FLYING IN GERMANY
“A” Company, 8th Aviation Battalion
© 2010
By Brigadier General (ret) Joseph W. (Buck) Camp, Jr.

Well, now we get to the good part, ‘cause flying was what it was all about!  There have been a few extended periods of fun in my life, and flying in Germany was one of the best of those.  But as happens with many things in life, I didn’t realize at the time how good it really was and soon enough to fully appreciate it.  And how much I’d learn from it…..

Finthen Army Airfield was built by the Germans and had been seized and occupied by the French during the end of World War II.  When I arrived, it was the home of the 8th Aviation Battalion headquarters, the aviation arm of the 8th Infantry Division (Mechanized); and we were A-Company, the “airmobile company” with 27 CH-34C Choctaw helicopters.  It had a 1575 HP radial engine that was installed at an angle in the front of the helicopter, and each bird could carry 18 troops and a crew of three (pilot, co-pilot and a crew chief); in practice, with a full load of fuel, we normally carried only 12 or so maximum.  During preflight inspection, we accessed the engine compartment by opening the large “clamshell” doors in the front.

B Company was the “General Support Company” located in the town of Bad Kreuznach about 35 km by road from Finthen.  BK (as we referred to it) was the headquarters of the 8th Mechanized Division commanded by MG Joe Russ, but more about him in a later story.  B Company had UH-1B helicopters (the “B-model Huey”), a few U8 Beaver fixed wing airplanes, and probably one U21 twin engine airplane for support to the Division headquarters.  And one of the pilots in B Company was an individual who would later become a well-known celebrity in the entertainment industry, CPT Kris Kristofferson.  

We all knew Kris just as a regular guy whose Dad had been a two-star General in the Air Force, and he led a three-man group (ala the Kingston Trio back then) who played guitars and sang (gratuitously) at a lot of Unit parties and social functions in the Battalion.  Little did any of us recognize what he’d do later….  Kris was a Huey helicopter pilot, and he and I would fly to the same areas from time to time, him carrying General Officers and me transporting troops.  One particular flight was a “seminal event,” and what a fateful time it was.  

One of the principal missions we had in A Company was to periodically carry and drop paratroopers, members of the two battalions of the 509th Airborne Infantry (from the 8th Inf Div’s Airborne Brigade).   But the primary aircraft used by the 509th were C-119s flown by the 17th Air Force whose headquarters were at Ramstein Air Base (AB).  The 17th was commanded by MG John K. Hester, a highly decorated Air Force officer (World War II and Korea) with over twenty five years service, and he was a good friend of our two-star commander, MG Russ.  The Army had established a new “jump school” at Wiesbaden AB, one of the only places outside the United States that a US soldier could learn to jump out of a perfectly good and flyable aircraft to “earn his jump wings.”  The school was the pride and joy of MG Joe Russ; and since he and MG Hester were good friends, somewhere along the way he convinced MG Hester that, since Hester’s airplanes (the C-119’s) dropped Russ’ paratroops, and Russ had a fully accredited jump school at Wiesbaden, and jumping was very safe, and the school would only take six weeks, and he only had to jump five times to win his wings, and he’d be the only two-star command pilot in the Air Force who had earned his jump wings, and…..  He probably also told MG Hester he’d be a “candy-ass” if he didn’t.  So Hester signed up.

None of us ever knew the details; but based on later events, I suspect that MG Hester didn’t really take the time to go though the course the way all the Army “grunts” had to.  But before Kris and I ever met him, he had finished the training sessions and had completed four of the five jumps required for him to be awarded Army paratrooper wings.   That final jump is when Kris and I entered the picture. 

MG Hester’s last jump was to be a very carefully staged, choreographed, and publicized event.  He was to depart from Wiesbaden Air Base on a C-119 accompanied by MG Russ and the entire Division staff, including the two Assistant Division Commanders (both Brigadier Generals), and a couple of Division photographers.  I flew one of CH-34’s to Wiesbaden AB and met up with Kris who brought one of B Company’s Hueys.  The plan was for the whole gaggle of guys to jump at a well-known and safe drop zone referred to as “Dirmstein North,” basically a German farmer’s open field that the Army leased just south of Finthen and northeast of Ramstein AB.  I would carry all the General’s dress uniforms in my helicopter to the drop zone, and Kris would follow us in the Huey.  After all the guys had jumped, the Generals would get in the Huey and we’d follow Kris to Ramstein where they had a big celebration planned at the Officer’s Club.  After meeting with MG Hester and MG Russ in a hangar at Wiesbaden, doing the usual “grip and grin,” we loaded the uniforms and other gear, and our two helicopters headed for Dirmstein, about a thirty-minute flight.  

