13. Van Staaveren, ibid., 108.
CHAPTER 5. A GRIM BUSINESS
1. John Prados, “The ’65 Decision: Bombing Soviet SAM Sites in North Vietnam,” VVA Veteran, January–February 2006, www.vva.org/archive/TheVeteran/2006_01/featuresSAM.htm.
2. Colonel James Bassett, emails to Tillman, June 2014.
3. John T. Correll, “Take It Down! The Wild Weasels in Vietnam,” Air Force magazine, July 2010.
4. John B. Nichols and Barrett Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War over Vietnam (New York: Naval Institute Press, 2013), 58.
5. Davies, F-105 Thunderchief Units, 8.
6. Ibid., 26.
7. Robert L. LaPointe, PJs in Vietnam: The Story of Air Rescue in Vietnam as Seen Through the Eyes of Pararescuemen (Anchorage, AK: Northern PJ Press, 2001), 111–112.
8. “Martin ASM-N-7/GAM-83/AGM-12 Bullpup,” Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-12.html.
9. Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), 185.
10. Lavalle, Tale of Two Bridges, 42.
11. Ibid., 42.
12. Robert Peel, phone interview with Tillman, June 27, 2015.
13. “395 F-105 Combat Losses,” www.burrusspta.org/395_Combat.pdf.
14. Lavalle, Tale of Two Bridges, 44.
15. J. L. Maienschein, Estimating Equivalency of Explosives Through a Thermochemical Approach (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 2002).
16. Michael M. McCrea, Center for Naval Analyses, U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses and Damage in Southeast Asia (1962–1973) (Arlington, VA: Center for Naval Analyses, 1976).
17. Robinson Risner, The Passing of the Night: My Seven Years as a Prisoner of the North Vietnamese (Duncanville: World Wide Printing, 1999), 9. See also http://34tfsthuds.us/resources/Pictures/G-K/Jones_Eddward_L.pfd.
18. The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1960–1968, vol. II, 25–26, http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/ebook/p/2005/dep of state/www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/vol_iii/050.html.
CHAPTER 6. ENTER THE NAVY
1. Wally Schirra, conversation with Tillman, 1994.
2. Derived from unpublished US Navy Southeast Asia Statistical Summary, Office of Naval Aviation History, no date.
3. A-7s Greek retirement: www.airforce.gr/cms/.
4. Rear Admiral Denny Wisely, USN (Ret.), conversation with Tillman, 2004.
5. “Klusmann Charles Frederic,” POW Network, www.pownetwork.org/bios.
6. Richard W. Schaffert, email to Tillman, February 2015.
7. “Air War in North Vietnam (Vol. I) in United States–Vietnam Relations 1945–1967,” Department of Defense anthology, www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/International_security_affairs/vietnam_and_southeast_asiaDocuments/290.pdf.
CHAPTER 7. “UNLIMITED LOSSES IN PURSUIT OF LIMITED GOALS”
1. Robert K. Wilcox, Scream of Eagles: The Real Top Gun: How They Took Back the Skies over Vietnam (London: Phoenix, 2011), 23.
2. Michael O’Connor, MiG Killers of Yankee Station (Friendship, WI: New Past Press, 2003), 28.
3. Ibid., 29.
4. Toperczer, MiG-17 and MiG-19 Units, 20.
5. O’Connor, MiG Killers of Yankee Station, 30.
6. Jeremiah Denton, When Hell Was in Session (WND Books, 2009), np.
7. Jack Woodul, email to Tillman, February 19, 2015.
8. “Franke, Fred Agustus,” POW Network, www.pownetwork.org/bios/f/f052.htm.
9. Fred A. Franke, email to Tillman, March 29, 2015.
10. Franke loss: McCrea and Center for Naval Analysis, U.S. Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast Asia.
11. Wynn F. Foster, Captain Hook: A Pilot’s Triumph and Tragedy in the Vietnam War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992), 68.
12. Barrett Tillman, “Tailhook ’88,” The Hook, Fall 1988, 99.
CHAPTER 8. THEY NEEDED A BIGGER BANG
1. Foster, Captain Hook, 99.
2. Ibid., 103.
3. Thomas F. Brown, emails to Tillman, February 2015.
4. The US Navy continued to improve its steam catapults, making them longer and giving them more capacity. By the time USS Nimitz, the second nuclear-powered carrier, entered service, its catapults were so powerful that it could not launch lightly loaded F-8s unless the ship had a negative wind over the deck. Coonts participated in one of the F-8 evolutions aboard Nimitz, launching Naval Reserve Crusaders from NAS Dallas in the spring of 1976 as the ship backed down into the wind.
5. Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War.
6. Foster, Captain Hook, 105.
7. James Stockdale, conversation with Tillman, 1983.
8. “Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale,” http://a4skyhawk.org/3e/va163/stockdale.htn.
