People's Blog • Empire of Terror

I'm the son a true Cold Warrior. My dad, Vernon Talmadge Kight, joined the US Navy in 1951, at time, the Korean War conflict was going on, and the Navy needed carrier sailors, so my dad was trained as what was called a BB stacker, or "ordie" in Navy speak. And he wound up aboard a newly recommissioned Essex class carrier off the coast of North Korea. 

Afterwards, he was sent to the Naval Air Station Port Lyautey Morocco to work on these machines:

 

The Martin P4M was designed to be an anti-submarine patrol plane at the end of WWII. By the time my dad was assigned to this airplane, the 19 that were left were changed over to P4M-1Qs, the "Q" indicating a modification to a to a spy plane using radar and other electronic devices and antennas. These planes flew into Soviet airspace from their North African base, and were frequently chased out by MiGs and a few were shot down. My dad's job was to clean and load the twin 20mm guns in nose and tail turrets. His CO decided that, since these turrets were radar directed, he would send my dad and his counterparts to avionics school.

In 1955 dad wound up at NAS Sanford Florida, where he worked on the North American AJ-2 Savage nuclear carrier bomber:


My dad also met my mom there. As an avionics tech, dad could frequently fly to prove out electronics repairs. Ih 1957, the Navy sent my dad to the Naval Ordnance Test Station China Lake California where I came along. After working there where nearly every cold war weapon in the US inventory was perfected, dad's CO got a fighter job and he went to sea on a nine month world cruise.



While Americans were snug in their beds at home, my dad was launching F3H-2M missile armed interceptors from a snow covered deck in the Sea of Japan, 20 miles from Vladivostok.
 
When he came home, he got orders to go back to sea after only three weeks, my mom told him she wouldn't be there whenever he got back. It was reenlistment time, so dad crossed to the Air Force. The Air Force was thrilled with dad's credentials and put him on their avionics headache of the day, the Convair F-106 Delta Dart (pictured below) and sent him to Duluth Minnesota. 

We weren't really delighted with the atmospheric differences between the eastern suburbs of San Francisco and Duluth, but the fact of the matter was that "the Six" was primarily based at northern tier states because the Soviet's best avenue of attack with bomber aircraft was across the north pole. 

But a year of the snow, ice and mosquitoes in Minnesota and we'd all had enough and dad applied for a radar instructor's job at what then was Lowry AFB in Aurora Colorado. I was about 8 when we moved there, I loved living there, it was prior to the great migration of Californians who turned Colorado blue, but the Air Training Command was not a place for military advancement and dad moved from the "Mile High" state to the Tidewater area of Virginia and Langley AFB. Below is one of the F-106 interceptors in the markings and configuration they were when dad became the NCOIC of the 48th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. I was becoming older then and I began to realize we were in the cross hairs of Soviet nuclear weapons because our home town always happened to be right next to a military air base. 

 

As it turned out, the 48th made both the national and local news because they were chosen for modifications to the F-106 fleet, an air to air refueling mod, the replacement of the nearly apocalyptic AIR-2 Genie and its 1.5 kiloton warhead with a 20mm Vulcan cannon. They also modified the canopy with an expanded bubble hood for better visibility, and a head-up display to reduce the pilot's work load.

The local news also frequently carried films of of F-106's intercepting Russian TU 95 Bear bombers testing the US Air Defense by flying from bases in Cuba. I got to see them in action once when my mom had surgery for a detached retina, I was allowed to sit with my dad on his swing shift job as long as I didn't bother the others or get in the way. The alert barn was adjacent the hangar that housed dad's avionics shop. One night a klaxon horn on the alert hangar blared and red flashing lights, the pilots and crew chiefs slid down a pole like firemen, the crew chiefs got the pilots strapped in and the jets started in under sixty seconds, and they taxied out a fast clip. They taxied to the runway, forgoing normal end of runway checks, or even slowing down. The hit the afterburners, creating a 30 foot trail of bluish-white flame as the roared into the air. 90% of time they chasing the Rooskies and their Bears.

Forget hiding under desks, we knew we were in the bullseye of some SS-9 ICBM launch crew out in the Urals. My dad retired from military service in 1971 and got a job where I live now and spent the next 30 years repairing black boxes on a dozen different airplanes at what is called the Avionics Center of the Air Force. Dad outlived many Cold War era airplanes. All this time, the Soviets had their fingers pies all over the world, Africa, the Middle East, South America, Asia.    

