this type,the F-86 is what he was flying in korea
Posted on 02/01/2002 5:17:57 PM PST by TomServo
The real issue here is the loss of "Gabby" a true American hero.
After his tour in Vietnam, de Bellevue was sent to pilot school - against his wishes, I'm told. Unanimous opinion was that he made a crappy pilot. I'm told he looked for excuses to get in the back seat and pull WSO duties - and I'm told by multiple 3000+ hr F-4 pilots that no other GIB was 1/2 as good as de Bellevue.
Being a good WSO required something very different from being a good pilot. It required looking at a 2-D display and 'seeing' it in 3-D. There were math formulas you could use as a crutch, but to be good you needed to be able to build a 3-D picture of a constantly changing situation without really thinking about it. Few had that ability. But if you had it (I was OK, not great, IMHO) you could put the F-4 in position where pulling the trigger was all that was left.
And de Bellevue, in the opinion of F-4 pilots, could do that damn near every time. They can put an asterisk next to his name if they want, but he's a hero of mine. No other WSO I've ever heard of was spoken of in the reverential tones guys used with de Bellevue. And what did they admire most? That he could fly with Ritchie without killing the SOB.
Where were you based??
You missed the GCA days??? They were a blast, (pun intended), nevertheless at times they were our only salvation. Most times when the weather was "hairy" they worked out all right, at other times, things went awry. That was part of the business. At any rate GCA was a stepping stone along the way to better things.
this type,the F-86 is what he was flying in korea
Arrogant SOBs...
Just as a comment on your post...Gabreski, Jabara, or one of the true "fighter" pilots once made the statement that, "Less than ten per cent of trained fighter pilots were of any value, the rest are just along for the ride". Those are not exact words but the per centage is correct.
In SAC we hated to get stuck with "former" fighter pilots. They all had an attitude and we all knew why we got stuck with them.
That's not true. In fact the Phantom II was originally designed for the Navy and the Marine Corps, just as the A-7 was designed for the Navy and later adopted by the Air Force. Navy and Marine Phantoms had no flight controls in the aft cockpit. Neither does the F-14 or the F/A-18D/F. Don't know about the F-15E Strike Eagle. That's why the GIB was/is called a RIO in the Marine Corps/Navy and a WSO in the Air Force, not co-pilots. Their job is to run the weapons systems, not fly the aircraft. In fact the pilot can punch the GIB out and still successfully fly and fight with the plane. Ever wondered why Air Force Phantoms and Corsairs had arresting hooks?
I've never met a fighter puke who wasn't cocky. It's endemic of the breed regardless of branch of service. I've met people who attended the Academy with Ritchie, flew with him in the Air Force and in the Colorado ANG and worked with him at Coors after he left active duty. Never heard a bad thing about him, other than he's cocky. He didn't go into any detail about De Bellevue when I spoke with him other than the BS comment, but it was easy to tell it was a sore spot with him. Maybe those two just don't care for one another. You could probably find some people who would have some unflattering things to say about De Bellevue and maybe even Feinstein.
February 2, 2002 New York Times
Francis S. Gabreski, a World War II Air Ace, Dies at 83
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Francis S. Gabreski, the leading American air ace in Europe in World War II who later in life tangled less triumphantly with political perils as head of the Long Island Rail Road, died on Thursday at Huntington Hospital on Long Island. Mr. Gabreski, who lived in Dix Hills, N.Y., was 83.
The cause was a heart attack, his family said.
Flying single-engine P-47 Thunderbolt fighters, Mr. Gabreski downed 28 Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs over France and Germany between Aug. 24, 1943, and July 5, 1944, and destroyed three more German aircraft on the ground.
He was captured in late July 1944 after crash-landing near Koblenz, Germany, on what was to have been his last mission, and he spent 10 months as a prisoner of war.
He became an ace (a pilot shooting down at least five enemy planes) in the Korean War as well, flying an F- 86 Sabre jet. He shot down six Soviet- built MIG-15 fighters and shared credit for the downing of another.
