"You're Not Gonna Believe This..."

We'd gone down to F.E.Warren to deliver a peanut light bulb. A high priority supply mission. It's beside the point that it didn't take up much room in the aircraft, as you can imagine, so with all that space coming back, we, as luck would have it, were able to fill that puppy up with brand new Flight Line Parkas, Parka Pants, and Mukluks. Enough for our entire Detachment of 42 people or so, to get a brand new set. Did I mention I was also the supply officer? Seems there was this budget money left over from the prior fiscal year, that had to be spent prior to 60 days past the end of the year or it would be lost forever, and there were these available parkas....the rest, as they say, is history.

The return trip to Ellsworth is the interesting part.

My only claim to fame was being the Training Officer and Instructor Pilot, along with the Unit Stan/EVAL pilot when we, along with our CMSgt got lost between F.E. Warren and Ellsworth one foggy day; landed in a field beside a highway to pull out the maps and prepare to go IFR right into the teeth of an oil burner route, knowing we'd have to get up to 9,500 ft (MSL was 4,600) in order to reach Denver Center.

Not something you want to do when the ceiling is basically "0" and visibility less than that, and BUFFS could be flying where you're about to go. Anyway, Chief Rickey (can't remember his first name), says, "Hey, there's a car coming down the road. Do you guys care if I go flag it down and ask where the Hell we are???"

As I said, my only claim to fame is embarassing myself, our Stan/Eval pilot, a fine Air Force Chief who didn't like officers anyway, and some old farmer who still laughs to this day when he tells his buddies, "You're not gonna believe this..." To the chief's credit, he never mentioned the expedition to us in anything other than an "It could happen to any of us any time" manner.

(Tuck Kemper)