The First Book of Why - Why I Am Me!

By Thomas Williamson

A few days earlier, the plane and its crew had been declared missing. The Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, had announced two of the US spy flight crew had been captured. The crewmen would stand trial as spies and, if convicted, executed. And the US base in England, from which the flight had originated, would be bombed. Within days, thousands of “Ban the Bomb” protesters were outside the base fences, being held back by the British Army. Inside the fences, US Air Force security guards, responsible for the protection of the nuclear armed and fueled Strategic Air Command Bombers, were betting on which of them would be the first. The first to kill a protester who cleared the inner fence. I remembered, while reflecting back on my life, that this wasn’t an everyday occurrence. But it was one of many life-changing events that potentially could have changed the world. While searching through my memories to answer my own question, Why am I me? and to answer my grown children’s many questions about our family, I decided to write down the answers. The result was this book—a book about the Cold War and the men who fought it, a story about the men and tangentially their families, who served on the front lines, protecting us from the threat of Communism. But the book is about more than the Cold War and nuclear brinksmanship. It’s a book about heroism, heartbreak, courage, spies, sacrifice, suicides, and murders. And it is still a book that answers my questions, “Who am I?” and “Why am I me?” Now I know!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781635683271

Book preview

PREFACE

Everyone, as they grow older, whether they admit it or not, starts to reflect back on their life.

Three pages of single-spaced typing I had written for my children, or perhaps for myself, is how all this started.

I started writing this book in an attempt to tell my children and others about my earlier years, part of our family’s history, and who I am. I realized as members of my family, friends, and loved ones passed away, I wanted them and what they had accomplished or had done to be remembered. I also realized that memories of a special group of people from our not-too-distant past were being lost. I wanted to ensure that there would be some sort of written record that my family, loved ones, friends, and I had existed.

I wanted it to be known and remembered that some of those special people who were part of the World War II Greatest Generation continued to sacrifice for their country, fighting the Korean and Vietnam Wars. They also fought in the Cold War and numerous military police actions. Not only did they make the sacrifices, so did their families. Many men dedicated themselves and tangentially their families to cold war military service to protect all that they, as well as their country, believed in. Some did it because of patriotism, some to make a decent living, some to feed their egos, but they all contributed to make them the most special of the greatest generation. More than a few books, movies, and TV shows have been written and produced about the wars that occurred during their military careers. This book is about the time between those conflicts, the Cold War, and the impact it all had on me, my family, the families of these men, and so much more.

This is how I remember things. Others may not remember the events I write about the same way I do. That’s fine; everyone’s memories and thoughts are their own. There are no right or wrong memories. I do know that the only research materials that were used were my memory, the memories of family and friends, some letters, a few newspaper clippings that were in my parents’ photo album, and even fewer excerpts from one of my parents’ books.

Certain parts of the book have had some of the locations, individuals, and actions modified, but only if the information would cause harm and was not already generally known or in the public domain.

When I originally started writing what follows, I wasn’t sure if it would be a series of short stories or a biographical novel or if it would be about me, my family, other cold war military families, the group of kids known as Military Brats, what life had taught me, or even an explanation of why I am the way I am. In other words, I had no idea where this endeavor would take me or what the final result would be. Now I know. It is all those things.

1

PROLOGUE

I am the oldest, a firstborn child, and yet I am the middle son, the second oldest of three brothers. I have in my possession, as did my Mother and older brother, three distinctly different certified birth certificates. I have two distinctly different yet valid Social Security numbers. I have lived in nearly sixty different homes and attended twelve different schools. I have lived or worked in seventeen different states. And unknown to nearly everyone, including my own children, I have lived or worked in seven different countries.

And yet I have had an easy life. I have always been lucky in that regard. For every difficult day I have had, there are other people who have had that many difficult days times a hundred.

This is about me and my family. This is about who I am and some of why I am the way I am. Just like everyone else my age, I have most things figured out.

I had terrific parents. My brothers and I did not want for anything we truly needed, but because of my Dad’s profession and through no fault of our parents, we did not always have them around when young boys needed their parents the most.

