Memories of another December 3rd long ago (copyright)
By Hugh Eaton
It's early on the morning of December 3, 2006, and my muse has prompted me to write down some memories of December 3, 1951, when, as a 19 year old member of the U. S. Air Force, I reported to Camp Stoneman, CA, for processing and assignment to either "Destination Iron" (Japan) or "Destination Evil" (Korea).
I had joined the Air Force on March 30, 1951, much to the chagrin of my mom, for a couple of reasons. The Korean War had broken out on June 25, 1950, right after I had graduated from high school and healthy 18 year old American males had two choices, get drafted or join the service of your choice. Being in the army didn't bother me, but the Air Force's recruiting pitch at the time was to join them and they would teach you a trade which you could use the rest of your civilian life.
My family's economic situation was so that they could never have sent me to college, so the idea of learning a trade plus getting the G.I. Bill for college made the decision for me, since no one in our family had ever gone to college. My dad, one of the best men I've ever known, was pulled out of school after fourth grade to help his dad on the farm, and my mom had gone through the seventh grade.
My dad worked in a mill near our home, and I used to walk the mile from our house to the gate of the mill so I could walk home with him. As I saw how tired he and his fellow workers were walking through the gate, I decided I didn't want to work in the mill, so the Air Force sounded pretty good as a way out.
My buddy, Bill Worley, who lived three doors away, and I joined together and rode the train from our home town, Roanoke, VA, to San Antonio where we would take basic training at Lackland AFB. Neither one of us had ever been more than a hundred miles away from home, so train ride was special in itself.
The recruiting sergeant who put us on the train told us it would be a three day ride and we were to shave every morning. I had been shaving for a while, so it wasn't a big deal for me, but Bill had never shaved his baby face before. The first morning on the train while he shaved for the first time he cut his face really bad when the train lurched. I felt sorry for him.
Basic at Lackland was a memorable event, but looking back it wasn't nearly as tough as it could have been. We had the typical tough drill sergeant, a red head named Sgt. clifton, who had a bull frog voice. His favorite term for us was "you bunch of whores". His assistant was Cpl. Davis, who happened to be from Radford, VA, and had graduated from Radford HS with my cousin Chuck. That didn't garner me any favors however.
The toughest immediate adjustment was waking up at 4:45 a.m. with the sarge yelling at us to get on the street for calistenics before breakfast. The toughest physical challenge was running a mile obstacle course in the heat. Of course, there was the usual KP (kitchen police), usually at least a twelve hour day with no breaks except twenty minutes to eat.
There were 70 of us in our basic training unit, called a flight, and it was quite an awakening for a shy fellow from Virginia to get exposure from guys from all over the country. There were some fellows from the deep south, Mississippi and Alabama, who had difficulty with the African American guys in our flight. Some of them congregated near my bunk, and I can remember one night after lights out they were talking quietly about the time they had killed and fed a black fellow to the aligators. At first I thought they were kidding, but the details were too graphic for them to be making it up. I put the pillow over my head, and wondered if the black members of our flight could hear them. Needless to say, I stayed away from them the rest of basic training.
We "graduated" from basic around June 1st and got our promotion from private to private first class and we could put one stripe on our sleeve, a proud moment indeed. We had to move to a "transient" barracks while we waited on our next assignment, and there was more KP and other such menial tasks while we waited for our assignment. We had to keep all our belongings packed in our duffle bags because the routine was they would wake us around 4:45 a.m. and call the names of the ones who were to receive their assignments that morning. After breakfast you reported to the truck outside the barracks which would take you, bag and baggage, to the flight strip to catch the plane to the next base.
During basic we had taken a battery of aptitude tests to determine what tech schools we might be smart enough to attend. I did pretty well on the tests, which, in all truth, weren't that difficult. A counselor talked with us individually about our test results and gave us three choices for tech schools. A cousin I had admired growing up, Doug Bourne, had been a radio operator in Alaska during WWII, and I put that down as my first choice. I didn't have a second choice, so the counselor suggested control tower operator school, which he said involved the use of radio transmissions also, so I put CTO school as second. Our third choice was in accordance with the AF wishes - either cooks, air police or medics - none of which any of us wanted.
