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RECOLLECTIONS: Attack Imminent

By Joe McDonald

Standing the day watch with a LT CMDR on a lazy Saturday afternoon at Naval Air Station Atsugi, Japan, when the phone rings and we are notified by Base Communications to send someone down right away to pick up a Top Secret message.

"I'll go," I tell the Duty Officer.

I was only cleared for confidential but they always gave me the Top Secret stuff anyway and I always rubbed it in their face later telling them I could have been a spy and stuff like that.... But that's another story.

Back at Flight Operations we decode the message and find out that American forces in Korea have shot down a Russian MIG over the DMZ and Condition Red is in force. meaning Attack is Imminent.

"Yes, Sir."

We all watch the red Crash Crew truck pull up in front of Flight Operations and a swabbie fire-fighter get out and climb up the ladder to the siren which looks like a jeep mounted on top of a forty-foot metal pole. After ten minutes he climbs back down and comes into Operations. The siren is still quiet.

"What the Hell is going on with the siren," the D.O demands of the terrified firefighter.

"Well, Sir," the enlisted Man started to explain (embarrasses as Hell), "You see, Sir, he says scratching the polished floor with his spit-shined shoe and twitching nervously. "The Japanese guy who runs the air raid siren is off on the weekends and on one in the Crash Crew knows how to turn it on."

OFF ON THE WEEKENDS
NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO TURN IT ON
OH, JESUS CHRIST

We are being attacked by the North Koreans by air and no one can turn on the siren to alert the base.

The LT COMDR says that there will be hell to pay for this and he begins to make out a report. I suggest that we should figure out how to alert the base and he keeps on bitching about the siren and the Crash Crew. So I get in the pick-up-truck and start driving around the base telling everyone:

THE KOREANS ARE COMING
THE KOREANS ARE COMING

When I get back to Flight Ops everyone is looking for the base instructions concerning the Condition Red. They finally figure out where our air raid shelters are and that we should be in them.

BUT WHERE ARE THE GAS MASKS??????

We look high and we look low.

Finally some of us dumb enlisted guys suggest that we could just forget about the gas masks, sir, and just get into the shelters, but it didn't really matter because several hours had past by then and someone came by from Communications with a message that the alert was called off.

I don't remember anything changing after that....I mean why bother the alert was over.... Right?

Joe McDonald