Spooky came in after that and made a few passes. You were a great morale boost when we needed it the most. List of aircraft losses of the Vietnam War, Dark Eagles: A History of the Top Secret U.S. Aircraft (1999). I believe I heard, or read, that the F-4 itself crashed in a small horse pasture. Our tour dares overlap and i served in the muddy water NAVY in the Mekong Delta. Our brand-new LtCol had dreams of a DFC or Silver Star, so we drove 250 miles or so North, with marginal weather at Chu Lai, to volunteer our (his) effort. I was flat on my back. Our own Phantom was suffering from a variety of ills. The MiG-21 N. 4324 of the Vietnam People's Air Force. AddThis Utility Frame. Final loss: EC-47Q 43-48636 (361st Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron, 56th SOW) shot down in Laos on the night of 04/5 45 February 1973, killing all 8 crewmen. Misty FACs operated from 15 June 1967 to 19 May 1970. These were probably the local militia. Your reaction to my article bears the stamps of liberalist tradition unhampered by progress, reveals a lack of understanding of politics on the world stage and shows complete disrespect for the sacrifices made by all Vietnam combat veterans. Jim Hestand the AC of the fateful flight gave the eulogy at Bobbys funeral! It was moving and changing shape ever so slowly. Jim witnessed the other pilot CW2 Richard Bauman and crew chief Craig Dix being captured. If I failed to keep this from them, they would reposition their anti-aircraft batteries and SAMs to make the target a flak trap, making this JCS target even more formidable than before. Of course, I had changed tacan channels nearly an hour before; I knew where we were, but I could not disclose the secret tacan base over the radio. The Republic of Vietnam lost 1,018 aircraft and helicopters from January 1964 to September 1973. It is sad that we lost so much blood and treasure in that endeavor. [10] Estimates of North Vietnamese losses range from 131, as documented in North Vietnamese records; to 195, as claimed by U.S. 83rd Arty 101ABN DIVARTY Fritz came in with the rest of his nape and sent a SAM across the tree line like a horizontal Roman candle. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die.. Steve Snyder's masterful book, Shot Down, does justice to the adventures of his father, pilot Howard Snyder, and the crew of the B-17 plane Susan Ruth. Yes, it is tainted with much uncertainty to which you allude. Just a wild guess but you just enjoy your freedoms while you let others do the fighting and take the risks. I knew from some of the other Tigers that you had been a POW, but never heard the details of your harrowing tale. Japan, who woulda thunk it? Scotty gave me the airplane and I climbed out at 350 knots until it came time to find the tanker on the radar. Contact, followed by, Youre taking fuel, announced the boomer. Lt Cmdr Frederick P Crosby had been deployed on the Bon Homme Richard, an Essex-class aircraft carrier stationed off the Vietnam coast His planed crashed in 1965 in front of Pham Van Truong's. It was the determination of President Richard M. Nixon to mount Operation Linebacker II, sending B-52s to attack the capital city of Hanoi and the port city of Haiphong, forcing the communists back to the peace conference in Paris that resulted in the end of the Vietnam War and the release of the prisoners-of-war. Joe could have saved lives and saved 6 years of his own if had just stayed home. . Having won WWII by the application of enormous industrial power including saving the largest socialist entity in the world from the ravages of the second-largest socialist entity in the world we continued to view the world in wartime terms of us versus them and we prepared for the next war by preparing for the past war with near-total reliance on atomic weapons to win the next war. | site designed by. Energy Management Clich or Exactitude? My father (deceased) served in the Army in Korea and my son served as an Army Combat Medic deployed to Afghanistan. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he values above his own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of men better than himself. Youre the best and always will be with me when I go flying. SSGT Bobby Sacina, JoeThank you fot sharing your experience..We have had a few talks over beers in the past but you never told this storyYou are an American hero!! Encountered SAMs Finger Lakes area. Col. Jack Broughton had stated in THUD RIDGE that a few days of bombing Hanoi set them back 6 months in ammo and people coming down the Ho Chi Minh trail which we were shelling every night with 8 inch artillery. In total, the United States military lost in Vietnam almost 10,000 aircraft, helicopters and UAVs (3,744 planes,[3] 5,607 helicopters[2] and 578 UAVs[1] ). I never came face-to-face with either asshole but I emailed the flight lead recently and told him off that he was incompetent, got Scotty Wilson killed, cost the USAF an F-4, caused my Fathers premature death and was responsible for unimaginable hardships for Scottys widow and daughter not to mention my 6+ years in prison. For the briefest moment I contemplated that a right 60 degree turn would take me via the shortest route out of NVN. During the Vietnam War, thousands of U.S. aircraft were lost to antiaircraft artillery (AAA), surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and fighter interceptors (MiG)s. The great majority of U.S. combat losses in all areas of Southeast Asia were to AAA. Did you know that most of the articles at Air Facts are written by readers like you? When Maj. "Jump" Myers' plane crashed in flames, there was no chance of rescue - yet Bernie Fisher defied the odds and brought him out alive. Many times not all returned from their missions. I was