Good Deal?
At one time it seems DAL people could get a discount from Verizon on their
Cell phone rate. Is this still available and does it apply to retired
Personnel? Thanks, Fred Gardner, ret 2001 FCG3241@aol.com
Saluting Coweta's Vietnam Veterans: Cowetans in
action with U.S. Air Force
(Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series leading up to the visit to Coweta County in October by a traveling replica of the Vietnam Memorial wall.)
During nine years of war in Vietnam, the U.S. Air Force lost 2,255 aircraft. But Air Force crews always knew that if they went down, Air Force rescue crews would soon be on their way.
Newnan’s Jim Fogg piloted a C-130P that made 38 of those rescues, and Fogg said they all had one thing in common.
“Those guys would always say the sweetest sound they ever heard was when they were downed in the jungle and they heard us say ‘don’t worry. We’re coming to get you.’”
Fogg was born and raised in Bowling Green, Va. His family had a farm and Fogg entered Virginia Tech in 1956 to earn a degree in agronomy. He was also a member of the school’s Corps of Cadets, and after his sophomore year of college, when he learned he was eligible for pilot training, Fogg never gave farming another serious thought.
“Once I took my first flight I knew I’d never go back to the farm,” Fogg said.
Fogg entered the Air Force in June 1960 and earned his wings in September 1961. He flew C-124 cargo planes until 1965, when he was assigned to fly C-130s on ocean rescue missions out of Prestwick, Scotland. Fogg and his crews picked up pilots who went down at sea and victims of boating mishaps.
At the end of 1965 Fogg was transferred to Morón Air Base in Spain, doing the same sea rescue work. But by then he wanted to put his training and experience to work in another location.
“I was hawkish about the war and so I volunteered to go to Vietnam,” Fogg said. “My dad and wife and mother-in-law were all against it, but I was determined to go and I did.”
Fogg got his wish, and on March 14, 1967, he flew out of Marietta’s Dobbins Air Force Base in a brand new C-130P headed for Udorn Air Base in northern Thailand.
Fogg’s C-130P had the ability to refuel other aircraft in flight. It was the lead aircraft in a rescue group that consisted of the C-130P, four A-1 Skyraiders that provided enemy ground fire suppression during missions, and up to four “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters.
Every day dozens of U.S. planes flew out of Udorn on missions against North Vietnamese targets. Fogg’s group was always in the air ahead of the first planes, orbiting over the flight routes and listening for the radio call of “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” that signaled a pilot in trouble and requesting assistance.
“As soon as we heard ‘Mayday!’ the first thing I did was get a fix on the plane’s location,” Fogg said. “Then I’d radio ahead and say ‘I’m coming to get you.’”
Fogg never knew what the next day would bring.
“Some days would be nice and calm,” Fogg said, “and the next day all hell would break loose.” That’s what happened in April 30, 1967, when Fogg’s group responded to three separate rescue calls from F-105 fighters shot down within 15 minutes.
“Planes were going down so fast you couldn’t hear yourself think for all the ELTs (emergency locator transmitters) going off,” he said.
Fogg worked feverishly, vectoring Jolly Green choppers to pickup positions, keeping nearby planes and choppers refueled while watching out for ground fire. But his group was unable to save anyone from the three downed planes. Some empty parachutes were found and Fogg said he hoped the pilots were among the POWs released at the war’s end.
The day wasn’t a total washout, though. When an A-1 Skyraider was shot up and had to make an emergency landing, Fogg found a suitable strip at a spot called Plain de Jars, used flares to light the runway for the pilot and watched as the crippled plane ran out of fuel on landing. The pilot was quickly picked up by a Jolly Green and returned safely to base.
“We lost some people that day,” Fogg said. “So when you save one you’re always happy. My job was to concentrate on the guy who got shot down. That was my whole world. To rescue or recover him.”
After three months at Udorn, Fogg was transferred to Tuy Hoa, Vietnam, and followed the same routine.
Fogg flew 38 rescue missions. On one of those, his C-130 actually picked up the downed pilot. It happened on Jan. 4, 1968. Fogg was headed to patrol an area over the Gulf of Tonkin when he heard a “Mayday!” call from the wingman of an F-100 pilot who had gone down in eastern Cambodia.