It was a nice but slightly hazy day with no wind, ideal conditions for jumping out of airplanes (I guess!).  We had been on the ground about forty five minutes when we heard the drone of the C-119 engines approaching from the east.  The jump was to be a classic “static line” jump from about 1200 feet above the ground --- strictly functionary and safe for MG Hester’s last jump (ever!).  On the first pass over the drop zone only the “wind dummy” jumped, a Master Jumper whose job was to make sure they were reading the wind speed and direction correctly.  Since there was virtually no wind, that jump was almost straight down, and his landing was picture-perfect.  On the next pass over the site, the entire Division staff jumped, including the Generals, their Aides, the rest of the staff, and of course, the Division photographers.  It couldn’t have been scripted better; several of them landed on their feet running, and a couple of enlisted men quickly grabbed the General’s chutes as they landed so they didn’t even have to pick them up.  The Generals were all dressed in brand new orange aviator flight suits that had just been received in Germany – we pilots hadn’t even been issued them yet! 

It shouldn’t have been easier for MG Hester.  For a static line jump the jumper simply hooked his strap on the inside of the aircraft, and when the Jumpmaster gave the GO, he jumped straight out the open door on the side of the airplane.  The strap that was attached to the aircraft then tightened as the jumper fell, and as it pulled the chute out of the pack, the chute rapidly opened, and the jumper simply drifted to the ground.  Piece of cake…at least I’m sure that’s what they told MG Hester.  

The C-119 came around for its last pass, and MG Hester was to be the only jumper.  The Army Generals were ready, the Aides were ready, the photographers were in place…..and here comes the C-119 approaching the drop zone.  At 1200 feet you can almost see the eyes of the guy standing in the door, and Kris and I stood side by side right behind the Division photographers (there were three of them!) as MG Hester jumped.  Now neither Kris nor I were “airborne qualified,” but it looked to us like General Hester just hooked his heels on the door threshold, then just “rolled out” in a forward somersault (instead of “jumping”).  The result was that he was almost upside down when the chute opened, and he ended up with (what we later learned was called) an “inverted Mae West,” with parachute stringer lines 16 and 17 over the inverted canopy, forming what looked like a brassiere instead of the canopy of a properly-functioning parachute.  With the Mae West General Hester was coming down a little faster than he should, but in that condition he might have only broken his leg when he hit the ground.  We were close enough that we could see the panic in his face.  Suddenly, somebody on the ground yelled, “Pull your reserve,” meaning his reserve parachute, which was worn in the front over the chest.  His altitude was really too low to do that effectively; but either he hadn’t learned that in training, or he was just reacting to a panic suggestion.  And when the reserve chute began to come out of its pack, instead of grasping it and throwing it away from him (as they teach in the standard jump course), he just let it billow up in front of his face and into the inside of the main canopy, stealing precious air from the main chute.  He then dropped like a rock, striking the ground going slightly backward, hit on his heels, fell backward hard, and the back of his helmet hit the ground first and apparently cracked the back of his skull. 

Well, as he soon as he hit the ground, you can’t imagine how all hell broke loose.  While everybody else ran toward General Hester, I turned to Kris and quietly (but distinctly) said, “We need to get some blades turning!”  We both hustled to our respective helicopters, started the engines, and waited.  It seemed like forever, but they finally put General Hester on a stretcher in Kris’ Huey, a medic climbed in, and off they went.  The three Army Generals got in my helicopter, and we took off following Kris to the Wiesbaden Air Force hospital.  The Generals in my helicopter changed clothes on the way, shucking the orange flight suits and putting on their Class A (dress) uniforms.

