So secret were the ARCWs that when a 581st H-19 helicopter piloted by 1st Lt. Robert Sullivan rescued the top U.S. air ace, Capt. Joe McConnell, after his F-86 Sabre went down in the Yellow Sea, the Air Force reenacted the rescue at a freshwater lake in Japan to create a much-published photo that gave the impression McConnell had been picked up by the Air Rescue Service rather than the clandestine unit.
The well-equipped ARCWs performed many missions that verge on the unbelievable. For example, an SA-16 Albatross operating from a base in Turkey made a daring night landing in the Caspian Sea, surrounded by Soviet territory, to retrieve a high-ranking defector and his family.
An A-26 Invader fires up its engines. The old aircraft flew counter-insurgency missions in Vietnam. Robert F. Dorr Collection
In the late 1950s, with Korea behind, the Air Force dismantled the ARCWs and turned the special operations mission over to Air National Guard units in California, Maryland, Rhode Island, and West Virginia, all equipped with black-painted SA-16 seaplanes. Former Guardsmen from two other states, Arkansas and Alabama, flew B-26 Invaders during the April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, a paramilitary attempt to oust Fidel Castro that failed. During this era, with CIA funds, the Air Force developed the Helio U-10 Courier light aircraft (known initially as the L-28) which was capable of landing and taking off in as little as 50 feet.
In 1967, the term “Special Operations” replaced “Air Commando,” not to the pleasure of all, and in 1970, Special Operations airmen participated in the raid on the Son Tay prisoner of war (POW) camp.
Southeast Asia
When Air Force members began operating in Laos and Vietnam at the start of the 1960s, the U-10 was just what they needed to reach remote villages that lacked an airstrip. But the Air Force lacked much more. Once again, because of a lull between wars, it had no organized special operations units. Air Force members who worked directly for the CIA flew the first U-10s and T-28 fighter-bombers. For years the war in Laos, which included airmen known as Ravens secretly flying forward air control missions, was directed not by some brass-hat general but by the American ambassador in Vietnam.
An Air Commando A-1E Skyraider escorts an HH-3C rescue helicopter as it goes to pick up a downed pilot in Vietnam, 1966. National Museum of the USAF
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave a fresh breath of support to the Army’s Special Forces, the Green Berets. In April, eager to revive the World War II tradition, Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis E. LeMay authorized the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron (code-named Jungle Jim), which eventually took T-28s and B-26s to Vietnam in the Farm Gate program. The Air Force resurrected the term Air Commandos and gave the men a distinctive uniform, which included an Australia-New Zealand campaign hat, blue flying scarf, starched fatigues, and combat boots. As their presence grew in Southeast Asia, this new breed of Air Commandos were anything but military in appearance, however: They packed .45 automatics or Swedish K submachine guns, wore whatever they pleased, spoke smidgeons or more of the local language, and seemed more comfortable in a village than in the company of traditional airmen with their sleek and un-Commando-like fast jets.
Two U.S. Air Force Bell UH-1P helicopters from the 20th Special Operations Squadron over Cambodia, circa 1969.
If there was a symbol of the Air Commandos in Southeast Asia, it was the clattering A-1E Skyraider, a prop plane in a jet war. Few aircraft evoked such a mix of affection and frustration. Pilots rued the way the Skyraider’s four 20-milimeter cannons overheated, melted down, and sometimes set the wing on fire. One pilot complained that the big radial engine leaked so much oil, he might slip and fall on the flight line and break his neck before the Viet Cong could ever get a shot at him. The Air Commandos eventually fielded two squadrons of these aging warplanes. In the bullet-raked A Shau Valley of South Vietnam on March 10, 1966, Maj. Bernard F. Fisher landed his A-1E under enemy fire to rescue a downed airman, a heroic action that won him the Medal of Honor. Four more special operations airmen won the nation’s highest award during the Vietnam era.
Majors Fisher and Myers after the dramatic rescue of Myers. Fisher received the Medal of Honor for landing under fire to pick up the downed Myers. Robert F. Dorr Collection
In 1966, the Air Force reached its peak strength for special operations forces with a total of 10,000 people, 550 aircraft, and 19 squadrons. The service introduced AC-47, AC-119, and AC-130 gunships, the only warplanes in the world that engage a target while flying in a pylon turn. In 1967, the term “Special Operations” replaced “Air Commando,” not to the pleasure of all, and in 1970, Special Operations airmen participated in the raid on the Son Tay prisoner of war (POW) camp.
Post-Vietnam
The Air Force emerged from Vietnam, as from previous wars, with considerable special operations expertise but with no permanent special operations force. As late as 1980, the service still had no system for identifying special operations skill codes in its personnel records, making it difficult to locate airmen with appropriate talents when they were needed. The tendency to approach special operations on an ad hoc basis highlighted numerous deficiencies during the failed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran in April 1980, and again in Operation Urgent Fury, the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983.