F-4 Phantom Crew Chief: Sam Lassiter's Vietnam Saga

By Samuel W Lassiter Jr

I was just one of the countless crew chiefs working F-4 Phantoms on the flight line in Thailand during the intensive action packed latter part of the Vietnam War. This is my exciting life’s story with focus on my tour at Udorn RTAFB. There are numerous books written by various fighter pilots of their missions over Vietnam with exciting aerial combat. The support level on the flight line was also grueling, but in a very different role. This is my everyday life at the typical crew chief’s level keeping our fighters combat ready 24 hrs a day. Each new day brought a different challenge, dealing with sapper attacks, support for Operation Linebacker II, venomous snakes on the flight line, and living with the tropical heat and humidity. It was busy and it was noisy. Walk with me and experience what it was like in the crew chief’s everyday life on the line.
— Sam Lassiter

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Aug 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483435831

Book preview

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Prologue

The main reason for writing this book is to reflect on the typical life of an F-4 Phantom Crew Chief during the Vietnam War. There are numerous books written by various pilots, and I have read and own several. Good books. At the same time I have never seen or been exposed to a book written by a crew chief about their life and experiences during the war. The support role was a very different function than the typical fighter pilot’s role.

The Vietnam war has been over for nearly forty years now and here I am finally writing of my personal experiences at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base in northern Thailand during the war. I have thought about doing this for one to two years, and now that I am retired, I certainly have the time.

When my tour in Southeast Asia was over all I wanted to do was come home. In my younger years I never even considered writing about my experiences over there, but at the same time, I considered the twelve months I was there one of the most important years of my life. I didn’t join the air force because I was avoiding the draft, I joined because I wanted to serve. As a matter of fact I volunteered for Vietnam. At that time I had no idea what bases we had in Southeast Asia. When I found out I would be going to Thailand I was a little disappointed at first, but that changed after I got there. I didn’t realize this was one of the largest and closest air force bases to North Vietnam.

I joined the United States Air Force for two reasons. Above all I wanted to serve my country. Second, I loved airplanes and the thrill of flying.

When I was a teenage boy in Harrisburg, PA I got my first flight in a plane, specifically a Cessna 150 single engine recip, or propeller plane with a gasoline powered four cylinder engine.

Robert McCullough was the pilot, a gentleman attending the same church I did in Harrisburg, PA. We flew around the Susquehanna River along with the mountains North of Harrisburg and I was in Hog Heaven. I knew then that I would be joining the United States Air Force so I could be involved with airplanes in one way or another.

I knew the war in Vietnam was in full force, but I didn’t care; I was ready to serve.

I have inserted quite a few images taken from old Super 8mm movie footage and they aren’t crisp clear images, but I’m afraid that’s the best I can do with what we had back then. I’m one that believes a picture is worth a thousand words and help tell a story.

I have quite a few memories from my tour at Udorn; some good, some bad, but all special.

I can close my eyes now and hear the high pitched J-79 turbine wheels rotating, smell the JP-4 exhaust fumes, and feel the vibration of several F-4s taking off together in full afterburner.

This book is not written from a sophisticated or college education level, but from the eyes of an ordinary man as he lived and breathed everyday life.

Chapter 1

GROWING UP

This will be going in several different directions, but I’m writing per the memories I still have.

I was born in a hospital in the small town of Eustis, Florida in March of 1952 ... and that’s because Mount Dora, our home town, didn’t have a hospital. Daddy was a long distance truck driver and momma didn’t work, as most moms didn’t back then. We lived in a cinder block home that daddy had built close to Lake Dora, and we burned coal in the den fireplace for heat in the winter. Daddy drove an old Volkswagen Beetle and we attended the First Baptist church in Mount Dora, which is a small town in central Florida’s Lake County. There were quite a few retired northerners around, even back then. I can still remember the names of two of our neighbors, Mr. Sorensen, and Mr. Sheehee. Matter of fact, Mr. Sorensen almost got me shot out of an oak tree one sunny Florida morning.

