Tales of an Old Fighter Pilot

May 12, 2008
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

Freedom has a taste to those who have fought and almost died for it that the protected will never know.
—Scrawled on a cell wall inside the Hoa Lo (Hanoi Hilton) prison.

“I wore this uniform for 45 years,” said Lt. Col. Edward A. Hanson (U.S. Air Force, retired), sitting in his dining room, touching an old portrait. At his elbow sat Jeannette, the colonel’s wife and mission collaborator of 46 years. “She has always been very supportive, and it was always a real partnership thing in those days,” said Hanson.

“Those days” include inspiring highlights and terrifying low points of Hanson’s distinguished Air Force career, each chapter of which he remains intensely proud. The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) was the seedbed of Hanson’s own profession, and the harvest came at the end of his career as he built the Junior ROTC program at Del Rio High School (DRHS) to unprecedented – and unmatched – heights.

Between Hanson’s 1958 commissioning as a second lieutenant, fresh from the ROTC program at Washington State College, and his retirement at Laughlin Air Force Base, Hanson, 71, served his country as warrior, humanitarian and teacher. As evidenced by the stories he tells, his conservative politics, and a collection of flags and memorabilia in the couple’s north Del Rio home – Hanson’s patriotism is undiminished.

His faith is rekindled with memories of anti-aircraft rounds, small arms fire and fragments of surface-to-air (SAM) missiles poking holes in the jets Hanson flew over North Vietnam, returning to base from each of 100 missions without a scratch. Patriotism is the sense of reverence Hanson still feels for the bravery of three men he escorted home from their years as prisoners of war in North Vietnam. And pride lives in the careers of young men and women he mentored and nurtured as senior aerospace science instructor for a cadre of 200 Junior ROTC cadets.

Hanson grew up in Electric City, Wash, after the Great Depression, through World War II, and just past the Korean War when he graduated from high school, 1954. “All the men that I knew growing up were dam-builders,” Hanson said, Monday (April 21). His father was a heavy carpenter on the largest of the giant edifices on the Columbia River system, the dam that served as namesake for Hanson’s alma mater, Grand Coulee High School.

Hanson’s 20th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron poses at Udorn Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand, beside one of the unit’s “Voodoo” jets that flew unarmed into combat zones to document enemy positions. (Contributed photo/Ed Hanson) (click image to enlarge)

Hanson demonstrates aerial maneuvers he often used to confuse the guidance systems of SAM missiles launched at his “Voodoo” reconnaissance jet. “When we saw one coming up at us,” Hanson explained, “we’d turn back toward it, and fly under it, a lot of times again and again until we were unlocked from its radar.” Occasionally, the proximity just became too close, and the missiles detonated nearby, causing extensive damage to Hanson’s jet, but – remarkably – no injuries. (Contributed photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

The RF-101 “Voodoo” presents a daunting, streamlined profile, but the single-seat jet was more target than fighter, “armed” only with seven large photo reconnaissance cameras to record enemy positions so strategists could launch air attacks with American fighters and bombers. (Contributed photo/U.S. Air Force) (click image to enlarge)

Hanson’s only photo of a SAM warhead exploding near his jet shows the massive airburst (right) and a debris field stretching out to the upper left of the photograph. In one mission, Hanson had 18 of these missiles launched against his aircraft. (Contributed photo/U.S. Air Force) (click image to enlarge)

 

Four years later, Hanson earned a Bachelor of Science diploma from Washington State College (now University) in physical sciences, and 2nd Lt. Hanson was called to active duty, reporting to Lackland Air Force Base, Dec. 8, 1958 for “pre-flight” training. His first “primary flight” training acquainted Hanson with the U.S.-Mexico border at Mission, Texas, (Moore Air Force Base, now closed) where he also “howdied-and-shook” with the T-34 “Mentor” and the T-28 “Trojan” trainer aircraft.

After training in the T-33 “Shooting Star” at Laredo’s Basic Flying School, Hanson went to Randolph Air Force Base, San Antonio, to complete his instructor pilot training. In January 1960, when a buddy asked if he wanted to join him and his girlfriend, accompanying a student from the all-women College and Academy of the Incarnate Word on a blind date, Hanson eagerly agreed. Of course, it was his first date with Jeannette; the couple were married two years later in San Antonio. In September 1962, Hanson asked his commander for time off for the nuptials. “He told me I could have as much time off as I wanted, between Friday – after flying – until Monday, when we started flying again.”

