Profile 75 - FINAL: "Sweet Marlene" as flown by Rich Hall, 602nd FS

ORIGINALLY POSTED 14 APRIL, 2013.

Rich Hall ‘flew west’ 19 April, 2024

*******

And here she is— Sweet Marlene, circa 1968.

One of the peculiarities of doing Vietnam-era aircraft is the ordnance.  It's one thing to do the airplane itself.  But the stuff under the wings?  That's another project in and of itself.

See, a WW2 airplane might carry one or two of a handful of options.  But by the time the mid '60s rolled around, a veritable junk-drawer of lethality was available to fill the Skyraider's 15 hard-points.

So, when it came time to load-up Sweet Marlene, I didn't have a clue where to start.  Rich didn't either. I asked him what the typical loadout was and he replied with a question, "Typical?"

However, Skyraider Association historian Byron Hukee (also a former Skyraider pilot) laid out my answer when I asked him about the dark colored, cylindrical missile-pod under the wing of the only photograph that showed Rich's A-1E in whole.

Byron described the object as the LAU-3 Rocket Launcher.  It contained nineteen 2.75" rockets with warheads of high explosive, anti-tank, white phosphorus or flechettes.  The launcher unit was reusable and could be filled with any number of varieties.  Have a look at the closeup below (photo: Mike Maloney).

Anyway, Byron asked me how I wanted to do the rest of the loadout on Miss Marlene and I replied that I was thinking about doing it just like a picture I had of Sweet Marlene in-flight.  Byron had the same picture on screen while we were conferring over the phone.

"Oh."  Byron stated thoughtfully.  He was staring at the image on his computer screen. "You want to do it coming home then."

Ok.  Hold that thought.

Guys name stuff they like.  Or respect.  Or fear.  I have a buddy who names his cars, another who names his tools, another who has names for his wife (depending upon her mood)...at first glance, someone might think it's a way for us to "possess" something.  But I don't think that's quite true.  If all of my experiences are correct, the act of naming is actually to show that some how, that object possess us.

It's hard to explain, but if you've ever talked sweetly to your car in the hope of getting some measure of extra performance, you know what I mean.

Anyway, one of the great questions to ask a guy who had a named aircraft is, "What's the story behind the name?"  In this particular case, I asked Rich, "So. Was Sweet Marlene someone you knew?"

"Yes." He replied matter-of-factly and waited for the next question.

"Is she...still... around ??"  I asked leadingly, hoping to coax the full story.

"Yes."  Same perfunctory reply.   There was something to this "Marlene" thing but it wasn't going to come out easily.  My story-alert sense was starting to flash more quickly.

"And...so...whatever happened to her?"

Ok, I realize that poking questions into as-yet dark holes can be, well, surprising.   And, I know when to quit.  At least I'm working on that.  But I figure that if a guy is man enough to fly combat in the first place, agree to an interview and top the stack of combat photos with a big 8x10 of SWEET MARLENE, he could handle the questioning.

He waited a couple of seconds before leaning forward to command, "She's home." Then after a beat or two, he grinned and laughed.  I got the low down on all the kids and grand kids, too.  Whew.  Happy story.  No tragic heartbreak, no pain, no suffering.  Sweet Marlene remained.

But. My story-alert was still flashing.

"So.  Can I talk to her?"

Pause.

"Maybe."  And I could tell we were back to one-word replies.   But after some thought, Rich added, "That'll be up to her." It was clear that this line of questioning would end for the day.

Well, another day came and I was able to connect with Marlene via email.  These are her words:

"It was one of the worst years of my life...lots of worries about his safety.  Plus he missed a whole year of our little son's life.  Our 9 mo. old son and I stayed with my family during this year (1968) and they were extremely supportive. We were not part of any (established) squadron or anything as Rich left right out of pilot training.  We exchanged tapes every day.  And letters...I looked forward to the mail every day and if we didn't hear anything that day, I automatically worried more.  I believe we had only 2 phone calls during this time....

...and it goes without saying that this was tough on (Rich) especially when he didn't get any of the 'thanks' that he and the others were so deserving of."

And that's all she wrote.

Just this past week, I finally finished David Halberstam's book, "The Best and the Brightest."  It chronicles the people and decisions that lead to American involvement in Vietnam.  It's a brilliant peek into the minds and egos behind this culture-shifting moment in our history.  But the thing that struck me most was just how common, how ordinary, how logical and how human it all was.   Change the names, change the terrain, remove the dead and "Vietnam" now looks like a handful of situations I've experienced from clients to cub scouts.

