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VETERAN: Arthur E. Roberts
INTERVIEW DATE: July 14, 2011
OWEN ROGERS: Today is July 14th, 2011. My name is Owen Rogers.
I am interviewing Arthur Roberts for the Veterans History Project
at the Simsbury Public Library in Simsbury, Connecticut.
So, Mr. Roberts, for the record, could you please state your
name, birthday and branch of service?
ARTHUR E. ROBERTS: Yes. I'm Arthur E. Roberts. I was born
August 18, 1942. And I was in the U.S. Air Force.
ROGERS: And what was the maximum rank that you achieved within
the Air Force?
ROBERTS: That was staff sergeant?
ROGERS: Okay. And now, Mr. Roberts, were you drafted or did you
enlist into the Air Force?
ROBERTS: Oh, no, I enlisted. I was several years before draft
age back in '61, so.
ROGERS: And what made you choose that branch of service?
ROBERTS: I've always been fascinated by aircraft and aviation
and it just kind of made sense.
ROGERS: And where did you muster out of? Where were you living
at the time?
ROBERTS: I was in, at Denver, Colorado, actually Golden is where
we lived, and joined through the recruiting service down in
Denver.
ROGERS: And I remember you told me the story off camera so I
guess I'll--did you try to enlist in any other branch of the
service?
ROBERTS: Yes. I am also a ham radio operator, and I had two
friends that were hams also and we'd get talking most
nights, you know, late in the evening, and they were a
couple years older so they had the draft board staring them
right in the face, I mean to the point of sending letters.
And we decided we better go down and talk to the recruiters,
try to do something, because I knew I was going to go in the
service. Just, college at that point just wasn't on the
table. And so we went down and actually the Army was very
interested because of our communication background. They
even had a major take us aside, talk to you us about, you
know, would amount to working for A.S.A., Army Security
Agency, as spies working out of embassies in civilian
clothes and stuff. So, okay, well, that sounded kind of
interesting. So we went and took the physical and all the
written tests, and they had a very extensive battery of
tests that turned out all three of us scored extremely high
on. Unfortunately, in the physical they determined I was
color blind and said I was 4-F, which just floored me,
especially since I grew up doing art work. My mother was a
commercial artist, and went home and told her. She said,
"They are out of their mind." But the next morning I get a
call from the Air Force recruiter, "Say, we heard about your
color vision, tell us, you know, what's the story." And I
told him I didn't know I had a problem until yesterday. I
did flunk the color vision test, very obviously, but didn't
understand that. And so he said, "Well, if we throw down
red, green and blue yarn can you tell us." I said, "Sure."
He says, "Come on down." So I went down, identified their
colored yarn and took their written tests and the rest was
history. But I went in actually with the idea of being in
electronics, and that held up through basic training and
they sent me back to Denver, about 20 miles from where I
lived, for training in electronics and fire control systems,
F-105s. And about a week before school they said, "Well, we
see there's been a problem with your color vision." So they
retested me and of course I failed it again. And they gave
me this sheet of paper, one page, with list of schools that
didn't require color vision, and the only one on the list
that was there at the base that we were at, Lowry, was
photography. Well, I had taught myself photography in high
school. The lab work. I'd been shooting pictures forever
but taught myself how to do all the lab work and stuff.
Never even gave it a thought for the service. But I said,
well, you know, heck, I'll take photography. Because at
that time it was all black and white except for slides so
color vision wasn't required. And turned out that was one
of those fairy godmother moments. It turned out to be
extremely good move. So I went on and did my 13 weeks of
photography, basic photography school, which was very
interesting, and then went on to Japan from there to work
two years in a base photo lab.
ROGERS: So prior to that deployment what were your first days
like in the Air Force?
ROBERTS: Well, basic training, we were down there for five weeks
and our recruiter told us, well, okay, go down, you know,
they are going to scream at you and do all kinds of huffing
and puffing and just look at him and think, gee, in five
weeks I'll be gone and you'll still be here, and just don't
take it too serious, just do as they say. And so that's
basically what happened. I went down there, we had some
good T.I.s. They--we had a good crew. The whole 60, 70
guys were pretty sharp. And they got us aside about the
third or fourth night and they said, "Well, you kind of see
what the story is here, as long as you look good out in
front of everybody else, we are not going to bust you at
all." And so we had, it was actually pretty good five
weeks.
ROGERS: Now did the pilots train beside the enlisted men? You
know, were officers and enlisted men integrated into the
same--
ROBERTS: Well, no. We were all enlisted. At that time they did
have the Air Cadet Program still in effect so if, you know,
once you completed basic and you'd been in a year you could
apply, you know, to either O.C.I.S., Officer Candidate
School, or the Cadets and then go in and, you know, get
commissioned and get, and be trained that way. But people,
the guys or girls just going in to be an officer, they go
through a different program, totally.
ROGERS: So what was your deployment like in Misawa?
ROBERTS: Well, that was fun. I was, I was over there in base
photo lab, which meant we were out taking pictures of
anything and everything and, being in a foreign country, any
incident that happened on base or off we had to document.
You know, even if you have, you know, in your personal car
an accident downtown, we had to take pictures of it. If you
lived off base or on base and somebody broke into your
house, we had to go take pictures of that. So we did
everything. A lot of information, P.I.O. or public
information stuff. Officers' wives' club. You know, you
had to go take pictures there. Just, you name it, we did
it. And the P.I.O. work in particular ended being
interesting because the other guys in the lab hated it.
They didn't, they just didn't want any part of it. And I
grew up in a social environment so I knew how to talk to
these people and how to act and if I had to go up to the
officers' club I would go up--they didn't make me wear
uniforms. I would go up in coat and tie and take my
pictures, put the camera in the corner and mingle. But I
was known, you know, by that time I was known around, you
know, amongst all the big wigs anyway, so they knew who I
was and I behaved myself so never was a problem. I had a
ball.
ROGERS: What type of, what kind of airplanes were you flying at
Misawa?
ROBERTS: They at that time--we had F-100 fighter bombers or
F-101s for photo recon and F-102 intercepters.
ROGERS: Now at that point did you have any hand in developing
photo reconnaissance photographs?
ROBERTS: No. The 45th Recon, Photo Recon, was in, shared the
same building with us. We shared a few facilities, like
chemical and, you know, mixing and whatnot, but they were
separate organization and they were pretty, pretty active,
but--
ROGERS: Well, I was going to say, Northern Japan is very close
to the Soviet Union.
ROBERTS: Yeah. Six minutes by air. So our defenses were, you
know, you know, they--we had four 102s sitting out slightly
off the end of the runway that could be launched off in a
matter of a minute or two. And I went out, first time I saw
them, you know, I saw this and of course Northern Japan gets
a lot of snow in the winter and I asked the pilot that was
kind of showing me around, I said, "Well, you know, I know
you guys try to keep the runway clear but, you know, what
happens if it's really, really snowy." He says, "We can fly
this thing out of the hanger if we have to." Full
afterburner and let go.
ROGERS: Called the Delta Wing, right?
ROBERTS: Yeah.
ROGERS: That thing probably just flies right up.
ROBERTS: And it was, it's pretty light really. They just
carried missiles, that's all they had, so, but they
scrambled out quite a bit.
ROGERS: I can imagine the F-101 being a photo reconnaissance
platform. Would that be the fastest aircraft of the three?
ROBERTS: Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was their defense, because they
were totally unarmed. They just carried a lot of fuel, but,
yeah, more than once they came home full afterburner with a
MIG hot behind them.
ROGERS: So how long was your deployment in Japan?
ROBERTS: Two years.
ROGERS: Two years? And do you recall any exceptional
circumstances, any events during that time?
ROBERTS: Oh, yes. Of course, I was there for the Cuban missile
crisis and that was a real tense time, and since then I have
learned even more about it and realized it was even more
tense then we thought and we was bad enough there. We had
the F-100s with nukes hanging on them sitting out ready to
go with the pilots in the cockpit, so people were kind of
holding their breath.