When I was a little boy, I was afraid of everything, and I do mean everything. Because of family situations I, along with my older brother, had to deal with many things by myself. Like every other kid, I had to overcome childhood fears, both real and imagined. But like many other kids, at times I didn’t have a parent or a sibling available to help me. So I had to learn to protect myself both physically and emotionally. I eventually learned to stand up for myself and my friends, if we were bullied, picked on, or ridiculed. It might not have been the best thing to do, but I learned how to fight back, and I got good at it. Since those days many years ago, I have found out that I don’t need to prove to anyone that I would always be the winner in those situations. I resolved to walk away from situations that could end up in a physical altercation, except when it came to family. To this day, I, like my brothers would, without hesitation do everything necessary to defend our loved ones.

I am well past my seventieth year, and over those past years, I have overcome most of my fears and phobias. Today, I have no fear of my own inevitable death, only the pain and suffering that may precede it.

As you will see, all things considered, my brothers and I turned out to be really good people and, I believe, better than most.

2

A NEW START

World War II had just started. Young men were joining the military. They were going to war, knowing that they might never return. The young women of that generation also knew that the war would be taking all the young men away and many would never return.

The result was many marriages preceded by shortened courtships, no courtships, and in some instances, unanticipated pregnancies. In some ways, the World War II greatest generation might have also been described as an early prelude to what was to come later: the sexually liberated generation of the nineteen sixties.

Mom had married after the start of WWII. I was born in 1944. My Mom, her husband (a USAAF officer and the man who fathered me), and I moved to Tampa, Florida, after the war. A furniture store business was started. By 1947, the marriage had ended in divorce.

The man whom I always considered my real Dad joined the military in January of 1942. He married, and my older brother was born before my Dad’s first wife died of consumption. By the end of the war, Dad was a USAAF pilot flying B-29s over Japan. Dad had only attained a high school diploma before enlisting after Pearl Harbor. He had spent most of the war in OTS and pilot training. After the war, he found the best job he could. He went to work for a car dealership as a mechanic. Within a short time, he was asked to rejoin the USAAF because of his outstanding flying skills.

The Air Force was starting the Strategic Air Command to counter the threat of the spread of Communism by the USSR, and highly skilled pilots had been desperately needed.

Dad was quickly assigned to the first bomb wing to be armed with A-bombs. His Wing Commander was General Tibbett’s, the pilot of the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan.

I know nothing about my Mom and Dad’s courtship except that they met in Tampa, Florida, either at a dance or at a nightclub with a dance floor. At that time, I had been too young to know or to care.

3

SURPRISE, NEBRASKA

When you grow old, your true memories get muddled with things you were told by others, the way you had wished things to have been, and the things that you had imagined based on looking at old photo albums.

My true memories of Surprise, Nebraska, or anything else at the age of three were limited. They consisted of a small house. It had one bedroom on the ground floor and a small kitchen with an eating area at the rear of the house and a combination attic / sleeping area above, with its only access a pull-down stair. There was no basement and no running water. The house was heated by one fuel-oil stove in the main living area.

There was an outbuilding that served as my granddad’s workshop, and of course, another outbuilding, the outhouse. A tire swing hanging from a tree limb at the back of the house and a well with a hand pump at the front of the house were the only other items of any significance that I remember about the post–Civil War era house.

The house was located on one of two paved streets in the town. The T intersection of these roads formed the center of town. And one of the corner lots at the intersection was vacant. During the summer, the vacant lot served as the outdoor movie theater for the town. A wooden screen would be erected, wooden benches put in place, and an electric power cord was run across the street for the projector that showed Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers movies.

My great-grandparents never had much money. I’m not sure if they ever truly owned any other real estate. I do know that my Grandpa had homesteaded, tenant farmed, and worked for the railroad in the Dakotas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa. I also know that they were always there for their family, and I know that Great-Grandfather’s railroad job was the only steady family income that was available to support his entire extended family through the prewar depression years.