Here I am just a young kid that loved dinosaurs, and I had climbed the oak tree close to the garage and was emulating a Tyrannosaurus Rex, blood curdling roars and all. I was about eight to nine years old maybe? Mr. Sorensen was out walking his dog and he heard my T-Rex roars and since he couldn’t see me, thought there was a wildcat in the tree. So he did what any good neighbor would do, and that’s call the police. My parents had told me the police were on the way to the house with buckshot loaded shotguns to dispose of the cat before it hurt or killed someone. In the meantime Mr. Sorenson was waiting by his door. Now little Sammy got tired of playing meat eater in the oak tree, and came down. Mr. Sorensen saw Sammy come down and quickly yelled at him: "Sammy, was that you in that tree? Little Sammy replied with a Yes sir. He then asked: What in the world were you doing? I told him. Mr. Sorensen quickly ran inside and called the police again, telling them it was a false alarm. When Mr. Sorensen told mama about it, she cried, and said: He could have been killed! When daddy got home later he laughed about it and said: That’ll teach him a lesson".

I remember us making homemade ice cream with a hand cranked churn and I remember seeing rockets take off at night at Cape Canaveral from our dining room. Daddy liked to print and had acquired his own printing press setup in the shop next to the garage. Just a simple small town life for all of us. I remember Santa coming through the park downtown on top of a fire truck, and the large tree on the hill in the town park decorated for Christmas. The shuffleboard courts were there and across the street was a small cafe that daddy bought me pancakes in once in a while, and boy, were they good. A half block away was the indoor movie theater and I remember daddy reluctantly taking me and my older brother to see the 1960 version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. Just before he dropped us off and as we were riding by the box office I remember daddy saying: "I ought not to let you boys see that", as he thought it was too violent for an eight year old such as Sammy. My brother David was about twelve. I can still remember many scenes from the movie and I simply loved it, a dinosaur loving little boy’s dream.

Daddy took me on three different long distance trips in the eighteen wheeler; one to Minnesota, one to Virginia, and one to south Florida. I wanted to see a real live coconut tree with coconuts hanging on it so bad!

My very first girlfriend was Karen Matthews and somehow I was allowed to meet her and go see the Walt Disney movie Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea starring Kirk Douglas and James Mason.

I think this happened around 1964 and I even gave Karen a ring, and I don’t have a clue where I got the ring from (probably a Crackerjack Box). Couldn’t have been too bad if I still remember the detail fifty years later, huh? I also had a crush on another girl once, early 60s, Carrie McQuarter (I may not have spelled her name correctly), a beautiful girl indeed. We were walking down by Lake Dora and I slipped on the rocks at the shoreline and fell in the water. So ... do you think I was embarrassed? Geeez .…

On more than one occasion we saw a rattlesnake in the carport next to the garage, and for entertainment I would just play in the yard with my army men or plastic dinosaurs.

We were at a friend’s house once out in the country and I had a small bow and shot a target arrow straight up in the air as I wanted to see how high it would go.

As I looked up I thought it was going to come straight down and hit me so I took off running as fast as I could to avoid the arrow. I got about fifty or sixty feet away and .…… the arrow hit me in the shoulder - ha ha. Drew a little blood, bruised my shoulder and scared me, otherwise all okay. If I would have stayed still I would have been fine.

I stole something once when I was a little buck toothed crew cut haired skinny little boy. Don’t know why, but I was in a 5 & 10¢ store (that’s what we called them back then) by myself and I saw something I liked, and I don’t remember what it was. I put it in my pocket and walked out with it, carrying it home. And you know, my conscience began bothering me. I knew better! I was taught better! So the next day I carried it back and put it back where I found it. Nobody ever knew it but me. And you know what? It was like a huge load was lifted from little Sammy’s shoulders.

And by the way, back then doo dads and common small items weren’t made in China. They were made in Japan. If something said Made in Japan on it we usually didn’t buy it ‘cuz we knew it wouldn’t last long. Boy, has that changed, eh? Had my share of candy cigarettes and 10¢ cherry cokes.

And then there was the time daddy washed my mouth out with soap once for something I said as a little boy. I don’t remember what it was, but you can be sure I never said it again, at least not in front of him. I know soap is a cleaning agent, but little boy Sammy didn’t think it was intended for internal use. Daddy believed otherwise. And it worked.