ROGERS: So the reverberations from the Caribbean--
ROBERTS: Yes. Oh, gosh, yes. Well, even, even--I was there
when Kennedy was assassinated and we went, as soon as word
came out we went on high alert because we didn't know what
was going to happen.
ROGERS: Now, on the flip side of the coin, being Northern Japan,
were you ever approached by Soviet photo reconnaissance
platforms?
ROBERTS: They had, I didn't see any but there were some stories
of--I don't know if they were recon planes but I know there
was one story of a Soviet fighter pilot calling our tower
saying he was low on fuel and requesting permission to
refuel, and after a quick little talk with the base
commander they said yeah, they would let him come in and
land. Of course, he was escorted. And they gassed him up
and sent him on his way. So there's all kinds of stories,
you know, that happened and, yes, it was the cold war, and
there was another incident where one of our 100 pilots was
out, got ambushed by a couple of MIGS, and they heard him
yelling over the, you know, over the radio about it. And I
can't remember if he--I know they shot him down but whether
he survived I can't remember. But one of the pilots that
heard this ran out and grabbed the first 100 that was parked
out front, came back holding up two fingers and smiling, so.
ROGERS: And did you ever see any of the Maritime Patrol
aircraft, like Bayer bombers, anything like that?
ROBERTS: Well, yes, one time. I had a deal. Our commander for
the, or for the photo lab, amongst his other many duties he
ran base ops and stuff too, but we had several of the North
American T-39s, the little Sabreliner that they use for
ferrying around, and the base commander and some of the
other high officers would fly, you know, four hours or more
a month just to keep their flight pay and their flight
status and stuff. And Colonel Bineer (ph) told me that any
time I wanted to, you know, hop on for a ride, just do it,
just show up and there was an empty seat and I was welcome.
So I did that on occasion. And one of the times we had gone
a way up north up by Wakkanai, over Northern Hokkaido, and
tried to sneak back in, you know, to play games with our
radar, and the pilot came on the intercom and said, "See
that light over there about a mile away, that's a Bayer
bomber." So that's as close as I got to one.
ROGERS: Now from Misawa--or rather I believe another off camera
story. Were there ever any disturbances or riots at the
base?
ROBERTS: Oh--
ROGERS: Kind of a loaded question here.
ROBERTS: Not while I was there.
ROGERS: Okay.
ROBERTS: But I also heard that in Japan at least at that time
the Communist Party was very active and it was perfectly
legal. They could do, you know, just like any other, any
other group, and they were known to protest and demonstrate
out in front of our bases from time to time, mostly down in
the Tokyo area, because we had a lot of bases down there, a
lot of facilities. And while I was there I didn't know of
one but I had heard and actually saw a picture of the plane
one time before I got there that they had a big
demonstration set up and actually did in front of the base,
and so our guys, just as a little deterrent, parked an F-100
a few hundred yards inside the gate, let the nose wheel
down, let the air out of the tires and dropped the nose,
with torn rivet 20-millimeter cannons aimed at the gate.
They didn't have any problems.
ROGERS: A deterrent?
ROBERTS: A little deterrent, yes
ROGERS: So then from Misawa where did you go in the world?
ROBERTS: Well, I took--when it was about time to leave the
standard procedure was to let you go and make a couple of
choices of where you might want to go if they had an
opening. And I'd looked around and, you know, I had never
been to Arizona but it looked real interesting, especially
living in Colorado at the time. And so I put in for Luke
and Williams Air Force base in Phoenix, thought, gee, that
would be nice, get out in the sun, you know, after being,
you know, two years in a climate very similar to New England
only not quite as long a winter but probably as, at least as
intense. And one day I get a phone call from personnel
saying, "Gee, we got a special assignment for you, Westover
Air Force Base in Chicopee, Mass." We had a vague idea of
what was going on there, something very special, but had no
other idea than that. And it was one of these things like,
gee, I don't want it. No, you're going. They, turned out
they had the authority to pluck anybody in the Air Force
that they wanted--
ROGERS: To--
ROBERTS: Period.
ROGERS: An offer you couldn't refuse?
ROBERTS: That's right. And I guess because I had physics and
science--physics and chemistry and all that in high school
they decided that maybe they wanted me. So I ended up
coming to Westover and liked it so much I ended up spending
four years. I reenlisted and stayed there for the four
years that we were allowed to say. That was our freeze.
After that we were ripe for Vietnam and then I went to
Vietnam. But--
ROGERS: Your service at Westover, I noticed a unique military
ribbon.
ROBERTS: Yes. Oh, yes. I, and I can talk about this now
because it was declassified in 1995 by President Clinton.
At the time when I got there, though, this was a extremely
secret operation. Wrong name on the building on purpose.
We weren't allowed to breathe that we did photography. Of
course, I show up one day with my ball cap from Misawa,
which for identification purposes there out on the flight
line said "base photo lab." Well, boy, they about ripped my
head off getting rid of that thing. You can't tell anybody
you do photography. Okay, well. It was a fascinating
assignment. We did, at that time the work we did was all
film. Digital didn't exist then. And we were doing
satellite photography, and--
ROGERS: What satellite series would these be?
ROBERTS: It's a Corona, for the most part. There's some others
but that was the major thing. But they do, they had a
satellite patrol and they'd about once a month--well, we had
other jobs come in too but once a month this one came in and
we processed it and did dupe films. Not print, not paper
prints but actually a clear positive print on a film that
you could actually look through, and they used viorters that
they could blow it up on a big screen and stuff.
ROGERS: So what was the size of the original negative?
ROBERTS: Seventy-millimeter. This was our primary mission. We
also had a lot of nine-inch that we did too.
ROGERS: Would nine-inch be from a different platform?
ROBERTS: Umhum.
ROGERS: Okay.
ROBERTS: Yeah.
ROGERS: Cube (ph)? Something like that?
ROBERTS: Well, different places.
ROGERS: I understand. Okay. ______+ around. So can you
describe the process from start to finish, you know, from
the satellite blasting off at Vandenberg to your receiving
the negative?
ROBERTS: Well, okay. Like I say, they have to say that they
usually--this is all on the Net now so I am not giving away.
ROGERS: They're all declassfied?
ROBERTS: I am not giving away any big secrets. In '76 they
actually quit doing film and it's all digital now, in real
time. But they would fly for 30 days and take photographs
and some places every pass, sometimes once a week,
sometimes, you know, it just depended on the priority of the
target. But at the end of the 30 days they would eject this
package. It would reenter the atmosphere out near Hawaii
and there was an organization out there that went out and
actually snagged the parachutes as they were coming down and
retrieved the package of film. It would be sent back here
and we worked with Kodak and they, we shared duties there,
and we'd process it and then make numerous copies for
various organizations that were--
ROGERS: Now how long, how many prints would be taken on one of
these patrols? I mean, how many negatives would you have to
process or develop?
ROBERTS: Well.
ROGERS: Can you give an estimate of the length of one of these
film reels?
ROBERTS: Well, there was probably a mile of film.
ROGERS: And how many prints would you make?
ROBERTS: I don't--well, we'd do like 20 or 30 copies of each.
ROGERS: Twenty or 30 miles of film?
ROBERTS: Yeah. It took a while to do. And to give a little
idea, of course as time went on the processes improved and
speeded up we found better ways and faster ways to process
the film, but when I first got there there were several
times we worked for 30 days without a day off, doing 12-hour
shifts.
ROGERS: What were the developing machines like?
