Vance Phillips, A Fighter Pilot

 

Vance Phillip’s younger brother Dee told me this story first in 1990 at a high school reunion in Odessa, Texas, where I just accidentally ran across him.  Some of the other information came to me via Vance’s wife Nancy Hinds Phillips when she moved to Round Rock, Texas in the late seventies.   When Dee told me the story I remember wondering if Dee might have been slightly embarrassed in the telling of the story to me, but I have recently talked to Dee by phone to make sure of the accuracy of some of my facts and he has reassured me that he fully understood the environment in which this story took place, and like me and numerous Air force pilots to whom I have related this event, was more than a bit amused by it all.  In fact, Dee said even his mother got a kick out of it.

 In a letter to me, Dee said he was “glad that Vance did what he did.”  This shows the sense of humor in the Phillips family because Dee has a son in the Navy in this year, 2003, and that son is flying F-18 Hornet Fighters off of a carrier, so Brother Dee is more than aware of the factors that existed during the times and situation that existed years ago. 

Before I get into the incident itself, and just for the sake of veracity and history, I need to state that I followed Vance’s career the best I could because he was a friend and secondly because I am an aviation freak and I have been since the mid-60s when I became a civilian flight instructor training USAF pilots in the Air Force T-41 program.  

 The T-41 program was a primary flight school funded by the USAF for the purpose of teaching new Air Force student pilots how to fly. The aircraft used in this T-41 program was a military version of the Cessna 172.  Of course, all the students were military and all of us instructors were civilians employed by contract and supervised by military officers.  The program was designed to shave the cost of flight training for new pilots by identifying those potential pilots who would or could not hack the program.  The guys who had no aptitude for flying were washed out in a relatively inexpensive to operate airplane rather than in the jets that were used before Viet Nam heated up into a full-blown war.  Vance went through this program as the first phase of his military flying, and even though he was not stationed where I was an instructor, we were both aware of each other’s activity at the time, so much for the veracity. 

As far as the history goes, Vance and I lived on the same block of Windsor Drive within a few doors of each other in Odessa, Texas in the 50’s, and early 60’s.  His best friend at that time was also a pal of mine, Johnny Ben Sheppard, who lived just across the street from me.  The three of us together would often dream up mischief at night together in our old neighborhood.  The specifics of those adventures are best left untold, but we were in our mid-teens and mischief came easy with us. 

After graduation from high school and after we all went our separate ways, and as the years passed, I would occasionally call Vance’s parents, Ed and Trigger, to keep track of Vance.   I know he entered the Air Force in 1967 just after I started my aviation career as a flight instructor in the aforementioned USAF T-41 program.  In 1967 Vance and I once talked by phone in Odessa over a Christmas holiday season right before he was to report to pilot training in Alabama early in the year of 1968.  After that conversation, many years went by without any contact between us until around early 1976.  In that year I wrote to him by addressing the letter to his parents’ home in Odessa, knowing they would forward it to him.  I wrote him and his wife Nancy Hinds a letter asking to be updated on his career.  I got back a very warm letter from the two of them.  I remember that letter vividly even though I can no longer find it.   

At the time of the update, Vance and his wife Nancy were stationed at Nellis Air Force Base outside Las Vegas, Nevada.  It was then that I began learning just how spectacular his Air Force career must have been. Vance had become a flight instructor in the Aggressor Squadron.  It was said at the time that the Aggressor Squadron flight instructor job was the best job to be had in the Air Force in that era because it was a squadron designed to simulate air combat conditions that would be encountered with the best of the Russian pilots flying the best of the Russian fighter aircraft.  The Aggressor squadron was similar to the Navy’s Top Gun school and it was in addition to The Red Flag program the USAF had put together for Air combat training earlier on for the Viet Nam War.  

Those guys in the aggressor squadron got to do what any fighter pilot loves to do, dogfight all day in fast jet airplanes.  Any fighter pilot of that era would have given all he had or could ever hope to have for that job because they flew against the best we had and they flew the hottest airplanes we had.  It was a dream job.  You can be the United States Air Force offered that job to the best pilots they had.  Vance Phillips evidently was among the best in the Air Force at that time. 

 I do know that he had to graduate very high in his class to get the assignment that he got after finishing flight training.  He got an F-100 fighter assignment and at the time that assignment was rare because other types of airplanes were starting to replace that favorite.  It is said that the F-100 was the last fighter that was strapped onto the pilot.  In other words it was a pure fighter and it was not asked to do so many other things that the next generation of fighters were being asked to do.  Fighter pilots loved it.  In those days it was the vision of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, the fool, that the military should have an all around airplane that could do a multitude of jobs.  This was not a good idea and it did not work.  But in the mean time there was a war in Southeast Asia that was being fought and Vance found him self right in the thick of things flying his choice of airplanes, the F-100 Super Sabre. 

