DECLASSIFIED – SQUADRON SEES RED: Chuck Yeager Oral History – Part 2

Capt Chuck Yeager & X-1

Recently declassified: General Yeager’s words:

When I took the squadron to Italy, we had the four 50-gallon drop tanks. We were replacing a squadron that was at Myrtle Beach. Now Aviano had TACAN (tactical air navigation). So our deployment – that was when TAC came out and said, “Take all the squadron colors off the airplanes. Everything is going to be standard.” I don’t know, I just –my squadron had red. In fact the 417th at Hahn had red, which was my squadron, the 1st Fighter Day Squadron that later became the 306th when they changed from the 413th–I have forgotten what it was–to the 31st Wing.  Anyway, they made us take all the colors off the airplanes.

We were going to Aviano, Italy. I had 18 airplanes so they moved us into England Air Force Base, Louisiana. I will never forget my line chief. I went out when we landed–the crew chiefs went down in C-130s to England Air Force Base, and I said, “You go into town and buy some red spray paint.” I gave him, I think, about $5 out of my pocket. I said, “When my airplanes land there, I want you to go out there, and I want you to spray paint the panel on the vertical stabilizer back above the radar pickup red.” It meant a lot to me to have my squadron identified, and it meant a lot to the pilots, and it meant a lot to the crew chiefs. We stayed there and briefed, had our red paint on.

They kicked us out of England Air Force Base at 2 o’clock in the morning, black dark. We hit our first tankers off the coast from Myrtle Beach, still dark, and then two more sets of tankers and landed at Moron Airbase, Spain.

c. GCYI