The following Crash Description is from Captain Gary Sible
Navigator of 55-0103, USAF 346 Bomb Squadron, 99 Bomb Wing.
Posted September 18, 2006
The events surrounding the crash of 55-0103 on 19 Nov 1968 at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa that are related in this brief story are strictly the recollection of one person who was on board. There are no statements or opinions of a political nature contained herein.
1. The Crew:
The crew was rated "select" (the highest normal crew rating). They were in their second tour of duty in South East Asia. This was to be their 103rd mission. That morning the crew consisted of 2 pilots, 2 bomb navigation specialists, an electronic warfare officer, a tail gunner, and a crew chief mechanic, who was not normally part of a B-52 crew. Nearly all the crew members were instructors in their positions, were highly qualified in conventional bombing, and had been flying together nearly 2 years, except for the crew chief.
2. Briefing and Preflight, Aircraft Condition and Bomb Loading:
The briefings were all normal with no abnormalities on lighting, taxi-ways, or runways. The take-off was scheduled for 04:06 that morning. The fuel and bomb loads were both standard, generating a normal take-off weight.
3. Aircraft Position:
55-0103 (code named Cream 2) was the second aircraft of the second cell, and the fifth aircraft in a six-plane total formation. The planes took off at 60 second intervals in each cell.
4. Cockpit Checklist Deviation:
The critical acceleration timing check was normal and the aircraft was committed to proceed with take-off. However, the aircraft speed did not continue to rise normally. About 12-15 seconds after being committed to the take-off, the plane speed was ascertained to not be high enough to sustain the aircraft in the air for long. The aircraft would fall into a town off the end of the runway, and thus the take-off was aborted to try and keep it on the ground at all cost.
5. Actual Impact:
The B-52 left the end of the runway and traveled down a sodded embankment, hit a large ditch, and came to rest on Kadena’s inner perimeter road, sitting on top of an air police pick-up truck. Its driver escaped by running down the road. The wings were torn loose releasing fuel from the wing tanks. Fires started from ruptured hydraulic lines, fuel flowing over hot brakes, and from electrical malfunctions.
6. Cockpit Conditions:
There was an immediate loss of electrical power and lighting. Behind the crew compartment fire could be seen through the cabin bulkhead door on the lower level. Acrid smoke started to fill the crew compartment.
7. Crew Egress:
The co-pilot’s escape hatch was opened and the co-pilot, crew chief, and aircraft commander climbed out and jumped 10 feet to the ground. The electronic warfare officer opened his hatch and climbed out on top of the plane. The radar navigator and navigator climbed to the upper deck and escaped through the co-pilot’s open hatch. The tail gunner jettisoned the entire turret (guns and all) on the ground and climbed down his escape rope, then ran back to the runway and the waiting emergency vehicles.
8. Rescue Crew Reaction:
All rescue personnel and equipment had been moved back for their own safety. The bombs would blow up soon and they assumed the rest of the crew was lost since everything was on fire.
9. What Saved the Crew from the Bomb Explosion:
Five of the front crewmen found refuge in a 10-12 foot drainage ditch off the nose of the plane. The other crewman found his way to a small block building built into the perimeter fence. When the bombs blew up a very short time later the crew was protected by the ditch walls, as everything went right over the top of them. The huge explosion ripped all the fuel tanks to pieces, causing burning fuel to flow into the ditch, forcing the crew to come up into the intensive heat. Three crewmen ran along the inside of the fence and came upon the crewman who was sitting in the block building. The four of them escaped through the fence. The other 2 crew members climbed over the 3-strand barbed wire perimeter fence, even though they both had broken ankles.
10. The Miracle That got the Crew Away From the Heat:
Two airmen in a pick-up truck saw something moving in the inferno and with no protection drove through the ground fires to the men. They got all 6 crewmen into their truck and to the infirmary. The tail gunner was brought there also as soon as it was known that there were other survivors. For a short time, all 7 were back together.
11. Last Minutes as a Crew:
From the medical facility, two crewmen were quickly airlifted to the burn center in Japan. One was sent to an army hospital on Okinawa for ankle surgery, and the rest were held in protective custody from outraged local people while being treated for their injuries.
12. Accident and Flying Evaluation Boards and Crew Status:
All of the crew members were tested for substances and questioned in detail. Only a few small pieces of 0103 remained in the deep, smoking hole the size of a football field, and those pieces were sent to Wichita for analysis.
The concluding report found no mechanical problems with the engines or braking system. The crew was returned to flight status except for the 2 crewmen that died in the burn center.