The morning of June 6, 1951, my name was called and when I got to the truck, the sergeant with the clip board called my name again and told me I was going to gunnery school at Lowry AFB in Denver. I thought to myself "Where the heck did that come from?" After all of us had gone through the clip board drill, another sergeant came up to the clip board sergeant and they had a discussion. The clip board sergeant then called our names again to board the truck, but it wasn't uncommon just as you were ready to board the truck he told some of us we were redlined, which meant we weren't going after all and to go back to the transient barracks for more waiting. I got redlined, but the next day I got called again, this time to go to control tower operator school at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi.
On june 7, 1951, in heavy wool dress blues I got off the charter flight along with about thirty others at Keesler. We were greeted by sergeants in light weight khaki uniforms, and in fifteen minutes our blue shirts were soaked with sweat under our blue jackets. If you have ever been to the Gulf Coast area in June, you know how devastating the heat and humidity can be.
From June 7th to June 26th there was more life in a transient barracks. We would "fall out" every morning, and a sergeant would assignus to a particular detail for that day. The sarge would ask for volunteers for certain things, but we soon learned that was a ruse. For instance, he would ask if anybody could play the piano, and there would be several volunteers who thought they would get out of KP and have it easy playing the piano. Instead of playing it was moving pianos and other heavy furniture.
One morning he asked if anyone could type. Another fellow and I raised our hands, not knowing if it was trick or not. As it turned out it wasn't a trick. The two of us got assigned to the Air Polic office which processed incoming dependents, including typing ID and PX cards for them. So Bob Hanna, from Indianapolis, and I sat at our typewriters all day and intermittently typed cards for dependents. Mostly we sat and talked and got to be friends, but we did such a good job the first day the AP First Sergeant asked us to come back until our class started. We told him it would be better if he could give us a letter to that effect so we could give it to the duty sergeant back in the transient area.
I'm convinced that an occasional nut can get to be a sergeant in the AF, and this duty sergeant qualified. Bob Hanna gave him the letter when we were in formation the next morning, but he stuck his chin out and tore the letter into pieces right in front of the whole group. He then assigned us to KP and Bob and I wondered what the heck we had done to incur his wrath. We finally decided he was a control freak, and HE would decide what each one would do.
About 9 a.m. a runner from the orderly room came to the chow hall and told Bob and I to report to the duty sergeant back at the transient squadron. Fearing the worst, we hustled back and reported to the sergeant who told us to get into our class A khakis and report to the AP office where we had worked the day before. Of course, we were both puzzled and delighted at his change of heart.
When we got to the AP office, we explained to the AP NCO what had happened. He grinned and said when we didn't show that morning, he called the duty sergeant to inquire about our whereabouts and the sarge told him he had assigned us to KP. The AP NCO told his captain who apparently then called the duty sarge and as they say in the service "tore him a new one" and told him to get us to his office pronto. Bob and I worked at that office until our school started with no more trouble.
Our class started on June 26 to run for fourteen weeks. We studied mostly air traffic control procedures but also weather and radio practices and procedures. As luck would have it, I really liked the CTO school and finished in the top ten of the class.
The Korean War was picking up steam, and there was a shortage of both control tower operators and air traffic controllers. The usual drill was after you graduated from CTO school you sent into the "field" and worked as a CTO for about a year and half, got promoted to corporal (two stripes) and if your work as a CTO was satisfactory you could apply for air traffic controller school back at Keesler which was eight weeks long. The difference is CTOs control traffic visually at airports and air traffic controllers work in air traffic control centers and control air traffic which is flying on instruments. The centers are not necessarily at airports, since you don't have to have visual contact with the aircraft.
When we graduated from CTO school, the top ten of us were told on our last Friday in CTO class we would start ATC on Monday - a complete shock to us since we were the first ten to be selected to do that. They were really short of air traffic controllers and decided to take a chance on the ten of us.
The eight weeks of ATC school were much tougher than CTO school, not so much with the content, but with the old sarges who ran the ATC school. They had had to go into the field as CTOs and serve their time before they got selected for ATC school, so they were very bitter that the ten of us had gotten into the class without going into the field. They must have decided they going to be as tough as they could be on us so we would wash out and that would prove to the powers that be that sending us to ATC school was a bad idea.
