Mark Conley
Active member
I suppose that at a young age not much really fazes you too much.
Life could be interesting if you were the dependant of a military member back in the 1960’s. You moved when your father or in rare cases, your mother received orders to move on. You traveled around to many different areas of the United States, and the world. As a dependant, my military employed father received an assignment to Japan in 1962. For some awful reason, he felt it was a good idea to expose his family to the Far East culture. This man always had the best intentions to broaden our minds. It was also a way to get one of us kids out of Dodge, as the local towns people were up in arms about the way 2800 acres of woods had disappeared in a fire (this in itself is a very interesting story). Either way, the plan to move his family to Japan would solve a lot of immediate concerns.
My mom had other ideas. She really didn’t think the move was such a hot idea, as she had a family of four kids, and the one on the way didn’t make her feel like moving anywhere. In her opinion, the town’s folk could have the little arsonist, and she could get a rest from all the moves she had made up to that point. Gradually, my father won her over, and it was agreed: he would proceed about three months ahead of us, and set up the house hold, and mom would bring the four kids out when he was ready.
This was one very bad mistake.
She had three rambunctious kids between seven and five years old, and one baby a year old. Normally, this didn’t pose any real problems: on the whole we were pretty well behaved (Except for burning down the town, that is). However, we had never been on a plane in our life: this was where most of the fun and games of military travel started.
First, we were just dependants. Now, a dependant family was vulnerable to being bumped off any flight for really any reason. The needs of the military came first. A family of five traveling together, with a baby, and without the sponsor was really vulnerable. Some pilots just didn’t like carrying large families I guess. The fates usually ordered it that way.
Second was the airline we would fly out of Travis AFB. Some called it Tiny Weenie Airlines. But its official name was the Military Air Transport System, or MATS for short. Now MATS wasn’t a bad airline, as things went. But because it was just a people hauler and not really cargo as such, MATS really wasn’t given modern planes. A lot of the planes they flew in the sixties were late forties creations. Some had two engines. Some had four engines. All had propellers. All were noisy, and they stank of aviation fuel, and cigarette smoke, and sometimes other things. The people ate box lunches, when they could get them.
These planes didn’t really have long legs. They more or less hopped from island to island. Here was one that went from Hawaii to Midway Island. Maybe another would pick you up in Midway and take you to Wake, and then to Quam. Usually, it was about 750-1000 miles across the Pacific in a jump. And it was very, very slow.
And all five of us were going to get the ride of our lives.
We made it from Travis AFB to Hawaii OK. It was then on to Midway. We touched down on Midway, picked up a few passengers, and then it was on to Wake.
It was about 15 miles outside Wake that our luck kind of went south.
My brother was older than me. So he always got the window seat. He always got to see everything. Well, not that there was anything to see across the ocean but a lot of water and maybe a ship. But he had the window, and the sky was blue and you could see the clouds move. So I was jealous.
The steward had just announced we were coming into Wake, and would we please put away our stuff prior to landing. We were just stowing our toys and things when my brother announced to my mother in a calm child’s voice “Hey Mom! The wing is on fire!”
Now, my mom had heard everything that trip. A multitude of it concerned the airplane, and how it smelled, and when were we going to get there, and so on. So she naturally put my brother’s statement in the realm of one more kid wanting attention.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
I rose up in my seat and looked out his window. Yep, smoke, and flames were coming out of the left engine. It was the only engine by the way. It was strange, but as a kid I was fascinated with fires. And this one looked different than any I had seen up to that point. Turning to Mom, I nonchalantly said” Bills right. The engine is on fire”. Just then, the pilot of the aircraft came on the intercom and kind of broke the news to everyone else as well.
It was a very tense 10 minutes from that point. The pilot extinguished the flames, and shut down the propeller and feathered it (I know those terms now, but as a five year old, it just looked neat to me). We then landed on Wake, with a fire engine on one side racing to put out the engine should it re-flame, and a whole group of us kids cheering as if nothing was wrong at all. We taxied up to the terminal, and it was over.
