fall 2013 - volume 60, number 3 afhistoricalfoundation … · script. the editor reserves the right...

FALL 2013 - Volume 60, Number 3WWW.AFHISTORICALFOUNDATION.ORG

The Air ForceHistorical Foundation

Founded on May 27, 1953 by Gen Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz and other air power pioneers, the Air Force Historical Foundation (AFHF) is a nonprofi t tax exempt organization. It is dedicated to the preservation, perpetuation and appropriate publication of the history and traditions of American aviation, with emphasis on the U.S. Air Force, its predecessor organizations, and the men and women whose lives and dreams were devoted to fl ight. The Foundation serves all components of the United States Air Force— Active, Reserve and Air National Guard.

AFHF strives to make available to the public and today’s government planners and decision makers information that is relevant and informative about all aspects of air and space power. By doing so, the Foundation hopes to assure the nation profi ts from past experiences as it helps keep the U.S. Air Force the most modern and effective military force in the world.

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Fall 2013 -Volume 60,Number 3WWW.AFHISTORICALFOUNDATION.ORG

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Departments

Book Reviews

Features Air Warfare in PerspectiveA. D. Harvey

32

Lt. Col. Clifford Werly, Barnstormer, Combat B-29 Pilot and PilotExtraordinaireJ. Norman Grim

“Heroic Things”: Air Force Special Tactics Personnel at MogadishuForrest L. Marion

The United States Air Force and Bosnia, 1992-1995Daniel L. Haulman

Iron Curtain 1944-1956: The Crushing of Eastern EuropeBy Annie Applebaum Review by George M. Watson, Jr.

The Space Shuttle: Celebrating Thirty Years of NASA’s First Space PlaneBy Piers Bizony Review by Joe Romito

Air War D-Day: Assaults from the Sky, Vol. 2By Martin W. Bowman Review by John F. O’Connell

Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st CenturyBy Christian Caryl Review by John Cirafici

Chewing Gum, Candy Bars and Beer: The Army PX in World War IIBy James J. Cooke Review by Greg Bailey

The Influence of Airpower upon History: Statesmanship, Diplomacy, and Foreign Policy since 1903By Robin Higham & Mark Parillo, Eds. Review by Steven D. Ellis

Iron Man Rudolph Berthold: Germany’s Indomitable Fighter Ace of World War IBy Peter Kilduff Review by John F. O’Connell

Russian Aces of World War IBy Victor Kulikov Review by Carl J. Bobrow

Operation KE: The Cactus Air Force and the Japanese Withdrawal from GuadalcanalBy Roger & Dennis Letorneau Review by Joe Romito

Captured: The Forgotten Men of GuamBy Roger Mansell Review by Joe McCue

In Their Own Words The Final Chapter: True Stories from American Fighter AcesBy James Oleson Review by Daniel Vaughan

Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight over World War II, 1939-1941By Lynne Olson Review by Lawrence R. Benson

The Bad Boy—Bert Hall: Aviator and Mercenary of the SkiesBy Blaine L. Pardoe Review by Richard P. Hallion

Council of War: A History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1942-1991By Steven L. Rearden Review by Richard P. Hallion

The North African Air Campaign: U.S. Army Air Forces from El Alamein to SalernoBy Christopher M. Rein Review by Steven D. Ellis

Glider Infantryman: Nehind Enemy Lines in World War IIBy Don Rich & Kevin Brooks Review by Steven D. Ellis

History of Rocketry and Astronautices: Proceedings of the 41st History Symposium of the IAABy Anthony M. Springer, Ed. Review by Richard P. Hallion

Aichi 99 Kanbaku “Val” Units 1937-1942By Osamu Tagaya Review by William H. Bartsch

Implosion: Lessons from Security, High Reliability Spacecraft Electronics, and the Forces Which Changed ThemBy L. Parker Temple, III Review by Rick W. Sturdevant

Normandy: A Graphic History of D-Day, The Allied Invasion of Hitler’s Fortress EuropeBy Wayne Vansant Review by John G. Terino, Jr.

Books ReceivedUpcoming Events and ReunionsPresident’s MessageLetters, Notices, In Memoriam, and History Mystery

COVER: Badges and awards worn by Col. George E. "Bud" Day. His obituary is on page 64.

2 AIR POWER History / FALL 2013

Board of Directors, 2013

Col Kenneth J. Alnwick, USAF (Ret)Col William J. Dalecky, USAF (Ret)Lt Gen Russell C. Davis, USAF (Ret)Ms. Jonna Doolittle HoppesLt Gen Charles L. Johnson, USAF (Ret)Lt Gen Timothy A. Kinnan, USAF (Ret)Mr John F. KreisCMSgt John R. McCauslin, USAF (Ret)

CORPORATE SPONSORS, 2013

Gold Level ($10,000 or more)Lockheed Martin Corporation

Officers, 2013

President/Chairman of the Board andChair, Executive Committee

Maj Gen Dale W. Meyerrose, USAF (Ret) Chair, Development CommitteeMaj Gen Kenneth M. DeCuir, USAF (Ret)Treasurer and Chair,Finance Committee

Lt Col Lawrence Spinetta, USAFChair, Services CommitteeMaj Willard Strandberg, Jr., USAF (Ret)Secretary and Executive DirectorLt Col Jim Vertenten, USAF (Ret)EditorJacob Neufeld

The Journal of theAir Force Historical FoundationFall 2013 Volume 60 Number 3

EditorJacob Neufeld

Asst. Editor, Layout and DesignRichard I. Wolf

Technical EditorRobert F. Dorr

Book Review EditorScott A. Willey

AdvertisingJim Vertenten

CirculationAngela J. Bear

Air Power History (ISSN 1044-016X) is pro-duced for Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter bythe Air Force Historical Foun dation.

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3AIR POWER History / FALL 2013

In this issue of Air Power History, A.D. Harvey examines “Air Power in Perspective.” He con-cludes that strategic bombing during World War II is debated today primarily in terms of itsethical aspects. He also advances some fresh ideas concerning air warfare, including theassertion that the Luftwaffe wore out its fighters escorting bombers across the EnglishChannel. Moreover, he asserts that the Axis did not run out of machines, but rather of mentrained to operate them.

J. Norman Grim presents a biography of “Lt. Col. Clifford Werly: Barnstormer, CombatB–29 Pilot, and Pilot Extraordinaire.” Werly loved flying so much that he spent his hard-earned money to pay for flying lessons and planes. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Forceto fight against the Axis, then transferred to the U.S. Army Air Corps after the attack onPearl Harbor.

The third article, by Daniel Haulman, details the activities of the United States Air Forcein Bosnia from 1992 to 1995. After the end of the Cold War, in the late 1980s, Yugoslaviabecame embroiled in civil wars to establish the independence of its various nationalities. TheU.S. Air Force was obliged to operate under United Nations and NATO rules—not a simpletask.

Forrest Marion concludes the featured articles with his account of Air Force SpecialTactics Personnel. The place is Mogadishu, Somalia, and the date is October 3-4, 1993. Youwill enjoy reading about the several heroes who emerged from this most challenging engage-ment and learn how they accomplished their missions.

Scott Willey has shepherded our book reviewers to present their verdicts on some twentybooks. Bob Dorr continues to challenge readers to identify the latest “History Mystery.” RobBardua and George Cully have compiled lists of upcoming reunions and symposia, especial-ly for those who wish to plan ahead. We have letters, notices, news, and sadly, obituaries,Finally, be sure not to miss the President’s message (page 58) and news about the upcomingawards banquet on November 13th (page 60).

From the Editor

Air Power History and the Air Force Historical Foundation disclaim responsibility for statements,either of fact or of opinion, made by contributors. The submission of an article, book review, or othercommunication with the intention that it be published in this journal shall be construed as prima facieevidence that the contributor willingly transfers the copyright to Air Power History and the Air ForceHistorical Foundation, which will, however, freely grant authors the right to reprint their own works,if published in the authors’ own works.


AirWarfareinPerspective

AIR POWER History / FALL 2013 5

A. D. Harvey

of surviving almost anything other than a direct hit,and a large proportion of them located in places thatwere never bombed.2 A couple of years later, the U. S.Twentieth Air Force burned out the centers ofJapanese war production without realizing thatJapanese war production was already collapsing asa result of raw materials shortages.3 In Vietnam,where strategic missions over the communist northinvolved a greater tonnage of bombs than the EighthAir Force dropped on Germany in the world war,only eight out of ninety-one vital waterway locks anddams were targeted—and the Vietnam War showsthat, even if the experience of the Second World Warsuggests that the winning side might be able toafford to waste resources, it is not necessarily truethat wasting resources on a vast scale wins wars.4

Some scholars argue that focus on strategicbombing has resulted in an unjustified neglect ofthe history of air power employed tactically to sup-port forces on the ground.5 This may be true, butcloser examination does not at all suggest that thetactical use of air power was necessarily more cost-effective than strategic bombing. The contributionof the Luftwaffe to the rout of the French Army in1940 is often cited as the classic demonstration ofBlitzkrieg utilizing air power and armor in combi-nation. In the most celebrated single instance of airsupport for ground forces the Luftwaffe did indeeddrop 550 tons of bombs on French positions on theMeuse on May 13, 1940, prior to army units cross-ing the river, but the bombing caused little physicaldamage and was followed by a respite of three orfour hours before the first contact of ground unitsoccurred. Further north, Rommel crossed the riverwithout any air support at all. About the only docu-mented case of serious loss to a ground formation asa result of German air attack in 1940 was the bomb-ing on May 18, 1940, of a train waiting at a sidingwith about 550 men of the 7th Battalion RoyalSussex Regiment on board. The engine-driver, theregimental quartermaster and about twenty-fivetroops were killed, and the C.O., the adjutant, andabout fifty-five men were wounded.6 These wereserious losses, equivalent to those many battalionsexperienced in a day’s fighting on the Somme in1916, but, as was not the case with battalions deci-mated on the Somme, it was an isolated incident.Just over a week later, when the Durham LightInfantry attacked advancing German columns nearArras, they were subjected to frequent air attacks.The advance guard of the 8th Battalion D. L. I. wascaught in the open in an air raid that lasted aroundtwenty minutes: “Casualties about 10 [wounded]—One truck set on fire. Two put out of action. O. C.[Officer Commanding] 8th D. L. I. slightly woun -ded.” Two days later the unit war diary recorded:


An aerial view of Hamburgafter the 1943 bombing.

In a hundred years’ time it will seem as bizarrethat nations once attacked one another withfleets of gasoline-engined bombers as that they

once fought great battles with fleets of ships pro-pelled by banks of men rowing to the beat of a drum– perhaps more bizarre because the fleets of petrol-engined bombers were the fashion for only thirty-five years and achieved no decisive results whereasthe rowing galley was a favored weapon for morethan two millennia and was the means of winning anumber of victories, Salamis, Actium, Lepanto forexample, that were major historical turning points.

Strategic bombing’s contribution to victory inthe Second World War is nowadays debated mainlyin terms of its ethical aspects; the economic rationaleof offering up a new four-engined bomber for every200 houses destroyed, representing an exchange ofthe latest industrial technology for the least liq-uidizable part of the enemy’s capital assets, and anexpensively trained young aviator killed or capturedfor every two women, children, and other miscella-neous civilians killed on the ground, tends to escapescrutiny.1 The objective of course was to disrupt theenemy’s war-making capacity, but what is remark-able is how ill-informed the air generals in charge ofstrategic air warfare were with regard to what theenemy’s war-making capacity consisted of andwhere it was to be found. In 1943, Britain’s Ministryof Economic Warfare estimated that German facto-ries possessed 981, 000 machine tools; the real num-ber was over two million – each one of them a rela-tively small, compact item that was incrediblystrongly built except for certain key componentsdesigned to be changed easily, and therefore capable

(Overleaf) Air raid damageduring the London Blitz,September 10, 1940.

Since 1990 A. D. Harvey has contributed more than a dozen articles on air warfare to publications suchas Journal of Contemporary History, War in History, RUSI Journal, Air Power History, and BBC HistoryMagazine. Various aspects of air warfare are also discussed in his two books Collision of Empires:Britain in Three World Wars 1793-1945 (1992) and Arnhem (2001).

STRATEGICBOMBING’SCONTRIBU-TION TO VICTORY INTHE SECONDWORLD WARIS NOWA-DAYSDEBATEDMAINLY INTERMS OFITS ETHICALASPECTS

[1400 hrs] Dive bombing raid. No military casual-ties but column of refugees in S. W. end of village[Givenchy] was hit and 12 people killed. The streetwas blocked with wrecked carts and dead horses . . .. [1600 hrs] Another dive bombing raid. This timeapparently trying to hit A/TK guns [anti-tank guns]at S. E. corner of village. No casualties but roaddamaged and houses destroyed.7

The 6th Battalion D. L. I.’s war diary recorded onthe same day “Enemy dive bombed and machine-gunned from the air all afternoon and occasionallyused his air cannon, but did not cause a single casu-alty.”8 Attacks of this kind had a considerableimpact on nerves and morale, but then so did bom-bardment by artillery or being overrun by tanks or,in the previous war, subjection to gas attack.Basically air attack on ground units was simply onemore technique of wearing down the enemy, differ-ing from the others only by being more expensive.

The May-June 1940 campaign in France alsoprovided a model instance of an air force not attack-ing a key tactical target. On the night of May 12-13,1940, the crew of a French bomber returning from amission to drop leaflets over Germany observedwhat has been called “the hitherto biggest knowntraffic jam in Europe,” a hundred-kilometer-longtail-back of tanks and trucks slowed to a stop byAllied demolitions along the narrow roads throughthe woods of the Ardennes.9 No attempt was madeto bomb this target, just as the Japanese made noattempt to bomb the congested columns ofAmerican troops they had observed moving back tothe Bataan Peninsula in December 1941, and theBritish made no attempt to block the single mainroad along which the Afrika Korps had to retreatafter the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942.There are many instances of armies fleeing in dis-order after defeat by land forces being forced toabandon their remaining equipment by attackingaircraft, from the Ottoman Seventh Army after theBattle of Armageddon in September 1918, to theIraqi Army in its retreat from Kuwait City inFebruary 1991, but not one instance of formations ofmore than brigade group strength that were notalready disintegrating being stopped in their tracksby bombing from the air. The same lack of precisionin assessing mission objectives that bedevilledstrategic bombing also prevailed in the tacticalsphere. Post-1945 experience has in no wayimproved on the failures and omissions of the twoworld wars. In the Vietnam War, despite the drop-ping of 2.2m tons of bombs by USAF., U. S. Navy,and Marine Corps aircraft flying ground supportmissions, the U. S. Army came more and more to

rely on its own helicopter gunships to back upinfantry units on the ground. In the Middle East, inboth the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, theIsraeli Air Force’s initial successes against Egyptianand Syrian ground formations were the prelude togrowing confusion and mutual recrimination, par-ticularly with regard to the Israeli army’s failure toprovide the air force with adequate informationregarding the situation on the ground.10

The history of air power at sea is quite a differ-ent story. Strategic bombing merely offered an addi-tion to existing means of economic warfare, and onethat was certainly less cost-effective than navalblockade; tactical air power was an expensive sup-plement to older forms of battlefield attrition: but atsea the aeroplane completely transformed navalwarfare. It was perhaps not particularly surprisingthat more than half of the aircraft carriers sunk inthe Second World War were sunk by aircraft, mostlyin carrier-versus-carrier battles, but unmistakablysignificant that more than half the battleships sunkor forced to beach were also the victims of air attack,six of them, including four of the most modern andmost powerful, while under way at sea; in additiona fifth brand-new battleship, Germany’s Bismarck,was only caught by British surface units because anair-launched torpedo had rendered her incapable ofbeing steered.11 More than half of the nearly 600German submarines lost during the Second WorldWar and whose cause of loss is known were sunk byaircraft, or by aircraft and surface vessels acting inco-operation. Without aircraft Britain would havelost the Battle of the Atlantic.12 Four out of tenJapanese merchant ships sunk by the Allies in thePacific War were sunk by aircraft, making a keycontribution to the blockade of Japan, and for aperiod in 1941, it looked as if the Luftwaffe wouldachieve a comparable success against British ship-ping: in April of that year aircraft accounted forforty-six per cent of Allied shipping lost. 13

An obvious difference between bombing targetson land and bombing targets at sea is the issue ofaccuracy. Finding and identifying the target is, indiffering ways, equally difficult in both cases: it isknowing what one has hit that is more difficult inbombing targets on land. In bombing cities, it isimpossible to tell from several miles high whetherthe buildings burning below are factories, railwaystations, hospitals or orphanages; in the confusionof a mass raid involving hundreds of attacking air-craft, with fires raging across miles of built-up area,the crew of individual aircraft cannot be sure at the


Two views of the DornierDo 217K-2. Similar aircraft,equipped with DX 1400radio-guided bombs, sankthe Italian battleship Romain September, 1943.

MORE THANHALF OF THENEARLY 600GERMANSUBMARINESLOST DURINGTHE SECONDWORLD WAR…WERESUNK BY AIR-CRAFT, ORBY AIRCRAFTAND SURFACEVESSELSACTING INCOOPERA-TION

time that their own bombs have not destroyed trea-sured flower beds in a municipal park. In bombingenemy troop formations aircrew flying ground-sup-port missions can generally take it for granted thatthe enemy infantry below are seeking to take cover,and that the enemy artillery emplacements arecarefully camouflaged, and they cannot tell if thecolumns of smoke they leave behind are from burn-ing munitions or from burning hay-stacks. At sea itis not always easy to see if one has hit the ship oneis aiming at, and even less easy to be sure of thedamage inflicted, but it is much easier than is thecase with targets on land which are essentially hid-den among the multitudinous details of terrain andcityscape, whereas ships at sea are as exposed as aspecimen on a laboratory slide—even submarines,which before the advent of atomic power had tooperate for much of the time on the surface.

Actually most bombs and aerial torpedoeslaunched at sea missed, just as most of the shellsfired in ship-to-ship battles missed, but of course anaccurate hit was always the objective held in mind.In 1944 it was considered that No. 1 Group of RAFBomber Command had achieved a remarkableimprovement in accuracy in being able to place 7.2per cent of its bombs within a twenty-acre area.14Naval aviators attacking targets of perhaps oneacre deck area needed to do considerably betterthan that. Bearing in mind that naval aviators inthe Second World War, unlike strategic bombercrews, generally had to navigate without electronicguidance systems and, unlike tactical strike air-craft, without reference to landmarks, one wondersif it was not the case that the naval mindsetadjusted to the requirements of air warfare moredeftly than was the case with aviators trained tooperate over land. Certainly the physical spaceinvolved in air warfare more resembled that in seawarfare than in terrestrial warfare. Land makes up29.2 per cent of the earth’s surface, sea 70.8 percent: the Atlantic Ocean has six times the area ofEurope. The air obviously covers the whole hundredper cent of the globe, and in 1945 aircraft couldoperate up to six miles up: the oceans of the world,down to two hundred meters (the maximum depthto which Second World War submarines could oper-ate) equal not quite three-quarters of the cubicextent of the air over Europe to an altitude of sixmiles. The three dimensional warfare involved inthe use of aircraft certainly seems more analogousto the warfare of vast empty spaces to which navalpersonnel were accustomed than to the topography-bound maneuvering of troops on land.15

Such distinctions are probably to be dismissedas mere sophism, or perhaps metaphysics. At seathere was no need to worry about what bombs actu-ally hit if they failed to land on their target but in1944 and 1945 the Royal Air Force carried out aseries of low-altitude raids in which the avoidanceof collateral damage was a special priority. Theattack on Amiens Jail on February 18, 1944.enabled 258 captured members of the FrenchResistance to escape, though 102 other prisonerswere killed; the destruction on March 21, 1945, of

the Gestapo central registry for Denmark at theShellhus in Copenhagen cost the lives of eighty-sixchildren and eighteen nuns and teachers when aCatholic school was also bombed. Attacks on otherGestapo targets, at the Hague in April 1944, and atAarkus in October 1944, succeeded without casual-ties to civilians outside the targeted buildings.

These attacks demonstrate that the RAF couldhave maintained a focus on pin-point accuracy asan absolute necessity, in the same way as naval avi-ators had to. Another of Bomber Command’s suc-cesses was the series of raids in the run-up to the D-Day landings aimed at knocking out French railwaymarshalling yards: an army officer attached to theHeadquarters of Sir Arthur Harris, the head of theRAF Bomber Command, remarked of Harris, “bythe accuracy of his railway attacks he had destroyedhis own argument for area bombing.”16 By 1944,however, it was too late to alter the basic strategydeveloped during the previous three years: thoughthe reason that more pin-point attacks were notattempted was probably the difficulty of identifyingworthwhile targets among the chaos RAF BomberCommand had already created in German city cen-ters. By February 1945, senior RAF officers ‘on thehunt for more targets for 617 Squadron’, the eliteheavy bomber unit responsible for the celebrateddam raids of May 16, 1943, and for sinking the bat-tleship Tirpitz at its berth far above the ArcticCircle, were even considering bombing the NaziParty’s elite training establishment at Sonthofen,Gmünd, and Falkenburg simply with the object ofkilling the students, who were supposedly “thetoughest thing the Nazis have ever produced and . .. . and a grave potential menace to the peace of post-war Europe, because they form a nucleus for theGerman underground resistance movement.”17 It istrue that the issue of bombing accuracy was a majorfactor in the U. S. Twentieth Air Force’s decision togive up its unsuccessful high-level daylight raids infavor of fire-bombing Japanese cities by night, butthe earlier switch from day to night bombing by theRAF and the Luftwaffe in 1940 had much more todo with losses to enemy fighter defenses than withfrustration at the inaccuracy of would-be precisionraids on pin-point targets. The underlying factor inall three cases was that once a bombing force hadbeen built up, or was in the process of being built up,the air generals had to press ahead with makingmaximum use of it, regardless of how combat condi-tions differed from pre-war theorizing. The merefact of investment in an air fleet capable of long-range bombing in itself sidelined consideration ofalternatives.18 As one of the men who had to carryout the bombing missions later wrote,

events develop a powerful momentum and becameencrusted with vested interests; it was now [after1943] necessary to cut across the current of eventsand reverse it. What we actually experienced frommid-1943 was a massive failure of leadership: a pal-pable lack of imagination, of intellect and politicalwill.19


THE PHYSI-CAL SPACEINVOLVED INAIR WAR-FARE MORERESEMBLEDTHAT IN SEAWARFARETHAN IN TER-RESTRIALWARFARE

Strategic bombing dominated air warfare 1940-1945 not because of its objective contribution to win-ning the war but because once the decision had beenmade that it the most logical way of exploiting supe-riority in high-tech industrial output, it was nolonger possible to do anything else.

Arguably the mind-set involved had its originsmuch earlier than what we currently understand tobe the era of industrialization. The triremes ofancient Greece, with their banks of rowers movingto a steady rhythm, were machines – the largest ifnot the most intricate technology of a culture athome with mathematics and physics though not yetfar advanced in metal production. Rowing galleysrarely ventured out of sight of land however, and itwas only with the sailing ship that man ceased to belandbound. In favorable winds sailing ships couldsail at least ten times further in twenty-four hoursthan could be sustained on land, and could carryloads that would otherwise require expensivelymaintained roads and long convoys of wagons orpack horses. Their operation required teams of menskilled in the workings of a technology that, in itsday, was by no means unsophisticated. TheIndustrial Revolution, which supplied the standard-sized pulleys on the great war machines of Nelson’sbattle fleet and the carronades bored out of solidcastings on steam-operated jigs that were mountedon the smaller warships of his day, followed on,rather than created, the culture of bodies of menworking in unison as part of a mechanical opera-tion. The switch from sail to steam, like the laterswitch from gasoline engines driving propellers tojet power in aircraft, was important as making a dif-ference, not to basic principles, but merely to thespeed and physical size of individual units.

More important than its influence on the size of

machine-objects was industrialization’s effect ontheir sheer number. Nelson had twenty-seven shipsof the line at Trafalgar on October 21, 1805: onMarch 12, 1945 RAF Bomber Command raidedDortmund with 1,107 four-engined bombers, eachcarrying explosive bombs and incendiaries equal inweight to twelve broadsides of solid shot fromNelson’s Victory. Industrialization also involvedrapid technological change: Nelson’s ships of the lineat Trafalgar, or indeed Sir Edward Codrington’s atNavarino in 1827, embodied much the same tech-nology as that of the Mary Rose in 1545, and weredirected by men trained in the light of more than twocenturies of tactical experience, whereas in 1945 airforce staffs were still trying to sort out the implica-tions of new technology, and the best means of uti-lizing it, even after six years of hard and bitter expe-rience.

Though the tactics of actual air-to-air combat,in the sense of aircraft of one side firing at and beingunder fire from aircraft of the other side, wereworked out relatively quickly – after Immelmannhad perfected methods of one-to-one combatBoelcke had developed techniques of formationfighting by the time of his death in autumn 1916—it is questionable whether larger issues of tacticaldeployment and prioritization were ever mastered.In the First World War the Royal Flying Corps’s pol-icy of daily offensive patrolling with a view to dom-inating the air space over the German linesinvolved heavy losses in pilots, but did not preventthe Germans from carrying out the detailed recon-naissance required for the devastating spring offen-sives of 1918, or even German exploitation of tem-porary air superiority, as in the counter-attack atCambrai on November 30, 1917. In the SecondWorld War the one clear instance of a numerically


A Royal Air Force AvroLancaster about to beloaded with a 4,000 lbbomb.

THE TACTICSOF ACTUALAIR-TO-AIRCOMBAT, INTHE SENSEOF AIRCRAFTOF ONE SIDEFIRING ATAND BEINGUNDER FIREFROM AIR-CRAFT OFTHE OTHERSIDE, WEREWORKEDOUT RELA-TIVELYQUICKLY

It was not simply a matter of the novelty of airpower: the development of a weapon that couldstrike hundreds of miles away in any directionworked against the overall trend of European war-fare, which since at least the Fourth Century B. C.had been marked by a series of innovations andexperiments relating to flexibility of maneuver onthe battlefield, often deliberately targeting the orga-nizational complexity of the losing side, as for exam-ple in the defeat of the Greek phalanxes at Pydna in168 B. C., and of the Spanish tercios at Rocroi in1643. New technology had rarely been more impor-tant than new tactics: the French gained little ben-efit from their possession of the Reffye mitrailleuse,a hand-operated machine gun, in 1870 and in 1918the British tank proved less successful as a meansof overcoming enemy strong points than Germanstorm troopers throwing stick grenades. Yet, as onearmy staff officer pointed out in 1940, the BritishRoyal Air Force’s possession of “a very long rangedflexible instrument which starting from the sameplace can deliver attacks say from MILAN toOSLO” led to control “by the highest commondenominator so that the whole may be drawn on toattain concentration where strategy dictates.”21This both militated against the decentralized con-trol required for effective co-operation with groundtroops already responding to the changing require-ments of the battlefield, and fostered a commitmentto long-term planning with large margins, which inthemselves soon provided irresistible arguments forholding to deployment strategies that were notworking, so that the flexibility theoretically inher-ent in aviation became in practice the inflexibility ofan entrenched bureaucracy, with a “can’t do” ethosin contrast to the “can do” ethos instilled in navalcommanders. The technological culture—perhaps


A new sight, vapor trails ofareial dogfights takingplace high over Kent,England, September 3,1940.

inferior air force defeating a numerically superiorand technically equally matched opponent was theBattle of Britain, in which the losing side threwaway its numerical advantage by waiting to utilizethe best part of its bomber strength until such atime as Britain’s fighter defences were eliminated.Though deploying more bomber aircraft than fight-ers the Luftwaffe wore out its fighter units by main-taining ratios of two or three fighter escorts forevery bomber sent across the English Channel.Later experience was to show that attacking forma-tions where bombers outnumbered escorting fight-ers did not suffer proportionately heavier losses inbombers, but did inflict proportionately heavierlosses on the defending fighters. This had in factbeen predicted months before the battle, by the thenhead of RAF Bomber Command:

the bombers provide them [i. e. escorting fighters in ahypothetical RAF attack ] with the means of makingcontact with the enemy fighters under terms whichmay be favourable to our own fighters. Our fightersmay be able in this way to have the security andadvantage of both superior altitude and of surprise,and, though they may not be able to prevent losses toour bombers, they will make the operation moreexpensive to the enemy by causing greater casualtiesto his fighters.20

After the Battle of Britain it took two or three yearsto perfect “optimum” methods both of air support forground troops and of bombing urban centres, and asalready suggested, the contribution of either toshortening the war was disputable: in any case, byearly 1943, with the Battles of Guadalcanal andStalingrad already fought and won, it was evidentthat Allied victory was only a matter of time.

THOUGHDEPLOYINGMOREBOMBER AIR-CRAFT THANFIGHTERSTHELUFTWAFFEWORE OUTITS FIGHTERUNITS BYMAINTAININGRATIOS OFTWO ORTHREEFIGHTERESCORTSFOR EVERYBOMBERSENTACROSS THEENGLISHCHANNEL


Heinkel He 111 bombersescaping radar detectionfly perilously low over theEnglish Channel in 1940.

we should say the culture of industrial technocrats—that provided the weaponry somehow interferedwith its effective use: man’s personal mastery of hisown machines was simply unable to keep pace withthe increasing sophistication and scale of the orga-nizational framework required to deploy themachines.

Not that individual know-how ceased to be avital factor, though this was now essentially an eco-nomic, quantitative rather than qualitative,resource. The Allies may be said to have literallyswamped the Axis powers with their much greateroutput of hi-tech machines and expensively trainedaircrew. Even in fighter aircraft, on which Germanyand Japan concentrated from 1943 onward, theAllies had a 2:1 advantage in production, and it wasonly for the briefest periods that the Axis enjoyedapparent advantages from possessing superiordesigns.22 In the event neither Germany nor Japanever ran out of machines: they ran out of mentrained to operate them. Britain invested enor-mously, especially in Canada, in developing theCommonwealth Air Training Scheme, which even-tually trained over 60, 000 pilots, and the U. S. ArmyAir Forces trained more than three times as many –at the peak of the American training program inDecember 1943, there were twenty men at differentstages of pilot training for every trained Luftwaffepilot, and overall the Allies may have trained asmany as ten times more pilots than Germany, Italy,and Japan combined. The German attitude to train-ing was more or less summed up by GeneraloberstHans Jeschonnek, chief of staff of the Luftwaffe,when he said, “First we’ve got to beat Russia, thenwe can start training.”24 By late 1943, there wasonly one new fighter pilot completing his trainingfor every three new fighter planes leaving the facto-

NEITHERGERMANYNOR JAPANEVER RANOUT OFMACHINES:THEY RANOUT OF MENTRAINED TOOPERATETHEM

ries. Reduction in training times meant that by mid-1944 Luftwaffe fighter pilots going into action forthe first time had only a third of the flying hoursbehind them as newly trained USAAF fighterpilots; half of them did not survive ten combat mis-sions.25 Whereas more than half of British aircraftproduction for the RAF had been of training aircraftin 1939, and more than a third even in 1941, the cor-responding figures in Germany were a little betterthan one in ten in 1939, and one in twelve in 1941.26Two out of the three twin-motor types produced inthe greatest numbers in Britain during the warwere multi-seat training aircraft for navigation,radio, and gunnery instruction; the Germans hadvarious types suitable for this role but they wereemployed mainly on transport and communicationsduties.27 The rate of expansion of the Luftwaffenever really recovered from the loss of nearly 2, 700aircrew in the Battle of Britain. At its peak in 1944its combat strength was less than 40 percentgreater than it had been at the beginning of the war,and it is evident that this was essentially the resultof simple organizational failure at senior levelsrather than of shortage of national resources asGermany was able to increase its frontline strengthin tanks with crew by at least three hundred percent during the same period, despite the fact thattank crews, in any case more numerous in latermodels of tanks, needed almost as long to train asaircrew.28 There was a similar failure in both theJapanese army and navy air services: part of therationale for the adoption of suicide tactics in 1944was the belief that an inexperienced pilot not yettrained to combat standards might at least be ableto crash a plane into a target.29 By the end of thewar both the Germans and the Japanese were shortof pilots sufficiently experienced to master the diffi-

1. See for example A. C. Grayling, Among the DeadCities: Was the Allied bombing of Civilians in WWII anecessity or a crime?, London 2006. The American editionof this book is subtitled The History and Moral Legacy ofthe WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan.