The marriage was the beginning of a rewarding alliance, but his pilot status set Hanson on a career in which spouses were cherished, but alternately moved from base-to-base, and often left behind when combat orders sent men into theaters of war. At graduation from pilot training at Laredo, Hanson accepted the prized silver wings, saluted his instructor, 1st Lt. Robin K. Nierste, and prophesied, “Lieutenant, the Air Force will never ask me to be a flight instructor.” Later, Hanson – chagrined – wished he’d not made the remark. “I spent the next 11 years in three different tours as an instructor.”

At Williams Air Force Base, Ariz. (now closed), Hanson trained new flyers in the T-33 and the sleek, new T-38 “Talon,” spanking new off the assembly lines of Northrop Corporation’s plant at Palmdale, Calif. Williams was the second Air Force Base to get the T-38 that remains a staple of the fighter aircraft fleet at Laughlin Air Force Base today. “They had about only about 45 minutes of flying time on the airframes when we picked them up from Northrop and flew them back to Williams,” Hanson said.

Hanson taught fledgling flyers at Williams until 1966, when he got career-bending orders to Shaw Air Force Base, near Santee, S.C. to master the unique qualities of the RF-101C “Voodoo.” It was a single-seat [pilot only] photo reconnaissance jet that carried no weapons. “Our motto was ‘Alone, Unarmed, and Unafraid,’” Hanson said, chuckling as he recalled how the last word was modified to “scared shitless” to reflect reality.

The high-risk mission of his squadron, when he arrived in Vietnam in November 1966, was to use the bird’s seven cameras – ranging from four-inch to 36-inch lenses – to find and record enemy positions for intelligence experts to analyze and by strategists to plan attacks. “To stay below radar and avoid being discovered, we sometimes flew to targets at about 540 knots (621 miles-per-hour) at about 100 feet off the ground,” Hanson explained.

As a result, the “Voodoos” were vigorously attacked from North Vietnamese positions on the ground. “We didn’t have any weapons, so our other motto was ‘Kill ‘em with fil’m,” Hanson said. On one occasion he needed to dump fuel tanks to improve his chances of getting out of a tightening situation, and he found a cluster of North Vietnamese regulars on which to drop the tanks. Did they explode? “I have no idea, and couldn’t see to find out. I just hoped that it might scare some of ‘em to death, thinking they were being napalmed.”

Hanson saw changes in strategy to combat the losses the vulnerable “Voodoos” sustained. When he arrived to serve in the 20th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, it was normal for single flyers to penetrate North Vietnam airspace at 4,500 feet. When many of them failed to return, two-ship formations were ordered so at least information on downed pilot locations might be secured by a returning pilot. Hanson’s initial squadron of 25 men lost 26 pilots and planes, with unit strength maintained only by rotation assignments.

When he could, Hanson tried to stay above 6,000 feet. The wingman would usually fly higher, doing S-curves, swooping back-and-forth, trying to capture photographs of missile sites and artillery as rounds and SAMS were launched to destroy the reconnaissance efforts above. “They knew we were coming, and that a little while later the fighters and bombers would follow. We used to joke that we woke them up, and gave them time to get on their guns, fire at us, cool their barrels, stack their ammunition, and have a cup of tea before the fighters showed up,” Hanson said. The imaginary cycle was repeated when the ordnance-carriers left, and the reconnaissance aircraft came back to photo-document the results of the attack.

Above the Phuc Yen airfield, northwest of Hanoi, Hanson’s jet was struck by a SAM and two rounds from an 85mm anti-aircraft gun. “It felt like I’d just flown into a brick wall,” Hanson said, recalling the moment of impact with the SAM missile fragments, blasted away from an air burst of the 200 pound warhead. All the circuit breakers on his “Voodoo” popped, and despite attempts to restore them, his wing flaps remained inoperable. Luckily, the explosion didn’t harm fuel lines, but his brakes were destroyed, so a tricky high-speed tailhook landing brought him to a halt at his home base.