Almost three decades later, Mr. Gabreski faced a challenge he could not surmount when he tried to run the troubled Long Island Rail Road, the nation's busiest commuter line. He became its president in August 1978, months after a cold wave battered the railroad. He resigned under pressure in February 1981, months after a heat wave battered it anew.
By the end of World War II, only three American pilots - Maj. Richard Bong with 40 ``kills,'' Maj. Thomas McGuire with 38 and Cmdr. David McCampbell of the Navy with 34, all in the Pacific theater - had eclipsed Mr. Gabreski's total.
``Wait till you get 'em right in the sights,'' he once said, explaining his technique. ``Then short bursts. There's no use melting your guns.''
Francis Stanley Gabreski was born in Oil City, Pa., on Jan. 28, 1919, one of five children of Polish immigrants. When he was 13, his father, a grocer, took him to Cleveland to see an air race, and he found a lifelong hero: the race's winner, Jimmy Doolittle, who would command the Eighth Air Force in World War II.
Following the path of an older brother, Mr. Gabreski attended Notre Dame, but he was captivated by flying lessons and left college in the summer of 1940, after his sophomore year, to join an Army Air Corps cadet program.
He completed the cadet program, graduated from basic training in March 1941 as a second lieutenant, and joined a fighter unit at Wheeler Field in Hawaii. On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, he was shaving when he heard the roar of low-flying aircraft and the rumble of explosions. He scrambled to a P-36 fighter and flew over Pearl Harbor at 4,000 feet. American ships lay on their sides, burning, but the Japanese aircraft were nowhere in sight.
But because he spoke Polish and ``I felt strongly about what the Nazis had done to Poland,'' he asked to be assigned to a Polish fighter unit attached to the Royal Air Force. He flew some two dozen missions over Europe with Polish pilots early in 1943 before joining the United States 56th Fighter Group in Britain.
On Aug. 24, 1943, he was escorting American bombers, flying at 27,000 feet near ÀEvreux, France, when he spotted seven Focke-Wulf 190's flying 10,000 feet below. He put his plane into a dive, got behind the flight leader, shot up the fuselage and wings, and saw the plane plummet.
He had his first kill.
His best day was May 22, 1944, when he shot down three Focke- Wulfs near Bremen, Germany. On July 5, flying near ÀEvreux, he downed his 28th German plane, becoming the No. 1 American air ace of the war at that point.
He was a celebrity, and the War Department wanted him home to help sell war bonds. So he wrote to his fiancÀee asking that wedding plans go into full swing. His hometown, Oil City, raised $2,000 as a wedding gift and planned a parade.
He was to depart from the air base at Boxted, England, on July 20 for 30 days' leave. But at the last moment, he asked to go along on a mission to escort B-24 Liberator bombers that would attack railroad yards near Frankfurt, Germany.
After the bombers completed their run, he strafed an airfield seven miles west of Koblenz, but he came in too low, causing his propeller to hit the ground, which made the engine vibrate. He crash-landed in a wheat field, and after spending five days moving through the countryside, he was picked up by a farmer and turned over to German authorities.
An interrogator told him, ``We have been expecting you for a long time,'' and showed him a file that held a copy of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes describing his milestone 28th kill.
He was taken to a large prisoner of war camp on the Baltic Sea and remained there until Germany surrendered in May 1945.
When he returned home, he went ahead with the interrupted wedding and married Catherine Cochran, known as Kay, on June 11, 1945. She died in a car accident in 1993.
Mr. Gabreski is survived by three sons, Donald, of Dayton, Ohio; Robert, of Holmes Beach, Fla., and James, of Melbourne, Fla; six daughters, Djoni Murphy of Trego, Wis.; Mary Ann Bruno of Dana Point, Calif.; Frances Phillips of Westhampton Beach, N.Y.; Patricia Covino of Quogue, N.Y.; Linda Kay Gabreski of Huntington Station, N.Y.; and Debbie Ann Burkhardt of South Huntington, N.Y.; two sisters, Bernice Stanczak of New Castle, Pa., and Lottie Kocan of Erie, Pa.; 18 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren.
