Why the call it a "Thud"

[dragoon500ly]

Came across this on the Vietnam War resource page....WARNING, Place your drinks to one side! And be advised, adult language is rife!!!

The Thud
History or airplane buffs may remember some airplane names. You may remember how they inspire confidence and reflect the finer qualities of the machine: Flying Fortress, Corsair, Mustang, Lightning, Spitfire, Sabre, Phantom. Our airplane, though, was called the Thud.

Actually, the Air Force officially designated the F-105 as the Thunderchief, but few people ever seem to remember that. The world's largest single-engine fighter, it weighs more than 53,000 pounds when carrying full fuel and up to 16,000 pounds of external stores. Its bomb load can be twice that of a World War II heavy bomber, and, at altitude, its top speed is more than 1500 miles an hour. Down on the deck, nothing built before it and only a couple of airplanes built since can fly with it as it screams along 50 feet above the ground at speeds faster than sound. It has a six-barrel cannon which rotates like a Civil War Gatling gun but fires 20 mm projectiles at 100 rounds per second.

Originally designed for toss delivery of nuclear weapons, the F-105 seemed destined for oblivion and replacement by newer, faster, more maneuverable aircraft. Bob McNamara's boys put the kiss of death on the F-105: their slide rules and computers had determined that "the F-105 has only single mission capability, fails to meet criteria for integrative enhancement of flexible force structure, and is non-cost-effective." Then came Vietnam.

Compared to the some other fighter aircraft in the inventory, the F-105 was nowhere. It wasn't new like the Phantom, fast like the F-106, or sexy like the F-104. It was a big, heavy, supersonic flatiron about 65 feet long with stubby, little wings that measured less than 35 feet tip-to-tip. (By way of comparison, the DC-9 airliner is 100 feet long and has a 93 foot wingspan.) You don't need a degree in aeronautics to figure it out. Lose power in an
F-105 and it will fall out of the sky like a rock. Hang a full load of ordnance under its wings and it won't climb very high. Point its nose at the ground, and it will dive like a lawn dart.

Now, the Republic Aviation Corporation started building fighter airplanes since before Lindbergh made his celebrated trip to Paris, and some people claim that its founder, the wild, one-legged ace of the Tsarist air force, Alexander P. de Seversky, singlehandedly invented the modern fighter 15 years before World War II. His P-47 Thunderbolt was one of the best fighters of World War II, and Republic's F-84 Thunderjet first flew in 1946 and soldiered on in some Third World air forces nearly forty years later. Republic's airplanes have all been fast, tough, and heavy, but a lot of people concluded that the F-105 was a case of too much inbreeding. While all of Republic airplanes were noted for their propensity to use up concrete, at max gross, the F-105 had a takeoff roll only several yards shorter than Lindbergh's historic flight. Those of us who have flown the Thud have speculated that, if the Air Force paved the equator, Republic Aviation could build an airplane that would use every inch of it to struggle into the air.

When the F-105 entered the inventory, the wits and half-wits at officers' club bars around the world started to hang derisive nicknames on it. Its size and weight made the job easy. Lead Sled was an early appellation, and even 105 drivers had to admit that the name aptly described the airplane without full power.

The WWII P-47 had been nicknamed the Hog, and the follow-on F-84 had become the Super Hog. It was quite natural then that the F-105 would get tagged with Ultra Hog. Transition problems resulting in "controlled flight into terrain" gave rise to the name Lieutenant-eater, but that didn't stick. No one really knows what direction the nickname might have taken but for television, Buffalo Bob Smith, and the Howdy Doody show. Howdy Doody, it was alleged, was the illegitimate son of a Strategic Air Command bomber pilot, and Howdy, assisted by Mickey Mouse, was now writing standardization manuals at HQ, USAF. Buffalo Bob Smith, many others contended, was the role model for any number of Air Force Generals, while Clarabelle the Clown trained USAF stan/eval officers. On the television show, intermittently making mischief with the villainous Mr. Bluster, was a bumbling, drooling, semi-evil Indian named Chief Thunderthud. It had a nice ring to it. Thunder THUD. Thud, as in the noise made by a large heavy object hitting the ground. So, the F-105 became the Thunderthud, and finally, in life and legend, just The Thud.