Well, Kris and I were immediately on the radio declaring an emergency and getting permission to enter Frankfurt and Wiesbaden’s airspace on a priority basis; that was the only time I was ever allowed to fly directly into a hospital area, especially with such a large and noisy aircraft.  The medical personnel met Kris’ helicopter and took General Hester off on a stretcher; and General (four-star) Dissosway, the Air Force Commander in Europe who had been in a meeting at the hospital, met my aircraft that was carrying General Russ and his entourage --- he did not look happy.  Kris and I didn’t even pretend to start turning off the engines; and soon as they all were clear of our aircraft, we immediately departed the hospital area and returned to our respective airfields.  What a day!

General Hester lived about two weeks in a coma, then died.  The announcement of his death was published in the Stars and Stripes, our local military newspaper, and they commented that his wife was from Shreveport. Louisiana, about forty miles from Bradley where I grew up.  Here was a senior Air Force general, commander of a numbered Air Force, probably “on his way up,” and his life and career were cut short because of what we all saw as an ego trip.  What a waste!  

A later article in the newspaper summarized it like this:

“WIESBADEN, Germany Major General John K. Hester, Commander of the U.S. 17th Air Force, died today (7 April 1965) of brain damage suffered in a parachute jump.  Hester, 48, had been in a coma since the accident April 2, 1965. Hester was injured when he landed with a partly inverted chute after jumping from an altitude of 1,250 feet Doctors performed emergency surgery to relieve pressure and remove a clot from the brain's surface, but Hester never regained consciousness. 
Hester had attended jump school to better understand the Air Force role in providing support for the Army.  The fatal jump was the final one in a series of five [required to earn his US Army jump wings].”

Occasionally, we had some “special missions” that required us to be away from Finthen for a few days.  One of those was to support the Army Security Agency (ASA), the guys who had an array of antennas and devices to listen in on the “bad guys.”  One such site was near the town of Kassel, Germany. which was north of Frankfurt up in the British Zone where ASA had several “antenna farms” and “listening posts” in the area.  There was an Army Flight Detachment, consisting of one Major, a helicopter and one fixed wing aircraft at the Kassel airport supporting ASA over a rather large territory.  Different aviation units often provided his backup.  So when the Major went on vacation during the winter of 1965, our unit received a mission requirement to support his ASA unit while the Major was out.  Mickey Bohl and I were selected to take one of our birds to Kassel for ten days.  

The day Mickey and I left Finthen, the weather was less than marginal and deteriorating rapidly.  Of course, neither of us was instrument rated, so we (as usual) picked our way “along the valley route” all the way to Kassel, never getting over 500 feet above the ground.  When we landed at Kassel, the weather finally closed in and the airfield was closed.  Since we didn’t have any major US military units in the Kassel area, there were no BOQs, so the Major had arranged for us to stay in a German Gasthaus, basically a small hotel adjacent to the airfield.  He met us, gave us a short briefing and some telephone numbers, and said adios.  We were looking forward to flying in new areas, meeting new people, doing some “spook” work. 

Well, what happened over the next ten days was --- absolutely nothing!  The weather stayed “below VFR minimums,” which meant we couldn’t fly at all.  We’d get up every morning, put on our flight suits, check the weather, have breakfast, check the weather again, call the office, check the weather, and so on.  There were missions that needed to be flown, but we couldn’t go anywhere.  The weather was about as bad as when I first arrived in Germany, and for the entire ten days it didn’t get any better.  During the day every day, between checking the weather, Mickey and I played cards, talked to the Gasthaus owner, drove to town for short periods….…but we didn’t drink any beer during the day, no matter how bad the weather.  We were always aware that the weather might begin to break, we’d need to fly, and flying after drinking would be suicide.

On the weekend the weather cleared somewhat, but we didn’t fly since the ASA personnel we supported didn’t work weekends!  We visited downtown Kassel, did some shopping, and then the weather closed in again!  The day the Major returned, the rain stopped and the fog lifted, and the next morning we packed up, checked out, and flew home with the sun shining.  

