Life As an Air Force Wife

Ike was a very prolific letter writer; so I had a running account of the war, at least from his viewpoint.  As was his wont, he didn’t spare me any of the gory details; so it was almost like I was there, too.  The only problem was that the mail was erratic at best and it took from six to eight days to get a letter from him.  No one I knew had television in those days; so the only news I ever got was from him or through the newspapers.  He belonged to Love Flight (he was to become Flight Leader in June when he had flown 44 missions [sorties]) and would tell of his dealings with the other three men in the flight, some of whom he literally trusted with his life and others who were loose cannons.  I suppose the closest he ever came to being killed was one time when his flight was landing after a mission. The pilot who landed right behind him, having forgotten to turn off his guns (the trigger of which was built into the stick), let off a round of shots that tore up the rear of Ike’s plane.  One shot hit about one inch from the fuel tank. I still have a little bag with scraps of metal from that incident. I wish I had kept his letters.  But, moving around as much as we did and having to lighten the load as much as possible, I finally disposed of them, thinking, “I have him back; why do I need to keep these letters?”  Bad judgment on my part, as they literally recorded history.

F-80 Shooting Stars and F-84 Thunderjets were used in Korea; but the F-51-D Mustang was flown from Ike’s base. It was a recip and therefore could do a lot of jobs that the jets, precisely because of their greater speed, could not.   But the Mustang was already obsolete when Ike got there; and they had to cannibalize their own planes to get parts when one would have mechanical difficulties. I think Ike must have been exaggerating when he told me that they lost more planes from engine failure than from the enemy.  The writer of an article in the base newspaper, The Truckbuster, dated 17 March 1952 stated that the 12^th Squadron had lost fewer pilots than had any other in the Group and had flown almost 2,000 sorties more than any other squadron.  At that time the Foxy Few had flown over 10,000 sorties and supposedly had the lowest accident record.  Although I was naturally not happy for him to be in combat and prayed daily for his safety, I didn’t worry unduly because I knew he was in God’s hands, that he was a good safe pilot, and that if anyone could handle an emergency, Ike Hamilton could. In fact, the more emergencies I heard about, the greater my confidence in his flying ability grew.  He respected his plane and never let down his guard or got cocky.  He would quote whoever had said, “That bird doesn’t know you are the hottest pilot in the world; so each time you go up, you have to prove it to it all over again.”  Some other wise person had said, “There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots; but there are no old, bold pilots;” and he knew that to be true.  So while he pushed his bird and himself to the limit, he was never reckless.  

The Mustangs flew many different kinds of missions.  Some were Interdiction missions: they bombed strategic bridges, power plants, hydro-electric plants, depots, factories, railroads, supplies, supply vehicles, ammunition dumps, warehouses, bunkers, artillery positions, troop installations, and the like. In late 1951, after the Communist troops had been run out of South Korea back up above the 38^th Parallel, the U.N. forces put on an all-out push involving B-29 Superfortress bombings.  F-80 Shooting Stars and F-84 Thunderjets, and possibly some other types of UN Fighter-Bombers were involved in the wave of follow-up after the bombings. One newspaper article called it “the greatest allied air blow of the Korean war.”  They bombarded Pyongyang for days and days and destroyed the supply stations and bases from which the Communists were trying their best to take over South Korea.  The Mustangs contributed a lot to getting things there a little better under control.  The pointed front ends of the Foxy Few’s Mustangs were painted to look like sharks’ teeth.  I’m sure that the menacing sneer on those sharks’ faces put even more fear into the enemy when they saw them coming at them.

Others were ResCap missions...when a plane would get shot down in enemy territory, a helicopter would be sent in to rescue the pilot if he had been able to eject; and the Mustangs would fly cover for the chopper to fend off enemy planes to keep them from shooting down the helicopter, as well.  I think ResCap missions were among Ike’s “favorites” if that’s the right word to use, although sometimes he had to tangle with Russian MIG-15s to keep them away.

Ike got over there right in the big middle of that operation and immediately was involved in it, flying his first combat sortie on 11 March 1952.  There was usually heavy anti-aircraft fire to greet them in this type of mission; so they would fly as close to the ground as possible and at maximum speed so as to get in and out as quickly as they could before their presence was detected by the enemy.  I suppose that, after all, those cacti in the Arizona desert had served a useful purpose in helping to train the pilots.  To say that it was very dangerous would be a ludicrous understatement.  As Ike used to put it,  “It isn’t conducive to longevity.” 

In late March, the stress of combat, the Gs pulled, the austere living conditions, or something...probably all of the above...caused his bad back to act up more than it usually did.  He must have reported in on sick call one too many times, as they sent him to the Orthopedic Section of the USAF Hospital in Nagoya, Japan, to have his problem diagnosed.  Although Lt. Anshutz, the Aviation Medical Examiner, had suggested that Ike just be evaluated as an outpatient,