Our Heroes Betrayed - Part III of IV

Real in the corporeal existential, eh? "Shoot them down."
Now, either crack forces just winning the 2nd WW had lost their minds,
losing persons and planes to the homicidal psychotic or... cue unsettling music.

Our Heroes Betrayed 

The Other Side Of The Flatwoods Monster

The 65th Anniversary of the Flatwoods Monster Incident

by Alfred Lehmberg with Frank C. Feschino, Jr.

PART III of IV

Before: Numbers for who needs 'em, charts of "lurid" death, and questioning one's own courage.

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Consider now these TWO points from the aforementioned books of Frank C. Feschino, books making a believable case for a secret air war with ET in 1952. This writer is quite beyond apologizing for how silly that sounds. 

1.Between 1951 and 1956 the New York Times further reported that 131 United States Air Force fighter jets were destroyed over the United States and its Coastal Waters as compared to their 83 Jets lost in the air-to-air combat events during the entire Korean War.

2. Between 1951 and 1956 the New York Times reported that the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps had a total amount of 188 fighter aircraft (Jets and propeller-driven craft) destroyed over the United States and its Coastal Waters. Puzzlingly, the Air Force lost a total amount of 104 Fighters, Jets and propeller-driven craft, in the air-to-air combat events during the totality of the Korean War.

The disconnect is obvious. How can there not be more losses during combat than simple, forget fruitless interdiction missions completed in a comparably "safe and sound" USA... the Soviet enemy is never detected by the GOC nor our forces engaged in air combat... with Russians!

A retired military Master Aviator himself, this writer offers that these peacetime losses doing comparative milk-runs would not be remotely tolerated; a problem in training, command, and control would be identified and any problem would be solved, heads rolling for ball-bearings! Serving in Army aviation for well over two decades, this writer remembers Command's attitude regarding "unexplained losses." Losses blithely allowed to accrue!

No... Resources would be judiciously, even covetously, managed. There was a war on overseas, after all... Unless...

...Unless there was imperative, reader, a justification for such loathsome losses... losses even admitted to! General Benjamin Chidlaw, Head of Air Defense Command, said, "...We have stacks of reports about flying saucers; we take them seriously when you consider we have lost many men and planes trying to intercept them." Bluebook Chief Edward Ruppelt, moreover, is quoted to say, "...There have been other and more lurid duels of death..." What were these men so very solemnly on about with regard to Stateside "training missions" and "milk runs"?

Back to you, Pilot. Subsequent to your disappearance, there would be an investigation of your inexplicable if presumed death. The facts and evidence entered would be a maze of contradictory details and a reportage not providing the remotest sense or sensibility... not justifying the terrible losses in any way. Again... this does not happen!

The upshot of an "official finding," Pilot, is that you were a clueless buffoon unsuited to occupy the seat assigned and unwilling or unable to follow the instructions from ground control. Waning competence led to panic, perhaps, but you ignobly crashed in blackwater Florida swamps or ditched in the Gulf of Mexico swallowed up, and forever, in warm green saltwater...

Pilot error. That would be your legacy, one of incompetence, ineptitude, but a perceived lack of skill and ability. Infidelity? Shame and shamefulness? Futility?

Who were you, Pilot? Who were you?

Were you among the many we now name, Pilot? Were you John A. Jones, Jr., Felix Moncla, Virgil Plunkett, or John Chambers? Smith, Cocker, Samson, or Johnson? Adams, Taylor, Moore or White?

Your names and the names of many other unsung heroes are on the way to Legion, two hundred strong as indicated above... but you were doomed instead to historical banishment, ignominy, and discredit... your record an oprobrium. How is this left to stand?

Maybe, Pilot, you were Captain Hobart Gay, Jr., the Air Force fighter veteran who was killed stateside in August. The New York Times reported that this Korean War hero died in an "unexplained crash of an F-94 all-weather jet fighter... when it plunged into Vineyard Sound," near Falmouth, Massachusetts. Prior to his death, the pilot had been in "105 combat missions in Korea and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal with three Oak Clusters in thirteen months, Far East duty." It was stated by a spokesman at Otis AFB "that Captain Gay was believed to have been trapped in the cockpit of his plane when it crashed." Trapped in the cockpit. What unsupported conjecture, that?

Not only was this highly decorated war hero involved in an "unexplained" crash stateside after returning home from 105 combat missions in Korea, officials believed the pilot was, and conjectured only, in some way trapped in the cockpit of his plane when it crashed! Something does not add up here, reader! What was he doing out there, to start?

Let us not forget the 130-combat-mission-WW II-pilot Colonel Councill who vanished under mysterious circumstances on April 5, 1954. The Air Force said he "disappeared shortly after taking off on instruments in a heavy overcast" in his F-80 jet from Farmingdale, New York and bound for Langley Field, Virginia. 

It was reported that the pilot, "had been in trouble within five minutes after takeoff and might be down within fifty miles of the field." What? If this jet had crashed within five minutes of its takeoff from New York to Virginia, then why was its wreckage not found along its predetermined flight path? 

Why did the Air Force state that Councill's jet, "might be down within fifty miles of the field." Furthermore, why did no one on the ground hear or see a crash and why did the Air Force spokesman neglect to state why the pilot, "had been in trouble"? Sparse wilderness between those points, reader. Shallow bays. How's it not found, now, when from space we're finding articles and sites from thousands of years ago?