What Hanson considers his “harriest mission” was using the side of Thud Ridge, a mountain range northwest of Hanoi, as cover to get to photo targets at a truck repair facility. “I flew right downtown [Hanoi], right past the Hanoi Hilton [prison],” Hanson said, recalling, too, that a swarm of ordnance – 37 mm, 57 mm, 85 mm guns, 18 SAM missiles and a buzz of Russian MiG fighters – strove to end his current and future missions. His Distinguished Flying Cross citation – the first of two Hanson received in Vietnam – said, “Captain Hanson continued the mission to attain one hundred percent photographic coverage.” He was cited for “outstanding heroism and selfless devotion to duty,” and also received two Silver Star citations and 11 Air Medals for similar exploits of courage above Southeast Asia.

Hanson still chafes at politics that hampered the war effort, chiefly by politicians who picked out targets from intelligence delivered to Washington D.C. or targets that were excluded for one alleged diplomatic reason or another. “Johnson [President Lyndon Baines Johnson] and McNamara [Sec. of Defense Robert McNamara] restricted what we could target and bomb. Johnson gave Ho Chi Minh [president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam] a day off from bombing on his birthday!” Hanson thundered.

Lamenting restrictions to bombing of less important sites unless McNamara personally approved, Hanson said, “They told us we’d be court-martialed if we hit anything that wasn’t authorized.” The high priority targets were called “JCS” for Joint Chiefs of Staff authorized targets. “On the restricted sites, sometimes we’d hit them only as authorized, then have to go back to the same targets as things escalated, and hit them again, and in the process lose men and planes,” Hansen said.

When he completed his milestone 100th mission, his commander, Lt. Col. James R. Brickel, ascended the small ladder to Hanson’s “Voodoo” cockpit to congratulate him and remind him that he was headed home. Capt. Hanson left Vietnam in June 1967. He went to the Air Command and Staff College, completing a Master of Science in political science from Auburn University in 1970.

Then, at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, Maj. Hanson became staff officer for Maj. Gen. Frederick “Boots” Blesse, Korean War ace, author of No Guts, No Glory, a fighter pilot’s manual. At Hickam, in the Pacific Air Force Command (PACAF), Hanson embarked on what he consistently calls “Operation Homecoming, the highlight of my career.”

In 1973, Henry Kissinger, national security advisor to President Richard M. Nixon, consummated negotiations for American POWs to be released, and the Air Force needed volunteers to escort these men home after their years of gross maltreatment, isolation, torture and constant humiliation. Hanson volunteered.

“We were told to be prepared to go anywhere in the world, stay as long as it takes, and don’t tell anybody where you’re going or when you’re going to leave,” Hanson said. Each Operation Homecoming volunteer was assigned a codeword that would be recognizable when the phone call came and was worked into conversation by the caller. “Then we would get verbal orders of when and where to report.”

On Jan. 25, 1973, Hanson got the codeword call and directions to travel to Clark Air Base, Luzon Island, Republic of the Philippines. There, Hanson was assigned to serve as escort for three returnees, one at a time, until all were safely home in the continental United States. They were:

• Lt. Col. Alan Brunstrom, shot down April 22, 1966, released Feb. 12, 1973, in captivity six years, eight months.
• Maj. Terry Uyeyama, shot down May 18, 1968, released March 14, 1973, in captivity four years, seven months.
• Lt. Col. Walter M. Stischer, shot down April 13, 1968, released March 20, 1973, in captivity four years, eight months.

All the men with whom Hanson had contact had remarkable, often horrific stories to tell. Of 550 shot down over Laos, only a dozen were returned, and were dubbed “The Laos 12.” Stischer was one of the 12.

“They were very philosophical about their imprisonment,” Hanson said. “They felt as if they’d done their duty with honor and dignity because of their love of family, their country and their religion, whatever it might have been.”

The returnees were clustered by the North Vietnamese at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison, and transported to the city’s Gia Lam Airport where they boarded C-141 “Starlifters.” According to Hanson, the POWs showed stoic countenances to the flashbulb-popping news media and communist government documentarians, refusing to display their elation until aboard the U.S. transports. “When the planes went ‘feet wet,’ meaning they’d taken off, there was lots of noise and excitement among those guys,” Hanson said, describing long-suppressed bedlam.

 When the returnees arrived at Clark to begin resumption of lives interrupted by years of brutal incarceration, the escorts were surprised by one behavior: The returnees wouldn’t talk about what they knew of those who remained behind or had died in combat or captivity. In the captives’ camps, the highest ranking U.S. officer was automatically the senior in command, even though communications were prohibited.

