My first trip to Okinawa was to assist solving a problem of excessive noise in one of the receivers that could not be repeated with the SR the ground or on a bench in the shop. It was finally determined that the ‘potting’ surrounding a power supply had an air gap that caused it to arc at operational altitude. Once repotted the problem went away. I had nothing to do with solving the problem but did a lot of ELINT processing and analysis during the TDY.Being on Okinawa during the Vietnam conflict was interesting. Many times, we would have lunch in the golf course club house that was on a hill overlooking the runway at Kadena. The large windows would rattle from the noise of B52 laden with iron bombs under the wings between the fuselage and the inboard engines. Those bombs were in addition to the two internal bomb bays also being full. The B52s would be lined up on the taxiway waiting to takeoff. This would go on for the better part of the lunch hour. The roar was deafening.Sometime later two SR71s would take off about 30 min apart. One primary and one spare. More deafening roars. If the primary had to abort just prior to entering the operational area the spare would be available. More often than not, the primary would complete the mission.The trip back from Okinawa was on an Air Force tanker. Major Jack Clement and the temporary DET Commander (Col Samey, as I remember) we’re also on the tanker going back to Beale Air Force Base. 
Prior to getting on the tanker I stopped by the Air Force class six store and purchased several of the small liquor bottles that you usually see on airplanes when you take a flight.At that time the price was $0.25 per bottle so I stocked up on quite a few and put them in my briefcase for the ride back. Just prior to boarding the aircraft I got a small plastic bag filled, it with as much ice as I could, and took it on board the aircraft with me. Luckily I was able to get a seat adjacent to the aircraft skin and put the plastic bag right next to the skin near my feet. Once the aircraft was at altitude the skin of the aircraft got quite cold and the ice and water in the bag refroze. Jack and I were seated together facing the rear of the aircraft where all the stuff purchased by the returning personnel, while on Okinawa, was strapped down for the trip. The Colonel came and sat on a box facing Jack and I and said it was going to be a long trip back and was wondering what to do to pass the time. I asked him if you would like to have a drink and he asked how I could arrange that, so I reach down got my bag of ice banged it a few times on a bulkhead to break it up and asked him if he could get a couple cups. When he returned I opened my briefcase and displayed my bar, he took a couple, I believe it was scotch, added ice, got a little water and said thank you. Then we all slept. I don’t remember if we stopped in Hawaii, I think it was a direct flight all the way to Beale.
After mission data was processed at Kadena to produce a ‘flash report’ the raw mission tapes were sent back to Beale to be reprocessed for further analysis. On one occasion one of the missions was flown over North Viet Nam during a ‘Line Backer’ mission. The SR71 at 80,000ft and B52s were dropping bombs from a somewhat lower altitude. Once the analysis was done, a final report went out from Beale that identified about 20 different SAM sites that were active during the mission. This report went to SAC in Omaha and the response was that there were not that many sites in that area. As a result, SAC sent out a high ranking ELINT INTEL officer to do a fine grain analysis of the data. He and I went over the data at the pulse level for about a week. In the end he and I came to the same conclusion: The analysts had missed at least five additional sites in the original analysis. The EMR was a very good ELINT collection system, the location accuracy needed improvement.
I am reminded of an incident that happened sometime in the early 1970s in the 1912 program. Every week Mike Fierro (Beale AIL site leader) would pack up boxes of computer printouts to send back to the program office so they could further analyze the processing. One particular printout was about 500 pages of bifold computer printout that I put into a printout binder and at the very top of a page about half way through I penciled in a note that the first person that read this page I would buy a dinner for. Sure enough, about a month later I got a call from one of the new analysts that demanded the prize. I don’t know if I ever bought the dinner but the experience did indicate to me that there were other individuals that were also anal about the data.
An idea to use the ‘doppler’ effect of the minute change in PRI (Pulse Repetition Inteval) of stable emitters to locate was attempted. Matt Dwork was the driving force guiding the software effort. It did not work, and I was thought the stability of the emitters was not sufficient to give reliable data. An interesting idea, but not feasible. I got a correction via e-mail from Matt Dwork that the failure of the Doppler effect to locate emitters was caused by an error in the navigational data, uncovered by Dave Osofsky.
The SR71 began some operational missions out of Mildenhall, England sometime in the mid 1970s. Originally these were rather short TDYs, less than 30 days. I recall that the first deployment of the EMR almost didn’t come off. The EMR mission data was recorded on large reels of magnetic tape and played back on a Parsons tape machine. Fidelity was obtained from the head/tape speed combination. Since the head was stationary the tape ran by the head at a very high speed.
Pete Calandrino was the AIL guru on the Parsons equipment and was on the flight line at Beale overseeing the loading of the equipment on to a KC135. The Parsons recorder was strapped to a pallet on a flatbed truck ready for loading. An AF forklift driver was in the process of lifting another piece of equipment from the opposite side of the truck and got the tips of the fork lift under the Parsons pallet and tipped it to a point where it fell off onto the tarmac. Pete spent about 3 days without sleep getting it back up and running, which we all thought could not be done. It finally got to Mildenhall. AIL support consisted of flight line and processing support during this operation.
Most of the AIL people were staying at the Rutledge Arms Inn in Newmarket, England about 25 miles from the base. I was fortunate, at least for the first two nights, as I had a room with a private bath. On the second evening there was a power failure that put the Inn in the dark. Several of us had just sat down in the dining room to order dinner and all the lights went out. We got the word that the kitchen was closed, and candles were being lit and placed on tables.
We left and went down the block and got several orders of fish and chips that had just come out of the cooker prior to the power failure. We brought them back to the Inn and sat down to eat when the manager came in a kicked us out for eating food not purchased from the kitchen’s Inn even though the it was still without power. We went to one of our rooms and finished our dinner.
When I got back from the base the next evening I found that my room had been changed. When asked why, I was told that it was the beginning of horse racing season and the room I had was considered a ‘lucky room’ for one of the regular race fans that had it reserved for the races every year. Now I had to share a bath and was fairly pissed that I had not been told previously when checking in for an extended stay.
There was a CDC tech rep that set me up for a place to stay in the village of Mildenhall. It was with a family that had a spare room and bath and was more than happy to rent to an American and get some per diem money. An additional benefit was that the owner was a former cabbie from London and took several of the us tech reps on a tour of London. We let him drive one of our rental cars which at the outset seemed to be a mistake because he drove just like a London cabbie. Scary but we covered a lot of London during the tour.
Once we got the equipment set for processing the mission data, it was announced that there would be a 4 day down time with no activity. Pete Calandrino came to me with a plan than he and several others planned to take a fast trip to Paris, just to see Paris. He had worked out the details of the ferry schedule from Dover to Calais and we scrambled to get ready to make the 5pm ferry. I drove around to pick up Pete and the others and found no ‘others’, all had some form of excuse for not going. So, Pete and I drove frantically to Dover to catch the 5pm ferry and arrived in time but the schr at Dover and carried our backpacks. Pete and I finally got to Paris after spending a night in Calais and catching the train to Paris. The night in Calais is a story unto itself. We spent one day and night in Paris then trained to Boulogne for a hovercraft ride back to Dover. About the best I can say is that I have been to Paris.
The area in and around Newmarket and Mildenhall were used as bases for B17s during World War II. There were large relatively flat fields that were used as landing areas. Now the area was dotted with horse farms with large areas for training. There were several race courses nearby. Many thatched roof houses still in use. All in all, a great place to visit provided it wasn’t cold and raining, which it was most of the time.