Son of: Creed Flannery POTTER and Ida FULLER.
Married: Judy BURKLAND, daughter of Carl Roland Clifford BURKLAND and Marjorie Lorraine WILLHITE.
He was born in Fleming, Neon County, Kentucky, USA.
From Joel Martin "Mart" Potter:
"I did ride horses every weekend at Oneida school (where I went to private school) every Sunday afternoon for about three years and really became a horse lover. Always loved the outdoors. Hey! Imagine this; The horse that I rode at Oneida was a giant morgan champagne mare with a golden mane and tail that were full and long and she was georgous and weighed 2000 pounds. She was so big that I didn't have a saddle to fit her so I rode her bareback. She was a very wild work horse and would bite me if I gave her just a small chance and once I mounted her she would rub everything that she came to - fence post - barn - trees - and run under limbs to knock me off. I didn't care and loved her to pieces and rode her every Sunday afternoon for three years whether anyone else went with me or not. Most of the time my roommate and co-worker John Brown went with me and rode the gentle male morgan horse that was about 1500 pounds and easy to ride, but the Palomino mare was exciting. The farm was big and we had lots of room to ride and had a blast.
Always loved the outdoors. One time we loaded the family (5 kids) and friends bicycles and went to the top of Pine Mountain near Whitesburgh and had a picnic.
There were huckleberries, blueberries, and a ranger tower to climb and look for miles across the mountain tops. "
"I was in Japan from 1959 to 1961 at Yokota Air Base in the 56th Weather Recon Squadron "Buzzards" and flew the typhoons as radio operator in the old modified B29 or the WB50. As I was leaving there in July of 1961 they were switching over to the C130 aircraft that are the big gun ships that were used in Afghanistan. I got to fly in that bird once or twice and they were very nice and have been around a long time. I also flew in the DC3 or the Goonie Bird and the C54 or the DC6.
My crew and I once flew into a typhoon that was headed for China and the winds were about 250 miles an hour and the winds blew our plane backward and upside down but the pilot luckily uprighted the big cumbersome bomber and we immediately started back for Tokyo or Yokota AFB. That was pretty scary. As soon as we landed we taxied the plane straight to the junk pile and it was so structurally damaged that they junked it - WHEW! We felt like kissing the ground.
All the top ranking non-coms flew with me because they knew that I would work the entire mission and it lasted 15 hours at first but they dropped it to later to 12 hours. I had a senior master sargent and a tech sargent flying with me. As soon as the plane took off they went to bed in their sleeping bag that they brought. I may as well work because I couldn't sleep anyway.
Actually when my squadron switched over to the C130 aircraft in 1961 they started cross-training radio operators as tail-gunners in the B52 aircraft and they wound up being the first ones in Vietnam on the bombing runs with the high flying B52 Bombers.
I came back to the US and got out of the service in July 1961. It would be interesting to see how Japan has changed."
We flew into the typhoons (same as hurricanes) at the altitude of 10,000 ft. and penetrated the eye area which varies in size from 10 to 50 miles in diameter. Most of the time the plane just flies right in with no trouble and once inside we circled around and parachuted an instrument and as the instrument descended it measured the barometric pressure which determines how powerful the storm will become and sent back a code message which we, the radio operator, copied. Then we sent the numbers back to Tokyo weather and they deciphered all the numbers. The lower the millibars of pressure the stronger the storm, that is, the faster it rotates in a counter clock-wise motion. It becomes a hurricane at 70 0r 75 miles an hour and this particular one was a giant and the winds were 250 miles an hour. That is the speed of a tornado and a big tornado. They classify them as class 1-5 and this one was easily a force 5 typhoon. The B50 would fly at about 250 knots max and our ground speed at one time was minus 15 knots - going backwards. The storm wouldn't allow us to penetrate into the eye. We made three attempts to get into the eye and the third time an up-draft wind caught the big bomber, blew it upward, and turned us up-side-down.
Ordinarily that would have caused the bomber to crash because they won't fly up-side-down. However, somehow our pilot turned the plane upright after scaring us half to death and called me and told me to call Tokyo and tell them that we were aborting any attempts to penetrate and to give us clearance to return to Tokyo. You should have heard the crew. ROGER, navigator, ROGER engineer, ROGER left scanner, ROGER right scanner, and of course I repeated, "ROGER, ROGER, ROGER radio," and sent the message.