ROBERTS: Well, they were pretty, I mean, more to say they are
state of the art. They were the art. We did, it wasn't
immersion like the old, like the regular guys used. This
was all spray process. And it was fairly fast. It just,
trying to keep the, because this stuff when it was processed
had to be perfect. There was no room for error. I mean, we
were, precision photo processing technicians were our title
and they meant it. This stuff had to be right on. And we
did a lot of research and development while we were also
doing, doing a production job. And they, they learned a lot
as they went along and they found faster ways and, you know,
more efficient ways of getting the job done. We ended up
with one machine for our primary mission that ran 270 feet a
minute. It was a huge machine. That thing could empty
itself in a heart beat. You were doing a lot of rethreading
then if you had a film break, but.
ROGERS: So what kind of conditions exist in this facility?
ROBERTS: It was a clean room environment. As I was, it was
explained to me, there were bigger clean rooms but they
weren't as clean, and there were cleaner clean rooms but
they weren't as big. This thing was huge. The building
itself was amazing.
ROGERS: So sealed suits, gloves?
ROBERTS: Oh, yeah. We had the bunny suits, the whole bit, air
showers. Very, very clean. Very clean. You're dealing
with film that you can look at with a 50 power microscope
and see the breed of a dog. You want, you don't want dust
spots.
ROGERS: So how does that compare to public access satellite
technology?
ROBERTS: Google is a joke by comparison. Well, I mean, it's
neat, you know, it really is, but in the sixties what we did
was unbelievably better.
ROGERS: Now is there any way to develop a three-dimensional
print from numerous two-dimensional photographs?
ROBERTS: Well, there we use--there was two different ways of
doing that. One is these--when you are shooting recon film,
whether it's an airplane or satellite or whatever, or drone,
they, you do it so they overlap, and the idea being if you
lose one frame you have enough overlap that you still have
all the coverage. Well, because you have these staggered
frames you can take a stereo viewer and look at 'em and it
will pop right up in stereo, in 3D. On our project we
actually ran two cameras so we shot in stereo automatically
anyway, but that was partially in case one of them failed
and we still had recoverable.
ROGERS: Now, are there any safety measures in satellite film?
Let's say if one of the--what would it be, like a C-119 or a
C-130?--wasn't able to pick it up?
ROBERTS: Well, they were designed so if it hit the saltwater it,
there was plugs that would dissolve and they would go to the
bottom and the saltwater would go in and ruin the film, and
so.
ROGERS: There was deniable.
ROBERTS: Yeah. No retrievable information.
ROGERS: And--
ROBERTS: Never lost one though that I am aware of.
ROGERS: Only imagine the things that would happen to the pilot.
ROBERTS: (Laughter)
ROGERS: But now how would you retrieve the film from Rochester?
ROBERTS: Oh, yeah. Well, a lot of times they processed the
original. Sometimes we did. We both had set-ups to do
that. But if we were, if Rochester, Rochester, New York,
home of the big light father in the yellow box, they, if
they processed the originals, instead of doing like they did
at the base with nuclear stuff when they were transferring
it and having a hundred cops around the thing, our guys,
there were two couriers who went fishing for a few days.
Took their personal station wagon and disappeared. Side
arms. Being watched like a hawk, I am sure. But just very
low key. They would come back with the job.
ROGERS: So considering the sensitive nature of your work, what
kind of personal security did you have on the base? Or even
what kind of surveillance would you have on your person?
ROBERTS: Oh, boy. Yeah. When I first got there I did a lot of
touristing. Having grown up in Oklahoma and then a little
bit of Colorado and never been back here and this, the
history and stuff in New England is just amazing. I put
many, many miles on my car traveling around the little
byways around New England and my roommate usually went with
me. And short order we found out when we got back that, we
were told where we had been. We were watched very closely
to see who might be, not that we were going to get together
with anybody but somebody might try to get to us, and they
wanted to know who we were associating with and if you were
known to be associating around the wrong people you left.
ROGERS: Now, did the Air Force give you a cover story for what
you did at the base?
ROBERTS: Not really. They just, just don't talk. You know, one
of the guys said, "Well, I was with Tom, a B-52 pilot." But
at the time in our fatigues they not only had your name but
instead of saying "Air Force" they'd of had your actual,
your organization, and ours at the time was the 6594th Test
Squadron. Well, people in the chow hall, they would see us,
you know, "What do you guys test?" And we'd say, "Personnel
endurance. How many 12-hour shifts can you work?" So.
ROGERS: So what would have happened, what was standard operating
procedure if let's say somebody goes out on a Friday night
and starts to talk about what they did?
ROBERTS: Well, one of the things that we were told is if you
heard somebody spouting off you, the kind of the code word
was, you know, you'd say "that's garbage" as you bury your
fist in his mouth, put him out of commission.
ROGERS: That ever happen?
ROBERTS: Not that I'm aware of. Our guys were pretty careful.
They liked where they were. They didn't want to jeopardize
it.
ROGERS: Now can you put a dollar amount or kind of a comparative
value to the facility established by the Air Force in
Westover for satellite reconnaissance developing?
ROBERTS: God, I don't know how many billions went into that
place. It was, I keep telling people I think it was worth
about half of what Chicopee was worth. But if you saw it,
especially after some of the remodels they did and stuff,
the lab was like walking on the set of Star Trek. I mean,
it was just unbelievable. Very state of the art and then
some. We had three computer systems that helped run things
and that's when computers were really just evolving, you
know, to being really useful. But we had a system that ran
just the air conditioning, because each room had its own
temperature control, pressure control. Pressure was
critical because the cleanest areas had to have the highest
pressure and the dirtier areas had lower pressure so that it
pushed the stuff out. So you had a computer that ran that.
You had one that ran the processor, the chemical processing
of the film, that kept track of all that, you know. Another
one that kept track of the material as we printed it so we
knew, we made sure we had everybody's work done that needed
to be done.
ROGERS: So did the Air Force ever shoot in color, was it all
black and white?
ROBERTS: What I saw there was strictly black and white. Now in
Vietnam we did some color, infrared color.
ROGERS: Now what were the benefits of using infrared?
ROBERTS: Well, the primary thing was at night, with infrared all
that nice green foliage that was over there showed up bright
red. If you had fake foliage, like camouflage, it was dark
green, the color it normally was. So when we had a downed
pilot in the middle of the night we'd fly the area with
infrared, bingo, there he is, they'd send a chopper in and
pluck him out.
ROGERS: So moving on to Vietnam. Okay. So you get off the
plane in Tan Son Nhut--well, actually the night before.
ROBERTS: Oh, yeah.
ROGERS: Get off the plane in Tan Son Nhut and I believe that's
where the story starts.
ROBERTS: Yeah, we left, we left Travis Air Force Base. I was
very fortunate, too. My roommate at Westover, well him and
I both ended up getting married fore we left, but we were
roommates for three plus years of the four years I was
there, but we ended up getting orders to Vietnam together.
Same outfit. We ended up sharing a bunk in the N.C.O.
barracks at Tan Son Nhut. But, anyway, we flew over
together on this, it said "Braniff" I think. They were one
of the chartered flights. And we got into Hawaii for, you
know, our little gas stop and stuff, and they claimed they
had radio problems. I don't know if they did or not after
what went on when we got there. But they put us up
overnight in the Reef Tower Hotel overlooking Diamond Head
and Waikiki Beach. So we got to cruise around there for
about a day before they got the plane ready. And the next
night we were flying into, well, we went from there to Clark
Air Base in the Philippines, which is now closed, but it was
even hotter than Vietnam. We were there 4:00 in the
afternoon. It was horrible. But then we went and we got
into Saigon like seven, eight o'clock at night, something
like that. And I say we were on a commercial airliner. It
was a chartered job. And they told us, you know, that when
we got in near landing they were going to kill all the
lights in the plane because they didn't want to be a target
and they'd go in hot. And they said if you happen to hear a
loud noise in the back of the plane it's the speed brakes.
