk from Mc-Clellan AFB, Calif., was his choice to lead the team at Lajes in the Azores. Tulk had been at Lajes for three years and was well aware of the problems.

At Goose Bay, Labrador, Lt. Col. Bill Murray, from Cannon AFB, N. M., was team chief. He, too, was a veteran of three years' previous service at the post. At Sondrestrom, Greenland, Maj. Lynwood Cook, from Langley, headed the team. He had four years' past duty in that neck of the woods. These men, in turn, chose experts in weather, maintenance, supply, and other categories to fill out the teams. As teams, they were responsible for preparing for the incoming planes, refueling them, taking care of the crews, providing maintenance, if required, briefing the aircrews, and launching them.

TAC's aerial command post, a C-135 equipped with a bundle of radio equipment, also took part in the operation. General Sweeney was aboard during two days of the movement.

TAC F-84F, RF-84F, and F-86H fighter pilots from reactivated Guard squadrons not making the deployment were also aboard the command post and KC-135s. These men, carrying their Dash Ones, computers, and anything else they thought they might need, would be in a position to offer advice to their fighter jock buddies in an emer-gency. This writer, for instance, was the F-84F representative aboard a KC-135 out of Griffiss under the

command of Capt. Len Sheffer. aboard was an RF-84F repres live, Maj. George ( Buck ) of the 153d Tac Recce Squadro Meridian, Miss. Qualified F drivers were aboard the t.I , along the northern route. And oi qualified representatives held d• slots on the teams at TAC's gro command post at Langley, w, closely monitored the crossings.

The Guard units started exodus October 27. The F-84Fs RF-84Fs moved to McGuire. F-86Hs and T-33s went to Lo AFB, Me. From McGuire the moved on to Harmon in Newfo land. The RFs went to the N Air Station at Argentia. The ': and T-Birds moved to Goose

Because of good weather, '86Hs began their crossing two ahead of schedule, starting off their 874-nautical-mile trip to drestrom October 30. The T-followed on November 1. The: and RFs began their long fligh: the Azores on schedule Novel, 1. For both these planes, the represented a challenge in el , ance. The 134Fs' route was 1, nautical miles, a distance that manded a fifteen-knot tailwi lIi they were to reach Lajes wi comfortable margin of fuel. I same demands rested on the ' which had nearly 1,300 miles drive between Argentia and La' and which hold about 400 fe pounds of fuel than their s F-84Fs.

Weather for the flights was , in many cases, but well within tablished minimums. When Gel Strait led his F-84Fs from the 1 into Harmon, they split up two-ship elements and made landings through a 1,400-foot I cast in light rain. On Novenn the unit had to take off with overcast and rain.

Because of the long distance be flown, the '84Fs were tow. ,

the end of the runway for St. The planes were tilted so fuel be "packed" into the forward tions of the pylon tanks. Under mal refueling, the tanks don't quite filled.

"We got about 500 pounds of tra fuel that way," Strait exp1.1,

(Continued on page 87) AIR FORCE Magazine • January

ITHE RECALL STORY-10 MAINTAIN THE PEACE' CONTINUED

Imi He admits, of course, that the

L \ tra weight penalty ( about seven--one gallons) made the takeoff a

Itle "hairy." "We had an 8,200-foot takeoff

roll," he said, "a wet runway, and no barriers."

But this was still within the safety argins established and observed

ughout the flights. The Harmon runway is 10,000

eet long, eighty feet higher at one d than the other. Just beyond the

At Lajes, the planes sneaked in Kier a 1,000-foot ceiling from a ear area seaward. Partly because e RFs were low on fuel the con-allers started straight-in descents hen the flights were seventy miles t. It worked so well with the RFs t the '84Fs followed suit. t Moron in Spain, the pilots a comparatively easy descent ugh a 7,000-foot overcast. But their new home at Chaumont, ce, they had to crack a lower

'ng in heavy rain. But these ex-'Hans breezed right in. s for his men, General Strait this to say: hose guys were just terrific.