Fogg called for another plane to fly his route and headed for Cambodia.
When he arrived at the crash site, Fogg saw the orange and white parachute and spotted the downed pilot at the end of a short, poorly-maintained airstrip. Fogg knew he would barely have room to land but made it down, taxied to the end of the runway and picked up the pilot. The runway was too narrow to make a normal turn so Fogg had to alternate his propellers between forward and reverse thrust, going backward and forward to turn around, like a car turning around on a one-lane road.
During the entire maneuver the downed pilot was screaming in Fogg’s ear to watch out for the enemy gun battery 300 yards away that had shot him down.
Fogg barely managed to clear the treetops on takeoff but delivered the pilot safely to Tuy Hoa and went directly to his next mission. The incident itself was fairly routine. What happened later was anything but.
Fogg left the Air Force in early 1969 and signed on as a pilot with Western Air Lines. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Just a few months later, Western mechanics went on strike and the airline furloughed 204 of its newest pilots, including Fogg.
Two years and four months passed before Fogg was called back to work. He remembers being at Los Angeles International waiting for a shuttle bus that carried crew members to the terminal when he noticed another pilot sneaking looks at him.
Fogg saw the other pilot’s uniform was well-worn, an indication that he was senior to Fogg and had remained on flight status while Fogg was furloughed.
The other pilot finally walked over, said Fogg looked familiar and asked if they had met. They finally realized they had been in Vietnam at the same time.
The other pilot said to Fogg, “Are you the guy who picked me up when I was shot down over Cambodia?”
Fogg realized who the pilot was and said, “Yeah, I picked you up, and if I had realized you’d come to Western Air Lines and be higher than me on the seniority list I’d have left your a__ in the jungle.”
The two had a good laugh and Fogg and the rescued pilot, Jim Pollard, became close friends.
Fogg flew for Western and Delta Air Lines until he retired in 1998. He has lived in Coweta County for 22 years and says he will always be proud of his service in Vietnam.
“There’s something extremely rewarding about saving another man’s life, and I had the privilege of doing that for one year in Vietnam.”
Jim Fogg’s rescue group included “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters that were used to pick up downed pilots or recover their remains. Jolly Green Giants that flew rescue missions often carried a combat photographer like Coweta’s Edward Brinton.
“We’d go to the scene of a crash and photograph the wreckage or take a picture of the pilot being rescued,” Brinton said. “When we picked one up, it was a good flight.”
Brinton was born and raised in Jonesboro, Ark. After high school he entered Arkansas State College to study physical education, but before graduating, Brinton left school and joined the Air Force in January 1951.
Brinton had hoped for flight duty but was grounded by a hearing problem and the Air Force sent him to Alaska to work as an athletic specialist.
Brinton’s older brother owned a photo studio in Jonesboro. Brinton worked there during high school and had picked up enough photography skills to use discarded military photo equipment to set up a photo lab at Cold Bay.
The Air Force was so impressed they sent him to the Air Force photo school at Lowry Air Force Base near Denver. During four years at Lowry, Brinton not only sharpened his photo skills, but he learned how to fudge the hearing portion of the flight physical and was granted flight status.
Not long afterward, he was back in Alaska photographing every military runway in the state.
“I don’t know how many runways there are in Alaska but it’s a lot,” Brinton said. “I saw them all.”
In the spring of 1968, Brinton was assigned to Vietnam and stationed at Danang Air Base. He was an E-6 (Technical Sergeant) and was the ranking NCO (non-commissioned officer) of the 600th photo squadron.
Brinton photographed bomb craters at U.S. bases left by rocket and mortar attacks that were almost a daily occurrence. He said Vietnamese civilians working at American bases often came out to view the damage and American commanders suspected they reported the damage to Vietnamese troops so they could adjust their fire accordingly before the next attack.
Brinton photographed bombed infrastructure so U.S. commanders could assess the damage and determine if future strikes were necessary.
