Page 18 - DFCS News Magazine Spring 2014

Cont’d 6 Times A Hero
With 22 hours of total
flight experience in the F-
86, he was on his way to
the Yalu River to do battle
with the vaunted MIG 15’s
and as his jet flight expe-
rience was building, Hank
penned a quick note to his
parents to put them at
ease, “Mom, Dad, I just
about died a horrible
death a couple of times, but didn’t. Keep the beer cold! Your son, Harold”. While flying as an intrepid wingman in a four ship of the “Fighting Cocks”, on March 23rd, 1953, Hank was able to introduce himself to ‘The Black Russian’. Unlike ‘The White Russian’ (a ladies sissy drink), the black fellow was able to be lured into Hank’s six o’clock position and then sent large glowing balls of 37mm cannon fire past his canopy, whereupon Hank decided that his next maneu- ver would be a nice tight turn. The nimble MIG was winning the turning race, so his only remaining course of action was to stall and enter a spin to get inside the MIG. “The Black Russian” didn’t fall for the bait and widened his orbit following the crazily spinning F-86 down for what he thought would be an easy kill. At around 20,000 feet flight leader, Colonel Hagerstrom, who had watched the whole flying show, pounced and brought the very dapper Russian to his end, much to Hank’s relief.
Then on May 13th, 1953 Hank concluded his 201st mission by drop- ping a bomb on a short hop to a North Korean airfield. On his return, it seemed like a good idea to make a flashy low pass to wrap up his tour of duty. So, from a height of about 20 feet and at a speed of a bit above 400 mph, Hank made his buzz down the taxiway. As his pun- ishment, Hank was ordered to read aloud the documentation of each of the separate Articles, for his own UCMJ Court Martial, before an assembled audience of his fellow pilots. At the end of the reading, the Court Martial package miraculously disappeared. That was the day the Fighter Pilot departed and the beginnings of the Commander he would eventually become arrived.
Hank’s military biography shows that he did all the right stuff: Nellis AFB Fighter Weapons, Flight Standards, Training, Education, Squad- ron Officer’s School, Air Command & Staff, NATO assignment, a new jet; the F-100 Super Sabre, U.S. Army Parachutist School, Command of a Tactical Fighter Squadron, and he even managed to work in a trip to the Pentagon. The year was 1965 and war drums were once
more beating in the background as LTC Snow found himself on his way to sunny tropical southeast Asia assigned as the Air Liaison Officer (ALO) for the 173rd Airborne Brigade (3rd Herd). As an ALO he would be coordinating CAS, as a Forward Air Controller, and flying the venerable Korean War vintage Cessna O-1F Bird Dog.
For the period 26 April, 1966 through 25 June of the same year, LTC Harold Snow (aka Python1) was awarded his fourth Distinguished Flying Cross for developing and flying in an ‘experimental’ night
interdiction campaign against the North Vietnamese Army. I would remind the reader that the O-1F had a single engine, there were no infrared cameras, the best night vision device available consisted of a night adapted Mark-1 eyeball, and it is usually very very dark above the enemy held jungle. With a little creative use of flare illumination, mortars, artillery, and a dash of CAS, LTC Snow developed those tactics and techniques to effectively hurt the bad guys while protecting our friendly infantry soldiers. Sometime in 1966, LTC Hank snow saddled up with nearly 1000 of his closest ARVN Airborne buddies of the ‘Red Hats’, and stood up, hooked up, and shuffled out the door of a C-130 above War Zone D to add a little ‘pizazz’ to what had been, up to that point, a pretty boring career. Never let it be said that when there was a chance to go ‘big’, Hank stayed home.
By 1968, Air Staff duty within those walls of that five sided poly- gon on the banks of the Potomac had nearly driven poor Hank to distraction, so he filled out his ‘dream sheet’ and waited. They say ‘that good things come to those that wait’, and in Hank’s case if came in the form of an assignment as Deputy Wing Command- er of the 355th TFW, stationed at Takhli, Thailand and the F- 105G ‘Thunderchief’ (aka Thud). While in Thailand, LTC Snow would pass through 1000 hours of combat flying throughout his career, make full Colonel, and be awarded Distinguished Flying Crosses number 5 (23rd April, 1970, heavily defended night in- terdiction raid with a large petroleum storage secondary explo- sion) and number 6 (1st of May, 1970, as part of a 16 aircraft strike package, destroyed multiple trucks and remained over the enemy target to coordinate
multiple subsequent attacks). On the afternoon of June 13th 1970, with 666 combat mis- sions to his credit, Col. Hank Snow would set the brakes of his big fighter in a combat theatre for the last time of his career. There are those that say ‘666’ is the Devil’s Num- ber but it turned out to be pretty lucky for ‘Snowball’.
The Distinguished Flying
Cross Society is honored to
have Harold (Hank) Snow, Col, USAF (Ret.) as one of our mem- bers and be counted among our fellowship of airman. I met ‘Hank’ more than 18 months ago after a tip from our Dentist ‘that I should look him up’. I did look him up and have visited on more than a few occasions with Hank and his lovely wife, Ann. He is a remarkable man and truly has what I describe as that formula for valor; three wars and six awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross equals an American Hero in my book.
The DFC News Magazine is the official publication of The DFC Society, a 501- C (19) non-profit corp., published three times a year . Send articles to Editor via email:
editor@dfcsociety.com
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