William McCowen was born in 1926 in Elmsford, New York. During the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], they traveled around. His father was an auto mechanic and never had to worry about a job. He was never home, though. McCowen had six sisters and one brother. His mother was a housewife. He attended a lot of schools in big suburbs. His parents did not talk about the war. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks McCowen if he remembers hearing about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He was working on the Deuell [Annotator's Note: Harvey V. Deuell] estate of Peggy Hull [Annotator's Note: pen name of Henrietta Eleanor Goodnough Deuell], the first war correspondent [Annotator's Note: she was the first female correspondent accredited by the US War Department]. She told him to go tell Mr. Skidmore [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. McCowen resented the attack. He was young at the time. Hull was excited about it because she was a foreign correspondent. She had marched with Pershing's [Annotator's Note: General of the Armies John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing] troops down to Mexico. When there, Pershing made her a first lieutenant. She covered the Japanese bombing of China [Annotator's Note: Second Sino-Japanese War, 7 July 1937 to 2 September 1945]. She was a wonderful lady. McCowen did things in the house for her. He enlisted. Everyone else was doing it and he really wanted to go. In school, he majored in art. In college, he studied illustration. He drew airplanes and he wanted to be a pilot. He was 17 and a friend of his, Freddie Prine [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], was going to be drafted. Prine asked McCowen to go to New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] with him as he was going to join the Navy. McCowen did not realize at the time that he could test for the Aviation Cadet program until a sergeant told him so. He and Fred took the test. McCowen passed and was suddenly in the Reserves at age 17. Fred went in the Navy.

William McCowen should never have gotten in the military in the first place. He had trick knees. He played a lot of sports in school. His coach was his art teacher. He made all-conference twice in basketball and twice in soccer. Boot camp was easy, and he enjoyed it. He went to Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Trenton, New Jersey] to get his uniforms and got on a troop train to Keesler Field [Annotator's Note: now Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi] for basic training and cadet classification. He qualified for bombardier or navigator, but not pilot. They had a Link Trainer [Annotator's Note: common name for flight simulators produced by Link Aviation Devices] and he washed out [Annotator’s Note: slang for failed] on it. His whole class went to Lowry Field [Annotator's Note: later Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado] for B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] gunnery school. He studied remote control [Annotator's Note: General Electric Central Fire Control system] there which was new at the time, as was the aircraft. His was only the second class there. They were being trained for central fire control that controlled all the guns on the ship. It had a lot of firepower. He was sent to Italy to the Black Widow, P-61 aircraft [Annotator's Note: Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter aircraft]. He got leave from Denver to go to his staging area in Kearns, Utah. He went home. He had to go to Albany, New York on Christmas Eve [Annotator's Note: 24 December 1943] to get back to Kearns on time. He did not like that. There was a little old lady who talked to him. They were the only two in the railroad station for a couple of hours. He went to Denver and got snowed in. When he got to Kearns, they wanted him to come out of the line and play basketball for them. He told them he did not want to. They got summer equipment and thought they were going to the Pacific, but they went to Europe. He was in Newport News [Annotator's Note: Newport News, Virginia] for a couple of days. There were some Nazi prisoners taken in Africa there. The Army went onto the ship three days before he did. They did not know where they were going and were zigzagging [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] all over the Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean] before reaching Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy]. The gangplank to get off the ship was across a sunken ship. They took Army trucks through Naples to a replacement depot. The first night there, he sat on a hill and watched Naples being bombed by the Germans. He never got to the squadron with the 61s. He got a jeep and drove around. He went to a town and went into a basement, but he does not recall what he did there. He did not have a job there. He thought about going to the 90-day wonder [Annotator's Note: derogatory slang for a newly commissioned graduate of Officer Candidate School] school for the Army and becoming a second lieutenant cannon fodder [Annotator's Note: slang for sacrificial soldier].

