Tracing the History of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 251 with Steve Dixon

Join us today for an enthralling journey with Steve Dixon, author of 'Keeping the Peace Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 251 during the Cold War, 1946 to 1991' and once a squadron member himself. Steve takes us soaring through the annals of the Squadron, illuminating its rich history and global deployments with anecdotes from his time with the Squadron during the Cold War. You'll get an up-close look at the array of aircraft they flew, from Wildcats and Corsairs to the speedy F-4 Phantom and the advanced F/A-18 Hornet. His accounts, laden with fascinating facts about the Squadron from its activation in 1941 to its deactivation in 2020, echo the Squadron's motto, "Semper Fidelis".

We then navigate through riveting accounts of the F4 intercepting the T95, and the Squadron's transition to the F-18 Hornet. Steve also offers a window into his time stationed at Yeh-chan, South Korea, and his subsequent career designing conflict simulation games, that's bound to keep you hooked. The episode concludes with a hands-on discussion about Legion War Games' Skyhawk game, touching upon the quality of the materials used and the gaming experience. Make sure to check out the unboxing video on our YouTube channel and, as always, thank you for joining us on the Pilot Photon Podcast!

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Transcript

Tog: 0:00

You're listening to the Pilot Photog podcast, where every airplane has a story. Hi everyone, I'm joined today by my guest, steve Dixon. He is the author of Keeping the Peace Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 251 during the Cold War, 1946 to 1991. How are you, steve? I'm doing well. How about you, todd? Great, great, thank you Appreciate that. So this book covers basically the operational history of VMFA 251. What inspired you to write this book?

Steve Dixon : 0:33

Well, I served with the squadron in the mid to late 70s, 76 to 79. I've always been an amateur historian when it comes to World War II and I knew the squadron had served in the Second World War, flying as VMO 251. So as I was winding down my days in television, this was in about 2012. I applied for a grant through the USMC History Division and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation and to write the Squadron history of the Squadron during the Second World War. Well, about a year later, I got an answer back and they said you're it and write the book. And so I finished the first book on World War II and then received another grant to write the second book, which was Keeping the Peace, and that's how it all came about. Excellent, and thank you for your service in the Marine Corps.

Tog: 1:37

No worries, no problem. So this book covers, in this time period. There's quite a few aircraft that serve or are flown with the MFA 251. And, as you said, vmvmo 251 in the beginning. In the process of writing this book, what were some of the aircraft that you found more interesting or intriguing?

Steve Dixon : 1:58

That's an interesting question. Well, I'm partial to the F4 Phantom since I worked on it. That was a beautiful plane when it flew, but it had its quirks and when it broke it could break really bad and took some time to repair. Now, by the time I got into the squad, I had been flying with the Marine Corps close to a decade and a half and continued to serve until 86. So it was over 20 years in service with the Marine Corps, wow.

Steve Dixon : 2:24

But as for the other aircraft, from 46, it started flying quarters and it was seems to be a favorite plane for a lot of people in 46 when they were reactivated as the Air Reserve Squadron and then ended up flying the Sky Raider during the Korean War, and then, when it started the jet age with the Fury in the late 50s, didn't have that but for a year and then they jumped over to the Crusader, then the Phantom and then finally the Hornet. So it was a very interesting experience. Finally the Hornet, but I'm partial to the Phantom.

Tog: 3:01

Yeah, it's an iconic airplane and such a. So many airplanes that came after it tried to do with the Phantom did, and until the F-35, I think it was the only airplane that served with the Air Force, navy and Marine Corps.

Steve Dixon : 3:15

Right, I guess in today's parlance it was the first joint strike fighter there you go.

Tog: 3:19

That's better said. Exactly, before the JSF, it was the F-4. Yeah, and can you tell us some interesting facts about the MFA-251?

