sigp220.45
US Veteran
I was stationed as a Security Police Shift Commander at Anderson Air Force Base, Guam. In October of 1987 I was working a midnight shift when a B-52 declared an in-flight emergency due to a loss of hydraulics. We all booked to the flightline to watch the show.
The Buff dumped fuel and came in on a seemingly normal approach. It touched down, then drove right off the runway into the turf separating it from the runway going the other direction. It plowed grass and mud into the air, firetrucks hauled a** in its direction, and the crew all jumped out and ran the other way. It was a great show.
Pretty soon the Base Commander and the Wing Commander showed up. Not long after that OSI (Office of Special Investigations) appeared. When they called day shift in early to relieve us and ordered me to the armory to oversee weapons turn in I knew something was up.
It turns out there were a number of bullet holes in the underside of the big plane. Little bullet holes. Since all of my guys had M-16s, we were the first suspects. I was carrying a mighty Model 15 so I was deemed trustworthy.
It got worse. I tried to explain to the OSI guy that he might see some surprising things when we stripped rounds out of everyone's magazines. The boys were known to get bored and shoot the occasional coconut, boonie deer, boonie pig, boonie dog, or lizard on long nights. Since the armory only checked magazines by pushing down on the top round, the ever-resourceful enlisted men soon learned to gather up their empties, strip out the other rounds, load the empties in the bottom of the mag, and replace the live rounds on top. If they couldn't find their empties, pen tops and whittled sticks would suffice.
Sure enough, halfway into the round stripping procedure we hit empties and other debris. Those poor dudes were put to the side, even though mags weren't assigned to specific weapons and those rounds could have been fired off anytime after the last full scale inspection.
Finally, one of the guys said he had run into a GovGuam conservation officer in the jungle. At Anderson at the time, there was a huge jungle area where racks of Vietnam era iron bombs sat exposed to the elements, too unstable to move. GovGuam COs were allowed in, allegedly to catch poachers, but in reality mostly poached themselves. The well guarded jungle on base was one of the few places where there was still a good population of pigs and the weird little barking deer of Guam. The CO had his trusty Mini-14 with him at the time.
Leonard Iriarte, who had gone to school with my Guamanian bride, was soon rounded up. His issue Mini-14 was seized, and soon the tale was told. He and his pal had smoked some weed and were intent on getting some deer when they became annoyed with the aforementioned B-52 practicing its low approaches over their heads. Leonard waited for the next pass, and sent 20 rounds skyward.
The Wing Commander was on TV later, claiming this incident didn't mean the B-52 was vulnerable to ground fire. He called it "the golden BB", meaning old Leonard just got lucky.
This is the only reference I can find to the incident:
Guam Officers Deny Shooting B-52 Bomber - Los Angeles Times
They were both convicted, and are both out of stir now. I'm surprised it didn't make more news at the time, or since.
The Buff dumped fuel and came in on a seemingly normal approach. It touched down, then drove right off the runway into the turf separating it from the runway going the other direction. It plowed grass and mud into the air, firetrucks hauled a** in its direction, and the crew all jumped out and ran the other way. It was a great show.
Pretty soon the Base Commander and the Wing Commander showed up. Not long after that OSI (Office of Special Investigations) appeared. When they called day shift in early to relieve us and ordered me to the armory to oversee weapons turn in I knew something was up.
It turns out there were a number of bullet holes in the underside of the big plane. Little bullet holes. Since all of my guys had M-16s, we were the first suspects. I was carrying a mighty Model 15 so I was deemed trustworthy.
It got worse. I tried to explain to the OSI guy that he might see some surprising things when we stripped rounds out of everyone's magazines. The boys were known to get bored and shoot the occasional coconut, boonie deer, boonie pig, boonie dog, or lizard on long nights. Since the armory only checked magazines by pushing down on the top round, the ever-resourceful enlisted men soon learned to gather up their empties, strip out the other rounds, load the empties in the bottom of the mag, and replace the live rounds on top. If they couldn't find their empties, pen tops and whittled sticks would suffice.
Sure enough, halfway into the round stripping procedure we hit empties and other debris. Those poor dudes were put to the side, even though mags weren't assigned to specific weapons and those rounds could have been fired off anytime after the last full scale inspection.
Finally, one of the guys said he had run into a GovGuam conservation officer in the jungle. At Anderson at the time, there was a huge jungle area where racks of Vietnam era iron bombs sat exposed to the elements, too unstable to move. GovGuam COs were allowed in, allegedly to catch poachers, but in reality mostly poached themselves. The well guarded jungle on base was one of the few places where there was still a good population of pigs and the weird little barking deer of Guam. The CO had his trusty Mini-14 with him at the time.
Leonard Iriarte, who had gone to school with my Guamanian bride, was soon rounded up. His issue Mini-14 was seized, and soon the tale was told. He and his pal had smoked some weed and were intent on getting some deer when they became annoyed with the aforementioned B-52 practicing its low approaches over their heads. Leonard waited for the next pass, and sent 20 rounds skyward.
The Wing Commander was on TV later, claiming this incident didn't mean the B-52 was vulnerable to ground fire. He called it "the golden BB", meaning old Leonard just got lucky.
This is the only reference I can find to the incident:
Guam Officers Deny Shooting B-52 Bomber - Los Angeles Times
They were both convicted, and are both out of stir now. I'm surprised it didn't make more news at the time, or since.
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