The official publication of the
7th Bomb Wing B-36 Association

XXV NO. 3     OCT 2004

Email address: b36asn7bw@aol.com Web site: www.7bwb-36assn.org

PREZ SEZ
(EARL PARKER)

    "Now is the time for all good men to" get ready for a party. O.K., so the election is in November 2004 and our party is 21 - 24 April 2005. But we are at the age where it takes us a lot of time to get started. Things are falling in place for the reunion and it looks like we'll be going back to Holiday Inn South. The accommodations seem better, it's easy to get to and park (free).

    Your Officers, Board and many local volunteers are getting all the ducks in a row for another fine get-together. All you have to do is get together. Mark your calendar and lets have a party!!

SEC SEZ
(DICK GEORGE)

    Our numbers continue to decrease and we move forward toward our next reunion. Look at the Last Flight list in this paper and you will see what we are faced with in our plans for the future. Health problems take their toll when it comes to navigating around and many of us on your planning team are caught in that trap. But, remember, age is just a number and if you are like me, mine is unlisted. The more you try to do the longer you remain active. So come to the reunion next April and join your old comrades. There will only be two after that, God willing and the creek don't rise.

AT MY AGE I'VE SEEN IT ALL, I'VE HEARD IT ALL, I'VE DONE IT ALL
I JUST CAN'T REMEMBER IT ALL.

SAVING B-36J 52-2827
(Still Trying)

    The saga of where and how to find a home for B-36 52-2827 continues unabated with two organizations vying for the job. As I told you before, I have made a template of the first sentence of this paragraph for use in future Scanners since that appears to be the way things are going around here. The troops of the B-36 Peacemaker Museum, Inc. have struggled long and hard to raise funds for constructing a building where the B-36 may be housed. It only comes in drips and dabs. But, as mentioned elsewhere in the SCANNER, an ACCURA 2004 was given away before the raffle ticket sales could reach their goal of 1,000 tickets. As it was, the odds of winning improved. I was surprised the number drawn was not mine. After all, I had cleaned out the other side of my double garage in preparation for its arrival and felt sure I would be the lucky party. No such luck. Back to 52-2827.

    The September 17, 2004 issue of the Fort Worth Star Telegram published an article by Mike Lee titled "Warplane may get final home." A large three-column spread picture of a B-36 in flight topped the article. I have taken the liberty of copying much of the article since Mr. Lee is a much better writer than I. The article reads (in part) as follows:

    "The aging warbird that helped Fort Worth's defense industry may soon find a permanent home here, city officials said.
    The plane, one of four B36 Peacemakers in existence, could be placed on a tract in front of the main terminal at Meacham Field, officials said.
    There are still several hurdles, including raising money and erecting a building, but, preservationist who have been working on the plane for years say this is the most encouraging sign yet.
    Mike Feeley, city aviation director, said the city could house the plane on a piece of land in front of the terminal at Meacham Field, where an aging 727 sits The company that leases the land is willing to give up its lease in exchange for a lease closer to the runway. 'If it's approved, the plan is to put the airplane there and restore it, then we raise the funds and start building the building,' said Bill Guy, president of the nonprofit B-36 Peacemaker Museum. . . .

    ''It was built by Convair at the government owned bomber plant in west Fort Worth. 'If it wasn't built here, the plant would have closed.' Said Don Pyeatt, the Peacemaker groups Historian (ed. and one of ours). 'But the plant stayed open and also produced the F16 and soon, the Joint Strike Fighter. The plant has helped North Texas become a hub for defense contractors", Pyeatt said.
    The volunteers have spent the last 12 years restoring the last B-36 to roll off the production line. It is stored at the bomber plant and the Air Force has been pressuring the volunteers to find a permanent home for it, Guy said."
    The Alliance Airport hangar wished for under the Tarrant County College new construction plan grows more distant since there is talk that the plane cannot be used in conjunction with an educational facility. As we all know, however, rules can change so keep your fingers crossed. And, there are some things in the mill that are not now ready for publication. Though our tail is dragging and our stamina sorely tested, we haven't quit yet.

MONEY TALKS

    Our Keeper of the Cash, DOUG WOOD, is watching our dollars diligently. He reports we have $20,352.90 in the Association till and that should keep us going until our last flight. We will even have enough for free beer at the reunion so things are not bad at all. Another reason to make it to REUNION 2005!!

