SURVIVAL SCHOOL The following is gleaned from anecdotal memories of various combat flight crew members from the 1950s. It appears that Heavy Attack Squadron Commanding Officers and/or HatWing Commodores utilized any and all available Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force facilities for "survival training," some two weeks long, others a day or two. Some WestPac squadron members went to the Olympic Peninsula, WA. Some mention Deep Creek Station, Fairchild AFB, WA. (may be the same?). The "cockpit contraption" at NAS North Island is mentioned. The USN Desert Survival School at Warner Springs, CA, under FAETUPAC was attended. The Cleveland National Forest, outside of San Diego was a site for a USMC Survival School, later established as the Pickle Meadows Mountain Training Center in the high Sierras. This was an intensive experience and include Escape and Evasion, and interrogation phases. Arguably the most intense school was at Stead AFB, outside of Reno NV, operated by the USAF SAC 3904th Training Squadron, having moved from Camp Carson, Ent AFB outside of Denver CO in 1955. Larry Smith writes: I served as an advanced survival instructor at Stead Air Force Base, Reno, NV from June 1955 to Jan 1959.  I'd like to confirm that we did indeed train several groups of Navy and Marine personnel.  I believe, if memory serves me right, it was a kind of cross training set-up in which several of our instructor group subsequently attended the Navy Water Survival School then operating in San Diego. We also cross trained with the Marines at their Pickle Meadows, CA Survival Camp during their early set-up period. I myself cross trained with the Canadian Air Force RCMP and RAF arctic Survival School out of Edmonton & ultimately their "far north" Cambridge Bay School. You might find it interesting that from time to time we trained crews from the Luftwaffe and Turkish Air Forces as well. It was indeed an interesting time and era.  We were General Curtis LeMay's fair haired boys & when Congress shut the school down to investigate its harsh training concepts, he went to bat for us, perhaps as no one else would have.  As a result, the school became stronger than ever. Any questions, I'd be happy to answer as best almost 50 year old memories serve. Larry Schmitt, 3904th Training Squadron - guildhall@inreach.com Also credited for their memories, above, are: Tom Dougan, VAH-8 - classix@ultrasw.com Al Archer, VAH-4 - alarcher@attbi.com Ronald L. Owens, Lt Col USAF (ret) 3904th Training Squadron - Overlook@msn.com Instructor, 3904th Training Squadron - FAmos@aol.com ========================= ESCAPE AND EVASION After Korea, the U.S. Military perception of what it was like as a POW proved to be wrong - especially a POW that was interrogated by the North Koreans. Because of this fact the military established a survival school at the Cleveland National Forest - just outside San Diego, California. Four returned USMC Korean veterans were assigned to the survival school. The main purpose of their involvement was to show the instructor trainees and participants, various methods of how the interrogation process should be conducted. The school proved to be very successful. The Navy would drop pilots into the forest, with instructions to get to a certain location in a certain amount of time. If captured, they would be held over night in the forest until CI personnel responded to start the interrogation process. Those captured would then be brought to the interrogation site. The site was a stage type setting which was divided equally, where one-half formed a viewing area and the other half was where the actual interrogation took place. In order for the personnel being interrogated not to see the viewing area, burlap curtains along with lights shining through them into the interrogation area were placed. This was so that individuals being interrogated could not see who were in the reviewing area. During the interrogation process, Marines conducting the interrogations would show how personal papers and items, patches on individual flight suits, etc., would be used against the interrogatee in order to extract military information. Many of the individuals reviewing the process were amazed at what could be gained. An interesting point that showed the significance of the school was when a Chief Petty Officer, after a mock interrogation and critique took place, approached one of the Marines and asked, "Where did you learn what he had just witnessed?" The Marine told the Chief of his background in Korea. After that the Chief gave him one of the compliments of his career - the Chief had been a prisoner of war and everything that Roy told him was "right on". The above was abstracted from http://www.mccia.org/History/cisec3.htm Check it out for more. By 1961 survival training, evasion and escape and interrogation techniques were combined into the formal USN Survival Resistance and Escape (SERE) school at Rangely (Redington Mountain), near Brunswick, ME. ED NOTE: I taught the classroom preparation for "Evasion and Escape" techniques (after Korea the words were reversed from "Escape and Evasion") to Air Intelligence Officers (AIOs) at Fleet Air Intelligence Training Center (FAITC) Norfolk VA, after my tours in Heavy Attack squadrons. Chuck Huber - charles379@webtv.net ======================== RADAR TARGETING I'll try to run through some of the stuff we tried in 52-53. By today's technological standards standards it sounds pretty primitive. It is also hard for me to realize that was 50 (!!!) years ago. Three of us, a LTJG named Carl Tegfeldt, another Ens named Bill Nye, and myself, were sent TAD to Hatwing ONE HQ - then at NAS Norfolk - Breezy Point. We were all to go on later to VC Squadrons in Atlantic Fleet. We had three primary areas of concern regarding the radar targeting work: 1) prediction of images from all sorts of data; 2) Recording radar scope images from actual flights - using photography at that time; 3) production of target materials for briefing and for use in flight by B/N's. There was a shallow tank of water with an ultrasound device which could be sent across the tank with a submerged transducer which produced an image very much like a radar image. We stayed on there for a couple of months, accomplishing quite a bit, then on to squadrons. Nye went to VC-5, Tegfeldt to VC-7, and Mahan to VC-8. Tegfeldt went USN and ended up retiring as a CAPT. By coincidence, Nye and myself ended up going to Medical School after our release to inactive duty. I continued participation in USNR long enough to get 20 years satisfactory service, having been an enlisted man from 1943 till 1951. I was an AT. After going to VC-8 at the same time Whitney Wright became skipper I found he did not think much of what we had been trying to do, even though he was OPS at Wing. After he and his B/N ended up over the wrong target city he decided it might be of some value and ended up a great supporter. He was a wonderful man. I came to know him well, and respected him tremendously. He flew me on many of our experimental flights. I kept in touch with him until his death from cancer, and valued him as a good friend. In VC-8 we flew lots of RBS flights over Richmond, VA from Pax River. Being a totally unreconstructed Rebel (Still am !!!), I hated to even simulate bombing the Confederate Capital. We worked on Polaroid photos at first, then 35 mm. Developed some plotting systems that worked pretty well. Flying over the central part of VA and up and down the Shenandoah Valley ("The Valley" to Virginians) we kept finding very bright mystery targets which did not plot out to be either natural or cultural features on our charts. By flying over the areas at lower altitudes in daylight we discovered these were automobile junkyards - which made perfect sense in retrospect. All in all it was interesting. I made a lot of good friends in VC-8. Our enlisted bombardiers were very impressive individuals. They were a pleasure to work with. Except for 1961, all my two-week periods of active duty for training were spent in the Hatwing program. I finally got to go along on a night RBS mission in an A3D. Quite a change from the AJ-1 ! I would be happy to hear from any of the VC-8 folks. D.R. Mahan, MD - drmahan@catt.com