The maintainers already on site immediately went to work generating the aircraft necessary to bring up our CSAR alert status. We were down for only two hours—but even that delay would have been less if it were not for a fuel truck delay. These maintainers worked through the night—often without enough tools to go around. MSgt Daniel E. “Dan” Weber, MSgt Rod Many, and a number of key maintainers toiled for 24 hours straight to ensure we had jets to meet our tasking. The aircraft were ready for the next morning’s AFAC lines, and the first sortie airborne appropriately logged a Maverick kill on a Serb APC.
Operations experts also sprang into action, setting up a functional intel section (crucial for CSAR and AFAC missions), secure telephones, an operations desk, and life support in less than 12 hours. By the morning of 12 April, our combat operations were up and running around-the-clock again.
Integration of the 40th Expeditionary Operations Group
Meanwhile the 74th FS Flying Tigers at Pope readied four aircraft, nine pilots, and 65 maintainers to send to the fight. We had asked ACC to provide pilots with a good level of experience, particularly in AFAC and CSAR missions. Once they arrived at Spangdahlem, USAFE told them they might be used to train the 81st’s eight new pilots instead of joining the Panthers at Gioia. USAFE was aware of the capacity to park only 18 A-10s at Gioia, and those spots it knew were being used by the 81st. We had not yet informed USAFE that we had found room for four more A-10s. In a proposal to the CAOC, we highlighted the increased sortie rates we could achieve with those additional aircraft, and its leadership won the Italian government’s approval. The Italian base commander wasn’t pleased with either the process or the decision, but we didn’t want to give him a chance to veto it—and we now had 22 Hogs to unleash in the KEZ. Colonel Thompson, as commander of the newly established 40th EOG, once again worked his magic, soothed hurt egos, and smoothed things over.
After some initial awkwardness, all of the 81st and 74th operations and maintenance functions became fully integrated into the 40th EOG. Flight leads from each squadron flew with wingmen from the other, and a Flying Tiger maintenance-production superintendent ran the daytime-sortie generation for all 22 aircraft. There was some good-natured hazing, particularly on Hog paint jobs. For some months, the 81st had taken care of a 74th jet that had been left in Kuwait after a deployment because of parts problems. It was eventually flown to Spangdahlem to be fixed. When that aircraft (the fifth Flying Tiger jet) arrived at Gioia, it not only had the trademark Flying Tiger shark’s teeth on the nose but also huge, black panther heads on the engine nacelles. Soon afterwards, and with the same good-natured spirit, the lower jaws of the panther heads that decorated both engine nacelles were painted over in light gray, making the panthers look like rats.
Backbone of the Mission
All of the flight-line personnel worked together with inexhaustible energy and enthusiasm. After every sortie, crew chiefs and weapons loaders swarmed over the aircraft to prepare it for the next flight. Nothing motivates tired, greasy wrench turners more than seeing their jets—the ones they had launched fully loaded—come home with clean wings. Together, the 81st and 74th had a total of 26 A-10s in-theater. Of those, 22 were at Gioia del Colle, and at any given time at least two were undergoing major inspections at Spangdahlem. The 40th EOG normally flew 30 combat sorties with those 22 aircraft during the day between 0600 and 1830, and then used them to generate the six aircraft to stand CSAR alert between 1830 and 0600 the next morning. We launched up to 16 aircraft on each day’s “first go” and then turned (postflighted, loaded, preflighted, and launched) 14 of those aircraft on the “second go” each day. The British also flew an aggressive schedule with their one forward-deployed squadron—sometimes launching 10 of their 12 GR-7s. The Italians eventually had 24 Tornados at Gioia del Colle, but we never saw them launch more than six aircraft at a time. As a matter of interest, the 40th EOG flew more sorties and hours in Allied Force than the entire Italian air force. The French air force deployed 15 of their Mirage 2000D strike aircraft to Gioia and, like most European air forces, swapped out their personnel after three to six weeks, flying only six days per week. By contrast the 40th EOG personnel knew we were there for the duration and flew seven days a week. We made an exception on 1 May 1999, the only OAF day we “took off”—even then we still maintained a 24-hour CSAR alert.
There is not enough room here to detail all of the incredible feats of professionalism that molded the 81st FS, 74th FS, 40th ELS, and 40th Expeditionary Air Base Squadron (EABS) into an efficient fighting team. The numerous small things were exemplified by our first sergeant, SMSgt Stanley J. “Stan” Ellington, who went to a local grocery store to buy food on the first day for folks who never left their jets. Chaplain (Maj) Karl Wiersum’s frequent visits to the flight line—just to listen to people who needed to talk—made a world of difference in putting jets in the air and bringing them back again. Every member of our team played an absolutely crucial role in carrying out the mission, and the following stories can relate only a small part of it. Every pilot knew that no excuse could justify missing the target when all of those people had done all of that work to put him in a cockpit with an enemy tank in his sights.
Commanding the 40th Expeditionary Operations Group
Col Al “Moose” Thompson
Operation Allied Force was my first true combat experience, and I was the 40th EOG commander deployed to Gioia del Colle AB in southern Italy. At our peak, we had 25 A-10 aircraft from the 81st EFS and the 74th EFS and nearly 700 personnel.
Combat operations began against Serbia on 24 March 1999. The 81st EFS from Spangdahlem, flying the trusty A-10, participated from day one of the air campaign while deployed to Aviano. The 74th EFS from Pope joined us at Gioia del Colle.
When it became apparent early in the NATO air campaign that Aviano-based A-10s could not be optimally employed because of the long distances to Kosovo, they found a new home at Gioia del Colle, an Italian air force fighter base. The 81st was out of the bomb-dropping business for only 36 hours while it deployed forward to Gioia del Colle. By air, it was only about 240 nautical miles (NM) from Gioia to Pristina—the capital of Kosovo province. This record-setting deployment was truly a Herculean effort and significantly increased our on-station time and combat effectiveness.
I faced the opportunity and challenge of a lifetime when Brig Gen Scott P. Van Cleef, the 52d AEW commander, selected me to stand up and command the 40th EOG at Gioia. On 11 April I deployed to Gioia with three A-10s from Spangdahlem to fill out the 81st’s 18-aircraft squadron. It may seem unusual for a vice wing commander to command an expeditionary group. Although it did not happen, initial thinking had this group expanding to an expeditionary fighter wing.