Then the pilot broke the really bad news. They had no place on that island to put anyone up in a room or even in the airport waiting area. But they had a plan. Another aircraft was coming to pick us up. So while we were waiting for this aircraft, they kept us out of the way by putting us all on a little “Shrimp Train” they kept for tours of big wigs and such, and took us on the official “Battle of Wake Island” tour.
The complete tour back then took about an hour and a half. It was narrated by a young American-Asian woman with a very sweet voice, and it was very interesting the first time we heard it. But the second time was a little less interesting. The third time around the island it was down right boring. By the seventh and final tour we kids could repeat the lines of the tour by memory.
But, the welcome news that the aircraft was ready put us in better spirits. So, back to the plane we went.
Now, they hadn’t been completely honest with us. Those old piston engines broke down all the time, and they kept spares on every island. All they did was remove our old burnt engine, put the spare on, and cleaned up the scorch marks on the nacelle. My mom was no fool. She could remember what a tail number looked like. And when she saw this tail number…well.
They forced her to board the aircraft. We had the indifference of children, so we weren’t any trouble. But they sedated Mom. They put a young navy man in charge of us kids, strapped us in, and away we went.
She woke up in Okinawa. Fortunately, my father was waiting for us there in the terminal. Innocently, he asked her “Did you have a nice trip”. The next few minutes were colorful, to say the least.
He had managed to get us seats on a C-130 for the flight into Japan. This was a fairly modern aircraft at that time, with four jet engines on the wings, and pressurization, and even a good seat pack for us to sit in. So, my Dad convinced my Mom everything would go ok with the flight. Hesitantly, she agreed, we boarded and away we went.
C-130s had an unwritten rule when they were flying long distances with just the weight of passengers on board. To conserve fuel, they would reach the cruising height, shut down the two in-board engines, feather them, and fly this way for hours.
Make a guess what happened when my Mom looked out the window and saw that happening.
Like I said, I suppose that at a young age not much really fazes you too much. :type:
Life could be interesting if you were the dependant of a military member back in the 1960’s. You moved when your father or in rare cases, your mother received orders to move on. You traveled around to many different areas of the United States, and the world. As a dependant, my military employed father received an assignment to Japan in 1962. For some awful reason, he felt it was a good idea to expose his family to the Far East culture. This man always had the best intentions to broaden our minds. It was also a way to get one of us kids out of Dodge, as the local towns people were up in arms about the way 2800 acres of woods had disappeared in a fire (this in itself is a very interesting story). Either way, the plan to move his family to Japan would solve a lot of immediate concerns.
My mom had other ideas. She really didn’t think the move was such a hot idea, as she had a family of four kids, and the one on the way didn’t make her feel like moving anywhere. In her opinion, the town’s folk could have the little arsonist, and she could get a rest from all the moves she had made up to that point. Gradually, my father won her over, and it was agreed: he would proceed about three months ahead of us, and set up the house hold, and mom would bring the four kids out when he was ready.
This was one very bad mistake.
She had three rambunctious kids between seven and five years old, and one baby a year old. Normally, this didn’t pose any real problems: on the whole we were pretty well behaved (Except for burning down the town, that is). However, we had never been on a plane in our life: this was where most of the fun and games of military travel started.
First, we were just dependants. Now, a dependant family was vulnerable to being bumped off any flight for really any reason. The needs of the military came first. A family of five traveling together, with a baby, and without the sponsor was really vulnerable. Some pilots just didn’t like carrying large families I guess. The fates usually ordered it that way.
Second was the airline we would fly out of Travis AFB. Some called it Tiny Weenie Airlines. But its official name was the Military Air Transport System, or MATS for short. Now MATS wasn’t a bad airline, as things went. But because it was just a people hauler and not really cargo as such, MATS really wasn’t given modern planes. A lot of the planes they flew in the sixties were late forties creations. Some had two engines. Some had four engines. All had propellers. All were noisy, and they stank of aviation fuel, and cigarette smoke, and sometimes other things. The people ate box lunches, when they could get them.
