Cold War Deployment in the Hog

It's hard for me to believe it's been 30 years since I last flew the A-10, affectionately known as the Hog, almost half my lifetime ago. It's one of the most memorable and enjoyable aircraft I ever flew. The airplane itself was easy to fly. The varied air-to-ground missions and weapons loads made it a complex weapon system.

I was a pilot in the 104th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS), an Air National Guard unit in Westfield, Massachusetts. This was a very aggressive group of guys. One of our commanders used to say there's a big difference between a fighter pilot and a pilot who flies a fighter. These guys were fighter pilots.

We did a lot of stateside deployments to Homestead, FL, Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, NV for Red Flag, and George AFB, CA to support the Army at Fort Erwin and the National Training Center (NTC) where armored units were trained in desert warfare. We also did lots of joint air-to-ground and air-to-air training with USAF, Marine and Navy units.

On top of all this domestic activity, we had an overseas deployment site in case of war with the Soviet Union. The Cold War was still on in the late 80s and wouldn't be over until the collapse of the USSR in 1993. Our wartime deployment site was Yenisehir, Turkey, on the south coast of the Sea of Mamara.

In the fall of 1988 it was our year to again deploy to Turkey for two weeks. We would take two six-ship flights from Western Massachusetts to Torrejon AB near Madrid, Spain, and from there to Yenisehir. Some bright person at HQ decided we had to land in Europe during daylight hours, so we took off in flights of two at 03:00, so as to arrive in Spain just before dusk.

The planning was involved but not anything we hadn't done before. We would have a KC-135 as a mother ship, but we had to arrange for a military track reservation (ALTRAV) and four sets of tanker aircraft. Taking off at 03:00, already tired, knowing the flight would be 12 hours long, you prayed, "Lord, please don't let me screw up the air refueling" because we also launched two spare aircraft, one for each flight, in case anyone's aircraft broke or if a pilot couldn't take fuel from the tanker.

I remember it was a cold, dark night for the takeoff with no moon. I was number six in the first flight. We all took off single-ship because we were each heavily loaded with two 600 gallon drop tanks and lots of training missiles, rockets and bombs on 11 hardpoints. Screaming along at 500 feet AGL after clean up to rejoin with your element leader, I was thinking this could get FUBAR in a big hurry.

We all got airborne and headed for the first tanker off the coast just east of Boston. The deployment leader piped up on inter-plane frequency, "Rich, go see if everything is good with the first tanker." So, I added power and scooted ahead to test the A/R system on the tanker. I eased up to the end of the boom and got plugged. Everything worked as advertised. I remember the boom operator (Boomer) calling out, "Forward Four" meaning for me to move forward four feet before I fell off the end of the boom. My power was already at max so my response was, "That's all I got." So they just dragged me along, a 50,000 pound aluminum weight with almost enough power!

On one of the refuelings, the Boomer told one of our guys, "Stabilize, stabilize." Then he proceeded to jam that thick as your thigh end of the boom right into his windshield! Thank goodness the Hog's windshield was designed to withstand a 23 mm cannon shell. It starred but did not break. It took the rest of the deployment to replace and cure that windshield. You'd see ships on the ocean below you so I'd take a mark on the inertial in case of a problem and had to ditch!

Our layover in Spain was only one day but a number of us piled into taxis and spent the evening trolling the bars of downtown Madrid. Our only problem was one pilot who had been given the standard uppers and downer pills to be used during the flight. He saved one for the layover and between the pill and beer, he got wasted. We damn near had to carry him all the way back to the base. Ugh!

When we got to Turkey, we found out just how austere the base really was. An engineering Red Horse unit from Spain built us a tent city right beside the runway. In Turkey, the snails would climb the grass stalks at night so all you heard was "crunch, crunch, crunch" as you walked to and from your tent.

Our toilet was in a small, unheated, block building nearby with a couple of porcelain holes in the ground. The same building had the smallest water heater tank I've ever seen for the single shower. We showered by rank with Colonels going first, then Majors, then us lowly Captains. By the time I showered, the water was 10C. Brrrr!

Being a lowly Captain, I often got scheduled for the early morning go. Up at 04:00, shower, get dressed, eat, brief and be airborne at the crack of dawn. If we had to be up early then so should everyone else! On takeoff, you'd suck gear and flaps up, then get pointed out to a tactical spread, and fly directly over our tent city at 100 feet and full power. Snicker, snicker.

I remember a few flights that were so much fun. We would fly west along the south shore of the Sea of Mamara to the Turkish Air Force F-5 base at Eskisehir and jump the Freedom Fighters as they came off the runway until their tower told us to go away. Then we'd cross the Sea of Mamara to the Turkish Thrace, the European part of Turkey. One time there was a Russian sub transiting between the Dardanelles and the Bosporus Straights. We would circle the Hogs over the sub at low altitude for a few minutes just to say hello.

Once on the Thrace, I remember crossing a small ridgeline at about 50 feet and right as we crossed we scattered a huge flock of sheep! That Sheppard was NOT happy. He shook his staff at us as we roared away to the north. Once we got to the Bulgarian border, we climbed just high enough so they would pick us up on radar. We were just giving the enemy a friendly reminder that we were in the neighborhood.

The US and Turkish Marines were doing a joint amphibious exercise while we were deployed. We got to be the "Red Air" or bad guys in laymen terms. We screamed in at low level, attacking the troops on the ground but in a nearby field, someone was lighting off Smokey SAMs, large bottle rockets that simulated the launch of Surface to Air missiles. We broke off the attack and ducked below a nearby ridgeline.

My leader asked me, "Rich, did you see the SAM launch site?" I responded, "Yes. You get the troops. I'll get the SAM." We turned inbound and split. As I approached the field, I saw a guy lighting off the SAMs. Flying very low, I knife-edged between two trees, and the last thing I saw before I blew that guy over with my exhaust at 10 feet was him running away as he looked back over his shoulder. No more SAM launches that day. Like I said, we were a very aggressive bunch of guys but I'm certainly glad we never had to fight that war.

The redeployment was just as challenging. We flew to Lajes AB in the Azores and spent the night. The A-10 did not have an autopilot or second seat so if you wanted to eat a box lunch, or if you had to pee, you'd ask for permission to leave the flight, spread out, and do your business. You were wearing five layers of clothing: underwear, thermals, flight suit, jacket, and poopy suit (dry suit). By the time you got your Janx out and bent around into the opening of the piddle pack, you were just as likely to have made a mess of yourself! So, on the last leg home, I sat in the cockpit for 8 hours and just held my water! By the time we landed back in Mass, I shutdown, climbed out, and watered the lawn adjacent to the flight line. Tough noogies! I had to go!

These kinds of experiences were not always pleasant or comfortable. Yet, I would not have given up even one minute of them. It's the richness of the risks, the missions, the responsibilities, and the comradery that has stayed with me for the rest of my life. Maybe civilians don't often know or understand what a service member has been through because we don't always talk about our experiences. But I hope everyone knows we willingly and gladly risked it all in the defense of freedom.

Richard "Mongoose" Hess