He also flew regular rescue missions in a Jolly Green Giant. Brinton’s job was to photograph both the downed pilots and the aircraft wreckage. He also flew over the Ho Chi Minh Trail to photograph enemy troop movements and supply shipments.
Brinton said Vietcong mortar and rocket attacks against the Danang base were small and routine except for one large attack that blew up the fuel depot. His closest brush with disaster, though, came from an American warplane.
Brinton was ordered to ride a chopper up to 10,000 feet to photograph the entire runway at Dananag. Brinton knew the runway was too long to be captured in one shot, but his commander insisted and he took off.
While the chopper hovered at 10,000 feet, all aboard heard a roar and were rocked by a concussion wave as an American jet fighter flew by, barely missing the helicopter.
“We almost got creamed,” Brinton said. “I got back and told them to find another way to shoot the runway.”
After “Twenty three years, six months and two days” of active duty, Brinton left the service and began an 11-year career with Eastman Kodak. He then ran his own photo business for years.
Brinton is proud of his Air Force service but is not a fan of the action in Vietnam. “It was a dumb war,” he said. “It couldn’t be won the way we fought it.”
All the Air Force planes that flew over Vietnam required fuel, but the planes that flew at high altitude also required liquid nitrogen to cool the radar equipment and liquid oxygen that could be converted back to a gas for breathing.
Coweta’s George H. Willix, Sr. made sure Air Force pilots had plenty of both.
Willix grew up in Alexandria Bay in upstate New York, and after graduating from Alexandria Bay High School, headed straight for the military, enlisting in the U.S. Air Force in September 1964.
“I was ready to see some new places,” Willix said. “And I liked the Air Force so I signed up. Nobody was thinking about a war in Vietnam much at the time.”
After basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Tx., Willix went to Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois for technical training in cryogenics, a branch of physics dealing with the production and effects of extremely low temperatures.
“When they told me I was going into cryogenics, I didn’t even know how to spell it, much less what it was,” Willix said. “But they taught me.”
Willix worked in plants — including mobile units for field operations — that took oxygen out of the atmosphere, compressed it, then condensed it back into liquid form that took up less space until it was used in gas form.
“People used to say wherever we went we sucked all the oxygen out of the air,” Willix said. “And I guess we did.”
After training, Willix was sent to Hickham Field in Hawaii. While there he got to service a very special plane: Air Force One.
“President [Lyndon] Johnson came through several times on his way to Vietnam and other places,” Willix said. “I was the only one with top security clearance so I was responsible for working on the plane. I saw the president several times when he came through.”
After Hawaii, Willix made a brief stop at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, then moved on to Mactan Island, where he spent eight months putting together a new liquid oxygen and nitrogen facility as a huge new air base was being built to service the growing number of planes needing to be resupplied on the way to and from Vietnam.
In September 1967, Willix was assigned to Vietnam and posted at Bien Hoa Air Base, about 20 miles northwest of Saigon. When Willix arrived, Bien Hoa was the busiest airport in the world, handling more landings and takeoffs than the runnerup, Chicago’s O’ Hare Airport. Bien Hoa had a facility that produced liquid oxygen and nitrogen in large quantities.
The facility was bordered by a three-foot thick wall designed to withstand a blast. Not to protect the workers from the enemy, but to protect the rest of the base in case there was an explosion at the liquid oxygen facility.
“It wouldn’t burn,” Willix said. “But it would explode and they built that wall to keep the rest of the base safe in case it happened.” The Bien Hoa base was a major enemy target and Willix said that every day around 4 p.m., up to 25 enemy shells were fired into the huge facility.
“They didn’t usually hit anything,” Willix said. “But they were always firing at us. You could set your watch by it.”
One day the usual air raid warning sounded and Willix ordered his crew into an air raid bunker just a few feet away from the manufacturing plant. Willix pulled the plug to shut the plant down and headed for the bunker, but before he got there an artillery shell landed in the walled compound, knocked Willix to his knees and blew him through the bunker entrance.
When he recovered from the blast, Willix found a large piece of shrapnel embedded in the back of his flak jacket.
“If I hadn’t been wearing that flak jacket it would have been really bad,” Willix said. “God was there. That’s for sure.”
