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was no question in the minds of the people closest to the Air operations that the T-33's were armed. The question was one of how many .50 caliber machine guns they were mounting -- not that they were unarmed. 117/ George Gaines excused Col. Beerli for not knowing the seriousness with which the Task Force regarded the T-33's because Col. Beerli wasn't actually as close to the air operations details as he (Gaines). Being dependent on briefings for information, Beerli may have been misinformed, or uninformed, about the armament of the T-33's. In any event, Gaines pointed out that "anything that flew with a gun was important to us." 118/* * ~ven on questioning Gar Thorsrud, 15 years after the event, one could sense the degree of resentment -- understandably so -- at being asked if the air operations people really did appreciate the T-33, for by no stretch of the imagination could Thorsrud, the Air National Guard pilots, and the contract American fliers be considered novices in 'combat air operations. Thorsrud also emphasized the fact that the Brigade's Cuban pilots understood what they were going to be up against in flying B-26's into air space protected by the T-33's. Thorsrud was far more willing to elaborate about some of the details of the combat characteristics of B-26's vs. T-33's than he had been when the oppor- tunity was presented to him for such discussion in the course of the Taylor Committee investigation. In response to a Committee member's question of "Were you surprised at the effectiveness of the T-33's"? Thorsrud's terse answer was: "I've flown T-33's -- they're a good airplane. We weren't surprised at (footnote,continued on following page)