Steve Dixon : 3:30

Well, it has a long history. It was activated in 1941 as an observation squadron, yet never flew a photographic mission with the planes that it had. They acquired the Wildcat first, and then they modified it to carry a camera, but necessity dictated it fly as a fighter. It had retained its machine gun, so it was able to accomplish that role. And it wasn't only until January of 1945 that it received a VMF designation and it had been flying the Corsair for almost a year and a half before that even happened. So that was the interesting start. And then it was deactivated in June of 1945 and then about a year and a month later, in July 46, it was reactivated as a Marine Air Reserve Squadron, flying out of Grosse Isle in Michigan. And then, early in the Korean War, it was activated into the active Marines and was stood up and then populated with Marines and then, at spider planes, moved to El Toro and eventually ended up with the Sky Raiders and then flew to well. It was transported to Korea and flew for about two weeks in the closing days of the war there, and the squadron is credited with flying the last Marine aviation bombing mission before the Armistice went into effect. And then it stayed in the southeast, in Korea, for almost another three years before it ended up in Japan and then finally made it back to the United States in 1957 where it acquired the Fury, had that for a year, went back to El Toro and flew the Crusader until about 1964 when he started transitioning to the Phantom. And then for the Phantom from 65 to about 1970, the primary mission was to train the air crew for eventual transfer to Vietnam On top of trying to accomplish its other missions, nato commitments and dictated by headquarters Marine Corps.

Steve Dixon : 5:56

Now that it did, and then in the 70s matter of fact, when I was with the squadron, we were the first squadron to be sent to Japan under the unit deployment program. That program was supposed to be a six month deployment but because of engine issues with the phantom and upgrade of the engines we ended up staying a year so the other squadrons behind us eventually coming to Japan could get the system, the engine upgrades, done. Then when we left Japan, we left our phantoms there and took over the phantoms of the squadron that replaced us in Buford, then stayed in Buford. Soon after I got out they ended up with a big deployment to Norway. It was just one deployment after another from then on, and then they acquired the Horneten 86-87. Then another unit deployment to Japan, different deployments around the United States overseas, which continued until it was deactivated in 2020. In the early nineties it was involved in the Balkan Campaign there as part of the United Nations Force Operation Denied Flight, and then saw action in Iraq and in Afghanistan before the squadron was deactivated in 2020.

Tog: 7:24

Wow so truly a global legacy. I mean, they've been everywhere. Yes, absolutely. Speaking of that legacy, the squadron's motto and I apologize if I pronounced this incorrectly Kustos Kaloram.

Steve Dixon : 7:38

Kustos Kaloram. Yeah, guardians of the Sky or Kustodians of the Sky.

Tog: 7:43

That's excellent. It sounds like the squadron definitely lived up to that name or that motto.

Steve Dixon : 7:48

Yes, it did, and it never failed in its missions assigned to it. It always accomplished it to the best of its ability, which says a lot about the men and women who served with the squadron over the years.

Tog: 8:03

Yeah, it sounds like the squadron never really had any idle years or almost downtime. Really right.

Steve Dixon : 8:09

No, the only downtime they really had was in training as personnel when there was a change in aircraft. That usually took a period of anywhere from six to six months to a year before it was declared operational, and then the grind started again.

Tog: 8:25

Yeah, it's a great way to describe it the grind. I mean global deployments, lots of commitments, lots of tasking. Yeah, lots of training, Lots of training, that's right, and they always rose to the occasion. Yeah, reading this book, it's chock full of you know, facts, tables, photographs. Can you share with us sort of the process that you went through to collect all this information? It's an incredible amount of detail.

Steve Dixon : 8:50

Yeah, well, what made this book difficult to finish was the fact that I was working on it in the middle of the pandemic and a lot of the facilities that I needed to contact were closed and could not be reached, so there was a delay in finishing the book. It should have been booked finished a lot earlier than 2023. It was just published in March and the first thing I did was acquire the official documents as much that was available through the USMC History Division in Quantico, virginia, and then those that they didn't have. I ended up making a trip to the National Archives to make digital copies of the records that they had on file, which was from about 1946 to 1963, 1964, but the documents from about 1956 and what fragments that they had after that was very little because of the policy at the time that squadrons did not have to follow a command chronology if they were not in combat. So once, basically, the squadron was finished in Korea, the report ceased and didn't really pick up until 1965.

