My First Mistake as an Air Traffic Controller

I was a newly minted, E-3, Airman Second Class, Air Traffic Controller at my first PCS, Permanent Change of Station, assignment. Basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and six months at Biloxi Air Force Base, Mississippi in Air Traffic Control training had shown me the fun and challenge of being in ATC.
I had checked in to Bergstrom in mid-September and found that not many people knew what an Air Traffic Controller was or where they were located on the base. After passing through the Main Gate and being directed to the Personnel office I was stranded for about two hours until someone finally realized that I wasn’t assigned to the personnel of the base but was in a tenant organization, AACS, Air & Airways Communication Service. A most esoteric of units comprising the Tower operators, GCA controllers and Electronic technicians supporting them.
By November I was firmly established in the training program of the Control Tower and was able to “handle the mike” and even be assigned to work the “mid-shift” (mid-night to seven o’clock) with a fully qualified controller. Another duty was assignment to the D/F shack, a mobile Direction Finder unit located out in the boon-docks of the air base off the north end of the runways. One of the joys there was the M-16 carbine assigned to the shack for snake patrol. One could, without reporting it, fire away at the snakes in the scrub as long as the weapon was cleaned before the shift was over. This was in Texas.

On the Thanksgiving week-end of 1952, which exact day I can’t remember, I was in the Control Tower during a day shift with one of my favorite controllers, Rip Nemick. Rip was a clean sleeved fellow of dubious reputation but impeccable abilities as a Tower operator. The clean sleeve, e.g., buck private, had been caused by some type of imbroglio in Berlin of which I knew nothing other than it had happened. Rip had indicated that he was not planning to re-enlist. I did know that Rip had been a controller in the “Lift”, The Berlin Airlift, as had others in the outfit at Bergstrom. One GCA operator, a slim sandy haired middle thirties Tech Sergeant named Lovern, who talked so slow I thought he had a foreign accent but was merely a farm boy from Nebraska, had been alleged to have been cashiered from Berlin for activities antithetical to the good order and discipline of the troops. It was rumored his girl-friend owned a “Stuben” with rooms upstairs.
All of AACS in Berlin and other European Air Bases during the “Lift” had worked hard and been a hard living crew who often ran into the problem of military orders and discipline. But, I digress.
A C-54, four engine transport, with a passel of VIP’s arrived at Bergstrom AFB about eleven A.M. We had been advised that it and a later arriving C-46 were at Bergstrom for refueling, rest and meals for the passengers and some of the passengers would change aircraft to facilitate their future travel. The passenger list included Walter Beedle Smith and other high ranking VIP’s returning from Korea where they had accompanied President-Elect Dwight Eisenhower on his pre-election promised trip to end the war.
After about two hours on the ground, the C-54 and the C-46 called the Control Tower and asked that we acquire their Enroute Air Traffic Clearance. We complied and received the clearance from San Antonio ARTCC and Austin Approach Control. I issued, over radio, the clearances and instructions to taxi from the ramp to the run-up area next to the runway.
After taxiing to the run-up spot of runway 17L (one seven left) and spending a few minutes or so doing cockpit checks the C-54 requested take-off clearance. Rip had allowed me to do all the clearance and radio work up to this point and was loath to get up and do anything because I was the trainee and all this was common work that he could monitor with little effort. One slight problem became evident however. A flight of F-84’s was just checking in on initial for landing on 17L, 17R the other runway was closed for some reason and I knew from my training that jets had priority over conventional (piston powered) aircraft. Remember this was 1952.
Using my authority as a Control Tower operator in charge of Safe, Orderly and Expeditious movement of aircraft on the airport, I instructed the C-54 to “Hold Short, Jet traffic approaching the break.” Immediately over “Baker” channel, 126.18 Mega-cycles,(Mr. Hertz was known but had not been assigned the honor of having his name used as had Mr. Volt, Ohm, Ampere and others), came the call, “Bergstrom Tower Blue One, over.” I answered the call. Next an order, “Bergstrom Tower tell those jets to go around and clear Air Force 54062 for take-off.” Now I knew that “Blue One” was Col. “ED” Edmonston, the commander of the SAC wing at Bergstrom, but I also knew I was in charge of the Air Traffic control situation and I was not about to allow someone to usurp my authority, so recently obtained. I turned to Rip, he was awake and aware but said nor indicated nothing. My call.
Well, if I was in charge I would make the decision. The F-84’s reported the break at that moment, a point over the runway end at which they would begin truncated cross-wind, downwind, base and final descent legs to the runway, I cleared them to land and after they had landed and taxied off the runway, cleared AF54062 (I just made that number up-I can’t possibly remember a number for these 48 years!) for take-off and nothing more was said.
Apparently one fact I had missed in the equation. The F-84’s belonged to Col.”ED” and if he wanted them to stay airborne until their fuel was exhausted, he had that authority over them. Though, within the realm of Air Traffic Control I was in charge of the airport operation.
When I volunteered for assignment to Matagorda Island Tower about a week later I was eagerly accepted and began the assignment almost immediately. I spent two and one half glorious months at Matagorda Tower with one other controller and a radio mechanic fighting either boredom, to many aircraft or the base commander (another story).
While on the troop-ship to Korea in March 1953, I often wondered why I had been picked for the assignment to Taegu, Korea ARTCC when I had really just begun my training as a Tower Operator at Bergstrom. It seemed such a waste of training time. Oh well, the vagaries of the military.
Now, years later, after operating at many airports with all types of aircraft and pressures I think the C-54 could have taken off in front of the landing F-84’s with a little help from me asking them to extend their downwind, but that’s why I was in training. Col.”ED” made General sometime later and it only took me only until 1955 to be promoted to E-4 (Airman First Class), so what’s 32 months between grades.
This, my first real “mistake” was, of course, on the side of safety. Not my safety, but the aircraft’s. Some later ones were a bit different. But those for another time.