When we got back to Yokota Air Base and landed safely, we discovered that the structure and framework of the bomber was so damaged that they told us to taxi the plane to the other side of the base and eventually after inspection, they scrapped the plane due to severe structure damage. It wasn't safe to fly anymore.
I wasn't in the military at war time so I don't know what men faced who killed someone else but I can imagine and I knew lots of men who had including my Captain who had a battle commission in Korea. I'm glad I didn't have to go through that but I would have done so if necessary just like all the other guys who did.
A non-com is a non commissioned officer with stripes on their sleeves and the officer has bars and other ornaments on their shirt collars, hats and shoulders.
One of our planes did crash while I was there and we lost about 9 men and they crashed into a mountain after losing all power because they didn't even get a mayday message out before the crash. That was a bad time for all of us. Thank God I made it home safely. Had I stayed in the Air Force I would have gone into Vietnam."
Married: Judy BURKLAND, daughter of Carl Roland Clifford BURKLAND and Marjorie Lorraine WILLHITE.
He was born in Fleming, Neon County, Kentucky, USA.
From Joel Martin "Mart" Potter:
"I did ride horses every weekend at Oneida school (where I went to private school) every Sunday afternoon for about three years and really became a horse lover. Always loved the outdoors. Hey! Imagine this; The horse that I rode at Oneida was a giant morgan champagne mare with a golden mane and tail that were full and long and she was georgous and weighed 2000 pounds. She was so big that I didn't have a saddle to fit her so I rode her bareback. She was a very wild work horse and would bite me if I gave her just a small chance and once I mounted her she would rub everything that she came to - fence post - barn - trees - and run under limbs to knock me off. I didn't care and loved her to pieces and rode her every Sunday afternoon for three years whether anyone else went with me or not. Most of the time my roommate and co-worker John Brown went with me and rode the gentle male morgan horse that was about 1500 pounds and easy to ride, but the Palomino mare was exciting. The farm was big and we had lots of room to ride and had a blast.
Always loved the outdoors. One time we loaded the family (5 kids) and friends bicycles and went to the top of Pine Mountain near Whitesburgh and had a picnic.
There were huckleberries, blueberries, and a ranger tower to climb and look for miles across the mountain tops. "
"I was in Japan from 1959 to 1961 at Yokota Air Base in the 56th Weather Recon Squadron "Buzzards" and flew the typhoons as radio operator in the old modified B29 or the WB50. As I was leaving there in July of 1961 they were switching over to the C130 aircraft that are the big gun ships that were used in Afghanistan. I got to fly in that bird once or twice and they were very nice and have been around a long time. I also flew in the DC3 or the Goonie Bird and the C54 or the DC6.
My crew and I once flew into a typhoon that was headed for China and the winds were about 250 miles an hour and the winds blew our plane backward and upside down but the pilot luckily uprighted the big cumbersome bomber and we immediately started back for Tokyo or Yokota AFB. That was pretty scary. As soon as we landed we taxied the plane straight to the junk pile and it was so structurally damaged that they junked it - WHEW! We felt like kissing the ground.
All the top ranking non-coms flew with me because they knew that I would work the entire mission and it lasted 15 hours at first but they dropped it to later to 12 hours. I had a senior master sargent and a tech sargent flying with me. As soon as the plane took off they went to bed in their sleeping bag that they brought. I may as well work because I couldn't sleep anyway.
Actually when my squadron switched over to the C130 aircraft in 1961 they started cross-training radio operators as tail-gunners in the B52 aircraft and they wound up being the first ones in Vietnam on the bombing runs with the high flying B52 Bombers.
I came back to the US and got out of the service in July 1961. It would be interesting to see how Japan has changed."
