Well, as many of you long time readers of Sarge's Blog are aware, my last flying assignment in Uncle Sam's Air Force was at Kadena AB, Okinawa Japan. I have a bit of history with Okinawa. My Dad was an F-86D driver in the mid-50's.
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F-86D |
I was born while he was stationed at Hamilton AFB, Novato California. That was also where he met and married my mother.
( ;-) BTW those two sentences are not in chronological order! )
In any case, after he'd completed that assignment, he was assigned to Okinawa, still flying the F-86. Mom and I followed. My sister, Lisa, was born there. Getting her officially recorded as an American Citizen took some doing, but that story fits in a different post.
Back on Topic, juvat!
Aye, Sarge!
I have a few dim memories of that tour. However, in the late 80's, Mrs J (aka Captain Mrs J) and I were assigned to the 18TFW, an F-15 Wing. This tour I remember with sweet memories. Two Reasons...Our daughter continued the Juvat family tradition of one of the female children being born in Okinawa. Second, I got to fly the best Fighter in the World at that time. Supersonic flight was authorized when you got over the Pacific. Which was about a half mile off the end of the runway.
Yes, Beans, the flying was magnificent. But, back to the story.
Our Daughter had to be "Naturalized" as an American Citizen. But anyhow.....you know where this post is going, right?
We got her naturalized.
The assignment had a lot of good flying, but it also had a lot of down time activities. Military Airlift Command (MAC) was very active in the region, so hopping a ride with family around the Pacific wasn't difficult. The family has been to Hong Kong, the Phillipines, mainland Japan, Korea, and several other places. Damn, I loved the Air Force!
During the in-processing briefings we were required to attend when we PCS'd to Kadena, we had one on the history of WWII on Okinawa. One of the many things that I paid attention to was not to walk in the jungle. There aren't lions, tigers or bears there, but there are booby traps and land mines that might still be around.
I paid attention to that, and made sure my, now walking, son understood also! But, it turns out, the jungle wasn't the only thing to be concerned about.
One of the off time activities I took up was scuba diving. The water off Okinawa was crystal clear. It was a 5 dive checkout and we did it off 5 different beaches. Different currents, different temperatures, different depths, all good training factors for a check ride.
Now, Kadena AB is on the left side of the island, where the 4 invasion arrows are pointed. The water there is very clear and that's where the lessons were held.
We're out there swimming around doing our exercises. (Taking off our masks, putting them back on, and clearing out the water was a frequent/common one. A good thing to know how to do. You don't need to until you do, then you need to do it correctly and immediately).
Short interruption to clarify some data. Our instructor while a certified and available instructor was a civilian who listened to radio transmissions from, oh say, China or North Korea. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, three year tour.
Yeah, he was a bit odd!
In any case, he's our instructor. We're done with our lesson and still had some air left. The instructor, tapped his dive knife on his tank (that's how he got our attention) and pointed at the ground below. There looked like a pile of sewage pipes down there. It was within our dive limits so we followed him down.
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No, these weren't the actual ones we encountered, but they looked pretty similar |
When we got there, he started hitting the encrusted end of the "Pipe" with his knife. After a few hits, the crust fell off and revealed an ogival nose. As we were all fighter pilots and having been around bombs and other things that go bang, we recognized the "pipe" for what it was, some kind of naval round.
Now, we had no idea how it had gotten there, how long it had been there, or whether or not it might go "Boom". However, I think I could have won any Olympic swimming competition in getting the heck out of there. As did the rest of the guys.
Conversation back on the boat got a bit heated with a lot of adjectives in front of the word "stupid" directed at the instructor.
No Beans, I'm not going to quote anything said, Sarge might blush!
Suffice it to say, we found another instructor to finish the certification and put out the word to the other squadron's not to hire this guy, and I believe, that word leaked out to our Squadron Commander about him, Somehow the Wing Commander found out then the Air Division Commander issued an order preventing any Air Division personnel from hiring this particular instructor.
Sucks to be him.
All in All, with this one exception, it was a great assignment. Travel around the Pacific was easy, Flying the Eagle was great and...once I got my Diving Certification that was a lot of fun also.
On a sad note, I just (literally, I found this article right after I took a break writing this post) learned that the Eagles at Kadena are being retired. As they are, they will be replaced initially by TDY "advanced" aircraft until PACAF "modernizes" our forces in the region.”
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78-564 F-15D. Yes, it's got an Alaskan Fin Flash now, It was sent there when Kadena got newer model Eagles. She's STILL my Eagle! |
Gonna miss the Eagle, but the one with my name on it was built in 1978, AKA 48 years ago. She served her country quite well! She deserves a rest.
Peace out y'all
A magnificent beast!
ReplyDeleteBooby traps, land mines and unexploded ordinance....oh my! "Newer and more advanced aircraft" means F-22? F35? Some newer version of the F-15? What else is there juvat, forgive my ignorance.
ReplyDeleteI like that I have been around long enough to go "Hey, I know this story!" Still makes it fun to read (and by "Fun", I mean "Dear Lord, some people have serious issues" fun).
ReplyDeleteDuring a Carrier Qual det, me and my squadron mates did a bit of cave exploring on Iwo Jima- no booby traps, but we did find morphine capsules, some old shells, and one guy found a small sword. Not sure if it was a seppuku sword (used or otherwise), but it was an interesting find. He turned it back into the Japanese on the island.
ReplyDeleteWhile skin-diving around an island north of Kwajalein, I think Bijey, I found a crate of Japanese handgrenades. Whoooo!
ReplyDeleteNow, just so you know, the first thing that you do/did at Kwajalein (the island) after stepping off the plane was the 15 minute slide show of "Welcome to Kwajalein, THIS WILL KILL YOU!" So, things like stonefish (death by neurotoxin in 30 seconds or less) or certain cones (tulip cone, death by neurotoxin in minutes) or this lovely death or that lovely death or another lovely death and, oh, these will hurt and make you wish you were dead. And then the obligatory slides of various Japanese things-that-go-boom, back off, notify someone and back off farther.
US explosives used relatively stable fillers. Imperial Japanese stuff was made to get the biggest boom possible and was somewhat unstable at the best of times and tended to get more volatile as it aged or was exposed to salt water.
That instructor was a friggin idiot. One explosive would have set the whole pile off and that would have been very spectacular. Hopefully some EOD crew got the 'fun' job of blowing it all up.
I do miss the crystal clear waters at Kwajalein. One time after dinner at the 'fine restaurant' on the ocean side, we all walked to the end of the pier next to the restaurant, which almost went to the edge of the reef, which dropped off oh, say, 3,000 feet easy. And we watched sharks swim, which dad said were between 50 and 150 feet below the edge of the reef. There were lots of days like that, going out fishing and seeing huge schools of big fish under the boat. And there were days the water was so messed up visibility was only 30 feet or so, due to bad weather and such.
Once you see crystal-clear ocean water with visibility seemingly going forever you will forever find wanting waters that others think are 'pristine.'