Perversely, F-105 pilots liked the nickname. Thud drivers took fierce pride in their airplanes and in themselves. They scorned the aircrews of the newer, more maneuverable Phantoms as multi-engine pilots. "Our mission is to fly and fight -- and don't you ever forget it" the motto went. Thud drivers, Hell's Angels, and Mafiosi all exhibited similar patterns of intra-group and external relations, and the Air Force brass soon became resigned to (but not entirely pleased or happy about) the antics of Thud drivers in the air and on the ground. Following a familiarization visit to the the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing, an assistant to the Secretary of Defense wrote: "While these men might be of some significant value in the event of all-out conflict, I fear that they might not be susceptible to normal management techniques in any other situation."

This report, when learned of later, was sometimes read aloud at a 355th TFW function known as a "pressure bar" at which all drinks were free until the first man went into the head to urinate. After the climatic sentence was read, the 355th pilots would stand on their chairs, the bar, or tables, yell "Fuck him; Fuck his boss; Fuck his hoss; Fuck the 13th Air Force; It's just a fucking revision of the Second Fucking Air Division," and throw whatever classes and bottles were handy onto the floor. There generally followed numerous choruses of "We'll Fly Our Fucking Thuds at 10,000 Fucking Feet," "Throw a Nickle on the Grass and Save a Fighter Pilot's Ass,""Cruising over Hanoi," "Our Leaders" and other songs. (The 13th Air Force and the 2nd Air Division were intermediate headquarters units and universally reviled by pilots.)


Of course, we had to show our contempt for authority as well:

"Our Leaders"

At Phillips Range in Kansas, the jocks all had the knack,
But now that we're in combat, we've got Colonels on our back,
Every time we say "SHIT-HOT" or whistle in the bar,
We have to answer to someone looking for a star.

Our leaders, our leaders, our leaders is what they always say,
But it's bullshit, it's bullshit, it's bullshit they feed us every day.

Oh, today we had a hot one, and the jocks were scared as hell.
They ran to meet us with a beer and told us we were swell.
But recce took the BDA and said we missed a hair.
Now we'll catch all kinds of hell from the wheels at 7th Air.

Our leaders, our leaders, our leaders is what they always say,
But it's bullshit, it's bullshit, it's bullshit they feed us every day.

They send us out in bunches to bomb a bridge and die.
These tactics are for bombers which our leaders used to fly.
The bastards don't trust our colonel up in Wing. I guess
We'll have to leave the thinking to the gears in JCS.

Our leaders, our leaders, our leaders is what they always say,
But it's bullshit, it's bullshit, it's bullshit they feed us every day.

The JCS are generals but they're not always right.
Sometimes they have to think it over well into the night.
When they have a question or something they can't hack,
They have to leave the judgment to that mother-fucking Mac.

Our leaders, our leaders, our leaders is what they always say,
But it's bullshit, it's bullshit, it's bullshit they feed us every day.

Now Mac's job is in danger for he's on salary too.
To have the final say-so is something he can't do.
Before we fly a mission and everything's ok.
Mac has to get permission from flight leader LBJ.

Our leaders, our leaders, our leaders is what they always say,
But it's bullshit, it's bullshit, it's bullshit they feed us every day.



"We've Been Working on the Railroad"

We've been working on the railroad,
Every fucking day.

We've been working on the railroad,
Up Thai Nguyen way.

Uncle Ho ain't got no railroad,
No rolling stock or switches,
But Seventh frags us on the railroad,
Those dirty sons of bitches.

SAM's galore, 57's, too.
Eighty-five's will scragg your old yazoo.
Fuck, shit, hate, shit-hot, too.
So what the hell is new?

Someone's up a tree on Thud Ridge,
Someone's in the drink, I know-o-o-o,
Someone's in the karst near Hoa Lac,
Yelling on the radio.

Yelling fee, fi, fiddly-i-o
Fee, fi, fiddly-i-o, o-o-o,
Fee, fi, Jolly Green, o,
Only ninety-nine more to go.


"Early Abort"

Oh, I'm sure you know
Of all the leaders in the wing.
Any night in the O Club,
You can hear how well they sing.

With words they fight a helluva war,
They say they want to fly, too,
But just you give 'em half a chance,
And here's what they will do.

Early abort, avoid the rush.
Early abort, avoid the rush.
Early abort, avoid the rush.
Wing weenies on parade.

Oh, my name is Major Bell,
Chief of the stan eval group.
Just step into the briefing room,
And I'll give you all the poop.
I'll tell you how you ought to fly
And where the MIGs will roam.
I'll be the last one to take off,
The first one to come home.