Men reputed to have phenomenal mental skills were designated as “memory banks” to acquire and commit to recall the names and status of hundreds of compatriots. Because status changed for some, “memory banks” had to incorporate new information, and all other captives were under strict orders not to discuss what they knew or believed about unaccounted for individuals. “Our first job in de-briefing them was to find out who the ‘memory banks’ were,” said Hanson. Only when the senior officer among the captives signed a written order permitting all to divulge whatever they knew did the returnees talk to their escorts or others in the debriefing process.

But, chiefly, it was Hanson’s job to inform the returnees. A dossier on each man had been prepared so the escorts could tell them as much as possible about the status of their families back home, their financial condition, and what to expect when they returned to the United States. It wasn’t always a pretty picture. “Good news or bad news, it was our job to inform them,” Hanson said. Some returnees’ wives had left them for other partners, often without divorcing the POW so they could continue to receive and spend his paychecks while in captivity. “But another wife remained faithful, became a school teacher to support herself, and put every penny of her husband’s checks into a nest egg account. When he came home there was more than $100,000 saved up for them to continue their lives,” Hanson said.

The remaining tasks of the escorts were hampered – but fulfilled, nonetheless – when the Air Force informed that, instead of seven days to process the returnees, the escorts only had 48 hours. “I know I went for 56 hours without any sleep,” said Hanson. His tasks included making medical and dental appointments, and ensuring that the returnees met those appointments. Medical staffs told escorts their charges would necessarily be on very bland diets to counteract the malnutrition, filthy water and insect-ridden rice they had been getting for years. The returnees were nearly in open rebellion: “We want ice cream, steaks, eggs, pizza, potatoes, green vegetables!” they insisted. “We had to charter a transport as an ice cream flight,” Hanson said, chuckling.

 The returnees were paid all per diem owed for the duration of their captivity, but no food allowance because they were allegedly being “fed” by their captors. This seems incongruous, at best, to Hanson, since the men were also technically “housed” by their captors. The transition was overwhelming for many who could not sleep on a bed or take a hot shower. “All they’d had for years was a cement floor and a bucket of cold, dirty water poured over their head,” Hanson said.

The returnees demanded not just any clothing, but their uniforms, since they’d been stripped of all Air Force garments when they were captured. As a matter of pride, the men wanted back into the blues as soon as possible and certainly before being taken home, not an easy task for the escorts. Previous sizes of record meant nothing since all had lost weight and muscle tone. But the famed Philippine tailors were not allowed on Clark for security reasons, so Hanson and his peers measured and wrote, taking notes to the tailors who worked all night. New uniforms were tried on, and for those ill-fitted, more measurements, more notes, and another set of uniforms were quickly produced.

“One of my jobs was to keep the press from talking to them,” Hanson said. “Both the Air Force and the POWs were afraid that if certain things got out, and the North Vietnamese were offended, the releases might have stopped very quickly.” But public support for the returnees was not to be suppressed. “Thousands of people lined the streets at Clark, cheering them, and the hospital hallways were always lined with long tables of cakes and pies.”

“They all wanted to go to the BX [base exchange store], Hanson said. At first it was denied in an effort to keep the men separated from reporters and admirers. But the Air Force finally relented, effectively closing the BX to all other customers, cordoning off the facility so the men could go in to shop. They had other needs to end their deprivation. Brunstrom calculated how many of his favorite cigars he’d missed during incarceration, so cases of that brand materialized. Stischer did the same for his favorite whiskey, so Hanson bought five cases of Jack Daniels, wrapped the boxes in plain brown paper, and later wheeled the trove into Wilford Hall hospital at Lackland Air Force Base on a borrowed gurney.

“Finally, we loaded them up for Hawaii, and on the plane they dressed in their Class A uniforms so they’d look spiffy when they arrived back on U.S. soil.” Jeanette met all five flights of returnees on the Hickam flightline, including the three when Ed was escorting. Testifying to the emotion of the moments, Jeannette said, “Some of those guys just got off that plane, and kneeled down to kiss the ground.”

With Valentine’s Day 1973 approaching, Brunstrom asked Jeannette to help him secure three boxes of Valentine candy to take home to his wife, mother and daughter. She went to the BX only to discover they were sold out. Jeannette explained who they were for, “And a truckload of candy got there in three minutes,” she said. She had no money with her, so she returned later to pay for the precious sweets, and the clerk refused to accept anything.