THIS & THAT FROM HERE & THERE

    DICK GEORGE mentioned that the Acura raffle came off as planned even though we didn't sell as many tickets as we had hoped. We did clear over $15,000. The winner was BETH ALLEN from Dallas, TX. She is the niece of ED CLAVERT, a retired engineer from Lockheed (General Dynamics, Convair) who purchased the ticket in her name. Sorry that none of you B-36ers got the car but even sorrier that it wasn't me!

WHEN IRISH EYES ARE SMILING IT MEANS THEY ARE UP TO SOMETHING

    KYRILL KOROLENKO went on to bigger things after he left CHRIS SUNDERMAN's B-36 crew. (There was no place to go but up.) After leaving the crew KK went up and got himself a PHD and a great career in all that science stuff. Anyway, he recently attended a conference on the Cold War and the need for tankers hit a high spot. He couldn't help but put in a word for the B-36, which didn't need a tanker to hit any target and submitted a Letter to the Editor of Defense News. It is shown below. Good work KK.

Remember the B-36

    In your Sept. 8 issue, the Centennial of Flight "Power in the Skies" commentary fails to mention the 28-cylinder, 3,500 horse power radial R-4360 engine. The original was made by Pratt & Whitney; later Ford Motor Co. built several hundred units. Each B-36 had six each (plus four GE J47 jet engines), and the C-124, four each per plane.

    Some 390 or so B-36s were operated by the Strategic Air Command between 1950 and 1960. Further, the B-36 is not mentioned in any of the articles so far, even though it was the only operational aircraft that could deliver some 40 tons of ordnance from the continental United States to the Soviet Union and return to our bases in North Africa (Nouasseur Air Base, near Casablanca), was one of the bases) without midair refueling.

    That was the only way available to deliver nuclear bombs to the Soviet Union until it was replaced by the B-47, B-52, SSBN submarines and intercontinental ballistic missile silos. Thus, it was the only deterrent at that time.

KYRIIA, KOROI.ENKO
Ni.wpoct, R.I.

TIME MARCHES ON

    The following table is the record of attendance at our Reunion Banquet. The attendance has been slowly decreasing and is a reflection of Last Flight and the decreasing mobility of our members. We have found a possible solution to this trend. A reduction of the Last Flight numbers is possible if there is an increase in mobility. It keeps that old blood flowing. Therefore, get mobile, come to Reunion 2005.

ATTENDANCE PER YEAR

EXPERIENCE IS WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU DON'T GET WHAT YOU WANT

OLD LUCKY

    Last issue had a story from the files of, previous Scanner Editor, TED TATE, that had turned up after 14 years. Here's another story from those files and it was written by DICK THRASHER, who was also in the story in last issue. It would seem that he shouldn't be allowed to fly.

    The year was 1949, the aircraft was B-36 #034, the pilot was CAPT HAROLD L BARRY. In the right seat was another A/C, CAPT R. V. GREEN. The flight engineer was DUDLEY GARDNER and the scanners were BILL WIETER, CLYDE ROSE, and ME, "OLD LUCKY" (or UNLUCKY, depending on your point of view.

    It was a test hop to 40,000' and just before level off, DUDLEY asked the left scanner (that's ME, OLD LUCKY) to check #3 as he had a fire warning light. #3 looked normal to me and I had just told him so when things started to happen, fast! The cowling turned dark on top and started to blossom open like a paper burning from the underside (no smoke or flame). Then #3, still turning, departed from the aircraft!

    All this time I'm trying to tell DUDLEY what I'm seeing but the intercom went dead and I'm not sure how much of it he got.

    With no contact with the A/C we decided to bail out. We turned the Dump Valve to dump, but didn't know how to stop the pressure from coming in with the cut-off valve. So we couldn't open the hatch. BILL WIETER solved this problem with the crash axe through the right blister.

    We then opened the hatch and CLYDE ROSE said, "I'll freeze to death!" (summer flying suit, no jacket.) So I made another attempt to contact the front. CAPT BARRY was on intercom #2 and informed everything was under control and to stow all equipment for landing. It was a very smooth landing.

    To my knowledge, 034 never flew again. Investigation determined it to be a wing crawlway fire that crystallized the engine mounts.