9. Dinh Khoi Sy, History of the 228th, 62–63.
10. Lavalle, Tale of Two Bridges, 46.
11. W. H. Plunkett, 34th TFS Attacks on Thanh Hoa Bridge.
12. “Vietnam—Escalation of the War,” Global Security, www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/vietnam2-escalation.htm.
13. “Vietnam War Statistics,” www.shmoop.com/vietnam-war/statistics.html.
14. “Defense Spending in the 20th Century,” U.S. Government Spending, www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1900_2015USp_XXs1li011mcn_30f_Defense_Spending_in_20th_Century.html.
15. Ang Chen Guan, The Vietnam War from the Other Side (UK: Rutledge Surzon, 2002), 97. See also McCrea and Center for Naval Analyses, U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses and Damage in Southeast Asia.
CHAPTER 9. PAYING THE PRICE
1. Samuel L. Sayers, conversations with Coonts, 2016. Like all new weapons systems, the A-6 had its problems, all of which were eventually solved. The A-6 electronic systems were continually updated and remained state of the art until the airplane’s retirement from Navy and Marine service in 1997. The A-6 remains one of the few aircraft the United States never exported, even to allies.
2. McCrea and Center for Naval Analysis, U.S. Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast Asia.
3. Captain Sam went on to command VA-34, then VA-42 (the east coast A-6 training squadron). He served as program manager (chief engineer) for A-6/EA-6 aircraft, then program manager for the Advanced Tactical Aircraft (ATA). He retired in 1986. His wife, Janet, died of cancer in 1989. He was the technical adviser on the movie Flight of the Intruder, based on the novel by Stephen Coonts. He remarried Mary (Salkeld) Sayers and was enjoying a well-earned retirement when he unexpectedly passed away in May 2017 at the age of eighty-two. Discussing the Vietnam War, Coonts asked him, “Knowing all you know about naval aviation and the war, would you sign up to do it again?” Sam’s quick answer: “Hell, yes.” One suspects he spoke for most Navy and Air Force Vietnam-veteran flight crewmen.
CHAPTER 10. FOOLS, DRUNKS, AND LOST FIGHTER PILOTS
1. Correll, The Air Force in the Vietnam War, 16.
2. Ang Chen Guan, Vietnam War from the Other Side, 96. If the Russians ever bothered to use Vietnamese-speaking Russians as instructors, Ms. Ang never mentions it. Cultural snobbery?
3. Van Staaveren, Gradual Failure, 263–264.
4. Chicago Tribune, “Any Bombs to Sell?” March 14, 1966, http://archives.chicagotribune.com.
5. R. W. Schaffert, email to Tillman, February 2015.
6. Philip D. Chinnery, Air Commando: Inside the Air Force Special Operations Command (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 74.
7. “MCARA War Stories: Skyknight Down!,” MCARA, www.mcara.us/skyknight_down.php.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Peter E. Davies, F-105 Wild Weasels vs. SA-2 “Guideline” SAM, Vietnam 1965–73 (Oxford: Osprey Publishers, 2011), 50.
11. Rick Morgan, emails to Tillman, April 2017.
CHAPTER 11. CAROLINA MOON
1. Chinnery, Air Commando, 74.
2. Ibid.
3. Joseph Trevithick, “America Builds Massive Floating Bombs,” War Is Boring, December 15, 2014, h
ttps://warisboring.com/america-built-massive-floating-bombs-to-blast-a-vietnamese-bridge.
4. Ibid. See also “Operation Carolina Moon,” Global Security, www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/carolina-moon.htm.
5. Carolina Moon summary provided by Lynn O. Gamma AFHRO, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, March 2017.
6. Joseph Moore, conversation with Tillman, 1982.
7. Lavalle, Tale of Two Bridges, 52–54.
8. Staaveren, Gradual Failure, 258–259. See also “Carolina Moon May Through June 1966,” research paper provided by USAF Historical Research Agency, March 2017.
9. Dinh Khoi Sy, History of the 228th, 73–74.
10. Troy Hayward, email to Tillman, March 2017.
11. Bear Taylor, “Rolling Thunder Remembered… 31 May 1966… Carolina Moon,” Rolling Thunder Remembered, www.rollingthunderremembered.com.
12. Ibid.
13. Lavalle, Tale of Two Bridges, 56.
14. Author analysis of CAN list of USAF in-flight losses, May 31, 1966. The F-4 loss, on an armed recon mission, is listed at 1815, versus 2100 for the C-130. Additional insight provided by Commander Ken Davis, USN (Ret), emails to Tillman, May 2017.
15. Troy Harworth, emails to Tillman, March 2017; moon phase chart for May 1966, www.calendar-12.com/moon—calendar/1966/june.
16. Nguyen Xuan Mai, ed., Memories of Defending the Skies over the Fatherland (Peoples Publishing House, 2013, translated for the authors by Merle Pribbenow.