 I'm the son a true Cold Warrior. My dad, Vernon Talmadge Kight, joined the US Navy in 1951, at time, the Korean War conflict was going on, and the Navy needed carrier sailors, so my dad was trained as what was called a BB stacker, or "ordie" in Navy speak. And he wound up aboard a newly recommissioned Essex class carrier off the coast of North Korea. 

Afterwards, he was sent to the Naval Air Station Port Lyautey Morocco to work on these machines:

 

The Martin P4M was designed to be an anti-submarine patrol plane at the end of WWII. By the time my dad was assigned to this airplane, the 19 that were left were changed over to P4M-1Qs, the "Q" indicating a change over to a to a spy plane using radar and other electronic devices and antennas. These planes flew into Soviet airspace from their North African base, and were frequently chased out by MiGs and a few were shot down. My dad's job was to clean and load the twin 20mm guns in nose and tail turrets. His CO decided that, since these turrets were radar directed, he sent my dad and his counterparts to avionics school.

In 1955 dad wound up at NAS Sanford Florida, where he worked on the North American AJ-2 Savage nuclear carrier bomber:


My dad also met my mom there. As an avionics tech, dad could frequently fly to prove out electronics repairs. The Navy sent my dad to the Naval Ordnance Test Station China Lake California where I came along. After working there where nearly every cold war weapon in the US inventory was perfected, dad's CO got a fighter job and he went to sea on a nine month world cruise.



While Americans were snug in their beds at home, my dad was launching F3H-2M missile armed interceptors from a snow covered deck in the Sea of Japan. 20 miles from Vladivostok.
 
When he came home, he got orders to go back to sea after only three weeks, my mom told him she wouldn't be there whenever he got back. It was reenlistment time, so dad crossed to the Air Force. The Air Force was thrilled with dad's credentials and put him on their avionics headache of the day, the Convair F-106 Delta Dart (pictured below) and sent him to Duluth Minnesota. 

We weren't really thrilled with the atmospheric differences between the eastern suburbs of San Francisco and Duluth, but the fact of the matter was that "the Six" was primarily based at northern tier states because the Soviet's best avenue of attack with bomber aircraft was across the north pole. 

But a year of the snow, ice and mosquitoes in Minnesota and we'd all had enough and dad applied for a radar instructor's job at what then was Lowry AFB in Aurora Colorado. I was about 8 when we moved there, I loved living there, it was prior to the great migration of Californians who turned Colorado blue, but the Air Training Command was not a place for military advancement and dad moved from the "Mile High" state to the Tidewater area of Virginia and Langley AFB. Below is one of the F-106 interceptors in the markings and configuration they were when dad became the NCOIC of the 48th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. I was becoming older then and I began to realize we were in the cross hairs of Soviet nuclear weapons because our home town always happened to be right next to a military air base. 

 

As it turned out, the 48th made both the national and local news because they were chosen for modifications to the F-106 fleet, an air to air refueling mod, the replacement of the nearly apocalyptic AIR-2 Genie and its 1.5 kiloton warhead with a 20mm Vulcan cannon. They also modified the canopy with an expanded bubble hood for better visibility, and a head-up display to reduce the pilot's work load.

The local news also frequently carried films of of F-106's intercepting Russian TU 95 Bear bombers testing the US Air Defense by flying from bases in Cuba. I got to see them in action once when my mom had surgery for a detached retina, I was allowed to sit with my dad on his swing shift job as long as I didn't bother the others or get in the way. The alert barn was adjacent the hangar that housed dad's avionics shop. One night a klaxon horn on the alert hangar blared and red flashing lights, the pilots and crew chiefs slid down a pole like firemen, the crew chiefs got the pilots strapped in and the jets started in under sixty seconds, and they taxied out a fast clip. They taxied to the runway, forgoing normal end of runway checks, or even slowing down. The hit the afterburners, creating a 30 foot trail of bluish-white flame as the roared into the air.

It's a long story to get here, I hope I didn't put anyone to sleep. Yes I thought I knew how hideous the Flagship Communist State was until I saw this:

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I paid the price for all 8 episodes, I've seen less frightening horror movies. I highly recommend watching...  

 

Statistics: Posted by Kommissar Uberdave — 8/20/2024, 2:11 pm — Replies 0 — Views 109

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