November 19, 2012
The Air Force Survival Guide (Don’t Leave Home Without it)
"Burnt cork, charcoal, lampblack, mud, camouflage stick, berry stains, carbon paper, and green vegetation can all be used as toning materials." Photograph: DoD/U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Bennie J. Davis III.
It’s one of those days—probably a Monday—where everything goes wrong. The alarm clock doesn’t go off. You oversleep. You have to crash land into enemy territory. It’s a good thing you remembered your U.S. Air Force Pocket Survival Handbook.
The handbook (republished this month) outlines the mission: As soon as you eject, bailout, or crash, your new assignment is to “return to friendly control without giving aid or comfort to the enemy, to return early and in good physical and mental condition.”
Those are some pockets: The book measures 8 by 5 inches.
Let’s get down to the business of survival: Got a sucking chest wound? See page 60. You might need a stitch or two, although sometimes an airtight dressing will suffice. Perhaps you bailed out over a snow- or icebound area; page 92 explains how to make a suitable pair of shoes from moose hocks. (Skip ahead to chapter 14 for tips on how to kill animals both large and small. “Be sure the animal is dead, not just wounded [or] unconscious…. Poke all ‘dead’ animals in the eye with a long sharp stick before approaching them.”)
Now that you’ve survived that simple task, you can set to work building a para-snowhouse out of ice, your parachute, and urine (page 119).
The handbook explains how to build a variety of shelters, how to find and cook edible plants, and how to hunt, dress, and cook animals—everything from “fish tickling” to dressing a rabbit by flinging it between your legs.
We say this is $12.95 well spent.
I flew for the US Army for 21 years. After a few years of thinking I was a professional aviator I was required to attend a jungle survival course in Panama that lasted 5 days. The last three days of the course we were dropped off into the jungle without food and only three canteens of water. We had to walk miles through the jungle to a spot where we were supposed to be rescued. During the course we were taught what jungle plants are OK to eat and which poison humans. For those days I ate flowers and leaves and dropped water drops off leaves into my empty canteen. I did not have a map but I was told what heading I should follow off my compass. On the third day I made it to the large marked tree that I had been told if I followed any heading between 355 and 005 degrees I would end up on the beach where rescue would happen. I made the beach and was a passenger on a M151 that took me back to Ft. Sherman. Wait, Air Force pilots can bail out WITH a handbook? Man I joined the wrong branch!!!
Comment by Hector Escalona — February 24, 2013 @ 12:22 am