So many intentions, good and bad, and in the end, people just wanted to quit and go home.

And so, my artwork is shown, as Byron pointed out, "coming home."

And here's the photo.  Miss Marlene, returning to base after a mission, empty, save for the single store.  And look closely at the LAU-3.  There are a few rockets left.

There's a weird poetry here.  The Skyraider, so capable, a pilot who, despite a frustration with the circumstances, fulfills his duty 200 times in a war that had long swallowed and digested its purpose...

...and named for a miserable beauty thousands of miles away.

I really want to learn everything I can about Vietnam.

Sweet Marlene deserves that.  And so do her boys.

There's more to come. 

Profile 75 - UPDATE: "Sweet Marlene" as flown by Rich Hall, 602nd FS

8,000lbs of power.   That's the burden this beast could carry.

It struck me while listening to Rich describe his service, that this man, a farmer, a dad, a husband, average guy, had the destructive power of a WW2 B-17 bomber under his thumb.   And I had no idea what that meant other than, "a lot."

Most of us, in fact more than 99.99% of us, can't comprehend what that kind of power really means.

But!  I'd say most of us CAN comprehend a football field.

So, to give you an idea of what this airplane could do, I've created a little graphic below.  It's a typical football field that happens to find itself on the wrong-side of four Skyraiders*; each one carrying eight 500lb general purpose bombs with a lethal blast radius of about 60 feet.



Now you've got an idea of what kind of power Rich and any other Skyraider pilot could wield.  And judging from my conversations with Rich, it was indeed, a burden.

Ok - hold that thought for a second.

A few weeks ago, I had the idea to get more people involved in my interviews by having little "contests" to get a free pilot-signed print.  Judging by responses, the idea was a good one.  In this case, the winner of the "Ask a Skyraider pilot" contest won with the question, "What types of missions were your most interesting?"

So, to Mark K**, here's your answer:  "Sandy."

In Vietnam, Skyraider mission callsigns were called "Firefly" or "Sandy" depending upon the type.  Firefly missions were close-air support; bombing, strafing, blowing stuff up.  Sandy missions were protecting downed pilots; keeping the enemy at bay until a rescue helicopter could come in and take the pilot home. Rich flew 200 missions in Vietnam.  Of those 200, 193 were Firefly missions.  In case you're not good with math, that means only seven were Sandy missions.

Why Sandy?  He explained, "Sandy" was by far and away the most interesting and rewarding mission I flew.  EVER.   When we got a guy out, it was as if every little idiotic rule ever set to print was only a bump in the road. The Rescuee's smile made it all worth while."

"So tell me.  What were they like?"

"Well, I'll tell you one."  Rich cleared his throat, leaned forward in the chair and brushed invisible dust from the table between us.  "Tom was Sandy 1, I can't remember Sandy 2 but I was Sandy 3.  Loren was Sandy 4 but he got hit and had to head for home."

"He got hit?"

(Sandy 4, flown by Loren Alfred)

"Yeah. (And that left the rest of us).  The downed pilot was somewhere away from a cliff area and there was a (Viet Cong) gunner down there.  (Tom) was doing his best (to find the gunner) but I knew where he was.  At the base of the cliff, there was this hole and he must have had a .50 cal in there.  So...you know what a Flechette Round is?"

"Yeah."

"So I rolled in on him.  You have to get really close (with a Flechette).  And he had me bracketed!  Everything is coming up at me (from this hole) lazily.  In glowing balls.  Those are tracers, so in between those balls are bullets too.  And I'm boring in..."

I could see it in my minds eye.  The A-1, her monstrous bulk and all that power hanging from her wings; an oil-belching green pterodactyl winging in on an angry mouse...

"Everything (he had) was coming up at me and you know something?"

"Yeah?"

"All those tracers coming up at me were inside my gunsight reticle!***  I fired, my flechette blew about 30 feet in front of him.  Obliterated that hole.   His last tracer round passed my 2 o'clock and to this day, I think it went through my propeller arc.  I have vivid, vivid memories of that day..."

Indeed, if you talk to Rich, by virtue of the stories he wants to share,  you'd think that Sandy missions were all he flew.  But they were just 5% of his total.  

"So tell me about one of the 193.  What were they like?"

