THE SPY
Bud Farrell
At briefing for one mission late in the fall of '52, we were advised that we should trust absolutely NO ONE with any information that we had been briefed on! Apparently there was some legitimate concern that confidential or secret information with mission details was getting out and into the wrong hands with the possibility of jeopardizing the safety of the mission and combat crews. *
Three of the gunners on our crew had been in the same class in Gunnery School, and previously in Remote Control Turret School at Lowry AFB, with a fellow from Florida named Audrey (Bob) Bassett, a very likeable guy, quiet, probably scholarly, and as mild mannered an Armament Technician as existed! Bob had already been in the 93rd Squadron when we arrived after many months of varied combat crew training between Gunnery school and shipping overseas as an "Eagle Crew", predesignated for a combat tour.
Immediately after the briefing admonishment to tell NO one anything, we arrived at our assigned aircraft and Bob was one of the armament men finishing loading and fusing the bombs, and being somewhat close to several of us, we just KNEW he would ask - as did many of the ground crew - "where we were going tonight", the type of bombs loaded typically reflecting a certain type of target, 100 pounders for an airfield or antipersonnel and/or flak and searchlight suppression, 500 pounders for bridges or industrial or ammunition and supply depots, etc.
Only the perverse minds of young Gunners could have foreseen the opportunity of scarin' the livin' hell out of someone ... and we DID! When Bassett very innocently and casually asked what we were going after that night, as plotted, we all started to draw our .45's at once and said "OK, we got the SPY!" I thought Bassett would faint dead away and he turned seven shades whiter than he already was! Bassett was a great guy and even he laughed ... a little! Bob Bassett, if you're out there, please know that we have never forgotten you ... for this but more for the job that you guys did for all of us ... with a great deal of hazard and guts ... and very little but well deserved GLORY! *
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* On July 22nd, 2001, I found Bob Bassett through an internet search and called and have corresponded with him ... almost 50 years of remembering! He received a copy of this narrative on July 27th, just one day before entering the hospital and only a few days before passing away on August 2 nd, 2001 ... I had waited just 50 years too long to find Bob Bassett ... this gentle soul! May he rest in peace and his family know that others - "strangers" - have also thought so much of him so often through these many years. My belated finding of Bob Bassett, and learning of his death, prompted me to once again search for Floyd Gentry from our RCT and Gunnery School Classes, all previous searches through telephone information while on business trips through Kansas having been fruitless over several years. A last chance effort on August 5th, 2001, and Floyd Gentry showed up in an Internet search as being finally back home in Beloit, Kansas after retiring, and we have talked on the phone several times in the past few weeks. Floyd reminded me that he and his uncle from Denver had taken me trout fishing on Mt. Evans in what I believe were called the Chicago Lakes. Spotting a series of lakes below us in what appeared to be a level chain, we slid down a shale slide, realizing too late that it was a very long and steep slide with no way to climb back up ... so we slid several more slides to make it out to a road and hitched a ride back to where their car was ... quite an adventure! And I reminded Floyd of the barracks "bull session" debate we had had while in RCT School, about the physics, thrust, etc., of jet engine propulsion ... my thinking it was "air pushing on air" to propel the revolutionary new jet planes of that era ... and I was completely wrong and had to call and remind Floyd and apologize for my ignorance ... and hardheadedness ... both privileges of youth ... and perhaps being Irish!
