REDHORSE and PRIME BEEF History

Welcome to the “REDHORSE History” website. You have arrived at a destination that attempts to define our service organization as well as our military history and hopes to educate the viewer with a plethora of professional and worthwhile examples that has taken Air Force Civil Engineering, from the early days of becoming a separate branch of the Department of Defense, with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947, when the United States Air Force was created on September 18, 1947, and became co-equal with the other branches of the U.S. military.

Click to read the full introduction

INTRODUCTION

CIVIL ENGINEERS, PRIME BEEF, and REDHORSE: THIS SITE IS THE ONE FOR YOU

Points of view or any other discussion, and written statements of claimed proportionate facts, are solely meant to be dimensional presentation a view expressed from a retired member of the Air Force, who served from 1957 until 1987. One person’s view point is expressed only by association, and involvement with the times, in which a better explanation is described and first hand knowledge was gained from participating. It is in the best Interest of everyone to seek-out many other sources of military history, as are provided, so that actual details can further help explain such an exciting era of this Nation’s military history, and particular the community of Air Force Civil Engineering and the role it played in making the Department of the Air Force, a recognized equal partner in direct support of air combat operations.

Earlier on in a career that span thirty years of service, I initially began this trek after enlistment basic training at Lackland AFB, Texas. Upon graduation, I was reassigned to Langley AFB, Virginia, home to the Tactical Air Command (TAC), to gain my first permanent air base introduction as to “how and why” to fit in for the next four years under contract. I adapted well, I initially made a few mistakes, but was placed in a routine of job training and daily learning how to cope with the schedule that would become both more productive, and credible with the passing of time. I advanced slowly but surely in on-the-job training and an adaptation to the military lifestyle. Little did I know that Langley AFB would become my home for the next six and one half years of duty. What a learning experience and professional opportunity awaited my effort. I made good friends and co-workers, worked with mostly civil service supervisors, and off duty bonded with two other roommates housed in an equal space of 10 square feet of floor surface per-person; bunked in double bunk style beds and moved cautiously around each other while coming or going, in and our, to or from, our daily duty work stations. We were fortunate to work at the same facility for a while.

Our off-duty time was shared between running the streets of Hampton, Virginia or better yet! My home town in North Carolina, a distance to drive there was one hour and 30 minutes. We were brothers who hung around together and this eased the sting of loneliness and adaptation to following rules and being constantly under direct supervision of superiors. We complied and overcame receiving rank and increased responsibility along with gaining the confidence to act independently, when a choice was allowed or specific orders were not given. The months passed and confidence building was beginning to take affect in most of the things we had learned and accomplished to this point. It was by working with civilians that we slowly began to develop the trade skills necessary to perform minor maintenance and repair capabilities of the specialist duty of which we were rated. Never were we thinking of a time when much more would be required of us in wartime or not even prepared us well to take on such a mission. Ours was now a day-to-day existence and on the weekends down time. There was such a war plan in existence called: World-wide Mobility that TAC required Civil Engineering to maintain status, as fly-away enlisted deployment teams, we were placed on 24-hour recall alert status, shot records kept up-to-date, tool boxes inventoried, and be near a phone during off duty to respond to a base wide recall alert. When a recall occurred the married folks living off the base and the single guys housed in the barracks both reported with duffle bags and tool kits to an assembly point in a flight line hanger to process for aircraft deployment. We practiced this often or quarterly but even though there was warm body’s, of assembled troops in the processing line, little did we know what it was that would be required of us to perform, where, and under what conditions. If these were war plans then omissions were critical to success and for success more was necessary in the concept planning to prosecute a war, un-prepared and lacking of a precise mission statement of requirements, for realizing an air mission support generation role for civil engineering, and its manpower duties were not well defined.

It would take a period in time leading up to the Cuban crisis to fully alert those in command that something in the plan was structurally deficient. A top-down review was necessary to commit troops to do battle but the Cuban crisis was limited to staging of vehicles and equipment in the coastal southern state of Florida, and the lower states having air bases where fighter and bomber aircraft were additionally deployed. Installations Squadron (BCE) deployment was limited to being selected drivers of vehicles, and pre-positioning of equipment for the invasion, if one was necessary. Such was the main total effort of the tasking of mobility participation by engineering forces. The major CE role was to establish sustainable critical facilities reliability and functional operational use of the TAC command post and communications buildings and sites. To accomplish all this: supervisory shop foreman and workers where sometimes placed on overtime status 24/7. Reliability of base systems and services were critical to the Tactical Air Command war plans. We went on with normal duties and kept current on the news being broadcasted on the tube and radio. This should have gotten command to rethinking about the future use of Tactical Air Forces and contingencies plans review for air power and personnel usage in war.

