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SQUADRONS OF THE |
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The 10th FBS |
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THIS SECTION |
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The 81st FBS |
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James Robinson "Robbie" Risner was born in Arkansas in 1925, grew up in Oklahoma, and entered the Army Air Forces in 1943. He earned his wings in May, 1944, then flew P-38s and P-39s in Panama until the war ended. After five years in the Reserves (flying P-51s), he was recalled to active duty in 1951 for the Korean crisis. Captain Risner arrived in Korea in May 1952, originally he was assigned to a photo reconnaisance outfit, but he soon obtained a transfer to the 336th Fighter Squadron of the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing, based at Kimpo. He shot down his first MiG on August 5, 1952, and then scored again on September 9th and 15th, and twice on September 21st, making him the 20th American ace of the conflict. On October 22, 1952, he was flying escort for some fighter - bombers; to screen them, he had to fly across the Yalu, right above the big Chinese air base at Antung. He immediately encountered four MiGs that turned and flew deeper into China. Staying with them anyway, Risner fired at extreme range at the tail - end Charlie and shattered his canopy glass. As the MiG pilot twisted and dodged, Risner caught his plane with another burst. Almost down on the deck, the Communist flier started a split-S, and to Risner's amazement pulled out of it in a dry river bed. Risner pursued through the MiG's jet wash and dust that it kicked up. Through more tortuous manuevers, Risner could barely stay with the enemy plane.  "He was not in very good shape, but he was a great pilot - and he was fighting like a cornered rat! He chopped the throttle and threw his speed brakes out. I coasted up, afraid that I'd overshoot him. I did a roll over the top of him, and when I came down on the other side, I was right on his wing tip. We were both at Idle with our speed brakes out, just coasting. He looked over at me, raised his hand, and shook his fist. I thought 'This is like a movie. This can't be happening!' He had on a leather helmet and I could see the stitching in it." The MiG then swung around and led Risner right into Tak Tung Kau air base, 35 miles inside China. He zoomed down the airstrip, making 300 knots and with his landing gear up. Risner waited until the right moment and then hammered him, blasting off part of the wing; the MiG touched the ground and blew apart. It was Risner's sixth kill. As Risner and his wingman, Lt. Joe Logan, were leaving the Chinese airfield, the flak caught Joe's fuel tank. Jet fuel and hydraulic fluid spewed out from the wounded Sabre. Robinson instantly decided to try an unprecedented and untried manuever; he would push the crippled fighter with his, about 60 miles to the UN rescue base on the island of Cho Do. He radioed Joe to shut down his engine. He carefully inserted the nose of his F-86 into the exhaust of Logan's plane and tired to keep the two planes together. The turbulence kept bouncing and separating the two jets, but Risner was able to re-establish contact and guide the powerless plane out over the sea. Near Cho Do, Lt. Logan bailed out, after radioing to Risner, "I'll see you at the base tonight." Risner stayed in radio contact with the rescue helicopter. Joe, a strong swimmer, landed close to shore, and the chopper tried to blow him in with the rotors. Tragically though, Joe Logan didn't make it; he became tangled in his parachute lines and drowned. Risner shot down two more MiGs, for a total of eight, before he left Korea in February 1953. After Korea, Risner stayed in the Air Force, and was assigned to the 50th Fighter Bomber Wing at Clovis Air Force Base, N.M., in March 1953 and became the operations officer of the 81st Fighter Bomber Squadron. He flew F-86s with the 50th Wing when it activated (open the new) Hahn Air Base, West Germany, where he became commander of the 81st Fighter Bomber Squadron in November 1954.  In July 1956 he was transferred to George Air Force Base, Calif., as operations officer of the 413th Fighter Wing. Subsequently he served as commander of the 34th Fighter - Day Squadron, also at George Air Force Base. During his tour of duty at George Air Force Base, Risner was selected to fly the Charles A. Lindberg Commemoration Flight from New York to Paris. Flying the F-100, he set a new transatlantic speed record, covering the distance in 6 hours and 38 minutes. From August 1960 to July 1961, he attended the Air Force's Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. Afterwards he next served on the joint staff of the commander in chief, Pacific, in Hawaii. In August 1964 Colonel Risner was assigned as commander of the 67th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Kadena