|
I arrived in Korea mid-November 1952. Several of us were at Camp Stoneman
late October when I was pulled out of the next shipment of pilots to
attend a special USAF training program that lasted over two weeks. When I
finally arrived in Japan, it was early morning, and it was cold and
raining. I looked out the bus window watching all these little people
bicycling and running to work.
After
several days, I flew in a C-124 to Seoul. A captain from K-13 base
administration picked me up in a jeep. We slowly drove south to K-13 at
Suwon in a light snowstorm. I asked myself what I was getting into. I was
processed in at the base that afternoon and was assigned to Queen Flight
(later transferred to Victor Flight). I had a cot and a rubber mattress
that you blew up at night. It was usually flat the next morning. I
unpacked and headed to the Officer's Club where the buddies who were at
Camp Stoneman when I was diverted greeted me. Everyone was singing loud
songs, such as, "Early Abort, Avoid the Rush."
The
first flights were in South Korea. I had to wait until some other
newcomers showed up. Two majors and another raw second lieutenant showed
up. We started the break-in drill. This consisted of several local area
flights, dive bombing and strafing on a few boulders off the shore of west
Korea in the Yellow Sea.
One
of these break-in missions was a night flight. A pilot who had finished
his 100 missions led a flight of three. We had to go out to the bomb range
so that the other wingman could fire off part of his .50-caliber ammo. If
you had a full load of ammo in an F-80 during landing, you could
overstress the nose gear. We then climbed out and cruised south. It was
dark with intermittent clouds, and you could not tell which way was up or
down because there were no stars above and no lights on the ground. It was
hard flying wing, and I had a continuous case of vertigo. The flight lead
was lost and asked for a steer to K-13. The next thing I knew, I was on
top of the other two F-80s. This may have been caused by the 20-to-1
hydraulic boosts becoming intermittent, or just due to vertigo. Whatever
the reason, something just didn't feel right.
After spiraling down a few thousand feet, I
spotted a split beacon. I flew over the runway and entered the traffic
pattern making the correct radio calls to the K-13 tower. I got two
"Rogers" and the instruction to land. The touchdown was smooth,
and as the plane went down the runway I looked out the right side of the
cockpit and noticed things didn't look familiar. A few seconds later the
end of the runway came in sight and I was still close to 100 knots. I hit
the brakes hard, blew the tires, and steered left 30 degrees to avoid a
fence. After the plane came to a stop, the left gear collapsed. I opened
the canopy, unstrapped, and evacuated the cockpit. When I was a few feet
away from the plane, I noticed that the engine was still running. So I
climbed back on the wing and stop-cocked the throttle. I soon found out
that I had landed at a Marine base flying prop aircraft. The runway length
was only 4,000 feet, less than half the length of the runway at K-13.
Back
to Pilot Stories
|