"There are pilots and there are pilots; with the good ones, it is inborn.
You can't teach it. If you are a fighter pilot, you have to be willing to
take risks."
Brig. Gen. Robin Olds
Fighter pilots used to say that there was a glass case in the Pentagon built
to the precise dimensions of then-Colonel Robin Olds, who would be frozen
and displayed wearing his rankless flight suit, crushed fore and aft cap,
gloves, and torso harness with .38 and survival knife. Beside the case, was
a fire ax beneath a sign reading :
"In case of war, break glass."
It was something of an exaggeration, but it contained an element of truth.
Robin Olds was built for war. And he was born to fly. It was imprinted in
his genes. Born in July 1922, Robin was the son of the influential airman
Robert Olds. As a disciple of Billy Mitchell, the elder Olds became a
prominent advocate of strategic bombing and did more than anyone to make the
B-17 an operational reality before World War II. Olds' influence was
acknowledged by no less an authority than Curtis LeMay.
A big, strapping kid, Robin had drawn attention when his high school
football team won the Virginia state championship in 1937. He turned down
athletic scholarships in favor of West Point and entered the corps of cadets
in 1940, destined for the Class of '44.
Among his classmates was later Colonel William J. Hovde of World War II and
Korean fame. Billy Hovde used to insist, "I was Robin's ballroom partner . .
because I was the only one in the class who could dance backwards."
At West Point Robin made All-American as a tackle and was named lineman of
the year in 1942. Such was his success that he was inducted into the college
football hall of fame in 1985.
But more than anything, Robin wanted to fly-and he wanted fighters. He got
his wish. He became one of only a dozen West Pointers to make ace ( in
comparison to 30 Annapolis alumni.)
Robin was commissioned and rated a pilot on June 1, 1943. a 20-year-old
second lieutenant. He joined the 479th Fighter Group in February '44, and
upon arrival in England that May he had 640 hours total time. Twelve months
later he was a Major leading a squadron.
Robin was a team player as long as the team wanted to play. When the leaders
were only interested in suiting up, he exercised some initiative. In other
words, he went freelancing. In his first two dogfights he was alone with his
wingman, having left formation to hunt on his own. As he wryly noted long
afterward, "When I shot down my first two airplanes I was relieved to see
that they had black crosses on their wings."
Robin used to say that the two best things about World War II were London
and Colonel Zemke. When the 479th's first commander was shot down in August
1944, Hub Zemke moved over from the fabled 56th Fighter Group and
rejuvenated the Mighty Eighth's last fighter outfit. Not that Robin needed
any rejuvenating, but the group had plodded along in pedestrian fashion.
In a few weeks Zemke turned things around, and added to Robin's already
formidable determination to succeed as a shooter and a leader. The group
converted to P-51s in September but Zemke's Mustang broke up in a storm over
Germany the next month and he became a POW. However, the lesson had been
learned and absorbed.
Robin became commanding officer of the 434th Fighter Squadron at age 22, and
he never forgot it. Decades later he said, "As a Major I was responsible for
feeding and housing my men, training my men, and rewarding or punishing
them. As a colonel I had to check with some general for permission to visit
the latrine."
Unlike many pilots who regarded airplanes as tools, Robin could be
sentimental about his machines. Near the end of the war he was one of six
P-51 pilots who attacked a German airdrome and found himself the lone
survivor. He nursed his crippled Mustang back to base but found that it
stalled at 175 mph, rolling violently. But as he said, "Scat VI had taken me
through a lot and I was damned if I was going to give up on her."
Somehow he got the bird on the runway and kept it in one piece.
When the European war ended, Robin had made ace in both the P-38 and P-51,
probably the only pilot ever to do so. Postwar After VE-Day Robin returned
to the States and reverted to his permanent rank : a 23-year-old Captain. He
married Ella Raines, one of the most glamorous actresses of the era, and got
on with his career.
He briefly returned to West Point as assistant football coach but chafed at
the thought of missing the new jets entering service. Therefore, he arranged
a transfer to March Field, flying P-80 Shooting Stars. He thrived there,
becoming a member of the first jet flight demonstration team and that same
year, 1946, was second in the jet phase of the Thompson Trophy Race.
Robin went to England as an exchange pilot in 1948, flying No. 1 Squadron's
Gloster Meteors. The American Major commanded the prestigious British
squadron in 1949, enjoying the high jinks typical of an RAF mess : a mixture
of drinking and physicality that appealed to him.
Upon return to the States, Robin commanded the 71st Fighter Squadron at
Pittsburgh. He was thoroughly unhappy in Air Defense Command, protecting
Steel Town from Soviet bombers when friends were bagging MiGs in Korea.
Almost beside himself, he wrangled a temporary assignment to the Far East,
and the world looked good again. As he explained, "I had to go behind my
boss's back, but I thought it was worth it. My wife even had induced labor
so I could see my daughter before I left, and I was on the way out the door
when the phone rang. It was my CO. He said, " Gotcha. If I don't go, you
don't go."