Gawd, what a look I got and I will never forget it!  It wasn't mad.  It wasn't angry.  It wasn't sorrowful.  The quality that made Rich's expression so indelible was it's utter blank-ness.  The instant Rich processed my question, it was as if a switch suddenly flipped to a mental channel of white noise.  

[insert static sound: kkkshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

It had to be three seconds before he snapped too.   And then, he answered deliberately, "Unproductive."  He paused, got his mojo back and chagrinned, "I blew up evil trees."

Another pause and Rich went back to sharing anecdotes about the guys in his photo album, "And that's so-n-so.  He was a great guy!  Let me tell you about that picture.  It was a Tuesday..."

I'll be finishing Rich's Skyraider by the end of the month and if all goes to plan, the last post will be a surprise.  Probably as much for me as it is anyone else (if that makes sense)...

_______________________________________

*Yeah.  I know.  That's only a quarter of the A-1's payload.  It makes the airplane's power all the more awesome, don't you think?

**And yes, you won a print of my artwork, and it will be shipped right after our print signing which will be in a few weeks or so.

***The gunsight reticle is a circle that's displayed on the glass panel of a gunsight.  It's about 4" in diameter.  So, when you imagine Rich in his cockpit, crouched behind his gun sight, imagine seeing the return fire come up within that small space.  This moment truly was a mortal game of Chicken.

Profile 76: FINAL - "XR K" as flown by Steve Pisanos, 4th FG

Finished—the Spitfire Steve Pisanos flew after the Eagle Squadron transferred into the USAAF's 4th Fighter Group.  It's hard to believe that was over seventy years ago.

Read again.  Seventy years ago.

Of course, the world was different back then.  But when you talk to someone who was there, the decades between shuffle back and forth at lightning speed and suddenly, the distance in time seems insignificant.

Steve Pisanos is 93.  But you'd never know it.  At least, Steve will challenge preconceptions one might have of what a 93 year old is supposed to be like.

By any stretch, the man's life is amazing.  No, make that AMAZING.  Immigrant, fighter pilot, ace, fighter with the French resistance, test pilot... Steve Pisanos wrings 'life' out of time like I wring water out of a dishtowel!

Suffice it to state, when you ask Steve the question, "How did you accomplish so much?" you need to listen to the answer.   But his answer, at first, disappointed me.

"Determination," he said in his Greek-tinged accent.  "Determination, my friend."

Of course, I'd heard THAT before.  It was so pat, so hackneyed, it was white noise.  You can buy the word "determination" in any one of a hundred self-help books at Barnes and Noble.

"So what does that mean?  Tell me how it came about," I asked.

"I'll tell you how I came to America.  By freighter.  And I was on that ship working.  Shoveling coal into wheelbarrows (for the coal-fired engines).  And I knew nothing of English but I wanted to be a pilot.  And in Greece?  I was not going to be a pilot.  So I came to America."

Sensing there was more to the story, I asked him to flesh it out a bit more.

"Ok.  I found out we were going to Baltimore.  Baltimore?!  Where is that!?  I knew New York City, I knew Chicago was full of gangsters and everything west was Cowboys!  That's it!  So I wondered how I was going to get to New York City from Baltimore.  And you know what?"

"What?"

"I learned the English to say, "Ticket. To. New York."

"Okay..."

"See, I knew I had to take a train from Baltimore to New York.  So I learned the words:  Ticket. To. New York.  I must have practiced it a thousand times while shoveling coal.  Ticket. To. New York."

"That's all you knew?  Of English?"

"Yeah.  Basically.  That's it."

And I realized that he gave me a dynamic definition of what determination is.  If you want something, you need to be willing to shovel coal, land in the wrong town and learn a new language to take a train to where you wanted to go in the first place...in order to achieve it.

Determination, indeed.

Click here.


Though there's more to share here, it'll have to wait.  I don't want to keep Sweet Marlene waiting any longer. 

Profile 76: BEGINNING/UPDATE: "XR K" as flown by Steve Pisanos, 334th FS

HA!

Sometimes a blind squirrel gets a nut!

And that blind squirrel is ME.  Being frank, I thought my last WW2 bird was done.  Two weeks ago, someone asked me what "new WW2 airplanes I was working on?" and the answer came out like a cough of sorry dust, "None."

But.  Never taunt Fate.  Circumstances can turn in the damnedest ways...