Steve Dixon : 10:20

So for that period I really had to depend on secondary sources, other books, and use that, and then to track the accidents that occurred within the squadron I had the help of Peter Greengrass, who has done extensive research with the squadron and its aircraft and accidents, and he supplied me a list of those accidents and then I ended up contacting the Label Safety Center and filing a Freedom of Information request to obtain all the aircraft accident reports that involve the squadron.

Steve Dixon : 11:00

So I was happy to get those. But it was a double edged sword because the reason for a lot of these accidents and names were redacted from the reports. So while I could describe the accident and describe what led up to it, I can never very, very few times did I have in the reports the stated cause of the accident. So that made it difficult. And of course the photographs came from my own collection, those who I served with and others that contributed when I made requests via the web and email and contacts that I've been able to keep up with over the last several decades, and they contributed pictures and other documents, and that's how it all came together. And then it was just me sitting down and writing at night after my work day and get it finished, and it took quite a while to do so, but it was done.

Tog: 12:07

Yeah, as I said, the amount of detail in here is just, it's incredible and it shows the amount of research that you've done to put this together. What advice can you give for someone who's looking to write a similar style of book?

Steve Dixon : 12:20

Well, for me, the hardest part is when to say no to the research and start writing. So I would suggest, if you have a lot of research to do, give yourself, put, assign yourself a deadline and finish it by that deadline and then start your writing, because research can take a very long time and in my case I didn't have a whole lot of time to deliver the product because I kept getting emails from the SMC History Division. It's the book finished, yet when is it coming? And I told him you'll get it as soon as it's finished I mean, the pandemic held me back for about three years and give yourself a deadline for the research and then start writing. Or if you can write while you're doing the research and take it a step at a time, but you've got to give yourself an end time.

Tog: 13:09

That's great advice, and I do research for the videos that I produce on my YouTube channel, and I completely understand where you're coming from, because it's very easy to go down a rabbit hole and just start finding tangential things. And you go off in another direction and you wanted to find out about a certain aspect of something, and three days later you're somewhere else.

Steve Dixon : 13:30

Exactly yeah, you got to learn to say no.

Tog: 13:33

That's great advice, thank you. So can you share with us? One of my favorite photos in the book is the picture of the F4 intercepting the T95. That's a great shot and a very iconic moment during the Cold War which, my understanding, has happened relatively frequently.

Steve Dixon : 13:53

Yes.

Tog: 13:54

So can you share with us any of your experiences with the squadron that maybe aren't in the book or are in the book, and maybe elaborate on them a little bit?

Steve Dixon : 14:02

Well, that particular photograph was taken shortly after I got out. The squadron had sent a detachment into Iceland and relieving an Air Force squadron at the time and one of the pilots flying during that period ended up one of the crewmen, I should say, ended up taking that picture and one of the men let me see here, let me see here I'm pulling up the book. You know one of the men in the picture. You know, squadron commander was Kerr. It was about a couple of years after I left and then his radar intercept officer was a major Dobert who was later killed in a separate accident a few months later.

Steve Dixon : 14:56

Oh man, but for me personally, I think one of the members that stick out for me was when we were flying operations out of Yeh-chan, a South Korean Air Force based air for Team Spirit, in February, march of 1978. And we live in a huge tent city on a soccer field. On the base it was muddy, it was cold and we had sea rats for meals until they get the field kitchen set up up and running. But they left the sea rats unguarded. So we and a bunch of other guys, we went up to where the sea rats were kept in these crates and we picked out the meals that we enjoyed and left the ones we did not enjoy.