William McCowen [Annotator's Note: a member of the US Army Air Forces out of Naples, Italy] had something strange happen. He was in a bed in a station hospital and did not know what was going on. A nurse told him that he was one of the first ones to get huge doses of penicillin [Annotator's Note: an antibiotic] which had just come out. They diagnosed him with rheumatic fever [Annotator's Note: a disease that can affect the heart, joints, brain, and skin]. The fighting was going on the Apennine Mountains [Annotator's Note: in Italy] and the Po Valley [Annotator's Note: in Italy]. They needed the beds, so they sent him to the 16th General Hospital in Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy]. He only had his pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers. He was put in a room. There were people laying in the halls. The overflow from the Po Valley was demanding the beds. He got ZI'd (Zone of the Interior) to go home. VE Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] happened on the ship back to New York Harbor [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York]. He still only had his pajamas. There were thousands of troops on board. They came into the Harbor, and everyone went over to the port side of the ship to see the Statue of Liberty causing the ship to list. He was taken to a hospital in Jersey [Annotator's Note: New Jersey]. He could not get a pass [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] because he did not have any clothes. He was sent to Plattsburgh [Annotator's Note: Plattsburgh Air Force Base in Plattsburgh, New York] to a hospital where he got clothes. He was there for quite a while. He did not have rheumatic fever.

In Italy, William McCowen [Annotator's Note: a member of the US Army Air Forces] would only see Italians when he was downtown. When the soldiers came out of the mess hall, they would scrape their leftovers into the trash, and the Italians would take the leftovers out. They would have the Italians wash their clothes for them. He was mostly at the replacement depot while there. He thought he would make it to the airplanes and also thought about applying for the 90-day wonder thing [Annotator's Note: derogatory slang for a newly commissioned graduate of Officer Candidate School]. He was sent home. He went to Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Trenton, New Jersey] to be assigned to remote-control gunnery [Annotator's Note: referring to the Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber's Central Fire Control system]. He wanted to ask for Stewart Field [Annotator's Note: now Stewart Air National Guard Base in Orange County, New York] which was near his home. The guy behind him said they should go to Las Vegas [Annotator's Note: Las Vegas, Nevada]. He asked for that and got it. The first night there, there was a dance for the last gunnery school class. A guy was mad and mumbling about being cut out of dancing with his girlfriend. He was supposed to ship out the next morning. McCowen went out and danced with her. She fell in love with him, and he later married her. In Las Vegas, he was coming up on his discharge. He almost had to go out on a nuclear test in the Pacific, but ended up not going. They got smart and stopped discharging from Vegas. Bus service was not good, and guys were getting robbed as soon as they got off the base. McCowen was sent back to Fort Dix for separation. He got his discharge. He did not want to stay in as there was nothing for him. He got out and fooled around with some of his old buddies. He decided to go to college. He went to the University of Denver [Annotator's Note: in Denver, Colorado]. His buddy, Eddie Barton [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], went there. Barton then went to Wyoming [Annotator's Note: University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming] and did well in basketball. Another friend, Bill Lawrence [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] went to the University of Colorado [Annotator's Note: unable to identify which campus]. McCowen did not graduate in Denver. He used the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] which was a good deal. He only went to college for two years. He would not have gone to college without the Bill. In those days, you had to work your way through college. He went home. He had gotten married in Denver. He then returned home, and he worked for his uncle in his plumbing business. McCowen decided he wanted pilot training. He brushed up on physics and algebra. He passed the test, and he was called up to Perrin Field [Annotator's Note: now North Texas Regional Airport/Perrin Field in Grayson County, Texas], which was his wife's hometown [Annotator's Note: Dennison, Texas], for basic pilot training.

William McCowen [Annotator's Note: in pilot training in Texas after the war] was on the honors committee in the cadets and was the flight leader. He flew the T-6 [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft] which was a nice bird. There were 135 men in his class and only 36 got their wings [Annotator's Note: aviator badge that designates being a pilot] and commissions. He went to advanced training at Lubbock Field [Annotator's Note: South Plains Army Airfield, now Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport in Lubbock County, Texas] and flew the B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber]. Before he graduated, he was in the Strategic Air Command [Annotator's Note: a US Department of Defense Specified Command and a US Air Force Major Command] and assigned to go to Randolph [Annotator's Note: Randolph Field, now Randolph Air Force Base in Universal City, Texas] and check out in a B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] as a copilot. His mom and his sister came out to Lubbock for his graduation. When he got to Randolph, they wanted him to play basketball. He graduated in March [Annotator's Note: March 1951] and was shooting hoops in the gym. Troops came in for calisthenics. One guy would just lay down on the floor when the instructor was not looking. The guy asked McCowen to go to Korea [Annotator's Note: for the Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] with him and he did. The guy was Don Wynne [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] who had been a retread [Annotator's Note: slang for a person who re-enters military service from one war to another] from World War 2. All of his crew were retreads. They flew their tour in Korea and he graduated to the B-47s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber]. Wynne was sent to March [Annotator's Note: now March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California] and died when he crashed during a take-off. McCowen did not think about going to Korea in any way other than flying and doing his job. He went to Kadena [Annotator's Note: Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan] and lived in tents.