Behold, Steve Pisanos' Spitfire Mk.Vb.  The one he flew with the famed "Eagle Squadron*" in WW2.  In case you don't know who the Eagle Squadrons were, they were a group of American pilots who enlisted in the RAF to fly against the Germans BEFORE the United States declared war.

In case you don't know who Steve Pisanos is, well, suffice it to state, he was a Greek who fought for the British against the Germans and later became an American.

Confused?  Don't be.  I'll explain it all later.  But for those of us who want a REAL American success story, bookmark this one.

Stay tuned...and this one will move REALLY fast!  My apologies to "Sweet Marlene" below but something tells me, Marlene can play Patience tuned like a finely tuned instrument...

*A sharp-eyed reader informed me there were three Eagle Squadrons flying with the Brits in the early days of WW2 and he is correct (of course, too as he's a PhD in history).  Thank you, Jerry!

Profile 75: BEGINNING: "Sweet Marlene" as flown by Rich Hall 602nd FS

It's begun!  The A-1E Skyraider flown by Rich Hall of the 602nd Fighter Squadron, circa 1969, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand.  Her name is Sweet Marlene.

Who's Marlene?  Ha. You're going to have to wait for that one.  But I will tell you about her pilot.  And her mission.

The sketch above is what I took with me today when I met Rich—every airplane I do starts out as a pencil sketch.  Armed with scant details that I'd gleaned from serial-number data, the Skyraider Association and some second-rate sleuthing, I was able to get my head around where we'd start. But, I was depending on Rich to fill in the details.

And he was eager to talk.

Sifting through his flight records and a tattered, crumbly photo album, Rich shared his Vietnam story one person at a time; his easy baritone voice seasoned with the sweet style of a small-town grandfather. "That'd be so-and-so..." he laughed while twisting the black and white photos to face me.  "And this is Col. XYZ and he..."  Or, "That's Major 123.  There's a funny story about him.  He once..."

They were great stories.  Happy, go-lucky stories that resembled summer camp or maybe the first year of college.  But after the first five, I got a little concerned that I'd ever get to Rich's own tales.  I can handle amusing anecdotes about someone else's antics as much as the next guy but after a while, I need to get to the point.

"So. Let's talk about what you did."

The chatter stopped. Rich looked at me with a quizzical expression and it occurred to me that this guy might have had no idea what I was here for.  In short, I had some explaining to do.

"I want to know what you did, why you were there and draw your airplane.  I don't have an axe to grind and I'm not looking to poke anyone.  But I do know that a lot of people are like me.  They just want to know what went on over there."

"Alll-right."  He leaned back in the chair and rested against the black leather armrest.  "There was a gag order on this for twenty five years.  $10,000 fine or 10 years in prison.  I left in 1974 so that's up."

"Ok.  That means you were up in Laos and Cambodia then."

"Yes."

I opened my journal, clicked the ball point pen and we got down to business.

8,000lbs of it.

[to be continued]

Profile 70: FINAL - B-52G of the 77th BS

Finished!  

There's a teeny bit to be done with the engines, but I'll handle that with a pencil on the final prints.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  Her pilot, Dave Berkland, is really happy and that's all that matters.

There are times when I write or draw something and it's not my best.  Instead, it's the best I can do given the circumstances.  My own skill-level, availability of knowledge, lack of time...and sometimes a lousy subject (they happen) can really conspire to foul up what should have been a Magnum Opus.

Kind of like the Vietnam War.  It should have been another shining moment in American history but because of... you get the point.

In the course of this project, the fruit of the research was really a bumper crop.  I learned a lot about the Khmer Rouge, corresponded with a Cambodian woman who had lost family during Pol Pot's sh*t-headed tenure, read three gut-wrenching biographies on Cambodian KR survivors and even managed to talk one of my kids into watching The Killing Fields.  In short, this B-52G was an immersive experience!

And it was also a spiritual one, too.

In the biblical book of Genesis, Cain, after killing his brother, answered God's probing question about the whereabouts of Abel by snarking, "I don't know.  Am I my brother's keeper?"

I'll leave it at this.  In the brotherhood of Man, the United States is still the biggest, strongest Brother out there.  And this B-52G, in spite of being older than I am, remains a BIG stick in the American quiver of, for lack of a better word, "help" for others in need.  What is "help" and "harm" remain to be seen though - that's where we need to put the burden on our leaders, I guess.