    Some Colonel, a Convair liaison officer, approached the front entrance hatch just as DUDLEY was coming down. Colonel, "You came down pretty fast, didn't you, Sarg?" DUDLEY (deep gravely voice), "Like a big t--d out of a tall ox." I think the Colonel's mouth is still open. (I've forgotten who told me this story and really don't know if it's true, but it does sound like DUDLEY.)

    I stopped talking about 034 for a long time. People who didn't know it happened didn't believe it happened. Those who knew it happened did not believe I was on it. (If only I could believe that.) I have a newspaper clipping with pictures showing the big hole where #3 was. I know it happened in 1949 but the article doesn't say what date and I don't remember.

THE GREATEST GENERATION

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, or 70s probably shouldn't have survived. Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets. When we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.)

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors! We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable!

WE CHILDPROOFED OUR HOME BUT THEY'RE STILL GETTING IN.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, or X-Boxes -- no video games at all -- no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them.

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of: They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you're one of them! Congratulations. Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good. Kind of makes you want to run through the house with a pair of scissors!

WHY IS ABREVIATION SUCH A LONG WORD?

B-36 CRASH

    Air Force types weren't the only ones who pranged a B-36. CHARLIE YOUNG sent us a great story of B-36 crash that had an all-civilian crew.

    Thanks to deep-sea diver STEVE DONATHAN, the story of a civilian-flown B-36D's crash off the coast of Mission Beach, California on Aug. 5, 1952 may soon be featured on the History Channel's "Deep Sea Detectives" TV series. DONATHAN, a dive instructor from the Loma Portal area of San Diego, found the wreckage of the massive Convair B-36 peacemaker nearly 50 years after it crashed. But he kept its location secret for fear that scavengers would desecrate it, so says DIANE BELL, a columnist in the San Diego Union.

    On June 13th, DONATHAN finally broke his silence and led DAN CROWELL, a History Channel videographer, to the wreck. Along with veteran underwater explorer JOEL SILVERSTEIN, they filmed the remains of the B-36 on the ocean floor. DONATHAN hopes that publicity generated by the show will inspire steps to guard the wreckage. He has shared his findings with the military and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

    He found the B-36 after hours of research and interviews with witnesses. One of these was MYRON SMITH, who was just 15 when he watched the crash from the boardwalk on South Mission Beach. DONATHAN's first find was a jet engine that had fallen off the bomber and sunk in 57 feet of water near La Jolla's Bird Rock. After combing a site three miles from shore with sonar and underwater drop cameras, he spotted the plane in about 260 feet of water.

    Even at that depth, the ghostly outline of the B-36, with its 162 foot fuselage and 230 foot wing, was unmistakable, he recalled. After charting the location, he returned several times to explore the wreck. What he found was a pile of crumpled, twisted metal encrusted with marine life. He cut off a section of the plane's skin to verify what he had found.

Six of the eight crew, delivering the plane for the Air Force, jumped from the burning craft and survived, a seventh drowned and the body of pilot DAVE FRANKS was never found. Military divers retrieved parts of the plane from a wide debris field but halted salvage efforts because of the dangerous depth of the diving.

    The B-36 (s/n 49-2661A) was the 121st B-36 built by Consolidated Aircraft in Fort Worth, Texas. Originally a B model, it had been returned to San Diego for conversion to a D model, which included the addition of two jet engines on each wing.

    The crew was pilot DAVE FRANKS, copilot ROY ADKINS, first flight engineer WALT HOFFMAN, second flight engineer DON MAXION, radar technician BILL WILSON, engineers KENNETH ROGERS, and BILL ASHMORE and radioman ROY SOMMERS.

    As the B-36 was heading south along the coast near La Jolla, enroute to land at San Diego's Lindbergh Field, an engine on the right wing caught fire. As flames engulfed the plane, FRANKS banked out to sea to keep it from crashing into homes after the crew bailed out. (Only ADKINS, ASHMORE, MAXION, ROGERS, SOMMERS and WILSON made it. FRANKS and HOFFMAN died in the crash.) The cause of the fire was never proven but an engine alternator that overheated and ignited its magnesium alloy housing was the most likely culprit.

