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They went to their B-52s fully prepared for the routine exercise ahead. “Pogo 22” was the handle of the big SAC B-52 commanded by Captain Roland C. Starke jr. Pogo 22 was designated “White Cell” leader, and was to take off in tandem with Pogo 13 at “H” hour 1700 zulu— i.e. 12:p.m. They both took off with 215,000 pounds of fuel and made a controlled climb south of Norfolk. They were to maintain radio silence until within 100 miles of their refueling destination far off Newfoundland.
When this time came, about 3 hours after takeoff, Pogo 22 pilot Lt. Ken Payne reported that they could not pick up the KC-135’s beacon and home in on it. The KC-135 replied likewise that the B-52 simply did not show up either. Payne brushed this aside. With a pilot’s typical pithy confidence, he said he would simply make the rendezvous visually.
Right on target, Pogo 13 and 22 rendezvoused with the KC-135 at 3: p.m.. Afterward they turned south toward Bermuda to continue the second leg of the mission.
Inter plane dialogue was then picked up indicating a disagreement over course. Pogo 13 was sure they weren’t following the planned flight track back. Payne and Starke checked with Dean Upp, the head navigator of the 4 on board (in air force tradition the highest ranking is correct). They agreed to change course and come back to Pogo 13’s estimate.
They were now roughly 500 miles northeast of Bermuda, with a flight track that would swoop them down in a large inverted arc north of the island and from thence they would fly back to North Carolina and home.
For the next hour they kept each other in sight. Aside from the snag in not being able to detect the KC-135 beacon all had gone off very well.
At 4:15 p.m. both Pogo 13 and Pogo 22 were in sight of each other, except for “short intervals when passing through cloud layers” while descending to a lower altitude. At about 300 miles northeast (near where Star Tiger vanished) of Bermuda all the cells split up according to orders. They separated to 10 miles distance, in lateral positions to each other, and raced toward the coast. Pogo 22 was the northern most.
They dropped to 1,000 feet elevation, according to orders. When about 3 miles distant Pogo 13 caught her last glimpse of Pogo 22, tearing across the sky, her 8 engines streaming exhaust behind her. All was normal. Visibility was 7 to 10 miles. There was no reason to think that anything could now overtake a huge 8 engine aircraft.
But something must have gone wrong, terribly wrong.
Pogo 22 was never seen again. It seems certain there was no mid air explosion. At only 10 miles distant they were still in sight, and that kind of explosion and trail of smoke would have been noticed. Pilots are always trained to “keep your head on a swivel.” Thus it seems that Pogo 22 vanished silently, suddenly. Odds are that if any other plane in the formation besides the southern most and the northern most had encountered trouble, it would have been seen. This opinion is based on the fact that the four flying inside the formation would have had double the chance of being seen since they had crews on their left and on their right, whereas Pogo 22 was, in a way, the most isolated. This is, of course, is not an explanation.
Pogo 13 later reported there was mild turbulence when passing near clouds, but they weren’t hard to avoid. None of this could shake a big B-52 apart.
The search was incredible. Coast Guard cutters, destroyers, C-130 Hercules and cruisers, not to name all the civilian vessels in the busy traffic, searched for several days. The final tally was 280,000 square miles of sea, roughly twice that of the State of California. Not a trace was ever to be had.
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