falling towards the Earth and still attached to my Martin-Baker (made in England) ejection seat below a four-foot drogue chute to stabilize my rapid descent. But, knowing this might be my only chance to talk before the fun and games began anew, I concocted a mission scenario that I hoped would be accepted as truth. Gary, this was like Vietnam all over again!. My arms were tied behind my back with the elbows laced tightly together. Sorry you couldnt be there. While I never got above the Cessna 180 stage of flying, I hold you and your fellow pilots in the highest esteem. May God bless you, your family and all our vets. I was starting to get the idea. 17 apr 1966: arab 511, an a-1h (buno 135398), lt (jg) william l. tromp, va-115, went down following a night attack on coastal targets, near approximately 1818'n, 10610'e. arab 506, his wingman,. God-Speed to our brothers in arms, where ever they may be! Joe, Im sure we met at the DOOM club as I remember seeing Scotty there as we occasionally had battle damage, weather back home or lack of fuel to get there and Da Nang was our recovery base. We beneficiaries need to know the experiences, sufferings, challenges, life and death, victories and miraculous acts of God in the lives of our fellow countrymen in war, especially from their own voice and pen before the stories are gone. But for many years I wondered about what premonitions he also might have had that were similar to those Id had when I awakened. Hayden Lockhart was the first Air Force pilot to fall into North Vietnamese hands. I, for one, will welcome additional tales of courage and flying on these pages. My father was a Marine. Only loss: 606058, destroyed on the ground during a VC attack on Tan Son Nhut, SVN on 14 June 1968. Scotty took one look at the patch which I admit looked a bit Sam Schwartz to me and replied, If we have to break for a SAM, well bring it back without the wingtip.. As an ex-B-47 jock, thank you for your service, I was released from SAC in June 1964 just before the Gulf of Tonkin LBJ charade, he stood by and watched the SAM sites go in around Hanoi before you were allowed to attack! And when the pressurization system failed we were freezing our butts off! When my feet hit the floor with my elbows on my knees at bedside, a feeling of total despair came over me. I went down to about 125 in the winter of 1968. Owing to all the maintenance problems, we did not take off as a flight but departed single-ship and joined up on the KC-135 tanker aircraft over Thailand as a flight of three. 12,000 helicopters Then, I was pushed face down to the floor and blindfolded. The first thing I looked at was the horizon and I could almost hear the words of The Vanquished as if they were spoken to me. Although thank you is not enough, I do thank you for your service. Flight lead arrived and took his fuel after we were finished. They were taken to a hospital to be evaluated, but they lived. Rest in Peace, dear Scotty. There were pictures in the Tulsa World of the damage one of the ejection seats did to a womans newly-remodeled bathroom. God Bless you F-4 drivers! Thank you Sir. I didnt know the Marine who was killed as he lit a cigarette on Iwo Jima any more than I knew Scotty Wilson, and yet, thanks to that brief story by my father, and thanks to a longer and more detailed story by Joe Crecca, I feel I do know these servicemen. I think there was supposed to be a moral to that story probably along the lines of smoking is always a bad idea but the way my father told the story, emphasizing how frightened the Marine was, and that he, my father, was only sitting with the other Marine to try to help him with his nerves, and to get him to calm down, well, it was obvious that this was another living, breathing, human being. Thanks for your service, Sir. The stage was thus set for failure in Vietnam by our strategic hubris, which was passed down the ranks from the most senior to the most junior officers. You should be ashamed of yourself! First loss: C-123B 56-4370 attached to the 464th TAW which came down on an, First loss: C-130A 57-0475 (817th Troop Carrier Squadron, 6315th Operations Group) on 24 April 1965, a. Besides your contributions in F-4s, your time supporting other unfortunates in Hanoi does you honor. The author, during training on the F-4 Phantom. I am a UK resident but love all things aviation even the painful experiences suffered by many presented here by Joe also on behalf of Scotty. Cant really say I enjoyed reading your piece, although I could not stop reading. I admit now that, with the forebodings Id had earlier, I seriously thought about pulling the aerial refueling receptacle circuit breaker so it would not open, causing us to have to abort. How many f4 were shot down? Sir, the airplane was in a SAM break two days ago. Just a wild guess but you just enjoy your freedoms while you let others do the fighting and take the risks. It was late November, the temperature was 40F, and all I had on were my underwear. God Bless you, Joe, and all those who flew and fought in Vietnam. The USAF also lost F-4C Phantom 64-0755. Welcome home. [11], William A. Sayers writing in 2019 asserted that North Vietnam only had three aces in the war including Phm Thanh Ngn, with the other "aces" being creations of North Vietnamese propaganda that included claimed "kills" on days where no U.S. losses occurred, crediting VPAF pilots with kills that had actually been achieved by surface to air missile or antiaircraft artillery units and shootdowns of drones. NOTE: Misty numbers listed here were assigned after the war and relates to the order the pilot was assigned to the unit. Thank you Mr. Meadows, And we who flew the mighty Phantoms were in your debt,too.
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