After that close call, things rocked along until Jan. 31, 1968, when the tactical situation changed. On Jan. 30, commanders received intelligence reports indicating a major attack against the base was imminent. Army troops could not get there to defend the base until 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 31.
At midnight, Willix and some other airmen were stationed 10 feet apart around the base perimeter fence, given rifles and told to get ready to fight.
“They knew we weren’t infantry but a commander asked if I’d had basic training and I said yes,” Willix said. “That commander said they were going to supply us with plenty of ammo and keep the area lit with flares and said, ‘If anything moves out there, light it up.’”
At 3 a.m. North Vietnamese Army regulars and Vietcong guerillas attacked in force. Willix and his fellow defenders on the perimeter started shooting and didn’t stop. Minutes after the attack began, U.S. planes joined the fight, dropping napalm on advancing enemy forces. The napalm fell so close to Willix it singed his eyebrows.
“There were too many of them to count,” Willix said. “The enemy was everywhere. With the flares you could see them but they could see you, too, and they kept shooting and so did we. You’d just pop up and fire and run through your ammo and get some more and do it again. It was hard. It was a long night, something you don’t forget.”
Enemy casualties were massive and included some surprises. The next day, American forces discovered that nine of the dead enemy attackers were Vietnamese who worked as civilians at Bien Hoa.
“That told me they were going to go with whoever they thought was going to win the war,” Willix said. “And they didn’t think it was us.”
Willix was discharged in September 1968 and worked in the construction and golf business before settling into long executive careers with Greyhound Bus Lines and Universal Forest Products.
Willix moved to Coweta nine years ago and said he never regretted his service but was disappointed over the way the war was handled and the way returning military personnel were treated.
“We didn’t get any parades or waving flags or any of that,” he said. “But we did our part and when you’re in the military that’s what you do. I’m proud of what I did and the people I served with. I’m glad I went and I’d do it again. But I think if military commanders had been in control it would have been over a lot quicker.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Full post disclaimer in left column. PCN Home Page is located at: http://pcn.homestead.com/home01.html
Subject:
Cell phone discounts?
Cell phone rate. Is this still available and does it apply to retired
Personnel? Thanks, Fred Gardner, ret 2001 FCG3241@aol.com
From: "carol" <carol.n.frank@cox.net>
Date: Jul 30, 2012 3:17 PM
Subject: Re: Cell Phone discounts Verizon et al
To: <FCG3241@aol.com>
Cc: <marksztanyo@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 30, 2012 3:17 PM
Subject: Re: Cell Phone discounts Verizon et al
To: <FCG3241@aol.com>
Cc: <marksztanyo@gmail.com>
Hi!
if you sine in to DeltaNet and look
under employee connection column, then click on Delta perks.....(I had to enter
“Verizon discounts” in the search bar to find it) and then a .pdf popped up
showing the different cell companies.
Better yet, see if you can just
click on to link below....or copy paste in your browser. Hopefully you can view
the .pdf that way, okay? We have verizon but I’ve never pursued the DL
discount. I think we have a senior discount or some such thing with verizon.
Let me know what you find out!
thx/Carol
cc: Mark
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From: carol
Date: 8/4/2012 3:33:04 PM
To: jrpollard@comcast.net; Deeds,
Dick; George Ross; DGW
Dave Roberts; marksztanyo@gmail.com; Wolf Zink; PHX
Carol/Frank Faulkner
Subject: Viet Nam war veterans, WA/DL pilots
Fogg & Pollard
|
....good article!! WA/DL pilots Jim Fogg and
John(article saysJim) Pollard.
and, today is Jim Fogg’s 74th birthday! Happy
Birthday, Jim!
and to Capt. Fogg and Capt. Pollard, thank you for
your service!!
Cf
Published Sunday, August 28, 2011
Jim Fogg gives
a thumbs-up in the cockpit of a C-130 during his Vietnam service.
Saluting Coweta's Vietnam Veterans: Cowetans in
action with U.S. Air Force
By Alex
McRae
The Newnan Times-Herald
(Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series leading up to the visit to Coweta County in October by a traveling replica of the Vietnam Memorial wall.)
