WE NEED TO FLY!

On 23 January 1968 the USS Pueblo, a Navy intelligence ship, was sailing off the east coast of North Korea when she was accosted by several armed North Korean vessels. Following a failed attempt to get away and with no usable firepower, the captain had little choice but to comply; the ship was captured and towed into port at Wonsan, on Korea's east coast. 

The USS Pueblo

The U.S. State Department tried to gain release of the ship and its complement but the North Koreans were having none of that; the crew was taken to POW camps in North Korea where they were imprisoned and maltreated for the next eleven months. 

Shortly after the incident President Lyndon Johnson activated 15,000 reservists, including the Ohio Air National Guard fighter squadron at Lockbourne Air Force Base in Columbus, a unit I had joined 18 months earlier. We were called to active duty on 25 January and at 8 a.m. roll call the next day 98 percent of our troops were present and ready to go. But where? Or when? Or even why? We had no idea.

Several months after the Pueblo's capture, the entire squadron packed up and was transported 7,000 miles to Kunsan Air Base (pronounced "koon sahn") on the west coast of Korea. I was one of several non-combat pilots who had to fly at least four hours each month to earn flight pay but because there was no suitable airplane available for us, someone arranged a waiver of that regulation during our stay in Korea. There was an occasional short trip in a U-6 Beaver and I had a few rides in the back seat of an F-100F, the two-seat training version of the squadron's Super Sabres. But that kind of flight time didn't satisfy the need...we didn’t want to ride in airplanes, we wanted to fly them.

North American F-100F Super Sabre

I was invited for a ride in the back seat of an F-100F with my friend Chuck Jarrett, an ardent supporter of a local orphanage; he had promised to perform a fly-by on a day when the children were on an outing not far from Kunsan. The F-100F is definitely not a quiet airplane and Chuck flew a low pass that had the youngsters jumping up and down, followed by a second pass, this time inverted...I’ll bet those kids still talk about it.

But I digress. The case for a support airplane was presented to the Wing CO who made it quite clear that we non-combat pilots didn’t need something to fly because our flight-pay requirements had been waived and the Wing had no need for another airplane, let alone one with propellors. He leaned our way a bit when we offered to establish an on-demand personnel and cargo service to the in-country satellite air bases for which he was responsible. The deal-closer may have been the promise of occasional trips to Tokyo, the land of the big PX (Post Exchange, aka military department store) where items unavailable at Kunsan could be purchased at bargain prices.

The situation was resolved in September when a VC-47 (nee civilian DC-3) was acquired, one of three similar aircraft resting unused at Osan Air Base, a USAF fighter base just north of Kunsan. These VC-47s ("VC" for Very Comfortable in pilot slang) belonged to the U.S. diplomatic corps in Korea and they had probably been used to transport personnel to and from the armistice talks at Panmunjom after the Korean War (both Koreas are still talking). Our "new" airplane was fitted with reasonably comfortable airline seats, it appeared to be in good mechanical condition and the exterior paint scheme made it look somewhat like a downsized, antique Air Force One.

 VC-47 - AF #77284

We happened upon a Lt. Colonel who had flown C-47s earlier in his Air Force career and who became our instructor by default; in short order he qualified several of us to fly the airplane. 

In the nine months that followed I spent 87 hours in AF #77284, including numerous flights to in-country bases and two round trips to Tachikawa Air Base, 20 miles west of downtown Tokyo and 700 miles from Kunsan. On one of those trips I had a briefcase filled with paper money earned by the Koreans who worked as waitresses in the Officers' Club so we could buy them some "girl stuff" that wasn't available at our PX or in downtown Kunsan. That may have bent a regulation or two, but the ladies appreciated the favor.

INTO THE TEETH OF A WINTER GALE

At the end of a trip to Tachikawa in late January 1969 we planned to return to Kunsan the next day but our sleep was interrupted by an insistent knock on the door in the wee small hours of the morning. The Wing Director of Operations (DO) had just received a phone call from the Wing Commander at Kunsan and was ordered to return ASAP...an Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI) team had arrived at Kunsan unannounced. We took a look at the weather, briefed the DO on the lousy weather situation and suggested a delay, whereupon he asked "which part of ASAP don’t you understand?" 'Nuff said…officers with eagles on their shoulders speak with great authority. We loaded up, launched and headed west.

January weather in that part of the world is not kind to westbound flights, especially in slow, propellor-driven airplanes. We encountered strong headwinds all the way home and picked up a significant load of structural ice over the Sea of Japan. In normal conditions we could fly from Tachikawa to Kunsan in four hours but on that day—with everything going against us—we were in the air for six hours. From the time we reached Korea’s east coast until we broke out of the clouds on final approach and landed at Kunsan we were engaged in a rather desperate game of switch-the-tanks in order to keep both engines running. 

On final approach to Kunsan Air Base

As if safe completion of the flight had been ordained, the right engine coughed and quit just as we touched down. I was in the right seat at the time and switched tanks quickly enough to restore power so we could taxi to the ramp. After everything was secured the flight engineer checked the fuel with a dipstick and found that we had burned all but 28 of the 800 gallons in the tanks at takeoff. That was too close for comfort...but we got the DO home in time to help the Wing pass the inspection.