Somber in September

I'm somber, reflecting on anniversaries. My heart is heavy because so little lies ahead, with so much behind—and because I let down good people who were relying on me.

September 11, 1939 is my birthday. We celebrated quietly. I'm still waiting for son Bob, who has a busy schedule, to take me out for searing-hot, high-calorie vindaloo at Bollywood Bistro. I'm thankful for family and friends who support me and who sent greetings.

September 18, 1947 is the day the United States Air Force became an independent military service branch, long after most countries had an independent air arm.

This is the day for those who fly and fight. I was slated to give a talk at a very important place with some very fine people and was forced to stand them up at the last minute because of a health issue. They were counting on me. I let them down.

I'm not much for flag-waving, rah-rah, pro-veteran stuff but I feel satisfaction at being one of the Americans who went to difficult places and did difficult things. I feel privileged to be an American airman. No other title can compare. Photo shows me preparing for a Rose Bowl reconnaissance mission against the North Korean air force at Osan in April 1960, age twenty.

September 1, 1955 is the approximate date when I submitted a short opinion piece to Air Force magazine—not to be confused with Air Force Times newspaper, where I had a column later. I was age fifteen. My submission became my first paid magazine appearance in the November 1955 issue of Air Force. So I'm having a 60th anniversary of writing about those who fly and fight. No privilege could be greater.

Planes, war, crime: what do you like?

As I mark a birthday, I'm thankful for feedback on my books and magazine articles. You steer me. Several parts of me are joined at this keyboard. Those disparate parts are trying to stray off in different directions, like a satellite breaking up in orbit and raining debris.

Part of me is the pure airplane part. Just airplanes.

My cover story on the B-24 Liberator bomber will be in the January issue of AVIATION HISTORY magazine, which will appear around November 1. I have an article on the B-32 Dominator in a spinoff of FLIGHT JOURNAL about the final battles of World War II. And now, I'm working on the P4M Mercator, that big, complex, Navy plane of the Cold War with which I have a connection (photo).

On June 16, 1959, I listened to North Korean MiG-17 fighters shooting up a Mercator. The crew survived in part due to co-pilot Vincent Anania, the father of a then-eight-year-old future political wife named Elizabeth Edwards. She's here.

The photo of a Mercator seen here is very rare, taken at Port Lyautey, French Morocco, circa. 1952.

Part of me is more generally into the Air Force, the armed forces and the history of Americans at war.

Military history.

Watch for my next book, titled "VALOR ALOFT," which will have a cover designed by the talented and very cool Victor Rook. Find him here.

Part of me wants to write fiction.

My alternate history, "HITLER'S TIME MACHINE," has been well received and is available for Kindle and in print, or directly from me. It's an especially good gift for a Kindle user. Find it here.

I wrote about half of a sequel, "FEGELEIN'S TIME MACHINE," and set it aside. Fegelein is an especially despicable figure in the Third Reich, albeit a much more minor figure than I'm planning to make him. Watch for a return of favorite characters including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Heinrich Himmler, and my series hero, Barbara Stafford.

More about that sniveling toady Fegelein is here.

I wrote about half of a crime novel, "CRIME SCENE FAIRFAX COUNTY." It's set in 1947 and parts of it may grab you, but it needs a lot, lot more work.

So what's it to be next?

Will a reader who enjoys my airplane stuff read a crime novel?

Will a friend who likes my military history stuff read a crime novel? Or an alternate-history, time-travel, Nazi shoot-'em-up?

Or should I just stick to an average of three full-length articles per week about flying machines?

I don't know.

Tell me.

Hitler, Hillary, time travel and the F-22

A couple of quick updates.

A prediction: Neither Hillary Clinton nor Jeb Bush will be the major-party presidential candidates in 2016.

About my alternate history of World War II: "HITLER'S TIME MACHINE," which is actually mostly about Americans, is being well received (mostly) on Amazon. You can get it there in Kindle or in print, or get a signed copy of the print edition from me.

