Warbird Information Exchange

Okay Gents,

She is in fact the ex Warrensburg machine (51-1639) given by CMSU to the Military and Air Museum of the Ozarks.
Mr. Jean Putman who has been involved in her restoration since pick up at Warrensburg gave me her operational history:

Accepted by USAF 17 Dec 1954 and:
Assigned to 401 Fighter Bomber Group England AFB, La.
Assigned to 110 TFS Mo ANG Lambert Field St. Louis Mo. in 1957:

Deployed to Tours Air Base France in Nov 1961 in response to Berlin Crisis as part of Operation Stair Step. The unit redeployed in Jul 62 but 1639 stayed and was:

Assigned to the 366 TFS (@ Tours AB, Training French AF?)
Assigned to TAC Command at Holloman AFB NM Jul 1963
Assigned to 122 TFS IN ANG Baer Filed Ft Wayne IN Feb 1964
Withdrawn and given to CMSU in Dec 1971 as instructional Airframe
Donated to Military and Air Museum of the Ozarks in 2004, moved from
Warrensburg Mo to Springfield Downtown (K3DW) Springfield Mo in
2006(?).

Not a bad run for the ole Sled egh?

Gary

The Missouri ANG F-84s sent to France were assigned to Toul. The air base at Tours was used by the US Army in World War I, but not by the USAF for F-84s in the '60s. The 366th TFW was HQed at Chaumont AFB, with satellite bases at Toul-Rosieres AFB, Etain-Rourves AFB, Chambley AFB, and Phalsbourg AFB. I was assigned to Etain, which is just up the road from Toul, in 1962 - 1964. We had the ANG F-84 "hogs" for a year after the Guard guys went home, and then they were sent to Holloman in 1963. We called them hogs because other units in TAC had up-to-date century series fighters at that time.
BTW, the 366th was not "training the French AF".
The base fuels officer at Toul once "accused" me of stealing a 55 gallon drum of engine oil (for a C-130) at dawn one Sunday. Our POL officer at Etain convinced him that I didn't "steal" it; I just hadn't bothered with the proper paperwork at the time I left Toul with said oil.

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Steve Turner, USAF aircraft refueler 54+ years ago.

ktst97 Thanks for clearing up the Tours/Toul error, that was me not hearing correctly I am sure. The change from Tours (a French AF Training base) and your knowledge clears up my question about training activities, or the lact of. Thanks a lot.

Did you recall wrenching on 1639?

As an avid ramp rat at Etain ("I can get that bird on the transient ramp, Sarge"), I might possibly have refueled it, but I highly doubt it. We rarely had 84s from the other 366th TFW bases land at Etain. Chances that I refueled the F-84 currently at the NMUSAF are much higher, but I have trouble remembering my ZIP code, much less the tail numbers of the many birds I refueled over the course of 4 years.

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Steve Turner, USAF aircraft refueler 54+ years ago.