Former Alconbury aviator visits former base

  • Published
  • By Gregory Mattson
  • 501st Combat Support Wing Historian
RAF ALCONBURY, United Kingdom --  A retired U.S. Air Force officer with a distinguished record of achievements visited RAF Alconbury during the holiday.

With so many people and places to see throughout England, retired Lt. Col. Theodore Noble followed a busy schedule during his return to a base which he had not seen for a half-century. Nevertheless, he made time in his itinerary to converse with members of the 501st Combat Support Wing and recount his experiences during a critical formative period of change and growth in the history of the Air Force. The detailed recollections and insights that he shared in the interview produced an invaluable collection of information on the history of American air power.

Mr. Noble's career in military aviation began in 1944, before the USAF had become an independent armed service. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces and became a gunner on a B-29 Superfortress, a long-range, four-engine bomber utilized primarily to strike industrial assets on Japan during World War II. However, the conflict ended abruptly following the detonation of the atomic devices on Hiroshima and Nagasaki before the young Airman was deployed to East Asia.

Returning to civilian life after the war, Mr. Noble spent the latter half of the decade as a university student and ROTC cadet. Upon graduation he received a commission in the newly-established United States Air Force and became a navigation officer. Shortly after returning to the armed forces, another conflict broke out in East Asia in 1950.

Air Force personnel serving in the Korean War witnessed a critical transitional phase in the history of military air power, in which 1940s-vintage propeller-driven aircraft gave way to faster jet-propelled assets. For allied aviators traveling in the former type of vehicle, one of the most fearsome threats in the sky was the Soviet-made Mikoyan-Gurevich-15 (MiG-15) jet, a nimble swept-wing fighter armed with powerful cannons capable of blasting large holes into the wings and fuselages of B-29s and other allied bombers. Unlike World War II, Korea was a conflict in which the struggle for control over the sky continued without either belligerent establishing permanent, uncontested supremacy over the other.

During the Korean War, Theodore Noble worked in a reconnaissance squadron that flew nighttime operations in twin-engine, propeller-driven modified B-26 Invaders that had been outfitted with special photographic equipment. Fortunately, the Communists only deployed MiG-15 jets during the daytime. However, the B-26 crews in his squadron frequently came under fire from antiaircraft batteries while carrying out their intelligence-gathering missions over enemy-held population centers.

Following the 1953 armistice, Mr. Noble served in other parts of the world. He arrived in England later in the decade, when tensions between NATO and the Soviet-supported Warsaw Pact were beginning to fester. In 1959, the 10th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing had arrived at RAF Alconbury from France. By this time he was carrying out his duties in the 42nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron as a navigator aboard an RB-66C Destroyer, a jet-propelled light bomber configured for reconnaissance missions. The wing also utilized the nearby airfields at RAF Bruntingthorpe and RAF Chelveston.

Like many other Americans stationed at RAF Alconbury before and after this time period, Mr. Noble derived a great deal of satisfaction from the amicable relations that existed between U.S. personnel and the residents of the nearby communities. Recent memories of shared experiences from the Second World War and the common cause of safeguarding the free world from the potential threat Soviet expansion had established a solid bond of camaraderie between British and American residents in the area. Then, like now, lifelong friendships and even marriages often took place, as did social functions involving the USAF wing and local governments.

The need for skilled missile crews prompted the Air Force to transfer many of its personnel into the missileer career field. Thus, Mr. Noble became a Titan II specialist at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz. Later in the 1960s, the widely-varied experience, knowledge, and expertise in military air power that he had acquired over the course of two decades led to an assignment at the Strategic Air Command headquarters in Offutt AFB, Neb. At the end of the decade he retired, concluding a long period of service marked with dedication, sacrifices, and noteworthy accomplishments.