B-52 strike

[39mto39g]

We,,, Lt. directed me to call 6 for a B-52 strike, now I had no idea how to do this , except I heard that they wouldn't come for just any old reason. Our reason was (cement, hardened, bunker system) sorta, It was actually lots of bamboo, but it could have been harden bunkers. Hours later the mountain is lowered. About a week after this I get a letter from a guy in the 4258th Strategic wing, He sent a patch and said that he contacts the units that called in missions to see if what they done was effective. I sent him a letter back, saying what a great job they did and thank you very much. I still got the patch. Where did the B-52s come from, They weren't in VN, were they?

Ron

[usmcsgt65]

They flew out of Okinawa, Guam, and Thailand. When I was in Okie, they had their tails painted black, and had armed guards around their parking spot, or whatever the Air Force calls that.

[Dragon Lady]

I don't know about back then but in the 80s we called it a "parking spot" on the ramp/tarmac and they still have the SPs standing guard at those planes.
We wrench turners were taught that we were supposed to be the first line of defense against sabotage on our planes. I've seen more than my fair share of "stupid" people jacked up for being where they shouldnt have been.

DL

[Bill Farnie]

Arc Light Mission. I never personally called one in but saw one pretty up close. Talk about the ground shaking.

My brother in-law did two tours in Thailand with Air Crash Rescue and he has talked about B-52's limping home after missions over North Vietnam.

[blues clues]

Arc light's we were about 2 kicks from one way to close that was one time I felt sorry for the NVA sure glad they didn't have any,those hole knocker really did a job on a base camp.
razz

[BLUEHAWK]

It's an amazing piece of air machinery, that is for SURE... still goin' strong after all these years, like our beloved and hated old Goonie Bird, still goin' strong... pretty remarkable. Nice to hear you guys thought highly of our work...

Zoooooooooooooooomie out!

[revwardoc]

One time at Norton they started to get on us wrench-turners about flightline security and the lack of it, so they began a series of tests to trip us up. They would send people out with ID badges that had photos of monkeys on them or maybe no ID badges at all or dress in civies, etc. They also carried shoebox size packages that were supposed to be bombs and they'd try to hide them on the planes. We failed, miserably, the first round of "attacks" so we had to work our days off for 2 weeks as punishment. When the 2nd round started, we were determined to "win". We spotted a suspicious looking character coming towards our plane and we decided to lay an ambush. Two of us stood just inside the cargo bay next to the jump doors, and when he approached, we jumped out, knocking him to the ground. My buddy grabbed a big chock and I picked up my toolbox (you remember how heavy those things were) and held it over his head, begging him to move, just a little. The SP's came over to make the "arrest" and score us on our "capture of the enemy". The problem was that, when we jumped on him, we broke his left leg. After that they changed the "rules of engagement" so that we only had to confront the suspect instead of capturing him. Talk about ruining our fun!

[Andy]

It was probably just a 25th Division thing but generally a company commander was not authorized to call in a B-52 strike. We had one exception to that rule, in April (?) of ?68 we got into a situation we called ?Deep Serious?, one step below a ?Broken Arrow?. Our CO gave our map grid position and didn?t tell the whole truth so the ordinance was dropped about a click away, maybe a half mile, much closer than regulations allowed. He did not communicate directly with the B-52 pilot. By the way, the ground shook, it also lifted me, or at least felt like it lifted me off the ground. When a weapon causes gravity to stop working it?s some serious juju.

As intense as combat can be, like Razz, I sort of felt sorry for the NVA - after the battle. The freaky thing was always searching the area the next day. You would see a body that had no injuries at all, just outside the blast zone, but the guy was dead. The explosion would suck the air out of his lungs and he?d die. One such enemy soldier was found by my parents favorite son. I shot the hell out of him but he didn't get any deader. Course his being about five feet away, and looking at me, did cause the pucker factor to kick in.
God bless the B-52s, those who flew them and those that kept them flying.

Stay healthy,
Andy

[Seascamp]

Our air search rig had a 500-mile range so we could see the Buffs coming from Guam or Thailand. We weren?t in that loop so all we could do was watch. If a PAVN air search was up or came up we could put some electro-trash down their feed horn and watch them skip around trying to hide from our ECM, but to no avail. The Soviets made OK equipment but certainly didn?t give any top of the line equipment to the PAVN so they were easy to beat when it came to electronic cat and mouse, real easy.

I don?t know if that ever did any good for the Buffs but it certainly helped the Navy strike jets coming in for a raid.

On many a tropical night I could see but not hear the arc light strikes. Kind of like orange popcorn poofing and poofing and poofing to the west. I almost felt sorry for anyone anywhere near that exercise in what we called ?sky plowing?. Awesome for sure.

Scamp

[39mto39g]

6 was our BN commander. Bn had two rules before they would call in B-52s, 1-harden cement enemy bunker systems, 2- three days or more of being in a fixed possition under enemy attack. either one, you could call for B-52s, That didn't mean you were going to get them and they would also take 5-10 hours to arrive. But when they did, oh yea baby, get some.
I think the hardest thing to coordinate in a firefight was the three sisters--- Gunships, arty, Jets.
The jets didn't like the gunships (choppers or c-130) and the gunships didn't like arty. Mortars didn't give a shit, they would fire at there own mother, I think.

Ron