    SMITH, now a retired CHP officer, recalled that the wing burned like tissue paper and that an engine fell off north of Tourmaline Canyon in the city of La Jolla. When it hit the water, he said, there was a large ball of fire that burned for a few minutes, then disappeared. MAXION, the last survivor or the crew, died in 2002. Earlier this year, with the permission of his widow, DONATHAN entombed some of MAXION'S ashes inside the plane.

MORE THIS 'N THAT

    (Here's an interesting and informative bit from CHARLIE HARPER. Good for you, CHARLIE! Now all you other guys keep sending us good stuff. Ed)

    I read with great interest the Association Scanner every time it comes to my desk. Always some great memories in there. I have lots of good memories (along with some not so good). One of the funniest was the time BOB HOPE was at Carswell for one of his shows and wanted to see the B-36. He insisted on going through the tunnel from the flight deck to the back. Of course he got stuck when he pulled up on the rail. It took two of us about 30 minutes to get him out, ½ hour of belly laughs, he had a one-liner for every occasion. I could go on but will just add I was there from November1948 until June 1950 working in Tech Supply.

    What this is all about is a while ago I stopped off in Lincoln, Nebraska to visit my cousin who lives there. We were in our motor home coming home from a speech I made in Chicago. My cousin's husband was a career Air Force. He asked me had I been to the SAC Air and Space Museum. I said that I had not, didn't even know what it was. He said they had a lot of old planes restored there and one was a B-36. Of course I wanted to see it, hadn't seen one of them in years and of course my wife wanted to see it too. She grew up in Lubbock and had never seen one. It has been well restored. It is a J model which is newer than the D's I was used to. Still, after all these years, a great and beautiful plane.

HELP WANTED

    We have received information that ART MERRIT has A L S, Lou Gehrig's Disease, and has been confined to a wheel chair. TOM BERLIN is on Dialysis and is awaiting a kidney transplant. It would help if we remembered these men in our prayers.

A SIMPLE WAY TO MEASURE THE WORTH OF A COUNTRY IS TO LOOK AT:
HOW MANY WANT IN, HOW MANY WANT OUT.

CHAPLAIN'S CORNER
BILL MINELLI

    (When King Savage told me that I must write something for the SCANNER, I knew that I had better oblige his majesty.)

    We are living in trying times today. The war in Iraq is taking its toll of human lives, many of whom are Reservists and National Guardsmen who had civilian jobs when not on active duty. They have been asked to serve under adverse conditions (Ed note: All combat is in adverse conditions.) fighting an enemy they can't see, (Ed note: I never saw any of the people I dropped bombs on from my B-29) they hide in civilian homes and before they strike these men are ignorant of the fact that we are in their country to help them live a better life, have freedom and a safe country for them to rear their families. How can a person be so stupid not to see this. Surely they have been brain washed by their leaders to believe that they are fighting a just cause. (Ed note: I was in Japan and Germany after WW II and noted that people my age in those countries had only one regret: That they lost the war. Propaganda works. See: ABC, CBS, NBC.)

    We must pray that they will see the light of day and realize that they have taken the wrong path in what they are doing and go back to a peaceful way of life. That will be the only solution that will benefit them and their country and that they can have a future that has meaning for them and their families. Let us pray to our Almighty GOD to intercede for these lost souls so they can see the light of day and live in a bright future

GOD willing that I will see you all at our next reunion. I have a memorial service planned for your inspiration and your religious appetite. May GOD keep you safe and healthy until we meet in April (Ed Note: and even after that!) we pray in the name of JESUS our LORD, Amen.

LAST FLIGHT

TAPS

Day is done - Gone the sun -
From the lakes - From the hills - From the sky -
All is well - Safely rest - God is nigh.
Fading light - Dims the sight -
And a star - Gems the sky - Gleaming bright -
From afar - Drawing nigh - Falls the night
Thanks and praise - For our days -
Neath the sun - Neath the stars - Neath the sky -
As we go - This we know - God is nigh

LTC CHARLES H CLAWSON JR
MSG JAMES H CLOPTON
LTC FRANCIS M DANIELS JR
TSG WILLIAM H McGRADY   
COL HOWARD "PETE" NORTON
CMS RAYMOND E OWENS
COL VIRGIL R "LUKE" SEWELL
SSG JACK L WALSWORTH

LIFE IS SHORT, ETERNITY ISN'T