Harvey

Welcome to you and everyone who may eventually read this. My day was incredibly made brighter by calls from Jack Fox and then Mo Hammack. They were but yesterday, so the freshness of the rejoicing is still at its peak! I, like many of us I suspect, had just about forgotten the hope of ever reliving our common experiences at Lackland. I have, in fact, written a book about my life, but will neither give it to you nor make anyone ever have to read it. It has not been published and only one copy exists (in the safe that used to belong to Al Capone under Geraldo's care).

For anyone who cares, I, David Calvis Harvey, was born on December 12, 1933 in the City Hospital of Cambridge, Massachusetts to Howard George and Lilly Elvira Harvey. I grew up and went to school in Wollaston, Massachusetts, for the required thirteen years, graduating 64th among boys and 122nd overall in a class of 2,013, on June 8, 1951.

I enlisted in the USAF on June 10, 1951 and was sent by troop train to Samson Air Force Base in upper New York state for eight weeks basic training. I was seventeen years old and desired only to go to aviation cadets (gadgets) to become a pilot. A practical impossibility, as only those with two or more years of college were being taken at the time. I was promoted to PFC (later known as Airman Third Class) after six weeks, and left Samson for technical school at Chicago -- at a civilian school known as Commercial Trades Institute in North Chicago -- to live in a hotel and go to classes for twelve weeks of automotive maintenance schooling. This was because I was not allowed my first choice of aircraft maintenance. After completing school, I was sent to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey for subsequent assignment to the European Theater of Operations (ETO). My eighteenth birthday was spent on board the USMSTS General William O. Darby, a troopship, on the stormy Atlantic Ocean to endure the seven-day trip to Southampton, England. Processing there led to a long train trip north to Burtonwood AB, in Warrington, Lancastershire, between Manchester and Liverpool. There I began a three-year tour as the enviable motor pool grease monkey that I had never really wanted to be. Listen carefully and you will hear a tiny violin in the background.

I extended the tour for six extra months so as to come home for discharge, which was my only way to get to pilot training. Allow me to try an explanation. Rules changed so as to allow personnel with eighteen or more months of military time to be considered in lieu of the two year college requirement, but not from overseas. Direct application had to be made from a ZI (that is Zone of the Interior or Continental USA) assignment. By getting out and then re-enlisting within ninety days, I saved the rank, A1C (then E-4, or Buck Sergeant as we called it). By doing so at a testing base, like Samson, I could apply for pilot training directly and immediately. So, orders were cut after I re-enlisted in Boston, sending me to Samson. Big mistake...the orders placed me on "pipeline status" from which only re-training into a new enlisted career field was allowed. So, I selected Aircraft Equipment Repair, the shortest school available (seventeen weeks) and went to Chanute AFB for it. While there, I was the only old-timer, and thus was offered a quick acceleration of classes if I would stay and instruct. Yes, that was followed by a sigh as I completed the seventeen weeks of schooling in three weeks, and became an instructor.

I ran to apply for pilot training, but another problem awaited me. While I was in England, I met and fell in love with a GI brat who was the dependent of a MSgt at the base hospital. Once home in the States, we decided to marry. Having done so, I was eliminated from going to aviation cadets, for they took only single applicants. Thus, OCS became my only way to pilot training, and that by getting the gold bars first then going on to pilot training in grade. My application was delayed, since OCS was only accepting applications from SSgts or above. After a while, I made SSgt, and in went another application -- with a letter returning, saying that I would be considered for entry in two consecutive classes, 57B starting January 1957 and 57C starting in March. I was not favorably considered for 57B but I was selected for 57C, The rest was to be learned there.

We all remember that first day at Lackland, don't we? How wonderful it was to be greeted by such courteous gentlemen at the sidewalk to the office building, told exactly where to park our cars, and ushered into the building and even helping us with our bags. ‘Till the door closed behind us! Three days later, I was in the hospital at Lackland with serious cellulitis of the right ankle and restricted as a bed patient for two weeks. (Mr. Mays from our class went, too, and washed back to 57D as a result of his stay.) While I was there, everyone got to request their assignments after OCS -- everyone but I, of course. I came back for SIE night and received five special inspections that night alone. Some of my classmates had been detailed to keep me up on the academics which had started while I was in the hospital and Phase I tests were the week after I got out. I made it and began to fit back in with 57C then. I may have caught a bit more hell a bit later along than most of my classmates, but they carried me through very well indeed. I tried like the devil to get to pilot training by pulling some serious personnel shenanigans, but it all went to no avail -- and I even faced some pretty serious administrative admonishments.

