as told by Arnold Leo Murphy
The next exciting segment in my life started innocently enough on April 25, 1950. A friend who grew up a neighbor of my wife, talked me into switching from the Navy Inactive Reserve to the Air Force Active Reserve.
Talk about timing! Exactly two months to the day after I joined the Air Force in the 452nd Bomb Wing, 5th Air Force, at Long Beach, California, the Korean War started. As it turned out, this was the only wing in the Air Force Reserve that was 100% up to authorized strength. When the war started, I told my wife to get ready. I knew we were going to be called up.
July 10, 1950 the telegram arrived telling me to report to Long Beach August 10, 1950. When we reported to the base at Long Beach, we filed through the dispensary where a doctor said, "If you can hear me and you are warm, you pass the physical." Next step was a desk where we were handed a set of orders telling us to report to George Air Force Base by midnight that night. Thus, I began a career of eleven years in the United States Air Force.
The B-26 bombers started arriving the next day, as we stood in line for noon chow. When two of the first flight crashed and burned, most of the chow line disappeared. Weak stomachs, I suppose.
(The planes in this wing were the Douglas Invader, originally designated A-26 in WWII. They were designed as ground attack aircraft and flew in close support of ground troops. It was manned by a crew of three: pilot, navigator/bombardier, and one gunner. Powered by twin Pratt and Whitney 2,000 hp prop engines, it could carry a payload of 4,000 pounds of bombs in the bay. This model had a hard nose with eight .50 caliber machine guns and there were three more in each wing, all at the pilot's control. Up to seven 5 inch rockets and a 750 pound napalm canister bomb were carried under each wing. 5,000 rounds of armor piercing, incendiary ammo was loaded for the 18 machine guns An upper and lower turret of twin .50's were located just behind the bomb bay. These were manned by the gunner, and operated via a periscope control device. MM)
I applied for a gunner's position and was assigned to a crew with a 2nd Lieutenant pilot, a raggedy assed looking poor soul named D. D. Johnson and a 1st Lt. James McLanahan as navigator. This turned out to be one of the best and luckiest crews in the Korean War. You will understand this statement better as the tales to follow unwind.
It turned out that Lt. Johnson had at least twice as many hours in a B-26 as the next closest pilot in the wing. He was the check pilot for new pilots coming in. He was also in charge of the crews ferrying in the new planes that we took to Korea. This meant that we were the last crew to complete our training at George AFB at Victorville, California.
One little incident at our training base: One day, all planes in our squadron that would fly, went up for formation practice. While out over the Mojave Desert, the leader saw a big house and barn, with lots of trees, out in the middle of the desert. He said we will be making low level runs in Korea, so let's do a little practice. Each of the twelve planes made at least three low level simulated bomb strafing and rocket runs on this supposedly deserted farm house. Guess what, it wasn't deserted. By the time we landed, the Wing Commander had been called by an irate turkey farmer. Every time a plane roared by, the turkeys ran to one side of the pens, smothering a few dozen. The final tally was $3,500 worth of turkeys killed.
About ten days after training started in Victorville, everyone was awakened one morning about 5 o'clock. There was a terrific noise for about three minutes, then dead silence. Most people knew something bad had happened. We just didn't know what. Most of us got dressed since we were wide awake. We started migrating toward the flight line and hangers.
What had happened was a crew chief making a full throttle run up of both engines. When he hit about 90% power, the brakes let go, the plane jumped the chocks and plowed into four other planes on the wash rack area. This totally destroyed five B-26s.
The propellers chewed up so much of the other planes that it scattered shrapnel all over the parking ramp. They had about 500 of us walking over a hundred acres picking up shrapnel before any of the other planes could be moved. This took two days. Lots of fun. In August, the temperature on the ramp in Victorville was about 115 degrees.
Our training included eight runs of skip bombing, eight runs of strafing and eight runs of rockets. The practice range was one mile long and one half mile wide. All four corners required a sharp left turn and the run to the target required a steep pull up. All this put a lot of pressure on the gunner's stomach. All but one gunner got sick before my turn came around, which was near the end of training because my pilot was bringing in the new planes. We had to make all 24 passes at the target the same day. I was doing great up to about the 19th pass. All of a sudden my stomach was pushing up toward my throat. After all the heckling of the ones who got sick, I knew everyone would be out to see if I got sick. I had a choice, don't get sick or jump out without the parachute. I finally decided the only chance I had was to relax and see if things settled down. Two more runs and I was good as new. That experience helped me later on when we were doing the real thing. As I suspected, the other 26 gunners in my squadron were there to meet us and inspect the compartment and relief cups.
To the 15 of October, we had lost about ten of the original crew members. The rest of us survived the sixty days of training in the desert.
One final story about Victorville. Our Wing Commander was a Brigadier General, an insurance salesman in real life. The first breakfast at Victorville, August 11 was s.o.s. All ex-G.I.'s know what that is. Anyhow, about six of us were sitting at a table griping about the breakfast when the General sat down with us. Everybody was surprised to see his tray covered with at least four slices of bread and covered with s.o.s. We all looked at this and wondered if he liked this stuff, what kind of trouble we were in for. We found out later.