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James Williams Jr. was born in 1937 in Kansas City, Missouri. However he was raised in the small town of Waverly, Kansas, which had, and maintains a population of 600 residents. He graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in business, although his initial intent was to go into the engineering field. Williams joined the United States Air Force soon after graduating in 1960, as he did not want to go into the army at all, stating “If I gotta go to war, I ain’t walking.” By this point he had his pilot’s license and enjoyed flying describing it as an “expensive hobby,” so he joined the United States Air Force on November 10, 1960.
Williams’ initial training was OfficerTraining School at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. Here, he was not allowed to have any contact with his wife or family for seven weeks, which was described as challenging because he had never previously been away from his loved ones and had only been married for a few years, since 1957. In addition to the emotional tolls that this training took, it was also very demanding physically a
s it was very regimented: “Yes, we marched to everything, including meals in the dining hall.” After graduating as a “90 Day Wonder”, Williams attended NavigatorTraining School, after being denied for Pilot Training in 1961. Next was BombardierSchool for the B-47 in 1962 at Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento, California.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Williams was stationed in Greenville, South Carolina and worked as a mission planner for other airplanes in case of war with Cuba and the Soviet Union. After this situation diffused, he was sent on his first combat mission in a C124 and flew cargo to Vietnam from 1963 until 1966. This continued into his C141-A tour from 1967 to 1971. During his years in the United States Air Force, Williams accumulated over 900 hours and was involved in numerous combat missions, most of these being over Laos and Vietnam. Williams spent a year as a navigator on an AC-130-E Gunship, in which most missions involved hunting trucks on the Ho Chi Min Trail and supporting American troops in the area on the ground. During this tour, he accumulated 760 hours of combat and 155 combat missions. Before this experience on the gunship, Williams had attended JungleSurvivalSchool, during which he learned about the plants and the animals of the Philippines in case of emergency and he needed to eject, which luckily never occurred. During the last seven months of the war, Williams’ primary mission was to provide fire support for the troops on the ground. The biggest threat that Williams’ plane had were anti-aircraft fire and several ground to air heat seeking missiles. Occasionally, when sent to high threat areas, they were assigned three fighter aircraft for protection from the enemy.
The most dangerous mission that Williams was on involved 1400 rounds of anti-aircraft fire shot at his plane. Also, one night during his time in Vietnam, Williams’ plane was intercepted by enemy aircraft out of Hanoi three times in one night. He recalled that they were so close to the ground that their controller could not see the plane on radar. Not only this, the two planes were so close that Williams believes that he “could just about reach down and touch the other plane.” To avoid being seen by the enemy pilot, Williams’ plane was on a “blackout.”
Williams’ pre-combat ritual involved mission planning, often spending the two hours before the rest of the crew showed up planning the mission and plotting hazards. Then his job was to brief the crew and would arrive at the plane about an hour early to align the navigation equipment. During his time in the service, GPS was non-existent and instead tracked celestial stars, used sextants, and learned pressure pattern navigation to be able to guide the plane on its correct path.
His last combat mission was flown in 1972, however Williams remained in the service until retirement. He was assigned temporary duty to toRhein Mine Air Base in Frankfurt, Germany flying C-124 several times to exercise America’s right to fly the Berlin corridor to Berlin during the Cold War. He flew as a Radar Navigator on the B-52-H at Minot Air Force Base from 1973 until 1976. Then he scheduled training at March Air Force Base. Williams retired on August 31, 1984 along with three other fellow soldiers; he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for his service at HQ, 15th AF. This was just one of many medals that Williams was awarded, others include, but are not limited to 17 Air Medals, the Commendation Medal with with one oak leaf cluster, the Distinguished Flying Cross, an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal with one Bronze Star, as well as the Vietnam Service Medal with nine Bronze Stars.
During his time in the service, Williams’ and his crew often resorted to alcohol as an escape as well as racketball, swimming, and volunteering at a local orphanage in Thailand where Williams recalls strong cultural differences and “tried not to be an ugly American.” His crew played many pranks on each other, one specifically involved the pilot taking apart his sextant and stuff a cigarette wrapper into the optics. Also, Williams was able to stay in touch with his family through writing and phone calls, although he did miss them dearly.
He had two leaves where he was able to spend time with his family. The first was in Bangkok, where he and his wife did very normal tourist type things. The second time off, Williams traveled home to Kansas to be with his wife and three kids as well as other family members. Throughout his time in the service, Williams has counted over 47 countries and islands that he traveled to, most of these were in the Pacific Ocean. After reflecting on his time Williams asserted that “some things I wouldn’t ever want to do again, but a lot I miss.” He made several friends, with whom he maintains contact with many times a year. Overall, Williams is very proud of his service and was glad to be a part of it.