The calculation of relative losses is based on theresults of the Battle of Berlin in the winter of 1943-1944.The much higher ratio of civilian casualties at e.g.Hamburg in 1943 or Dresden in 1945 occurred compara-tively rarely. In the Nuremberg raid of March 30-31, 1944,on the other hand, the RAF lost ninety-six aircraft and 667aircrew in exchange for eleven Luftwaffe aircrew and anti-aircraft gunners, and 110 German civilians and fifty-six for-eign workers killed on the ground. Not counting the for-eigners, who in many cases were citizens of countries alliedto Britain but occupied by the Germans, this is a ratio ofmore than five RAF aircrew lost for every German. 2. David McIsaac ed. The United States StrategicBombing Survey, 10 vols. New York 1976, vol. 1 p. 44.3. Jerome B. Cohen, Japan’s Economy in War andReconstruction, Minn., 1949, pp. 56, 58, 107, 158. 4. Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The

American Bombing of North Vietnam, New York 1989, p.126. 5. See e.g. Thomas Alexander Hughes, Over Lord;General Pete Quesada and the Triumph of Tactical AirPower in World War II, New York 1995, p. 13, 19. 6. The National Archives, Kew, [Hereinafter cited asTNA] WO 167/459, War Diary of the 7th Battalion RoyalSussex Regiment May 18, 1940. The entry for the previousday had noted that no-one in the battalion had yet seen aGerman plane. 7. TNA WO 167/730, War Diary of the 8th BattalionDurham Light Infantry, May 21 and 23, 1940.8. TNA WO 167/729, War Diary of the 8th BattalionDurham Light Infantry, May 23, 1940. For ground supportlater in the war see A. D. Harvey, “How Effective wereTank Busting Aircraft in the Second World War?” RUSIJournal vol. 153 no. 5, Oct. 2008, pp. 78-83. 9. General J. H. Jauneaud, J’accuse le maréchal Petain,Paris 1977, p. 114. Karl-Heinz Frieser with John T.Greenwood, The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign inthe West, Annapolis 2005, p. 114-16.10. Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner,


NOTES

cult handling characteristics of revolutionary newtypes like the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter orthe Kyushu J7W1 Shinden tail-first interceptor onwhich they were pinning their hopes of defeatingthe Allied bomber fleets.30

Institutional and organizational factors suchas those suggested here indicate how far the his-tory of air warfare ties in with what might beregarded as more mainstream branches of histori-cal study such as social and economic history andthe history of ideas. “Mainstream history” is not atall well-served when even distinguished academichistorians can write glibly of the RAF maintaining“a permanent roster of airborne patrols in anticipa-tion of German raids” during the Battle of Britainand of the Heinkel He III bomber being, “rede-

ployed as a night interceptor over Germany” afterits ineffectiveness as a bomber was demonstratedin the Blitz, or of the Soviet Air Force, alreadyequipped with an aeroplane that would be laterused to raid Helsinki, Berlin and Budapest, beingable in the run-up to the Second World War to reach“none of the major cities of any potential enemy.”31Historical studies have enlarged their scope enor-mously during the last thirty years, but thereremain huge tracts of the past that are still largelyunmapped, or provided only with the maps com-piled for their own purposes by the embattled gen-erations that made the history. Air warfare is onesuch tract. Perhaps one day the fascination of itssocial and cultural significance will bring it into itsown. n

Ilyushin Il-4 of the SovietAir Force. Aircraft of thistype carried out bombingraids on Berlin in 1941.

INSTITU -TIONAL ANDORGANIZA-TIONAL FACTORSSUCH ASTHOSE SUG-GESTEDHERE INDI-CATE HOWFAR THE HIS-TORY OF AIRWARFARETIES IN WITHWHAT MIGHTBE REGAR -DED ASMORE MAIN-STREAMBRANCHESOF HISTORI-CAL STUDY

The Lessons of Modern Warfare: Volume 1: The Arab-Israeli Conflicts, 1973-1989, Boulder 1990, pp. 92-3, andEliezer Cohen, Israel’s Best Defence; The First Full Storyof the Israeli Air Force, Shrewsbury 1993, p. 252. 11. The six battleships sunk by air attack at sea werePrince of Wales, Repulse, Hiei, Roma, Musashi andYamato, the last two, at 73, 000 tons, the largest battle-ships ever built. 12. Axel Niestlé, German U-Boat Losses during WorldWar II: Details of Destruction, London 1998, p. 202,Appendix 2. 13. Denis Richards and Hilary St. George Saunders,Royal Air Force 1939-1945, 3 vols. London 1954, vol. 1 p.223. 14. TNA AIR 14/4530, O. R. S. Report S. 171 “Bombfalldistribution in precision attacks carried out by No. 1Group 30 April - 1 July 1944” para. 4, cf AIR 2/3176 memo.by R. P. Willock, DWTT, May 9, 1940. 15. J. F. C. Fuller, The Army in my Time, London 1935, p.172 uses the term “three-dimensional warfare,” appar-ently a new tactical form of war “developed in cubic space,”but does not elaborate, cf. Air Vice Marshall E. J.Kingston-McCloughry, War in Three Dimensions: theImpact of Air-Power upon the Classic Principles of War,London 1949 which while not actually employing the term“Three-Dimensional Warfare” discusses “Two-Dimen -sional Warfare” on pp. 14-20. 16. Charles Carrington, Soldier at Bomber Command,London 1987, pp. 134-35.17. TNA AIR 14/2009, Wing Commander F. W. Chadwickto Air Commodore H. V. Satterly February 26, 1945, cf.Satterly to Air Commodore S. C. Elworthy March 12,1945. In July 1943 Portal, the Chief of Air Staff andHarris, the head of Bomber Command, had wanted to use617 Squadron to bomb the Palazzo Venezia in Rome in thehope of killing Mussolini – a plan vetoed by the ForeignSecretary: Leo McKinsty, Lancaster: the Second WorldWar’s Greatest Bomber, London 2009, pp. 315-16. 18. Only Italy provides an exception: see A. D. Harvey‘The Bomber Offensive that Never Took Off: Italy’s RegiaAeronautica in 1940,’ RUSI Journal vol. 154 No. 6,December 2009, pp. 96-102. 19. Frank Musgrove, Dresden and the Heavy Bombers:an RAF Navigator’s Perspective, Barnsley 2005, p. 105.20. TNA AIR 14/251 Air Chief Marshal Sir EdgarLudlow-Hewitt to Under-Secretary of State for Air,January 7, 1940 p. 3, cf A. D. Harvey, “The Battle ofBritain, in 1940 and the ‘Big Week’, in 1944: aComparative Perspective,” Air Power History vol. 59(2012) no. 1 pp. 34-45, at pp. 37-39.21. TNA AIR 2/5201 Lt. Col. Jack Woodall (later GeneralSir John Woodall) to Wing Commander R. V. Goddard,Nov. 12, 1940. 22. It is true that the Messerschmitt Me 262 was muchfaster than the RAF’s first jet, the Gloster Meteor, whichentered squadron service eight days earlier: but its poorlyconstructed jet motors had a life of only twenty-five hoursbetween major overhauls, as compared to 125 hours forthe British jet motors, and for an aircraft dependent onhigh speed it had alarmingly unresponsive throttles. Thegreatly superior Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was beingtried out in Italy when Germany surrendered in May1945, and Britain’s excellent De Havilland Vampire wasalso in the pipeline.

Figures given for German, British, and the U. S. pro-duction of fighter aircraft compiled by the BritishBombing Survey Unit and published in Charles Websterand Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive AgainstGermany, 4 vols. London 1961, vol. 4 p. 497, Table xxiv,seriously understate U. S. production and of course do notcover Russian production, which was at least equal toGerman output, or Japanese production, which was onlyslightly greater than that of British output of a singlefighter type, the Supermarine Spitfire.

23. See TNA, AIR 2/4844, AIR 20/1356, AIR 46/17 andalso DO 35/1204, C. G. Gaines, Air Ministry, to Sir JohnStephenson, Dominions Office, June 2, 1945; Thomas H.Green, “Individual Training of Flying Personnel,” inWesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate eds. The ArmyAir Force in World War II, 7 vols, Chicago 1948 -58, vol. 6pp. 557-99, at pp. 577-78. Production of the three mainfighter types employed by the U. S. Navy and U. S. MarineCorps (the F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair)equalled approximately half total fighter production forthe Army Air Forces, and fighter pilot training was pre-sumably in proportion: naval demand for bomber pilotswas proportionately less than for the Army Air Force. 24. Richard Suchenwirth, Historical Turning Points inthe German Air Force War Effort, New York 1968, p. 27quoting letter from General Hans-Georg von Seidel, fromJuly 1944 in charge of Luftwaffe training, to General PaulDeichmann, former chief of staff to the head of training,Nov. 9, 1954. 25. Matthew Cooper, The German Air Force 1933-1945:An Anatomy of Failure, London 1981, p. 348. 26. The Statistical Digest of the War, London 1951, p. 152,Table 130, cf. Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, TheStrategic Air Offensive against Germany, 4 vols. London1961, vol. 4 pp. 496, Appendix 49 xxiii. 27. The Vickers Wellington bomber was the multi-engined aircraft produced in the greatest numbers inBritain during the Second World War, followed by the AvroAnson and the Airspeed Oxford, both of which were usedmainly for training.28. Regarding the time required to train tank crew I amgrateful to Generalleutnant a. D. Dr. Franz Uhle-Wettlerfor allowing me to see a letter to him from Major i. G.Matthias Knabe of the Bundeswehr, dated Nov. 16, 2010,cf. TNA WO 193/24 Lieutenant General C. N. F. Broad,Aldershot Command, to General Sir Edmund Ironside, C.I. G. S., Oct. 18, 1939. For the expansion of Germany’sarmoured forces (including seven SS Panzerdivisionenand a Luftwaffe Panzer-Korps) see Rolf Stoves, Die 22.Panzer-Division 25. Panzer-Division 27 Panzer-Divisionund die 233. Reserve-Panzer-Division, Friedberg 1985, p.7. Pilot logbooks in The National Archives at Kew, in classAIR 4, give details of flying training; see also HeinzKnoke, I Flew for the Führer, London 1953, pp. 23-38 pas-sim and Ursula Hartmann, Der Jagdflieger ErichHartmann: Bilder und Dokumente, Stuttgart 1978, p. 65. 29. For the ‘relative ineffectiveness of Japanese air crewsin general,’ see TNA AIR 23/2500 ‘Japanese Air Order ofBattle Conference,’ Washington Feb. 23, 1945, AgendaItem 12 p. 1 para 5; for Japanese fighter pilots’ deflectionshooting, which ‘has been very poor and up to date hasshown no signs of improvement,’ see TNA AIR 40/2137,‘Replies to Questionnaire by Director of Air Tactics, AirMinistry, May 11, 1943.’30. Edwin M. Dyer, Japanese Secret Projects:Experimental Aircraft of the IJA and IJN 1939-1945,Hersham 2009, p. 89. The J7W1 was still at the prototypestage at the time of the Japanese surrender but wasexpected to be operational early in 1946; the Me 262 hadbeen encountered by Allied fliers from autumn 1944onward but, tellingly, the most successful unit equippedwith this type was composed of officers of several years’combat experience including a redundant former head ofthe Luftwaffe’s fighter arm.31. Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War: 1939-1945,London 2008, pp. 143-44; Richard Overy, ‘The Air War inEurope, 1939-1945’, in John Andreas Olsen ed. A Historyof Air Warfare, Dulles, Va, 2010, pp. 27-52, at p. 28.

For the record, the Soviet Air Force (VVS) introducedinto service a four-engined monoplane bomber capable ofreaching Berlin with two tons of bombs in 1934, thoughthe twin-engined type that undertook most of the Russianattacks on the German capital did not fly till the followingyear.


14 AIR POWERHistory / FALL 2013

Lt. Col. Clifford Werly, barnstormer, combat B–29 pilot,and pilot extraordinaire

AIR POWERHistory / FALL 2013 15

J. Norman Grim

Clifford L. Werly was born on December 26, 1900, inCanton, Missouri1. His first job, as a mechanic-in-training, around the age of fifteen, was in Quincy,

Illinois. There, his primary job, as he expressed it,was “to crank the Model T engines so the mechanicswouldn’t have to wear themselves out.” Over time, histraining was broadened by doing many little jobsunder the close supervision of the mechanics.

In 1919, his family moved to the central valleyof California, where Werly’s earliest job was drivinga horse-drawn wagon as a delivery boy or, as he said“express driver,” for Wells Fargo. That job was tolead him into a long life in aviation where many ofhis flying experiences were highly significant!

His near life-long love of flying began

While working at Wells fargo, he had his firstride in a World War I surplus Curtiss Jennie at acounty fair in Tulare, Ca. He stated:

Two young pilots landed their Jennies near the fairgrounds to try to haul passengers on hops. One ofthem was a Cal Ferris . He had nosed over and brokehis tooth-pick [propeller]. Ferris called Sacramentofor a new prop to be shipped Wells Fargo Express toTulare. He came to the office and said would I meetthe 9:30 AM train so he could get it in time to put onthe show tomorrow? I said yes.

It arrived late, but even so, Werly was there to meetit. “Out to the alfalfa field we went and installed theprop. That was when he asked me if I would like to[help him] test-hop it the next morning at 8:00 AM.”Werly said yes, and that was the beginning of his“wish to become a flyer.” The flight included a loopand a roll; and he just: “fell in love with it.”

Learning to fly, and his first airplane

His first flight instructor was Bert Lane, asuperb pilot and close friend for many decades.Lane remembered, via a letter to the author in thespring of 1986: “Cliff Werly, an expert auto mechanicand service manager for Nash Agency came out tomy Stockton flying service to learn to fly.” Cliffremembered that he and a friend started flyingwith Lane in 1924 in a Curtiss Jennie. Werly stated,in 1978: “all together the Jennie cost us about $155plus my Reo car.”

Lane continued: “He [Werly] talked me intogoing down there in his car [and] checking the planeand flying it back – as usual, he had his tools withhim and that was good! The wheels did not match;one Jenny wheel [had been] replaced with aD.H.wheel” [probably a de Havilland bomber of, orafter, WW I]; and, that wheel was considerably

larger. “With much cleaning, fueling, and tuning, wedeveloped 1,300 rpm which is minimum” [for safetake-off and flight].

Werly remembered that his lessons from BertLane were one-half hour each. During the instruc-tions, they would communicate through a regularfunnel and hose – between the two cockpits. Bertalways said, “if I take it over, you let me have it.”About his flight training, Werly stated that he per-formed: “Basically the same as today, [then] spinslate in practice. They put an old magnet on the tail[skid] for drag so it would catch [on the ground] andkeep the tail from coming around on ya.”2 Laneremembered: “Considerable flying was done in theold bird. 1. His first cross country. 2. Caught abovethe tulle fog very low on gas. 3. Getting high enoughto practice spins.”

All of this instruction took place while he livedin Stockton and earning $40.00 a week. Barn stor -ming became quite important in helping him makethe payments on the Jennie.

Barnstorming

Werly did not recall the exact dates for the fol-lowing events: “‘Slim Lindbergh’ was barnstormingwith us”—flying, he believed, a four-place “Chal -lenger.” They “were flying out of a little airport northof L.A., [on] a grass strip.” [On one occasion,] theywent down to barnstorm while the Navy put on ashow. One time, a Navy pilot was sick and theytalked Lindbergh into filling in! [He] barnstormedwith Slim once or twice. In 1979, Werly remembered“barnstorming all of the county fairs making


J. Norman Grim is a retired colonel (USAR) after thirty-two years of mostly Army reserve service. He isalso a professor of biology, emeritus, with forty-three publications in that discipline. He has also publishedthree articles on aspects of the U.S. Army glider program in World War II, and more recently, the book, ToFly the Gentle Giants: The Training of World War II Glider Pilots, (Authorhouse Publishing Co., 2009).Grim has been a powered private pilot since 1961, and a sailplane pilot since 1968.

(Overleaf) “Bomber Flight”at RCAF, “Station MountainView.” Werly is in the frontrow, nearly central, whitehands showing. A FaireyBattle was behind the men.

ALL OF THISINSTRUCTIONTOOK PLACEWHILE HELIVED INSTOCKTONAND EARN-ING $40.00 AWEEK.BARNSTORMING BECAMEQUITEIMPORTANTIN HELPINGHIM MAKETHE PAY-MENTS ONTHE JENNIE

enough to pay for gas!” Cliff’s wife, Nellie, never flewin the Jennie, but did fly in the Travel-Air. WhenNellie did go along, she would sell tickets.

Werly’s second airplane

In about 1929, he purchased a Travel-Air 2000with an OX-5 engine. He remembered it cost himaround $1,750.00. Werly helped pay for this planeby flying illegal hooch, (well, it was still prohibi-tion!), actually grape wine, between Fresno,Stockton, and Oakland. He also continued barn-storming and giving rides, but only around the pat-tern, for $.75 to $1.50 per ride.

Werly’s military life begins.

Before the United States entered World War II,the Canadians had recruiters in certain hotels in theStates, trying to entice pilots into the RoyalCanadian Air Force (RCAF). American pilots withcommercial licenses and about 300 flying hours wererecruited by “secret members” of the RCAF. Aboutthis, Werly wrote: “...pilots at that time were veryscarce and one with several hundred hours wasalmost non-existent.” The “potential” RCAF pilotsfound out about it by word of mouth. Werly went forthe interview, held on the sixth floor of the RooseveltHotel in Los Angeles, and promptly joined as anRCAF officer pilot. He remembered being one of thefirst five men from the U.S. that agreed to go toCanada. That was in 1940 and, at that time, healready had about 1,000 flying hours. The men weregiven an airline ticket to New York. There, at theWaldorf-Astoria Hotel, they were interviewed by TheEarl of Athlone, who was in charge of the RCAF.Werly and his cohorts were then transported bytrain to Ottawa, Canada. Werly remembered: “Therewere no problems with Customs. Those new foreigncadets were ‘researched’ again to make sure we hadno other military connections or were not Germanspies. [They] took us up in three or four differentkinds of aircraft to see if we could fly or not; the Yale(the U.S. built BT-14, a 400 hp, low wing, radialengine trainer) and the Harvard. And, they even hadsome American Fleets.”3 After those “check rides”,the men were shipped to various bases in Canada.Werly was shipped first to Jarvus, Ontario. There,the pilots flew target towing and gunnery sorties.From that time on, most of his flying was in the sin-gle engine, but very husky, Fairey Battle.

Next, he and four or five of the men went to


(Left) Clifford L. Werly.

(Near right) Werly’s pilotlicense.

(Far right) Werly and hiswife Nellie in theirTravelAir.

Werly’s appointment letteras a pilot officer.

HE PUR-CHASED ATRAVEL-AIR2000 …[FOR]AROUND$1,750.00.WERLYHELPED PAYFOR THISPLANE BYFLYING ILLE-GAL HOOCH

Mossbank, Saskatchewan. They spent about a yearand a half there, and Werly “had two promotions outthere.” Their original rank was “pilot officer.” In sixmonths, he was promoted to “flying officer,” and oneand a half years after that to “flight leftenant;” thesame as captain in the U. S. Army Air Forces.

On one occasion, he was ferrying a plane fromEdmonton to Mossbank and got lost. He landedbeside a railroad track. He often told friends andfamily that he flew “IFR,” which in these cases stoodfor “I Follow the Railroad,” when he was lost. Hewas stranded there for five days, and kept brushingsnow off the wings so he could be spotted from theair. His nephew, Bill Schallenberg, in 2011 remem-bered “Uncle Cliff” saying that the Fairey Battlehad an unusually large battery that he used a num-ber of times to warm his “electrified” flying suit, pos-sibly saving his life.

Werly continued: “Then they opened a base inBelleview, Ontario. In the RCAF, when an officerwas promoted, they’d try to transfer him to anotherstation. [I] flew down there for I guess about five orsix months, then got a call from Ottawa for a pilot totransport the ‘Earl of Athlone’ down to the U.S.”

He recalled that the flight with Athlone wassometime between September and November of1941; but, this date seems quite questionable!4Werly flew a twin engine plane that they were usingthere and stated that he: “Had the privilege of flyingthe Earl of Athlone down to the U.S. to hold a con-ference with President Roosevelt regarding theJapanese.” Werly: “picked him up in Ottawa andflew down to LaGuardia.” Athlone had two of hisstaff along, and had a date with President Rooseveltto discuss the condition of the war. “Well, we stayedthere about two or three days, as I remember, and Ididn’t go down to Washington withhim……Washington staff picked him up. And, hecame back rather discouraged and got in the air-plane and we started back for Ottawa. We were outabout an hour, and he came up and tapped me onthe shoulder and said: “Werly, I’d like to sit in thecopilot seat.” He said, “I got to get away from that

gang back there.” Pretty soon he began to talk a lit-tle bit. Said he and his two cohorts had a long con-ference with President Roosevelt and his staff. TheBritish had intelligence in Japan and we didn’thave any, what-so-ever. They told the President thatwe would be attacked on the west coast someplace.No question about it, they were definitely going toattack the U.S. Well, he said he didn’t get to firstbase. President Roosevelt refused to put the Army,Navy, and Air Forces on instant alert. The old Earlwas very much disappointed that he couldn’t get hispoint over and get the full alert.” Werly rememberedthat Athlone felt that: “President Roosevelt wasscared to put it [U.S. forces] on full alert for fear thathe would be unpopular with the U.S. people. TheEarl was very, very much upset. He even shed a fewtears on the way back to Ottawa because theywouldn’t listen to him in Washington or wouldn’ttake any action. And that kinda burned up theAmerican [U.S.] pilots up there [Canada] becausewe felt that the USA didn’t have any intelligencethere [Japan] either and they found it out [the lackof intelligence], definitely, when we came back here[to the States] to fly in the Army Air Corps and theNavy.”

In Canada, “we started to fly someHudsons�that they had slipped into Canada fromthe U.S.�over to England. I only made two missionsto Ireland.5 [A] little old airport out on the westcoast of Ireland. That [Hudson] was a twin engine,about the same as a twin Bonanza. [The Hudsonwas manufactured by Lockheed and sometimescalled an Electra.] We took off in Newfoundland andwent straight to Ireland. The whole cabin was amess of gas tanks (Werly chuckled). We were run-ning on the edge of nothing all the time. At that timewe had no decent navigation [aids], [that is,] inter-ocean control of our airplanes.”

One day Werly stated: “…I was a SquadronCommander and director of flying at Belleview. Ihad a bombing flight and I had nothing to do withtraining the bombardiers, only running thesquadron, keeping the airplanes in shape and ontime. That was the basis of most of the Americanpilots. A squadron ran around 1,500 men and fifteento twenty airplanes.”

Werly remembered a very noteworthy eventthat took place while training in Canada; it is par-tially paraphrased, below:

He was training (he believed in Mossbank) and hada large crew of U.S. pilots who were flying aircraftwith the large V-12 engine [most likely HawkerHurricanes with the Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12engine]. “Some of those fellows really didn’t want togo on the training missions.” In fact, his unit hadfour men that would routinely get in the aircraft andfor some reason they just couldn’t manage to get theengines started which was, of course, nonsense; asthey knew very well how to start the aircraft’sengines! They would “play around with it and runthe batteries down; they aborted mission after mis-sion.” Werly finally got sick of this and decided tobring this behavior up short. He did so by going out


Werly was known, on sev-eral occasions, to fly“Santa” onto bases duringChristmas; both in Canadaand the U.S. Indeed, hewas the pilot, above, in aYale, on December 22,1941. Thus, he was still inthe RCAF for a time afterthe attack on Pearl Harbor!

HE OFTENTOLDFRIENDS ANDFAMILY THATHE FLEW“IFR,” WHICHIN THESECASESSTOOD FOR“I FOLLOWTHERAILROAD,”WHEN HEWAS LOST

with them to the flight line one day and saying: “Okfellows, one at a time you fellows stand by yourplane, but don’t get in and start them.” He wouldthen get in the aircraft, and have the pilot step up onthe wing with him. Then, Werly would start theengine�with ease! A perplexed crew chief had com-mented to Werly that those engines just didn’t�orwouldn’t�start; so the pilots also had their crewsfooled. However, after that they never seemed to haveproblems starting their engines again. Their derelic-tion had been foiled.

Lieutenant Werly completed his active dutywith the RCAF in mid-May 1942. At that time, hislog book showed over 327 hours in single engine air-craft�Fairey Battle, Fleet, Yale, Porterfield, Nomad,Lysander, Harvard (only 1 flight), and over thirtyhours in twin engine aircraft; the Bolingbroke, firstflown by Cliff on Dec. 12, 1941; and the largerAnson, first flown by him on January 21, 1942.

Sometime after December 7, Werly continued,[the] “U.S. recruited all the [former U.S.] pilots theycould from the RCAF and would give us our presentrank and citizenship back if we would join anAmerican service. [For this transfer to the U.S.],they sent a train up through Canada with three orfour cars on it, and a complete recruiting team. Andit went to every base in Canada where there was apilot. Canada gave them the permission to do it.Then, in about two months, after they cleared us,[we] were shipped down to state-side, Maxwell

Field, Montgomery, Alabama. Most of ‘em [wereunder the] South-East Air Training Command; thendiverted from there on to various bases as theyopened. When you joined the RCAF, you were a sub-ject of the Queen. We were a citizen of the BritishEmpire. They would cancel our citizenship if wecame back to the military�state-side.”

Werly: “In May 16, 1942, I became a Captain inthe [Army] Air Forces of the U.S., stationed atMaxwell Air Base, Alabama. There was such ashortage of airplanes and runways we had to setthere for about two months; just fly four hours amonth in BT–13s.” His next station (he recalledwithout full certainty) was at Peterson Field,Georgia, as a navigator instructor pilot. “They hadus flying twin-engine Bonanzas on navigation mis-sions, to fill in so we’d have something to do besidejust sit and wait. After about two months there, July1942, I was transferred to a B–17 transition field inFt. Lauderdale, Florida.”

Werly spent about two years in Fort Myers,Florida, as the Operations Officer. There, he had toinvestigate crashes of his unit’s aircraft. This ofcourse greatly upset him. Some of the pilots therewere full of far too much “vim and vinegar;” andoccasionally buzzed people on the beach, and a hotelwhere a lady friend might be staying. On one suchoccasion, a pilot buzzed the Werly family’s brightred Chrysler Highlander, a big mistake. Werly’sdaughter, Carole, remembers to this day that one ofthe officers in his unit was a Lt. Bill Braun. On oneoccasion, Braun had told her that he had sat next toHitler, in a box, at an opera, back in about 1938.6

“From there I went to Monroe, Louisiana, andflew navigation missions in twin engines. Then theyopened up…Buckingham Field in Florida, a bomb-ing and gunnery school. They gave me a squad


(Above) Werly in very warmattire, Fairey Battle behindwith its large three-bladedprop. (Werly Collection.)

(Far right) LeftenantClifford Werly in his RCAFuniform.

LIEUTENANTWERLY COMPLETEDHIS ACTIVEDUTY WITHTHE RCAF INMID-MAY 1942

gasoline engine generator] in the tail gunner’s com-partment. We’d tell him [the gunner] to start theputt-putt. [After a landing] the gear and everythingwould be so hot we had to fly around a couple ofhours ‘fore it’d cool off (Werly chuckled).

“We had only five B–29s at that base when westarted and we lost two of them in the first twomonths. The reason we lost them was that we hadtrouble with the exhaust valves, and they wouldover heat and blow a cylinder head off. It exploded,the engine would catch fire and [in] the back of thatengine�in the wings�was 7,500 gal. of 130 octanefuel, and the minute that got a spark it’s goodbyeairplane and the whole thing exploded and therewas no saving anything on it. To counteract that, ifwe saw it quick [sic] enough, we shut that enginedown. We had four scanners [men] in the back thatdid nothing but watch those engines. The least littlepuff from the engine and we shut it off. She’d flypretty good [sic] on three engines. Before we wentoverseas, the manufacturer of the engines put newengines in the whole damn flock, practically. [It] cor-rected the exhaust valve problems……over-heat-ing.”

“After fifty hrs. of transition we were assignedto B–29 squads. I was assigned to the 29th BombGroup at Pratt, Kansas; the training base for thecrews and us. [There, we had] to get our crews and[determine] if we had to change any of ‘em. We hadto train our crews to work together in a B–29 whichhad eleven crew members.

Then, we flew our training missions [to]Borinquen Field, down in Puerto Rico where weagain wanted to simulate what it would be [like] fly-ing over Honshu, and we flew down there for a cou-ple of months with our crews. Took us damn near a


(Above) Fairey Battle,down in the snow.Emergency “off field land-ing.”

(Right) Werly’s “FlightTraining Directive”

there. About three months later I was made directorof flying. They lacked personnel with experience.One reason I didn’t go overseas was because I hadexperience in bombing and gunnery in Canada andhad learned quite a bit about it. They wanted me onone of those bases that was just opening up – tryingto get somebody to go along on the B–17 missions.So [I] stayed there about a year and a half, and gotpretty tired of the routine.”

[For his B–29 recruitment] “Maxwell field sentout applications for pilots with 1,000 hours [in]B–17s or four-engine time and they recruited what-ever pilots I had on the field. I had about 110 air-planes and, I think, about fifty to sixty pilots. And, Iput my name on the application, and I told theAdjutant of the base not to have the “old man” readall the applications because if he saw my name onthere he would-a-took-it off! Cuz I asked him if Icould go before and he said —- No! So, it [his appli-cation] went through that way and when the appli-cation came through, I went in the office, naturally[as expected in the military], to say goodbye and heblew his stack, [but] he settled down in a little whileand let me go.”

“I went from there to Alamagordo, N.M., [and]took transition [first flight was on July 7, 1944] inthe B–29. It made the B–17 look like a kite. [TheB–29 had] four 2,200 (2,000 h.p.) engines, [and was]115 feet long. However, we went along to learn [howto fly] the greatest aircraft built at that time. Well,the first month of transition, we walked up to thatairplane and we couldn’t see how in the world itwould fly – would ever get off the ground. But wegot in it. It was the hardest transition that I hadever had. We had to go days on end in classes: engi-neering classes, navigation classes, radio classes. Allas though we’d never done any of it before. It was areally trying experience. Each [training] mission, ondual, was five hours and we never could make overtwo landings in that five hours for the simple reasonthat they were afraid of over-heating the under-car-riage. Tremendous under-carriage, when we put thegear up or down, we needed a “putt-putt” [small

THEB–29…MADETHE B–17LOOK LIKE AKITE

good year before we went overseas; [doing] this kindof training.

We took new aircraft to go overseas, of course,they had new engines in ‘em, and they were excel-lent! [Overseas] we had ‘em fly 35-40 missions with-out any difficulty what so ever.”

Heading Overseas!

“I was assigned to the 29th Bomb Group atPratt, Kansas. [After that training], we were trans-ferred to Mather Field, California, nearSacramento. [From there] after 7,000 miles welanded at our air base – North Field, Guam. Nicerunway, but [we slept on] cots under the coconuttrees for quite a while.” His military orders indicatethat he departed for the South Pacific on February8, 1945 and arrived on Guam four days later, on the12th.

Morale dynamics of the enlisted maintenancepersonnel for the B–29s.

While in the states, the B–29 maintenance per-sonnel seemed to have little interest in their assign-ments. They had low morale and little enthusiasm.Cliff remarked that when combat missions startedon Guam the attitudes changed very dramatically.Support personnel began to identify with theirassigned aircraft and crew. After a time, that devel-oped into a deep emotional attachment such thatthey would frequently have to “drag” personnel, linechiefs and their maintenance crews off the pad after“their” B–29 had left on its mission. It seemed thatthey would just a soon sit there all day and half thenight waiting for their beloved winged aluminum“birds” and air crews return. When they returned, orwhen there was word that they were coming in, theground crews would be back on the ramp immedi-ately. Cliff reported that he often saw ladders beingerected up to an engine just as the prop was slowingits rotation. The mechanics, then, began pulling outvery hot parts to be worked on, not infrequently

burning their hands—another indication of thesuperb morale and espirit-de-corps of the mainte-nance crews.

Combat Missions

“Our first mission was to bomb Tokyo, and [itwas] a daylight mission.” This was sometime inFebruary 1945. For many of his missions, it is note-worthy that his navigator was Airman JimmyDoolittle, nephew of the famous General JimmyDoolittle.7

“Before we made a mission we sent two reconaircraft up to the altitude [at] which we were sup-posed to bomb, 35,000 feet. Lo and behold, welocated a jet stream of 120 knots [about 138 mph]over Honshu at all times, day after day, above18,000 feet.” The high winds apparently interferedwith bombing accuracy, so the altitude was lowereddramatically. Werly continued: “Well!, GeneralLeMay wired Washington and got permission to goin lower; of course, they gave him permission. Hesent us up to 5,000 feet, not above 12,000 feet, forthis ‘high altitude’ aircraft; so, we were sittingducks!” Werly’s nephew, Bill Schallenberg, remem-bers Werly saying that when LeMay firstannounced this at a pilot’s meeting, Werly lookedaround and noticed that all the men were ashenand had extremely shocked looks as they felt thismight be their death knell.

“We went in at first with two wing-men, one onthe right and one on the left, and a leader. That did-n’t work out well at all. The Zero would come in onus at between 11 and 1-o’clock high, diving and fir-ing at the leader. Well, when he pulled out, the rateof closure was so great that he mis-interpreted howmuch space he needed to get out of the way, to keepfrom crashing. He generally turned off to the right[the fighter was headed toward the front of thebomber; thus, head on] and he crashed into the leftwing-man. Of course, they both went up in smoke.After about two missions we quit that formationand went in – ‘in trail’ [one behind another, and]with quite a bit of distance between us, and thateliminated that [vulnerability]. That was about theonly dangerous thing the fighters could give us. If afighter came in on us and missed, he would fly overthe top. By the time he turned around he couldn’tcatch us; we were just about as fast (over 350mph)as a Zero.

Werly remembered one mission that was hisworst: “We had to run three missions on one town.[We had] heavy cloud cover the first two missions,and the amateur [primitive] radar system�the firstsystem we had�on our aircraft wasn’t worth a damnfor picking out something like that. So, we bombedwhere the radar said and we missed the town. Thethird time we went over in clear weather, [and] wegot the town. But!, we really got [the] hell shot outof us. There was a big aircraft factory there, and lotsof munition factories…and I came home with 119holes�[from] flack�and that was about the scariestmission I had (Werly chuckled). They had a lot offlack [that had hit us] in the engine nacelles…..but


Pilots & possibly somecrew, Guam AAF tent-likebuilding. Werly on far right.Werly collection.

THE B–29MAINTE-NANCE PERSONNELSEEMED TOHAVE LITTLEINTEREST INTHEIRASSIGN-MENTS…WHEN COM-BAT MIS-SIONSSTARTED ONGUAM THEATTITUDESCHANGEDVERY DRA-MATICALLY

we had [the four engines] all running; and [we were]lucky, a lot of them didn’t [have that luck].”

A serious dereliction of combat duty by onepilot and crew

Apparently, a B–29 pilot on Guam who waspart of Cliff’s group, routinely went on a combatmission to Japan, but would unload his plane’sbombs in the ocean, just short of Honshu Island. Intime, someone of the crew could not stand the guiltand confessed. The pilot was summarily releasedfrom his combat assignment, transferred to the U.S.Marine Corps on Guam, and it was Werly’s recollec-tion that he was demoted to private.