One Sunday I was visiting out at the Finthen airfield and went up to the tower.  About the only missions we flew on weekends (except for infrequent field exercises) were to fly military paratroopers who were members of the military parachute club doing practice jumps.  It was pretty boring. Pick up the troops at the jump site, climb to altitude, let them jump, then land and pick up the next “stick.”  Often on the way home we’d fly low through the valleys just to make the day interesting.  Captain Homer Posey was the Command Pilot on the one mission that day, and he was returning to the airfield just as I got to the tower.  As I walked in, I heard Homer’s voice saying that he wanted to hover near the tower window and have the Air Traffic Controller look at the underside of his helicopter before he tried to land.  As Homer hovered, we saw that his helicopter didn’t have a tail wheel!  Apparently, coming back up the Nahe River valley, Homer was flying way too low over some farmer’s field, struck a fence with the tail wheel at about 60 knots, the helicopter pitched violently down in front, and the tail wheel ended up in the farmer’s field!   The fuselage of the CH-34 is 56 feet long, and if Homer hit the tail wheel hard enough to knock it off, it really must have been a violent “pitch-down” in the cockpit.

I quickly left the tower, went into the hangar and found a wooden Coca Cola case which I turned on its side and held under the tail of the helicopter.  Homer put the front two wheels on the ground first, then lowered the tail slowly as I held the Coke case under the tail.  It worked just like a jack.  The farmer brought the tail wheel to the airfield on Monday, some settlement was made for his fence (and mental anguish, I’m sure!), and the mechanics reattached the tail wheel, and we were back in business.  Of course, no accident or incident report was ever filed! 

One of our routine missions was picking up elements of the 1/509 and 2/509 Airborne Battalions, part of our 8th Infantry Division (Mechanized), at one field site and dropping them off at another.  Most of the time everything went smoothly.  But sometimes the weather was bad and we couldn’t fly at all, sometimes the Infantry guys gave us the wrong coordinates for pickup (which means we couldn’t find them) or the wrong coordinates for their drop-off (which means they didn’t know where they were when the exited our helicopters), but we almost always accomplished the assigned mission.  Except once.  We were given a set of coordinates and the requirement to pick up five squads of men, a total of about 50 people.  Our aircraft could theoretically carry 18 troops plus a crew of three, but because of power limitations and local regulations 12 troops were the most we ever carried at a time, especially if they were carrying their weapons and personal gear.  This particular mission had six aircraft assigned with Mickey Bohl in the lead and me and CWO Larry Awrey (one of my best friends and probably the best pilot we had in the unit!) right behind, plus four more helicopters behind us.  We found the field site and we landed “in trail” (that is, in a line one behind the other), but the area was quite small and there were some high tension power lines crossing our takeoff path on top of a slight rise about 200 feet in front of Mickey’s lead aircraft.  We were also headed slightly downwind, not a good situation, one that normally required that we all turn around, but there wasn’t room.  Once the troops were loaded, next thing we know Mickey (on the radio) said “Let’s go!” and began to take off…..or at least tried to.  He lifted off and started moving forward to gain “translational lift” (that is, flying rather than hovering), but he never got more than about 30 feet off the ground and we thought he’d barely cleared the high tension wires.  But he didn’t clear them high enough to prevent his rotor blade from striking one of the power line towers on his left.  Man, I’d never seen anything like it before and haven’t since, except in special effects in the movies.  In what seemed to be slow motion, blue flame shot out from the power lines, the helicopter main rotor blade sheared off in pieces. Rapidly splintering like so much balsa wood, then the helicopter turned on its left side and fell straight down!  It hit the ground tail first and the fuselage stayed in one piece with the engine still running, and (thank God!) there was no fire.  The helicopter lay on the ground seeming to thrash around in a “death rattle” for a few seconds until Mickey turned the magnetos off to kill the engine.  Miraculously, everyone got our without a scratch, except Mickey.  His co-pilot, in his haste to exit the aircraft (lying on its side), stepped on Mickey’s face and almost broke his jaw!  Well, there was an Accident Investigation Board, but they found that the accident was due to a wind gust or something, the crew was exonerated, and no one was found culpable.  Mickey and his crew were returned to flight status immediately.  Strangely enough about three weeks later we were sent to pick up a small contingent of the same troops who had been with us in the accident (remember, we were the “air transport unit” for the Battalions!).  As the first group got into Mickey’s ship, he recognized the senior sergeant leading the group, but he initially didn’t recognize Mickey.  After the man got in the helicopter, Mickey turned around in his seat, looked at him, and said “Boo!”  As you can imagine, it was all they could do to keep the Sergeant in the aircraft!  The flight went without a hitch…..that time!!!!!! 

