BUFF squadrons

[VulcanDriver]

I was wondering if anyone can help me out. I have the serials of the current B-52H fleet but not which squadrons they are allocated to. If I PM the serials can anyone match them up?

TIA

John

[scottr5213]

send them to me and I will give it a shot

[VulcanDriver]

PM sent.

John

[GZR_Sactargets]

John, check your PMs. I found some great stuff in World Airpower Journal volume 27, Winter 1996. I have scanned those pertinent pages.

[btaylo24]

GZR_SACTARGETS

I was interested in your comments on Arc Light. Were you involved in those missions, and at what level.

I am just really interested in the whole vietnam conflict (like alot of people) and really great to speak to people "Who were there"

I was chatting to an old F111 pilot a few years back. Told me some great stories of the F111 and its time in vietnam skii'ing over hills and karsks

barry

[GZR_Sactargets]

GZR_SACTARGETS

I was interested in your comments on Arc Light. Were you involved in those missions, and at what level.

I am just really interested in the whole vietnam conflict (like alot of people) and really great to speak to people "Who were there"

I was chatting to an old F111 pilot a few years back. Told me some great stories of the F111 and its time in vietnam skii'ing over hills and karsks

barry

Yes, My crew from Glasgow, MT, flew 50 wave lead missions out of Guam. We also flew some from Utapao and Kadena. (in response to the pueblo incident which changed over to Arclight). I was an EWO on Crew E-09 and later on E-13. We flew all our missions at about 30,000 ft. The flights from Anderson AFB (Guam) had a refueling near the Phillipines enroute. We came home direct without refueling. In the early days (1965 IIRC) we flew in 3 ship cells and usually 11 cells in a wave. We were there with the Wing from McCoy AFB FL. My crew and a crew from McCoy received medals from Nguyen Cao Ky when he visited Guam with President Lyndon Johnson. They made a big ceremony out of it. But we later found one of the selection criteria was a crew with 'no pot-bellies and no moustaches.'(BG). Each wave lead crew carried the Airborne Mission Commander. Those were General Officers from the 3rd Air Division Staff. My favorite was General Bill Crumm. He was cool and confident and let the crew do the leading.
The usual schedule was a flight every other day. Before 'Linebacker'
most flights were below the DMZ. Later flights went 'downtown' to Hanoi and other targets in NVN. Somewhere I have my mission scoreboard. I kept one along with a log. Each mission had a name. An example would be "new troop." We rarely got any Bomb Damage Assessments(BDA). A few missions were direct bombing by the Aircrew. Many were "skyspot" controlled. Essentially that was like a mission on a bomb plot, with a ground radar directing the heading and release of the bombs. Our usual load was 108 bombs. We were in D models with the 'big belly' modification. We also carried incindaries in Hayes Dispensers. Those were large bins that carried BLU bomblets. They spun when they hit the airstream and centrifugal force removed the arming bands. They held hundreds of ball-bearing type fragments and were mostly anti-personal and light cover weapons.
There were also some Quick Response Missions. Usually six aircraft standing alert and launching in response to support troops or hit a moving target. They also tried some missions similar to the WW2 UK 'Cab Rank'
B-52s would orbit awaiting a target. When their available orbit time was done they bombed a target from the standing list.
Missions out of Utapao were more simple- usually much smaller waves and flight time out and back was about 6 hours. The bomb loads were the same from Kadena, Utapao or Guam.
Usually we flew as an integrated crew, but since SAC demanded such high levels of standardization individual crew members would sometimes fly with other crews. It was easy because everyone trained to the same standards.
Our flight operations were not nearly as dangerous as those later flown in Linebacker. We only encountered hostile threat systems (radar from the SA-2 or SA-3) a few times near the DMZ. We had hostile fighter warnings a very few times and they were some distance away.
I suppose the most interesting times were the missions in support of
Khe Sahn. The Marines noted that when a B-52 strike started, the VN would run toward the Khe Sahn perimeter to avoid the bomb strings. So the Marines asked how close we could lay the strings. the strings were moved in to clobber them. We bombed within 400 ft of the perimeter there.
The 'war stories' could obviously go on and on. Some very serious, some funny, and some just boring.