Due South of Key West
Flying fast and low over Castro’s Cuba.
- By Paul Hoversten
- AirSpaceMag.com, September 18, 2012
Marine Captain John Hudson (right) greets Navy Commander William Ecker, head of VFP-62, known as the “Fightin’ Photo,” at Florida’s Homestead Air Force Base before a press conference in December 1962. Behind them is an RF-8A Crusader, with a stenciled Fidel Castro and dead chickens to denote completed missions over Cuba.
Courtesy Cdr. Peter B. Mersky
(Page 2 of 3)
Did you get fired on?
Yes, but not with missiles. We saw flak puffs in our rear-view mirrors, but we didn’t start taking fire until maybe the second or third flight. We flew the same targets, but we never flew the same ingress point or egress point. We never flew the same route. We would mix the targets up. There was no time to train radar on us, because we weren’t at 1,000 feet long enough. [The Cubans] were firing anti-aircraft guns and maybe small arms, but it all was behind us. We were kids having fun, and getting shot at was a big kick.
It doesn’t sound like the Cubans were good shots.
They might have been if we’d given them a good target.
What’s the story behind the dead chickens stenciled on the Crusader’s fuselage to represent completed flights over Cuba?
When [Fidel Castro] went to the U.N. [in September 1960], he was paranoid that someone would poison him if he ate food prepared by anyone outside his circle. So they actually cooked chickens in his hotel suite, and there was a big deal at that time about Fidel having the chickens butchered and cooked in his hotel suite. So that’s where that came from.
Was there any coordination between the Crusader pilots and the Air Force F-101 Voodoo pilots, who also flew low-level reconnaissance over Cuba?
We never saw any Voodoos. They were flying, I think, out of some place like Tyndall [Air Force Base, near Panama City, Florida], but they weren’t down at Key West. I don’t think we flew on the same days, or if we did, we didn’t fly at the same time. The only Air Force that was at Key West were F-104s that arrived about mid-way through our program to be our fighter escorts because the Marines had been doing that with F-8s out of Beaufort, South Carolina. Frankly, we saw the -104s, but we never had them join on us after we came out [from Cuba]. We would be in radio contact with them.
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Comments (6)
Excellent article. As a Marine Corps brat I always enjoy reading and hearing Marines discuss the events they participated in, in particular historic events and especially the stories regarding Marine Aviators.
By the way, General, are you the same John Hudson who lived on Parkshore Court in Lake Ridge back in the 1970's? Just curious!
Kevin Valentini
Posted by Kevin Valentini on September 25,2012 | 07:17 PM
Kevin, we did live in Lake Ridge in '71 - '73, and although I do not recall the name of the street, I think it was someting like Lakeshore Dr. Your last name does ring a bell with me, so I think perhaps we were neighbors. I do not know your age, but maybe you recall one or more of the "brats" that lived in our house: Reid, Lori, Clark and Yates?
Posted by John Hudson on September 28,2012 | 06:37 PM
General Hudson: Your article was most interesting and I was 12yrs old when this all happened 50 yrs ago beginning this week. I was raised in a small farming community of north east Iowa and will never forget president Kennedy's tv speech and also the day Russia did back down and the nuns came into our classroom and broke the news. Later in life I did join the Navy, spent time as an avionics tech servicing the F-4 Phantom, spending time in Key West as well as Tonkin Gulf in 1972 during Linebacker 2. I was assigned to a great squadron and was able to get 4 hrs in the back seat of the Phantom as that was our work area. The F-8 was still around during that time and I was always just in awe of the gunslinger! In closing I have the utmost respect for you and what you did during that time in history. You were one great stick to do the F-8 and transition to the Phantom. Thank you
Posted by dan daly on October 15,2012 | 09:32 PM
Gen Hudson: Very interesting. I am the historian for the USAF Tactical Tanker Assn & have a question. I have some photos showing USMC RF-8s refueling from a USAF KB-50 tanker, reportedly during the Crisis. 3 RF-8s are coded 107NH, 111NH, & [number unreadable]PP. Your unit? Did you refuel or know of folks who refueled, from KB-50s during the Crisis? During missions, perhaps on the leg after overflight enroute Jacksonville? Or during some training flts at the time? KB-50s involved would have come from MacDill AFB. Thanks for any help you can give.
John Bessette
Posted by John Bessette, LtCol, USAF (Ret) on October 19,2012 | 12:42 PM
General, thank you for your service. My eldest brother was a Hollywood Marine at El Toro beginning in 1958. he worked on the F8U-1P and the Ford. He loved those aircraft, thus, so did I as his little brother. When he went in, I even quit playing army, ever thereafter played Marines. I'm forwarding this to him. I'm sure the two of you could talk for hours.
Posted by mike wilson on October 29,2012 | 08:42 PM
Col. Bessette,sorry it has taken so long to answer your question, but I had not checked back on this site for quite a while. My daughter had and told me that you had asked a question. Although we arrived in Jacksonville with very little fuel at the end of the Cuban missions, we never had the occasion to tank en-route. Some members of our squadron were flying out of Guantanamo Bay during the crisis and perhaps they did some tanking from USAF tankers, or perhaps some of the Navy F-8 aircraft that were aboard carriers. The Navy photo birds from the carriers, however, did not participate in any of the Cuban missions. Good luck with your research.
Posted by Lt. Gen. John Hudson on November 13,2012 | 11:25 AM