Werly’s recollections of activities of Japanesetroops hidden away on Guam

Reports had it that, at one time, a small contin-gent of Japanese troops was preparing to attack theAAF base; but, just about that time a pregnantwomen, apparently in labor, came down the roadinto the main airbase. She was picked up and takento the hospital by U.S. military personnel. She deliv-ered her baby and Werly remembered that U.S.forces felt that her treatment was so good that ithad the effect of stopping the attack. Further, shewas reported to have had a very large diamond ringwhich she gave to one of the nurses at the hospital.Also, there were rumors that she was the wife of ahigh ranking officer (or the commander) of theJapanese troops that remained on Guam at thattime. Werly stated that “word of mouth” was thatthere were about 3,000 Japanese left on Guam. Thejungle could hide a lot of bodies!

Major Clifford Werly is awarded the DFC

It reads, in part only: “Central Orders no. 56, 6Sept. 1945. Major Clifford L. Werly, 01699157, 29thBombardment Group, Air Corps, United StatesArmy. For extraordinary achievement while partici-pating in a daring daylight raid, 24 April 1945.Major Werly was acting Command Pilot…flyingagainst the highly important Hitachi aircraft plantsat Tachikawa, near Tokyo, Japan. Despite the pres-ence of enemy fighters and adverse weather condi-tions, Major Werly accomplished a complete andhighly effective formation with unusualskill…Major Werly led his group over the objectiveto achieve outstanding results. All the bombs hit inthe target area, leaving the vital enemy installa-tions over seventy percent destroyed. After bombsaway, twenty enemy fighters attacked savagely. Heled his B–29s through this onslaught without loss topersonnel or aircraft. The outstanding airmanship,technical skill, and brilliant leadership displayed byMajor Werly reflect great credit on himself and theArmy Air Forces.” By: Command of Lt. Gen. Twining. Signed by:Gustav A. Neuberg, Lt. Col., AG.

In addition to the DFC, Werly received: The AirMedal, the Asiatic Pacific Service Medal, the


1. Based on a diverse collection of both oral and writ-ten history from Werly, including fifty-nine letters hewrote home from Guam. Also used were some of hismilitary orders, and his log books; and recollections ofsome family and friends. 2. The magnet, because of its shape, served to increase,and provide a rough, surface area for drag on the ground.3. The Fleet was designed by Consolidated Aircraft.They ultimately designed nine models.4. From his log book we have not found that he flewa large enough multi-engine aircraft, for this task inCanada until early January 1942; hence, this storycannot be verified. Still, he told it often, to many peo-ple over many years, and all while he was obviouslyvery coherent! We wonder if the flight was in early1942, and Athlone was warning about Japan attackingthe west coast (interestingly, the exact words Werly

used) of continental U.S.; thus, not Hawaii. The firstattack on the west coast of the U. S. (on oil wells andstorage tanks just north of Santa Barbara, Calif.) wason February 23, 1942. 5. Careful perusal of his log book used while flyingwith the RCAF does not list him flying the Hudson, norflying to Ireland. Possibly there were some intentionalomissions in his log book, or some entries were missedwhile original data were transcribed into a new logbook; at some point, the original one was very badlydamaged with water! His daughter remembers thatWerly’s wife, Nellie, did the transcriptions.6. It is perhaps noteworthy that Carole Werly can, tothis day, still ”see” Lt. Braun standing in front of her —pontificating about this story. 7. While not a quote, he told several of the familythat his navigator was the young airman, Doolittle.


NOTES

American Service Medal, and the World War IIVictory Medal. Also, he has other medals from theRCAF.

In a letter home of August 15, he stated, withmarked enthusiasm, that: “The war is over and wecan hardly believe it. Enclosed is a note I wrote fly-ing to Japan and when we landed back this morn-ing it proved to be the last mission of this war. I wasglad I went too, as I flew the first and the last mis-sions of our Group.” At that point he had flowntwenty-two missions.

Two weeks later their operations had changeda lot, and he wrote: “We are hauling P.W. (prisonerof war) supplies to Japan and will do so for a fewdays.” Cliff Werly departed Guam on October 27,1945, and arrived on mainland U.S.A. on October31, 1945. At that time, his MOS was: “Pilot, veryheavy bomber, # 1093.” He turned his war wearybomber in at Sacramento, Calif.

Lt. Col. Werly joined the Air Force Reserves, asa Sergeant (due to certain military regulations),

and completed a total of twenty years of active andreserve duty. That was in May 1962. He retired andquite properly reverted to his previous rank of lieu-tenant colonel.

He remained an avid pilot and, thereafter,owned several more aircraft, all for pleasure flying.He owned (at least, and at different times): a two-place PT–19, a PT–26, two rather large and trickyto fly, radial engine, high winged World War II NavyHowards, and several civilian planes.

To summarize, Clifford Werly first soloed in1924 and became a commercial pilot in 1929. Bythe late 1970s, he had amassed 12,000 hours offlight time. He dearly loved to fly and wasextremely skilled at flying a wide variety of air-planes.

Cliff Werly “slipped the surly bonds of earth” onNovember 22, 1986, and is buried within view ofthe Sedona, AZ., Airport. Or, as he stated in a little“tome” that he wrote in 1979:..“like all of us [pilotswe] never die we just fly away.” n

(Right) Cliff and Nellie intheir Travel Air, Nellie inthe front, Date unknown.

(Opposite page, top)Bombing missions – U.S.AAF photos. From the C. L.Werly collection.

(Opposite page middle)Major Cliff Werly receivingawards and congratula-tions from Col. Storrie.Specific awards are notknown. At about this timehe was a “Command Pilot.”C. L. Werly collection.

(Opposite page, bottom)Major Cliff Werly receivingawards and congratula-tions from Col. Storrie.Specific awards are notknown. At about this timehe was a “Command Pilot.”C. L. Werly collection.


The United States Air Force andBosnia, 1992-1995


Daniel L. Haulman

I n 1990, the Communist Party in Yugoslavia, likethose in other eastern European states, gave upits monopoly of power. Not long afterwards, Serbs

in Belgrade under President Slobadan Milosevicbegan to dominate the federation politically. Otherethnic groups began agitating for independence ofthe type being successfully achieved peacefully inthe former Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia.1

As early as May 1991, both Slovenia and Croatiadeclared independence from the rest of Yugoslavia.Slovenia had few Serbs, and seceded relatively peace-fully, but the thousands of Serbs living in Croatiaresisted its independence, and a civil war resulted.Col. Ratko Mladic, a Yugoslavian People’s Army com-mander, launched an “ethnic cleansing” campaign inCroatia to assure that large parts of the countryremained under Serbian control. Before long, Serbscontrolled one-third of the territory.2

On January 15, 1992, the EuropeanCommunity recognized the independence of bothSlovenia and Croatia. Major factions agreed to atruce in January 1992, and a United NationsProtection Force (UNPROFOR) entered Croatia.Despite the arrival of the UN peacekeeping forcesthere, ethnic violence continued.3

In March 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina, a largeterritory between Croatia and Serbia, also declaredindependence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia andnamed Sarajevo as its new capital. Bosnian Serbsunder Dr. Radovan Karadzic declared their ownindependence from the rest of Bosnia-Herzegovinaand sought the support of Slobodan Milosevic inneighboring Serbia. General Mladic, who had ledYugoslavian and Serbian forces in Croatia, movedinto Bosnia to support Karadzic and the Serbsthere. A civil war ensued between Bosnian Serbsand Muslims.4

On April 6, 1992, the United States recognizedthe independence of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbian military forces in Bosnia,armed with resources of the former Yugoslavianarmy provided by Milosevic, soon gained control oftwo-thirds of the country and surrounded Sarajevo,cutting off the capital from its traditional sources ofsupply. At this point, the United States began air-lifting food, medical supplies, and blankets fromstockpiles stored in Italy to Bosnia and Croatia.5

At the end of June, the United Nations SecurityCouncil extended the United Nations ProtectionForce (UNPROFOR) to Bosnia to protect the flow ofhumanitarian relief supplies to the Sarajevo air-port. United Nations forces took control of the air-port and authorized an international airlift ofhumanitarian supplies to the Bosnian capital.

For its part of the international airlift, theUnited States inaugurated Operation PROVIDEPROMISE on July 3, 1992. U.S. Air Force elementstook part in a joint task force under United StatesEuropean Command. Col. Patrick M. Henry, USAFVice-Commander of the 435th Airlift Wing atRhein-Main Air Base, Germany, served as the oper-ation’s first mobility commander. The wing’s 37thAirlift Squadron flew the initial PROVIDEPROMISE missions, using four-engined C–130sthat flew from Rhein-Main.6

The Bosnian Serbs benefited from a regionalarms embargo because they inherited most of thearms remaining in Bosnia that had belonged to theYugoslavian army. Moreover, Yugoslavia’s air force,which had essentially become the air force of Serbia,supported the Bosnian Serbs in their civil war withthe Muslims and Croats of the country. On October16, 1992, the United Nations Security Councilpassed Resolution 781 that banned all militaryflights over Bosnia. Although the North AtlanticTreaty Organization (NATO) monitored suchflights in an operation called SKY WATCH (SKYMONITOR), it had no authority to enforce the ban.7

At the end of March 1993, the United Nationspassed Resolution 816, which banned all flightsover Bosnia-Herzegovina not authorized by theUnited Nations. It also authorized NATO to enforcethe ban on military flights by shooting down viola-tors. A “dual key” concept permitted military actiononly with the approval of both the local UN andNATO commanders. The result was the first NATOcombat operation in its history: Operation DENYFLIGHT, which began on April 12, 1993. OperationPROVIDE PROMISE continued as its humanitar-ian counterpart.8

The United States was one of many nationstaking part in Operation DENY FLIGHT. The 5thAllied Tactical Air Force (5 ATAF) controlled NATOair resources for Operation DENY FLIGHT. Fighter


Daniel L. Haulman is Chief, Organizational Histories, at the Air Force Historical Research Agency,Maxwell AFB, Alabama. After earning a BA from the University of Southwestern Louisiana and an ME(Master of Education) from the University of New Orleans, he earned a Ph.D. in history from AuburnUniversity. Dr. Haulman has authored three books, including Air Force Aerial Victory Credits, TheUSAF and Humanitarian Airlift Operations, and One Hundred Years of Flight: USAF Chronology ofSignificant Air and Space Events, 1903-2002. He has written three pamphlets, composed sections of sev-eral other USAF publications, and compiled the list of official USAF aerial victories appearing on theAFHRA’s web page. He wrote the Air Force chapter in supplement IV ofA Guide to the Sources of UnitedStates Military History and completed six studies on aspects of recent USAF operations that have beenused by the Air Staff and Air University. He has also written a chapter in Locating Air Force Base Sites:History’s Legacy, a book about the location of Air Force bases. The author of fifteen published articles invarious journals, Dr. Haulman has presented more than twenty historical papers at historical confer-ences and taught history courses at Huntingdon College, Auburn University at Montgomery, andFaulkner University. He recently co-authored, with Joseph Caver and Jerome Ennels, the bookThe Tuskegee Airmen: An Illustrated History, published by New South Books in 2011..

(Overleaf) The U.S. AirForce did not go it alone inBosnia, as the presence ofthese NATO allies’ aircraftcan attest.

SERBIAN MILITARYFORCES INBOSNIA,ARMED WITHRESOURCESOF THE FORMERYUGO -SLAVIANARMY PRO-VIDED BYMILOSEVIC,SOONGAINED CONTROL OFTWO-THIRDSOF THECOUNTRYAND SUR-ROUNDEDSARAJEVO

aircraft from the USAF’s 36th Wing at Bitburg AirBase in Germany, operating from Aviano Air Basein Italy, flew some of the earliest DENY FLIGHTmissions. Air Force Special Operations Commandunits also took part in the new operation, withsearch and rescue aircraft operating out of Bridisi,Italy. A United States Navy carrier task force in theAdriatic Sea participated, as did USAF reconnais-sance crews and airplanes from as far away asEngland. Operation DENY FLIGHT did not pre-vent all non-authorized military flights. It largelyignored helicopter flights because so many of themcarried civilians or displayed Red Cross symbols.9

On July 22, the UN Security Council autho-rized NATO close air support missions and offen-sive air strikes to protect UN forces in the formerYugoslavia. UN Secretary-General Boutros Bou -

tros -Ghali authorized his representative for theregion, Ambassador Yasushi Akashi, to veto NATOclose air support missions. When NATO authorizedretaliatory air strikes in Bosnia-Herzegovina inAugust, Boutros-Ghali insisted on exercising hisown power to veto them.10

The crisis in Bosnia encouraged France to associ-ate more closely with the NATO alliance from whichshe had withdrawn its military forces in 1966. OnFebruary 18, 1994, USAF aircraft deployed to Francefor the first time in more than twenty years. FiveKC–135 tankers flew from French bases to refuelNATO aircraft patrolling the airspace over Bosnia-Herzegovina during Opera tion DENY FLIGHT.11

On February 28, 1994, NATO engaged in com-bat for the first time in its history. A British air-borne warning and control system (AWACS) air-craft crew flying over Hungary detected at least sixSerbian J–21 Jastreb-Galeb jet aircraft that wereattacking a factory in the Banja Luka area ofBosnia and warned them to land, exit the no-flyzone, or be engaged. The AWACS crew also con-tacted a flight of two F–16s from the 526th FighterSquadron (86th Fighter Wing), that were patrollingover Mostar in southern Bosnia. Although alreadylow on fuel, the F–16 pilots quickly flew to the area,spotted the Serbian airplanes, and repeated thewarning. The Serbian pilots did not respond, butcontinued their air strikes on ground targets, inclear violation of the no-fly zone. Cleared to fire,Capt. Robert G. Wright launched one of his radar-guided AIM–120 missiles and destroyed one of theSerbian aircraft. The rest of the J–21s quicklydescended to a lower altitude to reduce their radarsignature. Captain Wright shot down two more ofthe Jastreb-Galebs, using shorter-range heat seek-ing AIM-9 missiles. His total was three that day. Hiswingman, Capt. Scott F. O’Grady also fired an AIM-9 missile at one of the fleeing enemy airplanes, butmissed. Wright and O’Grady departed to refuel,turning over the mission to two other F–16 pilotsfrom their squadron, who had come to relieve them.Capt. Stephen L. Allen used another AIM-9 heat-seeking missile to destroy a fourth Jastreb-Galeb,but the remaining two Serbian jets escaped the no-fly zone and returned to their base at Udbina in theSerbian-dominated part of Croatia.12

On April 10, two F–16 Fighting Falcons of the512th Fighter Squadron struck a Bosnian Serb


Serbian Aircraft Shot Down by USAF Aircraft, February 28, 1994

Type USAF aircraft & Weapon Victor Squadron/Group

J-21 F-16C, AIM-120 Capt. Robert G. Wright 526th/86thJastreb-GalebJ-21 F-16C, AIM-9 Capt. Robert G. Wright 526th/86thJastreb-GalebJ-21 F-16C, AIM-9 Capt. Robert G. Wright 526th/86thJastreb-GalebJ-21 F-16C, AIM-9 Capt. Stephen L. Allen 526th/86thJastreb-Galeb

Source: Department of the Air Force Special Order GB-228 dated May 27, 1994.

HIS WING-MAN, CAPT.SCOTT F.O’GRADYALSO FIREDAN AIM-9 MIS-SILE AT ONEOF THE FLEE-ING ENEMYAIRPLANES,BUT MISSED

artillery command post near Gorazde, after BosnianSerb forces attacked UN personnel in the enclave.This was the first close air support mission ofOperation DENY FLIGHT, and the first air-to-ground bombing in NATO history. In retaliation, theBosnian Serbs took more than 150 UN personnel ashostages, and caused the UN to ask NATO to sus-pend air strikes.13

In November, NATO leaders convinced UNleaders to approve the largest alliance air raid yetagainst an airfield at Udbina, a Serb-controlled areafrom which aircraft had raided Bosnia in violationof the DENY FLIGHT no-fly zone. Capt. BrentJohnson, an F–15E pilot, led the raid, which tar-geted not only the airfield but also Bosnian Serbsurface-to-air missile sites in the area. As had hap-pened in April, the Serbs responded by seizing UNpersonnel as hostages, and again the UN insistedthat NATO temporarily suspend its air strikes.14

Operation DENY FLIGHT suffered setbacks in1995. On June 2, USAF Captain Scott O’Grady ofthe 31st Fighter Wing’s 555th Fighter Squadronpatrolled the skies over northwestern Bosnia indaylight when his F–16C fighter was brought downby an SA-6 surface-to-air missile guided by radar.O’Grady ejected safely. He was rescued by USMChelicopters from a USN task force in theMediterranean Sea on June 8 after evadingBosnian Serb forces for six days.15

U.S. Air Force organizations and personnel tookpart in the rescue. On June 8, KC–135 tanker crewsfrom the 107th Air Refueling Group and the 157thAir Refueling Group, from New York and NewHampshire respectively, flying out of Istres, France,


refueled fighters covering the rescue helicopters. Acrew from the 107th had also refueled O’Grady’sown F–16 before it was shot down.16

The summer of 1995, the U.S.Air Forces inEurope (USAFE) centralized control of OperationDENY FLIGHT aircraft by activating the provi-sional 7490th Wing at Aviano Air Base, Italy. Col.Charles F. Wald, who was already commander of the31st Fighter Wing at Aviano, served as commanderof the new wing. The United States also deployed itsnew Predator unmanned reconnaissance aerialvehicle to Albania in an operation called NOMADVIGIL.17

The fall of two UN-declared safe areas inBosnia—Srebrenica and Zepa—to the Serbs,aroused NATO and the UN to action. Western mili-tary leaders meeting in London on July 20 and 21warned the Bosnian Serbs that any attack onGorazde, the most threatened of the four remainingsafe areas in Bosnia, would provoke a “decisiveresponse.” A few days later, the North AtlanticCouncil met and committed NATO to defendGorazde. On August 1, NATO extended the Gorazdeultimatum to the other three safe areas in Bosnia,including Sarajevo. Bosnian Serb attacks on any ofthe four remaining enclaves would provoke aNATO/UN military response.18

On August 22, the Serbs shelled Sarajevo,killing six and wounding almost forty. The UN com-mander removed his forces from Gorazde to preventthe Bosnian Serbs from taking them as hostages, asthey had in response to previous air strikes. He alsoaccepted reinforcement of his troops by the recentlyintroduced European Rapid Reaction Force. The

A NATO AWACS refuelsduring Operation DenyFlight.

THE SERBSRESPONDEDBY SEIZINGUN PERSON-NEL ASHOSTAGES,AND AGAINTHE UNINSISTEDTHAT NATOTEMPORAR-ILY SUSPENDITS AIRSTRIKES

stage was set for a more decisive air operation in theformer Yugoslavia.19

The Bosnian Serbs ignored UN and NATOwarnings and increased their pressure on Sarajevo.On August 28, they shelled the capital again, thistime killing thirty-seven and wounding eighty. Itwas time for the UN and NATO to deliver on theirthreat of retaliatory air strikes. By agreement, suchstrikes required the approval of the regional com-manders of both NATO and the UN. NATO’sAdmiral Leighton Smith quickly approved, but UNLt. Gen. Bernard Janvier was attending his son’swedding in France. His deputy, Lt. Gen. RupertSmith of the United Kingdom, approved the airstrikes in Janvier’s place. The two keys had beenturned, and NATO prepared to embark onOperation DELIBERATE FORCE, its first majorcombat operation.20

Operation DELIBERATE FORCE commencedon August 29, the day after the Bosnian Serbsresumed the shelling of Sarajevo. USAF Lt. Gen.Michael Ryan served as Admiral Smith’s air compo-nent commander at the Combined Air OperationsCenter (CAOC), to which he had already gone for anexercise. Ryan listed targets for Admiral Smith’sand the UN commander’s approval. While most ofthe air strikes came from land-based fighters atAviano Air Base in Italy, which were already con-ducting Operation DENY FLIGHT missions overBosnia, Admiral Smith ordered the aircraft carrierUSS Theodore Roosevelt to the Adriatic Sea toincrease the number of fighters available.21

The second phase of the operation, which lasteduntil September 13, included air strikes on the

Bosnian Serb air defense network in northwesternBosnia. Using stand-off munitions launched fromaircraft, General Ryan targeted command, control,and communication facilities, which crippledharder-to-hit enemy missile batteries that had pre-viously threatened DENY FLIGHT missions. Thecruiser USS Normandy also launched sevenTomahawk missiles against Bosnian Serb com-mand and control targets. Continued air strikes onthese and other enemy military sites weakened theBosnian Serbs.22

Operation DELIBERATE FORCE was the firstcombat air campaign in which precision-guidedmunitions outweighed conventional munitionsdropped. UN Lt. Gen. Rupert Smith, who was famil-iar with vulnerable sites in Bosnia, nominated closeair support targets. Ryan sometimes planned tostrike an enemy facility at two o’clock in the morn-ing, hoping it would be unoccupied. Milosevic him-self admitted that there were only twenty-five fatal-ities in the entire air campaign.23

Operation DELIBERATE FORCE officiallyended on September 21, 1995, after air strikes anda combined Bosnian-Croatian ground offensive hadleft less than half of Bosnia in the hands of theBosnian Serbs. The allied coalition had flown a totalof 3,485 sorties, 2,444 of them by “shooters,” or air-craft launching weapons. The actual munitionsdropped or launched totaled fewer 500 tons, butthat relatively low number obscures the fact thatthe air campaign was more effective than many oth-ers in earlier conflicts because the majority of the1,026 bombs or missiles dropped or fired were themore accurate precision-guided munitions.24


An Avianio-based F–16Clands during OperationDeliberate Force.

THE BOSNIANSERBSIGNORED UNAND NATOWARNINGSANDINCREASEDTHEIR PRES-SURE ONSARAJEVO

The Bosnian Serbs were more willing to negoti-ate when they learned on October 23 that Russia,Serbia’s old ally, would furnish part of the peace-keeping force in Bosnia. Between October 31 and

November 21, the presidents of Bosnia-Herze -govina, Croatia, and Serbia met at Wright-Pat -terson Air Force Base, Ohio, and produced an agree-ment to end the war in Bosnia and designate sectorsfor Serbs and non-Serbs. On December 14, interna-tional leaders signed a peace agreement in Paris toconfirm the Wright-Patterson accords.25

Operation DENY FLIGHT, which had enforceda United Nations no-fly zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina since April 1993, officially ended onDecember 20. At the same time, the NATO-ledImplementation Force (IFOR), under AdmiralSmith, replaced the United Nations ProtectionForce (UNPF) in Bosnia and assumed the task ofenforcing the peace agreement.

On January 9, 1996, after three and one halfyears, PROVIDE PROMISE officially ended. It wasthe longest sustained humanitarian airlift in his-tory. Since early July 1992, aircraft from twenty-onecountries had taken part in the operation, flying atotal of 12,886 sorties and delivering 159,622 tons offood, medicine, and other supplies to Sarajevo andother parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The operationprovided 95 percent of the city’s supplies and evac-uated some 1,300 wounded civilians. The UnitedStates flew 4,553 sorties and delivered 62,802 met-ric tons of cargo. Besides landing cargo at Sarajevo’sairport, USAF transports had also flown 2,222 sor-ties to drop food rations to isolated safe areas withinBosnia that had been surrounded by Serb militaryforces. Air Force Reserve and Air National Guardorganizations provided approximately 40 percent ofthe airlift of Operation PROVIDE PROMISE. Theopening of surface routes of transportation to the


A C–17 takes off duringOperation Provide Promise.

An F–15 refuels duringOperation Deny Flight.

THE PRESI-DENTS OFBOSNIA-HERZE -GOVINA,CROATIA,AND SERBIAMET…ANDPRODUCEDAN AGREE-MENT TO ENDTHE WAR INBOSNIA

1. Karl Mueller, “The Demise of Yugoslavia and theDestruction of Bosnia: Strategic Causes, Effects, andResponses,” in Deliberate Force: A Case Study inEffective Air Campaigning, edited by Col. Robert C.Owen (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press,2000), pp. 7-9, 10. 2. Ibid, pp 6, 10-12; Col. Robert C. Owen, USAF, “TheBalkans Air Campaign Study: Part I,” AirpowerJournal, vol. XI, no. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 6, 8. 3. Mueller, “The Demise of Yugoslavia and theDestruction of Bosnia, pp. 6, 11-12, 18; Col. Robert C.Owen, USAF, “The Balkans Air Campaign Study: PartI,” Airpower Journal, vol. XI, no. 2 (Summer 1997), p. 8. 4. Mueller, “The Demise of Yugoslavia and theDestruction of Bosnia, pp. 13-15; Col. Robert C. Owen,USAF, “The Balkans Air Campaign Study: Part I,”Airpower Journal, vol. XI, no. 2 (Summer 1997), p. 8. 5. Mueller, “The Demise of Yugoslavia and theDestruction of Bosnia, pp. 13-14; Col. Robert C. Owen,USAF, “The Balkans Air Campaign Study: Part I,”Airpower Journal, vol. XI, no. 2 (Summer 1997), p. 8;Frederick J. Shaw, Jr., “Crisis in Bosnia: OperationProvide Promise,” contained in Short of War: MajorUSAF Contingency Operations,” edited by A. TimothyWarnock (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History andMuseums Program, 2000), p. 198. 6. Shaw, Jr., “Crisis in Bosnia: Operation ProvidePromise,”, pp. 198-99; USAFE History, 1995, vol. I, p.xix.7. Mueller, “The Demise of Yugoslavia and theDestruction of Bosnia, pp. 18-19; Owen, USAF, “TheBalkans Air Campaign Study: Part I,” AirpowerJournal, vol. XI, no. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 8-9. 8. Mueller, “The Demise of Yugoslavia and theDestruction of Bosnia, p. 19; Col. Robert C. Owen,USAF, “The Balkans Air Campaign Study: Part I,” AirPower Journal, vol. XI, no. 2 (Summer 1997), p 9;USAFE History, 1995, vol. I, p. xx.9. Mueller, “The Demise of Yugoslavia and theDestruction of Bosnia, p. 19; History, Air Force SpecialOperations Command, 1999, vol. I, p. 77. 10. Mueller, “The Demise of Yugoslavia and theDestruction of Bosnia, p. 19. 11. USAFE History, 1995, vol. I, p. xxxvi.12. Mueller, “The Demise of Yugoslavia and theDestruction of Bosnia, p. 21; Philip Hadleman, Combatin the Sky (St. Paul, Minn.: MBI Publishing Company,2003), p 157; 86th Wing History, Jul 1993-Jun 1994, vol.I, pp. 32, 48.13. Mueller, “The Demise of Yugoslavia and theDestruction of Bosnia, p. 21. 14. USAFE History, 1994, vol. I, pp. xl-xli.

15. Mueller, “The Demise of Yugoslavia and theDestruction of Bosnia, p 24; USAFE History, 1995, vol.I, pp. xxi, xxiv. 16. “Air Refueling Ensures Global Reach and GlobalPower,” Air Mobility Command History Office historicalreport, January 2007, p. 22; “Refueling Highlights,”report published by Air Mobility Command HistoryOffice in 2008 and given to author on trip to Scott AirForce Base, Illinois; Air Mobility Command History, 1Jan-31 Dec 1995, vol. I, pp. 110-111. 17. USAFE History, 1995, vol. I, p. xxv.18. Col. Mark A. Bucknam, Responsibility of Com -mand (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air UniversityPress, 2003), 273; USAFE History, 1995, vol. I, pp. xxvii,xxviii.19. Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, pp. 274-75. 20. Owen, USAF, “The Balkans Air Campaign Study:Part I,” Airpower Journal, vol. XI, no. 2 (Summer 1997),p. 9; Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, pp. 274-75;USAFE History, 1995, vol. I, p. xxix; Shaw, “Crisis inBosnia: Operation Provide Promise,” contained in Shortof War: Major USAF Contingency Operations,” edited byA. Timothy Warnock (Washington, D.C.: Air ForceHistory and Museums Program, 2000), p. 205.21. Bucknam, Responsibility of Command , pp. 274-77,279-80, 292; USAFE History, 1995, vol. I, pp. xxviii,xxix; Shaw, “Crisis in Bosnia: Operation ProvidePromise,” p. 205.22. Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, pp. 293-97;USAFE History, 1995, vol. I, p. xxx.23. Bucknam, Responsibility of Command, pp. 281-82,284, 301.24. Lt. Col Richard L. Sargent, “Aircraft Used inDeliberate Force,” “Weapons Used in Deliberate Force,:and “Deliberate Force Combat Assessments,” inDeliberate Force: A Case Study in Effective AirCampaigning (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air UniversityPress, 2000), pp. 207, 257, 334. 25. USAFE History, 1995, vol. I, pp. xxxi, xxxiii, xxxiv,xxxv, xxxvii, xxxviii, xxxix; Report by MSgt. Timothy M.Brown, “AFSOC in the Balkans: Provide Promise toNoble Anvil, 1992-1999” (Hurlburt Field, Fla.: Air ForceSpecial Operations Command History Office, 2000) p19. 26. USAFE History, 1995, vol. I, pp. xl and xli; Shaw,“Crisis in Bosnia: Operation Provide Promise,”, p. 207;“AFRC Historical Milestones,” from Air Force ReserveCommand History Office. 27. Lt. Col. Richard L. Sargent, “Aircraft Used inDeliberate Force,” in Deliberate Force: A Case Study inEffective Air Campaigning (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AirUniversity Press, 2000), p. 199.


NOTES

Bosnian capital negated the need for further mili-tary airlift of humanitarian supplies to its airport.26

The Bosnian crisis proved to be pivotal in thehistory of NATO and the U.S. Air Force. The UNallowed NATO to be its enforcement instrument inthe former Yugoslavia, and for the first time, NATOembarked on a combat operation. France drewcloser to NATO, allowing U.S. Air Force tankers tobe based in and fly missions from France.Operation DELIBERATE FORCE was the first aircampaign in history to use more precision-guided

weapons than “dumb” bombs. For the first time, thePredator unmanned aerial vehicle entered a com-bat zone. In Bosnia the C–17 transport first entereda major overseas operation. In Operation PRO-VIDE PROMISE, the Air Force had taken part inthe longest sustained humanitarian airlift in his-tory. Despite all the successes, the crisis in the for-mer Yugoslavia was not yet over. Albanians withinthe Serbian province of Kosovo began to agitate forindependence, and another conflict loomed beforethe end of the decade.27 n


Forrest L. Marion

‘HEROIC THINGS’:AIR FORCE

SPECIAL TACTICS PERSONNELAT MOGADISHU,

OCTOBER 3-4, 1993

I n 1969 Somalia’s president was assassinated andreplaced by a military dictator whose rulebecame increasingly repressive after a disastrous

war with neighboring Ethiopia. At the end of 1990,in the face of clan-based civil warfare, the govern-ment collapsed. Mogadishu reverted from a once-modest city to a repressive Third World capital lack-ing electricity and suffering from food and fuelshortages and the breakdown of law and order. Foodwas traditionally a source of power in Somalia; com-peting clans fought over the control of food suppliesand storehouses. A drought exacerbated the suffer-ing. Private relief organizations could not preventfood theft by armed militias and the use of food as apolitical weapon. In 1990–91, an estimated 300,000Somalis died from starvation.1

In April 1992, UN-approved relief operationsbegan in Somalia. United Nations peacekeepersdeployed and tried to oversee the distribution offood to those Somalis in dire need. In response to aworsening situation, in August the United Statesbegan airlifting food supplies from neighboringKenya to remote airstrips in Somalia in hopes ofavoiding supply “bottlenecks” in Mogadishu’s portas well as clan militias and unscrupulous food con-voy guards. Problems with food distribution contin-ued, however, with lawless gangs stealing andhoarding.2

In December 1992, the United States (not theUN) began Operation Restore Hope under thedirection of a U.S. Marine Corps-led Unified TaskForce (UNITAF). Twenty-three countries con-tributed a total of 38,000 soldiers for the humani-tarian operation. On December 9, U.S. Marine andNavy elements moved into Mogadishu unopposed.Within an hour of arrival, conventional USAF com-bat controllers began providing air traffic controland ground services at Mogadishu’s all-but-aban-doned airport. The UNITAF’s mission was strictlyto facilitate the delivery of food, not to disarm thetraditionally heavily-armed Somali factions.Leading Somali warlords decided to cooperate, atleast initially, with the UNITAF in establishing arelatively secure environment that facilitated reliefefforts. The warlords included Gen. MuhammedFarah Aideed, a major figure in the former Somaligovernment.3

Influenced perhaps by the presence of massiveU.S. firepower and the leadership of AmbassadorRobert B. Oakley, the U.S. envoy, Aideed and a rivalwarlord accepted a sort of cease-fire. By the end of1992, U.S. special operations and allied elementsbegan moving into the countryside outside

Mogadishu and the major cities to facilitate fooddeliveries and to garner intelligence for theUNITAF on potentially hostile clan militias. FromFebruary to May 1993, the mission proceeded with-out a major incident and succeeded in halting massstarvation in the country. Local markets returned tolife, increasingly Somalis felt safe enough to travel,and initial efforts at restoring the Somali nationalpolice appeared favorable.4

In May 1993, the four-month-old William J.Clinton administration terminated Restore Hopeand turned the Somalia mission over to the UN.Quickly, the situation deteriorated. The UnitedStates supported the UN operation with some 2,600logistics personnel, 1,100 members of a quick reac-tion force (QRF), and a small special operations ele-ment. Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Jonathan Howebecame the new U.S. envoy to Somalia.5

On June 5, in one of several coordinated attacksagainst UN/U.S. forces in Mogadishu, Aideed’s mili-tia ambushed and attacked a Pakistani unit, killingtwenty-four. The next day the UN Security Councilcalled for additional troops and equipment frommember nations. The Pentagon’s Joint Staffapproved a U.S. Air Force deployment of fourAC–130 gunships. Deploying on June 7 to an airportin neighboring Djibouti, then onward to Mogadishu,that month the gunships destroyed severalweapons storage facilities and vehicle compounds ofAideed’s and neutralized Radio Mogadishu. TheAC–130s redeployed on July 14. Meanwhile,Admiral Howe inadvertently provided “folk hero”status to Aideed by declaring him an outlaw, nam-ing him responsible for the recent attacks, and issu-ing a warrant (with reward) for his arrest.6

As violence mounted, the UN/U.S. focus shiftedto one man, Aideed, leader of the largest ofSomalia’s major clans. A U.S. aviation task forcecomprised of various helicopters, snipers, and ascout platoon conducted continuous surveillance ofAideed, hoping to “snatch” him as his convoy passedthrough the city, but the warlord lowered his profileand was rarely seen. In August, U.S. defense secre-tary Les Aspin directed a joint special operationstask force (JSOTF) to deploy to Somalia. “TaskForce Ranger” (TF Ranger) was composed of U.S.Army Rangers from the 3d Battalion (75th RangerRegiment), 10th Mountain Division soldiers, and abattalion from the 160th Special OperationsAviation Regiment (160 SOAR), and special missionunit personnel from the Army, Navy, and Air Force.A handful of Special Tactics men from the 24thSpecial Tactics Squadron (24 STS), pararescuemen


Forrest L. Marion graduated from the Virginia Military Institute with a BS degree in civil engineering.He earned an MA in history from the University of Alabama and a doctorate in United States historyfrom the University of Tennessee. Since 1998, he has served as a historian at the Air Force HistoricalResearch Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. In 2009, he deployed in military status to Afghanistan, as his-torian for the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing, and in 2011, he deployed in civilian status to the same posi-tion. Commissioned in 1980, he retired from the USAF Reserve in May 2010.DISCLAIMER: “The conclusions and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. Theydo not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, or the UnitedStates Air Force.”

