“We were closing at 2,000 miles per hour at 54,000 feet,” Adamo recalled in a recent interview at the 10 Wilmington Place retirement community in Dayton, where he lives today.
The plane turned out to be a U-2 spy plane, a friendly U.S. asset, although not necessarily a well known one at the time.
“I said, ‘What the heck is this?’” Adamo recalled.
Adamo has plenty of memories. Including getting shot at — and down — in Vietnam, including in one engagement that earned him one of two Purple Heart medals.
Born Feb. 11, 1926, Adamo retired from the Air Force as a colonel at the age of 52. His career had taken him across the globe, to assignments at (among other places) Bitburg and Wiesbaden Air Force bases and a stint at what was Logistics Command at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
After the Air Force, he worked at Calspan on what was to be the B-1 bomber, then Chrysler on the prototype XM1 tank before that work was taken over by General Dynamics.
He went on to Egypt to work at what was the largest building under roof on the continent of Africa to help build the M1 Abrams tank there.
The Adamo family then moved to Xenia, where he and his wife, Marilyn Ruth Adamo, built a home.
“This is where he officially retired,” said his son, also named Joseph. “He had a great life. We all had a great life.”
The elder Adamo grew in small-town upstate New York, in Coxsackie, which was where his love of flying was first sparked.
As he told the story, he was four years old and living in his family’s hotel when “barnstormer” pilot stopped by.
Adamo’s father asked him if wanted to go on a plane ride. The boy wasn’t so sure, but he took a chance.
A chance was all it took.
“I looked around, and I thought, ‘Hey, this is looking pretty good,’” he recalled. “I seemed to know then and there — I wanted to be a pilot."
In his Air Force career, Adamo flew the F-80, the F-86 Sabre (his favorite fighter), the F-89, F-94 (on which he logged more than 1,000 hours), the aforementioned F-102, F-104 and the F-106.
He was flying a U-10 when he was shot down in Vietnam.
According to his son, once American forces received his “Mayday” call, a trio of A-1 Skyraiders were launched to keep him safe. A Navy helicopter lifted his plane out of the mud into which Adamo ditched it after enemy rounds destroyed his engine.
Adamo’s wife of 69 years died 22 months ago after battling dementia for 18 years. They had four children, ranging in age today from 67 to 61, living in Ohio, Florida and Texas.
Together, they saw 11 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren.
The younger Adamo and his wife of 39 years, Caroline, have six boys and a daughter, today all grown. They also have eight grandchildren.
“I was an Air Force brat and was blessed to travel throughout the U.S. and Europe,” the younger Adamo said. “No child had a better life than I did. I will never be able to thank or repay my parents for all the opportunities and memories they created for and with me.”
The family will celebrate the centennial birthday at the VFW Post 9927 in Kettering Saturday.
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