I was pretty young, maybe six or seven. At that age Taft's Field in the Highlands section of Holyoke, Massachusetts was a great place to play. I was already a "spotter" by then,
and knew all about the C-47s and C-54s coming and going from busy Westover AFB a couple of miles to the east. But all the WINGS bubble gum cards in my collection had not prepared
me for what was about to happen-the planes they illustrated were too small and harmless. I was over in the tall grass when I first noticed a sound that seemed to emanate as much from
the ground as it did from the sky. It grew louder and louder, gnawing a path in the sky towards me. Then, this horrible vibrating machine, this prehistoric monster lurched over the hills into
my line of sight. Its passage was accompanied by a creshendo of sound I will never forget. I was speechless. It began a slow turn, as if to come back
|
"Do-Do Bird" B-36H 50-1088
on display at the Westover AFB
May 1956 Open House. Good
details of the retractable 20mm
turrents on this view |
and subject me to more horror! I was too young to die, too young to disappear forever into that rattling preview of Hades. I ran crying to my grandmother's apartment as fast as I could go. She assured me it wasn't after me personally, adding, "But it was an awful thing now, wasn't it?"
Grandmother's opinion pretty well summed up the experience for many of Holyoke's residents,who were to learn in the next day's Transcript-Telegram
newspaper that this was the first B-36 to arrive in New England. Some malfunction or other had caused it to make an emergency landing at Westover. I wasn't surprised by the '36 again.
There were early-warning techniques I practiced. I learned to listen for the tell-tale rattle of the coffee cups in their saucers. The apartment's windows were also good detectors. A little growl,
then quiet. A second low drone, then quiet again. Then steadily, the sound would build. The world would bear witness to this audible passage of the Peacemaker for a decade. I grew to love it. As
I got a little older, I learned that at times the contrails from these aircraft at high altitude would be visible long before the sound began to arrive.
In 1956 I toured "The Do-Do Bird," a B-36 from Loring that was on display at the annual Westover Open House. I got to see the long tunnel that ran from the front to the rear pressurized
sections of the large bomber. I got to look out of the gunsight
blisters and imagine what it would be like to be a crewmember. That day, nine of the bombers flew around the northeast performing flyovers at air bases. By then it was music to my ears.
Late in 1958, I learned the B-36 was about to be retired.
 |
Starboard jet pod photo showing
color details and closed intake
doors for the two J-47 engines.
Blue Jeans rolled way up were "in" |
That was quite a few years ago. In the interim, I served 24 years in the Air Force and its reserve components. The emergency landing I
witnessed as a child that day while perhaps more memorable, was not the last I would see. One foggy night in early 1966 when I was undergoing Air Force training, I thought I heard the rumble
of the big props again. But these big props belonged to the large Douglas C-133 transport, climbing out of Brookley AFB, AL. The sound of the big bomber from Ft. Worth has long been a
part of Air Force history. If I want to hear it again, I'll just slip in a DVD of Jimmy Stewart's 1955 classic, Strategic Air Command......Stewart hollers, "Hey, Leo!" to his baseball-playing
buddy.......and once more we can hear the rumbling Peacemaker slowly approach........
THE END
