ARC Light One

Don Harten

Description

Could the Vietnam War have been prevented? Only you can answer that after reading this thought provoking, fact-based book about the mission that would have left Ho Chi Minh in such a position of weakness that he would have been forced to negotiate an end to the war before it began.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Military
• Vietnam War
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781681623511
• Langue: English

Extrait

TURNER PUBLISHING COMPANY Publishers of America s History
Turner Publishing Company Staff: Editor: Tammy Ervin Designer: Peter Zuniga
Copyright 2003 Don Harten Publishing Rights: Turner Publishing Company
All rights reserved.
This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced without the express written consent of the author and the publisher.
Library of Congress Control No. 2003101752
978-1-56311-871-5
Limited Edition.
T ABLE OF C ONTENTS
Dedication
Preface Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
D EDICATION
This book is dedicated to the families of the men who were killed in the mid air collision during ARC LIGHT ONE
James M. Gehrig, Jr.
Tyrell G. Lowry
William E. Neville
Joe C. Robertson
James A. Marshall
Robert L. Armond
Frank P. Watson
Harold J. Roberts, Jr.
P REFACE A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
It took nearly forty years to write this book. My mind buried it deeper as each year passed until I wondered if I d ever remember anything. Yet, when I forced the events of a head on, mid air collision of two B-52 s to the surface of my mind, they were as vivid as the night they occurred. Although I could talk about it with close friends or family occasionally, I could not write about it. So I procrastinated. Besides, it seems nobody wanted anything to do with the Vietnam War and its remembrance. September 11, 2001, made it relevant once again!
Until my dying day I will maintain that the first combat mission ever flown by the Strategic Air Command, ARC LIGHT ONE, would have stopped the Vietnam War cold in its tracks before it even got started. Instead, our political leaders tried to play at toy soldiers when they knew nothing about combat, war, the military, etc. The result was eight years of our politicians doing everything they could to lose the thing! Millions died during and after our involvement. This one mission would have eliminated communist aggression in one day with 30 B-52 s. Instead, it took eight years, millions of lives and 130 B-52 s twelve days during the Christmas bombings of 1972.
I realized, finally, that this story could only be told in first person intimate. I had to place the reader behind my eyes and into my head in order to let him see and really feel what happened. It seems to work. Every word is as accurate as I remembered it. Literary license was used only once in a minor time shift for continuity. Every conversation in dialogue took place, although I could not remember each word exactly. However, during the crash sequence every word spoken is still burned into my mind. I did soften one profanity uttered just prior to the mid air collision.
Chapter Three, which is an overview of the Cold War leading up to Vietnam, was thoroughly researched and every fact in the chapter was multiply verified. Of course, some tried to modify history - and they succeeded somewhat in the minds of many people - but few revisionists ever were in Vietnam! I was there, literally from this opening shot of the war until the very end. I flew another tour in B-52 s, later an extended tour in F-105 s and yet, another in F-111 s during the Linebacker Operations that ended the war. We won and later gave it away politically! Result: the Killing Fields.
Few people write anything worthwhile all by themselves. Why? Writers cannot see the forest for all the trees. We see the details and must rely upon others to point out where we might wander from the path. I profoundly thank my dear friend, Carole Thompson, editor of the MiG Sweep, for proofing the book and for insisting that I follow correct paths through the forest of words. I also thank my mother, Lucille Harten, a brilliant woman, for insisting upon correcting my penchant for splitting infinitives. So, to really get her attention, I constructed a five-word split infinitive and hid it somewhere. Now neither of us can find it! Thanks also to Mary Harnes for helping me with the photographs and, of course, thanks to my editor, Tammy Ervin. If anyone ever finds the five-word split infinitive, please let my mother know. I don t really care! See!
C HAPTER O NE
The silver tails of eight B-52F bombers stood like a group of tall buildings above the gently sloping rise beside the runway. The bombers squatted in silence, their wings drooping like huge birds of prey guarding their eggs and waiting, waiting for nuclear war. Each bomber held several times the firepower that had ever been expended by all participants in all the wars in the history of the planet. Hundreds of B-52 s were built for the sole purpose of delivering thermonuclear weapons to any despot foolish enough to attempt an attack upon America - and thus, the world lived in an uneasy peace throughout a Cold War that often got hot.