The first six weeks we spent on advanced air traffic studies, with the main project being to memorize the New Orleans air traffic control center's control area. This was a huge area in terms of miles, reaching into states north, south, east and west of New Orleans. We had to learn every airport, their radio frequencies, runway headings, emergency procedures, etc. No easy task. The last two weeks, assuming we had memorized the NO control area, we worked the "boards", a simulation of the NO air traffic control center. The object, of course, was to keep all the planes flying on instruments in the NO control area separated either by time (longitude) or altitude, without crashing them into each other. Of course, there were multiple planes and the instructors would throw in an aircraft declaring an emergency, etc. to make things interesting and see how we would react under stress and pressure. All this was simulation, of course, but it was very real to us since we had to pass these two weeks to complete the course.
About the third day of the first week, I wasn't doing to well as I controlled traffic, and the Master Sgt. who ran the school was looking over my shoulder. He stopped the simulation and walked over to me and said, "Grab your right ear with your right hand." I did that, then he said, "Grab your left ear with your left hand". I did that then he said, 'Pull your head out of your ass' and start contolling." Pretty embarrassing since every one was listening.
That was a mile stone for me since I could have folded (which is what I think he wanted) but I decided I wasn't going to let him run me off. The secret to controlling part or all of a control area is to see the "complete picture" of the whole area and head off things which could cause trouble for the airplanes. I realized I didn't yet see the complete picture.
The next day it was like a miracle happened. As I controlled, it was like someone raised a shade and there was the whole picture. It was pretty unbelievable. I did just fine after that and even got a mild compliment from the Master Sgt. Little did I know our paths would cross later, and that's an interesting story which I'll write about later.
All ten of us graduated, proving I guess we could go to school, but not necessarily proving we could control air traffic in the real world. That was to come later.
We went our separate ways on November 7th on a thirty day leave prior to reporting to Camp Stoneman on December 3, 1951, fifty five years ago today. It's hard to believe the passage of time and how fast it happened when you got to your senior years. But I wouldn't trade my life's experiences with anyone.
We left Camp Stoneman on December 11, 1951, on the good ship U.S.N.S. Gen. Hase, bound for Japan with as assignment waiting on us there to either Destinatior Iron or Destination Evil. That will be the next installment.
By Hugh Eaton
It's early on the morning of December 3, 2006, and my muse has prompted me to write down some memories of December 3, 1951, when, as a 19 year old member of the U. S. Air Force, I reported to Camp Stoneman, CA, for processing and assignment to either "Destination Iron" (Japan) or "Destination Evil" (Korea).
I had joined the Air Force on March 30, 1951, much to the chagrin of my mom, for a couple of reasons. The Korean War had broken out on June 25, 1950, right after I had graduated from high school and healthy 18 year old American males had two choices, get drafted or join the service of your choice. Being in the army didn't bother me, but the Air Force's recruiting pitch at the time was to join them and they would teach you a trade which you could use the rest of your civilian life.
My family's economic situation was so that they could never have sent me to college, so the idea of learning a trade plus getting the G.I. Bill for college made the decision for me, since no one in our family had ever gone to college. My dad, one of the best men I've ever known, was pulled out of school after fourth grade to help his dad on the farm, and my mom had gone through the seventh grade.
My dad worked in a mill near our home, and I used to walk the mile from our house to the gate of the mill so I could walk home with him. As I saw how tired he and his fellow workers were walking through the gate, I decided I didn't want to work in the mill, so the Air Force sounded pretty good as a way out.
My buddy, Bill Worley, who lived three doors away, and I joined together and rode the train from our home town, Roanoke, VA, to San Antonio where we would take basic training at Lackland AFB. Neither one of us had ever been more than a hundred miles away from home, so train ride was special in itself.
The recruiting sergeant who put us on the train told us it would be a three day ride and we were to shave every morning. I had been shaving for a while, so it wasn't a big deal for me, but Bill had never shaved his baby face before. The first morning on the train while he shaved for the first time he cut his face really bad when the train lurched. I felt sorry for him.
Basic at Lackland was a memorable event, but looking back it wasn't nearly as tough as it could have been. We had the typical tough drill sergeant, a red head named Sgt. clifton, who had a bull frog voice. His favorite term for us was "you bunch of whores". His assistant was Cpl. Davis, who happened to be from Radford, VA, and had graduated from Radford HS with my cousin Chuck. That didn't garner me any favors however.
