B-26K Counter-Invader Restoration ("Special K")

NImrodA26 · **Posted:** Fri Jan 09, 2015 9:41 pm

................ Evidently security was pretty lax....
===I thought the same thing when I was there. The trucks were just stake body trucks, open tops, maybe some had a canvas top over it, but basically it wouldn't have taken much to remove some of the stuff. I don't know if they had escorts along the route or not.
Apparently, the same driver who had the accident in 67 was also there in 66, because we had one show up one evening that appeared to have at least have been laid on the side. The load was all shifted, and I think he was carrying pallets of 2.75 rocket motors. Some of the wooden boxes on the top were damaged. May not have hurt the rocket motors, but we were told if a rocket motor was dropped over 2ft., it had to be condemed. Don't remember how many were damaged.

rdennard · **Posted:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 3:56 pm

Hey Gang... sorry I've been absent from the bomb dump discussion. But I've been out guarding the waters south of here. You know... being sure too much tequila isn't left in Cabo to make it's way north and stuff like that. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. :drinkers:

When I made my trip back to NKP last year I did a lot of research on where everything was. I have a variety of maps including one official drawing from around 1972. Then when I got there, I couldn't tell anything because it was all gone. Even a lot of the remaining blacktop pads you can see on Google Earth can't be seen on from the ground because of the jungle overgrowth.

I'm attaching a couple of "pics". These were saved from Google Earth with an overlay of the path I took as I explored around the base. I used a Garmin GPS to record my path as I rode an on road/off road motorcycle around the base trying to find stuff. As I think ya'll know, there is virtually no "stuff" left. The deep red "track" is an overlay that shows the path I went as I searched around what used to be the base. Notice that the small white lines for roads that Google Earth has are offset from the road beds by a bit. Even my GPS "track" is off just slightly in some areas.

This first pic shows the relative position of the bomb dump to the flightline. I've also shown the A-26 flightline area and the A-1 flightline area. When I was at "The Fanny" there were over 80 A-1s.

NImrodA26 · **Posted:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 4:16 pm

..................When I was at "The Fanny" there were over 80 A-1s.
============
Wow, that's downright incredible! I think there may have been 3 A1's there in 1966, possibly 4, and Two Jolly Greens as I remember. I am pretty sure that the Spads were the "E" models, not the "H". I always was partial to the E models, but most, if not all people I've talked to preferred the H.
Bob, do you remember how long the runway was in that Google Earth shot? It was 6000' PSP when I was there.

rdennard · **Posted:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 4:20 pm

Here's the second "pic". It's really just a zoomed in version of the first. You can see better in this one that the white street lines that Google Earth puts in are offset a bit. As you can see, in this area my track is right on the road. On my trip back last year, I went as far toward the bomb dump as the road was maintained. Going any farther toward the bomb dump the road deteriorated quickly. Since there were no landmarks left, I thought I had gone past the bomb dump... I hadn't. From Google Earth you can see a few black-tops that I think were the buildings for the bomb dump. Although offset a little, I think Google's white lines show the roads around the main storage area.

I drew in the green line that the delivery guys used to bring us our bombs. It was a dirt road from the time they left the main road until they delivered it to a dirt area off to the side of the ramp. The green circle off to the side of the A-26 ramp is where they delivered the entire day's "frag". Delivery started about 0400 as we were recovering the last few of the night's missions. Randy will appreciate this... the day's frag was in an "above ground, unbarricaded magazine." (That's a quote from "How to Stage a Disaster".) When I was there in '68-69 I never went farther into the bomb dump than where I drew the beginning of the green line. I only went to that point a few times to pick up a trailer of bombs when the delivery folks need some help.

rdennard · **Posted:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 4:38 pm

There were three squadrons of A-1s. Each squadron had twenty-something aircraft and there were always another handful from the other bases. As time went on, the numbers dwindled.

The "E" models were the 2 seaters. (Also referred to as a "fat face".) I liked them better too. I'm not sure why... maybe because us maintenance folks had a chance of getting a ride in the empty seat. I never did. The pilots didn't like the "fat faces" because they didn't fly as well as the single seaters. Also, since they flew most missions solo, the pilot didn't have a good view out the right side of the "fat faces"... that made them more vulnerable. I guess I wouldn't like that either when the bad guys started shooting at me from the blind side.

When I first got there, we were still using the PSP runway. While I was there Red Horse built the "real" runway that is still there. We used the parallel taxiway as the runway while they were building the new one. The new runway was (is) 8000 feet long. It even had arresting barriers at both ends. We started getting a lot more "visits" from the "fast movers" after the "real" runway was built. It was usually when they were shot-up and caught the barrier when they landed. As an "oh by the way", the "real" runway at NKP was the first ever entirely built by Red Horse. (At least I think that's true.) The runway they built is still in use today.

You can't really see it on Google Earth, but all of the PSP parking ramp has been ripped up. Although the laterite base is still there, the jungle is recovering most of that too. You can really see this in what used to be the A-26 parking area, but it's happening all over most of the rest of the flightline. I suspect that in another 20 years, no one will be able to tell we were ever there. Even today that's mostly true.

NImrodA26 · **Posted:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 5:26 pm

You may very well be right about those parallel white lines being the former bomb dump roads. Don't know what else it could have been back there. Our our munitions storage area was the edge of the ramp toward the runway. The ammo "tent" was also between the ramp and the runway, as well as a flare storage tent. The 26's were parked noses pointing toward the runway. But, in 1966, we only had 8 aircraft maximum, and we didn't need as much storage area as they obviously did when they had the maximum number of 26's there.