1 if anyone wants to talk about diness, this is about the greatest iple ever demonstrated." rama marked some of the

Capt. John F. Leahy, of the Tac Fighter Squadron of St. , moved to stow some maps e his seat some 119 miles out Os, the bulky sleeve of his cposure suit activated his zency fuel switch. His engine d out. Quickly, he moved to e off his 450-gallon fuel tanks ketch his glide. Only one `ped. He was all over the cock-efore he finally got the other free. As he passed through 0 feet, he tried to restart the ie. No luck. He tried again. ier failure. Uneasy thoughts :sharks began to creep into his , He tried again. And again. ly, at 10,000, the engine—on tth try—boomed to life. It was But with his engine running

A he climbed back to 25,000 lew into Lajes with no more

Ervin H. Bucher and Lt.

Verlin K. Egley of the 122d Tac Fighter Wing at Fort Wayne, Ind., had an interesting trip, too. Trapped by headwinds and unable to pick up their overwater checkpoints by radio, they chose to attempt an aerial refueling from one of the KC-135s between Harmon and La-jes. Neither pilot had been close enough to a tanker before even to read the tail numbers, much less try an aerial refueling. But they needed fuel. So the two "amateurs" latched onto a tanker. And they stayed on, too, and got enough fuel for Lajes.

The success of the deployment is a story written by thousands of in-dividuals, from four-star generals down. When the Air Guardsmen were bedded down at Etain, Cham-bley, Chaumont, Phalsbourg, Toul-Rossiers, and Dreux in France, and at Bitburg and Hahn in Germany, they could rest assured they had played a leading role in a difficult deployment. But they were equally certain that they could not have performed so well without the co-operative and hard-working sup-porting cast.

The deployment represents one of the most challenging yet spec-tacularly successful tests in the Air Guard's fifteen-year history. In Ko-rea, seven months passed before the Guard's 136th Fighter-Bomber Wing went overseas. Now, how-ever, only twenty-seven days went by before the North American F-86Hs, Republic RF-84Fs and F-84- Fs, plus a handful of Lockheed T-33s, were on their way.

And the Air Guard's three F-104 squadrons, activated November 1, went through a transition almost as supersonic as their airplanes. Previ-ously assigned to the Air Defense Command, they suddenly were re-assigned to TAC and on their way overseas a scant ten days after acti-vation. They did it only by riding the Mach all the way.

The main force of planes in the deployment began leaving their home bases on October 27. Twelve days later, all 218 planes that had started the trek were at their new bases overseas. All but a half dozen were there in nine days. These six were delayed at Lajes for parts that had to be flown from the States. But all got there, not one plane or

pilot lost, not one left behind. And the entire deployment was made without a single accident!

The performance was strong con-firmation of what Air Force leaders had been saying right along about the Guard's readiness. After the move, Air Force Secretary Eugene Zuckert said, "The manner in which the deployment was conducted so soon after recall could only be the result of sustained superior per-formance. It is my desire that every man ... know of the pride the whole Air Force feels in this accomplish-ment which reflects the high stand-ards set and maintained in Air National Guard training."

For his part, Gen. Curtis E. Le-May, Air Force Chief of Staff, em-phasized that the deployment "re-quired the utmost in leadership, planning, and cooperation on the part of the units and personnel in-volved."

"All obstacles," he said, "were overcome by ingenuity and deter-mination in spite of the extremely short preparation time available. The end result of the safe and ex-peditious arrival of the fighters should be a source of great pride to all who had a part in the operation. I wish to offer my congratulations for the outstanding manner in which this difficult and vitally important task was successfully accomplished."

However, no one accepted the success with complacency. A special report was ordered by Hq. USAF to pinpoint problems that cropped up in the recall and deployment and to document the lessons. There were many. Significantly, the 1961 recall showed great improvement over the 1951 mobilization for Ko-rea. Then, some 45,000 Air Guards-men were mobilized, more than twice the 22,000 called this go-around.

More than 54,000 Air Force Re-servists answered the call for Korea compared with some 5,000 initially ordered to duty in 1961.

Air Force leaders concede that the problems last October and No-vember were proportionately fewer and less staggering than they were in Korea.

"We've come a long way," ex-plained Maj. Gen. Chester E. Mc-

(Continued on following page)

Magazine • January 1962 87

THE RECALL STORY - 10 MAINTAIN THE PEACE'

Carty, newly designated Assistant Chief of Staff for Reserve Forces. General McCarty, incidentally, is a Reservist himself. He has remained on active duty since his recall in Korea.

"Our forces are better trained now. They are much better equipped," he said.