Note: The aircraft commander kept total control at all times by making rapid and accurate decisions during this ordeal. Under a weaker pilot the entire crew and possibly hundreds of civilians would have perished!
|
The following is from SP5 Tom Madracki (tom@madracki.com)
At the time of the crash I was sleeping in the barracks at the U.S.Army Hawk Site 10 admin area, which was about 1/4 mile east of the end of runway, so this, to the best of my memory, is actually what I saw and heard:
We were on a little paved road across from a sugar cane field and just south east of the Chibana ammunition depot, the plane exploded about 1/4 mile west of us. Very early every morning the KC-135 and B-52's would take off. I was told that the B-52's had to take off without full fuel loads because with the bomb load the B-52's were too heavy to get off the ground. Early on the morning of November 19, 1968 one of the B-52's taking off couldn't get up enough speed to get airborn and ended up crashing at the end of the runway. The crew all got out, but some were injured, I heard later that 2 had died. Years later I had the opportunity to tour the cockpit of a B-52 and saw that the flight crew sat on two decks in the front of the plane, the pilot and co-pilot on the top deck with the front window view and the navigator and bombardier directly below them with only a view into radar screens. I don't know how the two crewmen in the lower cockpit could have gotten out - their seats ejected out the bottom of the plane. On these older model B52's there was a rear gunner in the tail of the plane - and the rest of the crew was in the front of the plane. The plane sat and burned near the lights and fence right by the airport's eastern perimeter road, until the bomb load finially exploded. The plane was loaded with 30,000 lbs. of bombs: 24, MK-82 500-pound general purpose bombs, 12 under each wing and 24, M117 750-pound general purpose bombs in the belly bomb bay (plus the 50cal ammo for the tail gunner). There was another road just outside the fence that was used by all the local farmers to get around the base. It was a Tuesday and I was still asleep in the barracks, so time wise, it was very early morning. The sound of the crash woke us up, but the bomb blast that came later blew out the windows and knocked us to the floor. I don't remember much detail about the explosions, I do remember there was more than one, but the blast part is very fuzzy in my mind; we were less than 2000 feet from the blast and my head was ringing. By the time I got to the hole, the Kadena MP's were all over the place, trying to keep everyone away, but since it was near the public road, there were a lot of Okinawans there, plus you had to have heard this all over the base, so everyone from Kadena showed up. A lot of the local houses were damaged, but I don't think any locals were injured.
From our barracks to the crash site was covered with little pieces of metal, probably the plane's outer skin, very thin and painted a light green on one side. It looked like it had just rained metal. The site itself was just a giant hole. There was no plane anymore; the only recognizable pieces I remember seeing were the wheel clusters, the engines and a few unexploded bombs. The hole looked like a football stadium, it was burned and filled with twisted metal pieces. Most of the bomb load must have exploded in the fire following the crash, I didn't see any bombs in the hole. I've been to plane crash sites before and this was not a typical one. Usually the debris is stretched along the path the plane was traveling when it hit the ground. Since this plane had already stopped and was burning, the explosion had forming a circular crater with debris all around. My guess was that the burning load of jet fuel had caused the bomb load to heat up and explode. Eventually all the parts were picked up and trucked to a remote area of the air base and put in a huge pile. The locals held protests outside the main gates with mock-ups of black B-52's on sticks. The locals were upset about the presence of the B-52's before the crash and now that one had crashed so close to an ammo dump and had damaged local Okinawan homes, they were very upset. The locals were convinced that there were nuclear weapons on Kadena AFB, but the U.S. always denied it. I do recall that before I was assigned to my missile battery, I got stuck pulling guard duty outside a weapons storage facility by Kadena. I always thought it was strange to have to wear a RAD Badge when pulling guard duty there.
(Editor's Note: It has now been confirmed that the Air Force's 498th TMG did have missiles with small nuclear warheads (W-28 fusion, 2 MT yield) at the MACE Missile Sites around Kadena. These were Ground to Ground Missiles that targeted Vietnam and/or China, but were never used. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO: MACE Missile Sites around Kadena
To give you an incite into what a B-52 crash fireball would look like, here's a video of a B-52 crash at Fairchild AFB in Spokane Washington. Also keep in mind that after the Kadena AFB crash and fireball, the bomb load then detonated and blew the entire wreckage and burning fuel all over the place...
B52 Crash at Fairchild AFB Documentary
Tom Madracki
Battery C, 8th. Missile Battalion, 1st. Artillery, 30th Artillery Brigade>
tom@madracki.com
|
The following is from Sgt. Don M. Rhoney, 824th combat support group, Kadena (swooney007@gmail.com)
I was a security police officer, 824th combat support group, Kadena AFB, a 2 striper at time of crash, posted on the south taxiway by the KC135 tankers. I was at rear of parking ramp between the last two tankers, closest to the east end of the runway and was watching that bomber start its take off. Halfway down the runway it did not look as it was up to speed, it continued at a steady speed, no increase of its jets sound. I felt sure they had the fuel levers full forward, thought that baby isn't getting its full share of fuel, no lift, like blocked line or fuel filters, its going to be an abort, seemed to slow down near the runway's end somewhat. It eased down over the pavement edge onto a grassy hill slope, crossed the east perimeter road and stopped instantly in a crash ditch, only feet from perimeter fence with the public road just the other side
I kept my eye on it to see if I could spot any people. It was a dark, clear night. I strained to see along the top of fuselage. I had once been taken by a crew chief to see the cockpit area of the B52. Wow, it was small and cramped and there was a big hump behind the front seats to squeeze around to get into the seats. I had looked around from behind the hump and remembered seeing the hatches above.