(Overleaf) Aerial view, rightside profile, of a US MarineUH-1N "Huey" helicopter asit flies over a Mogadishuresidential area on a patrolmission to look for signs ofhostilities. This mission isin direct support ofOperation Restore Hope.

AT THE ENDOF 1990,…MOGADISHUREVERTEDFROM AONCE-MODEST CITY TO AREPRESSIVETHIRDWORLD CAPITAL…SUFFERINGFROM FOODAND FUELSHORTAGESAND THEBREAKDOWNOF LAW ANDORDER

and combat controllers, comprised the USAF ele-ment. United States Army Maj. Gen. William F.Garrison commanded Task Force Ranger. The JointSpecial Operations Command (JSOC) commandingofficer, General Garrison had served two tours inSoutheast Asia, commanded “Delta Force,” and wasconsidered by several USAF special operators “thefinest general officer I ever worked for.” The major-ity of TF Ranger arrived in Mogadishu by August28, its mission to capture Aideed and his key subor-dinates. That same day, 24 STS combat controllerDan Schilling participated in the first patrol inMogadishu by TF Ranger personnel.7

The city’s elevation was higher than theMogadishu airfield complex, so the enemy enjoyedan excellent view of the airfield. Because the move-ment of aircraft and personnel could not be hidden,Garrison directed his crews to launch up to ten sor-ties a day, conditioning the Somalis to frequentflights. The Somalis would not know when an oper-ational mission launched. Moreover, to keep theenemy off-balance Garrison ordered his men, accus-tomed to fighting only at night, to perform someraids by day, employing both helicopters and groundvehicles. The typical mission involved a special mis-sion unit deploying by helicopter onto (or near) a tar-get building in the city while other helicoptersdropped Rangers to establish blocking forces atnearby positions that surrounded the target build-ing, in some cases “kind of like a square.” The specialmission unit handled everything inside the squarewhile the Rangers blocked anyone from enteringfrom the outside. Back at the airfield, a Ranger QRFawaited, if needed. On September 21, TF Rangercaptured one of Aideed’s closest advisors, but, for thefirst time, U.S. forces encountered massed rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) fire from the Somalis.8

Meanwhile, on September 8, Somali militiaattacked U.S. and Pakistani soldiers as they clearedroadblocks. The well-armed Somalis employedsmall arms, 106-mm. recoilless rifles, and RPGs andwere suppressed only by extensive U.S./allied firefrom ground and air assets. In the next two weeks,

two other roadblock-clearing teams were attacked.In one of the incidents, a Pakistani armored person-nel carrier (APC) was lost; two soldiers died. OnSeptember 25, a U.S. Army H–60 Blackhawk heli-copter was shot down by an RPG, killing three sol-diers. A week later the same basic scenario occurredagain. And on that occasion, the attack became partof the longest sustained firefight involving U.S.forces since Southeast Asia.9

The roughly 440-member task force includedeleven members of the 24 STS: three pararescue-men, MSgt. Scotty Fales, SMSgt. Rusty Tanner, andTSgt. (later, MSgt.) Timothy A. “Tim” Wilkinson;and eight combat controllers, Ray Benjamin, JeffBray, John McGarry, Jack McMullen, Bob Rankin,Pat Rogers, Dan Schilling, and Dave Schnoor. Thelast-named, Master Sergeant Schnoor, participatedin the first three raids in Mogadishu just after TFRanger’s deployment. Sent home for a family emer-gency, he was replaced by another combat controller,SSgt. Jeff Bray, only twenty-six.10

Bray became the highest-decorated combatcontroller in the battle of Mogadishu, earning theSilver Star. However, one pararescueman, ScottyFales, thirty-five, also earned the Silver Star, thethird-highest award for valor in combat. Fales’ part-ner in Somalia, Tim (aka Wilky) Wilkinson, was amonth older than his team leader. Wilkinson earnedthe Air Force Cross, the second-highest award forvalor in combat.

On October 3, 1993, Fales, the PJ team leader,and Wilkinson were the primary pararescuemensupporting TF Ranger. A third 24 STS pararescue-man, Rusty Tanner, was the senior enlisted manamong the eleven deployed squadron members. Heexpected to work the casualty collection point in theevent of wounded personnel, but the level of concernwas not high; the Somalis “rarely hit anything.” Themissions so far had been “a piece of cake.” Three ofthe six had been conducted in daylight, “without ahitch.”11

In any case, Scotty Fales and, no doubt, othersin TF Ranger wanted to “mix it up with the bad


Abandoned MogadishuStreet known as the "GreenLine". The street was thedividing line between Northand South Mogadishu, andthe warring clans. Thismission is in direct supportof Operation Restore Hope.

BECAUSETHE MOVE-MENT OF AIR-CRAFT ANDPERSONNELCOULD NOTBE HIDDEN,GARRISONDIRECTEDHIS CREWSTO LAUNCHUP TO TENSORTIES ADAY, CONDI-TIONING THESOMALIS TOFREQUENTFLIGHTS

guys.” On the morning of October 3, Fales wentaround the airfield on a self-imposed rucksackmarch for some physical training. Around midday,teammates retrieved Fales from his march whenalerted to a possible mission involving a Humveevehicle that struck a land mine in downtownMogadishu, but another unit responded, and themission was scrubbed. Disappointed, Fales,Wilkinson, Bray, and other task force membersexpected another long, boring afternoon. However,at 1350 local time, General Garrison received timelyintelligence on the location of two of Aideed’s lieu-tenants on the “wanted” list. He approved a “snatch-and-grab” mission for mid-afternoon. The targetlocation was a compound in the so-called “BlackSea” district of downtown Mogadishu. Because theBlack Sea was the center of Aideed’s power base, amission there represented, as Black Hawk Downauthor Mark Bowden wrote, “a thumb in the war-lord’s eye.”12

At 1532 local time, a helicopter-borne team ofU.S. Army special mission unit members accompa-nied by Rangers, SEALs, and 24 STS personneldeparted the airport and three minutes laterswooped into the area of Hawlwadig Road and fast-roped to the ground. Jeff Bray was the lone combatcontroller, and the only USAF member, with themain assault force. Fellow combat controller JohnMcGarry accompanied the Rangers’ blocking force.Ray Benjamin flew on the command-and-controlhelicopter in a kind of communications-liaison role.Dan Schilling served as the combat controller forthe exfiltration convoy that departed from the air-field at 1535 local. The convoy consisted of six orseven “Kevlar [armored] Humvees,” two unarmoredHumvees, and three flatbed five-ton trucks. Theplan called for the blocking force to secure theperimeter around the compound where Aideed’smen stayed, while the assault team entered thestructure, located, identified, and secured the war-lord’s lieutenants. After the “hit,” all U.S. personneland the Somalis would be transported back to theairport in the convoy’s vehicles. Schilling recalledthat very shortly after the blocking-and-assaultforce’s lift-off, the convoy departed for its destinationnext to the seven-story Olympic Hotel onHawlwadig Road. Only minutes later, however, TFRanger began taking fire from the Somalis. In fact,the fire was heavier than on previous missions, andit quickly grew worse. Even prior to its arrival at thetarget building, the exfiltration convoy experiencedheavy fire, too. While parked outside the targetbuilding, an RPG disabled one of the five-ton flatbedtrucks.13

Inside the compound, the assault team discov-ered and captured not two, but twenty-four,Somalis, stunning, handcuffing, and blindfoldingthem in preparation for transport. Thirty minutesafter the start of the operation, the mission stillappeared manageable despite several casualtiesand the disabled truck. One Ranger had fallen outof his helicopter and was badly injured. He and sev-eral other casualties expected to be evacuated to theairport by three of the convoy’s Humvees. Assault

team members were busy loading the Somalis intothe remaining convoy vehicles when an RPGslammed into one of the H–60s overhead, call sign“Super 61.” Out of control, Super 61 crashed threeblocks to the east of the target building, killing bothpilots. Mark Bowden described the helicopter com-ing “to rest in a narrow alley on its side against astone wall in a cloud of dust.” The operators andcrew chiefs in the cabin, however, survived theimpact. Ray Benjamin called Bray from the com-mand-and-control helicopter and directed him tomove to the crash site. In the confusion that fol-lowed, Bray and the assault team maintained ade-quate communications with only one of the fourgroups of Rangers in the blocking positions, JohnMcGarry’s group. The UHF radio frequency usedmay have contributed to the confusion. The fre-quency was 242.6, only 400 megahertz from theinternational emergency frequency of 243.0. In anycase the static was terrible. Soon, Bray’s andMcGarry’s teams joined together while they movedunder fire toward Super 61’s location several blocksaway. They intended to assist the CSAR team insecuring the site and in rescuing or recovering theirdowned teammates. Many of the men, includingBray, soon regretted they had brought fewer thanone-half the normal number of thirty-round clips fortheir weapons. The Rangers and assaulters sus-tained more casualties during the movement toSuper 61. Meanwhile, the convoy was instructed tomove to “61’s” site, but lacking clear directions—thelocation was several blocks north and east—it hadgreat difficulty doing so in the developing urbanchaos.14

Combat controller Dan Schilling rose to theoccasion. The ground reaction force lacked apararescueman, so Schilling served as both theground-air communicator for the ground force aswell as its unofficial medic. As casualties mountedfrom Somali small arms fire, Schilling treated anumber of wounded including his ground force com-mander among several other Rangers. Schilling washimself cut by flying glass and sustained a minorfoot injury. More significant, however, he took theinitiative to keep the convoy moving toward Super61’s site when his commander appeared temporar-ily dazed and slow to respond. Making mattersworse, at about that time the second Black Hawk,Super 64, was shot down less than a mile to thesouth of Super 61’s location. Finally, frustrated bythe inability to obtain clear instructions on whichdirection to move, and with communications break-ing down, Schilling switched to a different fre-quency to talk with the helos. Receiving vectorsfrom one of the helos overhead, Schilling realizedtoo late that the instructions were taking the convoyto the second crash site, not the first: he had notspecified which crash site in his request. Realizingthe error, Schilling, now temporarily leading theconvoy, recovered and redirected the convoy toSuper 61’s site. But with the combination of mount-ing casualties from intense Somali fire, windingstreets and narrow alleys, and damage to the con-voy’s vehicles, they never made it. Soon, the ground


AT 1532LOCAL TIME,A HELI-COPTER-BORNETEAM…DEPARTEDTHE AIRPORTAND THREEMINUTESLATERSWOOPEDINTO THEAREA OFHAWLWADIGROAD ANDFAST-ROPEDTO THEGROUND.JEFF BRAYWAS THELONE COM-BAT CON-TROLLER,AND THEONLY USAFMEMBER

force commander reassumed control of the convoyand headed for the airfield. Schilling’s Humveebrought up the rear of the convoy which, carryingmost of the dead and wounded, limped back to theairfield by about 1810.15

Meanwhile, aboard the CSAR Black Hawk fly-ing over the city, PJs Scotty Fales and TimWilkinson and combat controller Pat Rogers werepart of the rescue team tightly packed in the helo’scabin. At 1620 local, Fales witnessed the crash of thefirst helicopter, Super 61. He recalled, “I saw it hit ina big huge plume of dust and it hit the ground andcame up. I knew right away . . . that we were goingto get committed here shortly.”16

He was right. Mike Durant, the pilot of Super64 (the second H–60 downed by the Somalis twentyminutes after the first loss), wrote, “In those few sec-onds, everything changed. The radios, which up tillnow had hissed the occasional code word or updates,went crazy. . . . we’d all prepared for the possibilityof a bird going down, but the timing and locationwere about as bad as they could be.” Momentarily,Dan Jollata, the pilot of the CSAR bird, Super 68,came on the radio and announced, as Fales remem-bered, “Hey, they are calling us in and it’s going tobe a fast rope, fellas. Does everybody have their fastrope gloves on . . . [is everyone] buckled and ready togo?”17

The one-minute call came, then about fifteenseconds later the call for ropes. Fales noted the heli-copter came into a hover in the middle of the streetand short of the wrecked Super 61, preventing himfrom seeing it. The Rangers began their fast ropeexit from the Black Hawk’s left and right sides.Then “Tim chucked out the . . . big CSAR bags andthen . . . Tim and I hit the ropes and down we went,”Fales recounted. While the PJs were still on theropes, perhaps forty feet above ground, their heli-copter, Super 68, took an RPG hit. Seeing the air-craft’s parts flying, Fales “darn near let go of therope because I wanted to get from underneath” thehelo in case it came down. Bowden described themoments that followed: [The pilot, Dan] Jollata could hear his rotor bladeswhistling. Shrapnel from the blast had peppered

them with holes. The aircraft sloshed from side toside. . . . Instinct and training both dictated that hemove out, fast, but Jollata eased the Black Hawkback down to a hover for the remaining secondsWilkinson and Fales needed to finish sliding downthe ropes.18

With superb airmanship, Jollata nursed Super 68 toa safe landing near the airport.19

Once on the ground, the men were in a “brown-out” from the helicopter’s rotor wash which priormissions taught them to expect. “You could hardlysee your hands in front of your face,” said Fales.When Super 68 pulled power, staggering back to theairfield, the dust began to clear. The helicopter hadaligned with the road, facing north, for the team’sfast rope insertion. By the time several men, includ-ing Fales, entered a courtyard on the left side of thestreet and exchanged some gunfire, the brownoutdissipated. Other CSAR team members were on theright side of the street, and both groups began work-ing their way north, looking for the wreckage ofSuper 61. Shortly they came to an alley on their leftand spotted the helicopter. Fales thought “it lookedlike a giant boulder,” all balled up. Alerting theirteammates on the intrateam radios, Fales’ groupentered the alley and started setting up a securityperimeter around what remained of the aircraft.They were the first Americans on the scene besidesthe downed Black Hawk crewmembers. A survivor,dazed, tried unsuccessfully to pull one of the pilotsout of the cockpit. Unfortunately, the pilot, CliffWolcott, had expired. Fales moved to the front of thehelicopter to see if anyone was there and was start-ing to come around the other side when he wasstruck by a bullet in the back of his left leg.Immediately, he “rolled back behind a pile of rocksand tried to shield” himself. Seconds later, TimWilkinson and his group came into view. For most ofthe next fourteen hours, he and Fales remainedwithin earshot and eyesight of one another as theydid their best to care for wounded comrades whilefighting for their lives.20

Fales’ wound was “an all-muscle hit” for whichhe “did just a quick bandage job pushing some‘meat’ back in, and I got up by myself.” Wilkinsoncame over without realizing his team leader washit, though he saw him limping. Fales and a SpecialForces medic moved to the tail of the helicopter andthere set up the “choke point.” Fales described, “Atthat point it was a shoot-out . . . it was getting theguys out of the wreck and finding the guys that[they thought] were missing.” Meanwhile,Wilkinson and an Army medic went back inside thewreckage and managed to pull out the crew chieffrom the cabin. In the course of rescuing the crewchief, the rescuers took shrapnel hits, Wilkinson inthe face and lower arm, the Army medic in thehand. Discovering shortly that no one was missing,they “hunkered down” to assess the situation.21

Basically, there were two parts to the operationtaking place simultaneously in the vicinity of Super61, each of which had its own intrateam radio net.The outer perimeter (security) element managed


Michael Durant's helicopterover Mogadishu. MikeGoodale rode on this one.

WHILE THEPJS WERESTILL ON THEROPES, PER-HAPS FORTYFEET ABOVEGROUND,THEIR HELI-COPTER,SUPER 68,TOOK ANRPG HIT

the fight with the Somalis, “a nose-to-nose kind of agun battle,” as Fales put it. The CSAR element han-dled the inner perimeter to include getting everyoneout of the wreckage and treating the casualties.Fales worked both radio nets. The pararescuemannoted that whereas the tactical doctrine for such asituation was to seize a nearby building to providesome cover, a place to shelter casualties, and a com-mand post, the ten-foot high stone walls surround-ing the alley made that option less practicable.Although they could have moved from the alleyback out into the street, which was actually just awide dirt path, “we had bad guys all around us, somoving out into the street was just not an option atthat time. The best thing for us to do was defend thecrash [site] right where we were.” The PJs grabbedKevlar pads from inside the cabin and set them upto provide some cover.22

While treating casualties by the tail of the air-craft, Fales heard a call for a medic from across thestreet in the courtyard where Bray’s group was sit-uated. Wounded and in no condition to respond him-self, he glanced at his fellow PJ and said, “They needa medic, Wilky.” Airman magazine described whathappened next:

Wilkinson grabbed his medical ruck sack, waited forthe Rangers to lay down cover fire, then dashed upthe narrow alley. A hail of bullets, shrapnel andRPGs greeted Wilkinson as he raced some 45 metersacross the open intersection. ‘I felt like I was movingin slow motion,’ he said. . . . ‘these boots weigh a thou-sand pounds’ [he thought]. Safely across the deadlyintersection, Wilkinson caught his breath, thenassisted in dragging the wounded off Freedom Road.Inside the ‘safe’ confines of the casualty collectionpoint, Wilkinson assessed the medical situation.Four wounded, one critical.23

Realizing he needed additional medical gear, hecalled to Fales on his intrateam radio and confirmedthe supplies were available. Running back acrossthe street, Wilkinson collected the gear and thenreturned, crossing the opening for a third time.Later, an Army Ranger credited Wilkinson with“repeated acts of heroism [that] saved the lives of atleast four soldiers.” In his self-deprecating way,Wilkinson joked that probably the reason he wasn’thit was that the Somalis ‘led’ him too much, beingdeceived by his exaggerated arm-swing and notrealizing just how slow a runner he was!24

Surprisingly, there were humorous moments inthe midst of the grave situation. At one point, Falesand Wilkinson were sitting behind the tail rotor sec-tion of the crashed H–60 while bullets repeatedlystruck the tail section. Fales recalled, “It sounds likea hammer hitting a big piece of metal . . . bink, bink,bink. . . . I am looking at these holes opening up inthis aluminum and Tim looks at me and [recallingSteve Martin in the movie, “The Jerk”] goes, ‘It’s thecans, man, it’s the cans. Get away from the cans!’”Although many scenes in war films are not muchlike the real thing, thanks to Tim Wilkinson, thehumor of “the cans” from The Jerk found its way intothe battle of Mogadishu. Reflecting on his experi-ence, Wilkinson remarked on the practice of “gal-lows humor,” saying, “It’s funny what comes to yourmind at times, it truly is….I guess people really dotalk like that in critical situations, who would havethought?”25

Although the Somalis enjoyed the advantagesof numbers, familiarity with the urban terrain, anda sort of moral strength from believing—erro-neously from the American perspective—they weredefending their homes against foreign invaders,their fire was mostly poorly executed. Falesobserved one of the “dynamics” in the fight was that“the Somalis at that point are nose-to-nose withprobably the most trained, fire-disciplined, accu-rate-shooting group of American fighters that youcould ever go up against. So if a bad guy stuck hishead up, he would generally get it blown off.” So theSomalis mostly remained hidden, spraying theirfire inaccurately. In some cases, though, Somalisfound good sniping positions, especially on the roofsof buildings. To a degree, the urban melee inMogadishu, Somalia, was reminiscent of Arnhem,Holland, in September 1944. As Cornelius Ryandescribed in his classic work, A Bridge Too Far,“This strange, deadly battle now devastating theoutskirts of the city barely two miles from theArnhem bridge seemed to have no plan or strategy.Like all street fighting, it had become one massive,fierce, man-to-man encounter in a checkerboard ofstreets.” Although in Mogadishu the Americans’adversary was far from a professional force and thescale of the fighting was miniscule in comparison,nonetheless, the urban battle in 1993 was perhapsthe closest parallel to Arnhem in 1944 that U.S.forces had experienced since World War II.26

The fighting continued uninterrupted untildark. When Super 61 crashed, it brought down withit a portion of a mud-and-stone wall that offered an


Pararescueman MSgt.Scotty Fales.

ONE OF THE“DYNAMICS”IN THE FIGHTWAS THAT“THESOMALIS ATTHAT POINTARE NOSE-TO-NOSEWITH PROBABLYTHE MOSTTRAINED,FIRE-DISCIPLINED,ACCURATE-SHOOTINGGROUP OFAMERICANFIGHTERSTHAT YOUCOULD EVERGO UPAGAINST

opening into a building. During daylight, severalRangers were wounded trying to get through thehole and into the building for cover. But once it wasdark, the CSAR team moved into the building. Falessensed they were in one of the city’s middle-classneighborhoods, definitely a better area than the“tin-shanty hovels” of the Black Sea district. Also bythat time, Fales’ injured leg had gone from hurting“real bad” to numbness, and he anticipated anamputation if he survived the ongoing ordeal.Thankfully, the bullet had not hit bone, only muscle.His teammates wanted him to lie down on astretcher and rest. Fales refused, responding, “Oh,no . . . I am running on that baby all night tonight!”27

Inside the building, Fales and a Ranger consid-ered their options. The room they were in was small.They had casualties, including several dead, withthem. Ultimately, the team wanted to find anotheraccess point to the street. The Ranger carried ademolition load of “C4.” Agreeing on a likely spot tocut a hole in the wall, he arranged the C4 on one ofthe walls and pulled the igniter, blowing away “abeautiful archway door,” as Fales described.Unfortunately, it ran out into another courtyardwhich offered no better access than what theyalready had. Trying another wall, his partner blewa second hole. This time, the opening led intoanother house that, in turn, opened to the street.Relocating to that house, the Americans encoun-tered a frightened Somali family all of whom theyflex-cuffed and put down in a corner. Fales recalledit was perhaps 2100 or 2200 by then and that forabout an hour things settled down because theSomalis couldn’t tell the whereabouts of theAmericans. The team had radio contact with theU.S./UN-manned relief convoy that was then form-ing. Encountering several delays, the convoy, includ-ing combat controller Dan Schilling, did not departthe new port facility just east of the airport untilafter 2300.28

The convoy’s arrival came not a moment toosoon. For a time, the Somalis fired RPGs into the

building. The firing eventually quieted down, rela-tively speaking, no doubt due in part to a completelack of night vision devices on the Somali side. Notthat most U.S. personnel had anything better. Nonehad expected the mission to continue after dark, sotask force members left their personal night visiongoggles (NVGs) behind. Scotty Fales recalled,though, that the helicopters generally carriedNVGs. Operators retrieved them from Super 61 anddistributed them among the Rangers on the outersecurity perimeter. In his after-action report, Falesemphasized, “Always take your goggles, always.” Inaddition to not having NVGs, combat controller JeffBray noted that by the time darkness set in theywere “really in trouble,” out of water and low onammo.29

In any case, the downturn in the fightingallowed Fales and several others to tend to thewounded. But, at one point the Somalis emplaced a12.7-mm. machine gun across the street and beganshooting into the room where some of theAmericans were sheltered. Bray called in a “DangerClose” AH–6 Little Bird gunship strike that took outthe machine gun. “That missile hit ten yards fromus,” said Fales, commenting on the “phenomenaljob” done by Bray and fellow combat controller PatRogers. Bray was so close that spent shell casingsfrom the helicopter gunship rained down on him,burning the back of his neck. An Army ChiefWarrant Officer, CW2 Paul White, agreed withFales’ assessment, recalling, “I will always remem-ber the calm demeanor and professionalism [Bray]showed over the radio even as I heard bullets hit-ting very near his position each time he keyed hisradio microphone.” Even so, there was at least onemoment when Jeff needed some reassurance.Because Wilkinson established the triage site inBray’s area, the two of them saw a lot of each otherthat night. “It was always good to see Tim’s facebecause we could always make each other laugh alittle bit,” recalled Bray. But as Bray prepared forone (of at least two) Danger Close air strikes, sens-ing that his friend needed a lift, Tim came over, pat-ted Jeff on the back and offered a word of encour-agement. Bray remembered, “Then he went back inand started treating people.” Soon, the sounds ofhelicopter minigun rounds hitting their targets toldBray what he needed to know. He contacted thegunships and called, “Cleared hot for rockets.” Thehelicopters’ rockets nearly took down an entire wallon their next pass.30

Jeff Bray was the only USAF member amongthe main assault force. Without his combat con-troller’s expertise, the task force members caught inthe Black Sea almost certainly would have sufferedgreater casualties at the hands of the Somalis. TheAmericans might not have made it out alive. Usingthe call sign, “Kilo 64 Charlie,” Bray remained incontact with helicopter gunships throughout thenight, coordinating their strikes against targets, insome cases, only yards away from the “friendlies.”After some time of attempting to follow the estab-lished formal procedures for calling in strikes, Brayfinally decided to improvise. In an urban environ-


Pararescueman TSgt.Timothy A. “Tim”Wilkinson.

I WILLALWAYSREMEMBERTHE CALMDEMEANORAND PROFES-SIONALISM[BRAY]SHOWEDOVER THERADIO EVENAS I HEARDBULLETS HIT-TING VERYNEAR HISPOSITION

ment, “That stuff wasn’t working and so finally Isaid, ‘Hey, listen, let’s just talk like I am talking toyou on the telephone. You tell me what you need toknow and that is what I am going to tell you . . . wewon’t worry about this formal stuff anymorebecause it just wasn’t working.’” Formal or informal,the bottom line on Bray’s work that night was whatone Air Force author described as talking “steel ontothe targets.”31

Bray experienced particular stress, no doubt,when after having talked with one helicopter flightfor an hour to get them oriented to the exact locationsof the Americans and Somalis, the aircraft wereforced to depart for fuel. Thankfully, the next flightwas monitoring the conversation and didn’t take longto become familiar with the urban battlefield below.It helped that another helicopter conducted an air-drop at Bray’s location, delivering two kit bags full ofammo, NVGs, and medical gear. Flying “right off thedeck” to ensure an accurate delivery, the helicopterwas badly damaged by Somali ground fire and barelymade it to an emergency landing site. Now Bray hadthe NVGs allowing him to see what the gunships hewas talking to saw.32

A huge challenge was how to talk the heli-copters, mainly AH–6 Little Bird gunships, onto thetargets while minimizing the risk of a “blue-on-blue”(i.e., fratricide) incident. Bray devised a system thatwas simple, creative, and effective. During the day-light he had drawn a simple dirt map on the groundto keep track of the four groups of soldiers in hisvicinity. No one had moved. After dark, he came upwith the idea of placing infrared (IR) strobe lights—most of the operators carried them on their helmetsor persons—on the rooftop where each group waslocated: one strobe with group 1, two strobes withgroup 2, and so on. It took over an hour for Bray tocollect the needed strobes, get them to each of thefour groups, and ensure they were properly placed onthe rooftops where the helicopter pilots could seethem. Then turning on the IR laser beam sighted tohis weapon, he pointed it straight up into the air andasked one of the helicopter crews if it was visible. Itwas. Better yet, it stood out clearly when viewed fromthe air. With the locations of the four groups ofAmericans marked by IR strobes, Bray could pointhis weapon’s laser at a target and call for fire withstrong assurance that the gunships could see exactlywhere the four groups of Americans were positioned,avoiding a blue-on-blue incident.33

As Bray later described, of eight total gunshipstwo Little Birds were on-scene at a time. One con-ducted a run-in while the other provided security“overwatch.” Then the two swapped roles. At thesame time, two other AH–6s refueled, two rearmed,and two were enroute to the battle area. Bray esti-mated the helicopter gunships expended close toseventy rockets, and tens of thousands of minigunrounds, just in his immediate vicinity.34

Meanwhile, shortly before midnight, a mile-long multinational relief convoy set out from thenew port facility at the east end of the airfield. Ledby four Pakistani tanks and including twenty-eightMalaysian APCs, U.S. Humvees, and perhaps other

vehicles, mainly the 10th Mountain Division’s sol-diers manned the convoy. Helicopters provided secu-rity overhead. In the darkness and confusion, twoMalaysian APCs took a wrong turn and wereambushed but, later, rescued. Finally, after a seriesof “fits and starts,” at 0155 local part of the convoyreached the first Black Hawk crash site (Super 61’s,the northern site). The convoy remained togetheruntil reaching a road intersection situated betweenthe two crash sites. There, some of the APCs turnednorth to the first crash site, while some headedsouth to the second crash site. Combat controllerDan Schilling remained with a third convoy ele-ment that secured the intersection itself. To theRangers and assault team members at the northernsite who survived the hours of darkness on theirown, the sight of the vehicles was “an awesomerelief, to look up and see your guys coming to getyou,” as Jeff Bray recalled. However, while stillunder sporadic fire, the force remained in place formore than three hours as the Rangers, true to theircreed, labored to extract the body of pilot CliffWolcott. Following extraction of Wolcott’s remainsand setting destructive charges on the aircraftwreckage, the northern crash site convoy element—their wounded riding in APCs—departed to link upwith the rest of the convoy at the intersection ashort distance away.35

When the now-rejoined convoy, including thesurvivors of the task force’s original vehicles, beganto move, Schilling’s vehicle was the last in line. Theconvoy proceeded to the Pakistani stadium, arrivingat 0630 local time. Although the stadium was in theopposite direction from the airport, it provided acloser area of relative security where casualtiescould be treated. The location was also suitable forevacuation by helicopter. The decision to direct theconvoy to the stadium seemed tactically shrewd, asundoubtedly some of the Somalis still interested infighting expected the convoy to return along thesame route, that is, back to the airfield. While mostpersonnel rode to the stadium in the APCs, aboutfifteen, including Bray, walked out. Continuing tocontrol air strikes conducted by several Army heli-copters as he moved, Bray walked and at times ranbackwards behind the last vehicle while directingthe Little Birds. The gunships flew directly over-head at low altitude, covering the movement to thesoccer stadium, which was perhaps six blocks away.Shortly after 0800 local time, task force helicoptersbegan transporting the survivors from the stadiumto the airport. Later that day, Bray and the pilots hecontrolled during the battle met in person in anemotional gathering.36

Fales’ group remained in place until the arrivalof the relief convoy. As casualties were loaded intothe APCs shortly after daylight on October 4, Falesboarded one on his own strength. But with theeffects of adrenaline finally wearing off, he gave into shock, fatigue, and dehydration. Teammatesadministered IVs and morphine to Fales prior to hisevacuation.37

On October 3 and 4, Somali fighters killed eigh-teen U.S. troops and wounded at least seventy-nine.


