In the Bullseye
During the fifties, dad had a church in Great Falls, Montana home to Malstrom air force base, Strategic Air Command.
One of the strong families in the congregation, the Crawfords lived out on the base. Sargent with stripes everywhere on his uniform. Seems to me I remember that he ran a soda fountain at that stage of his career. One night when we were watching The Twentieth Century with Walter Cronkite at their house, show about the Berlin airlift Mr. Crawfpord mentioned flying on the crew in a C-47 back in those days. Never said what he did during the war.
Airshow day out on the base kids got to climb around inside all kinds of airplanes. Best of all, a huge KB-29 Superfortress. Powerful feeling for a kid sitting up in the pilot's seat imagining bombs over Tokyo* or possibly that fateful run over the pole to Moscow, nuke ticking away back in the bomb bay.
Actually, the planes were converted to tankers, refuel the bombers who came out of other SAC bases around the midwest. We felt as if we were on the front line of the nation's defense.
One of the strong families in the congregation, the Crawfords lived out on the base. Sargent with stripes everywhere on his uniform. Seems to me I remember that he ran a soda fountain at that stage of his career. One night when we were watching The Twentieth Century with Walter Cronkite at their house, show about the Berlin airlift Mr. Crawfpord mentioned flying on the crew in a C-47 back in those days. Never said what he did during the war.
Airshow day out on the base kids got to climb around inside all kinds of airplanes. Best of all, a huge KB-29 Superfortress. Powerful feeling for a kid sitting up in the pilot's seat imagining bombs over Tokyo* or possibly that fateful run over the pole to Moscow, nuke ticking away back in the bomb bay.
Actually, the planes were converted to tankers, refuel the bombers who came out of other SAC bases around the midwest. We felt as if we were on the front line of the nation's defense.
One afternoon when all us kids were playing WWII in an open area behind the enlisted personal apartment complex on the base, possibly a quarter mile off the runway, the air-raid sirens began to wail. I don't think kids now days have anything in their lives that unites them in terror quite the way an unexpected air raid siren blast brought our little lives to a sudden stop back in the fifties.
Dad didn't say anything about a drill today, Danny shouted as we dove into our recently dug foxhole, army surplus store helmet liners bouncing over our eyes. Sound of heavy bomber engines already rumbling through the ground.
Within minutes the planes began to roll. Think opening scene Twelve O'Clock High**.
No idea what it was all about that day, but us kids sure had a scare. Fear of nuclear war hung over us like a shadow during those years. Still remember dreaming that a crowd of people on the roof of the school jumped to their death in the hope that they might be able to fly away from approaching Soviet bombers. I could always fly in childhood dreams, so I made it out only to wake up and find the real world third-grade teacher from hell had one more day with me in her grip. Not sure which I feared the most, Miss Cassman or nuclear conflagration.
We were told there would be enough warning for everyone to get in their cars and drive out of town. A retired wheat farmer in the church had family out to the north on a huge ranch and I remember the adults talking about how they were forty miles out from town, safe distance from an attack. Talked about stocking in extra supplies to help tend the refugees from a bombed out Great Falls.
As real to us back then as tomorrow. Several decades feeling safe from enemy nukes falling on us from beyond the distant horizon have buried those fears.
Not so fast. Apparently, a foe who by all accounts the personification of evil once again has us in his crosshairs.
Wonder if I'll have to dust off those old feelings of terror?
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*as kids whenever we jumped out of a swing or over a bank we either shouted 'bombs over Tokyo' or 'Geronimo'
**one of my all-time favorite movies, seen at least a dozen times. - update - Stumbled across Twelve O'Clock High on U-Tube the other day and my memory of the opening scenes was almost completely wrong. Stilwell finding the pirate mug slipped my mind, visualized the scene as him standing at the end of the now abandoned runway with B-17s taking off over his head. In the movie, it is a flight of ships coming around the pattern for landing. Always interesting to come up against the boundaries of memory accuracy.
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*as kids whenever we jumped out of a swing or over a bank we either shouted 'bombs over Tokyo' or 'Geronimo'
**one of my all-time favorite movies, seen at least a dozen times. - update - Stumbled across Twelve O'Clock High on U-Tube the other day and my memory of the opening scenes was almost completely wrong. Stilwell finding the pirate mug slipped my mind, visualized the scene as him standing at the end of the now abandoned runway with B-17s taking off over his head. In the movie, it is a flight of ships coming around the pattern for landing. Always interesting to come up against the boundaries of memory accuracy.
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