One of the major factors con-tributing to the improvement, he feels, has been the "gaining-com-mand concept," in which the com-mand to assume control of acti-vated units on mobilization is made responsible for inspection and train-ing of those units in their Reserve status. This concept became effec-tive in 1960.

In 1951, General McCarty ex-plained, the gaining commands had no idea of the capabilities of the forces they adopted in the recall. Considerable time was wasted find-ing out. But this time the commands knew where these forces stood.

In comparison with Korea, the recent recall went smoothly, the General said. "We had very few hardship cases. Oddly enough, the inquiries on how a person could get on standby status came not from the men themselves, but from sympathetic employers, neighbors, and friends."

While some of the Guard units lost up to ten percent of their per-sonnel for hardship reasons, lack of skills, and the like in Korea, less than one percent of the 1961 total was similarly released, accord-ing to Maj. Gen. Winston P. Wilson, Deputy Chief of the National Guard Bureau and the number-one Air Guardsman.

One weakness that did show up in the recall, General Wilson felt, was the "lack of adequate plan-ning for mobilization under cir-cumstances other than general war." There just were no plans, he said, for the situation that developed. "And the basic plans for utilization of Reserve Forces have got to be changed to allow for other than general war."

This can be accomplished, he believes, through more flexible unit manning documents (UMDs) which define the organization and mission of a unit. As an example, he said that because of the lack of flexibil-

ity in the UMDs of the Guard's F-104 units, men were called to active duty only to be separated from their squadron when part of the personnel went overseas. The separation of the men from their units was the last thing Air Guard officers wanted to happen, he said.

"What we have to do," General Wilson went on, "is to make these UMDs flexible enough so that we can call only people we need."

With that flexibility squadrons could be called without necessarily activating the wing headquarters, or pilots and maintenance crews could be recalled without forcing the air base units into activitation. Under such a plan, he said, the re-call could be tailored more closely to the demands of the situation.

Other problems: • Units were not equipped ade-

quately for rapid deployment. Fly-away kits were not ready to go, and supplies for the kits ran as low as fifty percent in some units.

• Fighter units had only limited aerial refueling experience.

• Administrative error in select-ing individual Reservists for recall as "fillers" caused some personnel to be pulled from Reserve units not activated to "fill" vacancies in both Reserve and Guard squadrons called to duty.

• Too critical a time limit was placed on the Reserve Records Center to get the people to the units by the time they were called up. Because the Center's operations had been geared to a general-war mobilization, it could more easily have called up 30,000 men than 3,000.

In addition, the instability of the UMDs left the Records Center fill-ing vacancies in some cases only to find that the vacancy no longer existed because of a change in the UMD.

One of the basic problems cited by Air Force officials was that Re-

serve Forces units were not mitted to have 100 percent of . manpower on board. Under a tation established by the De, ment of Defense in 1957, a ce . of the number of drill-pay posi, in the Reserve Forces reduced , ning of the units to ninety pe of their authorized strength.

Since that time, the ceiling remained while requirements increased. As a result, the found that while they had percent manning in 1957, they only about eighty percent in I

Thus, when the forces were upon to move so quickly, they handicapped because of pc shortages brought on by limits; placed on the peacetime str. of the Reserve Forces.

As mentioned earlier, the Force is documenting all "les. learned" in the recall of the Res. Forces and the deployment of Guard units. Already action is under way to improve these si, tions if more of the Reserve F1 should be needed to maintain peace.

At the same time the Presi, ordered the mobilization of the serve Forces, he raised the ceiling of the Air Force on a tinuing basis. Personnel peopl Hq. USAF have launched an out campaign to attract 2,000 qi fled Reserve officers for ext. active duty to take the place the Guard and Reserve officers on their release later this year. ing sought are career-minded tenants, captains, and a few m who have college degrees and are willing to return, if rated, a nonflying status. Recall for a ed volunteers is available fin' ately. The numerical require , are so great that consideratil being given to all career Applications may be made to Air Reserve Records Center, York St., Denver 5, Colo.—E.

I The author, Major Elliott, is a tactical fighter pilot the 149th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Byrd Field, Va. his recall to active duty last October I, he was a ' writer with the Norfolk, Va., Ledger -Star. A veter World War II and a newsman for more than ten ye attended the University of Denver and holds an M.S. from the Columbia Univ. Graduate School of Jou

88 AIR FORCE Magazine •