Thought I saw something moving atop fuselage, not positive too dark. The tall tail was very visible in the night, seemed only some very few moments later when a thin blow of pure white light shot up what seemed like a mile or two. It lit up the south end of the entire airfield and both north and south taxiways. Then a horrendous blast! I thought to myself, I'm by fuel tankers, if a hot chunk hits one of them and then it's dominoes to all the tankers! I made a quick turn to get out from between them knowing a big blast means big a wind blow. Just after I turned and started to run, I was thrust forward and something struck my back. There was no pain, but it pushed me straight forward to the pavement. I stopping just prior to my nose hitting the cement. I thought if there was hot penetration to one of these tankers, they'd find me as a crispy critter. As the blast wind passed I felt very fine, like sand paper particles rubbing violently on the sides of my face. I had rain poncho on and it kept me a bit warmer, it was a chilly night. I felt the back of the poncho, nothing there, looked around and nothing visible on ground
I looked back at crash site, just flames, no outline of plane or tail. Nothing on the radio. There is a guard posted at wooden guard shack on the north taxiway across from my position. The shack has no door which faces the crash site and thought perhaps he was struggling to get out of his possibly blown over shelter and get on his radio. I got on my radio and notified our police center of the crash which I'm sure they heard, to give them information about where it had happened.
After I was relieved, I learned that we had a police pickup truck parked on the perimeter road and the two officers had gone up to the runway edge to watch the take off. They had dropped their M16s and ran around the hillside and were all right. I asked about the crew, (feared the total worst) and was informed some were injured and some were all right, but not sure in any detail
Later in the day went down to the crash site. There were hunks of engines near the burn area. The middle of burn area was the twisted (like a dead snake that was in a crawl) steel beam. Not one bit of planes skin (all blown away or melted). On perimeter road was the upside down charred and twisted frame of our police pickup. I looked down and saw its former ash tray on the grass and picked it up. It was fully intact and the blue paint was in perfect condition. I tough of keeping it as a memento, but dropped it back on grass. Then I spotted something unusual, like a 4" chunk of coral on ground, picked it up, it struck me as like having so little weight for it's size, very light tan with a bit of yellowish tint, lots of holes like a sponge around it. I asked a munitions guy that was on the other side of the blackened area and he said I found a chunk of unexploded HE ( Now I learned what HE looked like) some of it had easily crumbled in my hand. He said that was what he had been sent to check for and he would take it and turn it in. It was like the color of concrete and I thought that was what must have struck my back in the wind blast. I could not find it on the parking pad as it probably disintegrated to sand paper like particles and just blended into the concrete color of the parking pad. Better that, than a 4" chunk of hot steel. Later I was told that two did not survive, that two too many
Later the locals come out, jumping up and down with finger painted signs. I was with a local cop and we spotted one of the jolting banners that had what looked like a stick figure hand with a stick finger pointing up and the letters USA below it. I looked him in the eye and said "Hi to you to" (maybe you know Hi in their words means 'Yes')
I left the service a few months early to use up my last vacation time and to return home to be the groom in our wedding. I went on to be a Cook County Sheriff's police officer, retired at 55, I'm now 65. I have been denied a hearing loss claim by the VA, because the crash was not a listed event. I could appeal possibly, but I was surely alone that night the B-52 blew and there's no way to establish my presence there, or even the location of the tanker.
I think I got this to long, old age does things.
Sgt. Don M. Rhoney, 824th combat support group, Kadena
Lake-In-The-Hills, Illinois
swooney007@gmail.com
|
The following is from DANA C. MOREL, Col, USAF A4/7Z (Dana.Morel@pentagon.af.mil)
As I read the stories about the B-52 crash at Kadena in 1968, I could
feel it all over again. I was a dependent brat, 8 yrs old, living off
base in government housing with my family. That morning was probably
the scariest day of my life. I remember the explosions shaking the
house and waking everyone. Dad was running through while trying to get his
uniform on. The loud speakers were telling everyone to stay inside
but Dad was determined to get to the base. But he instructed us to close
the shutters and get under our beds until we heard an all clear. Then
he was gone. We were sure the island was under attack. After several
hours, we got the all clear and got out from under the beds but stayed
home that day afraid of the next bomb attack. Dad finally came home
that night and told us of the crash.
