One of the things we do when we stay a few days someplace is try to find
out how the town got started. Railroads? Mining? A water supply? As it
turns out, none of those pertained to Lancaster or Palmdale. Certainly the
aircraft industry during the war “made” these towns what they are today, but
with the Douglas company’s demise and the closing of the airbase here (USAF
“Plant 42” is mostly composed of Lockheed’s Skunk Works, but little else) that
page in the local history has been turned.
But we did find a piece of history that tickled our imagination. The epic
battle when an unarmed, unmanned piston-engined WWII fighter outlasted (and
outsmarted?) two first-line jet fighters and over 200 rocket launches.......
THE BATTLE OF PALMDALE!
On the morning
of 16 August 1956, at NAS Point Mugu, an F6F drone, painted high-visibility red,
was prepared for its final mission by navy personnel. At 11:34 a.m. the drone
lifted off the runway and was flown by controllers on a heading to the missile
test area above the Pacific Ocean. After a short time the drone stopped
responding to commands and it was determined that it had become a
runaway.
 |
| F6F DRONE |
Controllers watched their target as it started a
gentle left-hand climbing curve to the southeast, toward the city of Los
Angeles. The navy had no aircraft available capable of dispatching the drone, so
they called Oxnard Air Force
Base five miles to the north. The 437th Fighter-Interceptor
Squadron immediately scrambled two F-89D Scorpions.
 |
| F-89D SCORPION |
The twin jet interceptor crews headed south in full afterburner and caught up
with the drone at 30,000 feet, northeast of Los Angeles. The drone
turned southwest, crossing over Los Angeles, then headed northwest. As the drone
circled slowly over Santa Paula, the Scorpion pilots waited for it to fly over an
unpopulated area so they could attack with their "Mighty Mouse" 2.75-inch folding fin
rockets.
The two
crews discussed attack options. Their D-model Scorpions were equipped with the
new Hughes E-6 fire
control system with AN/APG-40 radar and an attack-plotting computer, which gave
them a choice of two attack options to fire the unguided rockets while in
automatic mode: from behind in a "tail chase" situation or a firing pass from a
90-degree "beam" position. Since the drone was almost continuously turning, they
chose the second mode of attack. Soon the drone turned northeast, passing
over Fillmore then Frazier
Park heading for the western
section of the mostly uninhabited Antelope
Valley. The attackers attempted to fire in automatic mode
several times, but due to a design flaw in the fire control system the rockets
failed to launch.
Suddenly
the drone turned back towards Los Angeles. The fighter pilots were forced to
switch from the faulty automatic mode to manual fire. The D-model Scorpions had
been delivered with gun sights, but when the E-6 fire control system was later added,
the sights were removed. Now, with the radar-guided system inoperative and no
gun sight, the attackers were forced to manually aim the unguided rockets. The
F-89D was capable of firing all 104 of it rockets at once, all leaving their
tubes in only four-tenths of a second. The rockets could also be set to "ripple
fire" in two different patterns: two ripples (64 and 42 rockets) or three
ripples (42,32, and 30 rockets). A single hit was sufficient to bring down an
aircraft. The interceptor pilots set their intervalometers to "ripple fire" in three
salvos.
While
the drone flew over Castaic, the first crew lined up and fired 42 rockets,
completely missing their target. The second interceptor moved into position and
unleashed another salvo of 42, the rockets passing just beneath the bright red
drone, a few glancing off the fuselage underside, but none detonating.
Close to the town of Newhall the pair of jets made a second pass,
launching a total of 64 rockets; again none found the mark. The two Scorpion
crews adjusted their intervalometer settings and, as the wayward drone headed
northeast toward Palmdale, each fired a last salvo of 30 at the target with no
hits, dispensing their last rockets. In all, the Air Force element fired 208
rockets and were unable to shoot the Hellcat down.
As the
Scorpion pilots headed home low on fuel, the drone advanced toward Palmdale, its engine sputtering from fuel starvation. The drone slowly descended in an easy spiral approaching a
desolate section of desert 8 miles east of Palmdale Regional
Airport. Just before
crashing, the drone severed three Southern California
Edison electric
cables along an unpaved section of Avenue P. The drone's right wing dug into the
sand and the drone cartwheeled and disintegrated.
The incident
resulted in some “battle damage” on the ground. The Mk. 4 rockets were fitted
with point detonating warheads that become armed only after being launched and,
if the target is missed, disarm as their speed decreases. Only 15 were
discovered undetonated. The first set of rockets
started brush fires seven miles northeast of Castaic which burned 150 acres above the old Ridge
Route near Bouquet Canyon.
Some of
the second set of rockets reached the ground near the city of Newhall. In
Placerita Canyon, one rocket was seen bouncing along the ground and starting a
series of fires near a park, while others set fire to oil sumps owned by the
Indian Oil Co. The fires reached within 300 feet of the Bermite Powder
explosives plant. Other rockets started fires in the proximity of Soledad
Canyon, near Mount Gleason, burning more than 350 acres of
rough brush.
The
final set of rockets were fired while the Scorpions faced Palmdale; many landed
within the town. "As the drone passed over Palmdale's downtown, Mighty Mouse
rockets fell like hail". "Edna Carlson,
who lived in the home on Third Street East, said that a chunk of shrapnel from
one Air Force rocket burst through the front window of her home, ricocheted off
the floor, went through a wall and came to rest in a kitchen cupboard."
More rocket fragments completely penetrated
a home and garage on 4th Street East. One rocket landed right in front of a
vehicle being driven west on California State Route
138 near Tenth Street West, of which one tire
was shredded and many holes were punched through the car's body. Two men in Placerita Canyon had been eating in their
utility truck. Just after they left it to sit under the shade of a tree, a
rocket struck the truck, destroying it. Many fires were started near Santa Clarita, with three large one
and many smaller ones in and around Palmdale.
It took
500 firefighters two days to bring the brush fires under control. 1000 acres were
burned. There were no fatalities.
