Brief B-66 History of Harrison H. Lobdell's
Submitted by: Bill Starnes

Regarding Harrison H. Lobdell's Tactical ECM and the B-66 in my opinion he is the "sine qua non" for your work as it regards to B-66 Tactical Reconnaissance and Jamming Missions. H and Pat have always been among my favorite peoples and H was a great military leader. H was there at the "beginning" of the formation of Tactical ECM in 1952-3 and led the EB-66 Tactical ECM program at its "zenith".

In 1961I flew with H on his check out at Chelveston in the RB-66C and other missions as well as those at Takhli for six or so months until he rotated in April '68. H is a true TAC warrior like me and to my knowledge he avoided SAC as I did during his Air Force tenure. Here are a couple of highlights of his career as it pertains to TAC and Tactical ECM that I recall:

After graduating from West Point and pilot training he led the "first" B-26 tactical bombing raid of the Korean War. After completing his combat tour (he earned a spot promotion to Captain in Korea I believe), H was assigned to the Pentagon as the first Chief of Tactical ECM (he told me once that no one knew what that was and the program had very little support).

He arrived at Shaw Field in 1954 to check out in the RB-57A tactical photo reconnaissance aircraft with our 16th TRSq. At that time, our ECM Cell (two TB-25J jammers and three hard nose B-26B Hunter Killers -- forerunners of the Wild Weasel) had moved from the 16th and formed the 9th TRSq(E&W) under Charles A. Callahan. While we were in the 16th our ECM Cell was led by Flight Commander Captain Sidney W. Crews who went with us to the 9th TRSq(E&W) as Ops Officer.

Then, H joined us in the spring of 1971 with the 10th TRWg staff and checked out in our 42nd TRSq(E&W) RB/WB-66C/D machines.

H moved to France with the Wing the next year or so and became Commander of the 1st TRSq(photo) RB-66B squadron that pulled alerts with the 11 converted B-66B "Brown Cradles" on alert for NATO.

In 1967, H was assigned to the 355th TFWg at Takhli in charge of the 6460th TEWS and the 41st TEWS squadrons and later we made some manpower organizational changes (I had just completed a three year tour as a MET Commander at Misawa and had good contacts all the way to the then Pentagon head guy (LGen Benjamin O. Davis). According to my notes, I prepared the briefing for H to give to visiting USAFE Commander John D. Ryan on December 9, 1967 and I gave the briefing to visiting Davis on the 13th highlighting the Manpower and Organizational Problems in B-66 Supervision, i.e., four diverse combat missions -- the Strike Force Missions, Wild Weasel Missions, Tactical ECM Reconnaissance Missions and Electronic Stand-Off Jamming Missions. These four missions were considered by the 355th Commander too diverse for one man to directly command, hence the M&O change to a two DCO organization. Davis concurred sending message that day from Takhli to Colonel Kern, DPLM at USAF and we made the change.

On December 14th H became the DCO/EB-66 under Colonel (later MGen) John C. Giraudo, 355th TRWg Commander and as I recall, the DCO/F-105 was given to Colonel Lawrence J Pickett -- who was the 355th Deputy Commander and a great combat veteran of WWII and Korea. H was replace by our old Shaw Field buddy, Colonel Bob Hoyt (now deceased), as the EB-66 Deputy Commander in April '68. Interesting to note here that Bob Hoyt was my 16th TRSq Ops Officer and also that when H checked out in the RB-57A with the 16th TRSq.

Yep! In my opinion, H Lobdell should be the "sine qua non" of your work along with those of Colonel Charles A. Callahan, the first Tactical ECM Squadron Commander and the Commander when the RB/WB-66C/D entered the United States Air Force. Promoted to full colonel in 1956 Callahan was assigned to the 10th TRWg as DO. It is sad that so many of those clearly outstanding early B-66 folks are gone. Among the most notable to me is the long deceased, Bill Allen, who was probably the best "natural" pilot I ever rode with in the TB-25J, B-66B and RB-66C aircraft -- he never failed to "grease in" every landing. He could also "walk a B-66" down the runway, but then you need to get Rex Deaton or Paul Henkle too tell you about this great pilot.

Then, there was the great MGen Kenneth C. Dempster who became our Tactical ECM Champion as DCS/Ops at 9th AF under MGen Edward J Timberlake -- I was the ECM Officer at 9th AF from 1955-56 under Knoxville's Bruce K. Holloway (Deputy Commander) and KC. We three were the first officers to arrive at the Aggressor Headquarters of 6th Air Army (SageBrush in Louisiana -- the largest joint Army/Air Force Maneuver following WWII) in 1956 where Tactical ECM was written up in the Periscope Section of NewsWeek Magazine. Both Holloway and KC were close friends of mine through the years and together from 9th AF got me recalled to active duty during the "RIF of 1957" believe it or not. Later, KC as Commander of the 47th TBWg at RAF Schulthorpe gave us one of his B-66Bs to configure as the infamous "Brown Cradle" for testing as "Green Dragon" early 1960 at Rome AFB. I was the USAFE Project Officer for that configuration and test for those six weeks and given a direct order "not to fly any of the test missions" -- I was top ECM type in B-66 flying hours at the time. After the test, I briefed the staff at Wright-Pat, Pentagon, USAFE, and finally 3rd AF regarding the results of the "Green Dragon" testing and KC gave up ten more of his B-66Bs for configuration resulting in the infamous B-66B ECM configured alerts for NATO until the Vietnam War when those machines were sent to SEA and replaced by the EB-57s. I flew for the EB-57E mission for two years at Hill AFB after Chelveston. You may, or may not know, that KC was the "Father of the Wild Weasel" F-100 and follow-up F-105 from the Pentagon.