I set out initially, [here-in] to say some purposely well chosen words of high praises; said for the men and women of Air Force Civil Engineering serving in headquarters, support agencies, squadrons, units, and teams. But I imagined, as well began to realize that to do so there would be many difficulties encountered in how to identify that exact place, moment, date or time, plan or planer with whom to credit or could be officially recognized, for a more positive individual recognition or be, as well deserving over all others. The one originator allowed the fullest credit presentation for giving birth to our collective engineering association status by having brought civil engineering into a new century of active participation, and then coming to the realization that it is all of the above efforts of those who serve to have collectively risen to the occasion, meeting then succeeding in the mission, flawlessly, on time, and with in budget. Success has many fathers, failure has but one.

In such a case, it is not nearly as possible with any pin point accuracy, to name but just one single father; having such a higher authority to decide, and then convince others of the most receivable value to be gained of a war plan in advance of a well thought-out field tested application, that would also change forever, the mythology altogether for the advancement of engineering upon the landscape of any theater of operations, and the battle space of future wars; therefore, “nameless” are the pioneers of the many unknown players; theoretically, for when a better plan comes together it takes the talents of many designers and tacticians all working as a team effort to select from the best of choices for meeting expectations, and the longest endurance without knowing in advance a full measured outcome with any degree of truest certainty.

Enter the stated “individual factor” the person that has the most to say in logistics, equipment procurement, services, safety, medical, vehicle maintenance, security training and airfield operational support. Then a different picture emerges that no one person; whether, an engineer or not, has such an extensive educated working knowledge of in the field or sciences of as many different disciplines, and as complex in different relationships to combine together and become a self-sustaining entity capable of entering a battle space, survive, work, and produce a heavy operational engineering project effort that can effectively dominate a remote area, and make it into a thriving base of operations such as is an air base from which, the deployment of tactical aircraft are assigned to launch missions off of active runways, and return from air operations conducted over enemy territory. Of course, then directly who selects the types, numbers and skill levels, of trained personnel capable of executing such a complicated plan? Will the basic model then prove its general application capability in real-time caste of a real war?

Selection processes of real people who were responsible to implement such an innovative planning strategy, for the first time taking command, and prove its ideas sound or if allowed to modify some early misdirected steps taken to better reach or exceed expected planed intentions, then take the necessary action responses’ to strengthen the original idea, to make it a better one. In fact, it was G.I.s boots on the ground that finally worked its way through some local impediments to mission success, and unity was gained by all significant accomplishment, while being over there in the theater of operations. Their proper names; those career-minded dedicated volunteers, are not as readily recalled or identifiable since the engineering mission broadened to became as complex as was the regions own topographical layout of the natural lands that is the makeup of South Vietnam from areas of coastal beach sands, water and mud of the delta, mountainous central highlands, and thick foliage of a three-tier jungle. Some necessity was made up on the run as difficulties were encountered and material/supplies were insufficient or not available for the next stage progression to maintaining progress made on the job sites.

Leadership had prevailed and a better solution was administered to curb on-site work stoppages. Written words on papers could never compete with the genius of the enlisted workforce to adapt and conquer situations of material shortages or acquire, borrow or appropriate by other means, methods, sources, and unsecured resources’ to continue on a project essential and assigned to the particular responsible team . Management and resourcefulness are traits of an efficient and productive noncommissioned officer in a time of war. Reliable to a fault, NCOs and Airman: Eager to excel, and by doing so inspires others around him or her to greatness.

USAF World-wide mobility was the action plan in practice since the Korean War, a period known as the “cold war”, exercised by Airman assigned to the Tactical Air Command (TAC) at LANGLEY AFB in the late 1950s throughout, and up until the mid-1960s. On-the-job training was the process of learning while doing a task but there were no OJT formal course of study for learning the technical aspects of skill-level advancement. We had insufficient job skills and gaps in our technical knowledge about new construction as the contracts for new vertical construction projects were all contracted out to civilians. Maintenance and repair was abundant on aging air bases such as Langley AFB. Job qualifications expansion was all necessary to enter into the new world of war preparedness and survivability. But the time was not right as the Cuban crisis occurred in 1962 and Installations Squadron (BCE) was tasked only for the transport of special equipment and to pre-position vehicles in the southern most coastal states and in Florida in case of a planned invasion of Cuba became necessary. Shop Foreman were pulling 24/7 overtime duty, sleeping in critical C.E. workshops for keeping the TAC command post up and running, flawlessly, and without disruption. Regular routine assigned duties went on regardless of the obvious heightened status of war with Cuba co-existed. The Cuban crisis was the only widely known about place “to kick up some dust” and get into the “stink” realized from real sweat equity but for USAF Civil Engineering there was little effort to generate any larger involvement by TAC in the mobilization of engineers.