About Gates and the F-22: My book "AIR POWER ABANDONED: ROBERT GATES, THE F-22 RAPTOR AND THE BETRAYAL OF AMERICA'S AIR FORCE" is being published this month. It's not quite ready for pre-order on Amazon in print format although you can pre-order a signed copy of the print edition from me. The Kindle edition is available now, here.

The book is a narrative of the dismantling of America's Air Force, based on research and many interviews with key participants. I have no sense for how much interest there is, so if this looks like something that would interest you, please let me know.

Disclosure: I've said all along that this story of the Defense Secretary

who fired Air Force leaders and cancelled the F-22 Raptor should have been written by a participant, meaning someone else, rather than by an observer, meaning me. Some will not care for this book. Some will feel the author doesn't have enough "insider" knowledge. Some may feel the book is a little expensive.

Someone had to try to tell this story. I've done it to the best of my ability. While a couple of key people did not respond to requests to be interviewed, dozens did respond and only one declined an interview: Robert Gates. The former Defense Secretary's own book, "DUTY," is available for those wanting his account of events.

Revisiting B-29s and Red Erwin

"Nor law nor duty bade me fight/Nor public men nor cheering crowds..."

— William Butler Yeats

I've known about radio operator Staff Sergeant Henry "Red" Erwin's bravery under fire for almost as long as I've been alive. I did not, however, know Erwin until long after I first wrote about him. To save his B-29 Superfortress crew in embattled skies over Japan—The Empire,

American bomber crews called it—Erwin grabbed a loose phosphorous bomb burning at 1300 degrees Fahrenheit, held it in his grasp, and threw it from the bomber. The B-29 was named CITY OF LOS ANGELES and was piloted by Captain George A. "Tony" Simeral.

Sustaining burns over his entire body that should have been fatal, Erwin proved all of the important truths about those who fly and fight. Initiative, boldness and courage matter. Aviation, lest anyone think otherwise, is not solely about pilots. Erwin's deed rises to the standard for the Medal of Honor: "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty..."

I first wrote about Erwin while living in San Diego, submitted the story to STAG magazine on April 3, 1962, and got a rejection slip. I submitted it to CLIMAX magazine on April 15, 1962. Editor-in-chief Al Silverman wrote back on May 8, 1962 ("you did a good job") and

offered $150. The story appeared in the October 1962 issue of CLIMAX under the title "Handful of Hell at 20,000 feet."

I did not get to know Erwin, however, until I wrote a book titled "B-29 Superfortress Units of World War II" (London: Osprey Publishing, 1992). All those years later, I had a brief acquaintance with the airman I was writing about. Suddenly, Red Erwin (1921-2002) was briefly a friend at the other end of the telephone. He could not have been more gracious.  I dedicated that book to Marc Reid (1951-2001), a dear friend who struggled with lifelong health issues without once losing his fanaticism for aviation.

Together with co-author Fred L. Borch, an expert on awards and decorations, I wrote about Erwin again in the July 7, 2008 Air Force Times newspaper. By then, Erwin was no longer around to assist. Despite the severe burns he'd suffered he lived a full life and died at age 80.

I wrote about Erwin a fourth time in a book titled "Mission to Tokyo"

(Minneapolis: Zenith Press, 2013). The book covered the air campaign against Japan but focused on the March 10, 1945 firebomb assault on the Japanese capital, which was the most destructive bombing event  in history. Simeral's crew, with Erwin aboard flew that mission, ordered by Major General Curtis E. LeMay and witnessed on the ground by Yoko Ono. "Mission to Tokyo" is a current book and can be gotten from me, or ordered here.

On May 13, 2015, I flew abord the world's only airworthy B-29, named FIFI and operated by the Commemorative Air Force. I sat in the radio operator's position next to a plaque honoring Erwin.

