Robin Olds (1922–2007)

Ed Rasimus has a perfect quote about fighter pilots, and that quote fits Robin Olds to a T. This book is Olds' memories, collected into publishable shape by his daughter and Rasimus, and it is one hell of a story.

Olds with his infamous Vietnam War mustache

“Flying fighters is simply an assignment, but being a fighter pilot isn’t. Being a fighter pilot is a state-of-mind. It’s an attitude toward your job, toward the mission, toward the way you live your life. You don’t have to fly show more fighters to be a fighter pilot. You’ve simply got to have the attitude. There are fighter pilots driving B-52s and fighter pilots hauling trash. They may not have the flash and glamour, but they are the best they can possibly be at the job they’ve got to do. There are pilots who fly fighters and there are fighter pilots. You guys want to be fighter pilots, not pilots flying fighters. Look for the difference.”

Olds was born to aviation nobility. His father was Army Air Forces Major General Robert Olds, and he grew up with WW1 aces over for dinner. Robin was accepted to West Point in 1940, and flight training shortly thereafter. He did everything possible to get into the war as soon as he could, making it over to Europe where he flew P-38s and P-51s, and shooting down 12 planes. Postwar, he transitioned to jets and married actual movie star Ella Raines (though the marriage was often unhappy). Raines used her influence to keep him out of Korea, but even with doldrums in the basement of the Pentagon, a football coach at West Point, and distant training commands, Olds was a fighter pilot to the bone.

In 1966 he was assigned command of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, an F-4 unit based in Thailand that flew strikes into North Vietnam. Olds was an aggressive commander, leading from the front as often as he could. He's most famous for Operation Bolo, an elaborate decoy mission that disguised a flight of F-4s as unwieldly F-105 Thuds for an ambush of North Vietnamese MiGs. In Vietnam, Olds shot down four more planes and then started letting his wingmen take all the shots, because as the first American ace of the war, he knew he'd be called back home. Olds also fiddled with his official mission count to keep flying fighters in combat, flying a total of 152, compared the official tour of 100 combat missions north.

Post-war, Olds served as commandant of cadets at the Air Force academy, and inspector general, rounding out his 30 year tour with distinction. He always advocated for aggressive conventional tactics, dogfighting and attack skills, and real readiness rather than perfect paper record-keeping. Olds retired to Colorado and passed away in 2007. I read a lot of these memoirs, and Olds is better than most, covering WW2, Vietnam, and the battle of bureaucracy, as well as lots of insight into the mind and culture of fighter pilots. show less

I read this side-by-side with Yeager: An Autobiography: two books about fighter pilots that went from before the jet age to become WW II aces, military airmen in Vietnam and help usher in the space age. Both had careers that skipped over direct involvement in Korea with Olds somewhat stagnant in the military bureaucracy. While Yeager was in a light bomber in the south of the conflict zone, Olds was having dogfights with MiGs in the much hotter north. Both Yeager and Olds recall the incident show more of Jack Broughton and his career-ending strafing of a Soviet ship in Haiphong Harbor (the "Turkestan incident"). Yeager recalls toeing a line on military discipline in the court-martial but stating it came out in court complete proof the American flyers were first fired on from the ship. Olds recalls it as political This incident, and others, were for both pilots a clear beginning of disenchantment with careers in the American military. Olds also became disenchanted with his marriage to Ella Wallace Raines, an American film and television actress. She a Hollywood actress, he a fighter pilot stationed even at a time in Libya made a complex two-body problem that proved, ultimately unsolvable. show less

First and foremost, thank you Christina Olds for bringing forth your fathers incredible story for all to enjoy. I admit finding most biographies difficult to wade through but this is the first book since The Hunt for Red October that I finished in such a short time and quite literally, could not put down.

This is more than the story of General Robin Olds and his exploits as a fighter pilot beginning in World War II and continuing through the war in Vietnam. Paralleling the incredible exploits show more of Olds, is also an ‘insider’s’ view of the United States Air Force from the Second World War through to the seventies. I had no doubt from reading various books and articles from the Vietnam War and constantly tripping over Old’s name, that this might be an interesting read, but I was woefully unprepared for the candour and outright ‘naming of names’ contained in the pages of Fighter Pilot.

There are also the personal stories woven throughout the book allowing you to realize that in spite of his abilities and incredible career, Robin Olds was still a human being with all the shortcomings, dreams and wants we all share. His frustrations with those in power to the air force’s insistence on trying weapons already proven useless in the skies over Vietnam will have you gripping the cover in your own frustration as you sympathize with his plight.

Without question, the United States Air Force owes much to the efforts of this man who although running an obstacle course throughout much of his career, still managed to teach the air tactics lessons that still hold true today.

Christina must be very proud of her father and what he has accomplished. I hope and pray that the last section of the book is true and that he still holding court in that heavenly ‘O’ club. show less

I was in Thailand at Udorn shortly after Col. Olds' tour ended at Ubon. Even a couple of years after and at a different installation, his reputation and zeal as a "balls out" fighter pilot and leader were the standard against which everyone else was measured, both individuals and units.

For those reasons and my own life-long passion for all things that fly and the Air Force, I have been waiting to read his biography. While it is a good read and there are many details and stories that will be show more of interest to readers I found it a bit too self-serving in tone. It is his story so he was certainly allowed to tell it as he saw it, I just found it a little too much so.

That said, it is a good read (listen in my case). Written in a conversational and colloquial language it expresses the hard-nosed fighter pilot image for which he was so well known alongside the daily routine and occasional surprise of military life. For those unfamiliar it will be a good presentation of the nomadic military life. For those who have had the experience it will ring true and bring to mind one's own experiences.

I especially enjoyed learning of his early childhood, West Point and WWII experiences. These are parts of his life that precede the legend and enable us to understand the confidence and context of later years. But I strongly suspect there is an untold tale as well. One of personal demons and battles.

Like everything else he did, married life was lived in the fast lane...and not always within the lane markers. His wife had her own issues and I suppose the fact that they made it as long as they did as a couple is testament to their commitment and love for each other and their children. But this part of life was not kind to the good General. I suspect reality is that he shared a bit more of the responsibility for that than the book admits to, but that is purely my hunch.

All of which proves that he was merely human after all, despite the glory ascribed to him by fact and legend. I enjoyed this book immensely and would rate it higher if I didn't have this nagging feeling that it isn't as honest as it could have been. show less