For William McCowen's [Annotator's Note: as a US Air Force copilot in the 307th Strategic Bomb Wing stationed at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan] first two missions [Annotator's Note: during the Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953], they had an instructor pilot [Annotator's Note: also called an IP] with them. They did front line support which was low-level flying. On their second low-level mission, they had a wise-guy lieutenant with them as the instructor pilot. He took off and 100 miles out, an engine blew out. It was at night and raining. The lieutenant was in McCowen's seat and called for the engine to be feathered [Annotator's Note: a method of shutting an engine down; the engine blades are turned so that the edges are pointed in the direction of flight], but it would not do it. They had to prepare for bailing out. The bombardier was ordered to drop the bombs which got hung up causing the plane to go into a flat spiral from 3,000 feet. At the bail-out command, the IP got out of McCowen's seat [Annotator's Note: the copilot seat] and opened the door losing all of the navigator's charts. McCowen jumped into the seat and he and the pilot got the plane under control after losing about 1,000 feet of altitude. McCowen got the engine feathered and they headed back towards Okinawa. They got the bombs out and readied for landing. The IP took McCowen's seat again. He took over the aircraft, but he could not keep on the glide path. They broke out about 200 feet, and they were way off. They stalled and burned on impact. They went over a mile and ran over a manned, antiaircraft position. They ended up on a new runway that was being built. Nobody thought anybody lived through it. McCowen was thrown out of the aircraft. His parachute was cinched tight, and it saved his life as he tumbled out. He put his arms out and came to a stop. He turned and was looking at the plane burning and the ammo going off. It was still raining. His radioman did not make it out. Only one other guy, Bob Wiffen [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], is still living today and he almost did not get out. Joe Rose [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] went in and got him. Their central fire control man did not go back to flying again. They got a new tail gunner. McCowen decided to go back to flying before the others did and flew two combat missions with two different crews. He did not get credit for them. He should have had 26 combat missions instead of his 24.

William McCowen [Annotator's Note: a pilot in the Strategic Air Command of the US Air Force] said he was not going to go over to Vietnam from Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa Japan]. It was a UN [Annotator's Note: United Nations] mission. On bomb runs, they had enemy aircraft off their wing radioing in their altitude and speed. They finally said that he either went [Annotator's Note: on the Vietnam mission] or got court-martialed [Annotator's Note: tried by court-martial, a judicial court for trying military members for breaking military law]. Over North Korea, they got a lot of flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. They flew all night missions and flak looks a lot different at night than in the daytime. Enemy aircraft did not make firing passes at them as the B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] had good gun power. They had four .50-calibers [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .50 caliber machine gun]. Some had 20mm cannons Annotator's Note: Hispano-Suiza HS.404] in the tail. He bombed a plant in North Korea. It was just a job. They would get briefed for missions in the afternoon. They would usually go take a nap and then get the aircraft ready. On frontline missions, they were single [Annotator's Note: aircraft] and flew bomber streams where they curved into the target. The trips would be around ten hours. If they had engine problems to damage, they would land at little fighter strips. Their wingtips would be over the grass. McCowen was in Okinawa about a year. He came back to the States, got his own crew and a promotion to first lieutenant. He did the usual training missions. They upgraded to B-47s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber]. He had to have 1,500 hours to be an aircraft commander. He did not have enough hours and became a copilot again.

When William McCowen [Annotator's Note: a pilot in the Strategic Air Command of the US Air Force] came home from Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953], he felt like people did not even know we [Annotator's Note: the US] were fighting in Korea. World War 2 was very different. It did not bother him, though. McCowen did not have 1,500 hours when he checked out in the B-47 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber]. He was at Plattsburgh [Annotator's Note: Plattsburgh, New York] and was an IP [Annotator's Note: instructor pilot] in B-47s. He decided that he wanted to change. The B-58 was a delta wing bomber [Annotator's Note: Convair B-58 Hustler supersonic strategic bomber]. The Russians did not have a radar fast enough to track it. He volunteered for it. Headquarters was hand-picking B-52 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-52 Stratofortress long-range bomber] crews and gave McCowen that to fly. He went to Castle [Annotator's Note: Castle Air Force Base in Atwater, California] to check out on those. He went back to Turner Air Force Base in Albany, Georgia [Annotator's Note: now Naval Air Station Albany] about the time that Martin Luther King [Annotator's Note: Martin Luther King Jr., American civil rights leader] was active in Georgia. The B-52 is a great aircraft. The planes he flew – B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber], B-47, and B-52 – were all good planes. Later he was at Hurlburt [Annotator's Note: Hurlburt Field in Okaloosa County, Florida]. He went to Vietnam from [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] Turner. His wing commander had been his Ops officer [Annotator's Note: operations officer] in Korea. He told him that he was being assigned to Hurlburt for the air commandos for Vietnam.