I wish we, as a Nation, could go back in time and do certain things better or at least, differently.  But God help those that think that this country doesn't deserve our absolutely best effort, now.

Postscript - Lt. Berkland took the photo below, in his words, "Somewhere over the Pacific.  I was just doing my job, John.  Just doing my job."

POSTSCRIPT:  The opinions that this post has stirred up are more proof (to me) that Americans, especially my generation, can only benefit from further study on the Vietnam War and the South East Asia experience.   If there is any wrong to the times, we need to know it clearly and openly so we can avoid similar situations in the future.  If there is any right to the times, we need to know it for our nation's self respect and the honor of those who served. 

Profile 70: UPDATE - B-52G of the 77th BS

She's taking shape and about half way there.  My guess?  Two more posts.  In the meantime, things are going to get really boring.  Or terrifying, depending upon...

So.

The B-52 is one of the most storied aircraft ever built.  But most of its legend is shrouded in a peculiar cloak of factors.  It's age (nearly 60 years!), it's mission (these things demolish in a big way), it's service (all-things-Vietnam) get all wrapped up into a package that glows with controversy.

And that's how I got here in the first place.  I was getting ready to walk a Fourth of July parade to hand out balsa gliders in support of our local air show when one of the other volunteers said, "Hey John.  Meet my brother-in-law.  He flew B-52s."

"Really?  When?"

"Cambodia.  1973."

Boom! The B-52 story seemed to fly out of an opened Pandora's box—"illegal" bombing, the Domino Theory, Khmer Rouge atrocities and the familiar footage of bomb concussions thumping their way across the jungle...

I had to draw this guy's airplane and tell the story!

I won't go into detail on the actual decisions behind bombing Cambodia.  If you want to know that, you might want to start with an article found here, written by a Lt. Stephen M. Millett.   But I will go into detail on this particular airplane and what it was like to participate in the bombing of Cambodia.

This B-52G is the mount flown by Lt. Dave Berkland, 77th Bomb Squadron.  I've got a handful of tail-numbers to pick from out of the hundred fifty such B-52s based at Andersen AFB in Guam.  I'll have that sorted out by the next post. For this post, however, I want to focus on just why these beasts were so feared.  I can sum it up in one fact: 20,250lbs of bombs.

Ten tons of explosive.

If you want to get picky, 27 750lb bombs.  And, in a typical "3-ship" flight, thirty tons of explosive would be brought to bear on a concentrated target.

Here.  This is what it looked like.

Photo:  US Air Force.  Red "OMG GUY" and scale line added by me.

Yeah...I said the same thing that you probably just whispered under your breath.

Now, the picture above probably wasn't taken over Cambodia.  More like Vietnam.  But if there are pictures of a Cambodian bomb run, they have to be spectacular as Dave's missions were at night.  If you know of any such pictures, let me know; Dave would like to see one.  In all of his 20 combat missions, not once did he observe the results of such a strike.  After dropping the bombs, he was busy hefting the bomber onto a new course and away from the target.

"Utter boredom," he recalled.  "(Those missions) were utterly boring."

Boring?  Well, from his perspective, I can see it.  Each mission was about 13 hours, from wheels-up to the bark of tires on concrete runway that signaled a safe return. In between, the mission involved talking with the navigators about family, taking a nap, looking out the window, monitoring gauges and getting ready to make a turn here or there...boring.  Or so he tells me.

"I could walk around," Dave remembers. "But those navigators.  They had 6 hours at a time, staring at these monitors! And on my break (from co-pilot/pilot duty) I'd walk down and talk with them.  Just talk.  Family, life stuff.  Like I said, my combat missions were boring."

But have another look at the photo above.

Now, a B-52G over Cambodia would salvo its bombs in a sequence that could take as long as 1 second between bombs.  So, 27 bombs would take 27 seconds*.  Flying at an indicated speed of 325kts—about 375mph—the 27 bombs would boom their way along a path almost three miles long.

Think of it this way.  If you were standing in the parking lot of Minneapolis' Mall of America, and a B-52G unloaded her cargo three miles away at a one-per-second salvo, it'd look like this.

Ok, so it's really 2.81 miles.  All things considered, the 2 tenths of a mile are academic.

Anyway,  if you were at the Mall of America and heard/felt the first BOOM! three miles away, you'd have about 25 or so seconds to run like hell on a perpendicular course to escape the blast radius.  But that assumes you know the direction of the bomb-path.  And it assumes you've got a clear lane to run.  And it assumes you weren't standing under the first bomb.