AB, Okinawa, where he flew the F-105 Thunderchief. While on temporary duty with the 67th TFS at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, he was shot down over North Vietnam in April 1965 and was rescued. Risner was featured on the cover of Time magazine in May of that year, but the exposure would later come back to haunt him. Five months later, in September, his luck ran out while flying an F-105 Thunderchief and he was shot down a second time. This time the North Vietnamese captured him, and held him prisoner for over 7 years. The Vietnamese interrogator held up a copy of the Time magazine with Risner's face on it and told him he was on the list of people they wanted. "I thought, 'Boy, I'm in tall cotton,' " he said. "I lived to regret that they had that Time magazine cover." For the majority of his time in captivity, Risner was the senior ranking officer among the POWs. He was selected vice commander of the 4th Allied Prisoner of War Wing at the old French prison known as the "Hanoi Hilton." The secret POW group promoted morale among the prisoners. Many prisoners endured burns and broken bones from torture by Vietnamese guards. One day Risner heard a man screaming. The POW later told Risner the prison guards were twisting his right leg, which had an exposed bone and was broken at the thigh. Risner spent four years in solitary confinement, unable to speak to or see other Americans "The only person I had to talk to was God," he said. His first night was spent in a 7- by-7-foot room with broken cement and so much dust he had to sleep sitting up. He was able to communicate with other prisoners through a small crack near the floor. Later, a crack the size of a pinhole — just large enough for him to see a single blade of grass — would give Risner enough encouragement to keep living. Risner's proudest moment came when POWs throughout the camp began singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" while he and others were being punished for leading Sunday worship services. "I was never so proud to be an American and a Christian as I was that day," he said. Risner gained his freedom in March 1973. He and other POWs went to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines where women and children lined the streets to greet them. The first question reporters asked Risner after his release was what kept him going all those years. "I said, 'God and country,' " he recalled. "Other POWs will tell you the same thing." Though Risner said he choked back his emotions at the home coming, he broke down when he was fitted for his first military uniform in almost eight years. He still wears it at veterans' functions. "I lost control and shed some tears," he said. "And I wasn't alone. Many more said they were emotional." Though he was warned not to wear the uniform in public after his release because the war was so unpopular at the time, Risner said, "I wore that uniform to everywhere but bed." In July of 1973, Colonel Risner was assigned to the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing, MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., where he became combat ready in the F-4. Also upon his return, he was promoted to Brigadier General. He retired from the Air Force in 1976 and lives in Texas with his wife and family. |
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The 417th FBS |
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"Our squadron of Sabre jets was part of a three squadron fighter bomber wing stationed at Hahn, which, in 1955, was a brand new fighter base up on the 'Houndsback,' two thousand feet above the Mosel River, about thirty miles from Wiesbaden. Europe has the worst flying weather in the world, and Hahn had the worst weather in all of Europe. Heavy fog and rain were continuous, and only God knew why the Air Force decided to build a base up there. We lost a few pilots in the fog, while learning to be extremely proficient bad weather pilots."  "We couldn't believe that the famous Chuck Yeager was heading our way." "Chuck came to us as a major and rather quickly was promoted in lieutenant colonel. We were a good squadron and he fit right in. He operated with a twinkle in his eye, as easy going and friendly as any squadron leader, we had ever encountered; his rank was there because he wore it on his collar, but he lived to fly like the rest of us and probably flew more than the other squadron commanders in the wing. He was right in the middle of our beer busts, parties, and poker games." "Colonel Fred Ascani commanded the entire wing. He was tough and strict, a real terror to work for. Ascani had been Gen. Boyd's deputy (XS-1 project), so Chuck knew him well. Even so, Ascani had bugaboos, and if anyone violated his rules, he lowered the boom. His biggest bugaboo was accidents. When he took over the 50th wing, the accident rate was atrocious, so he staked his career on a zero accident rate. Wreck an airplane and he'd