It was not easy waging war in the skies of The Empire. In the fraternity of those who fly and fight, there was no braver man. There was no better man. Henry "Red" Erwin—all honor to his name.

Writing about Gates, the F-22, and air power

My next book will be about the dismantling of the U. S. Air Force.

The nation's air arm has never been smaller in size than it is today. It has never operated equipment as old as its equipment today.

The process has left us without all of the platforms we expected to have today—381 F-22 Raptor superfighters at the "high end" of the tactical air

arm; operational F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters at the "low end;" the first examples of a new bomber; the first couple of squadrons of a new air refueling tanker; a new combat rescue helicopter.

We have none of these things today.

Robert Gates didn't begin the process of shrinking the Air Force. That process began right after the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. But the Gates years (2006-2011) were the years when we were supposed to recapitalize the nation's air arm. Instead, Gates assigned top priority to Iraq, surrounded himself by Army officers, fired the Air Force's top leaders (in 2008), killed the F-22 (in 2009) and was on watch when our bomber, tanker and rescue programs went astray.

Gates left this nation without the long-range, land-based air power that is essential to survival in peacetime and to success in war.

It would be better if someone who worked in the Pentagon wrote about this topic. Gates declined my request for an interview in 2006 and hasn't responded to my request for an interview in 2015. Gates treated his Air Force concerns with only a few pages in his memoir, "Duty." The book confirms his public statements that he was at odds with Air Force leaders from the beginning.

Retired General T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, the former Air Force chief (2005-2008), shown in a photo taken with me in Paris in 2007, hasn't written a book. He should. Moseley is an articulate advocate for air power and for America's airmen. I've also urged retired Lieutenant General David Deptula to write a book. He is another staunch spokesmen for the profession of aerial arms and for those who fly and fight. There are others who could weigh in, too, like former Air Combat Command boss retired General John Corley.

I would also like to see a book from Moseley's successor, retired General Norton Schwartz. I believe Schwartz deserves enormous credit

for his efforts under difficult circumstances. The fighter mafia in the Air Force has not always been kind to Schwartz and I would like to see him put his thoughts on paper. The same goes for former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.

With the exception of Gates, I've interviewed everyone named here more than once, both during the Gates era and more recently. We are fortunate to live in a nation where our top leaders are accessible and willing to talk about even controversial events.

Most of them, that is.

It would be better for them to tell the story. If they don't, I will. I hope to have my book completed at the end of July.

I'd like to find out how much interest there is. If you have thoughts about

my planned book or if you think you'll want one when it's ready, please let me know.

Any insights you have to offer will help. Make a comment here or call or write. I'd really like to hear from you.

Starting into the sixties with my Lettera-22

My first paid magazine item was a short op-ed in the November 1955 Air Force magazine.

I had other stuff published before my first full-length story, "The Night Intruders," which ran 5,000 words.

From an early age, I wanted to fly and fight. I was an airman from 1957 to 1960, in Korea.

I moved to San Francisco to become the great American writer. My literary prose looks laughable now, my poetry worse. I studied Ernest Hemingway and pretended to care about Andre Gide.

I loved a fiction account of a B-26 Invader bombing mission in a small literary magazine in San Francisco in 1960. I met Robert C. Mikesh who'd flown B-26s in the Korean War and was later a museum curator and author.

In 1960 in San Francisco, I was a file clerk for Bethlehem Steel. In 1961, I worked for Sherwin Williams Paint near my parents' home in a Washington, D.C. suburb. Photo shows me banging on my Olivetti Lettera-22 in my parents' back yard, age twenty-one.

Larry Harry, who'd been in Korea with me, blew into town. He suggested we hitchhike across the country to position ourselves to find work in the Far East. I'd submitted "The Night Intruders" to ARGOSY and SAGA and had it rejected. I sent it to REAL. Larry and I hitched across the country, getting 52 rides ranging in length from 800 feet to 1,200 miles.