After two tours in Viet Nam, and while in the Aggressor Squadron assignment, Vance was killed in early May of 1976 on a training mission in a T-38 jet trainer eighty miles off the coast of Virginia when his ejection seat malfunctioned by arming itself and firing without warning to Vance.  It was a freak accident.  Neither Vance nor his aircraft was recovered.  The student flying with him survived.  The news of that accident was broadcast nationwide. I’ll never forget the sickening feeling when I heard the story. 

There was another time when Vance made the news nationwide in his career while flying an F-100 Super Saber fighter over Cambodia in some of the hottest action of the war. Vance’s airplane was hopelessly damaged by enemy fire, but he managed to eject over water and was successfully rescued. I know the Cambodia story because I was zooming across the remote plains of Wyoming driving back to Denver in the late 60's listening to the car radio when the news came on telling about Air Force Lieutenant Vance Phillips from Odessa, Texas, surviving that experience.  It was a strange feeling to hear that news, in that time, in that place, of a friend of mine from our home town.

While on his second tour in Viet Nam he again had to eject because his airplane had just been shot up so badly that he could not have landed it.  The second incident resulted in his receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross. I have the feeling Vance hung on in tough situations when few others would.  It is no secret that some pilots in that war had to be urged to fly some of the crazy and too dangerous combat missions that Defense Secretary McNamara dreamed up on his own in those days.  I’ll bet that Vance Phillips did the job he was asked to do and more.  That was his style 

Dee Phillips’ story to me is one story that will never be told in the news, but it is a story that I can say typified the Vance we all knew growing up.  Keep in mind, Vance lived at full throttle, the same way he flew fighters, all out.  He flew the Air Force’s fighters “like he was trying to tear them up.”  I heard that statement from Vance’s Uncle Chuck Phillips of Austin, Texas, where Chuck and I became friends in the early 70’s.  Uncle Chuck was a bomber pilot in World War II.  Chuck and Vance’s dad were brothers; both of them were very fine men.  Over the years in the early to mid seventies I kept up on the news of Vance’s career through Chuck in Austin, Texas right up to the time of Vance’s death in May 1976.  

To fully understand the following incident and to keep it all in the proper perspective it needs to be well understood by any reader that the rivalry between our Navy and Air Force Pilots is more intense than any rivalry such as the rivalry between schools like the University of Texas and Texas A&M or Notre Dame and Southern Cal, or Arizona State and University of Arizona or Ohio State and Michigan.  Put all of them together and multiply them by a factor of your choice.  It is fierce rivalry.  Also, it is important to remember that the hottest aircraft in the USA are often flown by fuzzy face kids fresh from our colleges, and those fuzzy face kids who eventually are chosen to fly fighters are always at the top of their class out of pilot training.  They are at the top of their class because they fit a profile of being the most competitive and self-demanding of all the guys in the program. It is a hot mixture of factors and knowing that, please realize anything can happen with these guys.  It is a man show with fighter airplanes.   

Plus, consider that the Navy pilots boast they are the best pilots in the world because they are able to conduct their combat missions while performing the most difficult flying task in the world: flying off the deck of an aircraft carrier at night and in bad weather when the ship is pitching, rolling and faced into high gusty winds and bad seas while churning along at nearly 30 knots.  It is a tough job and the Air Force knows it.  

Also, at the heart of the rivalry is the Navy's perceived arrogance and pomposity toward their fellow brethren in the blue suits whom are seen by those Navy pilots as just incapable of doing the job the Navy has to do. 

Of course the blue suiters in the Air Force say that any of them could do the job if they were given the same training.  So goes the bantering and debating between these highly competitive souls. The rivalry is made even the more bitter over the media’s presentation of the two services, with both services pouting that their respective service gets less favorable publicity than the other.  The most famous pilot of all history is probably the Air Force’s Chuck Yeager, who broke the sound barrier in 1948, and has mountains of pages written about his exploits.  His notoriety alone accounts for a great deal of the acrimony between the two services, and to the uninitiated, the movie industry’s movie, TOP GUN made Navy flying legendary to the latest generations.  It was too cheesy for me, but I loved the music!  

Dee Phillips story began by his telling me that in 1974 at age 31 Vance got accepted into an exchange program between the Air Force and the Navy in which he would go aboard a Navy carrier, and a Navy carrier pilot would likewise go through the Air Force combat mission training.  It was an honor for Vance to be picked by the Air Force and to be handed over to the Navy for a Navy tour at sea.  The Air Force wanted to send one of their best and most competitive pilots to the Navy.  They picked Captain Vance Phillips of Odessa, Texas.  It was a good choice.

Events like this are not news items we civilians would ever hear about,
but the fighter pilots on each side of that infamous rivalry know how it all
worked.   

