It was March of 1971; I’d been in the Air Force for 3 years, 8 months. (Only 4 more months to go.) But I had volunteered for any assignment in Thailand to get out of SAC and North Carolina.

I was a Staff Sergeant (E-5). My Air Force specialty code (AFSC) was 43151 A (recip. engine aircraft-more than one engine) and 43151 E (jet engine aircraft). That meant that I was an aircraft general mechanic (431X1), fully trained (5 level), capable of working on multi-engine propeller driven (A) or jet engine (E) planes.

Now I was working for the 1st SOS. The First Special Operations Squadron. What was our special operation? We were prepared to help anyone who needed help in Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia. We suspect that A-1s had seen south China from 10,000 feet, also.

We had 29 assigned A-1 type aircraft; all that was left of 3,180 Navy and Marine AD carrier aircraft. The Douglas AD aircraft was built to replace a previous Douglas aircraft, the SBD Dauntless torpedo dive-bomber. The Douglas AD first flew on March 18, 1945. So when I reported in some of them might have been 26 years old.

Navy and Marine ADs cut their teeth in the Korean conflict, from ship and land bases. French ADs cut their teeth killing Arabs in Algeria, one of the few lessons that the American military remembered.

When the Navy retired and/or replaced their aging ADs with those new jets, the Able Dogs were put in storage or sold to other countries’ Air Forces or Navies around the world.

Soon after Viet Nam started, the Air Force decided that the old dog would again make a fine, low-level, close air support, fighter/bomber. It was slow enough for pinpoint gunnery in narrow Asian mountain valleys. It could carry more that its own empty weight in armament. More than a B-17 actually. The aircraft could stay on station for 10 hours and more, depending on weapons and fuel tank configuration.

To a ground troop, an A-1 was the first plane to call for when he was pinned down. The few old A-1, AC-47 and AC-119 prop aircraft did more for trapped Army and other infantry than several squadrons of F-4s, F-100, F-105s or F-5s.

Jets just flew too fast for the narrow and twisty valleys in mountainous Viet Nam, Laos or Cambodia. They weren’t half as accurate as the slow and low A-1. The jets on-station (loiter) time was severely limited, especially when they had to use afterburner all the time to pull up and away sharply at the end of a narrow valley. They couldn’t carry as much payload, proportionally as the A-1 (no aircraft could). It is true that they could be refueled in flight by KC-135s and return, but in the meantime, the Army might have been overrun.

Best of all, from this mechanic’s viewpoint, the A-1 Skyraider was the only plane I ever crewed that come back for days in a row with no pilot write ups except a very flattering (to me) "OK flight" notation in the aircraft log book.

The only tools any A-1 mechanic ever carried with him was his big, long screwdriver. Of course post flights required a full tool box for the fix phase. But for launches, pre-flights and thru flights, a screwdriver could open all panels, service caps, was used to check the exhaust stacks and was the only tool needed to remove all the engine cowling, if required. This screwdriver was carried stuck through the belt (like a sword). Actually, a 7/8ths spark plug socket on a half-inch breaker bar was required to open the two cam latches on the bottom of the hot section wrap around cowling.

Back to the maintenance angle of the A-1s again. To explain some of our problems, back ordered parts had to come all the way from Quonset Point, Rhode Island Navy base. A couple of planes were down for weeks waiting for one or two special parts to come from Rhode Island. (And of course, when a plane was down for parts, it became a target for cannibalism.)

The maintenance effort was divided into two 12-hour shifts; night and day; 7am to 7pm and 7pm to 7am. There were three rows of revetments. Don’t remember what they were named but Able, Baker and Charlie sounds right. Hobo 1 Flight handled the planes on Charlie row while Hobo 2 Flight handled the planes on Baker row. Able row was for those planes that were down for long term maintenance, back ordered parts or some other reason.

Night shift pulled the basic post flight inspections, starting as soon as Munitions Maint. people had downloaded all weapons stores and the mini-gun and the 20mm canons had been unloaded. Actually all weapons were made safe on the north end of the runway as soon as the aircraft returned from combat.

Most every night of monsoon season it rained. So the crew chief works in his rubber poncho; temp about 85 degrees, humidity 100%. It was a toss up whether or not to bother wearing the poncho since it could soak you (with your own sweat) as fast as any monsoon. Jungle rot was a serious problem in monsoon season! That same poncho did make an excellent grease apron though. And for pulling off hot cowling, the poncho was like a pair of hot mitts.

Even with the floodlights, the mechanic usually worked at night with the flashlight in his third hand, his mouth, since there were never enough men for more than one worker per plane, and usually one worker for two or more planes.

There never seemed to be enough mechanics for all the planes. Out of the total 29 assigned aircraft, 4 to 6 might be down country in Bangkok for spar cap mods. Two or four might be on temporary duty at Ubon, Ben Hoa or Da Nang. One plane would usually be in for the 100 hour phased maintenance Inspection.

Even with so many aircraft gone, with maintenance personnel on leave and sick and more supervisors than workers, there was never a shortage of work. If all the airplanes got turned (put in commission) and pre-flighted before 4 am, the supers would have us out washing airplanes under a monsoon moon or picking up FOD with a flashlight.

Mechanics were always willing to go off with their pilots on a mission to prove the sincerity of their efforts. The ultimate pilot’s test was always whether or not a crew chief was willing to fly in his own plane. I have since heard from some crew chiefs who’s regular pilot would ask if the plane had been inspected. When the crew chief said yes, the pilot responded that he wasn’t going to bother, then. (He had that much trust in his regular mechanic.) Not only was I always willing, I was aching to go see how my plane played out its role in the war.

"Failed to return" aircraft loses were always the hardest deaths to take for a mechanic. I launched a Hobo 21 mission one time that just never came back. I remember we were very carefree and happy because of super weather and a good plane. I took the pilot’s hats and wallets with ids. Officially now they were civilians since they would be fighting in Laos and not Viet Nam. About 5 pm I was worried. They were long overdue for a Hobo mission. They just never came back. I stayed in the club until… The whole squadron, ever plane able, even ‘Greaseball" and ‘Base Turtle’ took off next morning at 4:15 to look for those two pilots. They were found from the air, and ground troops later confirmed that they had apparently tried to eject but the plane had flipped. The chutes had streamed but to no use.

So the work was hard, heavy and greasy. No one really seemed to appreciate the crew chief, no one except the pilot who made it back on the crew chief’s promise and wrote an OK flight in crew chief’s greasy maintenance forms.

I kept my plane in pretty good condition. I am sure that it had been along on the raid of Song Tay, just because it was a fat face. A-1Es and A-1Gs were called ‘fat faces’. H and J models were called ‘skinny faces’. E and G models were dual seat, side by side. H and J models were single seat and thus more prestigious.

My overall opinion of those twelve months was that I worked hard for myself, my aircraft and the pilots who flew it. I didn’t necessarily work hard because of the war. The actual philosophy of the war never entered into things until someone failed to return from a mission.