Then suddenly in 1963 change was in the air once more, nostrils of the war planners could smell the mixed flavors of battlefield smoke, gunpowder, and jet fuel permeated their conscious. Then unknown to most active duty personnel, and the general public in 1955, counterinsurgency support for South Vietnam became the newest source and topic of consideration as America began to gradually send a number of advisors into Vietnam. With a few exceptions troops were slowly but aggressively moving towards South East Asia but engineering was not a necessary consideration, at that point in time, as the remains of the few French base permanent facilities and designated areas within cities with in Vietnam were used to support housing for a small advisory team capability. The level of active duty troop support remained at low-level activities’ by the U.S. military.

In the USAF Engineering community, however, there was hardly a word spoken of this intervention by the CIA and U.S. Army Special Forces’ real world engagement but since the forces were in a defensive posture there was no urgency or interest, to move beyond the advisory phase of a mission support, unknowingly, this would escalate in dimension for a new change in strategy nearing the 1963 year ending, as the Vietcong were more aggressive in their actions taken, to dominate the South Vietnamese Government. By the year of 1964, USAF security police troops stationed in Taiwan were being asked as volunteers to be reassigned TDY to Vietnam to protect base perimeters in country at the few air base locations, and troop housing in downtown Saigon.

A renewed interest in a major ground combat total effort that went well beyond the advisory phase had been approved at the highest level of government by early 1965, and on the drawing board was an USAF expectation that an air offensive phase would be added to the conflict. It was just about to break bad, as both a regular ground war of U.S. Army troops and an USAF Air Support Mission was imminent, both to engage the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Regulars (NVA) throughout the entire country-side of Vietnam. The expanded battlefields and coupled with USAF Air Missions were both necessary to defend and protect any major increases in strength levels that would in time exceed upwards to nearly 600,000 U.S. military personnel assigned within Vietnam. The Air Mission capabilities were lacking in many remote areas, undeveloped and unsuitable for air operations, flight line maintenance, and having limited airfields built for take offs and landing, nearby and close to the enemy, that meant us harm, unlimited destruction, and total defeat.

In a necessary short response time, nearly at the summer of 1965, a new engineering devised program effort was rushed to the field as members of stateside Civil Engineering, from all active duty major commands, were tasked with the acronym of a new tasking unit of CE troops called: Prime BEEF/Base Emergency Engineer Forces. They would be the first engineers sent under the program to deploy in a war zone with tools to complete special projects of hardening airfields and critical base facilities also to make repairs on existing systems, and update/modernize utilities. Prepare new areas for “tent cities” for initial bed-down of arriving troops in country, and build bunkers for personnel protection. In the later stages of deploying Prime BEEF teams sent to Vietnam, the tasks of building new permanent troop housing was given over to various major commands too as specialized troops are selected from assigned state-side bases were deployed; individually, for TDY duty in the war zone to assist the local base engineers, in duties performed that was the nature of mission support that the local BCE could not accomplish on their own due to many other very important contingencies.

Prime BEEF was the forbearers of a more proper coming-out, one-long awaited mission for commanders and troops alike; we were as eager to receive a definite war mission, and we finally had one of our own. Not surprisingly, Prime BEEF troops all exceeded everyone’s personal expectations as they were able bodied, quick learners, and pride showed in all that they accomplished. There are no doubts that Prime BEEF was the most relied upon team of engineering professionals ever deployed in the theater of operations for diversity; while initially, they satisfied critical needed projects with the urgency they commanded. Revetments erected in-place were protecting millions of dollars worth of ground equipment assets, airplanes, bombs, and fuel storage facilities from damage and destruction by enemy small arms, mortar shells, and 122mm rockets saving the American taxpayers huge amounts of money. Everyone assigned to these remarkable teams had served in country, and elsewhere is to be commended for their swift actions, dependability, and a sustaining effort under trying conditions, danger, and personal hardship. Waiting in the wings, and also in-training in the fall of 1965, was two full 400 men strength squadrons of troops, the 554th and 555th RED HORSE Squadrons, set to become what is now commonly known as: RED HORSE, an acronym for Rapid Emergency Deployment Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers. RED HORSE was established to be a major player to reshape the battle space, and conduct both minor and major heavy construction tasks of horizontal and vertical configuration, as well be self-sufficient for deployment to a bare base concept area, and survive on their own in regions both hostile and having harsh environments.

