Oral Histories
of the 100 Hours
"Football War"

El Salvador - Honduras 1969

Civilian Reservist 2, Salvadoran Air Force

by David E. Spencer

In 1951, the government established the Reserve Civil Aviation Club. In a time of war, we and our planes could be called up for military service. My father was a captain and the top instructor on the C-47 and the AT-6 Waco, The war with Honduras was led by the National Guard, General Medrano, and most of the war was directed from the National Guard headquarters in San Salvador.

Medrano saw the war coming and conducted provocation operations such as flying over Honduran air space and dropping mortar bombs on the Honduran side. Maybe 15 or more of this type of operations were carried out before the start of the war, ending when the war officially began. The idea was to provoke a large Honduran reaction and thus be able to declare that Honduras was the aggressor and justify the upcoming Salvadoran invasion.

We were mobilized and ordered to the National Guard headquarters where we were briefed on the goals of the war and our part in those objectives. Then we were sent to Ilopango air base for our mission briefing. On the flight line were 6 Corsairs, 4 AT-6s (one of them was an AT-6 that my father owned privately) 6 Mustangs (one of these was also private, belonging to someone else) and an assortment of private planes to include Cessna 180s, Aztecs, Twin Commanches, Apaches, etc. I was flying a Cessna 180, my brother a Twin Commanche, Bobby Sol was in an Aztec, Tino Novoa was there, etc. etc. We had removed the doors and seats from most of the private planes, so we could carry our loads of bombs. In the back we carried our loads, and when we were over our targets these were to be pushed out by air force soldiers and parachutists who acted as bombardiers.

My targets were the gas stations between San Marcos and Guarita Cinquera. I carried small bombs of around 50 to 100 pounds in size. We took. off at 1745 hours and reached Honduras after dark. One bomb was sticking in the back of my seat. I told the bombardier to move it and he responded that this was not a good idea since the fuses were already armed and the safeties had been removed. I decided that I could live with the bomb poking in my back and told him to forget it. When we reached the target area, I located the road by flying low and then we headed toward our targets. I saw it coming up and told the bombardier to get ready.

When we flew over, he kicked the bomb out of the door. I heard the bomb explode and saw the flash, but I don't know if it hit the target. We didn't really hang around to find out and headed back to El Salvador. We were later told that we had struck a great psychological blow against the Hondurans.

We knew that the Honduran Air Force was superior and that they would take to the skies to follow us and shoot us down. Because of this, many of our planes were directed to land at air strips scattered all over the country. My brother landed his plane at the strip at Espiritu Santo Island, owned by Bobby Sol. A Mustang or a Corsair flown by a man named Travanino was forced to fly to Guatemala and land there. I landed my plane a Finca La Esperanza in the east.

The next morning early I went to Ilopango. We knew the Hondurans would probably try to strike soon. My family had six fumigation planes at Ilopango and we thought it would be best to move them. I was in the cockpit of one of our fumigators when I saw two planes coming in low over the lake toward San Jacinto Hill from the east. They were two Honduran Corsairs coming in on a bombing run. Their approach surprised us, because we were expecting them to fly in from the North. Some .50 caliber AA machine-guns opened up and I watched as the tracers arched up toward the enemy planes. None of the bullets struck their targets. Then the Hondurans began dropping their bombs. They were trying to hit the runway, in particular a bridge that divides the runway in two, but they mostly missed. One bomb did crater the runway, but it wasn't serious and the we could still take off and land.

The Hondurans had better luck with a bomb that missed a hangar, but hit a fuel tank. This blew up and the resulting explosion and fire seriously damaged a Hughes 300 helicopter that belonged to ANTEL (4) and heavily damaged hangar No.1. It was then that we realized that Honduran air superiority would be major problem.

To solve this problem my father flew in his private plane to Chicago. He had friends there that helped him purchase six surplus P51 Mustangs. He also contracted five U.S. mercenaries to fly the planes down to El Salvador. These men had previously flown for the C.I.A. and Castillo Armas in the 1954 coup in Guatemala, so they already had knowledge of the terrain and flight conditions. A U.S. businessman here in El Salvador, Larry Tracey found out about my father's trip and gave the tip to a relative of his that worked in the FBI.

The mercenaries and my father flew the planes from Chicago to a fumigating strip near the empty cotton fields at McAllen, Texas. Here the FBI caught up with them, but only caught my father because his P51 did not have reserve tanks for his plane. The rest of the mercenaries reached El Salvador and were able to fly combat missions against the Hondurans. One of them was a tall blond. I don't know his name, but we called him "platanon" or big banana. My father's plane was impounded, but he was released. He returned to El Salvador. Our friends in Chicago also sent us a C-47 that was full of surplus uniforms.

Back in El Salvador my father was given the mission to fly to a Honduran air strip to rescue an abandoned shipment of ammunition. A C-47 had been sent to deliver the shipment to an airstrip that was supposed to be in Salvadoran hands. However, this was not the case. For lack of food the Salvadorans had not reached their objective and they were now besieged by the Hondurans as well. The C-47 had landed on the strip, which had become no-man's land between the Honduran and Salvadoran lines. The plane had been damaged by gun fire upon landing and was not able to take off again. The crew had managed to exit the plane and make the mad dash to friendly positions.

My father's mission was to take an Aztec and rescue the ammunition. They completely stripped the plane of all extra weight so to be able to rescue as much ammunition as possible. My father flew in and landed. As quickly and efficiently as possible they loaded up the ammunition and flew back to El Salvador. This ammunition was then repacked and dropped by parachute to the besieged National Guardsmen of General Medrano.

Footnotes


(4) ANTEL is the national telephone company.

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