Da Nang Flight line, January 12,
1966:
6252 Combat Air Police Squadron, 366th
SPS (K-9)
As the sun sat in the west, a dozen
K-9 sentry dog handlers, including tentmates A2C Gary Eberbach and A2C Tom Baker, waited at the north end of Da Nang's only active
runway for a B57 Canberra to complete its taxi and rolling take off.
Photo: Left, A2C Tom Baker. 2nd Rt. A2C
Don Poss, Rt: Gary Eberbach.
As soon as the tower gave us the green-light we
could cross to the east side perimeter and take up our posts every thousand
feet. My sentry dog, Blackie (129X), was at heel, sitting patiently
on my right side.
I watched for the pilots of the Martin B57 Canberra, a tactical fighter
bomber, to glance up from their preflight, as they almost always did,
so that I could wave a thumbs- up. But this time, both were intently
focused upon their instruments, glancing neither left or right. Something
was wrong.
The bomber was heavily armed, including wing bombs, and its nose seemed
to dip slightly lower than the normal nose- down rake attitude.
When it began to roll forward, the nose sagged even further. The B57
Canberra fighter-bomber lumbered down the runway with dual engines roaring.
All of us sentry dog handlers followed its acceleration--we sensed that
it was not a typical take-off, and we were right.
After 2,000 feet, the
bomber should have already reached a point of no return, committed to
take off, and began its vertical rotation lifting the nose to a high
attitude. Suddenly the nose gear seemed to collapse onto the asphalt
runway--trailing fireworks, like a thousand sparklers burning at once.
We knew the B57 pilots could not eject at ground level because it had
the old cannon shell ejection seats that would literally blow the pilots
out of the cockpit and throw them onto the runway in front of the still
accelerating aircraft.
The pilot was obviously
fighting to control the aircraft and lift-off the runway, and as he
was rolling down the runway he began jettisoning his unarmed bombs which
planed like rocks across an asphalt pond--some bouncing higher than
the aircraft and others tumbling and spinning end-over-end. For several
seconds the nose lifted high, then settled back to a screeching shower
of sparks like a comet's tail skipping across a lake of fire. Racing
ever closer to the south end of the runway, it was lift off or
die-time for the pilots. A C-130 Flare
bird, returning to base, was flying directly overhead at that moment
and helplessly observed the unfolding tragedy far below.
Please God ... I prayed, willing the fighter-bomber into the air.
