K4GTM: B-17 "City of Savannah" Volunteer Human Interest Story

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

B-17 "City of Savannah" Volunteer Human Interest Story - Guy McDonald and Buck Shuler

My friend Jerry McLaughlin has been spending his quarantine time sharing stories and excerpts for the last dozen years of restoring our B-17 Flying Fortress known as "City of Savannah". Many of the stories he has pulled directly from the book that he wrote chronicling the restoration. Jerry has recently broadened his daily stories to include recollections from many of the volunteers who spent time in the military. My contribution was published this week and really is an interesting story indeed. I hope you enjoy it.

LOOKING GLASS

A Cold War Story with Two CoS Players

Hiatus Update #39

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Guy McDonald, the man who put together the City of Savannah radio room, returned to the museum from his home in Atlanta in June of 2019 to crank up our radios in honor of the 75^th anniversary of D-Day. At the end of the day, General “Buck” Shuler, a museum founder and ex-Commander of the Eighth Air Force, presented Guy with a certificate of appreciation for traveling from Atlanta to help in the museum’s anniversary activities. It was amazing to all concerned when Buck and Guy began to talk about their Air Force assignments and learned that they had, in fact, flown as fellow crew members on many Looking Glass 24-hour remote airborne command-post missions between 1987 and 1990. Looking Glass missions provided an airborne emergency back-up command and control system for the Strategic Air Command should SAC headquarters be destroyed by an attack on the United States.

When Buck boarded the EC-135C Looking Glass aircraft he had the very ominous title of Airborne Emergency Action Officer. As the AEAO, his awesome responsibility, if a nuclear attack were to be launched against the United States, and Strategic Air Command HQ was unable to perform its duties, was to deliver a series of messages to all SAC units as to what action to take, as he was directed by the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States.

Guy’s job, in another compartment of the EC-135C, was maintaining, troubleshooting and repairing all on-board communications systems during the mission. It was his job to ensure that General Shuler’s ultra-important communications equipment worked if it was needed, a great deal of responsibility for a young NCO who had to beat out many others for the job.

Thirty years after their Looking Glass assignments, Buck and Guy find themselves on the same crew once again, this time they are working together to fulfill the mission of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force.

The Story of Looking Glass

The code name Looking Glass derived from the program’s mission to "mirror" the command and control functions of the underground command post at SAC headquarters located at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. Looking Glass aircraft were airborne 24 hours a day for over 29 years, from February 3, 1961, until July 24, 1990.

Looking Glass was originally supplied with five specially modified KC-135 aircraft from the 34th Air Refueling Squadron based at Offutt. All EC-135 Looking Glass aircraft were equipped with an Airborne Launch Control System capable of transmitting launch commands to U.S. ground-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missile sites in the event that the ground launch control centers were rendered inoperable.

In addition to the command responsibility for transmitting the President’s orders to launch U.S. retaliatory missiles, Looking Glass was also designed to help ensure continuity and reconstitution of the U.S. government in the event of a nuclear attack on North America.

Today the Looking Glass missions are flown by Navy E6-B aircraft capable of flight for 72 hours without refueling and with the ability to land on unconventional surfaces. When on a Looking Glass mission the E6-B is designated as ABNCP (Airborne Command Post) with the dual mission of providing a communications relay platform for ballistic missile carrying U.S. Navy submarines, as well as being the Airborne Launch Control System (ALCS) for the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) that operates from Offutt Air Force Base, where the original Looking Glass missions began in 1961.