Coulee Crest Revisited

I had made a request to the AFHRA (AFHRA.NEWS@MAXWELL.AF.MIL)to send me information on Operation Coulee Crest several months ago. Turns out there was literally tons of informtion on Coulee Crest in AFHRA records. There were fees attached, and given my passing interet in the subject, I decided against requesting more information. I will see if I can post the long list of records that they COULD have sent me...$30 per roll. With this information, you can, should you see fit, ask the AFHRA to retrieve this information for you. OK, it was WAY TOO LONG. If you are interested in this list, I will e-mail it to you if you leave a comment requesting such. You may want to leave your e-mail, too. (I can erase your e-mail from the comment bar if you request) If you do order from AFHRA, here is a warning: Some of the copies you receive are not altogether clear. You may have to have a second sight to read some of the papers, still, they can hold useful info.


I got a great comment the other day. A gentleman from Texas, a Mr. Loewenstern, let me know he had participated in this operation. He had this to say: "Our unit was airlifted from Fort Hood Texas on 18 C124 and after landing at Sheapard Air Force Base for refuling we next landed at Larson Air Force Base on April 24th 1963." His comment confirms the presence of C-124s in the exercise. Given that the US had tken delivery of 448 C-124s when production ended in 1955, 18 of them in 1963, was likely a sizeable portion of the fleet. They could carry upwards of 200 troops. I am unsure of how large a unit Mr. Loewenstern was part of, but one can imagine that about half of them were used for troops, that is about 1800 men. I suppose it would be important to know what kind of unit he was in, also. Armored? Infantry? Artillery? I hope Mr. Loewenstern will see fit to disclose more information in the near future, if only for my own curiousity! Thank you sir!



C-133s were also used in the transport of supplies and equipment. EB-66s were used in Electronic Warfare(See the photo of one here, taken at Larson AFB during that exercise) also. What else was used? I can only offer conjecture. I suspect A-1s, A-4s, C-130s, F-100s, RF-101s, F-105s, and maybe RB-47s. I don't know this, merely suspect.