"Sammy Small"

O, come round us fighter pilots, fuck 'em all.
O, come round us fighter pilots, fuck 'em all.
O, we fly the goddam plane through the flak and through the rain
And tomorrow we'll do it again, so fuck 'em all.

O, they tell us not to think, fuck 'em all.
O, they tell us not to think, fuck 'em all.
O, they tell us not to think, just to dive and just to jink,
LBJ's a goodam fink, so fuck 'em all.

O, we bombed Mu Gia pass, fuck 'em all.
O, we bombed Mu Gia pass, fuck 'em all.
O, we bombed Mu Gia pass, though we only made one pass.
They really stuck it up our ass, so fuck 'em all.

O, we're on a JCS, fuck 'em all.
O, we're on a JCS, fuck 'em all.
O, they sent the whole damn wing, probably half of us will sing,
What a silly fucking thing, so fuck 'em all.

O, we lost our fucking way, fuck 'em all.
O, we lost our fucking way, fuck 'em all.
O, we strafed goddam Hanoi, killed every slant-eyed girl and boy
What a goddam fucking joy, so fuck 'em all

O, my bird got all shot up, fuck 'em all.
O, my bird got all shot up, fuck 'em all.
O, my bird got all shot up, and I'll probably cry a lot,
But I still think it's shit hot, so fuck 'em all.

While I'm swinging in my chute, fuck 'em all.
While I'm swinging in my chute, fuck 'em all.
While I'm tangled in my chute, comes this silly fucking toot,
And hangs a medal on my root, so fuck 'em all.

Of course, not all of this stuff is new or even American in origin. The following song is a Vietnam Air War version of a song originally sung by a British Army regiment in the time of Kipling. If you are an old movie buff, you may recall that a few lines of it are recited in the original Bela Lugosi Dracula film and parts of it are sung in the early film Dawn Patrol. (I'm serious about the Dracula bit--I had to buy a copy of it to convince old Hank.)

We loop in the purple twilight.
We spin in the silvery dawn;
With columns of black smoke behind us
To show where our comrades have gone.

So, stand to your glasses steady;
This world is a world full of lies.
Here's a toast to the dead already.
Hurrah for the next man who dies.

Up North in Thuds we rumble,
Dodging black puffs of steel,
For mortal stakes we gamble
With cards that are stacked for the deal.

So, stand to your glasses steady,
This world is a world full of lies.
Here's a toast to the dead already.
Hurrah for the next man who dies.

Denied by the land that bore us,
Betrayed by the ones we hold dear,
The good have all gone before us
And only the hard are here.

So, stand to your glasses steady,
This world is a world full of lies.
Here's a toast to the dead already.
Hurrah for the next man who dies.

Cut off from the land that bore us,
Betrayed by the land we find,
When the brightest have gone before us,
And the dullest are left behind.

So, stand to your glasses steady.
Honor's all we've left to prize.
A cup to the dead already.
Hurrah for the next man who dies.

We stand 'neath resounding rafters;
The walls around us are bare.
They echo back our laughter,
It seems that the dead are all here.

Stand to your glasses steady.
We drink to our comrades up North.
One cup to the dead already,
Hurrah for the next man who dies.

The country and western classic "By an Ohio Waterfall" or "Dying Hobo" became "By a Belgian Waterfall" (WWI), "By an Oahu Waterfall" (WWII), "By a Korean Waterfall" (Korea), and, finally, "By a Laotian Chuck of Karst."

Beside a Laotian chunk of karst
One dark and rainy day
Beside his shattered Thunderchief
The young Thud driver lay.

His parachute hung from a nearby tree
He was not yet quite dead.
So, listen to the very last words
The young Thud driver said.

I'm going to a better land,
Where everything is right.
Where whiskey flows from telephone poles,
And there's poker every night.

I'm going to that better land
Where the flak doesn't ever fly
Where the clouds are champagne cocktails
And you drink them on the fly.

You never have any work to do
Just sit around and sing.
The crew chiefs all are women,
O, Death, where is thy sting?

So, ring-a-ding a-ding-ding, blow it out your ass.
Ring-a-ding a-ding-ding, blow it out your ass.
Ring-a-ding a-ding-ding, blow it out your ass.
Better days are coming by and by

Bull-shit.

What can I say....Fighter Pilots!