Oh, and For the record folks: Councill set the United States jet cross-country speed record of 4-hours 13 minutes back on January 25, 1946. He was an ace's ace.

Names, and the names of many other unsung heroes are on the way to Legion as indicated above but doomed to ignominy and discredit. These are not just wages.

Consider, sadly, that missing Starfire pilot Second Lt. John A. Jones, Jr. was never mentioned to the public by the Air Force, nor even by his family after the initial newspaper reportage of his disappearance on September 12, 1952. Jones and his radar operator vanished over Gulf waters (?) near Tampa, Florida on an alleged, "Routine Weather Training Mission" after departing Tyndall AFB with several other jets during a huge influx of UFOs in the area at that precise time. "Routine Weather Training Mission," ...this writer's aging backside.

As time passed, Jones was forgotten, entirely... wiped from records. He was as forgotten as was the whole set of mysterious circumstances leading to his fate... and that of his radar operator, John DelCurto. They just vanished, and while in contact with control. There one moment... gone the next.

Years later and out of the public eye, people in Jones' own hometown of Sanford, Florida had no idea who he was, had no idea that he was a fighter pilot who had vanished mysteriously in the performance of his military duty and who was never. Seen. Again.

How quickly the missing pilot was forgotten and relegated to the suspiciously unspoken. Shameful. Wrong. A moral tragedy.

Enter Feschino. When Feschino discovered this incident, occurring on the same day and very shortly before the "Flatwoods Monster" incident in Flatwoods, WV ... during, remember, the biggest UFO flap in American history, he researched it thoroughly to make some pretty astonishing discoveries.

He found, for example, that the Air Force reported that they had no official records of the pilot, himself, nor did they have a record of the incident providing for his disappearance on September 12, 1952! Additionally, further research disclosed that Jones was not even listed in the Florida Office of Vital Statistics. There was no death certificate for him! Yes reader, John Jones, Jr. not only vanished in his jet, he also vanished from the official record as well! What?!

His slate was wiped clean; the Air Force Historical Research Agency stated, "Thank you for your letter requesting information about the lost pilots. Regrettably, our holdings do not contain the historical data you've requested. Sincerely, David R. Mills, Captain, USAF, Chief Inquiries Branch."

A second effort to locate information was made to no avail. Official response? "Thank you for your letter. we checked the history of Tyndall AFB, FL for the time period mentioned in your letter, but did not locate any information on the incident you mentioned... Sincerely, Archie DeFate, Archives Branch."

Next, the Florida Office of Vital Statistics was contacted about information concerning information about John Anderson Jones, Jr. of Sanford, Florida. They replied, "Florida vital records have been carefully searched but no record has been found that exactly matches the information on your application." How. Can. This. Be?

It was not to be. Always in due diligence, if years later (persons named Jones are, ironically, not so easy to find), Feschino tracked down Jones' older brother. In inquiry, astonishingly, Feschino was provided with copies of the original documents sent to the Jones family by the Air Defense Command and Tyndall AFB; there were four (?!) Western Union Telegrams from top brass ADC Commander, General Chidlaw (?!) and one letter from Tyndall Base Commander, Colonel Kleine. Here was hard official evidence of the dismissed existence of Lieutenant Jones. Subsequently, Feschino even tracked down the memorial headstone marking the empty grave of the pilot at the family plot located in Ocala, Florida. He photographed it and provided documentation for it, at last.

A rubbing from the stone...

Suspiciously... after all of this information about Jones was published in Feschino's publisher-flawed original 2004 book, "The Braxton County Monster," the official case file was then released by the Air Force, "Aircraft Accidents of 1952." Stanton Friedman obtained the September 1952 microfilm reel and gave it to Feschino, who then reviewed the September 12 cases. These were classified as "RESTRICTED." These are peculiar for losses during a "training mission."

Yes reader (cutting to the chase), the Jones and DelCurto case was listed! It appeared as case number "52-9-14-4," the fourth major accident to have been documented that day of eleven cases... 10 other cases reader, and oddly enough, the accident case immediately before and the one immediately after the Jones incident... were missing! These were sent to higher classification. The reader has heard of "kicked upstairs." It's never a good thing.

Why, this writer asks, reader? This writer, moreover, smells fish and hasn't seen Denmark since the late 1980's flying in and out of an M-1 tank gunnery range for the 2d Armored Division (Forward). "Fishy" understates.

Feschino read, reviewed and dissected the official 65-page accident report and discovered it was heavily edited, not complete, and could best be described as a convoluted muddle of gross inconsistencies. He then cross-referenced the accident report with the information released by the Air Force in the original newspaper articles and the information contained in the documents sent to the Jones family from the ADC and Tyndall AFB, Panama City, Florida. Insanity follows.

~~

Next: Insentient suppositions, obligatory stonewalls, and ham-handed cover-ups: and a hero's Hero confirmed.

Part I of IV
https://alienviewgroup.blogspot.com/2017/08/our-heroes-betrayed-part-i-of-iv.html

Part II of IV
https://alienviewgroup.blogspot.com/2017/08/our-heroes-betrayed-part-ii-of-iv.html

Part III of IV
https://alienviewgroup.blogspot.com/2017/09/our-heroes-betrayed-part-iii-of-iv.html

Part IV of IV
https://alienviewgroup.blogspot.com/2017/09/our-heroes-betrayed-part-iv-of-iv.html