The next several days and pretty much the rest of our tour there were
strained. What had been a happy go lucky relationship with the
Ryukans, became a very tense situation. Riots began in the streets of Naha
and threats were made to all Yankees. Threats were made to the school
children. I could no longer wander down the dirt road to the village to
play with my native friends. No more clandestine trips to the city to
spend my allowance on cherry bombs and candy. And every day an armed
guard would arrive at my door to escort me to the bus stop. Two of them
would go to each house and collect us kids, march us along and stay
with us until we were in our classrooms. At the end of the day, they
would escort us to each house and drop us off telling us to stay inside. In
time, kids being kids, we'd go inside, then right back out and off into the cane
fields to play.
Several things about that experience: I loved Okinawa, I loved the
B-52, I loved the Air Force (oh, and men in uniform). And when I
grew up, I joined and requested to be assigned to SAC. Never flew, but
am still loving the ride!
DANA C. MOREL, Col, USAF
Deputy Director, Global Combat Support
HAF A4/7Z
The following is from John Logan, 1824th USA Dispensary at Kadena, AFB
Thunder in the Night
I originally arrived in Okinawa on November 5th, 1968. My first two
weeks on the rock (as we referred to the island) was spent trying to process
through the base personnel office maze and to get settled into the medical
squadron barracks.
Okinawa was a major staging area for the Army, Navy and Air
Force in their operations against the much ballyhooed commie threat in Nam and
in the late ‘60’s there were over one
hundred separate military installations on the island. You couldn’t go AWOL
because there was virtually no where to go where you weren’t either on a U.S.
base or standing just outside a base.
I was assigned to the 1824th USA
Dispensary at Kadena, AFB. Kadena was home for a large Strategic Air Command
(SAC) component with a shit load of B-52 bombers making daily runs to bomb the
Viet Cong out of existence. The usual bombing sortie consisted of about 12
B-52’s; each loaded with around sixty-three tons of 500 lb. and 750 lb. bombs.
Despite the fact that there was a very long runway at Kadena, the bombers were
unable to take off with a full bomb load and
full fuel tanks. Consequently, there would be one KC-135 (the military version
of the 707) tanker taking off for each set of three B-52’s.
Once the B-52’s reached altitude they joined up with a tanker to take on fuel
to make the run to Nam.
When I first arrived on Okinawa, the planes in the
bombing sorties took off in what was termed close order runs. That meant that
as soon as one aircraft started its take-off run, the next plane in line turned
onto the runway and began accelerating with only seconds between one plane and
the next. It was fascinating to watch.
In earlier times the Air Force originally implemented close
order take-offs to get the maximum number of planes into the air in a hurry in
case of a foreign attack on the base. We weren’t being attacked by anything at
Kadena other than some very vicious mosquitoes, but SAC was a one trick pony.
Close order take-offs were the rule, that’s the way they had done it forever
and no one could see any reason to change the process. There was a reason to do things differently
and SAC was about to learn a hard lesson.
On the night of November 19th, before I had
officially completed clearing in to the base, I was asleep in the barracks when
a low rumble awakened me. Somebody was shouting that it was an earthquake, but
being from California
and an old hand with earthquakes, I knew that wasn’t what was happening. While
I sat there trying to clear the sleep haze from my brain and make sense out of
what was going on, a tremendous explosion blew the glass out of the windows and
knocked everything on the shelves to the floor. No matter what had happened, it
was obvious that we were going to be needed in the dispensary. Chaos ruled in
the barracks as we all scrambled for the doors, trying to pull on our uniforms
while stumbling down the halls. All over the base alarms were sounding.
The dispensary was about a five-minute sprint from the
medical squadron barracks. On the run over to the dispensary, we were assaulted
by sirens and warning lights from emergency vehicles careening past us, and,
off in the distance, the thunder of large explosions. Could the unthinkable
have happened? Was the base under
attack from some foreign source? It didn’t seem likely but the explosions gave
birth to wild speculation.
The dispensary, when we got there, was sheer insanity,
people running everywhere, and no one seemed to know what was really going on.
I worked my way through the crowded hallway, back towards the emergency room
where I knew the action would be. What I found there stopped me in my tracks
while my mind tried to register what I was seeing. Lying on the gurneys were
several severely burned aircrew members surrounding by a horde of medics,
nurses and doctors working frantically. Several less severely injured, dazed
crewmembers were sitting in chairs outside the ER or in the back hallway while
the ER team worked feverishly on the burn victims.
When my brain finally kicked back into gear, I realized that
what was needed was for someone to start caring for the less severely injured.
I piled supplies on a cart, recruited a couple of other medics and together we
herded the other crewmembers back to the inpatient area of the dispensary where
we were able to start tending to their injuries.
The crewmembers were able to give us some details about what
had happened. As the plane was accelerating down the runway, a series of engine
warning lights came on indicating that there were serious problems with at
least one of the engines and maybe more than one. The
co-pilot, who was actually at the controls, attempted to abort the takeoff.