Boring?  Sweet jeebus.  BOOM!      BOOM!          BOOM!         BOOM!        BOOM!...

Terrifying.  Positively terrifying.

Now, have a look at the picture below.  It was generated by a guy named Taylor Owen to indicate just how much of Cambodia was bombed during the period of 1965-1973.  If I read him right, every red dot is a target.  A paper he had published at Yale University can be found here.

Those are a lot of booms.

Ok.  Look.  I've watched the stats behind this blog for years and I can tell you that interest in "the Vietnam War" is growing and I've had to work to keep up.  As a child of the 70's, what I've learned from "the media" is that the United States was an evil monolith that deliberately hunted poor Asian peasants like an eagle hunts mice.

But the truth of the matter is this—I've met a few Vietnam-era soldiers, mostly pilots naturally, asked a few questions and was surprised at how little I really knew about this crucial time.  And what I did know was tainted by political bias.   To be frank, the more I learn, the more I wonder, not why we were there at all but why were weren't there in greater force.

And then I remember that somewhere under that three-mile long run of concussions were indeed, poor Asian peasants...

BOOM!

Looking back, American leaders made some stupid choices but I'll tell you this, the original questions were shockingly important.   Questions like, "If we believe that individuals should be free, how far do we go at promoting that?" and "If we've pledged support to an ally, how far do we go at keeping our word?" and probably the most important questions, "If we do something what will happen?  And what if we don't?"

BOOM!  BOOM!

Stay tuned.

*Note.  The time between individual bombs could be changed.  Dave didn't record or recall the particular timing; the one-per-second rule was just an educated guess.

Profile 70: UPDATE - B-52G of the 77th BS

Stop, start, stop, start...

Four and a half months later, I'm back at it; the B-52 I started last August is finally getting some attention.  Specifically, a B-52G from Andersen AFB in Guam, 1973.

Which B-52G?  Well, I've got a copy of the pilot's Individual Flight Record in front of me right now and I'm picking through eleven tail numbers... We'll sort them out later though as my mind is preoccupied two bigger issues.

Firstly, I've got to get my head around "the story."  The B-52G that gets finished here will be one that took part in the bombing of Cambodia during the Spring and early Summer of 1973.

"Cambodia?" you say, "Where the hell is that?!  And why should we care about a country that most American school kids couldn't find on a globe?"

Cambodia shares the Vietnam's western and southern border.  Click here if you want to know more. But in terms of "caring," I did a few clicks of my own to learn that about 15 million people live there now, so at least that many people care about Cambodia.

There should be more Cambodians though. Maybe two, three million more.  At least those are the numbers bantered about when the people who tally death-counts tally the souls lost to the Khmer Rouge.  And what's a Khmer Rouge?  More on that later, too.

We'll just leave Cambodia with this thought for now:  Cambodia is probably the most bombed country on earth.

Secondly, I've got to get my head around something far more trivial but much more relevant to this post; the actual COLORING of the B-52.   The B-52Gs based at Andersen AFB were painted in what is called the "SIOP" camouflage pattern.  It stands for "Strategic Integrated Operational Plan."  In a nutshell, is an an acronym for an over reaching military plan that contained everything from military strategy to what color the bombers got painted.

The apparently "easy" thing about having the Military specify specific paint codes is that getting the color 'right' becomes a simple matter.  Simply find the code, get a chip, match the color, done.  It doesn't work that way in practice, however.  Paint-batches change, atmospheric forces work differently in one geographic locale than another and the all-important photographic documentation depends on film, shutter speed, cloud covering, processing...

So, to get really accurate, authentic coloring, I've consulted the witchery of Adobe Photoshop to help me analyze the dozen or so photos from "back in the day."  See below.

The photo on left is basically the photo I got.  It's yellowed tremendously as photos from those days tend to do.  The photo on the right is an adjustment I made—an over-exposure—to try to figure out the weathering pattern.  The color bars atop represent what's SUPPOSED to be the SIOP camo colors of the B-52; the crew is standing in front of a section of airplane that's likely painted in FS 34179.

Doing aircraft markings "always" seems to be like this—a straightforward, stated, documented solution becomes, in practice, a tangle of variables, interpretations and facts that, in the end, really only exist in someone's head.

So.  Anyway.  Ready to go on a bombing mission?  It's going to be a long one...