I’m certain, when I was three years old, my Great-Grandfather, whom I called Grandpa daddy, traveled by train to Tampa, Florida, to take me back to Surprise, Nebraska. I know that I lived with my great-grandparents for about a year because I remember both a cold, snowy winter and the dusty heat of a dry summer. My Mother had done what her Mother had done: sent me to live with my great-grandparents while she worked through a postwar divorce, got her financial situation straightened out, and was courted by my future Father.

My Grandmother, my Mom’s Mom, many years earlier, had given up for adoption my Mom and my Mom’s older sister, to my great-grandparents when her railroad engineer husband divorced her.

I don’t think there was a kid in the town that was near my age. I do know that I cannot remember ever having any contact or playing with any other children. My memories consisted of visiting an old shack-like building that housed my great-uncle’s blacksmith shop, sitting with my Grandpa on wooden benches while we watched cowboy movies, playing with primitive wooden toys that I watched my Grandfather make in his workshop from wood scraps from a pile that was to be used in a stove to heat the shop. My favorite memory is of a large cardboard box filled with small bunnies that my Grandfather would bring home. He would turn up their nests while plowing a field for a local land owner, probably a relative of my Great-Grandmother. I also remember never being able to understand how the rabbits would always disappear after a week or so.

During those early years, I was afraid of everything: the dark, heights, being by myself, and the feeling of being abandoned. But the biggest fears I had while in Surprise were having to go upstairs by myself in order to go to bed, the fear the stair would be raised and I would be trapped by myself in the dark, with the terrible things that had to be lurking in the dark recesses and corners of the attic, and no one would remember that I was up there.

I don’t have memories of my Grandpa daddy returning me to my Mother in Tampa. I’m sure that my Grandpa and I took the train back to Tampa. I’m also sure that as much as I truly loved my great grandparents, I was overjoyed to again be with my Mother and to meet the man who would from that day forward always be my Father.

4

MEETING MY BIG BROTHER

My new Dad, Mom, and I traveled by car from Tampa to Fort Deposit, Alabama. The only memory of the trip was that it was long and it took forever. We arrived late at night, and I was taken into the house, ushered into the main living area that contained my new Grandmother’s bed, and shown a sleeping six-year-old. I was told that his name was Hank and he was my new big brother. I remember nothing more about the trip, except that everyone called my new Grandmother mamma.

Over time I saw that in many ways, the house in Fort Deposit was less of a house than the one in Surprise. A wood-burning stove and an old refrigerator served as the kitchen’s only appliances. There was no running water. There was a well, but it had no pump. It was an unlined well with a bucket on a rope. There was an outhouse and two barns. One barn served as a garage. The other barn was on the verge of falling down and was home to several wasps’ nests. A chicken yard ran the length of one side of the house. And it was from this yard that Sunday dinner was caught, had its head cut off, plucked, and prepared.

I do remember bits and pieces of the next several years. I remember living in a second-floor apartment of a wood-framed house located in Tampa, Florida. I remember it had a driveway that was paved with broken seashells. I remember the driveway because I had picked up a large piece of broken shell from the drive and threw it at my brother, Hank. I hit him in the forehead, causing a bloody cut. I’m sure the shell was thrown after several warnings to leave me alone or to stop picking on me.

I know that during the time that we lived in the house, my Mother worked at Maas Brother’s, a department store in downtown Tampa. During the day, an elderly lady living across the street tried to watch Hank and me while our parents were at work. She didn’t have much success. Hank and I would go into her fenced yard. Hank would quickly climb over the yard’s chain-link fence, and I would follow. Off we would go to play with the kids down the street. At the end of the day, Dad would locate us and follow us home while I yelled Please don’t beat me, Daddy! as he swatted us on the legs with a long blade of grass or weed.

It wasn’t long before our family had base housing. What had originally been a two-story non-air-conditioned WWII barracks building was converted into married officer’s housing. The building had two living areas downstairs and two up. Ours was on the south end of the second floor. It had to have been the hottest housing unit in the building.