After the graduation, my wife and I drove to my original home in Massachusetts to be reunited with our then nine-month-old son, David Jr. We dropped somebody off (maybe that guy will tell us who he was, 'cause neither J.J. nor I can remember) at Binelli's Restaurant near Saint Louis, but in Illinois, and Sir J. J. Egan at Champaign/Urbana, Illinois, along the way. My assignment was to Aircraft Maintenance Officer School at Chanute AFB, Illinois where we were joined by Lieutenants Don Zurschmidt, Frank Walls, Billy Sims, and Quitman Lott, and all their wives as well. It was there that I suddenly reverted to pre-OCS stupidity and somewhat over extended myself on the false perception of a second lieutenant’s real position, and traded away my classic 1955 Chevy for a new 1958 job. That was a really stupid thing to do.

I continued to fight for a chance to attend pilot training, as I had tried at OCS, but like when at Lackland, I missed it due to being hospitalized for the first two weeks, I missed it at Chanute because of regs that prevent it until directed-to-duty assignments are satisfied. Thus, I completed that course and was assigned to the 23rd Interceptor Group at Presque Isle AFB, Maine. This was as the Periodic Maintenance Officer for the 75th and 76th Fighter Squadrons, once known as the original Flying Tigers. They were flying Northrop F-89H Scorpions, decorated with the tiger-teeth and all. They were already under orders to close the base the next year (1959). So I knew that I wouldn't be there long, but long enough for us to have a daughter, Vicki Lynn, born at Loring in the snow...and I mean SNOW. I was transferred to Suffolk County AFB, on the extreme end of Long Island, NY, where the water of the Atlantic to the south and the water of Long Island Sound on the north keep trying to swap sides. The 52nd Interceptor Group and the 2nd and 5th Fighter Squadrons were both flying Convair F-102A Delta Daggers. It was while there as the Flight Line and Field Maintenance Officer that my directed-to-duty assignment was completed, and my application to pilot training was granted.

I entered Class 62A for Primary Flight Training at Graham AB in sunny Mariana, Florida on June 20, 1960 where I became the squadron commander because I was the only first lieutenant In the class. We checked out in the Beechcraft T-34A Mentor followed by extensive training in the little Cessna T-37A and B Tweety Bird twin jets. It was here that about 50% of my hearing in the higher frequencies was lost, but to no disadvantage for the rest of my career. While there, my wife turned out to be pregnant again so that when the class assignments for Basic Pilot Training were to be chosen, I took the closest possible base, Craig AFB in sunny Selma, Alabama. Again, I was appointed squadron commander of student jocks. I was given training for the entire time in the world famous old timer classic Lockheed T-33A T Bird, and my wife presented a second daughter, Donna Lee. The Harveys now numbered five. Graduation was in September of 1961 (for the arguers among you, that was the first quarter of Fiscal Year 1962, thus the class number 62A). And after my enroute TDY assignment as to Reno, Nevada to attend the Combat Crewmember Survival Training Course at Stead AFB, I was assigned to the 18th Air Transport Squadron at McGuire AFB, New Jersey. They were the first squadron in MATS to get the Boeing C-135A aircraft and at the time I signed in, we had one aircraft and over two hundred pilots to be checked out. Guess who was last on the list? I was assigned TDY to the 27th Transport Squadron and checked out on the Douglas C-118A. By March 1962, I was flying those in civilian clothes with all the paint and markings removed from the aircraft --ferrying Ethiopian troops into and out of the Mau Mau war in the Congo. That lasted nearly 3 months and upon return to the USA we were the first crew to bring home the first reservists from the second Berlin Airlift. President JFK met us on the ramp as we tried to get to the Andrews AFB ops building to get home. We were very embarrassed, as there were plenty of TV cameras there and we still sported the three-month beards and long hair accrued during our secret enterprise in the Congo.

Upon return to McGuire, I was next on the list for C-135 check-out and later became qualified in the fan-powered C-135B model, as well. Then they read my record, found out about my maintenance training, and I became the Flight Line Maintenance Officer and Flight Test Maintenance Officer for all the C-118 and C-135 fleet. I flew worldwide trips as well, so my flight time mounted up fast and in both types of aircraft. From 1961 through well into 1965, I thrived at McGuire and Jean gave me our second son, Mark Howard while there. The Harveys quit at six!

Harvey

David C. (Dave) Harvey, Major USAF (Retired)(Deceased)

USAF OCS Class 57C, OC Lt, Shavetail Editor