The CO was another ETO triple ace, Colonel Jack Bradley, who was equally
eager to hassle with MiGs. Robin missed Korea, and he never got over it. He
made full colonel April 1953, which made him eligible to command a group,
but the war was winding down.
Robin served penance in the Pentagon 1958-1962, waging a notably
unsuccessful campaign to keep guns in new fighter aircraft. "Missiles were
immature technology for years and years after that," he insisted, not
without reason. His pet project was an F-102 with bubble canopy and a gun,
which came to naught.
Robin also had other ideas.
While visiting an aircraft storage facility he noticed some Navy piston
airplanes " with all these lovely hardpoints under their wings." He figured
that if the "squids" weren't using all their Douglas Skyraiders, the Air
Force should take up the slack. Eventually the Air Commandos were flying
A-1s as the fabulous Sandys, providing close air support in South-east Asia.
From 1963 to '65 Robin assumed command of the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing at
RAF Bentwaters. There he formed an F-101 aerobatic team, demonstrating the
Voodoo's low- level performance across Europe-without official approval.
Accounts vary, but if Robin truly broke regulations as a way of getting
kicked out of Europe, it worked. Third Air Force wanted to court martial
him, but General Gabe Disosway of USAFE took pity and dispatched him to
ponder his evil ways at Shaw AFB, South Carolina.
Robin later said that a rotund star wearer had intoned, "Olds, you're the
kind of Air Force officer who should be sent to Southeast Asia." As if that
were a bad thing.
Wolfpack Robin got exactly what he wanted: command of an air-to-air fighter
wing, hunting MiGs. The disappointment of Korea drifted a dozen years
astern. Robin's arrival at Ubon, Thailand, was uncharacteristically low key.
He knew from his own sources that all was not well in the 8th TFW and
resolved to see it from the perspective of the FNG-the "freaking" new guy.
He went through the normal in-processing routine like any other newbie, paid
close attention and spoke little. By the time he reached the front office,
he reckoned that he knew all he needed to. He began cleaning house.
First he cut loose the deadwood, the ticket punchers and careerists who had
" sniveled some counters "- missions that counted toward completion of a
tour when in fact they had not gone north. Then he began learning the way
the Wolfpack did business so he could improve upon it. He stood before the
Phantom crews and said, "I'm going to start here by flying Green Sixteen (
tail-end Charlie ) and you guys are going to teach me how. But teach me fast
and teach me good, because I'm a quick learner."
Sitting in the audience was Captain Ralph Wetterhahn, a future MiG killer.
Like so many other pilots and WSOs, he was energized by the new CO's
press-on attitude. Years later, Wetterhahn compared Olds' arrival with that
of Brigadier General Frank Savage (Gregory Peck) in Twelve O'Clock High.
The old ways were not only out, they were deceased. A new regime had arisen,
and the Wolfpack began showing results.
Under Olds' predecessor, who seldom flew combat, the 8th had eked out a
meager kill-loss ratio. Like the rest of the Air Force, it had barely broken
even with Hanoi's MiGs, peaking at a 2-1 exchange rate. Under Robin, the
Wolfpack shot to the top of the Southeast Asia league, bagging 18 MiGs, and
when he left, the wing's kill ratio stood at 4-1.
Robin entered his second war with over 4,000 hours, mostly in fighters. At
44 he was flying against Vietnamese pilots probably half his age. But he
came into his own at Ubon. He ruled over a fiefdom like a feudal baron,
enjoying the excitement of the hunt by day and discussing the great game
with his men at arms by night. He would have been completely at home in
Arthurian England; better yet in Arthurian legend.
The free-wheeling environment at Ubon fueled morale, and the Wolfpack's was
stratospheric. Dedicated consumers of booze and red meat, they reveled in
the warrior ethic. In contrast, today's sedate, sober young professionals
are superbly educated, highly competent, and terrified that they might say
something that somebody would find objectionable. Robin did not want to
live in that world.
And he didn't.
Unsatisfied with the restrictive rules of engagement, Robin began seeking a
way around them. He found it in the realm of deception and began planning
Operation Bolo. On January 2nd, 1967, he led the Wolfpack into an aerial
ambush of MiG-21s expecting to jump a formation of F-105s. Instead of bomb
laden"Thuds" the Viet-namese found a passel of hungry Phantoms.
Bolo's seven credited kills exceeded the 8th's tally during all the previous
CO's tenure. Robin got one himself, becoming the only pilot to score in WW
II and Vietnam. Over the next year he added three more.
Upon return to the U.S., Robin was acclaimed as America's top gun of the war
to date, a record he retained for the next five years. But he was
contemptuous of the Air Force's attitude toward air combat, exclaiming, "The
best flying job in the world is a MiG-21 pilot at Phuc Yen. Hell, if I was
one of them I'd have got 50 of us !"