A HUGECHALLENGEWAS HOW TOTALK THEHELI-COPTERS…ONTO THETARGETSWHILE MINI-MIZING THERISK OF A[FRATRICIDE]INCIDENT

1. [Richard W. Stewart], The United States Army inSomalia, 1992-1994 (Washington, D.C.: Center ofMilitary History, [2002]), pp 5-6; at http://www.his-tory.army.mil/brochures/Somalia/Somalia.htm (Oct 19,2010). For background on Somalia, see I. M. Lewis, AModern History of the Somali, Nation and State in theHorn of Africa (Oxford: James Currey Ltd., 2002[1965]).2. United States Army in Somalia, 1992-1994, pp 7-8;

at www.history.army.mil/brochures/Somalia/Somalia.htm(Oct 19, 2010); Frederick H. Fleitz, Jr., PeacekeepingFiascoes of the 1990s: Causes, Solutions, and U.S.Interests (Westport, Conn., and London: Praeger, 2002),pp 130-31. This initial effort became known as UNO-SOM I (United Nations Operations in Somalia) to dis-tinguish it from its successor, UNOSOM II. Soldiersfrom Fort Campbell’s 5th Special Forces Group(Airborne) (SFG-A) accompanied many of the relief


NOTES

Allied losses included two Malaysian soldiers killedand seven wounded, and two Pakistanis wounded.Estimates of Somali casualties ranged between 500and up to three times that number. The days fol-lowing the battle were a mix of pain and relief. OnOctober 6, a Somali-fired mortar struck the hangararea at the airport, killing one and woundingtwelve.38

On October 14, eleven days after the battle, war-lord Aideed released Mike Durant, the 160 SOARpilot who survived the crash of Super 64. Despite hisgrievous injuries, in time he recuperated andreturned to flying helicopters. One week later, TaskForce Ranger redeployed stateside. The Clintonadministration decided to withdraw from Somalia.Although the impact was impossible to quantify, theU.S. public’s shock and revulsion at seeing dead U.S.soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishucontributed to the decision in Washington.Undoubtedly, many special operators shared thefeelings of a twenty-two year-old Ranger who wrote,“We had a job to do, but we were pulled out.”39

Meanwhile, the administration took heavy crit-icism for defense secretary Aspin’s decision in lateSeptember to deny the U.S. Central Command’srequest for M–1 Abrams tanks and M–2 Bradleyinfantry fighting vehicles (IFVs). Congressionaltestimony by senior officers made it clear therequested tanks and IFVs likely would haveresulted in fewer casualties in Mogadishu than thenumber suffered. Lacking the U.S. vehicles, therelief convoys relied on Pakistani tanks andMalaysian armored personnel carriers. In mid-December, President Clinton announced thatSecretary Aspin would be stepping down from the

Pentagon. In February 1994, an Air Force Timeseditorial expressed the desire of many U.S. citizensto withdraw from Somalia. In a piece entitled, “Noreason to be in Somalia,” Fred Reed wrote, “Theoriginal mission has been accomplished in Somalia.Starvation has ceased. But now what?” By the endof March 1994, most U.S. troops departed Somalia,although several hundred Marines remained off-shore in case an evacuation of U.S. citizens shouldbe required. By early March 1995, all remainingUN/U.S. personnel left the country, which revertedto warlordism and chaos.40

As noted in various accounts, the Mogadishubattle included numerous acts of heroism. TwoSpecial Forces’ soldiers, Gary Gordon and RandallShughart, who defended the wounded Mike Durantat the site of his crashed helicopter at the cost oftheir own lives, earned the Medal of Honor (posthu-mous). However, the small contingent from the24th Special Tactics Squadron also garnered recog-nition. TSgt. Tim Wilkinson earned the Air ForceCross, the nation’s second-highest medal for valor.Wilkinson commented, “Everybody was doingheroic things. Nobody quit. Nobody whined. Nobodyshirked their duty.” Wilky’s team leader, MSgt.Scotty Fales, and combat controller SSgt. Jeff Bray,earned Silver Stars for gallantry. Three other com-bat controllers, MSgt. Jack McMullen, Sgt. PatRogers, and SSgt. Dan Schilling, received theBronze Star with Valor.41

After the Grenada operation in 1983, theMilitary Airlift Command/Twenty-Third Air Force’sleadership merged PJ and CCT specialties with theexpectation of achieving synergies on the battle-field, particularly respecting the treatment of bat-tlefield trauma sustained by special operators. Inshort, Mogadishu vindicated that vision to a degreeeven greater than in Panama in 1989. In 1995, aJoint Forces Quarterly article analyzing recent doc-trinal issues pointed out that “Somalia reveals thatmany institutional mistakes are corrected (whenthe chips really are down) only through extraordi-nary efforts by junior officers, NCOs, and most of allby individual soldiers, sailors, marines, and air-men.” The performance of Special Tactics Airmen inthe battle of Mogadishu was “extraordinary,”indeed. In the U.S. military’s longest continuousfirefight since Southeast Asia two decades earlier,both the concept of Special Tactics, and its men, hadbeen tested and proven under excruciatingstresses.42 n

Combat controller, SSgt.Jeff Bray.

THEMOGADISHUBATTLEINCLUDEDNUMEROUSACTS OFHEROISM…[TWO SOL-DIERS]EARNED THEMEDAL OFHONOR(POSTHU-MOUSLY)

flights and began gathering intelligence on the areasthey observed. 3. United States Army in Somalia, pp 9-10; TimothyP. Barela, “Home is Where the Havoc Is,” Airman, Mar1993, pp 6-8; Fleitz, Peacekeeping Fiascoes, p 131.Aware that the contingency would be left for his suc-cessor to wrap-up, President Bush sought andobtained the support of President-elect William J.Clinton prior to the start of Operation Restore Hope. 4. United States Army in Somalia, pp 10-13. 5. United States Army in Somalia, pp 14-16. InMarch 1993, the UN passed a resolution authorizingmilitary forces to conduct peace enforcement or peace-making in Somalia (under Chapter VII of its charter)rather than peacekeeping (under Chapter VI)—animportant distinction.6. United States Army in Somalia, p 16; Walter S.Poole, The Effort to Save Somalia, August 1992-March1994 (Washington, D.C.: Joint History Office, 2005), pp41-45; Fleitz, Peacekeeping Fiascoes, pp 131-33; MarkBowden, Black Hawk Down, A Story of Modern War(New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999), p 94;History, Air Force Special Operations Command[AFSOC], Jan-Dec 1993, vol 1, pp 113-22, underAFHRA call no. K317.01. The two U.S. governmentpublications above listed the number of Pakistani sol-diers killed in the ambush as twenty-four, while Fleitzlisted twenty-five. Regarding the four AC–130 gun-ships supporting United Nations/U.S. operations inSomalia, AFSOC’s documentation indicated the air-craft flew from either Djibouti or Mogadishu at varioustimes. Apparently, between July 14 and early October1993, however, there were no gunships in the area forsupporting the operations in Mogadishu (at least onerequest in September was turned down by Secretary ofDefense Aspin). Following the Mogadishu battle onOctober 3-4, a total of four gunships deployed withindays. Also on the 17th, in a “search and arrest mission”armed Somalis killed five Moroccan soldiers andwounded thirty-nine. 7. United States Army in Somalia, pp 16-18; Poole,Effort to Save Somalia, pp 44-45; John T. Carney, Jr.and Benjamin F. Schemmer, No Room for Error: TheCovert Operations of America’s Special Tactics Unitsfrom Iran to Afghanistan (New York: Ballantine Books,2002), pp 245-48; Matt Eversmann and Dan Schilling,eds, The Battle of Mogadishu: Firsthand Accounts fromthe Men of Task Force Ranger (New York: BallantineBooks, 2004), pp 161, 165-66; Bowden, Black HawkDown, pp 23-24; author’s discussions with severalUSAF members of TF Ranger. Garrison’s JSOTFreported directly to the U.S. Central Command ratherthan to UNOSOM II; see United States Army inSomalia, p 18. Following one poorly-coordinated oper-ation in which an unlisted UN compound was hit andsome workers temporarily detained, General Garrisonbegan coordinating TF Ranger’s activities with UNO-SOM II despite not being under UNOSOM’s com-mand-and-control structure.8. United States Army in Somalia, p 18; Poole, Effortto Save Somalia, p 56; Intvw, F. L. Marion, oral histo-rian, AFHRA, with MSgt Scott C. Fales (USAF, Ret),Jul 13, 2007; Intvw, F. L. Marion, oral historian,AFHRA, with Mr. Jeffrey W. Bray (former SSgt., USAF,separated), Jul 12, 2007. 9. United States Army in Somalia, pp 18-19; Carney,No Room for Error, p 245. 10. Carney, No Room for Error, pp 247-49, 259.Different sources listed the number of TF Ranger’s per-sonnel between 440 and 450. Bowden stated 450 men

were in the task force; see his Black Hawk Down, p 96.Approximately two hundred members participated inthe action on October 3-4, 1993; see Philip F. Rhodes,“No Time For Fear,” Airman, May 1994, p 24. 11. Intvw, F. L. Marion, oral historian, AFHRA, withMSgt Timothy A. Wilkinson (USAF, Ret), Mar 6, 2007;Bowden, Black Hawk Down, pp 21, 38. 12. Fales intvw; Carney, No Room for Error, p 249;Rhodes, “No Time For Fear,” pp 23-24; block quote fromBowden, Black Hawk Down, p 33; see also p 21. Thetime of 1350 local was contained in excerpted materialfrom Memo, “After Action Report for TASK FORCERANGER Operations in Support of UNOSOM II; 22August – 25 October 1993 (U),” Jan 5, 1994. 13. United States Army in Somalia, p 19; Poole, Effortto Save Somalia, p 56; Eversmann and Schilling, Battleof Mogadishu, pp 171, 173 [Dan Schilling recalledseven Kevlar Humvees]; Fales intvw (information usedis Unclassified); Bray intvw; Carney, No Room forError, p 249; Bowden, Black Hawk Down, pp 21, 99-100; History, AFSOC, Jan-Dec 1993, vol 1, p 125. MGWilliam F. Garrison (USA, Ret), Task Force Ranger’sCommanding Officer, indicated that to the best of hisrecollection all the helicopters (including the CSARhelo, Super–68) launched at the same time (telecon,MG William F. Garrison (USA, Ret) with Marion, Oct19, 2010. Garrison’s recollection was supported by Sgt.John Belman, a Ranger who served as part of theCSAR team. Belman wrote, “We knew CSAR would begoing up in the air along with the other Black Hawksand Little Birds, all in squadron formation”(Eversmann and Schilling, Battle of Mogadishu, p108). Note that the AFSOC history listed an incorrecttime for the start of the mission, stating that Braybegan the mission (with the assaulters) at approxi-mately 1500 local (p 125). Actual time was 1532 local.However, the AFSOC history was much closer when itstated that Wilkinson (and Super–68’s team, includingFales) responded to the first downed Black Hawk(Super–6l) at 1620 hours (p 123). Actual time was mostlikely 1628 to 1630 local – the crash of Super–6loccurred at 1620. The times of 1532, 1535, and 1620local were contained in excerpted material from Memo,“After Action Report for TASK FORCE RANGEROperations in Support of UNOSOM II; 22 August – 25October 1993 (U),” Jan 5, 1994. 14. United States Army in Somalia, p 19; Poole, Effortto Save Somalia, p 56; Fales intvw; Bray intvw;Bowden, Black Hawk Down, pp 83, 100; Michael J.Durant with Steven Hartov, In the Company of Heroes(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2003), pp 18-19;History, AFSOC, Jan-Dec 1993, vol 1, p 125. OnOctober 3, 1993, the CSAR package was cut frombetween fifteen and seventeen Rangers to abouttwelve. PJs were cut from three to two, plus one com-bat controller (see Fales interview). Bray normally car-ried eight to ten clips, but on October 3 he carried onlyabout four. An after-action item emphasized the lesson:never go “light” on ammunition, a maxim that combatcontroller Dan Schilling also emphasized (see Brayinterview; Eversmann and Schilling, Battle ofMogadishu, pp 181, 194). 15. Eversmann and Schilling, Battle of Mogadishu, pp175-92; quote on pp 185-86; United States Army inSomalia, p 21; Bowden, Black Hawk Down, pp 122-25.For fuller accounts of the convoys, see Bowden’s BlackHawk Down and Eversmann and Schilling’s Battle ofMogadishu. 16. Fales intvw. My evidence indicated the CSAR helo,Super–68, launched at the same time as the assault-


and blocking-force-helicopters; telecon, MG William F.Garrison (USA, Ret) with Marion, Oct 19, 2010; Sgt.John Belman’s comments in Eversmann and Schilling,Battle of Mogadishu, p 108. 17. Durant, In the Company of Heroes, pp 19-20;Bowden, Black Hawk Down, p 101; Fales intvw.Durant survived his aircraft’s shoot-down and washeld captive by the Somalis until released on October14. 18. Fales intvw; Rhodes, “No Time For Fear,” pp 25-26;block quote in Bowden, Black Hawk Down, p 139.Rhodes indicated Fales’ watch read 1539 hours at theone-minute call prior to his fast- roping to the ground.Based on other primary sources, however, this timeappeared erroneous. The time of 1620 local forSuper–6l’s shootdown was contained in excerptedmaterial from Memo, “After Action Report for TASKFORCE RANGER Operations in Support of UNOSOMII; 22 August – 25 October 1993 (U),” Jan 5, 1994.According to Wilkinson’s account, the insertion of theCSAR team took place some eight to ten minutes afterSuper–61’s shootdown, arguing for insertion between1628 and 1630 local (Eversmann and Schilling, Battleof Mogadishu, pp 133-35). 19. Eversmann and Schilling, Battle of Mogadishu, p136; Bowden, Black Hawk Down, p 139. 20. Fales intvw; Rhodes, “No Time For Fear,” pp 26-28.In his article, Rhodes stated that Fales egressed thehelicopter on the right side, Wilkinson on the left. Inhis interview with me, however, Fales stated the oppo-site; he egressed on the left, Wilkinson on the right.Wilkinson agreed with that statement; see Eversmannand Schilling, Battle of Mogadishu, p 136. That facthelped explain the above narrative regarding Fales’actions and position in the street. 21. Fales intvw; Rhodes, “No Time For Fear,” p 28. 22. Fales intvw; Carney, No Room for Error, p 252;History, AFSOC, Jan-Dec 1993, vol 1, p 127. 23. Rhodes, “No Time For Fear,” p 29. 24. Ibid.25. Fales intvw; Wilkinson intvw; Eversmann andSchilling, Battle of Mogadishu, p 144. 26. Fales intvw; Cornelius Ryan, A Bridge Too Far(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), p 342. 27. Fales intvw; Rhodes, “No Time For Fear,” p 28.Fales’ numbness, he learned later, was probably due toa major nerve in his leg that had been cut. His leg wassaved. 28. Fales intvw; Eversmann and Schilling, Battle ofMogadishu, pp 195-96; Poole, Effort to Save Somalia, p57. 29. Fales intvw; Bray intvw; Rhodes, “No Time ForFear,” pp 28-29. 30. Fales intvw; Bray intvw; Rhodes, “No Time ForFear,” pp 28-31; Carney, No Room for Error, pp 255-56.“Danger Close” was a specific term used by CCTs thatalerted one’s own forces to the heightened threat ofsupporting fire intentionally directed within a fewyards of friendly forces. 31. Bray intvw; Rhodes, “No Time For Fear,” p 29; alsoquoted in Carney, No Room for Error, p 255. 32. Bray intvw.33. Bray intvw; Carney, No Room for Error, p 255;History, AFSOC, Jan-Dec 1993, vol 1, p 125. This his-tory referred to “an ingenious perimeter marking sys-tem” but did not provide details. 34. Bray intvw; Rhodes, “No Time For Fear,” p 30. 35. United States Army in Somalia, pp 22-23;Eversmann and Schilling, Battle of Mogadishu, pp196-98; Bray intvw; Fales intvw. Sources differed on

the relief convoy’s arrival time at the first crash site(Super–61, Cliff Wolcott). The above U.S. Army publi-cation stated the convoy arrived at 0155 local andspent several hours attempting to extract the body ofthe pilot of Super–61. The other element in the reliefconvoy proceeded to the second (southern) crash site,Mike Durant’s Super–64; it was secured at 0227 local.The TF Ranger After Action Report stated the “leadelements of the QRF linked up with the assault forceat the northern crash site at 0155C.” I have elected tofollow this report; Memo, “After Action Report forTASK FORCE RANGER Operations in Support ofUNOSOM II; 22 August – 25 October 1993,” Jan 5,1994. Bowden stated the convoy consisted of “almosta hundred vehicles and was nearly two miles long.”Given the number of vehicles and their length, andthe spacing between vehicles to provide mutual sup-port, this was almost certainly an overstatement. Forexample, generously assuming a convoy of ninetyvehicles and allowing an average length of twentyfeet per vehicle and a spacing of sixty feet betweenvehicles, the total length of the convoy calculates to7,140 feet, or approximately 1 .4 miles. Of course, ifthe number of vehicles was less than ninety or thespacing less than sixty feet, the total length couldhave been considerably less than 1.4 miles. Indeed,two U.S. Army studies listed the convoy as “sixty-plus” vehicles; see United States Army in Somalia, p22; United States Forces, Somalia, After Action Reportand Historical Overview: The United States Army inSomalia, 1992-1994 (Washington: Center of MilitaryHistory, 2003), p 12. 36. United States Army in Somalia, pp 22-23; Rhodes,“No Time For Fear,” p 31; Bowden, Black Hawk Down,pp 263-64; Bray intvw ; Carney, No Room for Error, pp256-59; Eversmann and Schilling, Battle ofMogadishu, p 197; Memo, “After Action Report forTASK FORCE RANGER Operations in Support ofUNOSOM II; 22 August – 25 October 1993,” Jan 5,1994. The time of 0630 local was contained inexcerpted material from the above memo. 37. Fales intvw; United States Army in Somalia, pp22-23; History, AFSOC, Jan-Dec 1993, vol 1, pp 127-28.38. United States Army in Somalia, p 23; Poole, Effortto Save Somalia, pp 56-57; Andrew Compart,“Everyone ‘was doing heroic things’,” Air Force Times,Feb 14, 1994; Eversmann and Schilling, Battle ofMogadishu, pp 202-204; Bray intvw. Poole listed 84Americans wounded, 312 Somalis killed, and 814wounded. 39. Durant, In the Company of Heroes, pp 349, 357;United States Army in Somalia, p 24; Eversmann andSchilling, Battle of Mogadishu, pp 55, 205. The Rangerquoted above was Sgt Raleigh Cash. 40. Poole, Effort to Save Somalia, pp 57-67; Fred Reed,“No reason to be in Somalia,” Air Force Times, Feb 7,1994, p 55; United States Army in Somalia, pp 24-25. 41. United States Army in Somalia, p 21; Carney, NoRoom for Error, pp 247, 259; Compart, “Everyone ‘wasdoing heroic things’;” Philip F. Rhodes, “Pope airmensave lives, earn medals,” Tiger Times, Feb 11, 1994, p 3;Wilkinson intvw; Bray intv. 42. Carney, No Room for Error, p 249; C. KennethAllard, “Lessons Unlearned: Somalia and JointDoctrine,” Joint Forces Quarterly, Autumn 1995, p 109[emphasis in original]. For the Special Tactics role inPanama, see Forrest L. Marion, “First Fight: The U.S.Air Force’s Special Tactics Group in Panama,December 1989,” Air Power History vol. 59, no. 4(Winter 2012), pp. 28-37.



Iron Curtain 1944-1956: The Crushingof Eastern Europe. By Anne Apple -baum. New York: Doubleday, 2012. Maps.Photographs. Illustrations. Bibliography.Index. Notes. Pp. xxxv, 566. $35.00 ISBN:978-0-385-51569-6

In 1951, in Portland, Maine, I recallmy grandmother religiously listening toDrew Pearson’s radio news broadcastsabout the Korean War and the vauntedCommunists of the Soviet Union, China,and North Korea. She was very fearful ofthe Communists. The fear of the Commu -nists was so deeply imbedded and entren -ched in my Catholic faith that I believedthat a Communist was something nothuman, over ten feet tall, and immune tobullets. The Catholic Church held largeprocessions in the city stadium to pray forthe downfall of Communism. The familyrosary also broadcast over the radio was invogue with special intentions directed tothe demise of Communism the world over.

What were my grandmother andmany Americans so fearful of? And howcould a system such as Soviet Commu -nism that was so despised by the westernpowers both gain power and maintain con-trol over Eastern Europe? How could thesenations submit so easily to another tyran-nical system?

Anne Applebaum successfully ans -wers these questions. She chose to concen-trate on Central Europe (specificallyHungary, Poland, and East Germany) notbecause the countries were similar, butrather because they were different. Studyof the region informs us more about themanner in which human beings react tothe imposition of totalitarianism thanwould a study of any one country alone. Inher research, she sought to find documen-tary evidence of deliberate destruction ofcivil society and small business by theCommunists. In addition, she examinedthe phenomena of social realism andCommunist education and gathered asmuch information as possible on thefounding and early development of theregion’s secret police forces.

For a select few, the Communist sys-tem offered dramatic promotion and socialadvancement as well as excellent opportu-nities for those who conformed. “The neweducational system and the new workplace ideology certainly created losers—teachers and intellectuals with prewarsensibility, older skilled workers, youngpeople who would not or could not con-form—but it created many winners aswell. Among them were new teachers andworkers who replaced the older ones, newwriters who replaced older writers, andnew politicians who replaced their elderstoo.” Further, “most people in the commu-

nist regimes [of Eastern Europe] did notsuccumb to dramatic bribes, furiousthreats, or elaborate rewards. Most peoplewanted to be neither party bosses norangry dissidents. They wanted to get onwith their lives, rebuild their countries,educate their children, feed their families,and stay away from those in power. Butthe culture of Stalinist Eastern Europemade it impossible to do so in silent neu-trality. No one could be apolitical: the sys-tem demanded that all citizens constantlysing its praises, however reluctantly. Andso the vast majority of Eastern Europeansdid not make a pact with the devil or selltheir souls to become informers but rathersuccumbed to constant, all-encompassing,everyday psychological and economic pres-sure. The Stalinist system excelled at cre-ating large groups of people who dislikedthe regime and knew the propaganda wasfalse, but who nevertheless felt compelledby circumstances to go along with it. Inseeking a definition of the situation,Applebaum called them resistant or reluc-tant collaborators.

Applebaum covers the suppressivetactics of the Communist system. InHungary it was the new Directorate ofPublic Works (KOMI) whose purpose wasto support “on the one hand the interestsof the people’s economy, and on the otherhand the interests of law enforcement.”She compared it to the Soviet Gulag thataimed to create profitable companies thatwould make use of prisoner labor in facto-ries, quarries, and construction projectsand pointed out that, just two years afterits founding, KOMI employed some 27,000prisoners.

The book clarifies for the westernmind what my grandmother’s fear wasabout. The Communists, backed by thepowerful Red Army and the secret police,not only subdued individuals, but alsocrushed organizations like the scouts,trade unions, schoolteachers, journalists,small businessmen, students, artists, andreligious organizations—especially reluc-tant leaders like Catholic cardinals andbishops. The communists effort to controlreveals an unpleasant truth about humannature: “if enough people are sufficientlydetermined, and if they are backed for ade-quate resources and force, then they candestroy ancient and apparently perma-nent legal, political, educational, and reli-gious institutions, sometimes for good. Andif civil society could be so deeply damagedin nations as disparate, historic, and cul-turally rich as those of Eastern Europe,then it can be similarly damaged any-where. If nothing else, the history of post-war Stalinization proves just how fragilecivilization can turn out to be.”

Applebaum examined a myriad of

documents and conducted many inter-views with people who had lived throughthat postwar repressive era. She warnsthe world just how fragile our govern-ments can and or could be. Her work is anexcellent depiction of the suppressivenature of Soviet Communist repressionand domination of its Eastern Europeansatellite countries.

George M. Watson, Jr., Ph. D. RetiredUSAF Senior Historian

The Space Shuttle: CelebratingThirty Years of NASA’s First SpacePlane. By Piers Bizony. Minneapolis,Minn.: Zenith Press, 2011. Tables. Dia -grams. Photographs. Appendix. Pp. 299.$40.00 ISBN: 978-0-7603-3941-1

This book is accurately titled. Bydevoting more than 250 pages to spectacu-lar photographic images of the SpaceShuttle and its missions, Bizony hasindeed produced a celebration of the thir-ty-year history of the only reusablemanned spacecraft in history. But thework is more than just a collection of pho-tos. Bizony uses the images to helpdescribe how and why the Shuttle pro-gram was established and how it evolvedover time. He breaks the history of theShuttle into several stages:

The Routine Dream: The genesis ofthe program following the completion ofthe Apollo lunar program, and the firsttwo dozen successful shuttle missions.

Falling from Grace: The loss ofChallenger and its crew, why it happened,and how NASA tried to ensure that itwouldn’t happen again.

Rebuilding Trust: A six-year period ofmajor accomplishments including repairof the flawed Hubble Space Telescope.

Unexpected Allies: Making peace witha former foe in a cooperative effort onRussia’s Mir space station, an endeavorthat paved the way for the InternationalSpace Station (ISS).

An Island in the Sky: Beginning themajor effort to construct the ISS, the pri-mary Shuttle mission for the final twelveyears of the program.

At the Crossroads: The Columbia acci-dent and how NASA recovered to bringthe Shuttle era to a close with additionalHubble servicing missions and completionof the ISS.

Each segment begins with a narra-tive—a brief essay that establishes thehistorical context of the Shuttle pro-gram—and then describes, in words andpictures, how each mission contributed tothe program. The reader is left with an

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appreciation of the program as a whole,rather than just seeing it as a series of 135individual launches.

Perhaps the most difficult task in anyhistory of the program is the need to strikea proper balance between praise and criti-cism. The people who designed and flewthe Shuttle can be lauded for achieving a98.5 percent mission success rate with themost complex machine ever built. At thesame time, however, NASA managers canbe deservedly criticized for decisions thatled to two tragic mission failures and theloss of fourteen crew members. Bizonyhandles this challenge effectively. Heacknowledges the management failuresthat led to the accidents and, at the sametime, helps the reader understand that theimpact of those mistakes was magnifiedbecause the Shuttle remained an experi-mental vehicle throughout its life, neverachieving what might be considered rou-tine operations. This is one of the moreimportant lessons we should draw fromthe Shuttle program.

Bizoni should have expanded on oneof his thoughts. In a photo caption for aShuttle-Mir mission, he says Mir was“somewhat unfairly associated with fail-ures and accidents toward the end of itsoperational life.” Entire books have beenwritten on Mir’s failures, and Bizony’sstatement defending the early space sta-tion leaves the reader asking for furtherexplanation: In what way was criticism ofMir unfair? But the narrative thatdescribes this segment of the Shuttle’s his-tory focuses on the geopolitical aspects ofAmerican-Russian cooperation and saysnothing about Mir’s shortcomings.

In a less substantive vein, the bookcontains factual errors that many follow-ers of the Shuttle program will catch.These include describing astronaut JohnYoung as the only person to fly three dif-ferent types of spacecraft, even thoughWally Schirra earned that distinctionyears earlier; incorrectly identifying thecontrol surfaces on the orbiter’s wings asailerons rather than elevons; and statingthat the shuttle’s external tank falls to awatery grave in the Atlantic Ocean ratherthan the Pacific Ocean or South ChinaSea. But these are relatively small issues,and Bizony gives the reader the comfort-able feeling that he has gotten the bigthings right. The book would be a fineaddition to the library of anyone whowants a concise, non-technical history ofthe Shuttle program along with a collec-tion of dazzling photographs.

Lt. Col. Joe Romito,, USA (Ret.); Docent,National Air and Space Museum

Air War D-Day: Assaults From theSky, Volume 2. By Martin W. Bowman.South Yorkshire UK: Pen & SwordAviation, 2013. Photographs. Index. Pp.256. $34.95 ISBN: 978-178159116-1

This is the second volume of aplanned five-part series dealing with D-Day. I cannot highly recommend it to thereader. It is a seeming jumble of personalaccounts of the airborne landings that con-tains very little historical commentary bythe author to put the individual tales intoperspective.

Chapter One, titled “Planes OverheadWill be Ours,” deals with air efforts to sup-press German defenses at the invasionbeaches and interdiction of communica-tions from their rear lines to the beaches.All the accounts are from U.S. airmen:from pilots and navigators through bom-bardiers and aerial gunners.

The second chapter, “Never a Sign ofthe Luftwaffe,” deals with D-Day andAllied air supremacy over the invasionbeaches during the night before the land-ings and the day of the invasion. The com-mentators are service personnel from theAllied forces, with an occasional news-man’s stories included.

Chapter Three, “Devils in BaggyPants,” deals with American paratroopersfrom the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisionsand their associated Glider Troops.Chapter Four deals with the British para-troops and their accounts of D-Day activi-ties.

I found parts of the book terriblyinteresting as the volume jumps fromperson to person and their perceptions ofcombat situations, but it is difficult toread overall. I didn’t care for the layout ofthe book; it does not make for an easyread. For example, in one instance, anAmerican paratrooper’s story is told onpage 112 and then again, identically, onpages 130-131, with only the last para-graph of the first account missing fromthe second recounting. Since the book hasan index I checked to see if both wereindexed. They were.

The individual stories of heroism, con-fusion, uncertainty, and the like are fasci-nating. The photographs are excellent. ButI certainly wish Bowman had done a bet-ter job of packaging the material and pre-senting it to the reader.

Capt. John F. O’Connell, USN (Ret.),Docent, National Air and Space Museum

Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth ofthe 21st Century. By Christian Caryl.New York: Basic Books, 2013. Notes.

Bibliography. Index. Pp. xv, 407. $29.00ISBN: 978-0-465-03335-5

Historian Christian Caryl has builtthis interesting book around the premisethat we of the twenty-first century live inthe shadow of 1979, a year that changedthe course of history. He builds his casewith five studies of key personalities andevents that, driven by the forces of religionand the market in that watershed year,shaped the world in which we now live.Caryl explains how the course of historyhad been deflected into a radically differentdirection by a new kind of global religiousconflict and a global market revolution. Healso speaks briefly to technological innova-tions of the 1970s (personal computers,high speed financial transactions, e-mail,the MRI, bar codes, etc.) that have shapedglobal society as we now know it.

Caryl reminds the reader thatAmerican global influence, economicallyand militarily, had diminished in the yearsapproaching 1979 as a consequence of theVietnam War. At the same time Sovietpower was in its ascendency, and theBritish were in the midst of an economicdisaster. The book is laced with indicatorsthat the world we had known was chang-ing in important ways. One tidbit that res-onated, because of current debates aboutsurvival of the American middle class, wasthe subject of income inequity. The gap inincome that had been closing since 1945began, in 1979, to widen again leading usto our current predicament. He alsospeaks to the disenfranchised masses inthe Middle East and south Asia leading upto the Islamic revolution in Iran and jihadin Afghanistan. Secular revolutions hadfailed to accommodate the common people,who were now turning to radicalized Islamto find solutions. He also looks at the non-violent use of faith to erode and collapsethe Iron Curtain. With this backdrop inmind, Caryl then examines the followingmajor events and personalities: TheIranian Revolution; start of the Afghanjihad; Thatcher’s election victory; thePope’s first Polish pilgrimage; and launchof Chinese economic reforms by DengXiaoping.

Caryl reasons that the eventual fall ofthe Iron Curtain and the Cold War’s endcan be traced to the Pope’s first visit toPoland in 1979. He also discusses howMargaret Thatcher’s economic reformssaved Great Britain from becoming a sec-ond-rate nation dependent upon interna-tional loans to stay afloat. It was Deng’seconomic reforms that rescued China frommanmade disasters precipitated by Mao’sdestructive policies. Deng put China ontrack to become the pre-eminent power inAsia and create the second largest econo-

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my on the planet. All of this has its begin-nings in 1979.

This book establishes a good basis fordiscussions on the relevance of 1979 as aturning point in the greater scheme ofmomentous world events. For anyone wholived through the period, there was somuch ahead that could not have beenimagined (e.g., the Cold War ending in1989 and the United States emerging asthe sole superpower).

I think most readers will be some-what annoyed by Caryl’s repetitions. Theeditor should have noticed that Caryl fre-quently presented background informa-tion and repeated it verbatim in a subse-quent chapter (or just a page or two later)as if it had never appeared elsewhere.

Now, about pivotal dates. Another his-torian once wrote that “Much of history isa story of events that might have turnedout differently…[events] or the conse-quences of previous events…in turn shapesubsequent events.” In other words, wecannot know what will necessarily follow.1979 is simply a part of natural historicalflow, where events lead to other events.

Col. John Cirafici, USAF (Ret.), Milford,Delaware

Chewing Gum, Candy Bars and Beer:The Army PX in World War II. ByJames J. Cooke. Columbia: University ofMissouri Press, 2009. Photographs. Notes.Bibliography. Index. Pp. 186. $39.95 ISBN:978-0-8262-1867-4

On the surface, the story of the ArmyPost Exchanges (PXs) in World War IImight seem an unimportant or, indeed,trivial side story of history. The great valueof Professor Cooke’s book is to show thevital role played by provision of smallitems—sometimes characterized as com-fort items—to the morale of the troops. Italso demonstrates the labyrinth of prob-lems and challenges involved in runningwhat was, for a time, the largest retailoperation in the world. Cooke tells thestory in an exhaustive, but not exhausting,examination of the Army ExchangeSystem (AES).

The book traces the history of provid-ing comfort items to American soldiersfrom the sutlers who followed troops dur-ing the Civil War selling luxury items fromhome. During the Great War, distributionof goods to the Doughboys was haphazardand frustrating. As the Second World Warloomed, the command and civilian author-ities were determined to do a better job.

The sheer scale of the operation wasstaggering in terms of the tonnage of mer-

chandise that had to be transported alongwith vital military supplies across much ofthe planet. Some items, such as razorblades, shaving cream and candy bars,were often distributed free to troops in thefield but sold in PXs, a distinction that wasnot always easy to make. Stateside, thePXs had to contend with local merchantsprotesting the competition from lower costexchanges that, to further annoy thelocals, did not charge sales taxes. Overseasoperations were also tricky, often fosteringresentment from deprived local popula-tions and fueling an underground blackmarket in American goods. The AES hadthe further complications of the demandsfrom the American public to send items totroops for free. And, for the first time, theAES was faced with meeting the needs offemale personnel, confronting the almostexclusively male staff with the question ofwhat to stock for women.

Cooke found many personal stories totell within the narrative, and the book hasa number of period photos of the AES oper-ations. His book is an interesting insightinto a little considered but important partof the story of World War II and the menand women who served their country.

One sad coda runs throughout thebook. There are repeated stories of the dis-tribution of cigarettes and other tobaccoproducts to the service members, oftengiven for free by well-meaning supportersor calculating tobacco companies. Forthose of us who are the children andgrandchildren of the Greatest Generation,it is the beginning of the painful story ofwatching them die of cancer and othersmoking-related diseases. In the endtobacco killed far more of the World War IIgeneration than the enemy’s bullets. It is asad, but useful, lesson from history, and,hopefully, one taken to heart.