A26 Special K · **Joined:** Wed Nov 16, 2011 8:27 pm **Posts:** 2559

Do you recall, did the A26's pull out of the ramp to the last chance check area that appears to be a pull off of the taxiway & then depart to the southeast? Did you guys pull the safety pins on the pylon weapons at the approach end of the runway? Thanks, JR

NImrodA26 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 13, 2015 4:52 pm

Our Arm/Dearm area was on the 33 end of the runway. The blackened area there on the Google Earth map looks to be about where it was. They would taxi out, pull into that area at an angle, and pull pins, then take off to the North most of the time. When they came back, they would shut down the engines most of the time as I recall. It took a bit to back the truck under the nose, open the gun bays and dearm the guns. The pilot and nav would do a "Hands out of the cockpit" while the dearm was in progress.

A26 Special K · **Joined:** Wed Nov 16, 2011 8:27 pm **Posts:** 2559

As with many airbases, there are always seems to be holding yards for battle damaged aircraft that end up as spare parts for airworthy aircraft. Do any of who were there recall if the 26's had one or were there enough supplies around to keep the mission rate up? Thanks, JR

NImrodA26 · **Posted:** Wed Jan 14, 2015 11:38 pm

Didn't have one while I was there. 666 Was out of commision about as long as any while I was there due to being shot up. We did have shortages though. One in particular I remember was a shortage of gunsight lamps. There just weren't any spares for awhile. If we had 6 airplanes and 5 lamps, we would take one out of the first plane back and reinstall it in another one scheduled to go out later.
Until we found our spare .50 cal. guns, we had a shortage of parts. Back in the day, you were "cool" if you had a .50 caliber firing pin on your key chain. It was actually useful too as a line up punch, etc. I had one that I had obtained stateside, but at NKP ended up having to take it off my key chain and put it back in a gun to get it servicable because we just didn't have any spares at the time. Thankfully, the spare guns showed up before we had to start switching those out.

rdennard · **Posted:** Thu Jan 15, 2015 4:31 pm

Throughout my USAF 20+ year career we always seemed to have a "k-ball queen". Later into the 1980s there was a great effort to keep an aircraft from reaching official "queen" status. If an A/C had been down for a certain number of days, we would "k-ball" other aircraft to put the "queen" back together.

That said, I never remember having an A-26 as a "k-ball queen". Since my job was loading the bombs and bullets, I was not very involved in the maintenance and fixing broke airplanes. So, there may have been supply problems that I wasn't aware of. That said, there wasn't a day that we didn't fly every mission we were fragged to fly because of a "broke" aircraft. I think this may be partly because these were much simpler aircraft than the jets. It may also be due to the ingenuity of the Air Commandos in finding ways to keep-em-flying. And... I'm certain it was also because of the large round male organs of those that flew the aircraft. With their dedication to the mission, they would fly a less than 100% aircraft to get the job done.

A26 Special K · **Joined:** Wed Nov 16, 2011 8:27 pm **Posts:** 2559

Bob, I have to agree with you about the A-26 aircrews having big brass balls. Just the mission alone was incredible, but to go out with less than a 100% airplane would have been even tougher. Night missions without NVG over mostly unmapped jungle and mountains, people shooting at you while making bomb or rocket runs on trucks.... unbelievable! But having met many of these guys, I know they did it night after night. They have earned my utmost admiration. That is why K is dedicated to all of the people who were there at NKP. It was probably the best kept secret of the entire war.
Maybe Frank can chime in here and talk about flying airplanes that were less than 100% ready. I know Lindsay Jackson who was a mechanic there talked about busting a lot of chops to stay ahead of the maintanence on the airplanes. Having fought K now for nearly five years bringing her back to 100% status slowly but surely, we can hardly wait to crank those engines up!!! The team will be hard it with the good weather predicted on Saturday. We always invite folks to come visit. And Bob, we look forward to when you can make it, too. Regards, JR

fwnelson · **Posted:** Fri Jan 16, 2015 10:40 pm

I can't say I remember ever taking off in the A-26 knowing there was a serious problem with a particular part or system. If we found a problem before takeoff we would try to get it fixed or maybe there was another aircraft available. I always thought the maintenance (and munitions) folks did a great job, especially given the working conditions on the flight line. Looking at the records for 1968; There were 3439 sorties scheduled and 3148 were completed. Out of the 291 sorties that did not go, 141 were cancelled due to weather in the strike areas, only 76 of those missions were scrubbed because maintenance could not provide an airplane . The rest of the non counters were a combination of a few air and ground aborts and cancellations by higher headquarters.
Frank Nelson
Nimrod, Oct 67/68

A26 Special K · **Joined:** Wed Nov 16, 2011 8:27 pm **Posts:** 2559

Gosh, it was a beautiful day in Texas. So nice, that some of the guys played hooky and went golfing. Not easy to find a great day in January like today. Warm and gentle breezes, ok maybe a little more than gentle, but they did calm down late this afternoon. The die hards stuck to the mission though with JR leading the charge with about 8 other guys. Arnold and Rand are tackling the installation of ignition lines back on the left engine. When we took those off so many years ago, nobody thought to mark them, but they each have a specific place due to the length of the wire run. So it was trial and error to find the right fit. The guys stuck with it to get it done though. Much like our predecessors at NKP sounds like Frank. Wow, ya'll had a tremendous sortie completion rate in 1968. Not bad for a "new" old airplane. Considering the long supply chain line and rather primitive conditions on the ramp, it is closer to a miracle. Thanks for digging out that info. You probably have the number and types of ordnance dropped or used as well. Where did rockets play in the mix? The other JR

fwnelson · **Posted:** Sun Jan 18, 2015 1:20 am

I do have the info on what we used through the years. Rockets were not used much in 1968, a total of 73 pods were expended. During that same time period we dropped 2429 MK82 500 lb. GP bombs.
Frank Nelson

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B-26K Counter-Invader Restoration ("Special K")

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