Air Commando!: 1950-1975 - Twenty-five years at the Tip ... - AFSOC

Those who cannot
remember the past are
condemned to repeat it
Santayana
PREFACE
The following stories introduce the first step in a research program undertaken by the
Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) in late 1993. To improve awareness
throughout this Command and beyond of the unique, unconventional warfare heritage
brought to AFSOC by its predecessors, this pictorial history focuses on a select series
of operations that highlight the initiative and daring of a truly elite group of airmen.
Attempting to capture the 1950-1975 history of these airmen is an exercise in humility;
in some respects a historian's worst nightmare. The clandestine nature and pace of their
worldwide operations, their need and talent for deceptive cover stories, and their support
to intelligence agencies and special forces of other services (and countries), all combine
to confuse the unwary researcher. Even experienced Air Commandos were frequently
unaware of what their contemporaries were doing in other, far-flung corners of the
globe. The author has no illusions as to having captured the whole story.
However this history does claim to present a previously unpublished insight into the
diverse capabilities and unusual people who made up this elite group during these unusual
times, truly a breed apart.
The 1950-1975 years are of particular interest for two related reasons. First, they
enclose a virtual "black hole" of information released to the public on USAF
unconventional warfare during this period. Second, the end of the Cold War has made
possible for the first time the declassification of a great deal of information regarding
"special air missions" during this period. What emerges from behind this quartercentury
curtain of secrecy is one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of the
United States Air Force.
Readers already knowledgeable of U.S. unconventional warfare history may be
confused by the author's liberal use of the title "Air Commando", to describe individuals,
specific operations or organizations that operated under widely different names during
the 1950-1975 period. They will recall that no Air Commando-designated forces existed
from the end of World War II until the "Jungle Jim" project was initiated in 1961. In
these cases the author has taken the liberty to use this honored title for two reasons.
First, the general belief that the 1960s-era Air Commandos were the first, post­
WWII reactivation of USAF's unconventional warfare capability is in fact far from
reality. Recently declassified documents and interviews published here for the first
time make clear that National Command Authorities maintained and often employed
unconventional air warfare operations throughout the Cold War period.
Such operations were carried out under a variety of carefully created, intentionally
confusing deceptions generated to maintain the necessary degree of secrecy. To avoid
trapping the reader in this kaleidoscope of misleading terminology, the term "Air
Commando" is used to describe the personnel who carried out these missions.
Second, this title is used to honor succeeding generations of USAF's unconventional
warriors who fought (and sometimes died) in clandestine "wars in the shadows". As
only a few really know, these wars often proved every bit as dangerous as the more
highly publicized, conventional combat of the same period.
The Author
Hurlburt Field, Florida
August, 1994
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