Travel and Military History

How I Got Into the Bomb Bay of a B52

It’s a long story of travel and military history with a bit of detective work thrown in…

A B-52 Stratofortress assigned to the 307th Bomb Wing, Barksdale Air Force Base, La., approaches the refueling boom of a KC-135 Stratotanker from the 931st Air Refueling Group, McConnell Air Force Base. Image credit By Airman 1st Class Victor J. Caputo — US Air Force, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68131933

Yes, it was a real B52 — not a cocktail or a member of a US new wave band — remember ‘Love Shack’?

You may have been wondering why I haven’t written much recently or been able to reply to readers’ responses. It’s because I’ve been on a long voyage of 2,200 miles through the Great Barrier Reef and along the top of Australia on my boat.

This story is a longish and personal travelogue with various threads (as is my style) drawn together and revolving around WWII in the Pacific, aviation and the recent AUKUS pact (which I’ll get to later).

A book started it

The plan was to head from Bundaberg (famous for its rum) along the coast to Thursday Island (1200 miles) and then on to Darwin (850 miles). Searching for voyage reading material in the marina at Bundaberg, I’d picked up a few books, one of which was ‘The Korean War’ by Cameron Forbes.