William McCowen [Annotator's Note: a pilot in the US Air Force] flew 123s [Annotator's Note: Fairchild C-123 Provider transport aircraft] in Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975]. It was a twin-engine and had no guns. It was for transporting paratroopers and supplies. He had trained at Hurlburt [Annotator's Note: Hurlburt Field in Okaloosa County, Florida]. He had a detachment at Tan Son Nhut [Annotator's Note: Tan Son Nhut Air Base, now Tan Son Nhat International Airport near Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam]. Half of his group went to Nha Trang [Annotator's Note: Nha Trang Air Base in Nha Trang, Vietnam] and he eventually went up there. In Vietnam, you were in a battle zone all the time. Men were shot going out of the gate by VC [Annotator's Note: Viet Cong, or the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, armed communist political revolutionary organization in South Vietnam (now Vietnam)] who would be in a hotel across the road. The flying was fun compared to flying a B-52 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-52 Stratofortress long-range bomber]. On all of his missions, he never flew above 3,000 feet. They got ground fire on every mission. They flew supply missions for the Rangers [Annotator's Note: US Army Rangers]. They would airlift troops all over. He flew as many as 13 missions in one day. Most of the fields were dirt fields. The VC would hit them at night. The Vietnamese would pick it up in the daytime. It was a little sticky because the VC were everywhere. In Saigon [Annotator’s Note: now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam], they walked the street. Up in Nha Trang at nighttime, the VC would come in from the jungles and go to the bars. It was a funny situation. McCowen hates the problems now [Annotator's Note: at the time of this interview] with ISIS [Annotator's Note: Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also called Daesh, terrorist group] and hates them worse than he hated any of the other guys [Annotator's Note: the Nazis in World War 2 and the VC in Vietnam]. It was just a job to him. He had some close calls on some missions. They would land in the middle of a VC village on the mountaintops. That was always touchy. He had three professional football players that he picked up on a mountain range. On take-off they got ground fire. When bullets when through the 123 it sounded like a tin can. They were big guys sitting back there. Martha Raye [Annotator's Note: born Margy Reed and nicknamed The Big Mouth, America comic actress and singer] was up there once. McCowen was in Vietnam about a year. It was fun coming back to his family. He did not care what public opinion was regarding Vietnam.

After Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975], William McCowen [Annotator's Note: a pilot in the US Air Force] carried a radio to keep in touch with the control room in case he was needed for an alert to "visit Russia" - go to war. He flew Chrome Domes [Annotator's Note: Operation Chrome Dome, strategic bombers armed with thermonuclear weapons on continuous alert, 1960 to 1968] in SAC [Annotator's Note: a US Department of Defense Specified Command and a US Air Force Major Command] where they were loaded for war. They carried six thermonuclear weapons. They had GAMS [Annotator's Note: Rocket Assisted Take Off modules] under each wing which they needed for take-off. They were on alert all the time. The aircraft would be loaded for war out on the ramp in the alert area. It was a great command. General LeMay [Annotator's Note: US Air Force General Curtis Emerson LeMay] was the best. McCowen had Moscow [Annotator's Note: Moscow, Russia] as a target for many years. They were assigned targets and studied them all the time. Congress [Annotator's Note: United States Congress] had heard these were one-way missions. McCowen will not comment. They had jackpot bases [Annotator's Note: air bases to land at if unable to return to the aircraft's home base]. His was in Sweden at a little fighter base. Based on the target he would be hitting, it would be highly improbable that he would be able to land there. He did not care as that was his job. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if being assigned that kind of mission changed his opinion of kamikaze pilots - Japanese Special Attack Units, also called shimbu-tai, who flew suicide missions in aircraft - during World War 2.] He did not think about it. There was a difference in what he would do as opposed to what a kamikaze did. His duty in World War 2 did not influence his decision to be a pilot. It did give him an opportunity to go to college on the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment].