In the Spring of each year, the small town of Ettlebruck in Luxembourg hosted an annual “General Patton Day” in honor of the World War II salvation of the town by General George S. Patton, Jr.  Back then the U. S. Army was always in attendance supporting the festivities.  In the Spring of 1965 our airmobile company from Finthen was required to send two of our CH-34C helicopters, one to give flight demonstrations and fly skydivers from our 8th Infantry Division, and the second for static display.   We took a minimum crew, two pilots for the demo/skydiving aircraft (because passengers, albeit military, would be involved) and only one pilot to ferry the static display to Luxembourg and return.  I drew the static display aircraft, and, since we were carrying no passengers, my crew chief was to fly co-pilot for me.

The first hitch came as the result of timing.  Apparently, the decision for us to participate was made at the last minute, since the mission requirement was actually given to our unit by a telephone call from Division Headquarters, and we had no written orders in hand when we left to fly to Luxembourg.  So the mission was done on a “VOCO,” or “Verbal Order of the Commander,” then Division Commander Major General Joe Russ (my ol’ friend from an different episode).   Besides the VOCO, Division Headquarters also related that they were making hotel reservations in Ettlebruck for all of us so we’d be sure and have quarters in the same hotel.  And, we were told that since this was a celebration, we might be required to wear our “Class A’s” (e.g., our “Dress Green” uniform) rather than just our usual flight suits while off duty and walking around the town.  So, being good soldiers, we complied.  

Our afternoon flight to Luxembourg was relatively short and uneventful.  Since my aircraft was only there for “static display,” the helicopter I had was a real “dog,” and on our return it was scheduled to go into “deep maintenance.”  It had only one, barely operable radio, some of the instrument lights didn’t work, and the VOR (primary navigation radio) was inoperative.  But since the engine was OK, and it was to be flown to Ettlebruck in formation with the other helicopter to just sit on the ground for four days then fly back to Finthen, the “technical deficiencies” were not seen as a problem…..but little did we know at that point.

There was no airport at Ettlebruck, so we landed in a large field near the town and close to the “Fest” (e.g., festival) tents erected by the locals.  We checked into the designated hotel (not the cheapest in town), and after a good meal accompanied by a few beers, we managed a good night’s sleep.  The next day the flight demo aircraft flew around the town and low over the field, and I think actually gave some of the Luxembourg civilian dignitaries a ride over the city in their aircraft.  By the end of the day, they had burned off a lot of fuel, and they planned to fly to Luxembourg City airport the next morning to refuel and return to Ettlebruck before the skydiving demonstration --- the skydivers were actually driving in from Germany late that afternoon.  But there was serious and unforeseen trouble on the horizon….

 The four-hour drive from Bad Kreuznach in Germany to Ettlebruck in Luxembourg was along a series of narrow, two lane, winding roads that were typical of the backroads in that part of the world.  At about 7 PM three or four miles east of Ettlebruck, the skydivers (all riding in one small station wagon, a predecessor of vans and SUVs) lost control on a curve, flipped, and crashed with all seven occupants seriously injured, two critically.  We only had one Army doctor in our entourage at Ettlebruck, and his quick assessment was that all seven GI’s had to be evacuated immediately by air back to the Army hospital at Bad Kreuznach.  We had only two helicopters on the ground, one out of fuel and the other with minimum functioning instrumentation, and only one pilot who hadn’t already started drinking beer at one of the Fest tents was --- me!  So you just do what you have to do…..

