It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
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It was a dark and stormy night...
The Rickety Rack Airline C-130 was completing a routine mission out of Inkydink Airport in Suthren Turkey. Its 438-man crew consisted of Jack Not H, Larry Tart, Butch Moore, Nate Britt, Fred Mehl, IronMan JimmyMayer, Rectal Roberts, THT, Billy G. Griffin, the Blazer, Lee Anthony, Bubba Armintrout and Conrad Schott as AMSs.
Airborne anal-ysts on board were Skip DeRousse, Slow Blow Joe Bissett, Barney Google, BILLANDMARTHAMAHAN, Bubba Armintrout, Rick Duncan, Mike Doty, Beech, Kirk Carpenter and Wu-burger.
It also had a bare-bones crew of gunners that included Dikhij Zver', LLyod Johnson, Soppy Cresap, Bob Lambert, Bubba Armintrout, Jerry Ellis, the Chief, Billy Gradwell and Mike Petersen.
Tac-ops were Pete Olive, Jon Gwinn, Darrell Norman, Rick the Greek Parendes, Greg Mahoney, Billy Tolbert (in disguise), Tony Baciewicz and Bubba Armintrout.
Ditty bops included Eagle Kriegel, Dale Matehjowkjakosky, Bubba Armintrout and KS1K.
Maintainers were Big John Deaver, Big Bob Donan, Bubba Armintrout and the Mouth of the South.
The lone observer was ROTC cadet Bobus Copus.
Gene Willard had galley and trash.
The rest of the crew was made up of Ravings who don't count anyway; therefore, their names are not listed, except for the Lead Raving, Bubba Armintrout.
Suddenly, number two engine sputtered and went out like, well, like the fire goes out on a campfire after a heavy rain and everbody is cold and swears never to go camping again, especially in November in upstate New York.
Then number four gasped its last gasp like a dying man who is going down for the third time but doesn't really care since he just jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge on Christmas Eve. Immediately realizing that he had a load of bad gas, the pilot, Jocko "Light the Fires and Kick the Tires" Donlon, not to be confused with Jack "Light the Fires and Kick the Tires" Harden, who had a similar occurence in the Far East, but that was a long time ago and far, far away, declared a MayDay, even though it was September.
Since there were only 48 parachutes on board, a bailout would have left 390 crewmembers without a 'chute, but they were only Ravings, so nobody cared much, except maybe about Bubba, but he already had five parachutes.
We would have read about a terrible tragedy had it not been for the actions of one man, namely, Dave Radomski. Dave had been exiled to a lonely, remote spot on the Black Sea, picturesquely named Samsun, so-called because more exotic names like "Incirlik" and "Trabzon" and "Diyarbakir" and "Istanbul" were already taken. Well, they could have called it Constantinople, couldn't they have? Well, couldn't they have!??
Hearing the pilot's Mayday on a super-secret frequency known to this day to only a few, and I could tell you but then I would have to kill you, Dave assessed the situation, decided on a course of action, and undertook to save the day. The Samsun airport was closed for the day, and was guarded by a platoon of Oskars. Dave singlehandedly whupped fifteen of them, led a brigade of Able Flighters to the flightline, had them all light up their wind-proof Zippo lighters, and guided the crippled C-130, which had been gliding in circles for two hours, to a safe landing.
This is a true war story.
I was there.
Honest Injun