Tag Archives: mercenary pilot

Unlikely Oasis Skyraider Reunion

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We’ve covered the legacy of the Toyota Wars and the saga of French Jaguar Diplomacy in blunting Gaddafi’s Libyan legions in Chad in the 1980s, but another, even more shoestring, story often goes untold.

Between 1973 and 1978, a group of a half-dozen Korean War-era ex-USN A-1N/NA Skyraiders known to history as the Sky Tchadiens were being flown for the Chadian forces by a collection of French mercenary pilots and two Gabonese Air Force president’s squadron (Groupement Aérien Présidentiel) lieutenants on loan, Jacques Borne (nicknamed “Sarcife”) and René Gras, who, of course, were all just sheep-dipped French Air Force officers.

In the below, Borne is seen in a red scarf, while Gras is seen in a green.

From left to right: Pierre Grosjean, René Gras, Fayolle, and Jacques Borne (Coll. F. Borne)

Underwing are French-designed and produced 60-pound SERAM T-10 100mm rockets, typically carried by Dassault  Ouragan or Mystère aircraft in strike roles. Combined with light GP bombs and the Raiders’ 20mm cannon, they proved strong medicine on attack runs.

Operating as a “light aviation support squadron” (Escadrille Légère d’Aviation d’Appui 1/22 “Ain”), they were officially stationed at Fort-Lamy (now N’Djamena, Chad) but forward-deployed in pairs to Faya-Largeau, an oasis in the north of the country.

At the Faya-Largeau oasis strip, the desert was so deep and loose that planes often sank to the wheel hubs and aircraft patrols took off near-simultaneously as visibility after the first plane went to full power was nil for several minutes after.

From there, they flew dune-height strafing, bombing, and rocketry runs over Libyan-backed insurgent camps and columns and lived to (not) tell the tale.

An average of 35 operational recon, strike, and support sorties were logged every month, which is impressive for two forward-deployed aircraft and just six in the whole country.

The French dubbed the 12,000-pound (empty) Skyraider “La Bête” (The Beast), and they flew them throughout the 1960s and 70s not only in Chad but also in Algeria, Djibouti, and Madagascar.

In all, they acquired 20 ex-USN AD-4s, 88 ex-USN AD-4Ns, and 5 ex-USN AD-4NAs in the early 1960s, some of which were later passed on third-hand to Cambodia, as well as the aforementioned Gabonese and Chadian planes.

At least a dozen ex-Navy Skyraiders flew with ELAA 1/22 in Chad at one time or another in the 1970s (BuNos 126882, 126912, 126935, 126959, 126969, 126970, 126979, 126994, 126996, 126997, 127888, and 127894).

Retired by the French Air Force in 1979, at least one Beast is preserved in Djibouti at Base Aérienne 188 “Colonel Massart” while another, AD-4NA BuNo 126979, which flew with EC 2/20 Ouarsenis in Algeria, is on display at the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace.

First flown by the Navy on 24 September 1952, BuNo 126979 left NAS Norfolk in April 1960, flew with EC 2/20 in Algeria as 20-QA, then with EAA 601 at Châteaudun, and later with ELAA 1/22 in Chad from 1971 through 1975 as 22-DD before she was struck off in 1976.

She reportedly still has a base coat of Navy blue under her French livery.

U.S. Navy Douglas AD-4/-4L Skyraider aircraft from Attack Squadron VA-175 Devil’s Diplomats on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB-42). VA-175 was assigned to Carrier Air Group 17 (CVG-17) aboard the FDR for two deployments to the Mediterranean Sea in 1951-52. U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.253.2860

Frank Tinker American Pilot in Spain

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http://suite101.com/article/frank-tinker-american-fighter-pilot-in-spanish-civil-war-a408151

Frank Tinker, American pilot in Spain

By Christopher L. Eger

One of the handfuls of American volunteer pilots that flew for the Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War, Frank Tinker is a forgotten ace.

American pilots have always had a reputation as being something of adventurers. It is hard to find a single war or conflict that American flyers of fortune did not participate in. Volunteer US pilots flew for Pancho Villa. Enough volunteer Americans of all backgrounds flew for the French Air Force in the early stages of World War 1 to form their own squadron, the Lafayette Escadrille. Later, Americans formed the Flying Tigers under the Nationalist Chinese Flag and the Eagle Squadron under the British Jack to fight Japan and Nazi Germany before the US entry into World War 2. A tale often overlooked in history is that of the handful of US pilots who flew for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. One of these men, Frank Tinker, became an ace.

Frank Tinker

Frank Glasgow Tinker was born July 14, 1909 in the tiny Cajun town of Kaplan, deep in the swamps of Louisiana. At age 25, he joined the US Navy and after a few years won an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis.  He graduated from that school as an ensign in 1933 during the height of the Great Depression. Tinker became a floatplane pilot and flew scout missions from cruisers for a few years before being cashiered from the service in 1935. The next year the unemployed pilot presented himself to the Republican forces in Spain and was soon flying bombers for $1500 per month.

Going after a Messerschmidt in a biplane made in the Worker’s Paradise and serviced by questionably trained mechanics…..can you say balls?

Fighter pilot

Tinker, who had only ever flown scout planes and bombers, was reassigned to the 1st Escadrille de Chatos and given a Soviet built Polikarpov I-15  biplane. Alternating between No. 56 and No. 58 planes in the squadron, he shot down four German and Italian aircraft in a three-month period. This brought about his transfer to the Mosca Squadron and reassignment to an I-16 monoplane fighter. In the next three months flying over the lines, he downed another four aircraft. Remarkably these included the first ever victory over a German Condor Legion Messerschmidt BF109. When compared to Tinker’s dumpy I-16 (which Soviet pilots nicknamed “Ishak” –donkey), which had a top speed of 326mph, the Messerschmidt was more than 20% faster.

An I-16.
Can you stay stubby? Its easy to see why the Condor Legion guys racked up such easy kills.

Death in exile

Tinker soon returned to America after hanging out with Hemingway and published a book, “Some Still Live,” about his flying in Spain in 1938. This brought him some notoriety but also blacklisted him from being able to rejoin the US military. Even though he had shot down eight planes in 6 months of combat (he claimed 11) in Spain, both the Army and Navy refused to allow him to reenlist. While waiting for a position with the Flying Tigers, he died of a self-inflected gunshot wound in a hotel room in Arkansas a month before his 30th birthday.

total sold hero

The inscription on his grave simply says, “Who knows?” in Spanish.

Sources

Edwards, John Carver. Airmen Without Portfolio: U.S. Mercenaries in Civil War Spain University of Georgia Press

Flyers of Fortune, Radio documentary by the University of Georgia available at http://www.libs.uga.edu/flyers/

The Frank Tinker Memorial page http://imansolas.freeservers.com/Aces/Frank_Tinker.html accessed 5/28/2012

Tinker, FG. Some Still Live. Funk and Wagnall’s, New York, 1938