Subject: Batcat in Hong Kong From: "Dick Arnold" Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 15:26:06 -0400 To: "Larry & Susan Westin" EC-121R in Hong Kong Kai Tak airport is in Hong Kong and is closed now but in the early sixties I flew several regular trips into Kai Tak ferrying dependent families in from Tainan, Taiwan so they could shop. Taiwan was pretty primitive then. Hong Kong is a difficult approach and a pilot needs a couple of route check rides for before trying to fly the approach on his or her own. I became the primary pilot for this run from Tainan after we lost a C-47 against the side of Mt. Parker while it was departing Hong Kong. That is. however, another story. It is enough to say that Hong Kong was an unusual approach and that's why I was selected eight years after I last flew there to fly a 553rd airplane into Hong Kong. I was the only Aircraft Commander in the Wing who had been to Hong Kong. Someone (not me) decided to send one of our EC-121Rs to Hong Kong for a couple of nights for a little R&R and shopping. This turned out later to be not such a great idea because I believe the Wing received some criticism from folks on high for using a combat airplane for that purpose. I know it was the last half of 68 because I was Chief of Maintenance QC at the 553rd at the time. I initially refused the trip because the airplane was loaded with officers and there were no enlisted men except radio and flight engineers. I finally bargained, I think with Col. John Emig, to get four of my enlisted Quality Control guys on the airplane and that meant that four officers could not go. The whole maintenance organization worked their tails off and I thought at least some of them should have been recognized. The flight over Laos, South Viet Nam and outside the coast and around the Chinese Communist Island Hainan was uneventful. Remember that Hong Kong was surrounded on almost three sides by communist territory. I remember to this day the approach that we flew to the airport. Hong Kong Island itself is on an island topped by two fifteen hundred foot mountains. The runway was two miles across the harbor in Kowloon. The mountains on Hong Kong and the rather steep hills behind the runway on the opposite end of the runway in Kowloon presented a formidable barrier to approaching the airport particularly when approaching for the southeast runway as we were directed to do. The approach procedure to runway 15 is called the Cheng Chau approach and it required a descent to 600 feet in a figure eight over Cheng Chau Island. At roll out of this descent you picked up Green Island from over Cheng Chau Island visually and flew to it. When you crossed Green Island you were flying right next to Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island which towered about nine hundred feet above you on the right of the airplane. As you passed Green Island you came over the harbor and headed for the radio beacon on Stone Cutters Island. At the same time behind Stone Cutters you visually picked up what they called the "Checkerboard" which was painted on the side of a cliff about 700 or 800 feet above and behind the runway so that you saw it and did not hit the hill it was on. When you got close enough to the checkerboard to start sucking in your breath you made a right one hundred forty degree descending turn to run down the side of a hill covered with dwellings and people about two hundred feet below you until you leveled out at the bottom and crossed the end of the runway. You can see why you need to be checked out to fly into the airport. Our arrival went fine and we all dispersed from the airplane. I spent my time with an old friend who worked at the BX headquarters in Hong Kong and we all met at the airplane to go back to Korat. We took off same direction we landed out runway 15 through what was called the Lei e Mun gap which was a path over the water between Mt. Parker (where our C-47 crashed) and a similar peak on the left. The gap was about two miles wide and, as I remember, 3.2 miles from the end of the runway. Just as we started to lift off from the runway and before going through the "gap" the number three engine started to shake and vibrate. Col. Charlie Gresham was in the right seat and after a little discussion and when the engine was no longer carrying sufficient power to carry it's weight I ordered the engineer to feather it. Now came the real decision. What should we do with the airplane? I was not thrilled about flying it back to Thailand on three engines, although we use to maintain station on three occasionally. This trip was a boondoggle and I knew it. I did not think it particularly wise to knowingly fly the airplane back through a combat zone and draw attention to ourselves if something else happened. It was also probably not wise to risk further engine loss and have to land somewhere en route near the combat zone on a somewhat questionable mission. I did not think we should return to Hong Kong and leave the airplane for all to see it for a month or two while we got an engine in there and changed it in front of God. all of Hong Kong and the ultimately the Seventh Air Force. There was a College Eye (RC-121D) detachment in Tainan, Taiwan, which was forty-five minutes away. I knew they had an engine there and we could get parts flown in unobtrusively if necessary as Connie operations were routine there. So we made a left turn out of Hong Kong and went for two weeks in Tainan while the College Eye guys changed our engine. I thought that we could have gotten it done in about three days but nothing ever goes as planned. We visited the airplane every day until they were sick of us. We got our engine changed and came back to Korat. I don't think I ever discussed the trip with anybody and nobody ever discussed it with me. No one challenged my decision to land in Tainan. That was in the days when Commanders really trusted their people and stood behind them. We kept the Wing completely informed on HF radio as I remember. This trip may have had repercussions that I, as a Major, did not know about. I have seen Commanders do a lot worse than this and that we had some damn fine Commanders in the 553rd three of whom I personally knew and flew with. I know that four enlisted men had a good time in Hong Kong. I also know that I was a volunteer on the trip and was pleased to go to Hong Kong so I did not put myself above having some fun. However when we lost the engine it became a little more like work.. Dick Arnold