We flew into the typhoons (same as hurricanes) at the altitude of 10,000 ft. and penetrated the eye area which varies in size from 10 to 50 miles in diameter. Most of the time the plane just flies right in with no trouble and once inside we circled around and parachuted an instrument and as the instrument descended it measured the barometric pressure which determines how powerful the storm will become and sent back a code message which we, the radio operator, copied. Then we sent the numbers back to Tokyo weather and they deciphered all the numbers. The lower the millibars of pressure the stronger the storm, that is, the faster it rotates in a counter clock-wise motion. It becomes a hurricane at 70 0r 75 miles an hour and this particular one was a giant and the winds were 250 miles an hour. That is the speed of a tornado and a big tornado. They classify them as class 1-5 and this one was easily a force 5 typhoon. The B50 would fly at about 250 knots max and our ground speed at one time was minus 15 knots - going backwards. The storm wouldn't allow us to penetrate into the eye. We made three attempts to get into the eye and the third time an up-draft wind caught the big bomber, blew it upward, and turned us up-side-down.
Ordinarily that would have caused the bomber to crash because they won't fly up-side-down. However, somehow our pilot turned the plane upright after scaring us half to death and called me and told me to call Tokyo and tell them that we were aborting any attempts to penetrate and to give us clearance to return to Tokyo. You should have heard the crew. ROGER, navigator, ROGER engineer, ROGER left scanner, ROGER right scanner, and of course I repeated, "ROGER, ROGER, ROGER radio," and sent the message.
When we got back to Yokota Air Base and landed safely, we discovered that the structure and framework of the bomber was so damaged that they told us to taxi the plane to the other side of the base and eventually after inspection, they scrapped the plane due to severe structure damage. It wasn't safe to fly anymore.
I wasn't in the military at war time so I don't know what men faced who killed someone else but I can imagine and I knew lots of men who had including my Captain who had a battle commission in Korea. I'm glad I didn't have to go through that but I would have done so if necessary just like all the other guys who did.
A non-com is a non commissioned officer with stripes on their sleeves and the officer has bars and other ornaments on their shirt collars, hats and shoulders.
One of our planes did crash while I was there and we lost about 9 men and they crashed into a mountain after losing all power because they didn't even get a mayday message out before the crash. That was a bad time for all of us. Thank God I made it home safely. Had I stayed in the Air Force I would have gone into Vietnam."
Son of: Creed Flannery POTTER and Ida FULLER.
Married: Judy BURKLAND, daughter of Carl Roland Clifford BURKLAND and Marjorie Lorraine WILLHITE.
He was born in Fleming, Neon County, Kentucky, USA.
From Joel Martin "Mart" Potter:
"I did ride horses every weekend at Oneida school (where I went to private school) every Sunday afternoon for about three years and really became a horse lover. Always loved the outdoors. Hey! Imagine this; The horse that I rode at Oneida was a giant morgan champagne mare with a golden mane and tail that were full and long and she was georgous and weighed 2000 pounds. She was so big that I didn't have a saddle to fit her so I rode her bareback. She was a very wild work horse and would bite me if I gave her just a small chance and once I mounted her she would rub everything that she came to - fence post - barn - trees - and run under limbs to knock me off. I didn't care and loved her to pieces and rode her every Sunday afternoon for three years whether anyone else went with me or not. Most of the time my roommate and co-worker John Brown went with me and rode the gentle male morgan horse that was about 1500 pounds and easy to ride, but the Palomino mare was exciting. The farm was big and we had lots of room to ride and had a blast.
Always loved the outdoors. One time we loaded the family (5 kids) and friends bicycles and went to the top of Pine Mountain near Whitesburgh and had a picnic.
There were huckleberries, blueberries, and a ranger tower to climb and look for miles across the mountain tops. "
"I was in Japan from 1959 to 1961 at Yokota Air Base in the 56th Weather Recon Squadron "Buzzards" and flew the typhoons as radio operator in the old modified B29 or the WB50. As I was leaving there in July of 1961 they were switching over to the C130 aircraft that are the big gun ships that were used in Afghanistan. I got to fly in that bird once or twice and they were very nice and have been around a long time. I also flew in the DC3 or the Goonie Bird and the C54 or the DC6.
My crew and I once flew into a typhoon that was headed for China and the winds were about 250 miles an hour and the winds blew our plane backward and upside down but the pilot luckily uprighted the big cumbersome bomber and we immediately started back for Tokyo or Yokota AFB. That was pretty scary. As soon as we landed we taxied the plane straight to the junk pile and it was so structurally damaged that they junked it - WHEW! We felt like kissing the ground.
