Stories of the 68th AREFS
Page 3

A STORY SUBMITTED BY LARRY PEARL:

When the squadron went to Goose Bay, in the fall of 1956, I was in Load Master School at West Palm Beach AFB. Soon after I returned to Lake Charles, they called a base alert and I watched the last KC97 from the 44th ARS take off. I was beginning to think I was going to miss something until I overheard one of the officers on the phone with Goose Bay. He told them he had some extra boom operators and that he would get them on a flight to Goose Bay. A few days later I found myself on a C124 headed north, this aircraft rattled and shook more than a KC 97. My big surprise was when we landed at Goose Bay I saw this charred carcass of a KC 97 along the side of the runway. This was a shock for a young boom operator, all that remained was four charred engines and a tail section.

The story someone told about the ORI Mission to Plattsburg AFB brought back some memories. My crew flew in the ferry string, we did not refuel or carry cargo, on the flight to Plattsburg. We landed, refuelled and were looking for the portable kitchens that were supposed to be on the flight line. Then Lt. Col Johnson, who was in charge of the operation, came and asked if our aircraft was ready to go. When he found out that we were ready, he told us that the squadron in front of us had landed on their butts and did not have enough aircraft to fill the next flight and we needed to start engines and go. We took off and flew our refueling mission and returned around daylight. They were so pleased with our fast turnaround they gave our aircraft to a spare crew and gave us the night off.

On the flight home, we were passengers with the spare crew. While we were taxiing to the runway a string of B 47s got in front of us and we had to sit for about 45 minutes waiting for them to take off. When we rolled down the runway the engines were not getting full torque, we finally got off the ground but could not climb, we made a short trip around and landed. I then found out how long it took to change the spark plugs in all four engines. We were now so late that the field was closed when we got to Bunker Hill. It took us two days to get home, my wife came out to the base two nights to hear us fly over. Bunker Hill was a hard place to get back to in the winter.

Larry Pearl

A STORY SUBMITTED BY CARL HARLAND:

"A Sure Oil Lead Fix"

I spent several years in SAC, and remember several inspection teams that we were involved with. One stood out real well, it was MSET, an inspection team that checked our work on the KC97's engines we worked on. They had told us through many conversations we had with them, many things we could "Do and Not-Do". One was how to stop oil leaks when there was no parts to do it. I got stationed at Cam Ron Bay, Vietnam in the 21st TASS, that had about 21 O1's and 25 O2s both small one and two engine planes, and also had 20 FOL's (Forward Operating Locations) with either an O1 or a O2 aircraft assigned to it that we took care of. I was assigned to the Night shift crew as their NCOIC, and one day the day shift had grounded about 9 or 10 O2's for oil leaks, before I came on duty. When I got to work I found out what they had done and also found out that there was no " O" seals on base. Well, I used my learning from when I was in the 68th AREFS. I got another person to go with me and I took a small can of Aviation Gas and went to each of the aircraft that they had grounded, checked the forms to see which Push Rods were leaking, removed it, cleaned the seal and area around it, dipped the seal into the gas and installed it, the seal swelled into place and sealed the leak, I did this to all the aircraft and ran them up to make sure there was no leak. And then I called Job Control and told them that the planes were back in commission. Boy! You could have heard a pin drop, where did you get the seals they asked, well I couldn't tell them over the radio what I had done so I went in side and told them what I had done. The next morning they had a very serious meeting with all the head people and told them before they grounded another aircraft that they had better check with me. That made me feel pretty important in that squadron, and I was until I left. Made me feel pretty good knowing that I had learned it in the 68th, but had never been able to use it till then.

Carl