But even with the drag-chute deployed and the brakes fully engaged it was
obvious that the B-52, as heavy as it was, was not going to stop without
crashing. The plane had already lost too much momentum for any hope of getting
airborne. The pilot gave the order for everyone to evacuate and each of the
crewmembers scrambled for the escape hatches while the plane careened out of
control. Amazingly, despite the unlikely conditions, all of the aircrew made it
out of the plane.
Renovated B-52’s use radar to control the tail guns but on
older model B-52’s, a gunner lying in the back of the plane manually sighted
the weapons. In order for the gunner to get out he had to crawl backwards
toward the front of the plane until he came to a point where he could turn and
move toward the escape hatch, not an easy trick with the plane jerking one
direction and then another. And to further complicate his escape, the hatch he
needed was located in the belly of the plane, not the best place to try to
escape from when the plane was sliding on the runway! The gunner actually made
it out of the plane, but no one knew what had happened to him until late the
next day but we’ll get to that later in the story.
Once the aircrew members were clear of the aircraft they
began running away from the behemoth. By this time the overheated brakes had
set the tires and undercarriage on fire and flames were crawling up towards the
wings with the bombs and fuel on board. It was only a matter of time before the
heat from the flames detonated one of the explosives.
The rumble that woke everyone in the barracks was one of the
bombs exploding. I learned later that there are two ways that bombs can
explode. One is a low yield explosion, such as the bomb exploding from the
heat, and the other was a high yield explosion where the ordnance exploded in
the manner it was designed to do. It’s just a matter of degree when you’re
looking at the subsequent damage, but it was an important distinction in the
events of that night. The first explosion was a low yield blast. The
unfortunate consequence of that explosion was that it ruptured the fuel tanks
in the wing above and threw flaming JP4 everywhere. The burning fuel engulfed
some of the aircrew members and they were the ones I initially saw when I
arrived at the ER. A flight line maintenance worker who had been working near
the end of the runway when the bomber crashed transported the aircrew in his
truck to the ER. That’s how they happened to be there before many of the medics
were able to make it to the dispensary.
By the time of the first explosion, fire department crews
had already arrived at the burning aircraft. They made a valiant effort to put
out the fire, but there comes a time in such an event when the increasing
likelihood of a major explosion dictates that the fire crews pull back from the
immediate area. Fire command gave the order for the fire crews to evacuate and
most of them responded immediately. There was one truck, however, that didn’t
respond right away and was subsequently caught in the ensuing explosions.
Once the fire department abandoned its efforts to put out
the fire, it was just a short time later when a series of explosions started as
the ordnance began to “cook off” in the inferno. Finally, there came a point
when the fire had generated so much heat that much of the remaining ordnance
exploded at once and it was that event that blew out the windows in the
barracks. To give some measure to how powerful that blast was, it blew out the
windows in the dispensary at Naha AFB, twenty-three
miles away! It also dug a crater under the aircraft some thirty feet deep
and sixty feet across. The remaining parts of the plane were scattered all over
the area. Afterwards there was a series of smaller explosions from the
remaining ordnance and it was those explosions that we heard as we were running
to the dispensary.
While we were treating the aircrew members in back, the
severely burned crewmen were loaded into ambulances and transported over to the
main Army hospital at Camp
Kue
for treatment. Eventually they were transferred to the burn center in Japan.
One of them survived but two eventually succumbed to their burns.
By the time we had completed our care of the other crewmen,
injured from all over the base and from the surrounding communities began
arriving at the dispensary. Most of the injuries were superficial, usually
lacerations from flying glass. There were a few victims with more serious
injuries such as fractured arms or legs, but no one else appeared with
life-threatening injuries.
A twelve-foot security fence with occasional guarded gates
surrounded Kadena. Okinawan nationals employed as
guards by the Air Force manned most of the perimeter gates. One of the injured
that I tended to was one of the security guards. His post was at a gate roughly
one hundred yards from where the plane exploded. When it became obvious that
the plane was in trouble, he picked up the guard shack phone to let someone
know what was happening and was still talking on the phone when the plane
exploded. Rescue crews searching the area later found the man standing near the
remains of his guard shack, still clutching the phone headset in his hand! He
had a deep laceration on the back of his hand that they bandaged and then
transported him to the dispensary for further treatment.
When the guard arrived, I had just finished treating one the
other injured and I waved to him to come on in and lie down on the gurney.
After removing the dressing from the laceration on his hand, I cleaned the
wound and then began suturing the injury. It was a deep cut but fortunately had
not affected any of the tendons on the back of his hand. It took me about an
hour to tend to his injury, making certain that he had enough supplies to keep
the dressing clean and dry until he could see his own physician. During the
whole process, he had not spoken a single word.
After I finished instructing him on wound care, he stood up
and unbuckled his holster. He neatly set the holster and gun on the gurney then
reached up to his chest and removed his security guard badge and his base ID
badge, which he laid on the gurney next to the gun and holster. Then he looked
straight at me and bowed and finally he spoke, thanking me for tending to his
injury. Then, very solemnly, he said, “Please, doctor-san, you tell them, I
quit.” With that, he turned and left the dispensary and I never saw him again.