All the top ranking non-coms flew with me because they knew that I would work the entire mission and it lasted 15 hours at first but they dropped it to later to 12 hours. I had a senior master sargent and a tech sargent flying with me. As soon as the plane took off they went to bed in their sleeping bag that they brought. I may as well work because I couldn't sleep anyway.
Actually when my squadron switched over to the C130 aircraft in 1961 they started cross-training radio operators as tail-gunners in the B52 aircraft and they wound up being the first ones in Vietnam on the bombing runs with the high flying B52 Bombers.
I came back to the US and got out of the service in July 1961. It would be interesting to see how Japan has changed."
We flew into the typhoons (same as hurricanes) at the altitude of 10,000 ft. and penetrated the eye area which varies in size from 10 to 50 miles in diameter. Most of the time the plane just flies right in with no trouble and once inside we circled around and parachuted an instrument and as the instrument descended it measured the barometric pressure which determines how powerful the storm will become and sent back a code message which we, the radio operator, copied. Then we sent the numbers back to Tokyo weather and they deciphered all the numbers. The lower the millibars of pressure the stronger the storm, that is, the faster it rotates in a counter clock-wise motion. It becomes a hurricane at 70 0r 75 miles an hour and this particular one was a giant and the winds were 250 miles an hour. That is the speed of a tornado and a big tornado. They classify them as class 1-5 and this one was easily a force 5 typhoon. The B50 would fly at about 250 knots max and our ground speed at one time was minus 15 knots - going backwards. The storm wouldn't allow us to penetrate into the eye. We made three attempts to get into the eye and the third time an up-draft wind caught the big bomber, blew it upward, and turned us up-side-down.
Ordinarily that would have caused the bomber to crash because they won't fly up-side-down. However, somehow our pilot turned the plane upright after scaring us half to death and called me and told me to call Tokyo and tell them that we were aborting any attempts to penetrate and to give us clearance to return to Tokyo. You should have heard the crew. ROGER, navigator, ROGER engineer, ROGER left scanner, ROGER right scanner, and of course I repeated, "ROGER, ROGER, ROGER radio," and sent the message.
When we got back to Yokota Air Base and landed safely, we discovered that the structure and framework of the bomber was so damaged that they told us to taxi the plane to the other side of the base and eventually after inspection, they scrapped the plane due to severe structure damage. It wasn't safe to fly anymore.
I wasn't in the military at war time so I don't know what men faced who killed someone else but I can imagine and I knew lots of men who had including my Captain who had a battle commission in Korea. I'm glad I didn't have to go through that but I would have done so if necessary just like all the other guys who did.
A non-com is a non commissioned officer with stripes on their sleeves and the officer has bars and other ornaments on their shirt collars, hats and shoulders.
One of our planes did crash while I was there and we lost about 9 men and they crashed into a mountain after losing all power because they didn't even get a mayday message out before the crash. That was a bad time for all of us. Thank God I made it home safely. Had I stayed in the Air Force I would have gone into Vietnam."
Married: Judy BURKLAND, daughter of Carl Roland Clifford BURKLAND and Marjorie Lorraine WILLHITE.
He was born in Fleming, Neon County, Kentucky, USA.
From Joel Martin "Mart" Potter:
"I did ride horses every weekend at Oneida school (where I went to private school) every Sunday afternoon for about three years and really became a horse lover. Always loved the outdoors. Hey! Imagine this; The horse that I rode at Oneida was a giant morgan champagne mare with a golden mane and tail that were full and long and she was georgous and weighed 2000 pounds. She was so big that I didn't have a saddle to fit her so I rode her bareback. She was a very wild work horse and would bite me if I gave her just a small chance and once I mounted her she would rub everything that she came to - fence post - barn - trees - and run under limbs to knock me off. I didn't care and loved her to pieces and rode her every Sunday afternoon for three years whether anyone else went with me or not. Most of the time my roommate and co-worker John Brown went with me and rode the gentle male morgan horse that was about 1500 pounds and easy to ride, but the Palomino mare was exciting. The farm was big and we had lots of room to ride and had a blast.