These planes didn’t really have long legs. They more or less hopped from island to island. Here was one that went from Hawaii to Midway Island. Maybe another would pick you up in Midway and take you to Wake, and then to Quam. Usually, it was about 750-1000 miles across the Pacific in a jump. And it was very, very slow.
And all five of us were going to get the ride of our lives.
We made it from Travis AFB to Hawaii OK. It was then on to Midway. We touched down on Midway, picked up a few passengers, and then it was on to Wake.
It was about 15 miles outside Wake that our luck kind of went south.
My brother was older than me. So he always got the window seat. He always got to see everything. Well, not that there was anything to see across the ocean but a lot of water and maybe a ship. But he had the window, and the sky was blue and you could see the clouds move. So I was jealous.
The steward had just announced we were coming into Wake, and would we please put away our stuff prior to landing. We were just stowing our toys and things when my brother announced to my mother in a calm child’s voice “Hey Mom! The wing is on fire!”
Now, my mom had heard everything that trip. A multitude of it concerned the airplane, and how it smelled, and when were we going to get there, and so on. So she naturally put my brother’s statement in the realm of one more kid wanting attention.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
I rose up in my seat and looked out his window. Yep, smoke, and flames were coming out of the left engine. It was the only engine by the way. It was strange, but as a kid I was fascinated with fires. And this one looked different than any I had seen up to that point. Turning to Mom, I nonchalantly said” Bills right. The engine is on fire”. Just then, the pilot of the aircraft came on the intercom and kind of broke the news to everyone else as well.
It was a very tense 10 minutes from that point. The pilot extinguished the flames, and shut down the propeller and feathered it (I know those terms now, but as a five year old, it just looked neat to me). We then landed on Wake, with a fire engine on one side racing to put out the engine should it re-flame, and a whole group of us kids cheering as if nothing was wrong at all. We taxied up to the terminal, and it was over.
Then the pilot broke the really bad news. They had no place on that island to put anyone up in a room or even in the airport waiting area. But they had a plan. Another aircraft was coming to pick us up. So while we were waiting for this aircraft, they kept us out of the way by putting us all on a little “Shrimp Train” they kept for tours of big wigs and such, and took us on the official “Battle of Wake Island” tour.
The complete tour back then took about an hour and a half. It was narrated by a young American-Asian woman with a very sweet voice, and it was very interesting the first time we heard it. But the second time was a little less interesting. The third time around the island it was down right boring. By the seventh and final tour we kids could repeat the lines of the tour by memory.
But, the welcome news that the aircraft was ready put us in better spirits. So, back to the plane we went.
Now, they hadn’t been completely honest with us. Those old piston engines broke down all the time, and they kept spares on every island. All they did was remove our old burnt engine, put the spare on, and cleaned up the scorch marks on the nacelle. My mom was no fool. She could remember what a tail number looked like. And when she saw this tail number…well.
They forced her to board the aircraft. We had the indifference of children, so we weren’t any trouble. But they sedated Mom. They put a young navy man in charge of us kids, strapped us in, and away we went.
She woke up in Okinawa. Fortunately, my father was waiting for us there in the terminal. Innocently, he asked her “Did you have a nice trip”. The next few minutes were colorful, to say the least.
He had managed to get us seats on a C-130 for the flight into Japan. This was a fairly modern aircraft at that time, with four jet engines on the wings, and pressurization, and even a good seat pack for us to sit in. So, my Dad convinced my Mom everything would go ok with the flight. Hesitantly, she agreed, we boarded and away we went.
C-130s had an unwritten rule when they were flying long distances with just the weight of passengers on board. To conserve fuel, they would reach the cruising height, shut down the two in-board engines, feather them, and fly this way for hours.
Make a guess what happened when my Mom looked out the window and saw that happening.
Like I said, I suppose that at a young age not much really fazes you too much. :type:
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