I Always Wanted to Fly by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel

Author:Wolfgang W. E. Samuel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 2001-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

American and British RB-45C air crew and technicians, RAF Sculthorpe, 1952. Sam Myers is front right. H. Myers.

Hack Mixson explained that “we rotated the three 91st Wing squadrons into Sculthorpe. Because of my experience with the RAF crews and as the only one knowledgeable of the real purpose of their being there, I remained behind in England when my squadron rotated home. All in all, I got to do about four three-month TDYs over there.”

Meanwhile, plans were made for the first deep penetration of the Soviet Union. Four RB-45s at Sculthorpe were stripped of their U.S. Air Force markings and repainted with Royal Air Force roundels on the fuselage and RAF colors on the tail fin. Aircraft numbers were omitted. On March 21, 1952, a night mission was flown into East Germany, east of Berlin, to find out how the Soviets would react to such an incursion. Their reaction wasn’t sufficient to dissuade the planners from going ahead with the overflight they had planned for the night of April 17, 1952. In a 1998 letter to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Squadron Leader John Crampton recalled, “Even though the story leaked out of the woodwork two or three years ago, I still find it strange to talk and write about it. While it was happening it rivalled the Manhattan Project for secrecy. In fact, I think it outranked the Manhattan Project. While off base we weren’t allowed to THINK about it. It was all well above top secret. It was at Sculthorpe that Hal Connor, the tough little Texan who commanded the squadron, selected four of his airplanes (one was a spare) for our operational use.” Hal Connor was the commander of the 322d squadron, to which Sam Myers was assigned and which pulled a rotational tour of duty at Sculthorpe. Connor, however, was not aware of what the RAF was up to; Hack Mixson and a handful of highly placed military and political officials were the only Americans who knew that.

On the night of April 17, 1952, three RB-45Cs in RAF colors rose into the East Anglia sky and proceeded to their individual air-refueling areas—one over the North Sea; another over Copenhagen, Denmark; and a third south of Frankfurt, Germany. The three aircraft topped off their fuel tanks from U.S. Air Force KB-29 refueling tankers and proceeded on their individual routes, flying at thirty-five thousand feet in total radio silence into the heart of the Soviet Union. One plane photographed targets in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; in Poland; and in the former German province of East Prussia. The second aircraft flew across Belorussia as far as Orel. The third plane was piloted by Squadron Leader Crampton, with Sanders as his radar navigator. This craft flew the longest and most southern route, crossing the Ukraine and penetrating as far as Rostov on the Black Sea. Each route had frequent turning points to include a maximum number of potential targets.

A month after the

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