One way that it all works is that the Navy jocks are in constant competition with one another when it comes to the best execution of landings on the carrier deck. There is a fierce scrutiny of each approach and landing; each exercise is graded, and the flight crews throughout the tour monitor their grades.  The leader with the highest score is like a rhinestone cowboy with honors and recognition and probably a lot of ribbing along the way.  Frankly, for an Air Force guy to lead that competition on their carriers is, well, a painful slap in the face to those who love to dig at the "inferior" flying the USAF does compared to the “superior” flying of the pilots of the Navy. The rivalry is fierce.

Let the record show Vance Phillips, the Air Force pilot, won that competition during his tour at sea with the Navy. 

So, upon his departure of the carrier at tour's end, there was a farewell ceremony honoring him as the hottest jock aboard. These ceremonies are the climatic event of a lot of stress and then relief from getting back home alive and it is a little more than likely that a bit of alcohol is consumed during said meetings.  Navy gatherings can be infamous.  Tail-hookishly infamous.

Vance was a guest of honor at this gathering of his peers and they all were celebrating his accomplishments while sending him back to the Air Force.  There were high-ranking officers and their wives in attendance and Admirals and other officers in bright white uniforms.  Vance was introduced and went to the podium where he was given his award, and where he was expected to say a few words.  

After saying a few words Vance the honoree said something to the effect, “ Now here is what I think of you Navy pukes.”  He then turned around, bent over and mooned the Navy. 

Brother Dee, in his letter to me further states, “It is unclear to this writer whether this was done linen up, or linen down, but it is definitely the thought that counts.”  Dee further stated in effect that even though Vance always was for a good time he doubted Vance would have totally insulted the Admiral’s wife.  Case closed.  Linen up. 

There was no doubt raucous laughter and returned gestures of some type.  Vance then left the stage.   

Dee assures me that the family understood the circumstances, so I don’t know for sure if there might be some who knew Vance who wished that he had not done what he did. It is a reasonable guess that some of them might have wished he had accepted the honors in a humble and grateful fashion, in a way that would have allowed them to write home to the local newspaper of his accomplishments.  But, that was not the way of one of the Air Force’s most competitive pilots. I can dang sure guarantee that the entire USAF who became aware of what he did in his farewell address to the Navy, got the laugh of their life, and they loved Vance for doing what he did.  

The pilots who were his friends in the Air Force and who knew Vance Phillips understood that he did what he did for his pals who endured the insufferable taunting of those who fly off carriers and say, "I can do it and you cannot do it."

Should anyone in our civilian world think that this was ungentlemanly and crude, I also would like to point out that it did not diminish the respect the Navy pilots had for Vance.  In that world, it was nothing to them except a hearty laugh given to them by someone as competitive as they were and they respected him for his abilities and élan.  

Friendships were made on that cruise that outlasted the farewell.  In fact, some years after Vance’s death, an old Navy buddy looked up Vance’s widow, Nancy Hinds Phillips, and married her.   I’d like to think that Vance, being the man that he was, would have wanted the best for his wife and kids he left behind. I’d bet on it. 

I miss Vance Phillips

 I RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING LETTER IN RESPONSE TO MY STORY.  IT IS SELF EXPLANATORY.

Dear Mike,

Dee just sent me a piece that was forwarded by Nancy...one you had written regarding my cousin Vance Phillips. I enjoyed it immensely and could only think of the times Vance and I had cooked up our on brand of mischief here in Pampa, Texas. It prompted me to write and tell you one other humorous story, one that Vance could have probably had his stripes pulled, but one of those "insider" family-stories.

My dad was Fred Vanderburg and Vance adored everything my dad was and stood for. Some of his favorite times were spent in the Panhandle on our farm and ranch. I have several fond memories about Vance...like riding a horse and running a herd of cattle through a barbwire fence-- out on wheat ground ( He thought he was Roy Rogers the second), or his suggestion that he could "kill" the boar pigs better than my dad as they were being castrated, but this short story has to do with his ability as the pilot we loved.

Dad just happened to be putting out fertilizer in the field-- which up here is done by pulling an applicator with a tractor. Dad's hired hand, Callan George was a short distance away tending to a chore, when out of nowhere came a sound from you know where...a sound way louder than the noise of the tractor. Of course it was Vance...flying just above the tractor. As Callan later reported, he spotted my dad jumping out of the tractor and circling it and the applicator two or three times trying to figure out where that dang noise had come from. . Of course Vance was completely out of sight by the time dad had the tractor stopped. As only Vance would do he made another pass over Dad's tractor ending it by cork-screwing up over the tractor and straight into the sky. Not too long later there was a telephone call from Vance, someplace in Louisiana, which verified the culprit. Needless to say, the hogs went crazy and the rural neighborhood still speaks of the day they thought the world had ended.

It was indeed a painful day for us all when we lost Vance. The only consolation in it is we know he was doing what he loved. Once again, thank you for your wonderful story, and I hope I haven't bored you with my sharing another "Vance Story.”

Sincerely,

Joy Rice (Vance and Dee's first cousin)