Every USAF officer and enlisted member should be as equally proud of themselves, as a veteran or retirees, to have come from either group so loosely defined in the above short descriptions of history “how it had been” of the active duty forces in past wars, and to praise those men and women in USAF engineering that are still in service to America. I have allowed virtual spaces for the expansion of our knowledge and education of what it means to be called a member of USAF Civil Engineers, Prime BEEF or RED HORSE. Not one of us, did it all by ourselves, but each person that served in civil engineering can share in the greatest examples our history has made it, and with the same pride that distinguishes its proud members from others. No member of the team is ever left behind in the quest for excellence. You have proven yourselves worthy as warriors and remain true professionals. A job only you “can-do-will-do-have-done.” Seek greatness through service, and you will never disappoint yourself or others. Leadership and taking care of each other at the end of the day will suffice. It is not only commanded but demanded of all those folks willing to excel. In appreciation, for your service to a grateful Nation, it offers you the very best, and so do we at “redhorsehistory.com”.

PRIME BEEF

PRIME BEEF (Base Engineer Emergency Force) teams of civil engineering personnel were organized, equipped and trained to respond within hours to worldwide emergencies and to support the Air Force's mission.

The Lebanon Crisis of 1958, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 demonstrated a need for the capability to respond to worldwide emergencies. Aircraft and support personnel were being deployed without providing runways, water supply, electricity, housing, and other facilities necessary to support them. Civil engineering personnel, who could rapidly respond, were needed to accompany aircraft and to provide basing facilities. The Air Force's answer was the PRIME BEEF program.

As the buildup of forces in Southeast Asia began, base civil engineering forces were inundated with construction, operations, and maintenance requirements. Large numbers of USAF strike aircraft were sent to bases where pavement for aircraft parking was at a premium. Aircraft were parked wing tip to wing tip, vulnerable to an accidental explosion or enemy attack. A need for aircraft revetments was dramatically brought home on 15 May 1965 when the explosion of a bomb under the wing of a loaded B-57 aircraft set off a chain reaction of explosions on the parking apron at Bien Hoa Air Base, South Vietnam. Forty aircraft were destroyed, 26 Americans killed, and over 60 wounded.

Three 25-man PRIME BEEF teams were organized from Air Training Command, Strategic Air Command, and Air Defense Command. Teams were deployed to Tan Son Nhut, Bien Hoa and Da Nang Air Bases (all in South Vietnam) to construct aircraft revetments and complete whatever work that was needed. During their 120-day deployments, the teams constructed over 12,000 linear feet of revetments, parking aprons, and several miles of roads. The revetments paid for themselves in saved aircraft in just the first six months.

Soon other specialized teams were deployed to bases in Vietnam and Thailand to perform short-term construction projects. A PRIME BEEF team was sent to Tan Son Nhut to ensure the rapidly growing base had an adequate water supply. PRIME BEEF III sent teams to several other bases to build housing. The teams erected "hootches," framed tents, and constructed over 34,000 square feet of support facilities at six bases in South Vietnam.

PRIME BEEF teams continued to perform critical repair and construction work in Southeast Asia. Between 1965 and 1972, nearly 2,000 PRIME BEEF team members were deployed to Southeast Asia to construct vital petroleum, oil, and lubricant (POL) pipelines and storage facilities; install jet engine exhaust blast deflectors; provide electrical power to buildings; and to erect small buildings.

The PRIME BEEF program proved its value in additional situations. Several hundred personnel were deployed to Korea during Operation Combat Fox, following the seizure of the USS Pueblo in 1968. These teams dug wells, laid airfield matting, erected frame buildings, installed aircraft arresting barriers, sandbagged bunkers, and rehabilitated building and utility systems to facilitate the buildup of American forces at Korean air bases.

As the Vietnam War began to wind down, PRIME BEEF teams remained in great demand by the Air Force. A number of these teams completed civic action projects in the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands (which became the Federated States of Micronesia). In 1969, firefighter, now a part of the PRIME BEEF program, were sent to locations around the world to provide fire protection and crash/rescue support. Teams also provided civil engineering support for various research projects. For example, they supported a project of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory testing on Eniwetok Atoll in 1972.

In addition to wartime operations, PRIME BEEF teams have responded to many emergency situations. PRIME BEEF members have assisted military and civilian communities in recovery form natural disasters including Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Agnes in 1972.

PRIME BEEF has proven to be one of the Air Force's most versatile and productive programs during times of peace and war.