wreck you. We flew into Pisa, Italy, one day and a guy in our squadron snapped the nose wheel off his Sabre while landing. Chuck called the squadron maintenance officer at Hahn and gave him a list of parts that would be needed to bolt a fixed nose gear on the plane, and they arrived in a C-47, while Chuck pounded out the air intake with a sledgehammer. The repairs took nearly a day, then Chuck flew that airplane back to Germany with the nose wheel down and bolted, a really tricky piece of flying. It was rolled into the back of a dark hangar, quickly repaired, and never reported. But then I crashed. I was flying alone, coming down to refuel outside of Paris on a beautiful Sunday morning. I was feeling real good and began doing rolls coming down. But my control stick stuck and I couldn't stop rolling. I got down to 1,400 feet, more afraid of Colonel Ascani than of dying. Finally I ejected. I was so low that I did only two swings in my chute before I landed in a tree. Ascani went out of his mind. He roared in on Chuck: "What in hell was Hatch doing? Why was he rolling that airplane?" Chuck said, "Hell, Colonel, he was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He was doing a clearing roll." "A what?" Chuck said, "That's right. Anytime we are descending, we do a roll to make sure we aren't letting down on top of another airplane. It's a safety precaution. All my people do it." Chuck saved my precious ass. I had no business doing those rolls, and I could've been court martialed, my career ruined. Ascani just said, "Yeah, well, I suppose..." That was the end of it." |
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On October 14, 1947, he flew the XS-1 past the sound barrier, becoming the world's first supersonic pilot. During the next two years, he flew the XS-1 more than 40 times, exceeding 1,000 mph and 70,000 feet. He was the first American to make a ground takeoff in a rocket powered aircraft. In December 1953, he flew the Bell X-1A 1,650 mph, becoming the first man to fly two and one-half times the speed of sound. After nine years as a test pilot, Major Yeager returned to Europe, along with his family, October 1954, to serve as commander, of the 417th Fighter Bomber Squadron, Hahn Air Base, West Germany. Major Yeager, described Hahn as being "fun," for himself and the whole family. "We were eager to make the most of living in a foreign country. Every weekend that we could get away, we were gone." "The kids had a ball too. They enjoyed the snow in winter, not having seen much of it out on the Mojave. Hahn, high up in the mountains brought us drifts right up to the lower windows and a white Christmas was guaranteed every year." Ten months after his arrival, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Colonel Fred Ascani, Yeager's old boss when he flew the X-1, was the Wing Commander at Hahn, having taken over from Colonel Mel McNickle.  |
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"It was sheer coincidence that Chuck and I served together in Europe, he as squadron commander of his first tactical unit, and myself as group commander. Chuck was just outstanding in every way. For example, I had my own way of measuring a squadron's morale. His squadron held parties once a month, and I couldn't help noticing that the wives ran the show and were much more active than the men in making the evening a success. That, to me, was a good indication of high morale because the men couldn't force their wives to go all out that way and do extra things that made their squadron parties special. That came from enthusiasm and group togetherness. If the husbands were working closely among themselves and enjoying their tour, the wives mirrored that fact in how they worked together. Those evenings among Chuck's men were warm and happy, and that's really how I remember the squadron." "I wasn't much on spit and polish or running around with a clipboard. I had thirty pilots, twenty-five airplanes, and five hundred ground and support personnel under my command. A good squadron can run itself only up to a certain point; the commander must stay on top of things, but I wasn't about to chain myself to a desk doing it. And, man, I learned fast that if one of my people got into trouble, so did I. Both of us landed in front of the wing commander, Col. Fred Ascani, a West Pointer who hadn't served as General Boyd's deputy without a lot of strict discipline rubbing off. My first weekend as squadron commander he called me at home at two in the morning. "Chuck, what in hell is going on with your people?" God, I wondered if there was a riot. But he called me because the German police in Lautzenhausen had called him. Two airmen from my squadron were arrested for being drunk and disorderly. I crawled out of bed and drove into town to get those guys out of the can. The next time I got such a wake up call, I went straight to the barracks and woke up my first sergeant. I told him to wake up every man in the barracks. I said, "If I have to get up, so do you. This is our squadron and our guys." We all marched downtown to the jail and picked up the airmen. After that, I never got any more late night calls about my airmen."  "At Hahn, we were only minutes of flying time away from possible combat with the Russians and their allies. We'd barely get our wheels up before reaching the East German border. Czehoslovakia was a half hour flight. A week seldom passed in the 1950s when East German or Czech pilots didn't invade our air space and cause us to scramble to intercept. They knew our Sabres could never catch up with their MiGs before they scooted back over the border. Often they staged their sweeps to coincide with our end of the day beer calls, but there was more to it than just harassment. They were testing our reaction time. We were constantly on alert and kept at maximum readiness." "About ten months after I arrived at Hahn, life became more complicated and dangerous for all of us. The wing received new airplanes, a bigger and more powerful version of the Sabre, called the H model, which gave us much faster acceleration. The MiGs discovered that fact when a couple of them wandered over our small gunnery range at Furstenfeldbruck, outside of Munich." "The new Sabres had greater range and could carry heavier loads, and our mission was suddenly changed from air defense to 'special weapons.' We became fighter bombers carrying nuclear weapons."  "Base security was increased to guard the bombs that were stored in special underground bunkers, and we began to train in techniques for dropping them. We just hoped to God we would never have to really prove the effectiveness of those techniques." "During the 1956 Hungarian uprising, when Russian tank divisions began moving all over Eastern Europe, our wing went on the highest priority alert. Not many guys dozed off that night; it was as close to the real thing as any of us ever wanted to be." "The wing now had a big itelligence section that supplied each pilot in all three squadrons with his own personal target in Russia and East Germany. Each pilot kept his flight plan folder stashed in his cockpit until he had it memorized and practiced flying his profile so often that he could do it in his sleep. Our Sabres could not be refueled from airborne tankers, and we could keep flying only for a couple of hours before our tanks ran dry. All of our targets were deep inside the Soviet sector and included radar and other communications sites. Our attack was meant to pave the way for the main strike force of long range Strategic Air Command bombers, but unlike those guys, we had no way of making it a round trip mission. To get to the target and back would take longer than our fuel supply. So, a big part of our training was E and E classes - escape and evade - because all of us would be forced to parachute down in enemy territory. Man, missions didn't get more serious than that, but the guys just accepted it as their job." "In 1956, the 417th and the rest of the wing was moved to Toul-Rosiere AB, France, just across the German border, in order to disperse targets of potential Soviet attack. God, none of us wanted to go from our comfortable brand new base into a make ready strip just across the German border in Toul - Rosiere that was little more than a 'sea of mud,' with some trailers and Quonsets huts. Glennis and the kids got there a week after I did and just rolled their eyes. It was the pits. Just miserable. Everyone hated every minute being there, and to make it worse, the strategic move became a joke when General de Gaulle decided that no American nuclear weapons could be stationed on French soil. At that point we should have packed and gone back to Hahn. Insead, we just sent our bombs back there; now if there were nuclear alerts, we would fly to Hahn to load our bombs, then take off and fly to the target. Whoever approved that plan deserved to be stationed at Toul for life. To make it worse, tensions were really high with the French. We were limited to flying in a narrow corridor around our base, and Mirages flew real aggressive against some of our flights. On one occasion, the French actually dropped their wing tanks and our guys did, too, usually a sign of aerial combat. In the mood I was in, if I had been in the sky that day, I might have started a war." The wing was to stay there until 1959, when it was ordered back to Hahn. Yeager, "...we suffered more than a year in the mud at Toul." "But in spite of the bad conditions, I commanded the best performing squadron in the wing. I had come to Germany as a green and untried major and left France as a light colonel with good marks as a TAC squadron commander." "Glennis wasn't thrilled going back to the wind and sand again." "Make it short and let's get back to Germany," she said. I agreed. But neither of us would bet on our chances." |
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