Steve Dixon : 15:52

So, we had a good supply under our cots in our tent area that kept us. It kept us fed until the field kitchen was up and running. So that was pretty interesting. And one other side fact the stoves that were used to keep the tents warm while we were there were stamped 1942. So the Marines got their money's worth out of those stoves, but they were still using them over 30 years later. So I found that ironic or pretty fun anyway.

Tog: 16:25

Yeah, definitely so. Following the F-4, the squadron transferred to the F-18 Hornet. Were you able to talk to anybody about what that experience was like or what that transition?

Steve Dixon : 16:37

Well overall the maintenance was. The plane was fairly easy to keep up. I mean it was a digital aircraft. It could be programmed and set to accomplish different missions. Moving on, after I got out, one of my best friends, who I'm still in contact with, ended up teaching a course on the F-18 out of LaMoure in California and when I went to visit him he gave me a tour of the facility there and what they were teaching the new avionics people and they had computers digital computers on that thing that could tell you the area or the park that's gone bad and all you had to do is go out and replace that part. There's really no more tracing shorts or wires had been cut down. I mean it still occurred, but when you got an instrument I'll tell you what's wrong. It's pretty easy to get it fixed in half the time that it took to try to trace a problem in a phantom.

Tog: 17:39

Yeah, I can imagine.

Steve Dixon : 17:43

So it was a good aircraft. I do recall in early, I want to say in the spring of 79 or late 78, we got a demo of the F-18 and what it could do flight-wise at a Marine Corps air station in Buford there, and I was pretty dumbfounded as to the maneuverability of that aircraft. I mean, it was coming in, for you know, it was flying almost at a 90-degree angle, moving forward, the nose pointing straight up about 10, 15 feet off the ground and moving forward, and I said you can't do that with a van. No, it hit the ground in a heartbeat. That's right, it was just incredible. So yeah, and based on the records that I've been able to see, the uptime on that aircraft was pretty high most of the time.

Tog: 18:35

Yeah, it has a reputation for being relatively easy to maintain and keep operational aircrafts, so in that regard it was a win. There's just nothing like the Phantom, though.

Steve Dixon : 18:45

No, it's not. It's not, it's just multiple roles and a lot of ordnance. It could carry and could stay up, I think, a little bit longer than the Phantom Phantom took up a lot of fuel.

Tog: 18:59

Yep, those J-39s were thirsty. I wanted to ask you a little bit about you also, aside from being an author. You designed conflict simulation games. Can you talk about those for a little?

Steve Dixon : 19:09

bit. Yeah, I've been playing war games for a long time, started in the late 60s when I got copies of Jutland and D-Day and Battle the Bulge as Christmas gifts and enjoyed playing them through the years, even my time in the Marine Corps. One game I particularly enjoyed was B-17 Queen of the Skies, which is a solitaire game, and as I was working with an independent TV production firm in the early 2000s, I got the idea you know, why not design a game with the B-29 flying missions over Japan based on Queen of the Skies? So I began working on it and worked on it for about six or seven months and realized, with my responsibilities at TV, trying to get shows produced and doing the game work and then a family to raise, it was eating up a lot of my time and I needed some help and I ended up contacting Sean Reif who expressed interest in helping out. So we got together and designed the game and then, once it was complete and play tested, we sent it up to Legion War games. At the time when we sent the game up, it was Kyber Pass Games, that was all I heard. He liked the completeness of us and decided to publish it and then, once that was done.

Steve Dixon : 20:42

It was like designing a couple of games every couple of years. So since then it's been pick a duty, target for day, target for tonight, couple expansion packs for B29 and target for tonight. And then I got a couple of games up there right now I've forgotten sideshell, which is based on my book from World War II about the squadron flying missions out of Piva Airstrip on Bogenville, and then Operation Nordwind, which covers the Germans last counter offensive in the west in January of 45. And then Skyhawk was recently released which covered bombing missions in Vietnam. And then Working on Linebacker 2, which covers the B-52 missions in North Korea there in December of 72. We got another game coming out flying the F-105 based on Skyhawk. And then a couple other games will be back in World War II covering the bombing campaigns in the Pacific and in Europe. So I got a lot on my table on that end.