It seemed that Dad was away much of the time we lived in the converted barracks. And when he was there, he was on some Base or Squadron sports team. We got the privilege of going to see him play in games or sit on the bench while the flight crews played (exercised). The wives and children couldn’t have cared less. During that period of time, the new Strategic Air Command (SAC) required that the air crews participate in physical conditioning activities and took the Dads away from their families even more than the week-long periods that the Fathers had to spend on the Base while on alert. Dad was also flying B-29s to England, along with several other pilots, one of whom would later resign his Air Force commission and begin flying for the CIA. A few years later, this former pilot would be working with my Father again while flying the majority of the twenty-two U-2s missions over the Soviet Union.

Mom had quit work at the department store in order to watch my brother and me. Hank and I were close to being uncontrollable, and there were no day-care facilities on base in those days. Hank, at seven years of age, was trying to show Mom that she was not going to be in control of him, and I wanted to be just like my still relatively new big brother. I would follow along, trying to keep up or try to outdo Hank at every opportunity. If someone wasn’t carrying my unconscious big brother home to Mom, I was being guided home to have my split-open forehead repaired.

5

MOVING UP: NEW DIGS

Dad had started flying the B-50, a super B-29. It could fly higher, faster, and farther than the World War II B-29. The B-50, along with the giant, lumbering prop-and-jet-powered B-36, had become the mainstays of SAC, the planes that would deliver the atomic bomb, if ever the need arose. This would start to change even before 1950 and the start of the Korean War. When the Korean War started, the B-29s were deployed to Japan. The squadrons flew more than a few successful missions over Korea until the new Russian MiG jet fighters appeared. Then due to tremendously increased B-29 losses, the bombers were withdrawn.

Before the Korean War was even fought, the Air Force was speeding up the schedule for deployment of a plane that would change aviation for years to come, maybe forever. It had already been determined that the current compliment of prop-powered bombers would not be able to project the type of air power needed to protect the country. The use of the WWII B-29s over Korea with the presence of the Russian jet MiGs showed that prop-driven bombers in combat were a thing of the past.

Because they were rated as among the best pilots in the Air Force, Dad, along with five other pilots, was selected to travel to Wichita, Kansas, to become the very first to fly what would become, at that time, the world’s fastest operational military plane, the B-47, Stratojet.

It was decided that when the new jet bombers were put into service, all crew members who flew in them would be triple rated. That meant that all the crew members would be required to qualify as a pilot, a bombardier/navigator, and a radar operator. While all these future crew members would be going to school to gain their triple rating, the six most talented, experienced, and skilled pilots would receive their B-47 pilot training in Wichita. They would then be deployed to MacDill AF Base in Tampa to be the IPs, the instructor pilots, for the 306th Bomb Wing. The Six would focus solely on training the new triple-rated pilots to fly the new six jet-engine bomber. After the Six trained, three squadrons of pilots to fly the new bomber, they would then go to school to receive their own triple rating. The 306th would then serve as one of the initial A-bomb–armed jet bomber combat wings and also serve as one of the primary training groups for the new bomber.

It has been mostly forgotten, but at that time, the selection of these Six pilots was somewhat like the selection of the Mercury Seven astronauts. But unlike the astronauts, the Six were never individually identified. The Six were photographed for Life and Look magazines, and Gen. Curtis Lemay, the commander of SAC, used them at every opportunity to gain positive publicity for the new Strategic Air Command and, more often, himself. After all, these six pilots would be the first to fly the world’s fastest military plane and first all-jet bomber, the US Air Force’s way of protecting the nation from the emerging Communist threat.

Dad was off to Wichita, and Hank and I were off to elementary school in Port Tampa City. During those early days, I remember in no particular order the integration of the military, the polio scare, and later the Soviet threat, as well as the Air Force Base evacuation drills in case of a nuclear attack.

While we were living in the converted barracks, new base housing was being built. Because Dad was one of the Six, we were one of the first families to move into the new housing. We had first floor, two bedroom living quarters in a two-story four-unit building. The building was one of three that faced three more similar buildings with an open yard area in between. There were two buildings at one end of the housing units that contained residential one-car garages. The housing area formed a horseshoe-shaped complex with the open end facing Hillsboro Bay.

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