The toughest immediate adjustment was waking up at 4:45 a.m. with the sarge yelling at us to get on the street for calistenics before breakfast. The toughest physical challenge was running a mile obstacle course in the heat. Of course, there was the usual KP (kitchen police), usually at least a twelve hour day with no breaks except twenty minutes to eat.
There were 70 of us in our basic training unit, called a flight, and it was quite an awakening for a shy fellow from Virginia to get exposure from guys from all over the country. There were some fellows from the deep south, Mississippi and Alabama, who had difficulty with the African American guys in our flight. Some of them congregated near my bunk, and I can remember one night after lights out they were talking quietly about the time they had killed and fed a black fellow to the aligators. At first I thought they were kidding, but the details were too graphic for them to be making it up. I put the pillow over my head, and wondered if the black members of our flight could hear them. Needless to say, I stayed away from them the rest of basic training.
We "graduated" from basic around June 1st and got our promotion from private to private first class and we could put one stripe on our sleeve, a proud moment indeed. We had to move to a "transient" barracks while we waited on our next assignment, and there was more KP and other such menial tasks while we waited for our assignment. We had to keep all our belongings packed in our duffle bags because the routine was they would wake us around 4:45 a.m. and call the names of the ones who were to receive their assignments that morning. After breakfast you reported to the truck outside the barracks which would take you, bag and baggage, to the flight strip to catch the plane to the next base.
During basic we had taken a battery of aptitude tests to determine what tech schools we might be smart enough to attend. I did pretty well on the tests, which, in all truth, weren't that difficult. A counselor talked with us individually about our test results and gave us three choices for tech schools. A cousin I had admired growing up, Doug Bourne, had been a radio operator in Alaska during WWII, and I put that down as my first choice. I didn't have a second choice, so the counselor suggested control tower operator school, which he said involved the use of radio transmissions also, so I put CTO school as second. Our third choice was in accordance with the AF wishes - either cooks, air police or medics - none of which any of us wanted.
The morning of June 6, 1951, my name was called and when I got to the truck, the sergeant with the clip board called my name again and told me I was going to gunnery school at Lowry AFB in Denver. I thought to myself "Where the heck did that come from?" After all of us had gone through the clip board drill, another sergeant came up to the clip board sergeant and they had a discussion. The clip board sergeant then called our names again to board the truck, but it wasn't uncommon just as you were ready to board the truck he told some of us we were redlined, which meant we weren't going after all and to go back to the transient barracks for more waiting. I got redlined, but the next day I got called again, this time to go to control tower operator school at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi.
On june 7, 1951, in heavy wool dress blues I got off the charter flight along with about thirty others at Keesler. We were greeted by sergeants in light weight khaki uniforms, and in fifteen minutes our blue shirts were soaked with sweat under our blue jackets. If you have ever been to the Gulf Coast area in June, you know how devastating the heat and humidity can be.
From June 7th to June 26th there was more life in a transient barracks. We would "fall out" every morning, and a sergeant would assignus to a particular detail for that day. The sarge would ask for volunteers for certain things, but we soon learned that was a ruse. For instance, he would ask if anybody could play the piano, and there would be several volunteers who thought they would get out of KP and have it easy playing the piano. Instead of playing it was moving pianos and other heavy furniture.
One morning he asked if anyone could type. Another fellow and I raised our hands, not knowing if it was trick or not. As it turned out it wasn't a trick. The two of us got assigned to the Air Polic office which processed incoming dependents, including typing ID and PX cards for them. So Bob Hanna, from Indianapolis, and I sat at our typewriters all day and intermittently typed cards for dependents. Mostly we sat and talked and got to be friends, but we did such a good job the first day the AP First Sergeant asked us to come back until our class started. We told him it would be better if he could give us a letter to that effect so we could give it to the duty sergeant back in the transient area.
I'm convinced that an occasional nut can get to be a sergeant in the AF, and this duty sergeant qualified. Bob Hanna gave him the letter when we were in formation the next morning, but he stuck his chin out and tore the letter into pieces right in front of the whole group. He then assigned us to KP and Bob and I wondered what the heck we had done to incur his wrath. We finally decided he was a control freak, and HE would decide what each one would do.
