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"Out we went, four clean birds with only two guns loaded." |
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"Today I went to the line at 10:00 to see if I could snivel a ride. I got on a gunnery mission with Baskett leading, but as we were getting ready to go out Combat Ops called for us to go back up to the pad. Out we went, four clean birds with only two guns loaded. We sat out there with engines running until finally the 35th crew chiefs decided that they would let us use their APUs. By then we were down to about 2300 pounds of fuel each. Then we sat for about a half hour before the regular pad landed. Just before they were refueled, we got a scramble. We were vectored up north to chase after a plane with a negative squawk in the buffer zone. It was a fouled-up affair as Baskett had a weak transmitter and I had to relay all the messages to Badger. Then I couldn’t read him myself, and Hall was relaying to me from Baskett and I was then telling Badger. I finally spotted the Bogey. It was a Marine L-19. He started to play at first to see if he could get away from me. But when he saw that we meant business and there were three more planes after him, he acted real meek and I went in and got his number. I think I shook him up a bit when I went under him about 25 feet away." Lt. Wm. Starr Notes on slide: "Two F-86F's take-off past alert pad. Lt Smith in his bird, K-14, Feb '54" |