I'm going, speed brakes on an airliner? Okay. They
were--they didn't deploy them but we went in hot and there's
flares hanging in the sky all around as we're landing. And
walk off the plane and it was like walking into a shower. I
mean, it was hot, humid. But we eventually got dumped out
in a barracks area. There were some old French barracks
they were remodeling that were cement, which was not usual
there. Most of them were wood, screen wire stuff, but these
were cement. And they said, you know, grab a, grab a air
mattress and blow it up and, you know, camp out for the
night, we'll see you back at personnel in the morning and if
you feel something nibbling on your ears it is just one of
the rats, you know. Okay. Thanks.
ROGERS: Welcome to Vietnam?
ROBERTS: Yes. And then we decided, you know, after all this we
needed to go find a bathroom. Or latrine. Military jargon.
So we start out, you know, there's rows in a row, you know,
rows of buildings, so we would go out on the sidewalk and
soon enough we'd see a G.I. hiking along. It's all dark
because the base is under attack, or we're hearing on the
radio--down a few doors down they had a air police guard
shack and we heard the radio talking about stuff going on.
And so we asked this fellow, you know, where the latrine
was. And he said, well, that's where I am headed, just
follow me. So, okay. So we go down a few more buildings
and go inside and get in where the lights are. I graduated
high school with the kid. You know, like, what are you
doing here?
ROGERS: Small world?
ROBERTS: Yes. And that wasn't the only time I ran into somebody
I knew but that was quite a surprise. And so we ended up,
you know, spending the night there. About one in the
morning--oh, during that time, too, he did say, "If you have
a radio with you turn it to 99.9," which we did. There was
what they call Lone Star. That was our little base station
and they played music all the time, unless something was
happening. Then they would come on and say, you know, we
got incoming or whatever, just to let you know what was
happening. So we had that playing in the background. About
1:00 in the morning we hear whap, whap, whap. Rockets start
falling around us. About that time Lone Star says, "Oh, we
got incoming." Ah, yeah. And landed probably a half mile
away over at the heliport. But, anyway. So it was welcome
to Vietnam.
ROGERS: So would these be RPGs or something bigger?
ROBERTS: They were the one thirty, ah--
ROGERS: B-40s?
ROBERTS: The 117-millimeter rockets. I think there's, what, 105
or 117? I'm sorry. God, it's been a while. But, anyway,
it was the rockets they usually fired at us. It was not
unusual it turned out.
ROGERS: How did they launch those? How far away were they
firing from?
ROBERTS: Well, I am not sure just what their range was but
because we put so much pressure on them normally they didn't
get to use their launchers. I understand during Tet they
did. In fact, some of the guys over, living off base down
in one of the hotels downtown during Tet hit actually sat in
the window and watched these guys right out in the street
with a launcher firing off these missiles. Well, we--a
night like that usually what they did is they went out and
set them up with a couple of sticks to hold the thing up and
have an alarm clock with a battery to set it off. They'd
set it for like one o'clock and go home, go to bed. At one
o'clock this thing went off and, but it went to whom it may
concern. You know.
ROGERS: You think that was more of a psychological warfare
weapon than anything?
ROBERTS: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Very definitely a terror weapon.
When they used their launchers they were deadly accurate. I
mean, they hit what they were shot at.
ROGERS: These were probably Chinese or Soviet made?
ROBERTS: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I think they were Russian.
They also, we had a Chicom recoilless round hit one time and
kill a kid. It was the only casualty that I was aware of,
and he was, had been a G.I., came back as a tech rep. Fired
into one of the hangers nearby. But most of it was Soviet
stuff. But they, you know, they, sometimes they go for days
when nothing would happen and other times we would get hit a
lot. But it almost always at night.
ROGERS: So what exactly were your responsibilities in Vietnam?
ROBERTS: Well, there we had a photo recon operation. It was
about 30 trailers that were set up. These trailers were
designed usually with machines already in them. Each had a
function. And they had a bigger trailer for where the, a
big table and cabinets and stuff for, you know, plotting
stuff or whatever. I mean, they were multifunctional things
and they were designed so they could actually load in C-130s
and fly them wherever. And they had trailers for mixing
chemicals and you had all the connections that you could,
you know, connect the whole thing up. And it was quite an
extensive operation. I think we had nine film processors
and a bunch of printers, and I don't remember all the specs
but it was big. I got there just as it was cranking up.
The first--we were flying 20 to 30 missions a day.
We--our--we were one of three photo operations there. We
were the 460th and then we did North Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia. The 16th was right next door to us in another set
of trailers and they did South Vietnam. And then the 12th
Ritz was in a building over by 7th Air Force headquarters,
and they did, they were inside. They did U-2, drones and
other assorted stuff that came along.
ROGERS: More of a CIA organization--
ROBERTS: Yeah. That's special stuff. But our operation, the
first month we did a million feet of film, and it went up
from there. That's how many missions we were flying.
ROGERS: What kind of airplanes was this, reconnaisance 101?
ROBERTS: The RF-101s, RF-4Cs primarily, the RV--66th RV-57s
occasionally, but mainly the 4-Cs and the 101s.
ROGERS: And how were those cameras different from satellite
photography?
ROBERTS: Oh, geez. Well, they, they, the 101s used two
nine-inch cameras. They shot high altitude, usually about
40,000 feet, and they covered a big area, you know, the
nine- by eighteen-inch frame that showed quite a bit. The
4-Cs shot five-inch primarily and they, they were in a fan
array. They could shoot, you know, straight down but they
also off to the sides. They also had one that shot at, at
oblique, looking looking down at an angle from the nose.
They also had two other cameras and I'm trying to--can't
remember now if it was 70-millimeter or five-inch, but they
had a low pan and a high pan. The high pan they didn't use
as much. It went from horizon to horizon in a sweep. But
the low pan was the real good one. It did the same thing,
horizon to horizon. It was a spinning lens. Didn't have a
shutter, had a spinning lens. They usually would fly at a
thousand miles an hour at 500 feet and by the time somebody
knew they were there they were a mile away and they already
gotten their picture. Very effective.
ROGERS: ______+
ROBERTS: Yes. It was hauling.
ROGERS: You have any casualties among the aircraft?
ROBERTS: Not that I am aware of. Occasionally we'd have a pilot
come and sit on the machine that was processing his
negatives. He says, "I got shot at and I want to make sure
these things came out okay." Now whether he got hit or not
he didn't say but he knew he had been shot at so.
ROGERS: Both those aircraft are high speed, right?
ROBERTS: Yeah. Well, the danger we ran into with, when I got,
when I first got there was that the North, they had some
radar controlled guns, three-inch anti-aircraft guns, that
were accurate at 40,000 feet, and that was a real threat to
the 101, so they make a big push to locate those sites and
take them out right away.
ROGERS: So explain a little more what would be--was it mission
oriented, mission specific choice to use black and white or
infrared film?
ROBERTS: I think they, I'm not sure what actually brought them
into the infrared but I think it was primarily when they had
a pilot they were looking for. Because otherwise you just
had a big sea of red, you know, of all the foliage, you
know, but it, but something that wasn't natural stood right
out.
ROGERS: ______+ like that?
ROBERTS: Yeah.
ROGERS: So up north and in Laos and Cambodia, what photographs,
what targets were they looking for?
ROBERTS: I'm not sure.
ROGERS: Very sensitive?
ROBERTS: Yeah. Well, we would go over to the photo interpreter
shop. They were in a nice air conditioned building. We
would go over there quite often just to see what they were
up to, especially, sometimes even if they were looking for
something specific, you know, we would grab a roll of film
and go through to help 'em out. But there was also briefing
booklets that came out every day that, different
organizations, some of them secret, some of them top secret,
that made some interesting reading, too. But as a photo
interpreter you had to be intimately familiar with the area
you were looking at as far as the history, the geography,
the current events, so that when you looked at that picture
it made sense to you.
ROGERS: Context?
ROBERTS: Yeah. And also, you know, sometimes you are looking at
a change from day to day to day.
ROGERS: So with all the photography did you get acquainted with
Soviet Block equipment at some time?
