Every now and then I find myself pioneering through the vast unknowns of the world wide web in the eternal search for knowledge and freedom from boredom. Unfortunately there always seems to be a limit to what's available and of interest. On the flip side of that equation, there appears to be an infinite amount of junk on the Internet. One day last year I was looking for information on the web about the tiny Alaskan island of Shemya. Many years ago, I had a friend in the Air Force who was stationed there. Shemya is a fragment of a rock lodged halfway between our world and the Russians amidst the Aleutian Islands that is barely big enough have one runway and a handful of buildings and hangars. As diminutive as it sounds, Shemya actually played a very large role in the security of the United States during the heights of the Cold War. It was during my search for information on Shemya that I found a website with a particular intrigue that keeps drawing me back. The site is called A Tale of Two Airplanes and was authored by a former U.S. serviceman named Kingdon Hawes. Hawes was an Electronic Warfare Officer on a RC-135 Rivet Ball aircraft assigned to Shemya in the 1960s. He tells a story of two very early RC-135 aircraft, Rivet Ball and Rivet Amber, and his unit's adventures at Shemya during our standoff with the Soviets. As a huge fan of both aviation and Cold War espionage, I found the site to be highly fascinating. So much so that I have revisited it several times since I first found the site last year, just to re-read it. Interestingly it turns out that Hawes currently resides in the same metropolitan area as PointNiner, and the successors to Rivet Ball and Rivet Amber live down the street as well at Offutt AFB in the form of Rivet Joint and Cobra Ball aircraft. I don't really do website reviews, but I really felt like sharing this site with whoever else might find the tales interesting in appreciation for Mr. Hawes sharing his stories.
You can check out A Tale of Two Airplanes HERE.
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Thursday, August 7, 2008
A Tale of Two Airplanes
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5 comments:
Steve,
Thanks for the accurate write-up and nice comments about my website, "A Tale of Two Airplanes", much appreciated.
Regards,
King Hawes
www.RC135.com
Nice post. I wrote an article ("The Ides of March") about the crash of Cobra Ball II that King published within his site, "A Tale of Two Airplanes." If King returns to this site, please contact me as I've moved to the Northeast.
-Dr. K. Crooks
kac135@gmail.com
I just made contact with Dr. Kerry Crooks. The link below will take you directly to his story, "The Ides of March", about the Cobra Ball II crash on Shemya in 1981.
http://community-2.webtv.net/@HH!B1!D5!52C2BB1B304E/CobraBall/KerryCrooks/
Thanks for that review of King's site. I'm surprised I hadn't seen your site earlier. I flew with King and many others mentioned in King's site, on both Ball and Amber. I was on Rivet Ball when it went off the runway.
razvedchik1@comcast.net
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