Trickey Woo-
Yeah, they were flying pretty low. Low altitude training routes abound in the West Texas area, even today. Given the occasional nav error, they sometimes came right over our small town of 6000 inhabitants. I heard a story once of a guy finding a long piece of telephone cable draped over his house. Folks said that a jet must have snagged it somewhere, and that it must have fallen off the jet, and onto this guy's house......I guess its possible.
Back in the 60's the military blasted around at full throttle, not much higher than the tree tops. I remember seeing nearly every type of the "century series" zooming down the Brazos river. After they passed, the fish would quit biting.
In the late 70's I was a roughneck in the oil fields. Every time we moved the rig, you could bet that within the next day or two we would get bounced by RF-4's out of Bergstrom, or T-38's out of Sheppard, or Air Guard 105's from God knows where.
They were subsonic (well mostly) then, but it was a hoot to see a simulated bomb run from the victim's vantage point. Once we asked our derrick man, a guy we called "side-ways" if he had seen that plane. He responded, "Hell man, I saw the pilot!"
I understand that the Italians and Germans used 104's for the low level strike mission a long time after the USAF parked all theirs. Something about the high wing loading producing accurate bomb delivery in the afternoon bumps, and ride comfort for the crews.
I always thought that was a cool plane...