My previous thoughts of Bob Bassett reminded me of something that always intrigued me while on our combat tour ... the almost mystical appearance of the hardstand bomb dump replenishment. Invariably, while we were off on a mission, and upon our return, the bombload for forthcoming missions was already in place of that which we had just taken away several hours before. The hardstand supply usually consisted of a full load of 192-100 pounders and 39 or 40 - 500 pounders, so having taken away the supply for that night's mission meant a huge effort of overnight replacement by armament section personnel for up to as many as 300 TONS on 30 hardstands in one group if a max effort had just been flown. (On a few missions we did carry 40 - M-69 Incendiary Bombs, a "container bomb shell" that contained 38-hexagonal shaped bombs, a total of 1,520 so called "Flowers of Edo" ("Flowers of Tokyo" as described by the Japanese toward the end of WW II.) This effort, not without a great deal of hazard, did not get the consideration that frequently working in the damp and dark night deserved. The magnitude of the effort in just getting the bombs to the hardstand, let alone loading the bomb bays, was extraordinary ... and I suspect they never ever used or heard the word "stressed" ... these "Bombloaders" that most of us seldom ever saw in their shroud of night! |
B-29 full bombload of 40 - 500 pounders
in foreground, 192-100 pounders in rear  |
100 pounders - Approx. 1/3 of a full
B-29 bombload of 192- 100 pounders.  |
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Audrey (Bob) Bassett & friends at USO Show (How many thoughts of home?)  Farrell Photo |
* Many years after the end of the Korean War, I had more seriously heard the rumors of our mission intelligence briefings getting to the Chinese and North Koreans, with their Russian allies - THE HONCHOS - flying the majority of the Mig-15s and manning the anti aircraft Artillery and Searchlight regiments along the Yalu River, that which we had made so lightly of then and in my preceding narrative, THE SPY. In 2004 I have received additional confirmation and validation of this almost impossible to believe but certainly now proven allegation and thought that this merited consideration here, in a far more serious vein than my musings related above ... about the naivete and humor of 19 year olds!
Professor Robert Driscoll, of The University of Toronto, in 1993 in his book titled THE NEW WORLD ORDER and the THRONE of the ANTICHRIST, documented that the American public had never been told by our government that The Under Secretary for Political and Security Affairs at the United Nations has - without exception since 1945 - been a Soviet National who is Senior Advisor to the Secretary General, thus then giving the Soviet Union direct and immediate access to all of the plans for and activities engaged in by United Nations Forces anywhere in the world ... a TRUE "Spy in the Castle"!
Lt. Colonel F.P. "Bud" Farrell, USAF Retired, who served in both Korea and Vietnam, (and absolutely no relation to this Buck Sgt. Bud Farrell, Author of NO SWEAT *) has stated "the light begins to dawn on all of the 'incredible and incomprehensible' events that took place during the course of both the Korean and Vietnam wars". He further states that "All our military operations had to be forwarded by radio to the Soviet Commander of the United Nations Security Council ... before our forces went into action ... the Soviet Commander delayed the battle plans until he relayed our planning information to Moscow ... ".
The Chinese and North Korean forces, and of course their Russian mercenary friends, then relayed these battle plans to their field forces and they of course knew beforehand when and where we were coming, etc. In effect, the enemy knew our every move! And now I understand why the British and Indian Governments were so upset when we went to the Yalu River Suiho Hydroelectric Power Plant and Dam on September 12th, 1952 with NO prior notice to them OR the U.N.! We may have been "lucky" in that we only lost 3 of the 33 B-29s up that night!
And it was only AFTER that mission and raid that the Russians and Chinese ever evacuated the huge Antung - Manchurian Mig-15 base (upward of 300 Migs) just 4 miles across the Yalu River from Sinuiju and within 35 miles of the majority of our remaining North Korean Yalu River targets ... ONLY THEN THAT THEY NO LONGER KNEW WHERE WE MIGHT GO AND WHAT WE MIGHT TAKE OUT ... INCLUDING ALL OF THEIR MIGS AND THEIR SANCTUARY ... AND ONLY THEN FORCING THEM BACK TO THE TRUCE TABLE AND TALKS AT PANMUNJOM ... for another too long 10 months until July 27th, 1953!
AND ONLY NOW DO I REALLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE WITH THE SIGNS I SAW ON THE RURAL ROADS OF OKLAHOMA AND TEXAS FROM 1969 THROUGH 1992 ...
"GET THE U.S. OUT OF THE U.N!"
* The incredible coincidence of names, initials and branch of service - and perhaps even some political leanings - have created more than a few problems for me as I assume may be occurring to Lt.Colonel F.P. "Bud" Farrell also ... in his perhaps being mistaken for a "grunt" ... ME!