ROBERTS: Well, I can't say that--you know, we saw stuff from,
you know, there, but it, didn't necessarily identify it as
being, well, that's an S.A. whatever, you know. The only
thing I actually really saw was a kind of flukey thing.
They had a very poor example of a tank. It's more like an
armored personnel carrier than a real tank, what I saw of
it. But, anyway, it was down near Saigon and one of our
recon pilots spotted it. Of course, the 101s didn't have
any, you know, any armament on 'em but he had a couple fuel
tanks, and I think he was just heading out. So he went in
low and deposited a couple fuel tanks on it, burned it to a
cinder, killed the crew. And they towed it into Tan Son
Nhut and we got to see it. But, fortunately, they didn't
have any real tanks down there. I gather up north they did,
but.
ROGERS: So now did you ever experience any combat experience,
any attacks on the air base? Were you there for Tet?
ROBERTS: No. I got there right after Tet. In fact, the day we
got there they'd had a battle right next to our, where our
barracks were. Our barracks were in a containment area that
was right on the edge of the base but it was on the Saigon
side. And right across the fence, or three fences, was a
French girls' school and an old French cemetery. And our
guys had actually pushed this battalion of North Vietnamese
regulars, they weren't V.C., they were regulars, into that
graveyard and killed them all off. And, over time. It
took a while. And they had the Sky Raiders dropping 500
pounders, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. They
said the barracks was bouncing. Now, this all happened
before, while we were enroute. But the idiot kids when we
got there, they were sneaking out there some way or
another--I don't know how they got through the three
fences--and plucking up souvenirs off these dead N.V.A.,
which--
ROGERS: Were there mines between some of those fences?
ROBERTS: Yes, there were. So I don't know how they got there.
I don't know and I really didn't care. It's just totally
insane.
ROGERS: ______ rocks together?
ROBERTS: Yes. I was, I was a little older than a lot of them
and I guess maybe common sense prevailed.
ROGERS: So can you describe, it seems like almost every Vietnam
veteran has had some kind of interaction with the Republic
of Korea Marines?
ROBERTS: Oh, yeah. Well, mine wasn't Marines, mine was Air
Force. During about the eight or nine months after we were
there we had a little space--like I say, this was, the
barracks was right there on the perimeter, but there was
three fences and there was mines between two of 'em and then
there was a roadway that went around. And a lot of the air
crews and stuff went out jogging and stuff so they, because
they had to walk out in the jungle, you know, they'd be in
shape. So there was--and in one spot there where there was
kind of a bend there was a bigger open area, and it turned
out that they built a couple of barracks there that were for
South Korean Air Force. They camped out there. And they
were welcomed greatly. We did whatever we could for those
boys, because the North Vietnamese, Viet Cong were scared to
death of them. They played dirty.
ROGERS: The rules of engagement were a little relaxed?
ROBERTS: Yeah, I'd say. And so we never had any, any concerns
after those guys were there. I mean, didn't stop the
rockets but as far as any personnel coming through there,
no, that wasn't likely to happen.
ROGERS: So do you recall any interactions with C.I.A.,
intelligence, anything while you were overseas?
ROBERTS: Not directly.
ROGERS: I mean, I don't know how they would, I mean, they
probably didn't dress like James Bond--
ROBERTS: Oh, no, no, no.
ROGERS: --or wear safari suits.
ROBERTS: No, no. No. At Westover actually did work with them
but I never had any direct contact with them, but a lot of
our project involved them greatly. Now, later on, when I
was in Oklahoma working at a photo lab, actually ran one of
four labs that this fellow owned, I had a customer come in
who had been in Vietnam, too, and he was one of the very
first to go back to Vietnam on one of these tours for
exG.I.s. It was one of the very first they did. And he had
a videotape that they had produced, you know, for this trip,
or during the trip. And he wanted some copies made of it
and, you know, we got talking and stuff and he said, "Well,
make a copy for yourself." Which unfortunately I don't have
anymore. But "make a copy for yourself too." But then
talking with him, I have an idea he was C.I.A. His story
that I, you know, I knew enough to know what I was hearing
and, but, and there were a lot there. They just, when the
embassy got attacked they were knee up to here in that,
believe me, trying to protect the embassy and stuff.
ROGERS: I received pictures coming out of men in short-sleeved
shirts and ties--
ROBERTS: Umhum.
ROGERS: --carrying tommy guns.
ROBERTS: Umhum. Yeah.
ROGERS: You know, men demonstrating their autonomy.
ROBERTS: No. No. No, no.
ROGERS: But, so are there any exceptional circumstances, any
events that come to mind during your Vietnam service,
stories that stand out in your mind?
ROBERTS: Well, my personal thing, I also did, being a ham radio
operator, photographer and whatnot, I also acquired an
interest in broadcasting. And A.F.V.N., Armed Forces
Vietnam, was, they're of course in Saigon. They also were
around other, some of the other areas of the country. They
even had the aircraft that flew at night running movies and
stuff so the guys out in the boonies could see stuff. But
the big station there was in Saigon. In fact, if you ever
saw Good Morning, Vietnam with Robin Williams, of course it
wasn't filmed there but that was the story about Adrian
Cronauer and his thing. Well, I got to V.N. right after
Adrian left. And basically the Army ran it but they multi,
multiservice. And I told them, you know, my background. I
says, "Hey, if you don't mind, I'd like to come in, do a
little volunteer work, you know, on my days off." They
welcomed me. So I did T.V. production work. You know, I
would spend a day and a half down there while I was off from
the Recon. And ended up generally from five--from the six
o'clock news till sign-off I ran the audio board right next
to the director who's doing the video. And during the day
we'd do production stuff. They'd have some visiting
entertainer or whatever. They'd do shows and we'd, you
know, videotape them. So it was fun. It was a different
aspect. Turned out, unbeknownst at the time, there was a
gentleman who was just another rat G.I. like me named Pat
Sajak there at the station. And, obviously, he's done a lot
better for himself than I did. But that was an interesting
aside. But it was fun. And they did A.M. radio, they did
F.M. and they did T.V. A.M. radio was rock and roll. It
was a show just to watch the D.J. in there doing his thing.
And Gary W. Geers ended up taking over from Adrian when he
left and followed his tradition with the Good Morning,
Vietnam stuff. Unfortunately, Gary is not with us any more.
He died at a pretty young age. But he had very extensive
background from Chicago, though, in radio. And most of the
guys there were broadcast professionals. They either got
drafted or volunteered, you know, and went, got accepted
into doing that kind of work because they had the
background. So one kid, it was kind of fun, I got to be
pretty good friends with, we did F.M. and he did the
classical, more of the classical side, which I enjoyed, and
I would sit in the booth with him while he was doing the
show and we would talk, you know, while records were
playing. And he'd try to project this, you know, image of
by the fire with the pipe in your mouth, you know, and
really do it up. But the funny part was the kid stuttered,
until that mike came on and he was perfect. But that mike
went off and he said, he made fun of himself about it.
Anytime he wanted me to know he'd go R-R-R-R-Rick. But I
think Mel Tillis is another one that's like that but, you
know, he's, when he has to be good he is, but.
ROGERS: On the topic of entertainment, did you ever see a U.S.O.
show while you were in Vietnam?
ROBERTS: I saw some of them come through the station and we did
stuff. In fact, even in Misawa we did, we helped out with
the audio sound system with some U.S.O. shows. So, they're,
yeah, they're greatly appreciated. In fact, something we
were talking about a little bit ago, while I was in Misawa
Raymond Burr came to the base and just made a stop, and we
took a picture of him stuffed into an F-102, because he is a
big gentleman. Later, while I was in Vietnam, I really
didn't know that much about it at the time but learned a lot
towards the end of it or afterwards, that he came to Vietnam
a lot. Not known. But he didn't want people to know he was
there, didn't want the publicity, wasn't like some of the
others. But he would go not to the big shows like in
Saigon, he went to the fire bases, out where they were
getting shot at. Boy had a lot of guts and was highly
respected. Very well thought of. He wanted to be out with
the guys. So that was good. But we--actually, Bob Hope
came there while I was there and I didn't go there.