During nine years of war in Vietnam, the U.S. Air Force lost 2,255 aircraft. But Air Force crews always knew that if they went down, Air Force rescue crews would soon be on their way.
Newnan’s Jim Fogg piloted a C-130P that made 38 of those rescues, and Fogg said they all had one thing in common.
“Those guys would always say the sweetest sound they ever heard was when they were downed in the jungle and they heard us say ‘don’t worry. We’re coming to get you.’”
Fogg was born and raised in Bowling Green, Va. His family had a farm and Fogg entered Virginia Tech in 1956 to earn a degree in agronomy. He was also a member of the school’s Corps of Cadets, and after his sophomore year of college, when he learned he was eligible for pilot training, Fogg never gave farming another serious thought.
“Once I took my first flight I knew I’d never go back to the farm,” Fogg said.
Fogg entered the Air Force in June 1960 and earned his wings in September 1961. He flew C-124 cargo planes until 1965, when he was assigned to fly C-130s on ocean rescue missions out of Prestwick, Scotland. Fogg and his crews picked up pilots who went down at sea and victims of boating mishaps.
At the end of 1965 Fogg was transferred to Morón Air Base in Spain, doing the same sea rescue work. But by then he wanted to put his training and experience to work in another location.
“I was hawkish about the war and so I volunteered to go to Vietnam,” Fogg said. “My dad and wife and mother-in-law were all against it, but I was determined to go and I did.”
Fogg got his wish, and on March 14, 1967, he flew out of Marietta’s Dobbins Air Force Base in a brand new C-130P headed for Udorn Air Base in northern Thailand.
Fogg’s C-130P had the ability to refuel other aircraft in flight. It was the lead aircraft in a rescue group that consisted of the C-130P, four A-1 Skyraiders that provided enemy ground fire suppression during missions, and up to four “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters.
Every day dozens of U.S. planes flew out of Udorn on missions against North Vietnamese targets. Fogg’s group was always in the air ahead of the first planes, orbiting over the flight routes and listening for the radio call of “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” that signaled a pilot in trouble and requesting assistance.
“As soon as we heard ‘Mayday!’ the first thing I did was get a fix on the plane’s location,” Fogg said. “Then I’d radio ahead and say ‘I’m coming to get you.’”
Fogg never knew what the next day would bring.
“Some days would be nice and calm,” Fogg said, “and the next day all hell would break loose.” That’s what happened in April 30, 1967, when Fogg’s group responded to three separate rescue calls from F-105 fighters shot down within 15 minutes.
“Planes were going down so fast you couldn’t hear yourself think for all the ELTs (emergency locator transmitters) going off,” he said.
Fogg worked feverishly, vectoring Jolly Green choppers to pickup positions, keeping nearby planes and choppers refueled while watching out for ground fire. But his group was unable to save anyone from the three downed planes. Some empty parachutes were found and Fogg said he hoped the pilots were among the POWs released at the war’s end.
The day wasn’t a total washout, though. When an A-1 Skyraider was shot up and had to make an emergency landing, Fogg found a suitable strip at a spot called Plain de Jars, used flares to light the runway for the pilot and watched as the crippled plane ran out of fuel on landing. The pilot was quickly picked up by a Jolly Green and returned safely to base.
“We lost some people that day,” Fogg said. “So when you save one you’re always happy. My job was to concentrate on the guy who got shot down. That was my whole world. To rescue or recover him.”
After three months at Udorn, Fogg was transferred to Tuy Hoa, Vietnam, and followed the same routine.
Fogg flew 38 rescue missions. On one of those, his C-130 actually picked up the downed pilot. It happened on Jan. 4, 1968. Fogg was headed to patrol an area over the Gulf of Tonkin when he heard a “Mayday!” call from the wingman of an F-100 pilot who had gone down in eastern Cambodia.
Fogg called for another plane to fly his route and headed for Cambodia.
When he arrived at the crash site, Fogg saw the orange and white parachute and spotted the downed pilot at the end of a short, poorly-maintained airstrip. Fogg knew he would barely have room to land but made it down, taxied to the end of the runway and picked up the pilot. The runway was too narrow to make a normal turn so Fogg had to alternate his propellers between forward and reverse thrust, going backward and forward to turn around, like a car turning around on a one-lane road.
