USMC HMH-466 WOLFPACK
SUPER STALLION CH-53E
Photos and Captions by Scotty Perryman
(click on thumb nails for larger photos)


Photo from David B Markham

The Frog is down in Southern Kuwait. As you can tell it had rolled over on impact and has been righted in this shot. Everybody lived!

One of our specialties. Recovery of downed aircraft. We brought back this Frog and a Saudi Puma that splashed in the PG..

 

Texas War Bird: That's me with the plane of Sgt Jeff G of Galveston, Texas. This was taken in early March 91, no gas mask on the hip, no weapon, no kevlar, big smile. Smells like victory, smells like going home

Laughing Man: You can see a profile of the Laughing Man wrapped around the port side crew window just behind the cockpit.

  


Photo from David B Markham


Photo from David B Markham

Al-Jabr: This is a hardened shelter at Al-Jabr airfield in central Kuwait. There were 15 or 20 of these structures and every one of them was punched just like this. Not a scratch on the runways or ramps. Excellent work.

In the group photo Scotty is second from the left and I am on the far right, David B Markham. Scotty is also in the center on the tail picture.

 

This may be of interest to people who have never seen this incredible ability of the USAF in process. The 53Es are the BUFFs of the rotary-wing community so we relate well to these zoomies who are pushed out the limelight by their more glamorous little brothers. The C-5 can take 2 53Es, plus lots of palletized gear and a bunch of jarheads sitting in those crazy backward seats. It took us just 17days from the day Kuwait was invaded until the full squadron was on the ground in the Saudi. About 10 more days after that to have all the planes put together, QAd, tested and flying.

Kuwait Feb 91: I think that this one is actually a day or two after the cease fire. So it may actually be March 1 or 2. We stayed away from the oilfields as much as we could. Not the greatest place in the world to share airspace.

How incredibly cool. I am a Wolfpack, Desert Storm alumni. With the current conflict underway I have been trying to figure out if my old squadron is back in the sand box. In my search for info I stumbled on your photos of one of my old airframes. I was there when this and all of our other birds were desert camouflaged. We were the USMC west coast heavy lift asset that happened to be on alert in August 1990. After invasion day, 08/02/90, we broke down our planes, loaded on C-5s and were fully in-country by August 19. We arrived at the airport at Al Jubayl, re-built the planes, and then moved down country to Ras al Gahr, right on the beach of the PG. That is where we put the desert camo on. There was no pattern or prescribed colors. The tin benders had to experiment on the first plane and it turned out kind of pink and gray. After that we changed colors and each plane got it's own unique paint job. The "flying slut" silhouette on 65 is the first attempt, the same thing, on 70, is more refined. Besides those, another of our 53Es featured our favorite cartoon character, Foghorn Leghorn, while yet another got a map of Texas (about 20% of our 187 man squadron were Texans). The belly of one plane was inscribed with the classic "Eat Me." Everytime it flared into a zone everyone on the ground got our squadron greeting.

Needless to say we got a lot of attention, both positive and negative. Members of our sister squadron, the HMH-465 Warhorses, disapproved. At least one of their officers commented that it was an example of our typical lack of military bearing and professionalism. They were endlessly jealous of our successes and awards for good work and great flying. (To this day 466 has never suffered a class A, whereas 465 has wasted about a squadron worth of airframes over the years, 2 during that 7 month deployment alone.)

Anyway, we moved north to Tanajib after January 17 and flew through the war and by the time the shooting stopped and we were ordered back home our water based paint jobs were looking pretty shabby. It was a sad day when we got back to Tustin and stripped it all away to go back to our Marine green.

These shots were taken on the huge macadam container yard that we used as a parking ramp along with 465 and a squadron of British Pumas at Ras al Gahr from October '90 to January '91.

Thanks again, and as we always said when those big greasy pigs came through in a pinch, "thank you Mr Sikorsky."

Scott P

I would like to thank Scott Perryman for the use of his photos and stories. It's always nice to know that we have fine young men like this serving our nation.