Thank goodness the weather was good without a cloud in the sky.  Realizing I didn’t have a VOR, I’d have to fly back using “Dead Reckoning,” basically using only the compass and the clock, plus any landmarks I could spot on the ground in the dark.  Looking at the map, I noticed that a line drawn directly from Ettlebruck to Bad Kreuznach went right over the town of Trier, a rather large town near the West German-Luxembourg border that I knew would be well lighted, somewhat like flying over an enroute lighthouse.  I calculated the flight time to Bad Kreuznach; and I knew that as soon as I got within 20 or so miles from the town, the control tower at the Bad K Army airfield could give me vectors to the hospital helipad.  So I did a thorough preflight of the aircraft, we loaded up the patients and the doctor, and we took off from a totally dark field and headed for Bad Kreuznach.  And by the way, the left cockpit window wouldn’t close properly, so I had my big fat Crew Chief unbuckle his seat belt, sit with his big butt in the window opening with the back of his flight jacket blowing in the wind, and hold his flashlight shining on the instrument panel all the way to BK.  It was about an hour and a half flight, and with a barely functioning radio we violated all kinds of rules: we didn’t file a flight plan, we didn’t report crossing an international border (especially at night), and I had to both navigate and fly with 12 SOBs (Souls on Board); but we made it anyway and later found that all the injured soldiers recovered well enough to jump again.  But then there is the rest of the story…..  

Once all of our patients were transferred to the Army ambulance, our Doctor announced that, since he was the only Army Doctor available in Ettlebruck and other skydivers were scheduled to jump the next day, he just had to get back to Ettlebruck that night.  Well, flying from a dark field to a lighted airport is one thing, but the reverse is something else, especially when you think about landing a 62’ helicopter on an unlighted field in the middle of a celebration area with lots of inebriated, curious foreigners potentially running around in the landing area.  But as I said before, sometimes you just have to do what you have to do…..

We refueled, did  borrow some new batteries for the Crew Chief’s flashlight, calculated the flight time for the leg from Trier back to Ettlebruck, and off we went….about 10 PM, just me, the Crew Chief, the Doctor, and one of his helpers.  I wasn’t sure how we’d locate the landing area at Ettlebruck, or how we’d be able to land with all the high voltage wires around the field, but I figured we could always go into Lux City (but the radios would be a problem!) and drive to Ettlebruck if we had to.   By that time I was pretty hyper from drinking coffee, and the flight back was a piece of cake.  When we were about five miles from Ettlebruck, I could see a group of lights outlining a large circle in the area where I expected the landing area to be.  Turns out the Doctor had gotten the ambulance attendants at the airfield back at Bad Kreuznach to call by telephone to our medics at Ettlebruck and give them our ETA (estimated Time of Arrival) at the field site.  Our medics at Ettlebruck had marshaled a fleet of about five jeeps, assembled them in a circle pointing inward, and shined their lights on the spot where we were to land.  Pay attention, go slow, be smooth on the controls, watch out for people on the ground…. piece of cake!  Interestingly enough, the only thanks or compliment I ever received was from the Doctor….  

When we finished the mission and got ready to go back to Germany, one of the pilots of the other aircraft had found an “instant girlfriend” and went to Lux City to spend a couple of nights with her.  So we had to fly through Lux City airport and pick him up on the way home.  But there was still more…..

Back in Finthen our written orders had been received and we all submitted out travel vouchers for reimbursement of hotel and per diem (for meals and incidentals) expenses.  But when we read the orders, they clearly stated “Government lodging and meals available,” which meant BOQ, mess hall and/or Officers Club, and no money for staying on the “civilian economy.”  Give me a break!  There ain’t no US Government meals and quarters available anywhere in the whole country of Luxembourg!   The only US troops in the whole country are the US Marines who guard the US Embassy, and even they had to stay “on the local economy.”  And didn’t Division Headquarters actually tell us they were making our hotel reservations?  Well, the explanation was that “they were sorry about the mixup,” but the Division had failed to include the celebration in their annual budget, and they “just didn’t have any money to pay us!”  Well, there was nothing we could do to “fight city hall.”  But that was one of about three incidents that happened during my last year on Active Duty that convinced me that, if that’s the way the Army treats Officers, the Enlisted Personnel must suffer more, and given a choice to stay or go (which I was later given), I was outta here! 