Greg Bailey, History Writer, Journalist,Attorney, St. Louis, Missouri

The Influence of Airpower uponHistory: Statesmanship, Diplomacy,and Foreign Policy since 1903. ByRobin Higham and Mark Parillo, Eds.Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,2013. Photographs. Notes. Index. Pp. ix,317. $40.00 ISBN: 978-0-8131-3674-5

This collection of ten essays can bedivided into two groups. The overviewgroup includes essays by the two editorsand one on air power before World War IIby John Morrow, best known for his workson World War I aviation. Higham, ofcourse, is one of the West’s most highlyregarded air power historians. Parillo has

served on the faculty of Kansas StateUniversity for more than twenty years.The seven remaining essays are of anational or regional nature. These coverGermany, France, the Soviet Union, LatinAmerica, two on the United States, andChina.

Higham’s chapter provides a solidreview of the use of air power, citing spe-cific instances up to the U.S. interventionin Libya in the spring of 2011. Morrow’spiece emphasizes trends in Europe andthe United States from 1906 to 1939, par-ticularly regarding strategic bombing asopposed to a subordinate role to groundforces. In chapter three, noted French avi-ation historian Patrick Facon examinespolicies concerning the development of airpower in France and how that affected theperception of Germany’s emergingstrength in the 1930s.

Richard Muller, Professor of MilitaryHistory and Associate Dean of the USAFSchool of Advanced Air and Space Studies,shares insights into his specialty, theGerman Luftwaffe, and its impact on AdolfHitler’s policies in the 1930s. David Jones,a Soviet military specialist, discusses thechanging Russian perception of the role ofthe strategic bomber as an instrument ofnational policy from 1909 to 1959. Rene DeLe Pedraja, Professor of History atCanisius College, reviews various conflictsin Latin America and how the presence ofairpower affected their outcomes.

In chapter seven, Jeffrey Underwood,historian for the National Museum of theUSAF discusses how U.S. Presidents overthe years have applied air power to furthernational objectives. What was once knownas gunboat diplomacy might today be bet-ter labeled “carrier diplomacy.” This is thesubject discussed by Douglas Smith, headof the Strategy and Policy Division of theCollege of Distance Education at theNaval War College, and Kent Coleman, aserving Navy officer. Andrew Erickson,Associate Professor in the StrategicResearch Department of the Naval WarCollege, reviews the history of Chinese air-power and how that nation may use thistool in the future.

In the final chapter, Parillo summa-rizes the strengths and weaknesses of airpower. As in the past, national leadersbear responsibility for how it is to beapplied. Perhaps more interesting is theimplication that while air power may havebeen a decisive force over the past 100years, evolving technology suggests thatthe ability to wield power in space or incomputers could very well emerge as theprimary influence in this century.

While the tone of the essays is a bituneven, the editors have striven for a bal-anced approach. Two aspects that might

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have merited discussion are the influenceof export sales and the rise and fall of flagcarriers or national airlines. Most chaptersinclude notes and suggestions for furtherreading and for further research.

Lt. Col. Steven D. Ellis, USAFR (Ret.),Docent, Museum of Flight, Seattle,Washington

Iron Man Rudolph Berthold: Ger -many’s Indomitable Fighter Ace ofWorld War I. By Peter Kilduff. London:Grubb Street, 2012. Maps. Notes. Index.Photographs. Appendices. Bibliography.Pp. 192. $39.95. ISBN: 978-1-908117-37-3

You probably have never heard ofHauptman Rudolph Berthold. Von Richt -hofen, Boelcke, Immelmann, and Udet arealmost everyday heroes to those who enjoyreading about aerial combat in the FirstWorld War, but Berthold is mostly anunsung hero. He shot down forty-fourAllied aircraft, ranking seventh in the listof German aces and twentieth in a list ofaces of all nations engaged. He was calledthe iron man for both his determination toexcel and refusal to allow wounds to keephim out of the air.

Coming from a comfortable familybackground, Berthold was commissionedin the infantry in January 1912. Shortlybefore the war began, he was accepted fortraining in the Flying Service. Trained asan aerial observer, he went to war with hisaviation battalion in August 1914, provid-ing aerial support for the initial Germanmovement through Belgium. The only air-craft armaments were pistols and rifles.On August 15 he made his first sortie overenemy lines to locate Belgian and Frenchforces. The plane returned with usefulinformation and several bullet holes in thewing. Just before the Battle of the Marnethat finally halted the German advance,Berthold observed and reported Frenchforces moving rapidly into a gap betweenthe German First and Second Armies,resulting in award of the Iron CrossSecond Class.

When the German drive halted,Berthold took advantage of the lull toacquire his pilot’s badge. He continued tofly observation missions, the primary func-tion that aircraft carried out at the time,although bombs were carried and droppedon targets of opportunity. Some impromp-tu aerial combat also took place.

About May 1915 machine guns beganto appear as weapons for observers andlater as primary armament for fighters.The Fokker Eindecker fighter entered ser-vice and made life very difficult for Allied

observation aircraft. The Germansassigned Eindeckers to each observationsquadron to provide escorts for observa-tion missions. Berthold was in charge of adetachment and began his career as afighter pilot. In February 1916, he shotdown two aircraft and was shot down him-self, although without injury. He also flewnight bombing raids On April 16, he shotdown his fifth enemy aircraft and enteredthe roll of aces. Later that month, hisplane crashed after takeoff. He was hospi-talized, in a coma for two days, and tem-porarily lost his eyesight.

Despite mobility problems he perse-vered in getting back into flying duties. OnAugust 24 he made his first flight in abiplane fighter—although he had to behelped into the plane—and shot down anenemy aircraft. The next day, he was madecommanding officer of a new fightersquadron. After his eighth aerial victory,Kaiser Wilhelm awarded Berthold thePour le Merite.

Berthold went on to command a num-ber of fighter squadrons and finally afighter wing. His victories increased as heled from the front until the last day of thewar. Serious injuries caused him a greatdeal of pain and he became addicted tococaine. That led to somewhat erraticbehavior, which was tolerated by his supe-riors because of his fighting record.

War’s end saw the outbreak ofCommunist revolution in Germany and inturn the organization of Freikorps—bandsof former soldiers who opposed the revolu-tion. Berthold, now demobilized, organizeda Freikorps unit which fought in the newBaltic States. Upon return to Germany in1920, the unit was involved in civil war-fare with Socialist units and Berthold waskilled. Later the Hitler regime touted himas a nationalist hero.

Capt. John F. O’Connell, USN (Ret.),Docent, National Air and Space Museum

Russian Aces of World War I. By VictorKulikov. Oxford UK: Osprey PublishingLtd, 2013. Photographs. Illustrations.Appendix. Index. Pp. 96. $22.95 PaperbackISBN 978-1-78096-059-3

Victor Kulikov is a well-known avia-tion writer and historian living in Russia.His considerable efforts as a co-author ofthe seminal work, The Imperial RussianAir Service: Famous Pilots & Aircraft ofWorld War One (1996), although neverfully recognized by the aviation historicalcommunity in the West, formed the foun-dation of this book.

This new concise work, Russian Aces

of World War I, provides some very usefuldetails about the thirteen individualsKulikov chose to focus on. Unfortunately,the publisher has let the reader believefrom the title that these select few werethe only Russian aces. Of course this is notthe case, as there were Russian naval aces,as well as Russian army pilots who foughtand scored on other fronts during the war.As with many aces there are always con-troversies as to the actual kill score. Intime, as new historic research in Russia iscompiled, additional individuals willundoubtedly join in the pantheon of aces.

In this small compendium Kulikovpresents those Russian Army AviationService pilots who are considered aces. Thebook provides the relevant facts, dates,and locations of the aces’ actions and theireventual personal outcome if they outlivedthe war and revolution. In some circum-stances, there are the narratives in thepilots’ own words. These always provideinteresting vignettes of the historicalevents.

The new book’s well-captioned pho-tographs are an important contribution.However, the publisher should have con-sidered producing a work with largerimages, particularly since a number ofthem are wholly unique, coming from thephoto collections of Gennady Petrov andMikhail Maslov. Also included in this vol-ume are some very well executed color pro-files which will provide the enthusiast andresearcher with details not found else-where.

Russian Aces of World War I is a valu-able work that, for the price, is a greataddition to a book collection of anyoneinterested in World War I aviation.

Carl J. Bobrow, Museum Specialist,Smithsonian National Air and SpaceMuseum

Ed. Note: Victor Kulikov wrote severalarticles for Air Power History. See:Vol. 47, No. 4, Winter 2000, “Sikorski;’sFighters, pp. 36-45; Vol. 48, No.4, Winter2001, “Aeroplanes of Lebedev’s Factory,”pp. 4-17; Vol. 50, No.1, Spring 2003,“Soviet Ship-Based Reconnaissance,1930s-1950, pp. 4-11; Vol. 51, No.1, Spring2004, “British Aircraft in Russia, pp. 4-15;Vol. 52, No. 3, Fall 2005, “Italian Aircraft inRussia,” pp. 14-25; and Vol. 53, No. 3, Fall2006, “ pp. 14-25.

Operation KE: The Cactus Air Forceand the Japanese Withdrawal fromGuadalcanal. By Roger and DennisLetorneau. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Insti -tute Press, 2012. Maps. Photographs.

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Notes. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. Pp.xx, 370. $42.95. ISBN: 978-1-59114-446-5

The Allied (primarily U.S.) goal in theGuadalcanal Campaign was to secure theislands of Guadalcanal, Florida, andTulagi to prevent their use by theJapanese as bases from which to attacklines of communication between the U.S.,Australia, and New Zealand. In this firstmajor Allied offensive in the Pacific inWorld War II, the significant land and seabattles took place during August-November 1942, but the campaign didn’tcome to a close until February 1943.

This book fills the gap betweenNovember and February, during whichtime the Japanese planned for, and thensuccessfully carried out, the seabornewithdrawal of nearly 11,000 defeatedtroops. Although this almost certainly wasnot the authors’ intent, the book is bestapproached as two separate but relatedworks. In what might be called Part One,the father-and-son authors present a day-by-day (and, in many cases, plane-by-plane) account of the air battles that tookplace before the withdrawal operation andduring the evacuations themselves.Convoys known as the Tokyo Expressextracted beleaguered Japanese troopsfrom Guadalcanal with three nighttimeruns in early February. Part Two is a thor-ough analysis, from both the Japanese andU.S. perspectives, of why the withdrawaloperation was successful.

Part One effectively describes howU.S. forces employed various types of fight-er and bomber aircraft in coordinatedattacks on Japanese vessels and groundbases, shows that both sides almostalways believed they had shot down moreenemy aircraft than was actually the case,and (most interestingly) gives the readeran appreciation of what aerial combat feltlike from inside the cockpit. On the downside, the book (but Part One in particular)suffers from a lack of adequate maps.There are several sketch maps ofGuadalcanal and nearby islands, but noneprovides the detail needed to follow thenarrative.

In Part Two, several factors stand outamong the many that led to the success ofthe withdrawal. First, the Japanese recog-nized that the operation could not be suc-cessful if they used poorly-armed, unma-neuverable transport ships to evacuatetheir soldiers. Instead, they opted fordestroyers. The speed, maneuverability,and small size of these ships made a diffi-cult task—hitting a moving vessel at nightwith a bomb or torpedo—even more chal-lenging. Second, the Japanese establishednumerical fighter superiority above theconvoys, and this caused many U.S.

bombers to miss their targets or to com-pletely break off their attacks. And third,the Japanese made good use of deceptionduring the evacuation, sometimes routingtheir convoys directly down the “slot” fromtheir base at Bougainville to Guadalcanaland at other times making the trip by firstheading out to open sea.

Unfortunately, the two parts are inef-fectively woven together. While theauthors give a clear depiction of what tookplace in each day’s air activity, there is lit-tle attempt to explain how those eventscontributed to or detracted from the over-all outcome of Operation KE. And in thechapters that analyze the operation, thereare only limited references to the detailedaccounts of action that dominate the firstpart of the book. Each part presents aninteresting account of operations in thePacific. But taken together, they do notprovide a good understanding of how day-to-day actions fit within the broader tacti-cal or strategic context. As long as thereader understands this at the outset,Operation KE can be a useful addition to amilitary history library.

Lt. Col. Joe Romito, U.S. Army (Ret.),Docent, National Air and Space Museum

Captured: The Forgotten Men ofGuam. By Roger Mansell. Annapolis Md.:Naval Institute Press, 2012. Map. Notes.Photographs. Bibliography. Index Pp. x,255. $33.95 ISBN: 978-1-61251-114-6

Following Army service in the early1960s, Roger Mansell established a com-mercial business in California.Conversations with an employee who wasinterned by the Japanese during WorldWar II formed the impetus for his interestin telling stories of other POWs held bythe Japanese. Mansell researched andwrote this work but died before its publi-cation. Linda Holmes, a Pacific War histo-rian, edited it for publication.

The story begins on Guam, the strate-gically located island in the Marianas thatserved as an interim stop for PanAmerican Clippers flying from SanFrancisco to Hong Kong. The U.S. Navyalso had a base on the island, with justover 400 sailors and Marines present in1941. In November, the Navy decided thatJapan was an imminent threat and evacu-ated all military dependents from Guam.

On December 7, 1941, it became obvi-ous that Japan would soon be attackingGuam. That anticipated attack began at0230 on December 10. It took one day forthe Japanese force to capture the island.U.S. military men and American civilians

were quickly rounded up and placed in amakeshift jail in the Agat city center—they thought to be executed. However, theJapanese Government had other plans forthese nearly 800 Americans: ship them toJapan and force them to work as slaves tosupport the Japanese war effort alongwith an eventual 63,000 other AlliedPOWs.

Mansell details the daily barbarictreatment endured by these “forgottenmen from Guam” over the course of near-ly four years. The starvation, beatings,exposure to severe winter weather condi-tions, and continual threat of executiontook their toll on emotions, morale andstrength of these American prisoners.The book highlights their daily search forfood and the high cost of being caught bythe Japanese if found with stolen food.Mansell uses a series of personalaccounts of prison life from officers,enlisted, and civilian personnel who wereforced to endure it. Thus, the reader isgiven ample examples of atrocities forcedupon these prisoners who related theyhad no doubts that, if and when alliedforces did invade Japan, the Japaneseguards at the camps were alreadyordered to kill all prisoners.

The accounts of the American prison-ers from Guam also relate their sense ofawe watching B–29 formations during dayand night attacks on Japan, as well as low-level flying of fighter aircraft strafing andbombing Japanese targets. We know todayhow, when, and why the war in Japanended; but the POWs were not cognizantof the detailed meaning or use of the atom-ic bomb. However, they were grateful thatthe Emperor surrendered and the prison-ers were not executed. The final two shortchapters of the book detail the liberation ofthe prison camps by U.S. forces and therepatriation of the prisoners to the UnitedStates.

All in all, this is a good book to learnof the atrocities suffered by these prison-ers. While the book does portray some dis-turbing scenes of torture and other atroci-ties, it is a worthwhile read concerning theplight, strength, and complicationsendured by these U.S. military and civilianpersonnel when faced with an intolerablesituation.

Col. Joe McCue, USAF (Ret.), Leesburg,Virginia

In Their Own Words The Final Chap -ter: True Stories from American Figh -ter Aces. By James A. Oleson. Bloo ming -ton, Ind.: iUniverse, 2011. Photo graphs.Notes. Appendices. Glossary. Bibliography.

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Pp. xviii, 203. $18.95. ISBN: 978-1-4502-9045-6

This book strives to capture the talesof some of the greatest aviators of the U.S.armed forces. The author’s intent is to pre-serve these accounts for the future. Thebook, culminating twenty years of work, isthe second volume of personal accounts offighter aces (Oleson’s first book was InTheir Own Words: True Stories andAdventures of the American Fighter Ace).

Though never a fighter pilot himself,Oleson has a deep-seated passion for thesemen and their craft, calling it his “Labor ofLove.” He acts as a conduit to bring thesetales to the next generation that knows solittle of these heroes by compiling ninety-one personal accounts, published withoutalteration, into a spellbinding, stunning,and humbling volume. Each account cap-tures the subject’s personality, and eachadds its own dynamic to the book. ColonelMorehead’s account of barely eludingdeath while trying to escape compressibil-ity in his P–38 is fascinating, but may bemore relevant to aircraft designers andpilots than historians. The common threadis the sacrifices and trials of war and thecourage of the pilots. Lt. Col. RichardSuehr relayed an account of travelling tendays through the Australian jungle afterlosing an engine. After his rescue, Suehrwent to P–38s and managed to lose bothengines, crashed into the ocean, and waswashed onto an island. He flagged down apassing Filipino fishing boat and was withthe Filipino guerilla fighters for monthsbefore making it back to a U.S.-held posi-tion.

Most of the accounts are excerptsfrom oral histories, though some are fromthe personal diaries of the fliers. They pro-vides a rare, unadulterated look at fighteraces in their own words, as fewer andfewer of these men are still with us. Thequality and content of the writings varies.This does not detract, but rather gives thereader a feeling of interaction, drawingthem deeper into the stories. Lt. Col.Bryan tells, in great detail, of having hisP–47 overboosted to ninety inches of mer-cury and making it back to fly fifteen moremissions. Other accounts are simply aparagraph on a favorite airplane or anexplanation of how to aim an F6F Hellcatat a target.

Oleson divides the book chronological-ly by war. World War II is further dividedby service branch. There are also accountsfrom some military test pilots. Each parthas a short informative introduction aboutair combat and aircraft covered. Oleson’sshort essay, “The Best Fighter Aircraft,” isbound to breed some arguments amongfriends but is very interesting and does

add some to the understanding of the text.There are discussions throughout the textof the dangers of the P–38, the downfalls ofthe P–40, the differences in the F4F andthe F6F, etc. He provides numbers to sup-port his theories, though there are no ref-erences given for the data.

This book is hard to put down;Oleson’s passion leaps out. He let his sub-jects (the real experts) tell their own sto-ries without interruption by any analysis.The collection of primary source materialand pictures of the pilots and theirmachines is wonderful. Where else woulda young American student find an Englishfirst-hand account of what it was like to flythe Me 262, the FW 190, and the Bf 109?The author clearly acknowledges all thecontributors to the book, and also liststheir autobiographies, if they exist. Heencourages the reader to access these forfurther information or research. Thesuperficial, broad coverage of this bookprovides great stories of the people of war;great for a history buff, an aviation afi-cionado, or as first-hand source materialfrom high school to graduate work. Theminor typographical errors are a small dis-traction. Oleson has left us a jewel of astory.

Maj. Daniel L. Vaughan, USAF

Those Angry Days: Roosevelt,Lindbergh, and America’s Fight overWorld War II, 1939-1941. By LynneOlson. New York: Random House, 2013.Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index.$30.00. Pp. xxii, 548 ISBN 978-1-4000-6794-3

The controversies provoked byAmerica’s wars in Vietnam and Iraq stillresonate in today’s political posturing andpolicy decisions. Yet, this country’s mostdivisive dispute over foreign policy andnational security erupted while the nationwas at peace, and then vanished overnightin a wave of patriotic unity for the dura-tion of what truly became the SecondWorld War after the Japanese attackedPearl Harbor. Olson, who has previouslywritten about the British experience in theearly years of the war in Europe, has pro-duced a dramatic account of the battlewaged between American isolationists andinterventionists during the same period.

As background to this often over-looked episode, Olson reviews the nation’sdisillusionment with participation in theFirst World War (but not its long traditionof avoiding such foreign entanglements).As the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in the1930s began to portend another such war,

Congress codified the public’s isolationistattitude with a series of neutrality acts toprohibit support to any future belligerents.When war broke out in Poland inSeptember 1939, most Americans still feltprotected by distance and their formidableNavy. But after Germany occupiedNorway and defeated France in the springof 1940, the struggle between a growingmovement to rescue Great Britain andanother to preserve American neutralityquickly dominated American public opin-ion and politics.

Olson thoroughly traces the organiza-tions and leaders that emerged in supportof these causes and their relationship tokey politicians and media outlets. TheCentury Group (a veritable who’s who ofthe Eastern Establishment) and the WhiteCommittee (led by the respected Midwes -tern pundit William Allen White) were themost influential of the pro-interventionforces. Behind the scenes, a highly effec-tive British espionage and propagandamachine helped the interventionists andsometimes conducted dirty tricks againstthe isolationists. The America FirstCommittee (founded by pacifist Yale stu-dents but eventually dominated by conser-vative Republicans) became the most sig-nificant of the isolationist organizations.The two sides waged their war of words innewspapers and magazines, on the radioand motion picture screens, in lecturehalls and stadiums, and in the chambersof Congress. As implied in the book’s title,the national mood became truly angry,with defamatory charges and epithetssuch as warmonger and Fascist hurledabout indiscriminately. With the stakes sohigh, there seemed to be little room forcompromise.

Making her book especially readable(except for jumping around chronological-ly), Olson skillfully profiles the diversepersonalities and human dramas involvedon both sides. As indicated by the subtitle,she especially focuses on CharlesLindbergh, the most famous American ofthe era, who eventually became the topspokesman for America First. Particularlypoignant is the effect of Lindbergh’s grow-ing notoriety as an anti-Semitic admirer ofGermany on his sensitive wife, AnneMorrow Lindbergh, whose own family wasstaunchly interventionist. The role of thebook’s other main protagonist, FranklinDelano Roosevelt, is of course already welldocumented. Olson focuses on how theindecisive FDR, chastened politically byhis disastrous scheme in 1937 to expandthe Supreme Court, lagged behind publicopinion in taking steps to supportBritain—much to the consternation ofpolitical allies and advisors, not to mentiona desperate Winston Churchill. The

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unsung hero of the story is WendellWillkie, who served as a tireless and effec-tive proponent of the need to stop the Axispowers after losing the presidential race of1940. Even though most Americans cameto favor various measures to save Britainfrom defeat (and later even the SovietUnion), most continued to oppose enteringthe war.

Olson’s examination of the isolationistand Fortress America tendencies of muchof the nation’s pre-war military leadershipshould be of particular interest to readersof this journal. Among these, she devotesconsiderable attention to the activities ofHenry H. Arnold, who became Chief of thenew Army Air Forces in June 1941 despitea sometimes difficult relationship withFDR. Most accusatory, Olson presents theevidence that “Hap” Arnold may have beenthe source of what was probably the mostsensational leak of classified informationprior to the pilfering of National SecurityAgency files in 2013. On December 4,1941, the isolationist Chicago Tribune andWashington Times Herald headlined topsecret details of the War and NavyDepartments’ recently prepared “VictoryProgram” on how the United States wouldmobilize for war against Germany. In anyevent, the Japanese attack on PearlHarbor three days later immediately over-shadowed this shocking affair, and Hitler’sdeclaration of war on December 11emphatically ended America’s domesticbattle over intervening in Europe.

In researching this book, Olsonexploited a wide range of existing litera-ture as well as some archival sources andprivate diaries, one of the most revealingbeing that of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Shegives due credit to previous authors wholaid the groundwork for her book, such asLindbergh biographer A. Scott Berg anddiplomatic historian Wayne S. Cole,“unquestionably the premier authority onAmerica’s prewar isolationist movement”(and my thesis advisor at the University ofMaryland), whose four books on the periodare copiously cited in the end notes. In ret-rospect, Olson tends to agree with Cole’sjudgment that this passionate debate overthe nation’s future course, despite its nas-tiness, was an extraordinary example of“democracy in action.” Anyone interestedin the history of World War II can benefitfrom understanding how reluctantly theUnited States became involved.

Lawrence R. Benson, retired Air Force his-torian, Albuquerque, New Mexico

The Bad Boy—Bert Hall: Aviator andMercenary of the Skies. By Blaine L.

Pardoe. New York: Perseus Books, 2012.Pho to graphs. Notes. Bibliography. Appen -dix. Pp. 224. $29.95 ISBN: 978-178155-130-1

Since the 1920s, mercenary airmenhave been subjects of numerous novels,films, and short stories. But the romanticmyth of the hard-bitten, cynical, yetsomehow still-idealistic mercenary pilot,the man who quite literally lives to flyand fight—archetypically captured inErnest Gann’s long-out-of-print novelBenjamin Lawless—has been only rarelybalanced by actual historical studies andbiographies realistically examining thisenigmatic and often contradictory per-sonality type. Of such non-fiction works,three stand out: Sterling Seagrave’s Sol -diers of Fortune, an excellent introducto-ry survey; John Carver Edwards’ AirmenWithout Portfolio: U.S. Mercenaries inCivil War Spain, a useful case study ofone group of mercenaries; and Richard K.Smith and R. Cargill Hall’s Five Down NoGlory: Frank G. Tinker, Mercenary Ace inthe Spanish Civil War, a masterful biog-raphy of one of mercenary aviation’s mostchaotic personalities. Very different, atleast to me, are aggregations of profes-sional service airmen brought together atthe behest of governments to achievesome strategic purpose (e.g., theAmerican Volunteer Group in China, orAir America in Indochina).

Few truly mercenary airmen (liketheir traditional land-roving forebears)have been motivated solely by monetaryconcerns. Almost all blended multiple mo -ti vations including profit, seeking adven-ture, and serving a cause. But (again, ascharacteristic of many of their predeces-sors since ancient times) almost all pos-sessed various personality deficiencies(and, in some cases, disorders) that, takentogether, seriously limited their effective-ness and, hence, their value. Flaws typi-cally included a reluctance to followorders, inability to function within anestablished military framework, criminal-ity, erratic behavior, shifting loyalties, mer-curial temperament, unreliability, person-al vice and disorder, grandiosity, disho -nesty, and easily triggered frustration of -ten boiling over into resentment. Indeed,as a group, mercenaries are not readilyfound among the ranks of the most stableand reliable individuals, and whatevergood they allegedly have accomplishedmust be balanced against the very greatmisery that they often have promulgatedor at least contributed to.

To the available literature on merce-nary airmen, we can now add Pardoe’sstudy of a legendary mercenary, WestonBirch “Bert” Hall (1885-1948), who flew

with the French air service in the GreatWar, in Hollywood as an early film pilot,and in China. Overall a sympathetic study,the book redresses what Pardoe perceivesas a deliberate attempt by surviving veter-ans of the Lafayette Escadrille to denigrateand minimize the contributions and valorof Hall. Pardoe bases his work upon pub-lished sources and sporadic archival docu-ments and makes a reasonable, if not over-ly convincing, case that Hall has been, atleast to some degree, disrespected by hispeers and subsequent aviation historians(though Pardoe seems overly critical of hisdetractors).

Hall, the son of a Confederate soldierwho had served with great steadfastnessand dedication to the Southern cause, wasundoubtedly a pilot of great personal skilland valor. But he was clearly an unreliableand contentious individual. A persistentfabulist who exaggerated to an almostinconceivable extent, he was unfaithful tohis several wives (some simultaneously),aloof and distant from most of his col-leagues, and crossed over into outrightcriminality involving an arms-runningscheme. “I have no confidence in yourstory,” Judge Milton Purdy chastised theairman upon sentencing him to a two andone-half year jail term in late 1933, adding“You have lied to everyone.”

In part because of lingering contro-versy and his own advancing age, Hall didnot participate in arguably the greatest ofall mercenary air wars—Spain 1936-1939—though his personality well-matched many of the other misfits whoflew in the conflict. He returned toHollywood, then worked on the peripheryof the Dayton aviation industry during theSecond World War, dying of a heart attackin 1948.

To his credit, Pardoe, while sympa-thetic to Hall (whom he judges “a masterof reinventing himself”), is not blind to hissubject’s many egregious faults. “I havebeen asked what Bert’s contribution wasto aviation,” Pardoe concludes, “and I haveto admit not a great deal. . . . Hall’s contri-bution to aviation was not so much inachievements of merit, but rather by thefact that he was there” (emphasis in origi-nal text). One might reasonably ask ifthat is indeed the final judgment to be ren-dered, does the book justify Pardoe’s timeand effort and the price that its readersmust pay to learn about its subject? Tome, the answer is “yes,” if for no other rea-son than how supportive this study is andhow well it fits with the mercenary worksmentioned previously. Hall could serve asthe Everyman of mercenary airmen.

The book is well-written and well-pro-duced, with good illustrations and a veryuseful bibliography, though marred by

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occasional typos that better proof-readingwould have caught.

Dr. Richard P Hallion, Florida PolytechnicUniversity

Council of War: A History of the JointChiefs of Staff 1942-1991. Steven L.Rearden. Washington, D.C.: NDU Press,2012. Notes. Photographs. Tables.Glossary. Index. pp. xiv, 586. http://book-store.gpo.gov

Council of War offers its readers farmore that what its title implies, for itssweep of narrative covers a broad range ofissues, events, and circumstances relatingto the evolution of American national secu-rity policy and practice over the SecondWorld War and the Cold War that followed.Readen places the evolution of the JCS ina remarkably rich and diversified context.Indeed, he has written what should bemandatory reading for all personnel work-ing for or assigned to the Joint Staff.

Rearden is a historian of great experi-ence and insight, and it shows. Though hedraws on numerous primary and sec-ondary sources, one of the book’s manystrengths is that it avoids merely regurgi-tating previous works. He writes engag-ingly and well, avoiding both getting lostin unnecessary detail, and the boringmorass of bland passive-voice construc-tions all-too-familiar in administrativehistories.

Any misconceptions readers may holdthat the JCS has been a smoothly func-tioning and unified body working collegial-ly and dispassionately is dispelled. Thenarrative goes from crisis to crisis, endingwith the conclusion of Desert Storm. Onecan only wonder what Rearden wouldhave made of JCS history since that time,from the all-too-brief era of post-Sovietunipolar American hegemony through thechaos of the late 1990s, and on into 9-11and its tumultuous multi-conflict after-math into the era of sequestration.

Rearden begins in the early days ofthe Second World War, starting with theArcadia conference. Wisely, he does notimmediately leap into the post-1947 cre-ation of the Department of Defense.Rather, he develops the narrative in greatdetail, looking at the influence ofAmerica’s strategic policy upon the func-tionings of the emerging JCS, and itstransformation throughout the war andinto the immediate postwar years. Whilethe war “did not assure the JCS a perma-nent place in the country’s defense estab-lishment,” he writes, it had “confirmed

that high-level strategic advice and direc-tion of the Armed Forces were indispens-able to success in modern warfare.” Thepost- World War II era involved a series ofcritical challenges that ensured the con-tinued existence of the JCS, though italmost continuously evolved in scope andstructure, reflected in its changing for-malized relations with the Secretary ofDefense, the National Security Council(NSC), the President, and the Congress.

Vietnam posed a special set of chal-lenges, the Joint Chiefs of Staff having, inRearden’s view, “passed their prime,” hav-ing declined in “stature and institutionalinfluence” since the 1940s when they hadroutinely met with the President and“knew every Allied leader personally.” Forthis reason, he dismisses H. R. McMas -ter’s “five silent men” thesis expressed inhis explosive Dereliction of Duty (1997),though he credits McMaster for havingauthored a “thoroughly researched andwell-written book. Rearden notes thegrowing mutual antipathy that eventual-ly characterized relations between theSecretary and his service chieftains overVietnam, and which erupted openly in1967. Even so, he is generally less criticalof Robert McNamara and his tenure asdefense secretary than OSD historianEdward Drea’s 2011 study McNamara,Clifford, and the Burdens of Vietnam.

Like others at the time and after-wards, Rearden believes McNamaradeserves recognition for having institutedimportant organizational reforms withinthe Department of Defense. Noting thatat the time the Secretary took office, theJCS’ “elaborate but ineffectual strategicplanning process had failed to apply thenecessary discipline in determining mili-tary requirements, cut excessive expendi-tures, and eliminate unnecessary duplica-tion in Service programs,” he creditsMcNamara with having transformed theDepartment of Defense. “Not only did theadministrative and managerial reformshe institute reshape Pentagon businesspractices,” he writes, “they also had pro-found effects in the areas of weapons pro-curement, forces structure, and militarydoctrine. More than any other Secretaryof Defense, he fundamentally transformedthe way the country thought about andapproached armed conflict.”

Most controversial in the post-McNamara era was, of course, the JCS’transformation (critics might say emascu-lation) under the Goldwater-NicholsDepartment of Defense ReorganizationAct of 1986. By designating the Chairmanof the JCS as the President’s “PrincipalMilitary Advisor,” Goldwater-Nicholsstripped the JCS of much of its power, tothe dismay of many. Doing so, Rearden

writes, ended “the days of corporate deci-sionmaking and consensus recommenda-tions. In effect, the Service chiefs becamea committee of senior military advisors tothe Chairman.”

The scope of Rearden’s study isremarkable, encompassing foreign policycrises and wars; major challenges in strat-egy and force structure; the political per-spective; and the history of specific pro-grams and acquisition efforts, both suc-cessful and unsuccessful.

Remarkable for a book of this sizeand scope, Council of War has surprising-ly few errors or typos, and those it has areminor. Overall this is a solid, significantcontribution to the history of Americannational security policy and practice, andit deserves a wide readership amongdefense professionals, academics, andpublic-minded individuals of all sorts.Indeed, for those inside the Beltway toil-ing in the Department of Defense (partic-ularly on the Joint Staff), Council of Waris just the thing to while away that Metrotrip on the way to and from the Pentagon.

Dr. Richard P Hallion, Florida PolytechnicUniversity

The North African Air Campaign:U.S. Army Air Forces from El Alameinto Salerno. By Christopher M. Rein.Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,2012. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Appen -dices. Bibliography. Index. Pp. x, 290.$34.95 ISBN: 978-0-7006-1878-1

This is Dr. Rein’s first book and ispart of the University Press of Kansas’Modern War Studies series. An AssistantProfessor of History at the U.S. Air ForceAcademy, Rein earned his doctorate fromKansas in 2011. This work appears to bean extension of his dissertation.

Rein begins by thoroughly reviewingprimary as well as secondary sources con-cerning development of U.S. Army AirCorps doctrine before World War II. Forthose interested in doctrine, this chapteralone makes the book work well worthreading. In fact, this book in many ways ismore about doctrine than operations.Using the Army Air Forces’ presence inNorth Africa in 1942 and 1943 as a back-drop or case study, Rein carefully exam-ines the application of air power. He par-ticularly emphasizes employment of theBoeing B–17 and Consolidated B–24heavy-bomber groups in an interdictionrole as opposed to the strategic-bombingfavored by generals heavily influenced bythe thinking that emerged from the Air

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Corps Tactical School in the 1930s.He proceeds in chronological order.

