“They loved the pictures in Seoul.”

Following a military coup, the U-2s out of Osan, South Korea began 12 hour missions, keeping a U-2 in the air 24 hours a day to monitor the situation. Below are both my Dad’s written words setting this story to paper in August 2020 and a video of our discussion about this time period.

IN HIS WORDS:

I spent more time at Osan than at any other attachment, but I got broken in early. On my first deployment in late fall, I would end up spending the holidays in Korea. Shortly before Christmas, the det. commander and ops. officer took leave. That left us with four pilots and a navigator/ground planner. Then came the “45 Caliber Change-of-Command.” The ROK president was killed in a military coup and nobody knew what was going on. Washington wanted a U-2 in the air 24 hours a day.

We planned 12 hour missions back to back, but after four sorties, the first pilot didn’t have his mandatory 48-hour ground time between high flights. So, we dropped dead for 12 hours, then resumed. On my first day flight, we cooked up a plan to get pictures of Seoul (U.S. Army headquarters for Korea) to Washington. On a standard photo mission, I flew off course at the beginning and end of the flight with the camera aimed at downtown. This film was developed and the beginning and end were not shared without a need to know. We didn’t really know the results until a colonel was sent from Washington to reprimand me for not flying the approved route. We went to a back corner of the officer’s club bar and he told me I shouldn’t have done that, but “they loved the pictures in Seoul.” Then we drank beer; issue resolved.

During the week of constant flying, rotating day to night, I woke up one night sitting on the side of my bed thinking I was in the airplane. I needed to pee and since we could do that through the urine collection device we are equipped with in the airplane …. I fully awakened just before I peed on my bed. Oh well.