Actually, I went and saw Billy Graham. He put on a heck of
a program, too.
ROGERS: You remember any of the venerable personalities in
country? I think Caldwell (ph) went down there and--
ROBERTS: Oh, god. Most of the ones I met at the station, well,
Gypsy Rose Lee was one, but was country, country singers and
stuff, because most of the lifers were from the south and
they liked country music and so that was a big draw. But I
can't think of all, there's just all kinds of people came
through there. One of the ones that, you know, I thought
was interesting too was a performer who is, was, obviously
not now, was an active duty Marine was Martha Ray. She was
a major or lieutenant colonel. Martha Ray. That was--I
was--just astounded me. Because you don't get to be a
marine officer and just be horsing around. Those guys earn
what they have?
ROGERS: You got that. So due to the sensitive nature of your
work, just like Westover, photo reconnaissance in Vietnam
was probably pretty sensitive. Would you have any travel
restrictions?
ROBERTS: Well, I, my restriction was because of Westover. Yeah.
ROGERS: Did the legacy follow you there?
ROBERTS: Yeah. As far as what we did actually in Vietnam, yeah,
it was, I guess most of it would be considered secret but it
wasn't, you know, super thing. It was a combat operation
type of thing. But because of my time at Westover I had a
restriction that I was only allowed at Tan Son Nhut or
Saigon city, period, no where else in country under any
circumstances. Had a thing in the front page of my record,
had a copy of it on me at all times that I could not be put
where I could be captured.
ROGERS: So with that in mind, and also being a staff sergeant,
were you ever issued a personal sidearm or?
ROBERTS: Yeah. We were allowed to--that was, it was kind of an
outgrowth of Tet. The Air Force always seems to be a little
behind on arming their people. They're technicians, they're
not infantry. Change back to Korea when all the Chinese in
the world came down the peninsula, the only people left to
defend the base were the cops. They were the only ones that
even had weapons available. They evacuated everybody else
as they could. After that they started at least training
the guys and saying, okay, here's how you shoot an M-1. But
in Viet-, at Tan Son Nhut they, I guess they started handing
out weapons, you know, when all this started coming down and
the only real casualties, no fatalities but only guys hurt,
was from our own guys shooting each other or shooting
at each other because they were scared. And they were, you
know, young and inexperienced and didn't live with a
weapon like the Army does, you know. So when I got there
you had to be an N.C.O., a staff sergeant or above, to have
a sidearm or M-16. In which case if we were going to go
downtown or somewhere on the back side of the base or
something we could check one out. Otherwise, unless they
were coming through the gate, no. Or coming over the fence.
ROGERS: So that means, did you have to qualify on a variety of
weapons?
ROBERTS: Well, yeah. The M-1 carbine. The M-16. In fact,
before I went to Vietnam we stopped for three days at
Hamilton Air Force Base to get better acquainted with the
M-16 and *** traps and whatnot, and we shot 'em full
automatic and even had one with a grenade launcher with a
40-millimeter grenade. We shot those and they taught us
about *** traps and stuff.
ROGERS: I remember looking at your service records, you are a
small arms expert?
ROBERTS: Yeah, I am. Yeah, I can hit what I want. Actually, I
grew up shooting a bow but I got--
ROGERS: The Air Force didn't issue those?
ROBERTS: No. No. I just, if I had been out in the field I
would have had one, guarantee you. Actually, it was
something that could probably help there was again at
Misawa. We had a tech sergeant that lived in the barracks I
lived in who was on the base shooting team. And so he kind
of took me under his wing and we'd go out to the base range
sometimes on weekends. And they're shooting an M-1 Grand at
500 yards and hitting consistently with a peep site. Well,
you're prone at that range, but still. But, anyway, so I
had some good training. So, but, you know, qualified M-16,
M-1, the Grand. That was basically it. But over there some
guys brought their own pistols with them. Occasionally you
have somebody with a shotgun. The cops on base used
shotguns so they shot towards an airplane they didn't just
pepper the skin, would put holes in it.
ROGERS: What kind of base security did you have?
ROBERTS: Well, we had the cops, you know, the air cops, of
course. And then we had 82nd Airborne all around the place,
but.
ROGERS: ______.
ROBERTS: Yes, they did it. Tell you what, we'd take our hats
off to them every chance we got. They were super.
ROGERS: Did you have any, was it dusters from Point Defense?
ROBERTS: Oh, there, now, there was a, there was a Quad 50 that
was a 450 caliber machine gun that was mounted on the, you
know, quad array on the back of a six-by, and they would
park that up by the main gate at night in case somebody
decided to come through. And in the morning you would hear
them clear it (sounds), but never really had any big thing
happen. A few times saw--they had some commando cars, too,
that are like little mini tanks but with big wheels, big
tires on them and stuff, but they had a 105 recoilless and
some other machine guns and stuff, and we'd see those doing
about 70, 80 mile an hour up to the main gate sometimes,
but. They do fly. And, also, we had a couple tanks
around. Saw those go up there occasionally. But they
were, if anything happened it was kept there.
ROGERS: So following your deployment at Tan Son Nhut what was it
like working at Beale?
ROBERTS: Okay. Yeah. After a little, short break in service
there I ended up out at Beale Air Force base in Northern
California, up above Sacramento.
ROGERS: My understanding that you're still in photograph or
reconnaissance?
ROBERTS: Oh, yeah. I got back in photo recon. They were the
9th Strategic Wing. They were flying the SR-71, the Black
Bird, and.
ROGERS: I guess, I suppose for the camera it probably, you know,
what is the significance, what is the purpose of the SR-71?
ROBERTS: Well, the SR is a kind of plane that can go wherever it
wants to when it wants to. Most times you don't even know
it's there and if you do it doesn't matter, you can't do
anything about it anyway. And it flies very high, very
fast, very high, and can photograph a huge area at one time.
They can--one of the missions we had was China and they
were, they could photo map all of China in three hours.
ROGERS: Now, would that be with side looking camera, side
looking radar?
ROBERTS: Well, there was, it was optical sensors and they did
side looking radar. I--whether they--I never--I saw the
units but I, and I occasionally saw the film, but our
primary thing was the optical sensors.
ROGERS: So they have all been replaced now?
ROBERTS: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. And the big mission then
was Vietnam because it was still, '70 to '72, so Vietnam was
still very active. And they--a lot of it was Saigon--or not
Saigon but Hanoi and Hai Phong, one thing, to try and keep
track of where our prisoners were because the last thing we
wanted to do is hit near them. But, you know, the real
close in bomb assessment, I mean, you know, we see the smile
on the guy's face.
ROGERS: So a, so you went from the Freedom Dog satellites to --
ROBERTS: No. They was good. They were, when you figure, well,
they weren't up as quite as high as the satellite but they
were high.
ROGERS: So as opposed to the RF-101, the RF-4C, what kind of
cameras were placed on a SR-71?
ROBERTS: Honestly, I can't remember. That's embarrassing. I've
been all over that bird, too, but I don't remember just what
cameras they were using.
ROGERS: Well, I think--what was the name of the operation for
photograph recon?
ROBERTS: Giant Dragon
ROGERS: And what kind of targets? Like nuclear powers plants
and things like that?
ROBERTS: They, they just, they just overflew the whole thing and
they, I am sure they had their targets that they looked for.
I never got into the intelligence side that much there. It
was such a big operation. Our building was an old SAGE
center, which may not ring any bells except for the old
timers. SAGE was a computer-driven interceptor, was like
the--
ROGERS: Like a Nike?
ROBERTS: Well, they, more like, no, it was, I think it was the
106, F-106, another Delta. But the idea was they would make
the acquisition on radar and they would fly the plane, the
pilot would take it off, turn it over to the SAGE system and
it would fly him out to the target.
