That flight across the Atlantic took forever. I sat hunched in my seat too miserable to eat, sleep, or even think clearly. One minute I thought there was no way the Air Force would let me go down the tubes, and the next, I was sweating all the enemies I had made by being famous, who would love to lynch me. The Air Force was the only job I ever had, and the possibility of being forced out in disgrace was almost more than I could handle.
I had never met General Everest, but I sat in his outer office sweating bullets. His secretary, a Women's Air Force lieutenant colonel, finally came out and asked, "Are you Colonel Yeager?" The way she looked at me, I figured I had had it. I said, "Yes, Ma'am." She took me in to see the general.
I saluted as smartly as I knew how, and he invited me to sit down next to him on a leather couch. Then he asked, "What in hell were you doing in Aviano?" I said, "General, we were just having a fighter pilots' party." I told him about damaging the staff car, overturning the jukebox, and breaking some bottles of wine. "We paid for everything. The guys were just happy. We have a good outfit." He asked if Pete Everest had been involved. I said, "Yes, sir, he came up from Wheelus."
Finally he smiled. "Sounds like you two had a pretty good time. Well, Chuck, you've done a helluva good job with that squadron, but I pulled you out of there to save your career. They were getting ready to court-martial you. You did damage government property, and they had a strong case to convict. Having that on your record would be the end of it for you. Now, I want you to go back to George and cool your heels for the next couple of months. We're going to send you to the Air War College. There's no way to send you back to Aviano, so we have to give your squadron to someone else. But go on home and try to forget about what happened. It won't be held against you in any way."
TAC bailed me out but I had almost augered in. I couldn't believe how close I had come to a court-martial that would have shot me down once and for all. A conviction would have meant the end of promotions and any future command. But General Everest was true to his word. I was assigned to the next class at the War College in Montgomery, Alabama, and while I was there, the promotion list was published of those who had made full colonel. My name was on it. I was still in good standing, although my promotion meant that my squadron commander days were finished. Bird colonels command entire wings, which is a lot more authority and responsibility and a lot less fun. But I sure as hell wasn't complaining.
TO MOSCOW WITH JACKIE
In 1959, Jackie Cochran was elected president of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, the most prestigious international organization in aviation, and it was scheduled to hold its annual meeting in Moscow. Jackie decided to fly to that meeting in her own two-engine Lockheed Lodestar, a private passenger airplane that Floyd had bought for her a few years before. I had flown it with her a couple of times, but she had never before flown as far as Russia and wanted to take me along to navigate and be her copilot. So, the summer before my squadron flew to Aviano, Jackie made her pitch to the Chief of Staff, and I was granted permission to go on special assignment with her to Russia. The Air Force thought it was a rare opportunity to get an experienced military pilot in there to nose around. They gave me intelligence briefings, aeronautical charts and maps, long-range cameras, and plenty of film.
Playing James Bond, I wore civilian clothes and carried a civilian passport, hoping to pass myself off as Jackie's hired civilian copilot. Jackie was at her New York apartment getting ready, and by the time I caught up with her she was supervising last minute details at LaGuardia's private terminal. She never traveled light, but she outdid herself this time. As passengers we carried her private secretary, her maid, and her hairdresser, as well as a woman from the State Department to act as her Russian interpreter. The baggage compartment bulged. I crawled in next to her in the copilot's seat and just shook my head. That airplane must've weighed as much as a B-52, but she got us into the air with at least a couple of feet of runway to spare, and we climbed into the midnight sky.
Gen. Tommy White, the Air Force Chief of Staff, had written to base commanders along our route, ordering them to assist Jackie in any way. We planned to refuel at the air base in Presque Isle, Maine, and around two in the morning I called the tower and gave them our civilian identification number, November one three victor, the number on her tail. The tower refused to allow us to land, even when I told them that Jackie had permission. "Oh, sure," they replied, "so does Lana Turner." I told Jackie to set up her landing approach and told the tower "I'm declaring an emergency. You can't refuse permission under these circumstances." Hell, we were almost out of fuel. The tower informed me that if we tried landing, they would turn off the runway lights.
Jackie grabbed the mike: "This is Jacqueline Cochran. I am landing." As soon as we stopped rolling, the airplane was surrounded by air police, who clomped aboard, ordered us out, and escorted us under guard to base operations. Finally the base commander arrived, a bird colonel who obviously didn't read his mail, because Jackie's name meant nothing to him. "You people will leave immediately," he said. "This base is closed to all civilian traffic." I just waited for Jackie to blow, but she surprised me by smiling sweetly and asking, "Sir, may I have your permission to make a phone call? I have a credit card." The colonel nodded and Jackie began to dial. It was two-thirty in the morning. She said, "Tommy, sorry to wake you, but I've just landed at your base at Presque Isle, and I'm getting the idiot's treatment. Yes, sir, he's standing right here." She handed the receiver to the colonel. He was the first guy I ever saw talk on the phone while standing at attention. His face turned to chalk, and he muttered "Yes, sir" over and over as he got Roto-Rootered long distance by the Chief of Staff. When he hung up, he managed a small smile and said to Jackie, "Miss Cochran, you can have anything you need or want, including this air base."
Jackie signed for the fuel and left five bucks for the coffee we drank. And that's how our trip began.
Four days later we flew into Yugoslavia, after spending three hectic days in Spain, where Jackie was wined and dined as FAI president. From Belgrade, it was on to Hungary, and we flew through the Iron Curtain for Budapest. The Communists were strict about where we could overfly. A Russian navigator joined us in Belgrade to fly with us behind the Iron Curtain. They insisted on putting him aboard over their territory, and we were all ready for him. He sat down in the copilot's seat and the minute our wheels went up, I left the cockpit and locked the door behind me. We had rigged Jackie's cockpit gyro to deviate it. Up front, it appeared as if we were going straight ahead, when actually we were flying a great circle route. My maps showed all their airfields and I could control the cabin gyro from the master in the rear of the airplane. I got some great pictures of MiG bases before we landed.
When we finally flew into the Soviet Union, camera work wasn't on my mind. The weather was so rotten that we had to battle our way in. Over the Carpathian Mountains the Lodestar began to ice, and our navigator looked a little green. We were following his damned flight plan. He had diverted us to Kiev, instead of following our schedule into Poland where, he said, the weather was terrible. Kiev was an alternate and it couldn't be worse than Poland. The weather was so awful that we couldn't make radio contact with Kiev. and I began to wonder if maybe the navigator's bosses weren't setting us up to splat. Jackie did all the driving, while I studied the approach charts into Kiev. The navigator's English matched the damned weather, but he took the chart and pointed to a route different from what was printed, insisting that was the way to get in.
It was no time to argue, and we followed his route, Jackie lowering us through black clouds into pouring rain and heavy winds. Visibility was zilch, a really rough deal, with crosswinds blowing at 40 mph. But ol' Jackie laid that airplane down right at the end of the runway, on one wheel-a great piece of piloting-and set us down on a grass strip! The Russians must've really been surprised that we made It. I was sure they wanted to wipe us out. I figured that strip hadn't been used since World War II. But their guy on board looked even more relieved than the gals in the passenger section when we pulled up to a small shed and Jackie turned off the engines. Then she put on fresh lipstick, powdered her nose and combed her hair. She always left an airplane looking as if she had been to the hairdresser's.