Eventually I found one of the Air Force Security Police and gave him the weapon
and badge, explaining how I came into possession of them.
After the excitement died down and the injured had been tended
to, those of us who were not on duty that day began drifting back to the
barracks. Before I left, though, the first sergeant stopped me. He said that he
had decided that I should go along with the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal)
team that afternoon as they began the process of clearing out the remaining
unexploded bombs! Yipe! Last place in the world that
I wanted to be was standing near unexploded ordnance.
When afternoon arrived, I was out at the end of the runway
staring at the pieces of what used to be a plane and watching as the EOD team
gingerly probed through the wreckage. One of the most identifiable pieces of
the plane was the tail—it was largely intact. The glass in the gun sights had
fractured from the stress, but the most amazing thing to me was that the gun
barrels drooped to the ground! They had become so hot during the fire that they
had softened and sagged.
The afternoon drifted by while the teams worked. Mostly I
had nothing to do but stand by in case something serious occurred. It didn’t
take much prompting from the EOD team to convince me that it was not safe to
wander around. Even to my inexperienced eye the bright orange color of exposed
explosive powder was very evident and it could be seen everywhere!
One tradition at all Air Force bases is that Retreat is
sounded every afternoon at 5 pm while the flag is lowered. All outside activity
is supposed to stop and you stand at attention while the music is playing. That
afternoon at 5 pm I was standing at the end of the runway, near the crater
excavated by the explosions when retreat sounded and I was watching a B-52 as
it lumbered ever closer to me taking off for a bombing run to Viet Nam. The
remains of just such a plane surrounded me and here came one pointed directly
at me!
The B-52 is SAC’s prime strategic
bomber workhorse. It was originally designed way back in the fifties but has
continued in its lead role despite its age. There have been numerous upgrades
and refittings made to the fleet but they keep on
flying. One strange characteristics of the B-52 is that the main landing gear
is located mid-line on the airframe, unlike most familiar planes with one gear
on the nose and the others on the wings. There are two small out-rigger landing
gears on the tips of the wings because the wings droop downward significantly
and the outriggers keep the wing tips from dragging when the plane isn’t
airborne. Once it’s in the air the wings swerve upward in a graceful arch.
Because of the nature of the landing gear arrangement, the
B-52 tends to “crab” sideways into the wind as it roars down the runway.
Additionally, it rocks back and forth onto one outrigger and then the other,
with smoke boiling from the tires each time the outrigger strikes the ground. I
knew nothing about those details before that afternoon, and I stood there,
transfixed by the sight of this bomber bearing down on me. At what seemed to be
the very last possible moment, the plane clawed its way skyward, clearing the
wreck site by no more than twenty or thirty feet. I could easily see the pilot
and co-pilot as they looked down on us when the plane passed over. And that was
just the beginning! There were still eleven more bombers and four
KC 135’s in that sortie and for the next twenty minutes we were
constantly assaulted by the roar of planes barely clearing our position. It was
almost enough to make you want to bolt for some place safer.
In another hour, it got too dark to work safely in the area
and we all headed back to our respective organizations. That was the last time
that I went out and helped with the EOD teams because by the next day I was
assigned to a regular crew in the dispensary and began working with them. But
while I was out with the EOD team the medics back at the dispenary
discovered what had happened to the tail gunner. All this time crews working at
the accident site had looked for some evidence, human remains or anything that
suggested his fate. Nothing! It was as if he had vanished and considering the
immensity of the explosion that wasn't beyond belief! But, that isn’t what had
happened to him. Moreover, in some ways, what had happened was even more
bizarre than if he had just vanished.
As I mentioned above, all of the aircrew made it out of the
bomber before it exploded. There was initially some confusion about the number
of people on board because right after the crash there was a claim that an
instructor pilot was part of the crew. That claim was eventually discounted,
but for a while a lot of effort was spent looking for him. The gunner, once he
cleared the aircraft, took off running just like the rest of the crew. But
instead of running towards the main base, he ran towards the perimeter fence.
Somehow, in the intensity of the moment, he managed to scale a 12-foot fence,
clear the barbed wire on top and make it to the other side. But, he didn't
complete that process unscathed. He had numerous cuts and abrasions from the
fence and barbed wire and he broke an ankle when he jumped from the top of the
fence. Despite his injuries, he started back towards the main gate, which was
probably about three miles from the accident site.
He walked all the way back to the main gate,
passed through the gate with no one stopping or challenging him and then all
the way back to the SAC side of the base. There he decided to stop and rest in
the mess hall. That’s where someone finally noticed him later that day! He had
sat in the mess hall in shock for all that time and no one had said a thing
about him being there! It was amazing. Finally, it dawned on one of the people
working there that it seemed strange to have someone sitting in the same spot
for so long and he went over to check on him. That’s when it finally became
clear that he was the missing tail gunner and then the call came into the
dispensary for an ambulance. The ER crew working the shift before mine was the
ones who picked him up and brought him in to the dispensary. The damage to his
ankles was so severe that he was quickly transferred to Camp Kue
for treatment.
