Flashback
from azlibertarian via comments in reply to Snakepit Kansas
Too good a reminiscence to be buried in comments
Hello, Snakepit,
Your mention of the PI, Marines, and my old life on the C-130, in the context of the adventure in Iran of last weekend, had me flash back to this old anecdote…..
In late 1984 I had completed my C130 training in Little Rock and made my way to Clark AB in the Philippines (which is outside Angeles City….about 50 miles northeast of Manila). We lived off base for a year, but for the last 2 years, we lived in this house, then referred to as a “Barn” (as in “Big as a Barn”) on the parade grounds. It was awesome. Zoom out a bit and you can see that what used to be called Clark Air Base is now called “Air Force City” and the airport itself is called “Clark International Airport”. But I digress.
You’d think that when you complete your training as a C-130 pilot (or anything else) that when you arrive at your next station, then you’re Good-to-Go. Not so. In my squadron at Clark, you first went through what was called “Theater Indoctrination”….aka, “TI”, because of course the AF didn’t have enough acronyms. While in TI, you’d learn how to fill out a customs form, how to turn on and effectively operate the HF radio, how to fly exactly-where-you’re-supposed-to-fly while in South Korea because they’re not kidding and will shoot you down….that sort of thing.
On my first trip “off the island”, we went to Kadena AB which is on the Japanese island of Okinawa. At the time, one out of seven Marines in the Marine Corps were stationed on Okinawa. The mission of the Marine Corps is to pack up their stuff quickly and then go somewhere and get angry and shoot at stuff. We were at Kadena so frequently, picking up or delivering Marines and their shit, that I often wondered why we were stationed in the PI. Anyway, that first trip off the island was to pick up a plane-load of Marine stuff.
The destination? Back to the PI, in this case, to a small dirt runway that the Air Force operated at a place called Crow Valley*. At the time (mid-80’s), the AF ran a continual series of exercises called “Cope Thunder“.
Cope Thunder was the Pacific’s version of Red Flag, which itself is very similar to the Navy’s Top Gun. For each Cope Thunder exercise (maybe 3 weeks long), they’d bring in both US and Allied fighter squadrons from all over the Pacific, give them a scenario to achieve and then put them up against opposing forces….Aggressors….to see how well they’d do. For the fighters’ purposes, Crow Valley was an enemy airfield, and they’d try to (simulated) crater the runway, strike simulated fuel depots, command posts, etc, all while these assets were being defended by the Aggressors and simulated ground threats. The ground-pounder Marines were doing their thing near Crow Valley while their flying brethren were supporting them.
*That Google Map image of Crow Valley today does not bring any memories of the place that I remember back then. However, in 1991, Mt. Pinatubo, south of that pin, erupted catastrophically. I believe that the washes that you see running south-to-north-and-northeast are where the ash and mud came down off Mt Pinatubo and wiped out what used to be at Crow Valley….the dirt runway included. There is a small hint of what might be a former runway–just 2 parallel lines— just a couple dozen yards north of that pin.
However, the C130 is not a fighter, and for our purposes, the runway at Crow Valley was a friendly field. Our job was to fly in, remain unseen by the Aggressors, and bring in supplies…..Marine supplies, in this case…and then get out again.
The C130 has 5 pallet positions on the floor and one pallet can be held on the ramp. Normally the cargo is loaded and unloaded with a forklift or what amounts to a large belt loader called a K-Loader. Well, as you might imagine, the Marine Corps ain’t go no time for any Air Force K-loaders, and so we had an alternate procedure to get the cargo offloaded.
And Wow, my eyes were like saucers throughout this whole thing. I was a copilot flying a full load of Marine shit to the PI, and as we approached the island, we dropped down to a low-level route. We were down in the canyons, sneaky-peaking our way towards Crow Valley, knowing that there were “Red” fighters out there somewhere looking for us, and “Blue” fighters sweeping out ahead of us whose job it was to protect us from the Aggressors. We landed on a dirt runway, and then unloaded via a “Combat Offload”.
The Combat Offload was fun. After landing, we rolled to the end of the runway into a lolly-pop shaped turn-around. We lowered the ramp all the way to the ground, and the loadmasters pushed the pallet on the ramp onto the ground as we drove out from underneath it. The loadmasters unlocked the remaining 5 pallets–the heaviest part of the load. We stood up on the brakes, ran the engines up to full power, “popped” off the brakes and drove out from under those 5 pallets. Dropped ’em right there on the dirt. The whole evolution from landing to takeoff was 11 minutes.
So, you might wonder, why was Crow Valley at Crow Valley? Good question. Crow Valley is just west of what was then (as well as now) a place called Camp O’Donnell. Today, Camp O’Donnell is the location of the Philippine Army’s Officer Candidate School.
But back in WWII, what we now call Camp O’Donnell was the destination of the Bataan Death March. The Japanese had pushed the Americans and Filipinos down the Bataan Peninsula until finally MacArthur was forced to flee to Australia from Corregidor, an island at the mouth of Manila Bay. When MacArthur said “I came through and I shall return”, it was the Philippines that he was referring to. 78,000 Filipino and American POWs died on that march to Camp O’Donnell.
FWIW, my house at Clark….the “Barn”….had been occupied by Japanese officers during the war.
Most of what brought this all to mind was the incredible story we’ve been hearing today of the F-15 WSO’s evasion and rescue deep inside Iran. As I understand things today (the 48 Hour Rule and my 60% Rule both apply), the C-130s (an H version and possibly a M version, where “H” signifies “Rescue” and the “M” signifies “Special Ops”….Blackbirds) landed on an agricultural dirt strip. Once on the ground, the 130’s sunk into the sand and found themselves trapped. To bring everyone out, the AF then sent in 3 CASA C295s, smaller and less likely to get themselves trapped by the sand. To finish things off, the Air Force brought in 2 B-1s who dropped 40 1000# bombs on the 2 C-130s and at least one MH-6 Little Bird. Not much left there except some wreckage, some big holes and one guy’s boxer shorts.