ROGERS: Almost like a U.A.V.?
ROBERTS: Yeah. And but this building was like six stories high
and a block, and the only windows in it was down by the
entrance. It was all, one time it had been all computer.
It was old tube type computers, you know. Thing was huge.
Well, we took it over and we were doing our photos and stuff
in there. But there was only one entrance.
ROGERS: Now the frequency of the S.R. flights, would it be per
operational requirement or was it satellite control--
ROBERTS: Well, normally they, they flew at least
once a day but when I was there they started flying two
times a day because of--and they are flying, actually flying
out of Okinawa is where they were, Kadena Air Base, but,
because they wanted that close, you know, keep that close an
eye on what was happening. In fact, because they were
doubling the flights they were--actually packed up some
stuff and were sending over so they could do more processing
at Kadena and I was supposed to have gone with them on one
of these deployments but since my son was due to be born
during that time they didn't make me go so I never did get
to Kadena, but talked with them quite a bit, because we did,
while I was waiting to get my clearance updated, this
happened to be a ham radio operator happened to paid off
because otherwise we'd been out mowing the lawns. But I
happened to mention to the first sergeant that I was a ham,
and he said, "just a minute, I got somebody to talk to you."
So he calls Don down the flight line and he says, "What kind
of license you got? And I said air--at that time it was
general class. He says, "Good, come on down." So we did
phone patches on ham radios between Ok---because at that
time Okinawa was still U.S. territory. And we did phone
patches so the guys could talk to their families a couple
times a week on the ov--or on the over radio. The over
phone.
ROGERS: So, speaking of which, how did you keep in touch with
your family while you were overseas?
ROBERTS: Oh, well, I was in Japan. I wrote occasionally. But I
got to where I learned to write letters. You don't write
'em you don't get 'em. But in Vietnam I didn't--in fact, I
had just gotten married three weeks before I got orders for
Vietnam. Didn't leave for four months. But my wife and I
met actually on ham radio. She was a ham. So, not now but
she was then. And so they, at Tan Son Nhut they had a MARS
station set up and Barry Goldwater had a station that via
the phone patches ran through it and there were several
other guys had big stations set up, and that's what they
did, they ran patches all day, you know, as long as the
conditions held up. And so I would go over to the MARS
station, you know, typically at least once a week and see,
you know, if the conditions were good. Well, there were
some times they were marginal and they weren't good enough
that the average guy who would think they were talking on a
phone. And I says, hey, you know, I am a ham, my wife's a
ham, we are used to talking through static. So I would go
back and sit on the radio with my headphones on and we'd
talk for--it kept the circuit open and, you know, we might
miss a word here or there but we could talk. In fact, how
good it was, the day I got to my--well, it was, I guess it
was the next day after we got to Tan Son Nhut. After we went
through personnel we went right over to the outfit and I was
in the, in the front trailer, and I said, "Well, you know,
if you don't mind I want to call the MARS stations." Because
used to be the thing was you'd--they'd send messages. You
know, not phone calls, just messages. You know, "Hey, I'm
here." "You made it okay." "Hi." You know, whatever. And
so I would call the MARS station and I'd just send her a
message. And he says, "What's your phone number?" And I'm
going, I don't know. Because when we were dating she had
her own phone and I knew that number cold but she'd moved
back with her parents while I was in Vietnam and their
number I hadn't dialed that much. Amazingly it, I pulled it
out of my head. Gave it to him. Thirty seconds later she's
on the phone.
ROGERS: Quite a difference.
ROBERTS: Yeah. I was, I was astounded. I says, wow, this is
neat, you know, I'm here, you know. So, but then we, you
know, over the time we talked some on the radio. But
tremendous set-up.
ROGERS: Now, were you able to access, access like military
antenna? What kind of--I mean, you're broadcasting from
thousands of miles away.
ROBERTS: Yeah. The MARS stations had, it's what's called
Military Affiliate Radio System. They had their own
antennas, their own transmitters and stuff. There they were
operating on military frequencies or on ham frequencies like
we were between Beale and Okinawa. But it's a supplement
to, to the--now of course they got satellite and, you know,
and, and quite frankly, between Kadena and Beale you could
do satellite but not personal calls. If they heard you say,
"Hi, honey," click. You know, just didn't happen.
ROGERS: What was the final phase of your service like, when you
were stationed in Pennsylvania with the Air Guard?
ROBERTS: Oh. Okay. Well, yeah. I got out of active duty in
'72. Then in 1985 and here I found myself in Mechanicsburg,
Pennsylvania. And workwise I, after doing some law
enforcement sales, and all that died when Reagan shut off
revenue sharing, but in the meantime too I had put in an
application, they ran Navy base, Navy ships parts control
center there at Mechanicsburg. And the veterans guy down at
the state employment said that's the only place they even
consider really. He says, you, your background, you're made
for them. So I put in a thing and it took a few months but
they hired me. I worked on buying spare parts for missile
launch systems on submarines. And turned out to be kind of
interesting, the other extreme from my high altitude
reconnaissance and now working on subs, but the--and then
the project I was on was actually working for the Royal
Navy. The UK had four missile boats that were their boats
but our Alliance system on it, and--
ROGERS: Shared the same delivery system?
ROBERTS: Yeah. We supported their sys-, their launch system out
of our supply system. It's a unique treaty we had. They're
the only people we did that with. We sold parts all over
the world but we didn't supply anybody out of our supply
system except on this one project. Now, what time this is,
I imagine that went away because those boats are retired and
they have been replaced by Trident class type subs. But I--
ROGERS: This was still--what would that have been?
ROBERTS: Poseidon.
ROGERS: Poseidon?
ROBERTS: Yeah. They were Poseidon boats. And, but I thoroughly
enjoyed being part of the project because their headquarters
for their special projects in the U.K. was Bath, and my
family, my father's side of the family came from Bath so I
felt right at home involved with that. And it was fun. I
enjoyed it. But while, after I got on there I also went and
joined the Pennsylvania Air National Guard out at
Middletown, Harrisburg International Airport, and we had the
193rd Special Operations Group out there that's
psychological operations.
ROGERS: _____ with your previous clearance ______.
ROBERTS: Well, I did--actually, this guy--some of this I haven't
told you about. I, I'm also an E.M.T. or was an E.M.T. And
when I was in E.M.T. class there in Pennsylvania to get
certified for Pennsylvania my partner I ended up with was
another young fellow who shared the same birthday I have,
although I was more his father's age, and he was a ham, and
he was in the Air Guard. And he was in the radio, as ground
radio operator. And he mentioned that one of the guys had
gone AWOL or just disappeared, you know, just decided he
didn't want to do it anymore. Well, never thought more
about it. Well, a little later I thought, well, gee, I
wanted to, you know, join the Guard. Went and talked to
'em. Took all the physical. Was honest with them and told
them I was color blind, so I shot myself out of some jobs
there. But he, you know, I--he just asked me if I was color
blind. He didn't even test me. But I was honest with him.
And then he tested me to figure out exactly what my problem
was. Because he had time, nobody was, there weren't anybody
else there so, but anyway, they were then trying to figure
out what to do with me, you know, where could they put me as
a staff sergeant, you know, where could they plug me in.
And the only thing he came up with right off the top of the
head was as a parachute packer. I thought, whatever. You
know. I went over to the shop, I said, I can do this, you
know. At least anymore you don't have to jump in one of
them, so, you know, just make sure you are doing them right.
But, so, okay, you know, at least it'll get me in, I can do
something different later. Well, the major that was going
to swear me in started talking to me about, you know, prior
service. A lot of the guys in The Guard are. But he says,
you know, "What's your background?" Well, I went through
all the stuff I had done. He says, "What the heck have they
got you going into?" I says, "Parachute packing." He says,
"Ah, not on my bet." He went to the recruiter and he says,
"You plug him anyplace that he wants. I don't care if it's
an overreach or not." And I said, "Well, I am a ham radio
operator." And the guy says, "I think we are missing a guy
in the radio shop." I says, "Yes, you are, I happen to know
about that." So I got put, I went in there, so I was a
ground radio operator.