The second chapter discusses the WesternDesert (British nomenclature for con-fronting Axis forces west of the Nile intoLibya). He reviews the earliest Americaninvolvement by small numbers of B–17sand B–24s as well as the introduction ofU.S. Curtiss P–40s and North AmericanB–25s operating within the British com-mand structure. Eventually, this concen-tration of American air power wouldemerge as the original Ninth Air Force,whose staff assets later were transferredto the United Kingdom to focus on tacticalair support in France.

In the third chapter, Rein covers theexecution of Operation Torch in November1942 that resulted in the invasion of NorthAfrica controlled by Vichy France. Here,American air units came under commandof Twelfth Air Force. Rein briefly departsfrom his discussion of Mediterraneanoperations to take the strategic-bombingadvocates to task for failing to allocateenough B–24s to the anti-submarine cam-paign in the Atlantic. The fourth chapterdeals with multifaceted aspects of airpower in helping push the remainingGerman and Italian forces into Tunisiawhere they were defeated eventually. Theimpact of transport and reconnaissanceassets is duly recognized.

The final two chapters examine Sicilyand Salerno, the initial invasion of theItalian mainland. In the Salerno chapter,he sharply criticizes the squandering ofB–24s in the August 1943 attack on thePloesti oil-refinery complex in Rumania.He argues that those aircraft used effec-tively in an interdiction campaign wouldhave accelerated the ground forces’progress.

Rein concludes that these mistakes inasset allocation with strict differentiationbetween strategic and tactical platformswere at last recognized by defense officialsas an inherent weakness in commandstructure when Tactical Air Command andStrategic Air Command were consolidatedinto Air Combat Command in the early1990s. Whether one agrees or disagreeswith him, he raises interesting points wellworth considering by those responsible fordeveloping air power doctrine.


Glider Infantryman: Behind EnemyLines in World War II. By Don Rich andKevin Brooks. College Station: Texas A&MUniversity Press, 2012. Maps. Illustra -

tions. Photographs Notes. Biblio graphy.Index. Pp. x, 272. $19.95 paperback ISBN:978-1-60344-962-5.

Don Rich, with the help of KevinBrooks, shares his experiences as a mem-ber of the 327th Glider Infantry Regimentof the 101st Airborne Division from thebeginning of World War II to its conclusionin Europe. Readers familiar with StephenAmbrose’s Band of Brothers chroniclingthe exploits of Easy Company of the101st’s 506th Parachute Infantry Regi -ment, will appreciate another soldier’s per-spective. Besides assisting Rich in organiz-ing his memories, Brooks, a freelancewriter based in Illinois, frames theinfantryman’s numerous detailed ac -counts of small-action combat with consid-erable information about the larger strate-gic situation.

After a discussion of entering theArmy and subsequent training as abazooka man, the pace quickens in chapterthree after the division arrives in theUnited Kingdom and prepares for theinvasion of Normandy in June 1944.Chapter four concerns the invasion. Whilequite prepared to enter combat for the firsttime in a towed glider, Rich and most of hisregiment crossed the English Channelcourtesy of the U.S. Navy. They arrived onthe afternoon of June 6 at Utah Beach, thefar right flank of the Allied forces andengaged the Germans among thehedgerows over the next few days.

In chapter five, Rich describes the cir-cumstances where he was wounded nearCarentan while trying to get in position tofire his bazooka at an enemy bunker.Evacuated to England, he recovered andreturned to his company before OperationMarket Garden, discussed in chapter six.Market Garden, the ill-fated effort to cap-ture a series of bridges in a bold driveacross the Netherlands in September,marked the only time Rich entered combataboard a glider. By then, his company hadsuffered considerable casualties. Friendsfrom training had been replaced by lessexperienced soldiers, a trend that contin-ued until the war’s conclusion in May1945.

The book continues with Rich’s expe-riences on the island where the 101sthelped hold the line as part of the north-ernmost Allied advance in theNetherlands. After finally getting a breaktoward the end of 1944, the 101st wasrushed to Bastogne to hold the Belgiancrossroads town and deny the Germansthe ability to advance easily toward theMeuse River during the Battle of theBulge.

Having blunted the enemy assault,Allied divisions, including the 101st, even-

tually went back on the offensive in early1945. The division later moved into theAlsace region of eastern France. Fromthere, it proceeded into Bavaria whereAllied intelligence was concerned thatNazi zealots would make a last stand inthe mountains. Fortunately for Rich, theenemy accepted its fate, and resistancewas negligible.

Maps are essential in understandingmilitary history at any level. Numerouslarge-scale maps are provided to enablethe reader to appreciate the circumstancesin which Rich found himself confrontingthe enemy at close quarters. While thereal-time description of events makes foreasy reading, the reconstruction of conver-sations raises questions about accuracy.Overall, those interested in small-unitaccounts should find this book to their lik-ing.


History of Rocketry and Astro -nautics: Proceedings of the 41st His -tory Symposium of the InternationalAcademy of Astronautics, Hyderabad,Andhra, India, 2007; v. 38 of the AASHistory Series, and v. 27 of the IAAHistory Symposia. By Anthony M.Springer, Ed. San Diego, Calif.: Univelt,2012. Photographs. Drawings. Notes.Index. Pp. xiii, 424. $95.00, $75.00 (softcover) ISBN: 978-087703583-1

This volume follows the now-standardIAA format of having a diverse collectionof international papers examining technol-ogy, operational art, and significant indi-viduals, blending works by professionalhistorians, astronautics pioneers andsocial and cultural commentators. Itspapers were presented at the IAF-IAA2007 meeting held in India—a countrywith a long history of rocketry that has ledto it being a modern space power that hasorbited its own satellites. Indeed, black-powder battlefield rockets employed byIndia’s Tipu Sultan toward the end of theeighteenth century inspired WilliamCongreve to develop British equivalentsthat, used during the War of 1812, arememorialized in the words of theAmerican national anthem.

Commendably edited by NASA’sAnthony Springer, it is organized aroundtwo broad themes: one, a series of paperson Sputnik and its influence (reflectingthat these papers were presented a half-century after its launch on October 4,1957), and the other a series of papers on

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the history of rocketry and astronautics inIndia; though many other topics are cov-ered as well.

Of all the papers, I found the follow-ing of particular interest:

—Asif A. Siddiqi’s reexamination ofthe origins of the Sputnik program. Hecasts new light on internal Soviet spacedecision-making in the early-to-mid1950s, elaborating upon earlier work hehas done that has rightly established himas the dean of Soviet space studies.

—Michael J. Neufeld’s exploration ofWernher von Braun’s change-of-heartfrom favoring a direct approach and land-ing on the Moon to favoring a lunar-orbital rendezvous. While covered by oth-ers, Neufeld has added important newinformation and insight into the back-ground and progression of von Braun’sdecision-making on this issue, one of themost critical for the entire Apollo pro-gram.

—Cristhophe Rothmund’s detailedhistory of France’s first efforts to developcryogenic rocket engine technology, whichled to its employment on the later Arianespace launch system.

—S. Krishnamurthy and B. R. Guru -prasad’s analysis of the rockets of TipuSultan, placing their development anduse within the context of rocketry evolu-tion in South Asia and its subsequenttechnology-transfer to Britain.

—Andrew S. Erickson’s masterfulana lysis of India’s space and rocketry pro-gram, which confirms that Erickson, aprofessor at the Naval War College, is asadept at analyzing Indian work as he hasdemonstrated with his analysis of work inaeronautics, astronautics, and navalpower by the People’s Republic of China.

These are but a few of twenty essays,many of which continue the series’detailed examination of Soviet rocketry.One can argue that this is sadly fitting forthis era, now that the United States hasso foolishly abrogated its own lead inmanned space flight that American astro-nauts must rely on Soviet-era boosters toget a ride to the International SpaceStation.

As with all the volumes in thisremarkable series, this one is a greatvalue for its admittedly high price, and sois highly recommended.

Dr. Richard P Hallion, Research Associatein Aeronautics, National Air and SpaceMuseum

Aichi 99 Kanbaku “Val” Units 1937-42.By Osamu Tagaya. Oxford, UK: OspreyPublishing, 2011. Illustrations. Photo -

graphs. Appendices. Index. Pp. 96. $22.95ISBN: 978-1-84176-912-7

The exploits of American airmen inthe Pacific War have been well-covered inthe literature over the years, but those oftheir Japanese counterparts are little-known to the public. Yet during the firstsix months of that war, Japanese navalaviators were masters of the skies, rack-ing up one crushing victory after anotherover the American, British, and Dutch inthe air, on land, and on the seas.

In dive bombing accomplishmentsduring this period, the Aichi D3A Type 99,code-named Val, was unsurpassed, main-ly attributable to the skill and persever-ance of its two-man crews. Who werethese men and what were their experi-ences? In this slender volume, OsamuTagaya presents their stories in the detailfor which historians of the Pacific Warhave been waiting. There is no betterqualified person to cover this subject thanTagaya, a recognized authority on theJapanese naval air force in World War II.He has exhaustively reviewed primarysources in Japanese—most of which havebeen previously untapped—includingunit action reports and the recollections ofindividual airmen and woven themtogether into a highly engaging account.

Because of space constraints imposedby the publisher for its Combat Aircraftseries, Tagaya’s coverage of Val’s opera-tional history is limited to the first part ofthe Pacific War beginning with China inlate 1939 and ending in June 1942 withthe Battle of Midway. In a projected sec-ond volume, he will carry the story for-ward from the Solomons campaignthrough the end of the war. It will alsoinclude a list of sources for both volumes,making up for the lack of such a bibliog-raphy in this first offering.

While Tagaya focuses on the individ-ual experiences of the Val airmen, he alsoputs their exploits in larger context, notonly as participants in their joint missionswith the other IJNAF carrier-based avia-tors flying missions with them in theirMitsubishi A6M Zeros and NakajimaB5N Kates, but also in broader terms ofIJN planning and operations. Beginningwith a concise history of dive bombing inthe IJN, he moves chronologically frominitial operations in China to planningand training for the Hawaiian operation,the Pearl Harbor attack, the SouthernAdvance, the Indian Ocean operation, theBattle of the Coral Sea, and finallyMidway and the Aleutians.

The only comparable volume on theVal is Peter C. Smith’s Aichi D3A1/2 Val,published in 1999; but, in my opinion,Tagaya’s account is more readable,

focused as it is on the human dimension.In addition to seventy photographs, thisOsprey volume includes fifteen colorplates of individual D3A1s flown in theMarch 1940-May 1942 period, with anaccompanying narrative for each one. I,for one, eagerly await the concluding vol-ume.

William H. Bartsch, Reston, Virginia

Implosion: Lessons from Security,High Reliability Spacecraft, Electro -nics, and the Forces Which ChangedThem. By L. Parker Temple III. Hoboken,N.J.: Wiley-IEEE Press, 2013. Notes.Figures. Tables. Index. Pp. xxii, 346.$54.95 Paperback ISBN: 978-1118462423

During the latter half of the twenti-eth century, the commercial market forsolid state electronics expanded rapidly.As equipment designers found ever moreapplications for these miniaturized, light-weight, power-saving devices, an explo-sion of demand drove their productionrapidly upward. Cost per componentdropped significantly as demand increa -sed. Within this macro-phenomenon, asmall niche market developed in whichthe U.S. Department of Defense and theNational Aeronautics and Space Admi -nistration paid a premium for solid stateelectronic parts, components, subsystems,and systems with especially high reliabil-ity for use in intercontinental ballisticmissiles (ICBMs), space launch vehicles,and orbiting satellites.

Implosion provides a detailed, analyt-ical account of what Temple characterizesas a complex Darwinian evolution of solidstate electronics from the quantum theoryof electrons, through invention of the tran-sistor, to high-reliability parts for U.S.national security and military space sys-tems. Beginning with the MinutemanICBM in the 1960s and extending overanother couple decades to ever moredurable satellites, an unseen handresponded to market forces and, at times,political pressures to create space-quali-fied or “Class S” parts. Even as increasingcomplexity of parts threatened reliabilityin the 1970s, the Air Force’s Rome AirDevelopment Center (RADC) played akey role in determining the physics of fail-ure, developing standards, and teachingindustry how to make parts highly reli-able. Of course, stringent requirementscombined with increasingly small produc-tion runs to drive up cost.

Control or containment of cost sowedthe seeds for unintended and unanticipat-ed consequences in the manufacture and

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supply of high-reliability parts. Emphasisby the Reagan administration during the1980s on commercial space to cut govern-ment investment culminated, in the post-Cold War 1990s, with acquisition reform,the consequences of which were superfi-cially understood. As Temple puts it, gut-ting reliance on standards and specifica-tions, which were based on long experi-ence with testing and failure analyses,cast acquisition of high reliability elec-tronics into the same category as procure-ment of “bandages, tissues, and tooth-paste.” Furthermore, an ill-informed, cost-cutting decision by the Base Closure andRealignment Commission in 1995 closedRADC and ruptured the government-industry connection that had been so cru-cial to optimizing production of Class Sparts.

Drawing from an impressive numberof scholarly sources and government doc-uments, Temple identifies eighteen, inter-related trends or forces that variouslyaffected the system producing highly reli-able spacecraft. Although waxing andwaning over time, interacting in complexways, each of the eighteen “added itsunique contribution to the ultimate chaosmade even more devastating by theirunintended temporal convergence.” At thedawn of the twenty-first century, numer-ous anomalies with space launchers andmilitary or national security satellitesrevealed that the painstakingly construct-ed system for guaranteeing manufactureof high reliability parts had imploded.

While some elements of the formersystem were restorable, Temple suggestsit will take years—probably decades—toonce more optimize the evolutionary mixof “products, processes, and applications”that assure high reliability in spacecraft.When change is the norm, we cannot goback to the status quo ante, he reasons; wemust go forward with a focus on “sus-tained, strong systems engineering prac-tices.” From among four potential path-ways to the future, he is convinced that“staying the course” is best.

Implosion should be mandatory read-ing for a broad variety of specialists, rang-ing from space engineers and corporateleaders to politicians and governmentadministrators. Temple has skillfullycrafted into an intelligible, gripping nar-rative insights from history, policy mak-

ing, engineering, management theory, andmore to deliver a compelling treatise onhow a “technology trajectory” is estab-lished, how a “production function”evolves, and how misguided interference,no matter how well intended, breeds dis-aster.

Dr. Rick W. Sturdevant, Deputy Director ofHistory, HQ Air Force Space Command

Normandy: A Graphic History of D-Day, The Allied Invasion of Hitler’sFortress Europe. By Wayne Vansant.Minneapolis, Minn.: Zenith Press, 2012.Maps. Illustrations. Pp. 104. $19.99 ISBN:978-0-7603-4392-0

Although more of a graphic novelthan an actual academic tome, Normandyis nevertheless a very accurate, succinct,and engaging account of OperationOverlord through the liberation of Paris.It is an excellent vehicle for children,teens, novices, or fans of graphic novels tolearn about D-Day. Vansant demonstratesfamiliarity with the dominant scholarlyand historical accounts of both the Alliedand German preparations for theamphibious landings, the airborneassaults, the push inland, OperationCobra, and the liberation of Paris. Theprose conveys the dominant historicalnarrative in a concise and simple fashionthat is suitable for the format of the book.While the text is important, what reallycounts in this work are the illustrations,since that is the essence of any graphicnovel.

The illustrations as a component ofthe story do not disappoint. The style andauthenticity are generally excellent.Vansant depicts the major players andleaders, average grunts, machines, equip-ment, and backgrounds in a largely real-istic manner. The story flows smoothlyand the pictures and text complementeach other. In spite of the overall artisticmerit, there are a few errors in the visualpresentations. On page 13 there is a depic-tion of a heavy bomber that looks like botha B–17 and a B–24 simultaneously, andthere is a representation of an Americanlocomotive that is clearly not of World WarII vintage or representative of the types

shipped over to replace destroyedEuropean stock. On the following page,there is a panel depicting Eisenhowerinteracting with the 101st Airborne, andnot a single paratrooper has camouflageon his face as many did in the actual pho-tographs of this event. The French andBritish commandos are shown withouthelmets at all times, and troops that usu-ally carried Sten guns are routinelydepicted with standard rifles. The U.S.Rangers’ diamond unit insignia is thewrong color. On page 55, British troopsare shown advancing through corn, asmany of the accounts reference. However,the British term “corn” actually meanswheat, and what most Americans consid-er corn is not a crop that was or is heavilycultivated in Normandy. Finally, in spiteof the generally excellent drawings of air-craft, the FW 190 depicted on page 68 hasfuselage-mounted guns that are far tooprominent and not as flush as on actualmodels of that plane. While many of thefaces and attributes of people may seemcartoonish or stereotyped, they are nor-mal for the genre.

Considering the dearth of text in thisformat, there is a significant number oftypographical errors, mostly misspellings(airborne, flail tank, mulberry, OperationCharnwood) and the improper use of theword “roll” instead of “role.” There is atleast one major factual error on page 92when Vansant asserts that the SecondTactical Air Force consisted of Spitfires,Typhoons, Mustangs, Lightnings, andThunderbolts. While there wereMustangs and other American mediumbombers in this unit, there were no P–47or P–38 units. American Tactical AirForces supplied the aircraft of those typesto help close the Falaise Gap, but theywere not part of the British 2 TAF.

This book is a fine work for someonelooking for a quick overview of the Alliedcampaign in Normandy or for someonewho would appreciate its visual stimula-tion. It is perfect for a youngster or anovice that needs to get familiar with D-Day and subsequent events associatedwith the battle.

John G. Terino, Jr., Associate Professor, AirCommand and Staff College

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PROSPECTIVE REVIEWERSAnyone who believes he or she is qualified to substantively assess one of the following new books is invited to apply for agratis copy of the book. The prospective reviewer should contact:

Col. Scott A. Willey, USAF (Ret.)3704 Brices Ford Ct.Fairfax, VA 22033Tel. (703) 620-4139e-mail: [email protected]

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Books ReceivedKelknerr, Craig C. Testing American Sea Power: U.S.Navy's Strategic Exercises, 1914-1940. College Sta -tion: Texas A&M University Press, 2007 [2d print-ing 2013] Notes. Pp viiii, 183. $24.25 PaperbackISBN: 978-1-60344-989-2

O'Rourke, Kevin and Joe Peters. Taking Fire:Saving Captain Aikman—A story of the Vietnam

War. Philadelphia and Oxford.: Casemate. Notes.Photographs.Pp. 216. $32.95 ISBN: 978-1-61200-126-5

Peczkowski, Robert. Messerschmitt ME 410.Poland: Stratus. (Polish edition) Illustrations.Photos. Pp 120 Paperback ISBN: 978-83-89450-24-1

We seek quality articles—based on sound scholarship, perceptive analysis, and/or firsthand experience—which arewell-written and attractively illustrated. The primary criterion is that the manuscript contributes to knowledge. Articlessubmitted to Air Power History must be original contributions and not be under consideration by any other publicationat the same time. If a manuscript is under consideration by another publication, the author should clearly indicate thisat the time of submission. Each submission must include an abstract—a statement of the article’s theme, its historicalcontext, major subsidiary issues, and research sources. Abstracts should not be longer than one page.

Manuscripts should be submitted in triplicate, double-spaced throughout, and prepared according to the Chicago Manualof Style (University of Chicago Press). Use civilian dates and endnotes. Because submissions are evaluated anonymously,the author’s name should appear only on the title page. Authors should provide on a separate page brief biographical details,to include institutional or professional affiliation and recent publications, for inclusion in the printed article. Pages, includ-ing those containing illustrations, diagrams or tables, should be numbered consecutively. Any figures and tables must beclearly produced ready for photographic reproduction. The source should be given below the table. Endnotes should be num-bered consecutively through the article with a raised numeral corresponding to the list of notes placed at the end.

If an article is typed on a computer, the disk should be in IBM-PC compatible format and should accompany the man-uscript. Preferred disk size is a 3 1/2-inch floppy, but any disk size can be utilized. Disks should be labelled with the nameof the author, title of the article, and the software used. Most Word processors can be accommodated includingWordPerfect and Microsoft Word. As a last resort, an ASCII text file can be used.

There is no standard length for articles, but 4,500-5,500 words is a general guide.Manuscripts and editorial correspondence should be sent to Jacob Neufeld, Editor, c/o Air Power History, 11908

Gainsborough Rd., Potomac, MD 20854, e-mail: [email protected].

Guidelines for Contributors

Marshall Foundation Releases Mons Pocket iBook at Apple iTunes Books

The George C. Marshall Foundation has published an interactive iBook called The Mons Pocket. Written by SteveBowman and Jack Neufeld with Gen. Paul Gorman, USA (Ret.), it describes the battle of the Mons Pocket in June 1944during World War II. It contains maps and narrative to describe the positions of the combatants during the battle and tac-tics used by Gen. Bradley to accomplish his strategy. It is available at iTunes Books. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/

The Mons Pocket joins a previously released iBook, Stolberg 1944: Through the Siegfried Line, written by FoundationAdvisor Gen. Paul F. Gorman, USA (Ret.), on the Marshall Foundation’s virtual bookshelf. This book details an importantmilitary campaign during WWII. In addition the Foundation has recently published two books about the Marshall Plan.

Written for high school students and social studies teachers, the recently released book, The Marshall Plan:Promoting Europe’s Unlikely Postwar Recovery, includes many interactive features that make the presentation come alivewith visually and historically rich embedded files obtained from the Foundation’s extensive proprietary archives.

The second book, In Search of a Usable Past: The Marshall Plan in Postwar Reconstruction Today, was written by Dr.Barry Machado and was published by the Foundation as a paperback volume in 2007 following a series of meetings toidentify practical features of the still-popular and relevant post-World War II program that restored the economies ofWestern Europe.

Both books are available at Apple iTunes books also. Appreciating the opportunity now available throughadvanced computer technologies, the Foundation intends to publish more history and leadership-related iBooks.

For more information, contact Rick Drake at [email protected]


September 25-28, 2013The Society of Experimental Test Pilotswill host its 57th annual Symposium at theGrand Hotel and Convention Center inAnaheim, California. For details, contact theSymposium Chairman, Mr Bill Gray, by e-mail at [email protected], or via the Society’swebsite at www.setp.org/.

September 26-28, 2013Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Centerand the U.S. National Archives will co-hostthe Center’s annual conference at theNational Archive’s central facilities in down-town Washington, D.C. The theme of thisyear’s conference is “Vietnam: 1963.” Fordetails, visit the Center’s website at www.viet-nam.ttu.edu/events/2013_Conference/.

September 26-28, 2013The annual Northern Great PlainsHistory Conference features sessionssponsored by the Society for MilitaryHistory, and the Society works closely withthe Conference Program Chair to providethe strongest possible participation. Thisyear’s meeting will be held in Hudson,Wisconsin. For details, contact Dr MargretSankey at the Political Science Department,Minnesota State University Moorhead via e-mail at [email protected].

October 2-3, 2013The Armed Forces Communicationsand Electronics Association will host itsFall Intelligence Symposium on the NGACampus East in Springfield, Virginia. Thetheme of the classified Symposium is“Decision Advantage in a Changing World.”For more details, see the AFCEA website atwww.afcea.org/events/fallintel/13/wel-come.asp.

October 3, 2013The U.S. Naval Institutewill host its 2013Navy History Conference at the U.S. NavalAcademy in Annapolis, Maryland. Thetopic of this year’s conference is “The Past,Present, and Future of Human SpaceFlight,” and the panel will include speakerswho have been there and done that. Formore details, see the Institute’s website atwww.usni.org/events/2013-us-naval-histo-ry-conference.

October 4, 2013The National Aviation Hall of Fame willhost its annual dinner and enshrinementceremony for the latest four honorees to beplaced on its rolls at the National AviationHall of Fame Learning Center located adja-cent to the National Museum of the UnitedStates Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Oftenreferred to as “America’s Oscar Night ofAviation,” the black-tie ceremony is open tothe public. For more details, contact theNAHF at http://www.nationalaviation.org/.

October 5, 2013The National Museum of NavalAviation will celebrate its 50th anniver-sary with an evening gala to be held at theMuseum in Pensacola, Florida. For moredetails, see the Museum’s website atwww.navalaviationmuseum.org/news-and-events/161-50th-anniversary-of-the-nation-al-naval-aviation-museum.

October 7-9, 2013The American Astronautical Societywill offer its 6th annual Wernher vonBraun Memorial Lecture in Huntsville,Alabama. For details, see the Society’swebsite at astronautical.org/vonbraun.

October 8-11, 2013The Aviation Engine HistoricalSociety will hold its annual meeting inNottingham, England. Planned activitiesduring the event will include visits to theRolls-Royce Heritage Trust Collection, theImperial War Museum, and the Royal AirForce Museum. For details, see theSociety’s website at www.enginehistory.org/Convention/Convention2013.shtml.

October 9-13, 2013The Oral History Association will holdits annual meeting at The Skirvin HiltonHotel in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Thisyear’s meeting theme will be “HiddenStories, Contested Truths: The Craft of OralHistory.” For details, see the Association’swebsite at www.oralhistory.org.

October 10-13, 2013The Society for the History ofTechnology will hold its annual meetingin Portland, Maine. For more information,visit the Society’s website at www.history-oftechnology.org/shot2013cfp.html.

October 17-18, 2013The Center for Cryptologic Historywill host its 14th biennial CryptologicHistory Symposium in Laurel, Maryland.This meeting’s theme will be“Technological Change and Cryptology:Meeting the Historical Challenges.” Formore details, visit the Center’s website atwww.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/news/index.shtml.

October 27-30, 2013The Association of Old Crows will hostits 50th annual international symposiumand convention at the Marriott WardmanPark Hotel in Washington, DC. For addi-tional information, ping the Association’swebsite at www.crows.org/conventions/con-ventions.html.

October 30, 2013The Society for History in the FederalGovernment will present its annualRichard G. Hewlett lecture and dinner atClyde’s Gallery Place in Washington, DC.For more details, including the lecturespeaker and topic, visit the Society’s web-site at shfg.org/shfg/events/hewlett-lecture/.

November 21-22, 2013The Air Force Association will host theannual Global Warfare Symposium andAir Force Ball at the Century Plaza HyattRegency hotel in Los Angeles, California.For details, see the Association’s website atwww.afa.org.

November 21-23, 2013The National World War II Museumwillhost an international conference on WWIIentitled “1943: Victory in the Balance” at themuseum in New Orleans, Louisiana. Formore details, see the Museum’s website atww2conference.com/home/.

November 21-24, 2013The History of Science Society willhold its annual meeting in the WestinBoston Waterfront Hotel in Boston,Massachusetts. The meeting will markthe 100th anniversary of the Society’sjournal, Isis, one of the premier interna-tional journals in its field. For more infor-mation, see the Society’s website atwww.hssonline.org/.

Compiled byGeorge W. Cully


Coming Up, continued2014

January 2-5, 2014The American Historical Associationwill hold its 128th annual meeting inWashington, D.C. at the MarriottWardman Park, the Omni ShorehamHotel, and the Hilton Washington. Morethan 1,500 scholars will participate. Foradditional details, see the Association’swebsite at www.historians.org/annual/2014/index.cfm.

January 14-15, 2014The Association of the United StatesArmy will host its annual Army AviationSymposium & Exposition at the CrystalGateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia.For additional details, see the Association’swebsite at www.ausa.org/meetings/2014/Pages/Aviation.aspx.

February 11-13, 2014The U.S. Naval Institute and AFCEA willjointly host West 2014, the largest event onthe West Coast for communications, elec-tronics, intelligence, information systems,imaging, military weapon systems, aviation,and shipbuilding. The forum and exhibitionwill be held at the San Diego ConventionCenter in San Diego, California. For moredetails see the website at www.usni.org/events/2014-west-conference.

February 20-21, 2014The Air Force Association will host itsannual Air Warfare Symposium at theRosen Shingle Creek Conference Center inOrlando, Florida. For more information, seethe Association’s website at www.afa.org.

March 4-6, 2014The American Astronautical Societywill present its 52nd Robert H. GoddardMemorial Symposium in Greenbelt,Maryland. For details, see website athttp://astronautical.org/goddard.

April 10-13, 2014The Organization of AmericanHistorians will host its annual meetingat the Atlanta Hilton in Atlanta, Georgia.This year’s meeting theme is “CrossingBorders.” For more info, see website atwww.oah.org/news/20130709_2014OAH.html#sthash.QhJ8SrNs.dpuf.

Readers are invited to submit listings ofupcoming events Please include the nameof the organization, title of the event,dates and location of where it will be held,as well as contact information. Send list-ings to:

George W. Cully3300 Evergreen HillMontgomery, AL 36106(334) 277-2165E-mail: [email protected]

26th Bomb Group Oct 2-6, 2013,Fairborn OH. Contact: Jan Demuth

3486 Weavers Ft Jefferson Rd,Greenville, OH [email protected]

511th Aircraft Control & WarningGroup, 613th,847th, 848th AC&W and39th Air Div. Oct 2-5, 2013, Nashville,TN. Contact: Don Simmons

704 S. Grove Rd,Richardson, TX [email protected]

91st Air Refueling Squadron. Oct 2-6,2013. Fairborn, OH. Contact: Marvin Hasso

P.O. Box 867,Pinconning, MI [email protected]

MacDill Flyers. October 4-6, 2013.Fairborn, OH. Contact:

Gene Stevens3380 Greenburn RoadBeavercreek, OH 45434(937) [email protected]

Ranch Hands Vietnam Assn. October10-13, 2013. Fairborn, OH. Contact:

Jack Spey4245 South Rome WayHurricane, UT 84737(435) [email protected]

512th Antique Aircraft RestorationGroup. Oct 16-18, 2013, Fairborn, OH.Contact: Tom Corbeil

255 West Pebworth Rd,Magnolia, DE [email protected]

18th Fighter Wing Assn. Oct 16-20,2013. St Louis, MO. Contact: Tom Chapman

7039 S. Clay St,Littleton, CO [email protected]

F-4 Phantom II Society. Oct 21-25,2013, Fairborn, OH. Contact: William Crean

842 Waterford Dr,Delran, NJ [email protected]

12th TFW (Vietnam), 12th FEW/SFW(Korea) 12th FTW (Randolph), 306thFTG (12 FTW) USAFA, 479th FTG (12FTW) Pensacola. Apr 23-26, 2014,Pensacola, FL. Contact: “E J” Sherwood

[email protected]

Vietnam/Thailand Air Force “SkyCops.” Apr 11-13, 2014, Fairborn, OHContact: Pat Houseworth

540 West Livingston St,Celina, OH [email protected]

4950th Test Wing/Aria 328 Memorial.May 6, 2014, Fairborn, OH. Contact: BobBeach

1616 Ridgeway Dr,Springfield, OH [email protected]

95th Bomb Grp Mem Foundation.May 7, 2014, Dayton, OH. Contact: MegBrackney

216 Northwood Dr,Yellow Springs, OH [email protected]

384th Bomb Group. Oct 16-19, 2014,Fairborn, OH. Contact: Frank Alfter

1306 Adams Way,Beavercreek, OH [email protected]

496th Tactical Fighter Squadron. Oct23-26, 2014, Fairborn, OH. Contact: J.Kevin Roll

677 Todd Trail,Newport News, VA [email protected]

Reunions

List provided by: Rob Bardua National Museum of the U.S. Air ForcePublic Affairs Division1100 Spaatz StreetWPAFB, OH 45433-7102(937) 255-1386


From the President

Dear Members:

As always, let me thank you for the part each of you has played in the history andlegacy of air power across the decades, and for your generous support of theFoundation. The Air Force Historical Foundation will present its highest awards onWednesday, November 13th, in ceremonies at the Air Force Memorial and ArmyNavy Country Club. More information, plus an opportunity to purchase tickets orotherwise support the event, will come to you by mail. Here are the major awardsand the winners:

The James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle Award—recognizing a U.S. Air Force unit’ssignificant contributions to air power history—will be presented to the 720thSpecial Tactics Group of Hurlburt Field, Florida. The 720th’s roots extend backto World War II. Following early disastrous air drops in the European theater, aircommando teams were trained to be” first there” behind the lines to control theinfiltration of follow on forces. 6,000 miles to the east shadow operations by air com-mandos in the Burmese jungles helped write the book on the integration of air-power into unconventional warfare. The skill and bravery of this unit’s CombatControl teams and Pararescue Jumpers have become legendary both inside the mil-itary establishment and indeed to the general public. The unit’s reputation hasgrown greatly through sustained superior performance in all subsequent conflicts.The 720th truly lives up to its motto “These Things We Do, that Others May Live.”

The General Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz Award—recognizing an individual forhis or her lifetime of contribution to the making of United State Air Force history—will be presented to General John A. Shaud, USAF (Ret). General Shaud’s dis-tinguished military career spans the Cold War Period to the modern Gulf conflicts,including combat duty as an RF–4 pilot in Vietnam. He commanded a wing, two dif-ferent air divisions, and the Air Training Command. He held significant staff posi-tions at Headquarters Air Force, and retired from active duty as the Chief of Staff,


Supreme Headquarters Allied Command Europe. In retirement General Shaud has remainedtotally active in directing the Air Force Aid Society, serving as the Executive Director of the AirForce Association, and Director of the Air Force Research Institute.

