Thunderchicken, and the Cigar
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
I flew T-37s at Craig AFB with Thunderchicken. Stories there could fill books. Chicken stood 6’ 2”, weighed about 235. Built like an ox, he held a black belt in karate and was a helluva fast pitch softball pitcher. He loved to fly upside down, drink hammers, and bounce students off the O Club walls. All in good fun of course. Several times I rang his doorbell with him draped over my shoulder. His sweet wife would point to the couch. “Put him over there.”
And he took a swing at me in the Craig club once. I ducked, and he put a jagged fist-sized hole in the wall. This amused him, so he put in his other arm. No witnesses, but the club officer always blamed me. Those were the days of cheap drywall – didn’t cost your career.
Okay. John Goldenbaum told me this story.
John’s A-1 assignment was changed to an OV-10 at the port, and he wound up at NKP where Thunderchicken roosted. Chicken was tallying gun kills – approaching a hundred. In fact, most days ABCCC apparently had recce on call to photo Chicken’s BDA, to confirm the kill. John and Chicken were discussing gun killing at the Nail Hole one night into the wee hours. John wanted to know how Chicken spotted the guns, since finding the exact location was key to the kill.
Chicken told John, “I have the dawn patrol mission. Fly my backseat and I’ll show you how to find guns. And kill ‘em.”
The pair went to the NCO Club, which served breakfast. On the way out they picked up cigars to cover the odor on their breath. After surviving the briefing, they stepped to the plane. John still carried the stub of his cigar in his teeth as he strapped in the back.
Takeoff was normal, and as they leveled off, John lit his cigar stub. Then he dropped it.
He considered the potentially disastrous effect of heat on the ejection seat mechanism and decided to douse the cigar – with urine. He unstrapped and stood on the seat to perform the deed.
Chicken noticed the commotion behind him and asked, “What the hell is going on?”
“I dropped my cigar –”
John could not finish his explanation before Chicken put three negative Gs on the airplane. Your basic cockpit FOD check. Do I need to explain the resulting chaos and discomfort in back? The soggy cigar was recovered.
The plane was saved.
Soon, over the Trail, Thunderchicken rolled the airplane into a steep dive at the middle of the thread of dirt highway below, and pulled level at about 20 feet.
Tracers passed everywhere around, mostly over and behind, the airplane.
Chicken ignores them and carefully searches for guns.
“Ah-HA!” he finally yells. “There’s one.”
He points to the left side of the cockpit and jerks the stick back. Tracers still dashing by, he begins an upward spiral, not moving his eyes from the gun pit he has discovered.
He calls Hillsborough (ABCCC), fighters arrive with LGBs, Chicken’s mark is perfect and guns are destroyed. A recce F-4 snaps BDA.
“Nothin’ to it,” Chicken says. There is only one Thunderchicken!!