Tog: 21:58

Excellent. Yeah, I cut my teeth playing Avalon Hill Squad Leader back in the day.

Steve Dixon : 22:03

That's one thing I couldn't get into. That was too detailed for me. I like the operational level better.

Tog: 22:08

Yeah, it is very detailed and my problem was I had a hard time finding people to play with.

Steve Dixon : 22:12

Well, yeah, well, that problem is still going on. So Luckily, vassal, the online gaming engine, allows you to play with other players over via the Internet. You just have to have the same game and rules, and then you just go at it.

Tog: 22:26

That's excellent. I wasn't aware of that, and I like the fact that your games are solid. Excuse me, solitaire.

Steve Dixon : 22:31

Yeah, that comes from. I did that on purpose because, like you, I'm having a hard time trying to find people to play, so why not try to beat the system? Yeah, there you go.

Tog: 22:42

Yeah, I'm looking at your website here, StevenKDixoncom. I'll link it in the show notes as well. Yeah, I'm looking at Skyhawk. I think I'm going to give that one a try. That's a solo game you play with basically counters to people. I can't obviously see this, but you've got counters and cards and then you you progress through turns and and events happen and then you update, I guess, the status of your aircraft and things like that.

Steve Dixon : 23:05

Well, it doesn't include Skyhawk, doesn't include cards, it's the campaigns are short because it's you're flying a Navy Skyhawk off the carrier in the Tonkin Gulf and so your, your, your campaigns are about 30 days apiece. Unless you go to full campaign you can go 60 days. So you're basically flying a mission a day and trying to survive and score enough points where you get a good rating from to win the game. So, and it's really you know, there's not enough time there to progress during the course of that campaign. It's not like a two to three year campaign, like, like, like the hunters or silent service or those type of games. So you can earn medals but they don't affect what you do in the battlefield. It's too short of a time. Yeah, that makes sense.

Tog: 24:00

So it's more, it's more of an operational level.

Steve Dixon : 24:02

Well, it's tactical, I guess, right.

Tog: 24:03

Yeah, tactical level.

Steve Dixon : 24:05

I mean you're flying a plane, you control other aircraft, your support aircraft to a point, but that's mainly you trying to bomb the target and get out.

Tog: 24:13

And the company you push through is Legion War Games, correct?

Steve Dixon : 24:16

That's all. Yeah, they're all through Legion War Games. Yes.

Tog: 24:19

So can you describe what's it like to design a military strategy game or tactical game?

Steve Dixon : 24:26

It's? It's like a book that involves a lot of research. The first one, b-29, took a lot of research. The first thing I do is get the the pilots manual for the aircraft, if it's available, and then break down to different sectors your nose, your fuselage, your wings and and work out the damage. Tables, come up with the rough draft rules, tweak the tables, your and then the board and card, set up cards you may need and then play, test it and work out the kinks and then send the finished product to the publisher. And then they tweak the artwork, make it more presentable, because I'll be the first to admit that I am not an artist, but I'm good enough where you can play, test it and get the job done. And so these games, they take a couple of years to finish up a piece, to get it where they're able to be printed.

Tog: 25:30

Yeah, I can imagine it's a very in depth, you know, endeavor to go through all that. Getting back to the book, can you tell us who you think should read this book? Who's this book for?

Steve Dixon : 25:41

Well, it's a book that's written by a lot of people. It's basically for aviation historian. It's pretty detailed. I wouldn't say it's for the casual aviation enthusiast because there's a lot of there's not a lot of personal accounts in the book. It's more of an operational history. I tried to inject some personal accounts in there but that was dependent upon whoever responded to my questionnaire and request for help. So I got a few but not many. So the detail level is pretty intense and I think the historian would appreciate that. More than your casual aviation, you're looking for an adventure.