Two strong but odd memories persist from crossing America that hectic, hot summer of 1961.

An Ivy League kid who reeked of Eastern Money (older than us, but still a kid) gave us a lift in his shiny new car and proclaimed, with some arrogance, "I'm a New Frontier Democrat!" The other memory: Gherman Stepanovich Titov.

Don't remember him? It's okay. "I am eagle!" cosmonaut Titov proclaimed on car radios of people who gave us rides, asserting Soviet supremacy. Until I looked him up just now to refresh my memory, I didn't know Titov shared my September 11 birth date (in a different year).

Returning to San Francisco where I'd lived months earlier, neither Larry nor I found a way to get to Asia. Larry went back into the Air Force, retired a colonel, survived cancer, and died of a heart attack on a cruise ship near Noumea, New Caledonia. Larry Harry (1938-2011) was one of my half dozen best friends throughout life.

I became a file clerk with the Western Pacific Railroad (a hefty, union-negotiated $16.96 per day). The boss would answer the phone by saying, "Hello, Miscellaneous," the name of our department.

My father telephoned person-to-person from the other coast to tell me something had come in the mail from REAL about my story. "They want to pay you a hundred dollars for it," Dad said.

"Oh."

Soon, I was living in a San Francisco boarding house called Baker Acres where I met Pierre M. and Jerome B. Curtis, two more lifelong best friends. I'm including surnames in these recollections only for those no longer with us. Oh, and I met Charlotte, too, but never mind about that.

UFOs, Washington, men's magazines, and Mario Biaggi

In 1978, I was a Foreign Service officer in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) in the Department of State. I was an authority on the political leadership in North Korea. We had two pre-school sons and lived on Valewood Drive where I'm typing this now.

Being the Kim Il-Sung watcher for U.S. intelligence was a more than full-time job.

Still, I found a time to write for magazines.Everybody knew it. My men's adventure magazine tales were a topic of water-cooler banter. I'd been getting paid to put words in print for twenty-three years but had not yet published a book.

I was reading the obituaries in the Washington Post every morning hoping—then, as now—to encounter a certain figure. I plan to remain on this planet until I do.

This morning, June 26, 2015, I read the obituaries. The person I want still wasn't there.

Mario Biaggi was.

The link to today's news story is here.

In 1978, Phil Hirsch, editor of MAN'S magazine in New York, phoned to say that a congressman had stated publicly that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) "are real." The men's adventure magazines were dying and their publishers had turned to UFOs for market share.

Phil was responsible for IDEAL'S UFO REPORT, where I was the editor and wrote all of the articles. I also worked with Martin Singer, editor of SAGA and of SAGA'S UFO REPORT, later re-named, simply, UFO REPORT.

Although I almost never interviewed anyone for my stories in those days, I visited Biaggi and took photos of him reading our magazine. He was gracious and courteous but very busy. He said enough about UFOs to enable me to write about him.

Biaggi was a former New York City police officer who spent two decades on Capitol Hill and much later was convicted of federal corruption charges. I don't know the details. I can find plenty of Americans who believe our whole system is corrupt and who classify those convicted, like Biaggi and Randall Cunningham, as amateurs. I remember Mario Biaggi as a generous host, hard worker, and dapper figure who was well liked.

And I remember a Washington where Americans could still walk into the government buildings they owned. In those days the security presence around the Capitol and White House was light and not terribly intrusive.

It's very different today. Americans, it seems, want to be secure, or at least to feel that way.

You can be secure. You can be free. You cannot be both.

My visit to Biaggi, easily arranged, was probably my first visit to a lawmaker on Capitol Hill. More than a decade later, I returned to visit high school classmate Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md), who is currently the second ranking Democrat in the House.

Mario Biaggi lived from October 26, 1917 to June 24, 2015. He died at age ninety-seven. For part of one day, he was part of my life. Thank you, Congressman.