Exactly, HaveQuick2, and many thanks for corroborating that. It was almost like in Catch-22, when a deal was struck with the Luftwaffe for the USAAF to bomb their own base, in return for something else!
While I was at Incirlik, corruption was endemic from the local General down to the boot cleaners, and to illustrate what I mean, here’s a few stories.
During my detachment, the French pulled out, and left a locked compound full of military equipment, computers and vehicles. This was broken into and emptied by the Turks, and when the USAF 2-star asked the Turkish general to look into it, he produced a forged paper declaring the French had given them permission to take anything they wanted.
When the 2-star told him it was a forgery, the Turkish general asked “Are you calling me a liar, Sir?”, to which the USAF general replied, “Sure looks like that, doesn’t it general?”. I thought I was witnessing an international incident when the Turkish general and his entourage stormed out of his own briefing room!
All the spares brought into Incirlik for the coalition aircraft were duty-free under an official agreement, but that didn’t stop the Turkish authorities impounding them, especially if they were much-needed and essential. The USAF general would then complain to the Turkish general, who would go through the motions of looking into it. A couple of weeks later the spares would be released, and it was done purely to **** us up, and slow things as much as possible, showing us they were in charge.
Doing the same job every day, flying back and forth to Northern Iraq, it was thought the F-16s and Tornado crews weren’t getting their proper amount of training, so a training day was allocated a few weeks in advance, using the Konya bombing range.
Everyone was looking forward to the day, especially the crews, and much was said about it at the morning briefings, with the Turkish general in attendance. A lot of paperwork and man-hours were spent in preparation for the training day, and there was quite a buzz around the place.
When the glorious day arrived, the USAF general told the Turkish general how excited everyone was at the prospect of using Konya Range, and how everything was looking good for the day.
Turkish general – “Have you asked the Konya Range controller’s permission?”
USAF general – “I thought you would have taken care of that?”
Turkish general – “No, you have to ask his permission first – it’s his range, after all!”
USAF general – “Err, OK, Sir…. how can I contact him?”
Turkish general – “You can’t – he’s on holiday…”
And that was that…
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