Personal Narrative: Tactical Doctrine

I was in the office early and worked on Tactical Doctrine all day. I was still blowing blood out of my nose. I went to see Barney and he sent me over to the other side of the field to the 8th hospital to get my sinus's x-rayed.

Al Moorman got a MiG on the noon mission, and Sanders and Hemmer split one. I decided that I would not go on R & R as scheduled. I couldn’t possibly finish re-writing the Doctrine before I was scheduled to leave, and “Gabby” wanted me to get the thing ready to send to Fifth Air Force as soon as possible. I rested for about an hour after dinner and then went back to the office and worked on the doctrine until almost 0300.

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I slept in until 1000 hours and then went to

I attended it at Sully’s direction. The meeting lasted until 2100. Our Army and Air Force intelligence people had for some time been concerned that the North Korean Army was contemplating a massive move south and invasion of South Korea. I never understood what a few Air Force enlisted men with carbines could do to stop an army of armor equipped and battle hardened North Korean soldiers, but a silly perimeter guard around K-13 had been established. We had a big ground alert in the next morning. I drove the inspection jeep around the perimeter with Colonel Schinz and Major Harty, our Infantry Ground Liaison Officer, in the back

He was not satisfied with my explanation and continued rage about what “you did to me”. I couldn’t understand how I could have made my position in the matter any clearer. I finally asked him if he wanted me to see if “Gabby” would see the two of us, and perhaps “Gabby” could make him understand why he wanted a re-write. He gave me a look that could kill and said, “To hell with you, and Gabreski too”, and stormed out of my office.

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I had a fine letter from Lillian Finn of the WPAFBase Officer's Wive's Club in the afternoon mail. She said that the people there at the Bases had contributed more than $800 in cash for the orphans, and that with the help of one of the Flight Surgeons they were going to buy that much worth of minor medical supplies from a wholesale drug supply house in Colombus and ship it over here to me for the kids. Now that was really great news!

Now that my sinus infection had cleared up and I had been ungrounded by the Flight Surgeon, I was scheduled for two missions on April 26tth. But the weather ruined that for me. They did manage to get one mission off. Major Westcott got a damaged, and Lt. D.C. Gordon said he thought he got a probable, but would hold off on making a claim until he saw how his gun camera film came