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Active-duty C-141s retired; chapter in global air mobility closes

  • Published
In his 1961 State of the Union Address, President John F. Kennedy set as the top immediate defense priority prompt attention to increase Americas airlift capability. He said, Obtaining additional air transport mobility -- and obtaining it now -- will better assure the ability of our conventional forces to respond, with discrimination and speed, to any problem at any spot on the globe at any moments notice.

President Kennedys direction led to development of the C-141A, the Air Forces first jet transport.

For the past 40 years, the Starlifter has been an aeromedical evacuation and airlift workhorse for the U.S. Air Force, supporting a variety of contingency and humanitarian operations throughout the world.

On Sept. 16, the last two active-duty C-141B Starlifters will retire at McGuire AFB, N.J., ending a chapter in the history of global air mobility.

The C-141 became operational in 1965 and first saw duty in Vietnam during Operation Blue Light. At that time, Operation Blue Light was the longest combat airlift in history, with 231 flights moving 3,000 troops and 4,700 tons of equipment from Hawaii to Pleiku, South Vietnam.

The Starlifter gave wings to the Red Ball Express from 1965 through 1967, carrying 15,000 tons of the highest priority spare parts and other supplies to American soldiers.

Throughout the war, the Starlifter served as an air ambulance, and by 1967 the Air Force scheduled two C-141 flights each week between Andrews AFB, Md., and Cam Ranh Bay, as well as two weekly flights from Da Nang to Andrews and Travis AFB, Calif.

At the conclusion of the Vietnam War in 1973, Starlifters -- including the famous Hanoi Taxi -- carried more than 500 American prisoners of war held by the North Vietnamese back to freedom. Just two years later, the C-141 and its bigger brother, the C-5 Galaxy, together flew 773 sorties during Operation New Life, the refugee evacuation of Vietnam.

The Starlifter also played an important part of Operation Nickel Grass. After Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a series of surprise attacks on Israel in October 1973, Israel was in dire need of vital military supplies and requested assistance from the United States. American forces responded with Operation Nickel Grass, an airlift operation centered on the C-141 and C-5 Galaxy which, together, delivered 22,305 tons of supplies to Israel within 32 days.

The Starlifter legacy continued through the 1980s, especially in the area of international humanitarian operations.

In 1985, C-141s were used to provide assistance to Ethiopian refugees on the Ethiopian-Sudanese border. That same year, 141s provided earthquake relief in Argentina and Mexico City. In February 1989, a C-141 from Charleston AFB, S.C., brought 37 Armenian earthquake victims from Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, to Andrews AFB for treatment in American hospitals. And in September 1989, after Hurricane Hugo devastated the Caribbean Basin, 28 C-141 missions along with two C-5 and two C-130 missions delivered 950 troops and 429 short tons of cargo to Alexander Hamilton Airport, St. Croix, in support of an operation nicknamed Hawkeye. The Starlifter performed the lions share of airlift during that operation.

During the 1980s, the C-141 Starlifter also played an important role in providing humanitarian assistance here at home. In July 1985, as a forest fire was scorching thousands of acres of woodland in California, C-141 missions airlifted 285 passengers and 181 short tons of cargo to support the massive firefighting effort. In 1986, following the shuttle Challenger accident, a C-141 airlifted 80 relatives and NASA associates from Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center to Keahole, Hawaii, for a memorial service for Lt. Col. Ellison Onizuka, one of the deceased crewmembers. And, after a massive search effort located the remains of all seven shuttle crewmembers, a C-141 from Charleston AFB later transported the remains from the Kennedy Space Center to the Air Force mortuary at Dover AFB, Del.

The Starlifter also spread its wings to support Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the 1990s. As the cornerstone of the Desert Express and European Desert Express operations, C-141s moved 2,562 tons of priority cargo into the Gulf War area of operations. In fact, from August 1990 through March 1991, C-141s completed more than half of all airlift missions into the area of operations. The remaining airlift missions were flown by C-5, C-9, KC-10 and contracted commercial aircraft.

In 1992, following combat operations in Southwest Asia, the Starlifter was called upon again to support a humanitarian mission transporting 70 children from Minsk, Byelarus, to Brussels, Belgium, for medical treatment. The children were suffering aftereffects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident.

A few years later, the Starlifter was called upon again for humanitarian support, this time in support of Operation Provide Promise. During the summer of 1994, AMC C-141s began flying humanitarian missions from Rhein-Main AB to Sarajevo, Bosnia. Five aircraft and 150 aircrew members and support personnel from the 437th Airlift Wing and the 315th AW at Charleston AFB deployed to Germany to begin the operation. When the operation ended, C-141s had moved 7,000 tons of cargo on 382 sorties.

Later that year, C-141s delivered 478,000 pounds of humanitarian relief supplies from Incirlik AB, Turkey, to Mwanza, Tanzania. The cargo, which included 10,000 rolls of plastic sheeting and 100,000 blankets, was intended for about 250,000 Rwandans who had fled Tanzania to escape violence associated with the civil war in their homeland. Most of the missions were flow by C-141s and aircrews from McGuire AFB.

From 1995 through 2001, C-141s supported numerous missions throughout the world, including missions to Zaire, Ukraine, Haiti, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Israel, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Burundi, New Zealand, Bolivia, Ecuador and Lithuania. In the aftermath of the terrorist bombings in Kenya in 1998 and Yemen in 20000, C-141s aerovaced survivors home or to medical care.

Those bombings were the precursors to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the C-141 was called upon again in support of the Global War on Terrorism.

In October 2002, a C-141 arrived at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with the years last group of Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees captured by American forces in Afghanistan. From January through October 2002, C-141s and C-17s completed 23 missions, transporting 620 detainees from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay.

In May 2003, AMC began the Baghdad Express, a daily C-141 resupply mission from Ramstein AB to Baghdad International Airport, Iraq. Two C-141s and two aircrews assigned to the 305th Air Mobility Wing at McGuire AFB, and one aircrew from McGuires 514th AMW, were staged at Ramstein to complete the missions.

Marking the end of a chapter in the history of the C-141 Starlifter, in May, at a Fort Benning, Ga., drop zone, a C-141 Starlifter (tail no. 65-0229) assigned to the Air Force Reserve Commands 452nd AMW at March Air Reserve Base, Calif., completed the final airdrop of paratroopers. These U.S. Army personnel would be the last paratroopers ever to jump from a C-141.

Although the C-141 had seen is final paratrooper jump, the aircraft was not finished supporting U.S. interests.

Just a few days after the historic paratrooper jump, the Starlifter was called to duty again. This time the aircraft did not carry Army jumpers; the passenger was a critically ill 8-month-old Iraqi girl who was transported from Balad AB, Iraq, to Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base near Columbus, Ohio. Accompanying the child was her mother, an Arabic translator, and a U.S. Army physicians assistant. The child was taken to the Childrens Hospital in Columbus where she received treatment for an obstruction of her airway caused by an abnormal growth of a blood vessel on the right side of her face and neck.

Although the Sept. 16 ceremony at McGuire AFB marked the retirement of the final two active-duty C-141s, the Starlifter is sure to continue its proud history as a member of the Air Force Reserve Command. About 20 Reserve C-141s will continue to fly out of March ARB and Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, until the aircraft are retired by the end of 2006.

 

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