In the aftermath of the accident, a lot of finger pointing
went on. An investigative team eventually released their report and had these
recommendations:
Even if warning lights come on, if the plane is far enough down the runway that
there isn’t much chance that it can be stopped in time, fly the plane. Even if it’s only to get it airborne and bring it
back around to land, fly the plane.
This conclusion obviously dumped most of the blame squarely in the lap of the
pilot but he didn’t survive the burns that he received so he wasn’t there to
defend himself.
No more close order take-offs. The only thing that averted a major disaster that
night was that the plane that exploded was the last one in line to take off. If
it had been anywhere else in the sequence, there is reason to believe that one
or more of the aircraft following would not have been able to avoid being
involved. There could have been major loss of life that night and it was only
sheer luck that kept it from being worse.
Where the plane exploded was a stone’s throw away from the Chibana Ammo Dump. The EOD teams were convinced that if the
plane had burst through the fence and exploded in the ammo dump that the degree
of destruction would have been monumental. There was no easy solution for that
problem since there was nowhere convenient to store that much ammunition. But
it was something to think about each time one of the B-52’s took off over that
end of the runway!
There were a number of near
accidents involving planes at Kadena while I was there. I think it’s the nature
of the business when so much stress is placed daily on aircraft and aircrews.
But there was never another incident like that. And the B-52’s took off with
lots of room between each aircraft. Let the attacking mosquitoes be damned, we
were finally going to fly the aircraft more sanely!
|
The following a translated article from
HIDANKYO (a Japanese anti-nuclear group) I found later
"The B52 that crashed and exploded was carrying napalm and ball bombs. Suppose it was a B52 on patrol carrying hydrogen bombs.... The site of the crash was only 250 meters away from the Chibana ammunition depot, where nuclear weapons are said to be stored.
What if the crash of the B52 occurred several seconds later....? Maybe the threat of nuclear weapons can be felt only by us Okinawans and the Hibakusha. (Editor's Note: Hibakusha is the term widely used in Japan referring to victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)
Early in the morning of November 19, 1968, a B52 bomber crashed and created a huge explosion in Kadena US Base in Okinawa. Great damage was inflicted to the surrounding houses."
Photo: Rengo Tsushin
|
The following description is from Michael G. Cobb, 6990th Scty Sqdrn
We’d just landed at Kadena about 2230 hrs after a 19 hour mission in our 82nd SRS driven RC-135M to the Gulf and had pulled onto the
parallel taxiway off 05 right. I’d deplaned and found myself with other
back enders waiting for our bus to drive back to 6990th Ops for debriefing.
Looking left I saw a long darker than-night-shape roll past and begin
wheels up when a parachute suddenly blossomed out the rear. At first, I
thought this may have been a fighter doing night ops, but immediately
realized it was a fully loaded B52 aborting. My heart began to race as
imagination gave way to realization. As it hit the runway, some of the
under wing CBUs began exploding and shooting into the sky while raging
yellow & red fire began to engulf the wings and fuselage. The staring
faces of my crew mates were lit up as we stood transfixed in this
flaming vision of hell. I couldn't move. It totally filled this scene like
a cinema scope picture, end to end. Then I saw tiny, silhouetted men running back and forth back lit by the continuous explosions and flames everywhere. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Is there still a guy trapped in the tail gunner’s position?? BOOM Why are they heading that way instead of away from the bomber? BOOM Can they save him? BOOM! BOOM! Too, too late.
Horror. Watching Death happening..........
Somebody’s tugging my sleeve. A lifer sergeant shouts, "We’d
better get outa here" Hurry, get on the bus Can’t take my eyes off it.
Got on the bus and moved to the rear, all the time staring. The bus is
moving. The vision gets smaller, framed by the windows. I’m still
turned around. About 300 yards or so down the taxiway, a monstrous pure
white, blinding flash fills the sky. Pow I get socked in the gut and
stagger into the aisle-the Concussion The bomb-bay has just gone up.
Don't remember hearing the explosion. The white’s gone, but flames are
roaring higher and higher and reflecting off the sky. I thought they'd
live, but almost all did not.
I remember, once, waiting for our bird to takeoff out in the
middle of the base and watching the loading of an old wrinkled B52.
Winding, snaking, motorized palettes of bombs all going to one bird. How
many? How big? How long did it take-bombs green and long with stripes
around the nose.
The bus cruised slowly up the taxiway towards the Gate One side of
the base. All silent. As we made the turn around and behind the
beginning of the runway, I saw the other B52s in that cell waiting to go.