ROGERS: Talk about what was N.B.C. drill? You know, the nuclear
biological chemical?
ROBERTS: Oh. Oh, yes. Well, we, chemical suits were a big
thing then because our supposed mission, if the guys in
Europe got sent like to the Middle East, because, you know,
in the eighties there was still stuff going on there then
too, that we would go to Europe to supplement, to take their
place, and of course then chemical threat was a big thing.
So we had our little chemical suits that we had to wear
periodically. You want to lose weight in a hurry. Gas
mask, the whole bit. Well, because we were radio operators
and we typed messages when we got them, every three months
we had to take a test, and the standard typewriter for
ground radio back then was an MC-80A. It was a manual
typewriter that only typed in caps. And we had to take this
test wearing our full chemical suit, with gloves,
chemical--gas mask and all, and do 25 words a minute. I can
do it. When these secretaries complain about doing
secretarial work, I say, "Dear, try this."
ROGERS: I'm sure the chemical gloves --.
ROBERTS: Oh, right, you have to do it like this (indicating).
I'm not a fast typist anyway but I was, I was astounded I
could pass the test, though.
ROGERS: Like the _______ process for the Air Force?
ROBERTS: Yeah.
ROGERS: The Air Force _______?
ROBERTS: Yeah. But, so they were, they were interesting. It
was--but then the operation itself, they had eight C-130s
and four in one configuration and four in another. They
went out and messed with people's minds. It was the most
active reserve or guard unit in the country. There was not
an active duty unit doing this. They were the ones doing
it.
ROGERS: Did they go over to Granada?
ROBERTS: Yes.
ROGERS: That a deployment?
ROBERTS: Yeah. They were, they had a plane there two hours
before anybody else got there. They were messing with their
minds early on. They were very active. The thing that made
me kind of mad later when I got shot down out of doing with
my color vision is they also did communications. That's in
fact what I ended up in was the communications squadron.
And the N.C.O. that ran it said, "I wish you'd been able to
pass that color vision." He said, "I needed a telephone guy
in Germany for months." I worked for the phone company in
my younger days. I would have loved it. And he showed me
the different colors. I could tell him what colors they
were. The deal was done. I could have gone T.D.Y. over to
Germany for a while. That was before I, before I got fully
involved there at the Navy base. But, anyway. So.
ROGERS: Mr. Roberts, it sounds like you've had a very broad
experience of life in the Air Force.
ROBERTS: Yes.
ROGERS: Are there any, is there anything else for the camera?
Well, first of all, I suppose I should ask you, did you earn
any medals or service ratings?
ROBERTS: Well, nothing too dramatic except for one. The usual,
you know, the Longevity, the Good Conduct, the medals for
being in Vietnam. But, yeah, the Westover, we, in fact I
didn't even know we had these coming to us until I was there
in the Air Guard and the personnel went and researched
everybody in the unit and got all their decorations and
actually made them up on a thing, you know, on the thing for
them to wear. Five--I had the Presidential Unit Citation
with four clusters. In the four years we earned it five
times. So our mission was important.
ROGERS: Now, did your life in the service, did your performance,
did your duty influence the way you think about war and
love?
ROBERTS: Well, it gave, gives you a little better insight into
what is going on, yes. That and, believe it or not, when I
was in Japan, I tell you, we were six minutes from Russia by
air. I had a ham station set up plus we had the MARS
station which was right behind the photo lab so I had use of
both. And the Russians greatly encouraged ham radio
operators and a lot of airplane flyers for that matter,
because that is the future engineers and technicians, and so
there was a lot of hams that I talked to were Russian, spoke
as good or better English than we do. And we could tell by
their call signs if they's a military station or not. They
were just rank G.I.s like we were. It's--we were careful
not to say certain things to keep them from getting in
trouble. I mean, not that anybody was going to come down on
us but we didn't want them to get something done to 'em or
yelled at because of something that was discussed. So, but
it was fun. In fact, some of them, we got to, you know,
kind of got to know 'em a little bit. Yeah. Like I say,
they were just G.I.s like we were. Kind of gives you a
little different view of things.
ROGERS: Now, did you join any veterans organizations?
ROBERTS: Yeah. A long time I never did, but I got back here to
Simsbury and joined the local V.F.W. A good group. Most of
the gentlemen there are World War II; a few, one or two
Korean War. I think I am the only Vietnam vet and then
there's one from Desert Storm I think.
ROGERS: And a question that's common among Vietnam veterans,
their shared experience, did you ever experience any
discrimination when you returned home from your tour?
ROBERTS: Not the way some did. The disappointing thing to me
was that, one of, particular one of the places I worked,
nobody there had ever been a G.I. I was the only G.I.
there. They didn't look down on me about it. It was just
kind of like, gee. I did work for the telephone company for
a little while and they purposely hired exG.I.s because they
knew the quality they would be. But I never had anybody
throw things at me. Now, they may have looked the other way
sometimes when they might have been nice otherwise. I know
I did apply for one job here in Simsbury, I won't name the
company, but I had--the guy--actually, yeah, I didn't know
if they were hiring or not anyway but I was just hitting all
the possibilities. And he says, he did say, "I just hate to
do this." He said, "I never turn away a G.I. but," he says,
"I just, I've taken people I can't even, I don't have a
place for now, I just can't do anything." I mean, he was
sincere. You know, I was, hey, don't worry about it, you
know, I understand that side of it. But so, there were some
that really cared, you know.
ROGERS: ______.
ROBERTS: Yeah.
ROGERS: Now, are there any stories that you feel like you would
like to share in this interview that we perhaps haven't
covered?
ROBERTS: Oh, my. We've talked here so much. Oh, I mean, I
guess because of my ham radio work, you know, lis-, talking
to people all over the world, my work in recon, you know,
looking at people all over the world, and the intelligence
stuff, but I'm on the Net all the time. It's just a
constant learning thing. And also something that, going,
thinking back to something you mentioned whenever we were
talking before we did this, you were talking about taking,
studying a particular type of history: I, when I
went--I did go to college finally in the eighties.
ROGERS: Did you utilize the G.I. bill?
ROBERTS: No. Actually I did that when I worked for the phone
company. This was past that. I didn't need it. $13 a
semester hour? At a state university with there's a PhD
teaching the course. You know, that's fine. That's fine.
But, you know, I had high, of course history in high school.
It was a joke. I got into history in college, then you find
this, all this went on? You know. Then we're just
scratching the surface. You know, I was like, good grief,
while I, you know, study. Of course, I like the history
channel and all this stuff on TV and just, just fascinating
to really get into. And of course now after Vietnam a lot
of stuff comes into play. You know, with my knowledge of
what I knew at the time, it fills in, some of this fills in
places that I didn't know about at the time. It's
interesting. Although seems like people can't learn. They
talk about history repeating itself.
ROGERS: Well, hopefully this interview will bring another layer
of insight in our human ______+ into the 20th century?
ROBERTS: Yeah. Yeah. It's--I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the
service. I, actually, when I went to Beale I planned on
doing the 20 at least. And just when my son was born his
mother had some medical problems and they wanted her back
close to the family and that was here, not in California,
so, and there wasn't any way I could get reassigned close so
the option was to get out, so.
ROGERS: Either way, sounds like you spent many years in the
service and I would like to thank you for your time in the
Air Force.
ROBERTS: Oh. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I, it was strictly a
fluke that I ended up in photography but I had fantastic
experiences.
ROGERS: Well, once again, Mr. Roberts, thank you from the
Veterans History Project.
ROBERTS: Thank you for taking the time to interview me. It's
been fun.