From Hickam, Hanson traveled with his three returning heroes – one flight at a time – to the military hospital where family members convened nearest to the returnees’ respective home towns: Brunstrom – from Washington state – to Travis Air Force Base, Calif., then Uyeyama – from Austin, Texas – to Wilford Hall, San Antonio, followed by Stischer – also from Austin – to Wilford Hall.

Though he cherishes the memories of his contributions and the resulting benefits to the returnees, Hanson’s participation in Operation Homecoming appears in none of his official records with the Air Force.

Escort duties accomplished, Hanson was transferred to Webb Air Force Base, Big Spring, Texas, where – as a new lieutenant colonel and deputy director of operations – he closed the base, and moved on to Laughlin Air Force Base as director of the Readiness Division, dealing with mobility, weapons training, combat arms and the base’s command post. The 47th Flying Training Wing was commanded then by Col. Chris O. Divich, whose ensuing assignment was commander of all Air Force ROTC programs, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. (Divich later retired as major general commanding the Air Force training center at Lackland).

Divich urged Hanson to consider heading up the Junior ROTC program at Del Rio High School, so Hanson retired from active duty in August 1983. “I retired one day, and literally started teaching at Del Rio High School the next day,” Hanson said. “This unit at the high school had had a hard time keeping even 100 kids in it. When I got started, we immediately went to 150, and by the next semester we had 180, and that following year we had 280 cadets which became an average for all participating grades, nine through, 12 the rest of the time I was there.

“Among Junior ROTC organizations, we were an honor unit for 14 of the 16 years I served there, and that meant that we were rated in the top 10 percent of all Air Force high school units in the nation,” Hanson said.

In bitter and highly-publicized disputes with school officials, Hanson resigned in 1999, and remains embittered. In particular, Hanson believes the Junior ROTC program has been diminished in participation below the level he inherited in 1983, and that administrators have “downgraded a proven honor program.” However, Hanson was gratified to report an announcement at the April DRHS Junior ROTC Annual Awards Banquet that the school's unit has improved significantly just within the past year, receiving the Air Force Junior ROTC Distinguished Unit Award with Merit, based on recent on-site inspections of 850 Junior ROTC units worldwide.

But Hanson is always reminded of student appreciation through various communications. Jose Reyna was one of Hanson’s cadets who came to Del Rio in the 6th grade. He was born a U.S. citizen, though his parents were not. Before Reyna’s graduation, Hanson wrote letters of support for his entry into college. Reyna eventually completed a bachelor of arts in economics at the University of Utah, after completing a mission with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He then earned a master of science in political science, served on election campaigns for state and federal candidates, and is currently senior vice president of Zion National Bank, Salt Lake City. “He showed up at our doorstep in August, just to thank me for helping him know there are places outside of Del Rio and Acuña, and then he introduced us to his wife and two children,” Hanson said.

Recently, Hanson received E-mails from Melissa (Thompson) Walker, DRHS cadet commander in her senior year in the late 1990s. She graduated from Texas A&M University and went to work in the archives of the Bush Library on the College Station campus. Walker was promoted to assistant archivist at the Clinton Library in Arkansas, and was recently promoted again to the position of chief, U.S. Army Declassification Activity, Alexandria, Va.

Hanson estimates that in his 16 years of service to the Del Rio High School Air Force Junior ROTC program, he wrote more than 150 letters of recommendation to colleges and universities for promising graduates, and many more in support of scholarships. One such letter yielded an encouraging result Hanson will long remember. On behalf of James S. Long II, Hanson wrote to Lt. Gen. Tad J. Oelstrom, superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy urging an appointment to attend.

Long already had a congressional appointment letter to attend West Point and was also accepted at The Citadel, but he won and accepted Oelstrom’s appointment to the academy at Colorado Springs in 1999. Long graduated in 2003, and took his undergraduate pilot training at Laughlin Air Force Base in Class 04-14. His dad James S. Long, chairman of the board of the Laughlin Heritage Foundation Museum in downtown Del Rio, said Sunday (April 26), that his son is now an aircraft commander of the C-17 “Globemaster III,” the newest, most sophisticated airlifter in the Air Force inventory.

Based at McCord Air Force Base, Washington, with the 4th Airlift Squadron, 62nd Airlift Wing, Long is also an instructor pilot, and alternates that duty with occasional missions to the Middle East, what his father calls “the bad guys country.”

Jeannette Hanson commented on her husband’s accomplishments and the success stories of his determined students, “They just go to show that if you want it bad enough, it’s out there.”