No, they weren't waiting. They were slowly rotating on their many
wheeled bogeyed landing gear over to the other, clear runway that their
RamRod tankers were using. They couldn't see their buddies down there
because about halfway the runway goes down-hill, but I'm sure they saw the
night-sky all aglow and all the rest, but still they were going. They
were still going to drop all that death on the jungles and peoples and
targets below. Their friends had just died, flaming and screaming and
they just moved over as casually as oops, wrong runway.
I mumbled this out loud. Doug Bluhm, my #2, said, "That’s gross."
I looked at him, motioned out the window to that sight and replied,
"No. THAT’s gross." He changed his look and maybe thought I wasn't such
an ass hole after all. Things were different for me after that. I
never talked on the bus again. Ever.
Michael G. Cobb
6990th Scty Sqdrn
mgc153@verizon.net
|
The following description is from Sue L. Breach
My family was stationed at Kadena when that B-52 had its unfortunate abort.
I was only 12 at the time and was awakened (like most everybody else on the
island) by all the commotion.
About the only thing I can remember about the whole thing was that my imagination ran wild. The first explosion woke me up (no idea what time; all was dark outside). All I could think of as I heard
additional explosions was that a giant was walking across the island. Each explosion became a footfall. I don't remember how many of those smaller explosions I heard before that last giant one. That one shot me bolt upright, running to my parents' room.
The next day lots of people drove by the site to see the crater left behind and to pay respects. I remember the hole being very large and that it was oh so close to the village. Things could have been so much worse.
I seem to remember that several crewmembers died. I can't remember how many or exactly how.
And it did not wake up my little brother. It terrified me.
|
The following description is from Sam McCown
I was with the 498th group and asleep on the third bed of a three level bunk and the first thing I knew was the blast. It essentially knocked me out of the bed and I don't remember landing on my feet but there I was. I can't recall noise, so it must have come and gone by the time I was conscious, yet the whole barracks shook like earthquakes I've been in.
I assumed that either something big had crashed not too far away, or maybe a fighter had crashed right next door. There was no sense of fear, since we'd survived the initial blast, so my next move was to just find out what had happened, for the interest of it. I ran for the upstairs exit, feeling there was a better view to be had there, and when I got there, I could see the fire and feel and hear the bombs detonating. From the amount of fire, the extent of the burning area, and the bombs going off, there was no doubt it had been a B-52 and he had to have aborted takeoff to have crashed on the runway. My next thought wasn't a good one. I couldn't imagine anybody had survived and was relieved to later hear that only two had not.
I estimate my position was about a mile or less from the crash site but never actually investigated the actual distance.
Later, I heard substantially the general story as it was reported here, although with variations. I heard from AP's about the ditch and the blast going over everybody in it, but the version of the fatalities that reached me was that the tail gunner had so far to jump that he broke his leg and one of the other crewmembers went back to get him and they both got burned so severely as to ultimately be fatal.
A few days later, (I think it was only days,) I was off duty from my Mace crew on normal rotation and so I was sent along with a group of airman to serve on a formation honoring the incoming governor general. We were transported by bus farther down the island toward Naha where the ceremony was held; on the way over, I heard somebody from the outfit the B-52 was part of commenting when somebody asked what he'd been doing lately, "Oh, I was playing 52 pickup."
|
If you have any thoughts about this crash, or related pictures, please eMail them to me and I'll include them here.
|
- My Hawk memories from Okinawa 1967-'69
- Hawk Picture Page 1 - Main Island Okinawa, Japan
- Hawk Picture Page 2 - Tokashiki Island, Okinawa, Japan
- Hawk Picture Page 3 - South Korea
- Hawk Picture Page 4 - West Germany
- Hawk Picture Page 5 - Fort Bliss, Texas
- Hawk Picture Page 6 - Vietnam
- Hawk Picture Page 7 - Panama Canal
- Hawk Picture Page 8 - Florida
- Hawk Picture Page 9 - Before there was Hawk...
- Navy EC-121 Shoot Down in Sea of Japan, April 1969
- B-52 Crash at Kadena AFB, November 1968
- Air Force Mace "B" Missiles (nukes) on Okinawa
- 30th Artillery Uniform Patches, Crest, Brass and Insignias
- History of Air Defense at Fort Bliss - 1972
- Military Personnel Records - Request Re-Issue of your Military Medals & Records
- General Orders and Code of Conduct
- What ever happened to the Hawk Sites on Okinawa?
- Hawk Battery MOS's, Inventory & Technical Drawings
- Purchase Military Rank and Weapon Badges, Medals, Dog Tags and Insignias
- Go to my PC Repair Web Page
- Click here to eMail me at: tom@madracki.com
This Web site was designed and is maintained by Tom Madracki, US56708259. For further information about this Hawk Missile Web Page, if you have pictures you'd like to see up here, or if you'd like to talk about the good old days, please CLICK HERE to send e-mail to me at tom@madracki.com.
| |
