Kaptured Chat

GoldFinger · Joined: 07 Aug 2005 Posts: 240

Dutchman,
I believe you mentioned once that your Dad was also in the Air Force.
Was he stationed at Lake Charles in the late '50s. A very good friend of mine was a navigator in KC135s and flew out of there. He was on the KC135 that collided with a B52 on a night training flight over Kentucky in late 1959. No one survived. He had been on KC97s originally and sent me some pictures of a flight over the Greenland ice cap with a feathered engine. I was surprised the SAC allowed him to take along a camera. That was when the B36 was still in use.

Dutchman · Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 9064 Location: Hooterville

My dad was in the Army for 30 years.

However I am familiar with the field at Lake Charles. It was later named Chennault AFB and closed in the early '60s. Later it was used by the 7th BW at Carswell and the the 2nd BW at Barksdale for exercises.

I remember reading about that collision in a book not very long ago. The bomber was out of Columbus AFB, MS with four nuclear weapons on board. All were found. It took place in, I believe, October '59.

I'm not sure what the policy was in the LeMay years concerning cameras. I was in much later, but before the days of digital cameras; we had to have prior permission, and submit the photos for approval.