The Major General I. B. Holley Award—honoring an individual for his or her sustained, sig-nificant contribution to the documentation of Air Force history during a lifetime of service—will bepresented to Jacob “Jack” Neufeld. From 1964 to 1966, Jack served on active duty as a combatengineer officer at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, and Ft. Belvoir, Virginia. He began his service with theU.S. Air Force in 1967 as a staff historian with the Eighth Air Force at Westover AFB, Massachusetts.In 1970, he joined the Office of Air Force History in Washington, D.C. Over time, he served as chieffor each of its branches. In 1985 he was named Chief Historian of the Air Staff and in 1992 was pro-moted to Director of the Center for Air Force History. His last civil service position was as Directorof the USAF Historical Studies Office. He has been the Editor of the journal Air Power History since1993, sustaining that journal’s reputation as the premier periodical documenting the history of airand space power. Jack holds B.S. and M.A. degrees in history from New York University. He did hisdoctoral studies at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), majoring in the history of theProgressive Era. He is the author, co-author, and editor of dozens of Air Force histories, includingThe Development of Ballistic Missiles in the U.S. Air Force, War in the Pacific, Coalition Air Warfarein the Korean War, the Vietnam War; Life in the Rank and File; The Makers of the United States AirForce, and The United States Air Force: Founding Centennial and 60th Anniversary. Most recentlyhe co-authored an eBook, for the Marshall Foundation, titled The Mons Pocket, detailing the combatof the 368th Fighter Group in World War II.

I noted in my previous message to you that the Foundation has been working on several ini-tiatives that would help achieve our main goal of a stable financial future. Principal among theseis the intiative to join forces with the Air Force Association. Its Board of Directors has agreed toexamine the possibility of joining forces with the Air Force Historical Foundation, in order to takeadvantage of various synergies to sustain and promote mutual support of our Air Force. As of thismoment these talks between our organizations are ongoing, and I hope to report progress to youin the near future.

As we seek innovative ways to make our organization more useful, attract a wider audienceand reach broader participation, we need your feedback to guide us; it is of the utmost impor-tance to our success. Please, let us know your thoughts.

Dale W. Meyerrose, Maj Gen, USAF (Ret)President and Chairman of the Board


Reserve the date!

November 13, 2013

Army Navy Country Club

The Air Force Historical Foundation

Annual Banquet and

Awards Ceremony

Details to follow by mail

AFSA AFSAT H E A I R F O R C E S E R G E A N T S A S S O C I AT I O N

One Mission; One Voice! AFSA is your “ACE” in the Sky! As one of the nation’s most trusted non-profit organizations, the Air Force Sergeants

Association (AFSA) Advocates, Communicates, and Educates law makers and the Pentagon on behalf of the Total Force (Air Force Active Duty, Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve

Command) enlisted members, retirees, veterans and thier families. As your ACE in the Sky, our five targets: Health Care, Military and Veterans Programs, Educational Benefits, Air National

Guard & Air Force Reserve Issues, Military Families and Survivors.

AFSA is a proud supporter of the Air Force Historical Foundation!

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POW Correction

The paper by Jacob Neufeld andGeorge M. Watson. is a ground breakingseminal study of an aspect of military his-tory aspect very seldom discussed.

However, I do wish to re-calibrate astatement, which on the surface is 100 per-cent correct, but which, for some readersunaware of Polish-Russian World War IIhistory, may be misleading.

The authors write that the Soviets inWorld War II held more than a 1.5 millionprisoners : Poles, Germans, and Japanese.And that in the early 1950s there werestill foreign prisoners, including Poles,Germans , Italians, etc.

A reader unaware of Polish-Russianhistory during the Second World Warmight construe that these Poles hadfought with the Germans and against theRussians. Nothing can be further from thetruth .

In fact, the Polish prisoners in Russiain the early years of the war had been cap-tured when the Soviets, broke the existingnon-aggression treaty with Poland, and incollusion with the Germans invadedPoland. The majority of these, as theauthors write, were murdered in placeslike Katyn.

After the war members of the PolishUnderground [Home Army or AK] whowere loyal to the Polish Government inLondon and had fought against theGermans and in 1944 even attempted toassist the Russians were surrounded,arrested and unless they agreed to join theSoviet officered and sponsored “Polish”communist Army were sent to Soviet pris-ons bereft of any Red Cross or other help.

Michael Alfred Peszke, MD, Wakefield,Rhode Island

Operation Restore Hope

John L. Cirafici’s article on OperationRestore Hope in Somalia brought backmemories

In October 1992, I traveled with theAir Force to Mombasa, Kenya, as a corre-spondent, to fly humanitarian missionsinto Somalia. Home base was at MoiInternational Airport in Mombasa, where632 airmen operated sixteen C–130EHercules airlifters in an ad hoc unit thatbrought together members of the Air ForceReserve and Air National Guard.

On November 2, 1993, I flew fromMombasa to Beiet Uen, Somalia, in a C–130EHercules (68-10498) and returned later in theday abroad another C–130E (63-7894). Twodays earlier, a C–130E, carrying Air ForceTimes reporter Andrew Compan, among oth-ers, was hit by a small arms round.

A Czech-built ZSU-37, four-barrel,37mm antiaircraft gun greeted our arrivalBeiet Uen—it could have downed aHercules at any time—and all the men weobserved had AK-47s. We heard a lot ofshooting nearby. Our flight and many oth-ers were made possible by a shaky three-way truce among relief organizations, theAir Force, and regional warlords.

Sources told me the United Stateshad two options—“go big” or “go home.” Inmy view, both were wrong. Our modestpresence, vulnerable as we were, seemedto be right sized in proportion to U.S. inter-ests, capabilities, and resources.

I was in Somalia on U.S. election day,November 2, 1992, when a challengerdefeated an incumbent president, who amonth later ordered 18,000 U.S. troops

(not 1,800 as suggested in the article) intoSomalia. The “go big” option endedOperation Provide Relief (August28-December 8, 1992) and began OperationRestore Hope. As everyone now knows, ourcommitment to Somalia grew rapidly tomore than 28,000 troops, stumbled badlyduring the “Blackhawk Down” era ofOctober 1993—a shining moment of hero-ism by Americans in battle—and ulti-mately failed. None of our missions in thattrouble-torn country can be attributed toU.S. military members, who conductedthemselves with competence and courage.Still, today Somalia is only marginally bet-ter governed and its people only marginal-ly better off than twenty-one yeas ago.

Robert F. Dorr, Oakton, Virginia

Letters


Darrell Whitcomb’s “Flying The FirstMission of Desert Storm” is 2012’s BestArticle in Air Power History

This year’s winner of the Best Articleaward is Col. (USAF, Retired) DarrellWhitcomb. Darrell has written many booksand articles on aviation and the Air Force.Earlier, he served in Southeast Asia as a for-ward air controller, then as an Air Forceinstructor pilot, and as a pilot for DeltaAirlines. In this article, he looks at the initialair power action of the Gulf War, in 1991.

The first actions of the Gulf War in1991 were a series of air attacks designedto destroy Saddam Hussain’s ability tocontinue his occupation of Kuwait and tofight the Coalition forces organizedagainst him. In order to do that, the Iraqiair defenses had to be defeated, and thefirst step in that process—and the start ofthe war—was to shut down the two earlywarning radar stations immediately priorto the beginning of the war. Surprise wasessential in this task and the best optionwas to use U. S. Army Special Forces (SOF)in a surprise attack of the two stations toput them out of use. One serious opera-tional problem stood in the way: theArmy’s SOF helicopters lacked the nightnavigation capability to bring them to thetargets at very low level and undetected.The Air Force SOF’s MH–53J Pave Lowhelicopters and their crews, however, hadmore than enough ability to reach theradar stations undetected by flying at lessthan 50 feet above ground and using ter-rain following tactics. The trick becamecombining the Air Force SOF’s navigationskills with the Army SOF’s firepower.

One Air Force officer assigned to GeneralNorman Schwarzkopf’s strategic planningcell had put forward the idea of using ArmySOF teams, and leading the teams to the siteswith Air Force Pave Low helicopters. Thusdeveloped Task Force Normandy, designed forfast, low-level entry into Iraq with withering-ly destructive firepower to arrive at the radarsites undetected, destroy them, and open theway through the otherwise heavy air defens-es of Iraq for the Coalition’s air striking force.In addition to the obvious advantage of com-bining precise navigation and destructive fire-power, the Air Force SOF crews could providerescue for any Army team that might be shotdown, and they could even refuel the ArmySOF helicopters on the ground should thatbecome necessary. Our winning article is anengrossing story of how flawlessly this mis-sion unfolded based on the skills of the AirForce aircrews and the capabilities of the PaveLows.

Mr. Whitcomb’s winning article is oneof a number of first-rate pieces thatappeared in Air Power History during2012. Following closely in the scoring were

William Cahill’s “Imaging the Empire: The3rd Photographic Reconnaissance Squa -dron in World War II.” Also strong in thejudges’ view, and very close in the scoring,tied in the scoring actually, was “TheOther Atomic Bomb Commander: Col. CliffHeflin and his ‘Special’ 216th AAF BaseUnit,” by Darrell F. Dvorak, and WilliamCahill’s “The Korean War and theMaturation of SAC Reconnaissance.”

This year’s judges for the best articlecompetition were all members of the AirForce Historical Foundation’s Board ofDirectors: Ken Alnwick; Charles L.Johnson; and Bill Strandberg.

Air Power History’s 2012 Best BookAward

Richard K. Smith and R. Cargill Hall arethe authors of Five Down, No Glory, selectedas the best air power history work for the year2012, thus winning the Air Force HistoricalFoundation’s Best Air Power History Bookaward for the year. The award is given annu-ally after a three-judge panel carefully consid-ers and rates all of the books that werereviewed in the Foundation’s journal, AirPower History, during the year. Criteria forselection call for the book to be of high quality,contribute to an understanding of air power,and for the author or authors to have had aconnection to the U.S. Air Force or be a mem-ber of the Air Force Historical Foundation.

This team of two experienced histori-ans produced a thoroughly engaging storyof Frank Tinker, an American pilot, gradu-ate of the Naval Academy, who, after ashort stint with the Army Air Corps in fly-ing training and then as a Naval aviator,flew as a contract pilot for the SpanishRepublican air force during the SpanishCivil War of the late 1930s. In Spain,Tinker associated with Ernest Heming -way, got to know many of the Soviet “vol-unteers” who also flew for the Republicancause, and became the top American ace.

R. Cargill Hall is Emeritus ChiefHistorian of the National ReconnaissanceOffice, and previously served as an histori-an at the Air Force History Office. He isthe author of Lunar Impact: A History ofProject Ranger, and Lightning OverBougainville: The Yamamoto MissionReconsidered. Richard K. Smith servedwith the U.S. Merchant Marine, then com-pleted degrees in history at the Universityof Chicago. Smith is the author of theaward-winning First Across! The U.S.Navy’s Transatlantic Flight of 1919.

The judges’ voting was very close,with Lt. Gen. George Loving’s Bully AbleLeader, his story of flying with the Fifth

Air Force during the Korean War barelybeing edged into second place. We had anumber of other fascinating books on thisyear’s nomination list, as well; all of themare worth reading.

A pair of books describes the adven-tures of two World War II B–24 crews, oneflying from a base in Italy, the other in thePacific. The Final Mission of Bottoms Uprecounts the story of Bottoms Up and itscrew, lost over former Yugoslavia; the crewbailed out at low altitude after a desperateattempt to save the airplane. The airplanecrashed in what is now Croatia. Some ofthe men were rescued, while the othersfinished the war in a German prison camp.In Finish Forty and Home, most of thecrew survived the necessary number ofmissions for return to the States, but theflying was hazardous, many of theirfriends were lost, as was one of their air-craft. The B–24 was a difficult plane to fly,and these two books are exceptional stud-ies of how the Air Force’s people completedtraining and coped with the constant pres-ence of death as they carried out their mis-sion tasks, and then how they readjustedwhen they got home. Both are well worthreading, and they should be read together.

Colonel Joe Kittinger’s Come Up andGet Me relates the life of a test pilot andone of the main participants in the AirForce’s high altitude balloon flight pro-gram of the 1950s that developed tech-niques for astronauts to use in mannedspace flights. For fifty years, Kittinger heldthe record for high altitude balloon flightand free fall jump from a balloon at102,800 feet. The free fall lasted for 4 min-utes 36 seconds, during which he reacheda speed of 614 mph. Kittinger was also thetechnical advisor on the record-breakingballoon ascent and bail out made by FelixBaumgartner in 2012 (that brokeKittinger’s altitude and free fall speedrecord). Come Up and Get Me is anenthralling book.

This year’s judges included Dr. MichaelRouland, a historian with the U.S. NavyHistorical Office in Washington, DC; Dr.Daniel Mortensen of the Air Force ResearchInstitute at Maxwell AFB, Alabama; andMr. Scott Shaw a research staff member atthe Institute for Defense Analyses inAlexandria, Virginia. These three had aparticularly difficult job, as several of thebooks considered scored highly.

I am most grateful to the three judges,who spent many hours on this task, and to theseveral authors and those who supported andadvised them during the time they spentresearching, writing, contemplating their pro-jects, and revising the texts.

The award will be presented at theannual Air Force Historical Foundation’sawards gathering in November.

Notices


The list of the remainder of the booksnominated for this award follows, and thejudges and I recommend all, as well as thosementioned above, to anyone who has aninterest in air power and the Air Force:

Fogg, Richard and Janet. Fogg in the Cockpit:Howard Fogg—Master Railroad Artist,World War II Fighter Pilot—WartimeDiaries, October 1943 to September1944.

Scearce, Phil. Finish Forty and Home: TheUntold World War II Story of B–24sin the Pacific.

Boyne, Walter J. How the HelicopterChanged Modern Warfare.

Kittinger, Joe and Craig Ryan. Come Upand Get Me: An Autobiography ofColonel Joe Kittinger.

Tambini, Anthony J. F–5 Tigers overVietnam.

Whitcomb, Darrel. Call-Sign Dustoff: AHistory of U.S. Army AeromedicalEvacuation from Conception toHurricane Katrina.

O’Connor, William B. Stealth Fighter, AYear in the Life of an F–117 Pilot.

Okerstrom, Dennis R. The Final Missionof Bottoms Up: A World War II Pilot’sStory.

Quinn, Chick Marrs. The AluminumTrail: How and Where They Died.

John F. Kreis, Chairman, PublicationsAwards Committee

The Two Air Forces’ Award

I wished to write to you and theBoard of the Air Force HistoricalFoundation to express my appreciation,having been selected as this year’s RoyalAir Force winner of the Two Air Forces’Award. I was presented the award lastweek in London at the annual generalmeeting of the Royal Air Force HistoricalSociety. To have been selected for theaward was very much unexpected, butthen to receive your kind letter of con-gratulations and the Two Air Forces’ tro-phy was a complete surprise. Indeed, Iwould be delighted to accept your offer ofa year’s free membership in yourFoundation.

The timing of the presentation wasalso a remarkable coincidence as I waspromoted into a new assignment just afew days earlier. Now, fulfilling the role ofinternational engagement group captainon the Air Staff, I find myself workingvery closely with the United States AirForce, whether with those personnel sta-tioned here in Britain, U.S. attaché staff inLondon or colleagues across the UnitedStates. It is clear even from my short timein the post, that the incredibly close work-ing relationship between the RAF and theUSAF is as strong and productive as ithas ever been.

So may I conclude by assuring youand the Board that my selection for the

award and your generous contribution ofthe trophy has spurred me on to ensurethat I seize every opportunity to furtherdevelop that already close relationshipbetween our air forces.

Group Captain N. Tucker-Lowe, DSO, MA,MCMI, RAF, Whitehall, London

Editor’s Note: Dated July 12, 2013, thisletter was addressed to Maj. Gen.Meyerrose, President of the Air ForceHistorical Foundation.

New commander takes charge of69th Reconnaissance Group

8/15/2013 - (Below, at left) Col. Phillip A.Stewart, 9th Reconnaissance Wing com-mander, hands off the 69th Reconnais -sance Group guidon to Col. LawrenceSpinetta during a change of command cer-emony Aug. 14, 2013, at the 3 Bay hangaron Grand Forks Air Force Base, NorthDakota. Spinetta replaced Col. J. ScottWinstead, who recently retired fromactive duty after 26 years of service. Col.Spinetta has volunteered his time to bethe Treasurer of the Air Force HistoricalFoundation in recent years. (U.S. Air Forcephoto/Staff Sgt. Susan Davis)


Col. George “Bud” Day, USAF (Ret.) (1925-2013)

Colonel Day served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. He diedonJuly 27, 2013 at the age of eighty eight.

Day was born February 24, 1925, in Sioux City, Iowa. In 1942 he enlisted in theU.S. Marine Corps and served thirty months in the North Pacific. After the war hejoined the U.S. Army Reserve, from 1946 to 1949, and received a commission from theIowa National Guard, went on active duty, and earned his wings at Webb AFB, Texas,in 1952. He served two tours in Korea as an F–84 pilot. He was an assistant profes-sor of AFROTC at St. Louis University, Missouri, from June 1959 to August 1963.

Day volunteered for a tour in Vietnam and in April 1967 he joined the 31stTactical Fighter Wing at Tuy Hoa AB. flying F–100s. Major Day was made comman-

der of Det. 1416 TFS at Phu Cat AB. Their F–100Fs were evaluated as Fast FACs (Forward Air Controllers), callsign Misty. On August 26, 1967, he was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese. Despite being badlyhurt, he nearly managed to escape and got to within two miles of a U.S. Marine firebase, but was recaptured andtortured. He shared a cell with U.S. Navy Lt. Commander and future Senator John McCain. Following his releasefrom prison in March 1973, after five years and seven months in captivity. he was reunited with his wife, Doris,and four children at March AFB, California. In March 1976, President Gerald Ford awarded Colonel Day theMedal of Honor for his personal bravery while a prisoner in North Vietnam. Day was also awarded the Air ForceCross Medal. He retired in 1977 to resume his law career. Day wrote two books detailing his experiences as aPOW: Return with Honor and Duty, Honor, Country. In 1996, Day filed a class action suit for breach of contractagainst the U.S. government on behalf of retirees who lost their medical care benefits at age sixty five and told toapply for Medicare. He won the case but lost in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Congress redressed the situation byestablishing the Tricare for Life Program.

Colonel Day was a member of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and of the Florida Republican Party. Hecampaigned for John McCain and was involved in the 527 Swift Vets and POWS for Truth.

Gen. John Pauly, USAF (Ret.) (1923-2013)

Gen. John Pauly was ninety at the time of his death on August 7, 2013, due to natur-al causes in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

He retired on August 1, 1980, after serving his last assignment as commanderAllied Air Forces, Central Europe and commander United States Air Forces in Europe.Pauly was graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1945,where he earned his commission and pilot wings. He next attended B–25 Mitchell andB–17 Flying Fortress transition training and junior officers staff school prior to report-ing to the 60th Troop Carrier Training Group, Munich, Germany in February 1946.

He later served there as an instructor at the Central Pilots School of USAFE andas assistant operations officer for the 11th Troop Carrier Squadron. General Pauly

went on to also serve during the Korean War, flying fifty-five night intruder combat missions, totaling 230 combathours in B–26 Marauder aircraft. After several stateside assignments he was appointed commander-in-chief ofUSAFE and AAFCE commander in August 1978.

During his career Pauly earned the rating of command pilot, with more than 6,000 flying hours.. His militarydecorations and awards include the distinguished Service Medal, with oak leaf cluster; Legion of Merit, with twooak leaf clusters; Air Force Commendation Medal; and from the Republic of Vietnam the Air Force DistinguishedOrder (2d class); and the Gallantry Cross, with Palm.

In Memoriam


Brig. Gen. Douglas Kinnnard USA (Ret.) (1921-2013)

Brig. Gen. Douglas Kinnard, died of pneumonia July 91, 2013, at a hospital inChambersburg, Pennsylvania. He was ninety-one.

A West Point graduate, he served in World War II, The Korean War and theVietnam War. A dissenter against the Vietnam War, he wrote eight books, including,The War Managers (1977) reporting the opposition of many American general officers.He was especially critical of the “body counting” as a measure of success. In 1948, heearned a Master’s degree in politics from Princeton University. He served with NATOas a staff assistant in France and commanded an artillery division in Germany beforehis assignment to Vietnam. In spring 1970, he led an incursion into Cambodia, whichsparked antiwar protests in the U.S. He retired from the military and returned to

Princeton to earn a Ph.D. He then embarked on a teaching career at the University of Vermont, the University ofOklahoma, the University of Richmond, and the Naval War College. In 1984, he served briefly as head of the Centerof Military History.

General Kinnard’s medals include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the DistinguishedFlying Cross, two awards of the Bronze Star, and four awards of the Air Medal. He is survived by his wife WadeTyree Kinnard and son, Frederick. (Photo courtesy of the University of Vermont.)

Maj. Gen. I. B. Holley Jr., USAFR (Ret.)(1919-2013)

Professor I.B. Holley Jr., of Duke University., died on August 19, 2013, at the age ofninety-four. Born in 1919, Holley earned his undergraduate degree at AmherstUniversity.

He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942, shortly after the attack on PearlHarbor and soon established himself as a superb aerial gunner instructor. Followingthe war, Holley joined the Air Force Reserve in 1947, rising to the rank of major gen-eral in 1976. In a succession of positions, in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force,as mobilization designee to the commander of the Keesler Technical Training Center,and from 1975 until his retirement in 1981 as mobilization designee to the comman-der of Air University, Professor Holley strove for excellence in education. During that

time he wrote several manuals on military procurement and worked with the Air Staff to improve training. Hehas lectured on military doctrine and technology before all four military branches of the U.S., the NATO staff col-lege in Rome, and the Royal Air Force.

At Duke University, he touched the lives and academic careers of thousands of students. In numerous otherways—as a member of advisory panels and committees on ROTC and Air Force and NASA history, lecturing toAir University faculty and Air Staff research associates on research methods, training other officers for the Ph.D.in military history, presenting papers and speaking on military topics from leadership to space operations. Formore than sixty years he has helped give the Nation’s youngest service an appreciation for its rich and variedpast. Few individuals have contributed more to the study of history in the U.S. Air Force than Dr. Holley. In 1968,he served on the Townsend Hoopes Committee, which recommended creating the Office of Air Force History.

From the beginning of his scholarly career, Holley has been concerned with the influence of thought on mili-tary organization and on war. His book, Ideas and Weapons (Yale University, 1953) , grew out of his studies at theend of world War II. It evolved into a dissertation at Yale University and has since become a classic of air powerhistory. In this work and his later writings, Holley has emphasized the crucial role doctrine plays in air forces.Equal in importance to content, he argued was the process in a military organization by which doctrine came tobe implemented. In 1982, Gen. Charles A. Gabriel, the Chief of Staff, called on the Air Force to continue the “studyof military history, combat leadership, the principles of war and, particularly, the applications of air power.”

In Memoriam


On October 17, 2007, The Air Force Historical Foundation established the Maj. Gen. I. B. Holley Award tohonor individuals who have made “a sustained significant contribution to the documentation of Air Force histo-ry during a lifetime of service.” Holley himself was the first recipient of the award.

He retired in 1989, but stayed active, serving on the editorial boards of Air Power History, the Journal ofLogistics, and Air & Space Power. He continued teaching undergraduates at Duke.

Part of this obituary is drawn from the Foreword to Ideas and Weapons, a 1983 new imprint of Dr. Holley's book published by AFCHO, in Washington, D.C.

Gen. David C. Jones, USAF (Ret.) (1921-2013)

General David Jones who served as Air Force Chief of Staff from 1974 to 1978, andthen Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1978 to -1982, died August 11, 2013at ninety-two from Parkinson’s. His tenure as Air Force Chief of Staff spanned an eraof austerity following the Vietnam War called the epoch of the “Hollow Force.” Jonesstressed readiness and modernization of weapon systems.

David Charles Jones was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota on July 9, 1921.Growing up in Minot North Dakota, he often rode his bicycle to the nearby airfieldand fantasized about becoming a combat pilot. Following graduation from the localhigh school he attended the University of North Dakota and Minot State College. Heleft college in April 1942 to join the U.S. Army Air Corps and received his commission

and his pilot’s wings in February 1943.After serving as a flying instructor in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, Lieutenant Jones was assigned to the

3d Emergency Rescue Squadron of the Fifth Air Force in Japan in 1945. He began as a unit pilot, flying Catalinaflying boats, and rose to command the squadron. He was promoted to captain in April 1946. From 1948 to 1949,Jones was a unit instructor and then assistant operation and training officer with the 2236th Air Force ReserveTraining Center, Godman Field, Kentucky. Also during this period, he attended the Air Tactical School at TyndallAFB, Florida, the Atomic Energy Course at Keesler AFB, Mississippi, and the Armed Forces Special WeaponsCourse at Sandia Base, New Mexico.

Jones was assigned to the 19th Bombardment Squadron at March AFB, California, in January 1950 and pro-moted to major in February 1951. During his three-and-one half years with the 19th, he rose to aircraft com-mander, then operations officer, and finally commander of the squadron. He flew more than 300 combat hoursover North Korea.. In May 1953, he transitioned from bombers to tankers, taking command of the 22d AirRefueling Squadron at March AFB. Promoted to lieutenant colonel in June 1953, he remained at March butreturned to bombers the following year as commander of the 33d Bombardment Squadron.

Jones next served at Headquarters, Strategic Air Command (SAC), Offutt AFB, Nebraska, during SAC’sbuild-up period. Assigned in September 1954 as an operations planner in the bomber mission branch, heremained there until January 1955, when Gen. Curtis E. Le May selected him as his aide. Promoted to colonel inApril 1957, Jones became director of materiel and later deputy commander of maintenance of SAC’s 93dBombardment Wing at Castle AFB, California. Following a stint at the National War College in 1960, Jones wasassigned to the Air Staff’s operations directorate for four years. As chief of the manned systems branch, heworked on the B–70 bomber project. He then served as deputy chief and chief of the Strategic Division. AfterF–100 and F–4 training, Jones assumed command of the 33d Tactical Fighter Wing. Eglin AFB, Florida, at itsactivation in 1965 and brought it to operational status.

Jones then served in key staff assignments with U.S. Air Forces Europe (USAFE). In October 1965 he becameUSAFE inspector general, responsible for inspecting units at more than ninety installations in ten countries. Hewas promoted to brigadier general in December 1965. In January 1967 he became USAFE chief of staff and, inJune, deputy chief of staff for plans and operations. He received his second star in November 1967.

In February 1969, Jones was assigned to Headquarters, Seventh Air Force, Ton Son Nhut Airfield, Republicof Vietnam, as deputy chief of staff for operations and became vice commander in June. Promoted to lieutenant

In Memoriam


general, he returned to SAC in August 1969 as commander of the Second Air Force, headquartered at BarksdaleAFB, Louisiana. In April 1971, General Jones returned to USAFE as vice commander-in-chief. He assumed com-mand of USAFE and the Fourth Allied Tactical Air Force in August and was promoted to general in September.In his North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) capacity as commander of the Fourth Allied Tactical Air Force,General Jones directed an international planning team that integrated central region air forces into a more cohe-sive organization. Key to that effort was his creation of a small operational and planning headquarters, AlliedAir Force, Central Europe.

Capping a career that had included operational and command positions in bomber, tanker, training, and tac-tical fighter units as well as headquarters staff, positions, General Jones became chief of staff of the Air Force inJuly 1974. A major theme throughout his tenure was “readiness.” He concluded that in any future conflict theUnited States was unlikely to enjoy the past luxury of long “acceleration lanes” in which “to mobilize, train, anddeploy the cutting edge of our combat capability.” He noted that because our non expansionist foreign policy tend-ed to concede the initiative to an aggressor, “we have to remain perpetually ready for a come-as-you-are conflict.”Therefore, to face the reality of a more ready and efficient if not austere Air Force, General Jones pursued a pol-icy of developing high-technology weapons systems. In addition, he reorganized Air Force command structure andsubstantially reduced headquarters staffs. He supported modernization with such systems as the F–15 andF–16, the A-10, and the EA-3A (AWACS). Much of the modernization program was focused on the European area,where the United States developed initiatives in response to Department of Defense and congressional interestfor an increase in the capability of NATO.

After four years as chief of staff of the Air Force, General Jones became President Jimmy Carter’s nomineeto the ninth chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Jones presided over the JCS during a period ofincreasing Soviet military power and the emergence of militant Islam as a threat to pro-Western regimes in thePersian Gulf region. During his tenure as chairman, defense funding increased especially under PresidentRonald Reagan in response to the Soviet threat and continuing JCS advocacy of strategic force modernizationdespite progress on strategic arms control.

Jones accompanied President Carter to Vienna, Austria, in June 1979 for the final stage of the Strategic ArmsLimitation Treaty (SALT) II negotiations with the USSR. When the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan raised fearsthe Soviet forces there might move into neighboring Iran, where an anti-Western regime had taken power inearly 1979, President Carter created a rapid deployment force (RDF) for Southwest Asia to counter any suchattempt in the region. Subsequently, at the discretion of the secretary of defense, General Jones oversaw plan-ning for the transformation of the RDF into a regional unified command. The planning for what in 1983 becamethe U.S. Central Command was-essentially completed during his chairmanship.

Jones also oversaw the planning for the rescue of the U.S. embassy personnel taken hostage in November1979 by followers of the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, and he survived the criticism for that res-cue mission’s failure. During his second term as chairman, Jones worked to make the chairman, rather than thecorporate JCS, the principal military adviser to the President and the secretary of defense, arguing that such achange of the National Security Act would improve the quality and timeliness of military advice and the com-bined readiness and effectiveness of the nation’s combat forces. Jones argued for “an absolutely critical need tochange this nation’s structure of military leadership,” he told U.S. News & World Report in 1982. “Historically, theUnited States has not paid attention to military organization until a catastrophe occurs.”Jones continued hisefforts toward that goal after his retirement as chairman of the JCS and saw it come to fruition with the passageof the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act in 1986.

After retiring from the Air Force in 1982, Gen. Jones served on the boards of many corporations and nonprofitgroups, including USAir, U.S. Steel, General Electric, and the American Red Cross. He served as chief executiveof the National Education Corp. in 1989 and 1990.

Gen. Jones was a longtime resident of Arlington County Virginia. His wife of sixty-seven years, Lois TarbellJones, died in 2009. Survivors include three children, David Curtis Jones, Kathy Franklin, and Susan Coffin, asister, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

George M. Watson, Jr. Ph.D. Senior Historian Air Force Historical Studies Office (Retired)

In Memoriam

The mystery aircraft in our Summer Issue was theU.S. Army’s H–37 Mojave medium-lift helicopter.The Marine Corps used this rotorcraft under thedesignation HR2S.

The H–37 was a result of Korean War experi-ence, where transport rotorcraft first hauled troopsand cargo around the battlefield.

Resembling a mantis on steroids, the H–37derived its ungainly appearance from its mis-sion—to lift cargo, both internally and slungbeneath the fuselage—and by clamshell doors atthe front of the aircraft. Replete with a tail wheelthat dangled from the rear fuselage, the H–37looked like a committee had designed it. Still, sol-diers liked it, although it was not always belovedby maintainers.

“It burned oil almost as fast as it did gas,” saidretired Master Sgt. Cecil Shipp, of Augusta, Georgia,who worked H–37s in Korea in 1964. “We called it‘Shake, Rattle and Roll.’ Still, it was a workhorse. Itflew pretty well although it was a little sluggish whenmaneuvering.”

The HR2S-1 prototype for the Marine Corpsmade its first flight December 18, 1953. The H–37joined the Army the following year.

Eighty-eight feet long with a rotor diameter

just over 72 feet, the H–37 was the largest heli-copter outside the Soviet Union. It was powered bytwo 2,100-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2800Double Wasps, the same piston engines that pow-ered the World War II P-47 Thunderbolt. The H–37is credited with a maximum speed of 126 miles perhour.

The lift capacity of the H–37 was the reason forits existence and the reason it was replaced whenthe more robust CH–47 Chinook came along in theearly 1960s. Literature about the helicopter pro-claimed that it could carry two Jeeps, a 105-mm.howitzer, 26 combat troops, or 24 medical litterpatients. In practical terms, any of these loads wasmore than it could carry very far.

The career of the H–37, re-named the CH–37 in1962, was truncated by the arrival of new heli-copters in inventory, particularly the Chinook, andby the advent of the gas turbine engine, which wasmore efficient and economical than piston power.Some veterans recall that the cost of operating theH–37, relative to other choppers, was close to beingprohibitive.

Marines and soldiers began retiring theirCH–37s in the mid-1960s. Today, no airworthyexample exists but a handful remain as museumdisplay items, including one at the Army’s museumat Fort Rucker, Alabama.

Our follow-up photo from Shipp depicts ArmyCH–37A 57-1655 in a hover, wearing the verticalyellow stripes that identify an aircraft flying intothe Joint Security Area at Panmunjom, whereKorean War armistice negotiations continue today.

Our “History Mystery” winner is Earl Lock ofLexington, Kentucky—the only reader to win thiscontest three times in its 24-year history. His prizeis a copy of the just-published book “Mission toTokyo,” a history of B–29 Superfortress crews inWorld War II.

Responding to several reader requests to make thiscontest easier (this is the fun part of the magazine,remember), we’ll challenge you this time around towrite a sentence about our new “History Mystery”aircraft. Remember the rules:

1. Submit your entry via e-mail [email protected]. Entries may also be sent viapostal mail in any format to Robert F. Dorr, 3411Valewood Drive, Oakton VA 22124.

2. Write a sentence about the aircraft shownhere. Include your address and telephone number.One contest entrant had to be disqualified this timearound because she did not include a phone num-ber.

3. A winner will be randomely chosen from thecorrect entries and will receive an aviation book.

And let’s get serious about those historicaltreasures in your attic or basement. Some readers

say they just don’t remember where their colorslides are. That’s not a good way to assure thepreservation of history. Dig out your slide or snap-shot of a rare aircraft and lend it to Air PowerHistory for this contest.

ThisIssue’sMysteryPlane

History Mysteryby Robert F. Dorr

AIR POWERHistory / FALL 201368

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