Midnight Mission
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Photos from the author’s collection and Warren M. Bodie Page 2 of 7 Pages |
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| Not only was the threat becoming a serious menace of searchlights tracking RB-45 reconnaissance aircraft during night surveillance missions, exposing them to antiaircraft fire, but it posed serious problems of intercepts from a formidable MiG force patrolling the skies over the Korean peninsula. |
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| The B-45 had proved easy for MiGs to detect and attack when lit up like a Christmas tree during hours of darkness. This is precisely how they appeared in the night sky with a searchlight lock on. The problem was too serious to ignore. Evasive action was part of the answer, but not the full solution. One RB-45C had already been lost as a result of suspected enemy ground fire during a night reconnaissance mission. |
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Ctsy. Howard S. Myers |
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| This highly classified aircraft, jammed with the most modern reconnaissance-gathering apparatus available, could not be further exposed to the possibility of loss. The RB-45C had a carefully orchestrated design platform to aid in penetrating the most sophisticated defense systems in that era. It was, at the time, the Air Force’s only operational all-jet bomber. Even if the total force of RB-45s assigned to the Far East was limited, every aircraft was essential to our needs. We began the preliminary tests using several batteries of 800,000,000 candlepower searchlights operated by the 507th AA Searchlight Battalion (Mobile) from a central Japan base. On a cold moonlit night in midwinter of 1952, the test began. Six runs were made that night. Much to our chagrin, it was determined that our relatively inexperienced ground crew searchlight operators were able to track our high flying RB-45C clipping along at 600 knots plus ground speed from about ten miles out. They would simply sweep the sky, lock on a contrail, follow it to where it began, and there was the RB-45, shining and glistening against the blackened sky. It should be recalled that this was before the era of effective ground-to-air missile defenses, such as the Russian-built Surface-To-Air Missiles (SAMs), which were so effective against our aircraft in Vietnam. In fact, twenty years later, almost to the month, we lost fifteen B-52s during an eleven day period when over 1000 SAMs were fired during raids against Haiphong and Hanoi. Had ground-to-air missile defense been advanced to the state it was in the 1970s period, our situation in the 1950s would have been entirely different. There would have been no need for searchlights. In conjunction with the test, an F-94B Lockheed Starfire night all-weather fighter was launched to attempt intercept of the RB-45 at about 12 miles from the high, low and level positions. Flying on the non-reflective side (away from the searchlight), he could not see the aircraft until closing within 200 yards from the high and level positions, but at 12 miles from the low position. The brighter the moon, the less difficult to intercept. |
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| The point to remember is that the test RB-45 was clear silver in appearance, with no unusual paint except conventional USAF markings. I must add, there is nothing quite as startling when, flying along at 35,000 feet in complete darkness with running lights off and cockpit and instrument lights dimmed, suddenly you whole world is lit up by batteries of several 800,000,000 candlepower searchlights. To say the least, it’s a bit unnerving and requires some quick reaction to keep one’s mental gyros from tumbling. |
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Photo, Ctsy. Warren Bodie |
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| It reminds me of later years on airborne alert missions at extreme high altitudes in B-52s when the aurora borealis northern lights would dance around directly in front of the KC-135 tanker during night refueling. Throw in rough turbulence in the middle of a high altitude jet stream and it became a real test of pilot skills.
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