The low angle of early morning sunshine reflected off one of the huge tails to illuminate the grass and a profusion of yellow field flowers at my feet. The air was fresh and the wind gentle against my cheek. That summer of 1964, I felt immensely proud to finally wear Air Force pilot wings. My active flying career in the Strategic Air Command would begin in just a few minutes. Savoring the moment, I stretched myself tall and popped my finest salute toward the eight B-52 s sitting quietly on nuclear alert. The bombers were asleep and didn t see my salute but that was okay, soon we would get to know each other. How well would, in time, amaze me.
The screech of idling jet engines drowned out the sounds of the morning as another of the giants taxied toward the runway to fly a training mission. Both its size and the noise it produced dominated the scene. I waved to the pilot as the B-52 rolled past me and he waved back. I didn t know him but at that moment I felt a kinship with him, a feeling of belonging to something very special. I climbed down into my red MGA sports car to hurry to the end of the runway for an up close view of this behemoth taking off.
A large sign beside the ring road said, ALERT CREW QUICK ACCESS ROAD. This was the path to my future, the alert pad, where I had been instructed to go for my first day of SAC training. I turned up the road and stopped just short of the end of the runway, got out and waved again to the B-52 pilot as he taxied onto the runway for takeoff. This time he didn t wave back to me, rather he pointed toward his left wing tip. I wondered about that and thought he might be checking something on his plane. I would soon learn why he signaled me that way, simply one more of a myriad of lessons to be learned in order to understand the Strategic Air Command.
The B-52 angled onto the runway, its engines screeching higher and higher, the noise becoming deafening. I held my ears as the pilot brought the engines to full power. The exhaust roiled back toward me until I could feel the heat from the eight jets when, inexplicably, the noise from them diminished to silence. For a moment I couldn t figure out what had happened until I realized the power from those engines so churned the air directly behind them that all the sound waves were broken up and swallowed in the turbulence. Soon though, the jet roar returned.
I watched the B-52 roll down the runway, slowly gaining speed and belching a black smoke trail from the water injection. It lifted off the runway, sort of tail first in the manner of loaded B-52 s, and roared into the sky in a very slow climb. When it turned left, climbing away from the city of Sacramento, I turned back to reality, got into my MG again and headed for the alert pad with childlike dreams of flying on my mind.
Like a medieval castle, the nuclear alert facility, known as the alert pad, dominated the rise beside the runway. It was a prime nuclear target, ground zero for Soviet missiles. Inside the pad, aircrews and maintenance teams lived in relative comfort during their alert tours. The bottom floor of the pad, buried in an earthen birm, was the sleeping quarters for the alert crews. The upper floor contained a full mess hall, a large, modern briefing room, a small library, a game room with both pool and ping-pong tables, a television room, numerous air crew study rooms and a command center.
Long sloping ramps led from both levels of the alert pad to the Christmas tree, where the B-52 s, sitting nuclear alert, waited for war. The Christmas tree was a massive concrete taxiway with ten hardstands, each the size of a city block, that angled into the trunk of the tree. From there the tree s trunk flowed down the rise and onto the runway at an angle, which was designed for a rolling getaway in case the bad guys raised the battle flag.
On the base side of the Christmas tree was a small guard shack where I stopped my MG and said a nice good morning to one of the two guards. I fully expected a sharp salute from him even though I wore only the gold bars of a second lieutenant. Instead of saluting, the bastard pointed his rifle at me!
GET OUT! GET OUT! he shouted. Hands above your head! Put your face on the ground! He yelled these things at me! Hey, wait! I m an officer and you re not supposed to talk to me like that! Now, how the hell am I supposed to keep my hands above my head and put my face on the ground while trying to get out of my MG?
Suddenly, I knew the answer! Another guard poked his rifle at me through the other window. I wanted to yell back at both of them but they had guns pointed right at my face!
Okay, okay, I said. I kept my hands up and the first guard opened my door carefully, then he stepped back. I knew that if I moved quickly the second guard would shoot and later they would fill out forms.
I slowly climbed out of the car without using my hands, which were well away from my center of balance, and then I kind of kneeled and fell to one elbow and then to fully prone. The guard pushed the end of his rifle barrel into my neck and told me not to move. Right, like I had th