One of the scariest flying times I had was in the early winter of 1965.  It was a Saturday morning and we were loading our equipment to leave for a three-week field exercise, or first one of the newyear, beginning early Monday morning.  In my “additional duty” capacity as the unit’s Communications Officer, I had a ¾ Ton truck and trailer to load all our ground radios and commo maintenance tools for use at the field site.  The ¾ trailer tongue was “short-coupled;” and if you weren’t careful when backing up, you could snap the trailer tongue….and my Sergeant did on that Saturday afternoon!   That trailer tongue was not an item carried in Company supply, and we had to have that trailer to do our job.  After some commiseration, I determined that the most likely place to find one was the big property disposal yard at Kaiserslautern about 45 minutes flying time to the south.  So I checked out an aircraft, took a bottle of Irish whiskey with me for “tradin’ material,” and headed south with my Crew Chief.  The weather was getting bad, and I elected to fly low level and sneak under the east end of Ramstein Air Base’s runway to save time.  When we got to K-town, I actually landed in a remote area of the Property Disposal Office area, cut a deal with the German guard by giving him the bottle of booze, found a smashed trailer with an undamaged tongue (which we removed), loaded it into the helicopter, and headed back.

It had started to rain, and I decided that trying to go cross country over those hills between K-Town and Finthen was a “non-starter.”  Instead, I headed east along the Autobahn toward Mannheim, intercepted the Rhine River, and turned downriver (actually northwest) toward Mainz.  The rain was coming down in sheets and I wasn’t “instrument rated” (very few helicopter pilots were prior to the Vietnam War).  Following the lights along the banks, knowing where the high-tension power lines crossed the river, pressing ahead, we passed the lights of Mainz on our left and started looking for the town of Rudesheim on the north side of the river, the town we could see (on a clear day) right across the Rhine from our apartment in Wackernheim and due north of Finthen Army Airfield.  I turned left toward Wackernheim and flew directly toward Finthen, landed in a torrential downpour, left everything in the helicopter, and slogged my way home.

When I got home, Betsy was beside herself, crying almost uncontrollably.  Because of the weather and the unplanned detour following the river, I was over an hour late.  She had been watching the weather and the clock with only Pierce “in her snucket” to keep her company.  She feared the worst, and neither of us had any way to contact the other while I was on the mission.  That was probably the lowest point in my flying experience until the Bonanza accident some 30 years later.  

Well, we did fix the trailer, went on the exercise, and the Commo Section did our part….. 

It was said that one year flying in Germany was worth three years flying anywhere else, strictly due to the poor weather conditions, especially in the winter when icing on aircraft surfaces and the rapid onset of “ice fog” after a snowstorm were particularly dangerous.  Once we had a mission to fly to Sembach Air Base, pick up six Air Force Colonels, and give them a “courtesy” ride to an Army field site so they could “see how the Army does lives and works in the field.”  When we arrived at Sembach, and although the guys were all “rated aviators,” we gave them our standard safety briefing, told them the weather would be deteriorating by mid-afternoon, then boarded the aircraft for the flight to a field site just east of Heidelberg.

The weather was hazy, and we knew a snow shower or two might blow in.  When we landed, we reminded our passengers that we had to leave the site no later than 3 PM to ensure we could make it back to Sembach under Visual Fight Rules (VFR), and that neither we as pilots nor the aircraft were certified to fly “in the soup.”  Well, the field site was very, very muddy, and the Army heavy tanks that had rolled through there had left ruts literally waist deep.  Well, our visitors were met by a senior Army officer and whisked off to a briefing tent to begin what turned out to be an all-day tour.  We sat and waited.  The armor unit had actually moved out the night before, and with the mud and the weather about all we could do was wait,..and wait,..and wait.  Finally, about 4 o’clock our visitors, having had a jolly ol’ time, came diddy-bopping up in a sedan ready to go home to Sembach.   In the meantime the weather had done as the Air Force weather forecast said: we’d had a snow shower, and the ice fog was rapidly closing in.  To make matters worse, we were sitting on top of a small hill where we thought we might be in fog while the valley was still clear with a low cloud layer above.  (Clouds are defined as fog that is 50 feet or more above the ground).  We loaded up the helicopter, but we were surrounded by trees and couldn’t tell just how low the cloud deck was above us.  I started the engine, and I started to lift off I had my co-pilot open his cockpit window and watch the ground below just in case we went into the fog just above the top of the trees…..and we did!  About twenty feet above the treetops, things quickly started to “go white.”  I stopped our climb in mid-air, “hung us on the rotor head,” and told my co-pilot (who was still looking straight down at the ground) to take us back down.   He quickly took the controls, and while still looking down out the side window, safely maneuvered us back into the field site we’d just left.  

