James F. Bond Sr. Interview, 26 February 2005
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| TT: | I can imagine. | |
| JB: | A lot of tragedy I saw in Okinawa. I witnessed 4 different aircraft crashes and a lot of guys killed. The last one was a KC-135 that was carrying, I think it had 25 guys going back to the world, or the United States on emergency leave and it crashed on take off. It went across Highway One, and the nose of the aircraft came to rest just past the entry gate where the security officer was, to one of the largest weapons areas over in that area— | |
| TT: | In '68 there was a B-52 that crashed at Minot, I don't know if you recall that. | |
| JB: | Yeah. I didn't, fact one of the 52's that crashed there on base, I was coming out of the personnel building one day when it happened. I saw all the smoke and everything. The other base I didn't mention was Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. | |
| TT: | Oh you were you down there. | |
| JB: | I was there, my youngest daughter from a previous marriage was born there in '68. | |
| TT: | What were you doing at Holloman? | |
| JB: | Another thing I left out—trying to think of the base we were at. When you get old your memory starts going you know? We went to Chambley Air Force Base, France [Chambley-Bussieres Air Base]. Our unit was flying F-84's, which is an older jet and we were in four bases in France, Chambley, Phalsbourg [Phalsbourg-Bourscheid Air Base], Chamount [Chaumont-Semoutiers Air Base—April 1962], and Etain [Étain - Rouvres Air Base] were the names of the bases there. I had a good time there because we got to go pretty much all over Europe. And we came back, when we'd left and they closed the base down, the French were getting a little worried about Americans being there after they got all the money they wanted. Our entire wing left and went to Holloman Air Force base [July 1963], that's how I got to Holloman. | |
| TT: | Oh, OK. How long were you in Holloman? | |
| JB: | I was in Holloman I guess about a year and a half—somewhere in there, working flight line security. My daughter was born there in '68 but I would have to go look at my papers. | |
| TT: | After that you would have gone to Minot? | |
| JB: | Yeah, while we were at Holloman we had another temporary duty assignment to Vietnam then came back to Holloman. I can't think where I went after that, I did so much moving around, so many temporary duties. Holloman was a nice place. I worked mostly security there and our unit was 366th Tac Fighter Wing, and then they converted to F-4 Phantoms. That unit went to Vietnam while we were still over there. | |
| TT: | So that's Tactical Air Command? | |
| JB: | Yeah, Tactical Air Command. Now at Holland they've got the Blackbirds I think it's the 71st Recon. | |
| [break in recording] | ||
| TT: | You mentioned two sightings, one in Alaska in '56 and another in Okinawa in '65, what might you have seen? | |
| JB: | Lights mainly. |
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