During the entire maneuver the downed pilot was screaming in Fogg’s ear to watch out for the enemy gun battery 300 yards away that had shot him down.
Fogg barely managed to clear the treetops on takeoff but delivered the pilot safely to Tuy Hoa and went directly to his next mission. The incident itself was fairly routine. What happened later was anything but.
Fogg left the Air Force in early 1969 and signed on as a pilot with Western Air Lines. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Just a few months later, Western mechanics went on strike and the airline furloughed 204 of its newest pilots, including Fogg.
Two years and four months passed before Fogg was called back to work. He remembers being at Los Angeles International waiting for a shuttle bus that carried crew members to the terminal when he noticed another pilot sneaking looks at him.
Fogg saw the other pilot’s uniform was well-worn, an indication that he was senior to Fogg and had remained on flight status while Fogg was furloughed.
The other pilot finally walked over, said Fogg looked familiar and asked if they had met. They finally realized they had been in Vietnam at the same time.
The other pilot said to Fogg, “Are you the guy who picked me up when I was shot down over Cambodia?”
Fogg realized who the pilot was and said, “Yeah, I picked you up, and if I had realized you’d come to Western Air Lines and be higher than me on the seniority list I’d have left your a__ in the jungle.”
The two had a good laugh and Fogg and the rescued pilot, Jim Pollard, became close friends.
Fogg flew for Western and Delta Air Lines until he retired in 1998. He has lived in Coweta County for 22 years and says he will always be proud of his service in Vietnam.
“There’s something extremely rewarding about saving another man’s life, and I had the privilege of doing that for one year in Vietnam.”
Jim Fogg’s rescue group included “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters that were used to pick up downed pilots or recover their remains. Jolly Green Giants that flew rescue missions often carried a combat photographer like Coweta’s Edward Brinton.
“We’d go to the scene of a crash and photograph the wreckage or take a picture of the pilot being rescued,” Brinton said. “When we picked one up, it was a good flight.”
Brinton was born and raised in Jonesboro, Ark. After high school he entered Arkansas State College to study physical education, but before graduating, Brinton left school and joined the Air Force in January 1951.
Brinton had hoped for flight duty but was grounded by a hearing problem and the Air Force sent him to Alaska to work as an athletic specialist.
Brinton’s older brother owned a photo studio in Jonesboro. Brinton worked there during high school and had picked up enough photography skills to use discarded military photo equipment to set up a photo lab at Cold Bay.
The Air Force was so impressed they sent him to the Air Force photo school at Lowry Air Force Base near Denver. During four years at Lowry, Brinton not only sharpened his photo skills, but he learned how to fudge the hearing portion of the flight physical and was granted flight status.
Not long afterward, he was back in Alaska photographing every military runway in the state.
“I don’t know how many runways there are in Alaska but it’s a lot,” Brinton said. “I saw them all.”
In the spring of 1968, Brinton was assigned to Vietnam and stationed at Danang Air Base. He was an E-6 (Technical Sergeant) and was the ranking NCO (non-commissioned officer) of the 600th photo squadron.
Brinton photographed bomb craters at U.S. bases left by rocket and mortar attacks that were almost a daily occurrence. He said Vietnamese civilians working at American bases often came out to view the damage and American commanders suspected they reported the damage to Vietnamese troops so they could adjust their fire accordingly before the next attack.
Brinton photographed bombed infrastructure so U.S. commanders could assess the damage and determine if future strikes were necessary.
He also flew regular rescue missions in a Jolly Green Giant. Brinton’s job was to photograph both the downed pilots and the aircraft wreckage. He also flew over the Ho Chi Minh Trail to photograph enemy troop movements and supply shipments.
Brinton said Vietcong mortar and rocket attacks against the Danang base were small and routine except for one large attack that blew up the fuel depot. His closest brush with disaster, though, came from an American warplane.
Brinton was ordered to ride a chopper up to 10,000 feet to photograph the entire runway at Dananag. Brinton knew the runway was too long to be captured in one shot, but his commander insisted and he took off.