Our passengers, all seasoned Air Force pilots, were unnerved at best. But their concern about flying soon turned to pique when we told them that, since they had screwed around too long on their visit, they’d have to go by “ground transportation” back to Sembach, a ride of about three and a half hours vice the hour it had taken by helicopter.  They insinuated that we were just mad at them for being late, and that probably as soon as they left, we’d simply “pull pitch” and fly home…..little did they know.  We were stuck there for two more days………and it wasn’t fun.

Since all the units had left, we found ourselves (me, my co-pilot and our crew chief) stuck with what we had.  Fortunately, we’d learned that, especially in the winter, we always took our sleeping bags and provisions (water and C-Rations) for three days anytime we were flying to a field site and the weather looked even the least bit suspicious.   Trouble was, it was the crew chief’s duty to go by the mess hall (where the cooks had removed individual cans of rations from the boxes and put them on shelves by food item so you could get what you wanted) and pick up the C’s.  Our particular crew chief that day was from south Alabama, and he was particularly fond of the can marked “Ham and Lima Beans”…so fond that he had picked up 20 cans of them!  And that’s all we ate for two and a half days --- cans of Ham and Lima Bean C-Rations!  WE were able to get radio transmissions back to Finthen and let them know our situation, and to have them call our families and tell them we’d be home……eventually.  Finally, the weather broke, we made it home, and we let the crew chief take all the uneaten C-Rats home…..

Later in the winter of 1965 I had a mission to reconnoiter field site area in the hills north of the city of Giessen.  We actually flew there and spent the night, planning to come back the next day.  And again, we had an unexpected snow shower early in the morning, and the ice fog rapidly closed in afterward.  Well, that particular time we weren’t ready to spend three days in the field, plus our return was scheduled on a Thursday and lots of things were planned for the weekend.  We waited, hoping the weather would clear; but by mid afternoon we realized it was hopeless.  It was clear on the ground, but the clouds started just above the treetops.  We realized we were on a hill, and if we could just get about a mile down the road into the valley, we could simply fly the “valley route” back to Finthen.  So, since the road was wide, no power lines, and the treeline was cleared on either side, I started by taxing down the road and down the hill.  That big radial engine on the helicopter made a lot of racket, and that combined with the earplugs we wore made it almost impossible to hear what was going on outside the aircraft….like the engine of an oncoming truck….and one suddenly rounded the curve ahead and was coming straight at us! Because of the weather we were both going slow, and I can’t imagine what the German driver though when he saw our big helicopter taxiing down that country road coming straight him.  Fortunately for both of us, I snatched the collective up and we momentarily went up into the clouds, watched the truck pass under, then settled and kept taxiing,.  We were goin’ home!

There was one large power line across the road, and we watched for it as we moved along.  When we saw it ahead, my co-pilot and crew chief got out and one stood on the near side of the power line and there other on the far side, both to provide a ground reference in the near-whiteout conditions (probably similar to being on a contiguous ice shelf in the Arctic.)  Once they were in place, I applied power, lifted into the clouds, moved forward what I thought was about 50 feet, then lowered the collective and settled back to the roadway, safely over the power line.  We loaded up and continued on down the hill into the clear.  From then until we got just north of Frankfurt it was good flying beneath the cloud deck.  But……

Just north of Frankfurt lies an east-west ridge that was just high enough to always block overflight under visual conditions when the weather was bad, especially in the winter…..and that was the case on that Thursday.  I quickly sized up the situation as I had several times before; we weren’t flying to Finthen that Thursday, and not until the weather cleared.   As we flew around in circles pondering out options, I spotted a small town with an open field adjacent to the train station.  After a couple of passes studying the lay of the land, I landed in the field, closed up the helicopter (we didn’t have ignition keys or door locks on them back then), and caught the train to Mainz, with helmets in hand.  We were quite an oddity, riding the train in our flight suits with all the Germans, mostly men wearing coats and ties.  Once in the Mainz train station, we called the airfield, then called our wives, and we all made it home by Thursday night.  Saturday morning I had one of the enlisted men drive me back to the aircraft, and I ferried it home that last 20 minutes alone.