By Phil Rowe
Early in the B-52 program I flew with a number of different crews. That usually was the result of a fellow crewmember being off on leave, away on temporary duty or just physically unable to fly. Substituting on another crew was common practice, though it was often uncomfortable.
Some of that discomfort came from not being familiar with the nuances of the other crew's practices. Oh sure, we all had to comply with standard operating procedures, but there were differences. Some differences were minor and quickly managed, like interphone chatter, crew coordination and the like. But some differences were more troublesome.
I recall flying with another crew one day and being asked to "assist" a radar bombardier in trouble. He was unable to precisely locate the target on his screen and we were barreling in from the Initial Point (IP) to the target. Seconds were slipping away and still he couldn't find the target. He knew that soon it would be too late and he would have to swallow a bad bombing score on his record. There was only one thing to do, and I was asked to help out.
From my upper deck station, in the electronic countermeasures position, I had the equipment that could jam the radar bomb scoring site (RBS) on the ground, the site that was tracking us and would eventually score the simulated bomb drop.
"Hit the jammers, Phil," came the urgent plea from the lower deck. "Damnit, I can't find the target and it's too late to abort the run. Hit 'em, Phil."
I quickly tuned my jamming transmitters to the radar signal of the tracking site up ahead. In seconds I caused the site to lose lock on us, making it impossible for them to score our run. If they couldn't track us they couldn't score us. And soon we got a radio call from the ground site that the run was aborted from their end. Our radar bombardier's run was scrubbed and it was as if he'd never attempted it.
As a young first lieutenant, still somewhat naïve about the way some SAC crews played the game, I was clearly pressured into 'helping out' when the major demanded it. Am I proud of doing that? No, of course not. At the time I just didn't realize how unprofessional it was. Hell, it was down right unethical, not to mention against regulations.
But that's the way it happened, and happened just once by me back in those early days of flying the all-new B-52 Stratofortresses.