I continue to wonder why I was
stateside
by Raoul L.
As an electrical flight line supervisor at Lockheed Aircraft Services
in New York, I was assigned to lead a group of Lockheed aircraft technicians to
perform maintenance on the WV-2 aircraft at the United States Navy Airbase in
Atsugi, Japan. My group included a fine bunch of guys who were sharp technicians.
They were also a lot of fun, as attested to by the Northwest Airlines flight attendants
who were on our Tokyo-bound flight. They refused to serve us, so we had to take
the beverages ourselves—all of the beverages.
We had a group of Navy aircraft that we did maintenance on, performed modifications
and then flew on the “check-out" flights. It was part of our duty to fly
over the Sea of Japan on the routine test flights after work was completed. I
flew on many of these.
After several months, I had to return to our corporate headquarters for
a brief period. This was in the fall of 1965. During the month of November,
while I was in the United States, my crew as usual, performed their duties. I was
shocked to hear that a "foreign" fighter shot down our WV-2! I was
stateside. I often think of my friends and wonder why I was in the States
during that incident.
