Just one of Life’s Little Embarrassments
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
I left my brains in my helmet bag at the PE shop this night. This was during the time when 7th AF decided to keep a FAC over certain interdiction points at all times (24/7). We (I’m 80% sure my right seater was Jim Yaeger) had Foxtrot Area that night. There were some trucks moving on the ground and we were controlling a Nimrod (A-26). For some dumb reason, can’t for the life of me remember why, we were holding right directly over the target while Nimrod made his passes! Every AA round (and there was a lot of them) fired at the Nimrod came right at us as well. I was in a steep right bank and saw a stream of red dots getting bigger. So I rolled hard left and kicked in a lot of rudder, and in my terror I pulled back on the yoke as well. I guess I wanted to literally haul the nose up and out of the way to the left. Next thing I knew I saw flashes going off all around us, the air got turbulent, the tail got kicked up and the nose went down, I felt the bird shudder, and the yoke went limp in my hand. My first thought was that ‘we took a hit in the tail, no elevator controls, we’re going down.’ I looked over at Jim; he had a death grip on the scope and was looking straight ahead at the ground going round and round. I was about to tell him to get out when I feel a burble in the yoke. I tried some backpressure and felt more burble. Spin recovery time! We pulled out. Sure seemed bright down there right over the road with fires burning and all! We saw a lot more lights and other stuff than when we were at altitude.
Nimrod called for his next target, my voice was rather high telling him to standby. We headed west over the top of the hill, bordering Foxtrot and climbed back to altitude. My voice was pitched normally now, acting as if nothing had happened. We finished working Nimrod, but held east of, not over the target. Nimrod killed some more trucks that night, don’t remember how many. Later, back at the NKP bar the Nimrod pilot asked me what was the problem, he said I sounded real strange when I told him to standby. I sheepishly told him what had happened. He just grinned.
Got to hand it to Jim. He was a field grade RF- 101 jock who, after completing the required 100 over the north volunteered to finish his year as a FAC. Instead of grabbing the controls and probably making things worse, he rode it out. He said later that he thought my technique for dodging the flack was effective, but a bit scary. I ran into him many years later at PACAF Headquarters. He didn’t remember that night. It was just another mission for him.
That was the first and ONLY time I held directly over a target during a strike. Like I said, just one of life’s little embarrassments.