Tog: 26:29

Yeah, I would agree. There's a lot of information in here. It is very detailed. What I found interesting about the book was the amount of aircraft that the squadron flew, so that how they had to transition from one airplane to another, the mission changed slightly with the capabilities of the aircraft. That was very interesting and of course it covers the end of the propeller age and the beginning of the jet age and into the modern era with the aircraft types.

Steve Dixon : 26:53

Oh, yeah, gotcha. Well yeah, and that change continues with the F-35C coming in the inventory, bs and Cs in the Marine Corps inventory. As the technology changes, you have to keep up with your opponent and try to stay one step ahead of the game, and at that time it was the Soviet Union and communism and China. So we had to stay a step ahead and sometimes the product that came out didn't quite work so well with all the technology that was available. It just didn't have the means to try to implement all that technology, so it was just a constant.

Steve Dixon : 27:37

I think that's one of the reasons why the Marines changed from the fury after air and went with the crusader, knowing the capabilities of the crusader and it could perform so much better than the fury, and just to stay ahead. So yeah, it was a lot involved. The story behind the F-18,. It was interesting in that it was involved going back to the competition between the Air Force deciding on whether to have the F-17 or the F-16, and they went with the F-16. And the F-17, after redesigned by McDonnell Douglas with some help, eventually became the F-18, and that's what the Navy or the Navy Marine Corps ended up getting, based on a plane that was designed in the 1970s.

Tog: 28:32

Yeah, and that lives on today with the Super Hornet. I understand it's a different airplane, but the routes are there right, absolutely, yes, yes, excellent. So how can people get the hold of this book?

Steve Dixon : 28:43

Well, there's several ways they can work it through the website, but that's just a link to the publisher. You can order it online via Amazon, barnes, noble, any online bookstore, or you can find it in a brick and mortar store if you're lucky.

Tog: 29:00

Yeah, there's still a few of those left. Yes, so thanks to the Amazon and publisher site to the book in the show notes. Okay, so listeners can go and click on that. My guest has been Stephen Dixon. His book is Keeping the Peace. Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 251 during the Cold War 1946 to 1991. Thank you, steve, for your time. This has been fun.

Steve Dixon : 29:25

All right, thank you very much. Look forward to the next one.

Tog: 29:27

All right, thank you again and pleasure talking t o you. All right, so after my interview with Steve. I went ahead and purchased the A4 Skyhawk game on my own. The actual title of the game is Skyhawk, Rolling Thunder 1966. So these are my first impressions. The game is played solo, which I think is a good thing, and the time period is, of course, the Vietnam War. More specifically, you control an A4 East Skyhawk from VA-72 that's flying missions during the five months of 1966, pretty much during the height of Rolling Thunder, and your base of operations is, of course, the USS Franklin D Roosevelt, which is on Junior Anki Station. In the game you play as a Navy pilot and you're flying strike missions against targets in North Vietnam. Your goal is to survive a mission and hopefully a campaign as well. You can, of course, fly just a single mission or you can play one of the three campaign missions included in the game.

Tog: 30:19

The game comes with a lot of components or a lot of pieces. There's an 11 by 17 battle board, the 40 page rulebook, there's counters, of course, and there's charts and tables and ordnance card and mission record card and multiple player aid cards. The packaging is excellent. The quality materials are excellent. This is made by Legion War Games and I look forward to getting into the rules and taking go at this game. I will probably do an unboxing video on my YouTube channel for my members, so if you're not a channel member and you want to become one, that's another reason to join. In any case, I definitely recommend checking out this game, especially if you're a fan of the Skyhawk and just military historical war games in general. Thanks for listening to the Pilot Photon Podcast. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and the YouTube channel as well. I will leave links in the description slash show notes below. Now you know.