Always loved the outdoors. One time we loaded the family (5 kids) and friends bicycles and went to the top of Pine Mountain near Whitesburgh and had a picnic.
There were huckleberries, blueberries, and a ranger tower to climb and look for miles across the mountain tops. "
"I was in Japan from 1959 to 1961 at Yokota Air Base in the 56th Weather Recon Squadron "Buzzards" and flew the typhoons as radio operator in the old modified B29 or the WB50. As I was leaving there in July of 1961 they were switching over to the C130 aircraft that are the big gun ships that were used in Afghanistan. I got to fly in that bird once or twice and they were very nice and have been around a long time. I also flew in the DC3 or the Goonie Bird and the C54 or the DC6.
My crew and I once flew into a typhoon that was headed for China and the winds were about 250 miles an hour and the winds blew our plane backward and upside down but the pilot luckily uprighted the big cumbersome bomber and we immediately started back for Tokyo or Yokota AFB. That was pretty scary. As soon as we landed we taxied the plane straight to the junk pile and it was so structurally damaged that they junked it - WHEW! We felt like kissing the ground.
All the top ranking non-coms flew with me because they knew that I would work the entire mission and it lasted 15 hours at first but they dropped it to later to 12 hours. I had a senior master sargent and a tech sargent flying with me. As soon as the plane took off they went to bed in their sleeping bag that they brought. I may as well work because I couldn't sleep anyway.
Actually when my squadron switched over to the C130 aircraft in 1961 they started cross-training radio operators as tail-gunners in the B52 aircraft and they wound up being the first ones in Vietnam on the bombing runs with the high flying B52 Bombers.
I came back to the US and got out of the service in July 1961. It would be interesting to see how Japan has changed."
We flew into the typhoons (same as hurricanes) at the altitude of 10,000 ft. and penetrated the eye area which varies in size from 10 to 50 miles in diameter. Most of the time the plane just flies right in with no trouble and once inside we circled around and parachuted an instrument and as the instrument descended it measured the barometric pressure which determines how powerful the storm will become and sent back a code message which we, the radio operator, copied. Then we sent the numbers back to Tokyo weather and they deciphered all the numbers. The lower the millibars of pressure the stronger the storm, that is, the faster it rotates in a counter clock-wise motion. It becomes a hurricane at 70 0r 75 miles an hour and this particular one was a giant and the winds were 250 miles an hour. That is the speed of a tornado and a big tornado. They classify them as class 1-5 and this one was easily a force 5 typhoon. The B50 would fly at about 250 knots max and our ground speed at one time was minus 15 knots - going backwards. The storm wouldn't allow us to penetrate into the eye. We made three attempts to get into the eye and the third time an up-draft wind caught the big bomber, blew it upward, and turned us up-side-down.
Ordinarily that would have caused the bomber to crash because they won't fly up-side-down. However, somehow our pilot turned the plane upright after scaring us half to death and called me and told me to call Tokyo and tell them that we were aborting any attempts to penetrate and to give us clearance to return to Tokyo. You should have heard the crew. ROGER, navigator, ROGER engineer, ROGER left scanner, ROGER right scanner, and of course I repeated, "ROGER, ROGER, ROGER radio," and sent the message.
When we got back to Yokota Air Base and landed safely, we discovered that the structure and framework of the bomber was so damaged that they told us to taxi the plane to the other side of the base and eventually after inspection, they scrapped the plane due to severe structure damage. It wasn't safe to fly anymore.
I wasn't in the military at war time so I don't know what men faced who killed someone else but I can imagine and I knew lots of men who had including my Captain who had a battle commission in Korea. I'm glad I didn't have to go through that but I would have done so if necessary just like all the other guys who did.
A non-com is a non commissioned officer with stripes on their sleeves and the officer has bars and other ornaments on their shirt collars, hats and shoulders.
One of our planes did crash while I was there and we lost about 9 men and they crashed into a mountain after losing all power because they didn't even get a mayday message out before the crash. That was a bad time for all of us. Thank God I made it home safely. Had I stayed in the Air Force I would have gone into Vietnam."
Bio by: Carol Brown
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