Mr. Gabreski worked briefly for Douglas Aircraft after the war, then rejoined the military and returned to action in the Korean War. He served as commander of the 51st Fighter Wing and returned to the United States in June 1952. He received a ticker-tape parade in San Francisco and was greeted by President Truman at the White House.
He retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 1967 after having served for three years as commander of the 52d Fighter Interceptor Wing at Suffolk County Air Force Base in Westhampton Beach. The field, now a general-aviation airport owned by the county and used as well by the New York Air National Guard 106th Rescue Group, was subsequently renamed Francis S. Gabreski Airport.
Mr. Gabreski held executive positions with Grumman Aerospace until August 1978, when he was named president of the Long Island Rail Road at Gov. Hugh L. Carey's behest.
He would remember telling a Grumman colleague at the time how he ``didn't know anything about Lionel toy trains, let alone a real commuter line.'' But his Polish background and his identification with Long Island were attractive political attributes for Governor Carey, who was facing a Democratic primary challenge from Lt. Gov. Mary Anne Krupsak, who was of Polish extraction. Moreover, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Assembly Minority Leader Perry B. Duryea, was from Montauk and had charged that Mr. Carey was inattentive to Long Island's needs.
Mr. Gabreski sought out commuters, seeking to win good will for the line, which had long been plagued by malfunctioning equipment. But he was unable to turn things around and was unfortunate enough to encounter a heat wave in 1980 that proved too much for the railroad's air-conditioning systems.
Something he had enjoyed through all his missions in Europe and Korea had deserted him. ``A pilot can contribute physical acumen, good eyesight and alertness,'' he once said. ``You have to be calm, cool and collected. Freeze, and you frighten yourself.''
``But,'' he added, ``beyond that you need some luck to survive.''
The first facility I worked in, was an FPN-47, at Mt Home AFB, Idaho. Then in Vietnam I worked in a Gin Andy, if I recall, that is what they called it. Aftet that, I worked tower for the rest of my career, except for 4 years in Terps.
F-4s could be flown front seat only, but they couldn't fight that way. They couldn't turn well enough for a knife fight, so they either needed to shoot in the face with radar, or get in someone's deep 6 for a heat shot. Both needed a good WSO to work the manual radar. When running an intercept, I was generally so deeply in the radar that I had no idea if I was right side up or upside down. For the record, I know of one case where a WSO landed an F-4 after the nose gunner lost conciousness. And most of the guys I flew with insisted on teaching me enough formation flying to try it 'just in case'.
Nor am I minimizing the importance of a strong pilot. I flew with many. In Weasels, the F-4G would drop the first bomb, and the E model guy would try to bomb the G's smoke. Since we were usually upside down in a pop before the G's bomb impacted, this gave the nosegunner about 7" to see the target, figure the ballistics, compensate for any errors, and drop a manual bomb. For the life of me, I never figured out how they did it. My favorite explanation, by a guy who had 3500+ hours, was, "I just hit the pickle button when it looks right"
I wasn't surprised by Richie's attitude - the guys I knew all said he felt that way. They just thought he became an ace because of his backseater - which may explain why Richie feels so strongly about it! I'm nearing the end of my career as a WSO/EWO...but I'll always be a card carrying member of the WSO Union - motto, "Shut up & drive!"
Yes, the pilot could succesfully fly the plane without the GIB and burn holes in the sky. But successfully fight? I don't think so. The F-4 and others such as you mentioned require two crewmembers for a reason.
My point is this. The pilot and WSO are a team. Both are needed to be able to shoot down enemy aircraft. Both crewmembers deserve credit for kills and were given credit by the Air Force. DeBellevue has six kills to his credit. Ritchie has five. Sounds like arrogance and sour grapes on Ritchie's part. That's my opinion.
Yes it is, and yes he was.
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