Despite his MiG-killing fame, Robin was perhaps proudest of the strike
against North Vietnam's best-defended target: Thai Nguyen steel mill. In an
ultra low-level attack, leaving rooster tails on the paddies behind them,
Olds and two wingmen put their bombs on target. He considered it a
dangerously wasteful effort, as the mill had been hit repeatedly, but its
smoke stacks had remained standing. What he valued most was the courage and
skill of his aircrews.
After Vietnam, having promoted Robin to Brigadier General, the Air Force
sought a safe place to stash him. For reasons both ironic and obscure, he
was assigned as commandant of cadets at the Air Force Academy, where his
brand of irreverent individualism could infect hundreds of future officers.
Robin's influence on the cadets was profound. One who became a FAC and
author was Darrel Whitcomb, who recalls,"In the fall of 1968, I was a first
class cadet at the Academy when he was our commandant. Every Friday evening
he would have the first classmen from a different squadron to his house for
dinner. I was in Seventh Squadron. The evening of our visit, I was late to
arrive because. I had my very first solo. I walked in as he was telling a
war story. Seeing me in my flight suit, he asked if I had just had a flight.
Needless to say, I had to share my big event.
He listened and then said, ' This deserves something special.' He left the
room and came back about five minutes later with one of his flying scarves.
It reeked of whiskey and cigars. He put it around my neck and said, ' Well,
now we have another new Wolf cub.'
"I was absolutely blown away by his act and felt at that moment, that if he
had asked, I would have flown that T-41 to Hanoi for him."
After Colorado Springs, Robin was packed off as Director of Aerospace Safety
to finish his career but got an unexpected reprieve. When the Vietnam war
heated up again in 1972, his four MiGs remained the U.S. record.
Offering to take a reduction to Colonel for a chance at the fifth MiG, Robin
instead was dispatched to learn why the Navy was running up a 12-1 kill
ratio while the Air Force struggled to maintain parity. He found what he
feared : most Air Force fighter crews "couldn't fight their way out of a wet
paper bag." Commander John Nichols, a Navy MiG killer brought to Udorn,
Thailand to teach dogfighting to the Air Force blue suits, saw Robin taxi
his F-4 into the chocks after a practice mission. "The canopy came open,
followed by General Olds' helmet in a high, lofting arc. He was not happy."
Robin retired in June 1973. With 17 career victories ( thirteen in WW II
plus four in Vietnam ) when he died this year, he was America's
third-ranking living ace. The top three now are Walker "Bud" Mahurin
( 24.25 ), Alexander Vraciu ( 19 ) and Clarence
"Bud" Anderson ( 16.25. )
In retrospect, I'll never forget the first time I met Robin in the late
'70s. He wore a Nehru jacket with what resembled a peace symbol pendant.
Looking closer, I saw that it was a stylized rendition of "the track of the
Great American Chicken" that actually said "War."
Robin cultivated image of the warmongering fighter jock, but just beneath
the barbarian façade lurked a powerful intellect. In unguarded moments he
allowed the esthete to pop up for a quick look-see, before pulling the
manhole cover back over his head.
On one occasion we were discussing history and Robin smiled. "In 416 BC,
Hannibal conducted the first recorded battle of encirclement." He looked at
me from slitted eyes.
"You know, someday I'd love to tell old Hannibal how Cannae became the basis
for Operation Bolo."
That was what detectives call . . A Clue. Robin Olds, who some regarded as
an alcohol-fueled throttle jockey, had the gray matter to reach back 2,383
years and apply the lesson of antiquity to the jet age.
But there was more.
Far too many military personnel, policemen, and politicians mouth their oath
of office as a rote exercise. Not Robin Olds. He thought about the words,
absorbed, them, and passed them along. In addressing newly commissioned
officers he said, "The airman swears that he will obey the orders of the
officers appointed over him. Do you realize what responsibilities that puts
on your shoulders ? Your orders have to be legal and proper. Think about
it, before you give one. But think about how to protect and defend the
Constitution. Because do you know what that is ? That is by, for, and of
The People. It is not the President; it is not the Speaker of the House; nor
the Leader of the Senate.It is the People of the United States; who,
hope-fully in their wisdom will guide their forces properly."
Robin had been writing a memoir for several years. Says F-4 pilot and
novelist Mark Berent, "It was well written, as you'd expect from Robin, but
it wasn't really about him. It was more about people he knew."
Another Air Force officer who read part of the text said that it began as an
ethereal discussion with the ghost of Robin's father. Robert Olds had asked
his son the status of the U.S. Air Force and got a detailed debriefing on
what's wrong with the service. It was a long list.
When he died on June 14, not quite 85, Robin left the work incomplete. The
fact that his book remains unfinished represents a major loss to aviation
literature. However, I bet that by now Robin has cornered Hannibal in some
corner of Valhalla and thanked him for the example of Cannae.
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