Patterson, Gerry: my Air Force recollections (November 15, 2006)
PublicRank: Colonel.
ABSTRACT: Colonel Gerry Patterson Comox 1963-1966 Involved with NORAD 409 Squadron in Comox. Flight Commander 24 hour combat air patrols, flying 25th NORAD region commanded by Washington center. NORAD made decision to intercept fighters. COMOX threat was the BEAR. Flying out of Siberian bases. Once a month scrambled to intercept fighters. 101 very adequate to deal with the Soviet Bear. CF100 only had 2 rockets to deal with threat, but a slower airplane, barely as fast as a BEAR. Soviets developing supersonic bombers. CF101 bought from the US. 2 conventional weapons, and inside weapons bay two aircraft carrying a nuke warhead. US controlling arming of nukes on Canadian Airplanes. Patterson never encountered a Bear, but some people at squadron did. Story of how co-pilot waved bottle at Bear on intercept. He did intercepts for 3 years, stress resulted in very tiring job. Had to be ready in 5 minuets. 2 on 5 min. alert and 2 on 1 hour alert, when 5's scrambled, 1's had to be ready. Patterson wanted to encounter Bear, "we were warriors." Humorous story on intercept on flying Tiger airline, never in correlation box. Washington base directly commanded Canadian planes. When he was in the air he was in contact with 25th NORAD region. High operational state. In Comox for 4 years. North Bay. 1968-1971 HQ for 22nd NORAD region. Officer of training, responsible for training fighter force. Visited fighter squadrons assessing them and over looking exercisers. No relaxation under NORAD. Massive training operations big force, all the way across the country. They really exercised the system. Blackjack and Blinder, supersonic bomber, all soviet aircraft carried nuclear weapons. Tiring for men at North Bay. BOMARC just another weapon system. Never had anything to do with them. Closure of BOMARC means fighters only defense. 1974-76 North Bay DC opts. No change in number of fighters at North Bay. NORAD Command- Command Director. 1976-78 2 IC Canadian Brigadier General, 5 crew men below the 2 IC, He was the Canadian on the crew. Dealing with DEW line and backscatter radar. NORAD really surveys the world including satellites. "Spider in the center of a great web." No OTHB on the West Coast, left to the E-3. Still had air-defense radars. Did the E-3 have a significant role on the coast. Pretty effective air plane. The West Coast of Canada was not particularly vulnerable. False alarms. Focus being shifted towards Space Command. Number of regular force fighters reduced. Numbers of traditional fighters are being reduced. "We surveyed the world all the time." Diminishing role of radar with diminishing role of radar. Canada not involved with space operations. Commanded a crew of 400 US Air Force people, he was stand in for CINC NORAD. He called the shots from his position. NORAD would have to activate with missile threat and respond. Still large soviet bomber force maintained throughout the cold war making Canada's role essential. NORAD still had to maintain response capabilities. Alaska only independent NORAD region. "No" encounter with being a Canadian in command of lots of USAF forces. "Very effective alliance, working as one military force." NORAD big part of the Cold War defense of the homeland. Lot of interchanged fighter forces. Space Command not really part of NORAD, but access to satellite feeds. NORAD tracked ICBM with satellites. NORAD had to launch all fighters in the event of a soviet missile attack. Gerry had to do that on one of his shifts "flushing the system." False alarm and system reacted quickly. Things got tense sometimes, when a threat was perceived, it became very stressful. Only kept there for 2 years because of stress levels. Crew systems operated on 2 swings 2 mids etc., internal clock messed. USAF controlled nukes at all times, CINCNORAD could flush with all nukes theoretically, but it takes a long time to arm nukes on planes. "Just part of the system to transmit order." Regarding Nuclear weapon deployment. "maximum twitch factor" pretty exciting. Canadian Politicians ignorant of things military. It was difficult to nukes for BOMARC "elections won and lost on that sort of thing." Average MP does not have a clue to defense capabilities. ABM - "I suspect that we opted out of missile defense, we had to sit out on lots of meetings." Gerry sat in on everything. NORAD would be in the middle of Star Wars by nature. NORAD was involved with missile defense. "Politicians cannot tell the difference between air breathing and non air breathing." Trudue impressed the hell out of them. Ending story on 18-25 year olds loving to fly F18's. Warrior where you get to use your training.
Interviewer: Mooney, John
An interview/narrative of Colonel Gerry Patterson's experiences with the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Interview took place on November 15, 2006.
Interviewee: Patterson, Gerry
- In Collection:
- 2 sound recordings (MP3)
- 46.3168, -79.46633
- 49.68294, -124.93613
- Two original audio cassettes in Special Collections.
- Canadian Military Oral History Collection
- PG_493
- Special Collections Finding Aid: https://uvic2.coppul.archivematica.org/military-oral-history-collection
- January 23, 2013
- Digital sound recording in .wav format at 16 bits and 44 kHz. In .mp3 format at 56 kbps and 24 kHz. Digitized by JF, technical and cataloguing metadata provided by JF and JP. Interview migrated to digital format for UVic Special Collections in 2013. Migration metadata by KD and MT.
- Rights
- This interview has been posted with the understanding that it may be used for research purposes only. Should the interviewee or their heirs have any objections to this interview being accessible on the Internet, it will be removed promptly. Contact UVic Special Collections for permission if using for other than research purposes: speccoll@uvic.ca
- DOI
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