One Saturday or Sunday afternoon somewhere around 1962 we were all sitting and eating at the dining room table and heard one or more jets come screaming overhead, and it sounded like they were pretty low. All of a sudden there was a boom and the sound just stopped abruptly instead of fading away in the distance. My daddy was quick, and said: "Get up and come with me. That plane crashed. Mom and us kids got in the Volkswagen and he drove to the crash site, and I’m sure he followed the smoke trail from the resulting fire. He parked by the road and said: You kids stay in the car until we get back." He and mom walked to the crash site and checked it out, and I don’t think it was very far from where we lived as it didn’t take us that long to get there. Obviously no emergency vehicles of any kind had arrived yet. I don’t remember any comments from daddy later on, but I do remember momma stating she saw the pilot’s helmet and it still had scalp and hair in it and it was the prettiest jet black hair she had ever seen. She also saw a boot and it still had the pilot’s foot in it. I am not sure of the exact aircraft type, and I remember daddy saying the news reported he was flying at treetop level and simply clipped a tree. Almost assuredly a military jet fighter type aircraft.

Yep ... got the mumps.

Yep ... got tonsillitis and had to get ‘em removed, say about 1958. I remember my Aunt Johnnie staying at the hospital with me that night. I couldn’t talk and I remember waking up in the middle of the night trying to get her attention and telling her I had to go to the bathroom! Somehow I finally woke her up and got her attention as she was asleep. That hospital trip also got me some ice cream to sooth my sore throat. I even remember the comic book I had with me and was reading, Turok, Son of Stone, and you can bet your bottom dollar I can even remember some of the contents of this particular comic book, as they were in a cave and there was some lava. Two Indians (Turok and Andar) living in a lost valley full of dinosaurs, which they called honkers. Reading material right down little Sammy’s alley.

Then Hurricane Donna came through in 1960 and a tree fell on me and my brother’s bedroom.

And there was the time I was riding my bicycle and decided to make a u-turn in the road without looking. I heard the screeching of tire rubber and all I can say is, if that driver wasn’t paying attention, I would have died right there.

And here’s an unusual incident, and frankly, I’m embarrassed to enter this, but oh well; I was walking outside at Roseborough Elementary School in Mount Dora, Florida, when I tripped on a raised crack in the sidewalk. I fell, hit my head on the walk, and knocked myself out. Woke up in the school infirmary with an ice pack on my head.

And of course, another day I will never forget is when JFK got assassinated. 11/22/63. I was eleven years old and in the 6th grade at Roseborough Elementary, and was sitting at a desk towards the right front of the class when the announcement came over the loudspeaker on the wall in front and right of me.

Remember the Johnny Cash song Ring of Fire, early sixties? Well now, I remember going outside at night under the street light, holding a small stick for a microphone, and singing it to my imaginary audience ... hee hee.

Life is hard on a family when the dad is a long distance truck driver. When I was about ten, dad and mom split. Me and my one year younger sister Sherry went to live with mom in Chester, South Carolina where her folks were from. Now get this; one day daddy showed up at the elementary school we were attending.

He was in his eighteen wheeler and asked us if we wanted to go live with him. He told us he didn’t have a home for us right then, and that we would have to stay at the Mount Dora Christian Home and Bible School for a while. We all said Yes unanimously. That kind of tells you something, eh? He asked us to get down in the seat in the sleeper and don’t get up until he told us it was okay. So off we went back to Florida. When mom found out what happened she was furious, but had to deal with it because we went on our own free will.

While we stayed there my sister Sherry fell and ruptured a cyst on her kidney. Nobody even knew it was there. She had to have the kidney removed.

I just can’t remember the exact calendar of when we lived where, but while daddy was on the road, me and one of my siblings had to live with Mike and Mary Edwins in Leesburg, FL., for a while. Mike Edwins was a Pentecostal Holiness preacher. While we stayed there the first eye opening event for little Sammy occurred. An evangelist, a Mr. Stuart came down to preach a revival at the PH church. The service that Sunday morn was good and he preached a good sermon. Pastor Stuart came to Pastor Edwin’s house for dinner and we all had a nice meal. All of