While the chopper hovered at 10,000 feet, all aboard heard a roar and were rocked by a concussion wave as an American jet fighter flew by, barely missing the helicopter.
“We almost got creamed,” Brinton said. “I got back and told them to find another way to shoot the runway.”
After “Twenty three years, six months and two days” of active duty, Brinton left the service and began an 11-year career with Eastman Kodak. He then ran his own photo business for years.
Brinton is proud of his Air Force service but is not a fan of the action in Vietnam. “It was a dumb war,” he said. “It couldn’t be won the way we fought it.”
All the Air Force planes that flew over Vietnam required fuel, but the planes that flew at high altitude also required liquid nitrogen to cool the radar equipment and liquid oxygen that could be converted back to a gas for breathing.
Coweta’s George H. Willix, Sr. made sure Air Force pilots had plenty of both.
Willix grew up in Alexandria Bay in upstate New York, and after graduating from Alexandria Bay High School, headed straight for the military, enlisting in the U.S. Air Force in September 1964.
“I was ready to see some new places,” Willix said. “And I liked the Air Force so I signed up. Nobody was thinking about a war in Vietnam much at the time.”
After basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Tx., Willix went to Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois for technical training in cryogenics, a branch of physics dealing with the production and effects of extremely low temperatures.
“When they told me I was going into cryogenics, I didn’t even know how to spell it, much less what it was,” Willix said. “But they taught me.”
Willix worked in plants — including mobile units for field operations — that took oxygen out of the atmosphere, compressed it, then condensed it back into liquid form that took up less space until it was used in gas form.
“People used to say wherever we went we sucked all the oxygen out of the air,” Willix said. “And I guess we did.”
After training, Willix was sent to Hickham Field in Hawaii. While there he got to service a very special plane: Air Force One.
“President [Lyndon] Johnson came through several times on his way to Vietnam and other places,” Willix said. “I was the only one with top security clearance so I was responsible for working on the plane. I saw the president several times when he came through.”
After Hawaii, Willix made a brief stop at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, then moved on to Mactan Island, where he spent eight months putting together a new liquid oxygen and nitrogen facility as a huge new air base was being built to service the growing number of planes needing to be resupplied on the way to and from Vietnam.
In September 1967, Willix was assigned to Vietnam and posted at Bien Hoa Air Base, about 20 miles northwest of Saigon. When Willix arrived, Bien Hoa was the busiest airport in the world, handling more landings and takeoffs than the runnerup, Chicago’s O’ Hare Airport. Bien Hoa had a facility that produced liquid oxygen and nitrogen in large quantities.
The facility was bordered by a three-foot thick wall designed to withstand a blast. Not to protect the workers from the enemy, but to protect the rest of the base in case there was an explosion at the liquid oxygen facility.
“It wouldn’t burn,” Willix said. “But it would explode and they built that wall to keep the rest of the base safe in case it happened.” The Bien Hoa base was a major enemy target and Willix said that every day around 4 p.m., up to 25 enemy shells were fired into the huge facility.
“They didn’t usually hit anything,” Willix said. “But they were always firing at us. You could set your watch by it.”
One day the usual air raid warning sounded and Willix ordered his crew into an air raid bunker just a few feet away from the manufacturing plant. Willix pulled the plug to shut the plant down and headed for the bunker, but before he got there an artillery shell landed in the walled compound, knocked Willix to his knees and blew him through the bunker entrance.
When he recovered from the blast, Willix found a large piece of shrapnel embedded in the back of his flak jacket.
“If I hadn’t been wearing that flak jacket it would have been really bad,” Willix said. “God was there. That’s for sure.”
After that close call, things rocked along until Jan. 31, 1968, when the tactical situation changed. On Jan. 30, commanders received intelligence reports indicating a major attack against the base was imminent. Army troops could not get there to defend the base until 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 31.
At midnight, Willix and some other airmen were stationed 10 feet apart around the base perimeter fence, given rifles and told to get ready to fight.
“They knew we weren’t infantry but a commander asked if I’d had basic training and I said yes,” Willix said. “That commander said they were going to supply us with plenty of ammo and keep the area lit with flares and said, ‘If anything moves out there, light it up.’”
