Metz, France

Keep Your Mark 6's Away From My U-2
Edward McKeogh

I arrived at 3 Wing (Zweibrucken, West Germany) in September of 1956 and was assigned to 413 Squadron. 434 Squadron was in Rabat, Morocco at gunnery camp and 427 Squadron was scheduled to replace them soon - so it was thought best to let me get acquainted with European flying before I was to participate in any deployments. I was given a quick squadron check-out and was, within days, doing the "Hi-Battle" sorties, quite some time before going on the HAI course which was offered in Wiesbaden.

Our four-plane high altitude training missions (which were just about every mission) are merely "Hi-Battle" entries in my log book. Young 20 year-old fighter pilots had exceptional vision, and I met two of the most exceptional in that regard...the late Ken Tatem and Al Germundsen. Combine that kind of eyesight with the hard-edged and "clean" Mark VI routinely at 48,000 feet and you have the ingredients for a U-2 encounter.

They were still "wingmen" at that time, and the section leads were "old timers" of about 27 years of age and committed to uphold the supremacy of the flight leader and flight discipline. Any RT calls from "sprog" wingmen about spotting anything "high" and/or far were met with a "just fly formation, there's nobody up this high" rejoinder from the lead. In actual fact these keen-eyed wingmen would often spot meteorological radiodsondes which were sitting at about 60,000, also, everyone kept an eye open for the cylindrical balloons with dangerous heavy chain hanging on them which the Russians would launch if the winds were right hoping to damage whatever flew into them in Western Europe.

Our U-2 encounter was a single one for our four-plane on that day. We were flying at 48,000 feet one afternoon in late 1956 when a U-2 was sighted by one of our wingmen. We saw it and went up to take a look.

From 48,000 feet up to where the U-2 was took only a few minutes since we were converting quite a bit of speed into altitude. We used to run the hard edge Mark VI Sword (the slatted ones hadn't yet arrived) and "clean" (ie sans the 120 US gallon drop tanks) up to well above the contrail level and call for "Liner" power of 92%. That gave us a Mach of about .92 at 45,000 feet plus. Our internal fuel load was approximately 2875 pounds. Then, when we got down to about 1800 lbs we'd call for "Saunter" power of 88% and keep the Mach at .92. And that was in 1956!!!!

We pulled up two on each side of this dark coloured T-33-like bird with a wider wingspand that was just almost hanging there at about 180 knots at about 53,000 feet. Our aircraft were quite sloppy on the controls even though Mach was about .75 at that speed at that altitude we lowered flap to keep it safe. We flew loose formation on him for several minutes. We were not vectored toward it as on a "Zulu" mission. There was no communication between us and him. We didn't quite know what that airplane was all about but had our suspicions. We didn't report it to anyone nor talk much about it when we got back to Zweibrucken. There was so much going on those days and so much to see and hear that if we started to talk about it in the flight room people would yawn and walk away to check the Ops board to see if they were going to be lucky enough to get in their third mission of the day. The Americans didn't think anyone would be up that high and bother their plane as it flew various missions out of Wiesbaden.

One of the things that a pilot in Europe was subjected to was a "High Altitude Indoctrination" course. The HAI was a routine annual requirement much like our medicals or dinghy drill. We didn't have a decompression chamber at 3 Wing (nor at any of the other RCAF Wings as far as I know). That didn't bother anyone, including the USAF who were probably giving the training at no charge. It was an opportunity for aircrew from various places to get to know each other. As you recall, we were in the "American" zone of West Germany and were, in many ways, treated by the Americans as if we were part of their Air Force. Hell, as you'll recall, we used US dollar script at the bar and in the base PX and other facilities and drank milk and ate bread out of AFEX-wrapped containers...gas coupons for our cars were the same as those issued to Americans.

I was eventually selected for the HAI training course and drove, on TD, down the autobahn to Wiesbaden where the training was provided. The HAI course was very good and very important - particularly in the early days of high-altitude flight when strange things happened to pilots and their aircraft that were subsequently identified as being anoxia or spatial-disorientation related.

The HAI training lasted about two days, ....long enough for the Canadians to re-acquaint themselves with a very popular bar downtown called the Valhalla. The American instructors knew we would go there, so their "volunteers" early the next morning in the spinning chair used for the spatial disorientation demonstration were always Canadians. I was convinced that they were more interested in demonstrating how the "morning after the night before" could provoke airsickness. It didn't work. We were young and too used to burning the candle at both ends. Our every day routine back at the squadron consisted of up and down and twisting and turning and lots of G after a late night on the town. However, we all respected very religiously the old "8 hours between the bottle and the throttle" rule. Some people might not believe that, but we all enjoyed flying too much not to be feeling 100% while we were airborne. Additionally I sure wouldn't want anyone on my wing (or vice versa) as we made our way down through 30,000 feet of European dense winter cloud and rain with just minutes of fuel remaining unless he was in top shape.

RCAF pilots taking the HAI training did not conduct any flying from Wiesbaden. The "high altitiude" stuff was done in the decompression chamber. The USAF picked the best of the best as instructors. The course was excellent. They welcomed us and treated us as if we were part of their air force. That was the prevailing attitude on both sides in those days. We usually stayed at the General Von Steuben hotel in downtown Wiesbaden. It appeared to me as if the Von Steuben, a newish building, would be one that the Americans requisitioned just after WWII. It has probably reverted to civilian use. For us it was a "BOQ". We put our shoes outside the door at night and picked them up in the morning shined and with the Stars and Stripes newspaper.

On one early evening after work as we were enjoying a beer at the bar in uniform, a USAF "bird" colonel came over to our group and asked if we were from the "Third Wing" (I guess the U-2 pilot had made note of our 413 squadron "tusker" elephant tail markings and was able to then easily find out where we were from through NATO. We said we were from 3 Wing, at which time he asked who the senior man in our group was. Joe Gagnon, although of Flying Officer rank like the rest of us, was designated by us as the senior man because he was about 23, many years older than the rest of us. The Colonel said to Joe "when you get back to 3 Wing, I want you to tell your wing commander to keep his Mark 6's away from my U-2".

After the earlier frustrating experiences the Americans had with their Sabre "Dog" and their "Super" Sabres vs our Mark6, you'd think they would have expected something like what happened, on more than one occasion, to their spy plane. The next time I saw a U-2 it was a pile of wreckage in a Moscow museum when I visited with the NDC course.