About 9 a.m. a runner from the orderly room came to the chow hall and told Bob and I to report to the duty sergeant back at the transient squadron. Fearing the worst, we hustled back and reported to the sergeant who told us to get into our class A khakis and report to the AP office where we had worked the day before. Of course, we were both puzzled and delighted at his change of heart.
When we got to the AP office, we explained to the AP NCO what had happened. He grinned and said when we didn't show that morning, he called the duty sergeant to inquire about our whereabouts and the sarge told him he had assigned us to KP. The AP NCO told his captain who apparently then called the duty sarge and as they say in the service "tore him a new one" and told him to get us to his office pronto. Bob and I worked at that office until our school started with no more trouble.
Our class started on June 26 to run for fourteen weeks. We studied mostly air traffic control procedures but also weather and radio practices and procedures. As luck would have it, I really liked the CTO school and finished in the top ten of the class.
The Korean War was picking up steam, and there was a shortage of both control tower operators and air traffic controllers. The usual drill was after you graduated from CTO school you sent into the "field" and worked as a CTO for about a year and half, got promoted to corporal (two stripes) and if your work as a CTO was satisfactory you could apply for air traffic controller school back at Keesler which was eight weeks long. The difference is CTOs control traffic visually at airports and air traffic controllers work in air traffic control centers and control air traffic which is flying on instruments. The centers are not necessarily at airports, since you don't have to have visual contact with the aircraft.
When we graduated from CTO school, the top ten of us were told on our last Friday in CTO class we would start ATC on Monday - a complete shock to us since we were the first ten to be selected to do that. They were really short of air traffic controllers and decided to take a chance on the ten of us.
The eight weeks of ATC school were much tougher than CTO school, not so much with the content, but with the old sarges who ran the ATC school. They had had to go into the field as CTOs and serve their time before they got selected for ATC school, so they were very bitter that the ten of us had gotten into the class without going into the field. They must have decided they going to be as tough as they could be on us so we would wash out and that would prove to the powers that be that sending us to ATC school was a bad idea.
The first six weeks we spent on advanced air traffic studies, with the main project being to memorize the New Orleans air traffic control center's control area. This was a huge area in terms of miles, reaching into states north, south, east and west of New Orleans. We had to learn every airport, their radio frequencies, runway headings, emergency procedures, etc. No easy task. The last two weeks, assuming we had memorized the NO control area, we worked the "boards", a simulation of the NO air traffic control center. The object, of course, was to keep all the planes flying on instruments in the NO control area separated either by time (longitude) or altitude, without crashing them into each other. Of course, there were multiple planes and the instructors would throw in an aircraft declaring an emergency, etc. to make things interesting and see how we would react under stress and pressure. All this was simulation, of course, but it was very real to us since we had to pass these two weeks to complete the course.
About the third day of the first week, I wasn't doing to well as I controlled traffic, and the Master Sgt. who ran the school was looking over my shoulder. He stopped the simulation and walked over to me and said, "Grab your right ear with your right hand." I did that, then he said, "Grab your left ear with your left hand". I did that then he said, 'Pull your head out of your ass' and start contolling." Pretty embarrassing since every one was listening.
That was a mile stone for me since I could have folded (which is what I think he wanted) but I decided I wasn't going to let him run me off. The secret to controlling part or all of a control area is to see the "complete picture" of the whole area and head off things which could cause trouble for the airplanes. I realized I didn't yet see the complete picture.
The next day it was like a miracle happened. As I controlled, it was like someone raised a shade and there was the whole picture. It was pretty unbelievable. I did just fine after that and even got a mild compliment from the Master Sgt. Little did I know our paths would cross later, and that's an interesting story which I'll write about later.
All ten of us graduated, proving I guess we could go to school, but not necessarily proving we could control air traffic in the real world. That was to come later.
We went our separate ways on November 7th on a thirty day leave prior to reporting to Camp Stoneman on December 3, 1951, fifty five years ago today. It's hard to believe the passage of time and how fast it happened when you got to your senior years. But I wouldn't trade my life's experiences with anyone.
We left Camp Stoneman on December 11, 1951, on the good ship U.S.N.S. Gen. Hase, bound for Japan with as assignment waiting on us there to either Destinatior Iron or Destination Evil. That will be the next installment.
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