At 3 a.m. North Vietnamese Army regulars and Vietcong guerillas attacked in force. Willix and his fellow defenders on the perimeter started shooting and didn’t stop. Minutes after the attack began, U.S. planes joined the fight, dropping napalm on advancing enemy forces. The napalm fell so close to Willix it singed his eyebrows.
“There were too many of them to count,” Willix said. “The enemy was everywhere. With the flares you could see them but they could see you, too, and they kept shooting and so did we. You’d just pop up and fire and run through your ammo and get some more and do it again. It was hard. It was a long night, something you don’t forget.”
Enemy casualties were massive and included some surprises. The next day, American forces discovered that nine of the dead enemy attackers were Vietnamese who worked as civilians at Bien Hoa.
“That told me they were going to go with whoever they thought was going to win the war,” Willix said. “And they didn’t think it was us.”
Willix was discharged in September 1968 and worked in the construction and golf business before settling into long executive careers with Greyhound Bus Lines and Universal Forest Products.
Willix moved to Coweta nine years ago and said he never regretted his service but was disappointed over the way the war was handled and the way returning military personnel were treated.
“We didn’t get any parades or waving flags or any of that,” he said. “But we did our part and when you’re in the military that’s what you do. I’m proud of what I did and the people I served with. I’m glad I went and I’d do it again. But I think if military commanders had been in control it would have been over a lot quicker.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From: Dick
Date: 7/30/2012 9:42:54 AM
Subject:
Remembering Mr. Woolman
Mark,
Please consider posting this.
The next issue of Delta Golden Wings will publish an article of my first hand experience with Delta's founder. Everyone should enjoy reading about Mr. Woolman He made important decisions that propelled Delta ahead of the competition.
The following was not in the article, but it is a funny story.
In 1960 the Atlanta Airport Terminal Building was in a Quonset Hut with covered walk-ways out to the aircraft. The training department had no simulators and only two flight instructors for new hires. Sam Bass and Bob Davis were training newly hired pilots to become DC-6 flight-engineers. Sam went to Chief Pilots Pre Ball's office and asked to leave the training department and go back on the line. Captain Ball went ballistic and fired Sam in a showing of arm flailing and loud profanity. As Sam was walking down the hallway with his head bowed, Mr. Woolman stuck his head out his office door and rehired Sam. "I'll talk to Captain Ball after her cools down". He told Sam not to worry. This may the only mistake Mr. Woolman. ever made.
Sam continued in the training department and on to a distinguished career. He retired as an International Captain.
Captain Ball had a fiery temper, but he was often on the pilot's side. I guess that's why we loved him.
Dick Blizzard - Author/Public Speaker
http://dickblizzard.blogspot.com(aviation and boating)
http://funkydicksmusic.blogspot.com (Memoir, fiction and videos)
The next issue of Delta Golden Wings will publish an article of my first hand experience with Delta's founder. Everyone should enjoy reading about Mr. Woolman He made important decisions that propelled Delta ahead of the competition.
The following was not in the article, but it is a funny story.
In 1960 the Atlanta Airport Terminal Building was in a Quonset Hut with covered walk-ways out to the aircraft. The training department had no simulators and only two flight instructors for new hires. Sam Bass and Bob Davis were training newly hired pilots to become DC-6 flight-engineers. Sam went to Chief Pilots Pre Ball's office and asked to leave the training department and go back on the line. Captain Ball went ballistic and fired Sam in a showing of arm flailing and loud profanity. As Sam was walking down the hallway with his head bowed, Mr. Woolman stuck his head out his office door and rehired Sam. "I'll talk to Captain Ball after her cools down". He told Sam not to worry. This may the only mistake Mr. Woolman. ever made.
Sam continued in the training department and on to a distinguished career. He retired as an International Captain.
Captain Ball had a fiery temper, but he was often on the pilot's side. I guess that's why we loved him.
Dick Blizzard - Author/Public Speaker
http://dickblizzard.blogspot.com
http://funkydicksmusic.blogspot.com (Memoir, fiction and videos)
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