During dinner I felt a hand on my thigh. I glanced at Doreen and both her hands were visible. I looked over at Cynthia and she flashed a seductive smile as her hand went higher. About the same time I saw Doreen jump as Irv’s hand disappeared below the table. Her reaction was more vocal than mine; she shrieked and stood up. Not wanting to be left behind, I popped up also. We grabbed our things and fled the scene. Later I learned that this was the standard “dinner at Irv’s.” His theory was: “If you ask everyone, one or two are bound to say yes.”
At Pope I continued training on the C-130. There was constant training on the basics plus some advanced items like formation flying, airdrops, short field takeoffs and landings and exotic maneuvers like “LAPES” drops.
LAPES stands for Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System. The idea behind LAPES is to have a C-130 come roaring across the ground at 150 knots, 10 feet off the ground, or deck as we call it, with the cargo ramp lowered. On a given signal, the loadmaster would release a parachute that connected to a pallet containing cargo of anything from Frosted Flakes to field artillery. When the chute inflates, it drags the pallet out of the airplane and, if all goes well, the pallet flops gently to the ground and skids to a halt. This system was developed and tested by one of the greatest C-130 pilots ever to don the flight suit, Lieutenant Colonel Benny Fioritto. (Years later, Benny would become my squadron commander.)
From a pilot’s perspective, the LAPES drop was an exercise in control. The airplane had to be right on airspeed and altitude for the load to exit the aircraft and hit the ground at the correct angle. Too much nose up or down at the moment of extraction meant that the load would likely tumble, sending rice or howitzers every which way. Depending on how heavy the pallet of cargo was, the flight controls of the C-130 would change violently during the maneuver. This was caused by the shifting weight on the aircraft’s center of gravity (CG). This caused the airplane to pitch up and down and the pilot had to keep it level.
All aircraft, from the Cessna 150 to the Airbus 380, must be loaded to keep the CG within acceptable limits. Everything must be taken into consideration: the empty weight of the airplane, the crew weight, the fuel, and the load carried.
On a tactical exercise at Nellis AFB Nevada, I sat in the observation stands as a Pope C-130 attempted a LAPES drop of a Jeep. As the aircraft roared by, the chute came out and then abruptly stopped in mid-air. As the Jeep was sliding out, the pallet jammed in the rollers and got stuck sideways in the door. This is one of the worst nightmares for a C-130 driver. Ten feet off the ground, full aft CG with an inflated chute trailing behind and dragging you down. Quick action by the loadmaster to detach the chute saved the day. The crew was able to climb the airplane back up in spite of the aft CG. The Jeep was jammed in the door and not moving but they were able to land safely and had a good war story for the bar that night.
Parachute drops were an important part of our mission. While at Pope, we regularly trained with the 82nd Airborne Division. The normal airdrop mission usually consisted of three or more aircraft flying in formation over a specified route leading to one of the Ft. Bragg drop zones (DZs). These DZs are close to Pope, with the largest being Sicily DZ. Other DZs at Bragg include, Salerno, St Mere Eglise, Holland, All American, and Nijmegen. They were named for the DZs used during D-Day in World War II.
We usually dropped 30 to 50 troops from 1500 to 2000 feet. The navigator kept us on course throughout. The navigator would call, “green light” to signal when the troops were ready to drop. The troops exited through both side rear doors. These were standard static line jumps. A thick metal wire ran from front to back about six feet off the deck on both sides of the aircraft. The troops would hook their chutes on to the line when it was getting close to jump time. At “green light” they started jumping out the doors. As they exited, their leader line, hooked to the plane’s static line, would pull the chute out of its pack causing it to inflate — most of the time. If the main didn’t open they inflated a spare chute worn on their chest.
Initially, these jumps were exciting for me. Watching these kids jump out of a perfectly good airplane was fascinating. The novelty of the exercise wore off after a while and it just became another mission. Flying these repetitive missions became boring.
Then came working with the Green Berets and things were not so dull anymore. The Green Berets were the elite at Fort Bragg. They were highly skilled, intelligent and fearless. They did things like HALO drops. HALO stood for High Altitude Low Opening parachute drops. We would drop these guys out at 15,000 feet and they would free-fall down to 1000 feet before opening their chute; like I said, fearless.
Even more amazing were their night drops. A Green Beret would be situated on the ground and mark the drop zone for his airborne teammates. We would fly to the pre-determined coordinates and their on-board spotter would stick his head out the door looking for the DZ, many times marked by the spotter on the ground with just a flashlight. When the on-board Green Beret saw the DZ he would calculate his release point, call “green light,” and the guys would jump out into the blackness. The Green Beret training missions were the tactical side of the airlift business. There was also a humanitarian aspect to our work and I would become very familiar with this in the coming months.
When I finished my training at Pope, I was termed “combat ready” meaning I was ready to go anywhere the Air Force needed me. The C-130 was in high demand around the world so I wouldn’t have to wait long.
Chapter 4
The first opportunity to travel came in 1971 during the Bangladesh independence movement on a mission called Operation Bonny Jack.
In 1947, British India was divided into the independent countries of India and Pakistan. The two countries have been involved in four wars since then. The dispute over Kashmir has been the cause of three of these wars. In 1971 the two went to war over the attempted secession of East Pakistan from West Pakistan. The crisis was created by the political battle between Sheik Mujib, leader of East Pakistan and Yahya Bhutto of West Pakistan. The east declared their independence and this caused the Pakistani Army to crack down on the millions of Bengalis living in the east. A nine-month war of independence began in March of 1971. There were reports of mass slaughter and rape of civilians. People were fleeing the genocide and the US Air Force was asked to go in there and help.
Both the US and the USSR had vital interests at stake. The Russians backed the Indian government; our government backed the Pakistanis. Each superpower picked a side and kept them supplied with planes and munitions in order to maintain the balance of power. Neither of the superpowers wanted to get involved in a shooting war so the only way to intervene was through humanitarian aid. This meant that both would send airlift support to help with the humanitarian crisis. Airlift to the rescue.
The request for airlift had arrived and we were tasked with supplying three aircraft and six crews for a two-month deployment to India. I was eager to travel and immediately volunteered.
Operation Bonny Jack called for C-130 crews to travel between India and Pakistan. From a base in India we were to fly into East Pakistan (soon to be Bangladesh) and deliver food and medical supplies. On the return trip, we would load up with refugees and fly them back to India where they would be assigned to resettlement camps.
The crew assignments were published, and ours was as follows: Aircraft Commander, Captain Herb Gaston; Navigator, Captain Bill Corcoran; Flight Engineer MSgt Ed Parman; Loadmaster SSgt Cliff Brown and yours truly, 1st Lt Jim Carter, copilot. There would be three airplanes flying with two crews each. The crews would switch off for each leg of the flight.