William McCowen [Annotator's Note: a pilot in the US Army Air Forces] was about 20 miles away from where Mussolini [Annotator's Note: Italian fascist dictator Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini; also known as il Duce] and his mistress [Annotator's Note: Clara Petacci, known as Claretta Petacci] had been captured and hanged by their heels [Annotator's Note: in Milan, Italy, 28 April 1945]. He tried to get a jeep to go see it, but was told not to go anywhere near there. Seeing Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy] get bombed was stirring. People were getting killed there. He has to sort through things to see which "movie" he is looking at – World War 2 or Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. There is really nothing else that stands out from World War 2. When he was dropping bombs on North Korea, he did not think about Naples. In Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975], he got a DFC [Annotator's Note: the Distinguished Flying Cross, or DFC, is awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight] and probably killed 300 people on a mission. During Korea, he got credit for killing 300 people on one mission. War is hell. He does not deal with post-traumatic stress disorder [Annotator's Note: also called PTSD, a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event either experienced or witnessed]. When he first came back, he had dreams that would wake his wife up. You just get settled back home again. In Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975], he heard small arms fire all the time, every place he was. It was not that stressful, but he did not miss that sound. No one of the wars were hard for him and he does not understand why people have problems adjusting [Annotator's Note: to being a civilian after being in war]. He thought about his crew members. His Korean crew was close. His navigator's daughters come to the 307th Bomb Wing [Annotator's Note: 307th Strategic Bomb Wing] reunions all over the country. World War 2 allowed him to go to college. He served because everybody else did and it was the thing to do. His son wrote that his father is a different breed from what we [Annotator's Note: the US] are now. Americans give the military credit now for even just being in the military. They are friendlier than they were regarding Korea and Vietnam. They realize now what the military does and are sorry for what Washington [Annotator's Note: term for the American government] does by making the military fight on the level of the terrorists. They should take a flight of B-52s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-52 Stratofortress long-range bomber] over and carpet-bomb them. They [Annotator's Note: the US government] have never done anything to scare them [Annotator's Note: terrorists]. Those people cut heads off of people and more to scare Americans and the rest of the world. America ought to still use napalm [Annotator's Note: incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical]. We have to put the fear of the Lord in them.

William McCowen thinks it is important to have the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] and to teach the war to future generations. The kids do not know anything about the war. It is history. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks McCowen if has any other World War 2 memories he would like to share.] He made it. [Annotator's Note: There is a video break and McCowen has returned to talking about his service.] He was taking B-47s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-47 Stratojet strategic bomber] over to England. Marty Calday [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] was his commander then. He was a "Hudson High" graduate – that is West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy in West Point, New York]. There were three other crews in the barracks with them. They had footlockers for their clothes. Marty had to go one night and walked across the aisle behind Bob Walkey's [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] locker. He relieved himself on his shoes and clothes, and then went back to bed. They had a man that took care of everything for them. He had been left behind at Dunkirk [Annotator's Note: Battle of Dunkirk, 26 May to 4 June 1940 in Dunkirk, France]. The Nazis experimented on him. They had opened up his head and he was handicapped after that. The men took up a collection to send him on a vacation. The Nazis would do anything to their prisoners. He had been left behind at Dunkirk with no ammunition and was captured. McCowen just knew the Nazis were bad boys.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks William McCowen to discuss a comparison of his nuclear bomb missions in the Strategic Air Command on alert – missions he would likely not return from – to the missions of the Japanese kamikazes, or Japanese Special Attack Units, also called shimbu-tai, who flew suicide missions in aircraft.] He sees it as different. He had the potential of coming home. It depended on fuel. They [Annotator's Note: the kamikazes] had a one-way trip and they knew it. He made SAC crew of the month on a Chrome Dome tour [Annotator's Note: Operation Chrome Dome, strategic bombers armed with thermonuclear weapons on continuous alert, 1960 to 1968]. They were loaded and had made two refuelings [Annotator's Note: aerial refueling from a tanker aircraft]. They were up at 38,000 feet and dropped their gear. Their main gear would not go down. They had rough weather, were running out fuel, and had six thermonuclear weapons onboard. They tried to get a tanker up to them. They could not reach them. McCowen diverted over to Georgia with just enough fuel. The radar operator and navigator helped him get to Robins Air Force Base in Houston County, Georgia]. The weather was bad down to 200 feet. He had alerted the crew for bailout, but the darn thing held. He stopped on the runway, and they got out. That was a hairy night. They closed the whole east coast to airline traffic when this was happening. You cannot take chances. It was spooky.