17. “” Soha News website, March 25, 2013, http://soha.vn/quan-su/qua-thuy-loi-toi-mat-cua-my-de-danh-cau-ham-rong-20130325155418936.htm, translated for the authors by Merle Pribbenow.
18. Robert McNamara’s book, In Retrospect, makes it crystal clear that he had no hope whatsoever that the war would end in 1967; indeed, he had no hope that it could be won militarily.
19. John Darrell Sherwood, Afterburner: Naval Aviators and the Vietnam War (New York: New York University Press, 2004), 269.
20. David C. Richardson, email to Tillman, July 7, 2010.
21. Ronald J. Zlatoper, emails to Tillman, April 23, 2017.
22. Richardson email, July 7, 2010.
CHAPTER 12. THE THANH WHORE BRIDGE
1. Jeremy Taylor, email to Tillman, February 2015.
2. Stephen R. Gray, Rampant Raider: An A-4 Skyhawk Pilot in Vietnam (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017), 203–204.
3. “Martin Marietta AGM-62 Walleye,” Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-62.html.
4. “VA-212 Rampant Raiders,” A-4 Skyhawk Association, http://a4skyhawk.info.
5. Steve Gray, “The First Use of the Walleye Weapon,” A-4ever Skyhawk Association Journal (Fall 2014), 9–10.
6. Lavalle, Tale of Two Bridges, 59.
7. Gray, Rampant Raider, 205–206.
8. Sherwood, Afterburner, 269.
9. “Smith, Homer Leroy,” POW Network, www.pownetwork.org/bios/s/s105.htm.
10. Stephen Gray, emails to Tillman, June 2015.
11. Jim Winchester, Douglas A-4 Skyhawk: Attack and Close-Support Fighter Bomber (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Aviation, 2005), 112–113; Kenneth P. Werrell, “Did USAF Technology Fail in Vietnam?,” Airpower Journal (Spring 1998), www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj98/spr98/werrell.html.
12. CHECO Report, “The War in Vietnam, Jan–Jun 1967,” April 29, 1968, 106, part of PACAF Rolling Thunder briefing to CINCPAC for the period of February 20–March 19, 1967, cited in Plunkett Papers.
CHAPTER 13. THE BRIDGE CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM
1. “A Massive Effort to Turn the Tide,” in Intelligence and Vietnam: The Top Secret 1969 State Department Study, National Security Archive, www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB121.
2. Craig M. White, “F-105 Days,” http://vimeo.com/163954955.
3. John Holm, email to Tillman, May 5, 2016.
4. “Southwick, Charles Everett,” POW Network, www.pownetwork.org/bios/s/s108.htm.
5. “Rollins, David John,” POW Network, www.pownetwork.org/bios/r/r042.htm.
6. Gary Wayne Foster, Phantom in the River: The Flight of Linfield Two Zero One (New York: Midpoint Trade Books, 2011), 135–139.
7. Ibid., 132.
8. “Rolling Thunder Remembered… 15 May 1967… ‘Phantom in the River,’” Rolling Thunder Remembered, www.rollingthunderremembered.com/?p=5432.
9. R. W. Schaffert, email to Tillman, February 2015.
10. Plunkett Papers, 12.
CHAPTER 14. “WE ARE MIRED IN A STALEMATE”
1. Military spending, www/usgovernmentspending.com.
2. Vietnam War Casualty Statistics. www/archives.gov. Military Personnel in Southeast Asia, www.edu/colleges/… /MilitaryPersonnelinsoutheastasia.doc.
3. Draftees, www.sss.gov/induct.htm.
4. Correll, Air Force in the Vietnam War, 9.
5. Ibid., citing Momyer.
6. Desert Storm aviators reported much the same situation in 1991. The politicians and brass pulled decision making up the ladder, apparently on the theory that if they were going to be held responsible for every bomb dropped and every airplane lost, they might as well run the show. The initiative and responsibility of subordinates was squeezed from the system. This was and is no way to run a military… or a war. The scars of Vietnam run very deep.
7. 355th TFW History, January–March 1968, vol. III, OPREP-4/146/RT57A189, Microfilm N0464, frame 0525; also, Microfilm N0463, frames 1620 and 1651–1652, courtesy of W. H. Plunkett.
8. Pete Purvis, “That Damn Bridge Again,” Flight Journal (August 2007), 66–70.
9. Plunkett Papers, “34th TFS Attacks on the Thanh Hoa Bridge,” printed May 3, 2014, 13.
10. “Kenneth W. Mays, F-105 History,” unpublished memoir, cited in H. W. Plunkett Papers, April 25, 2011.
11. Plunkett Papers, “34th TFS Attacks on the Thanh Hoa Bridge,” 14.
12. McCrea and Center for Naval Analyses, U.S. Fixed Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast Asia.
13. H. W. Plunkett Papers, 15, citing 355th TFW History, January–March 1968, OPREP-4/146/RT57A189, Microfilm N0464, frame 0525; see also microfilm N0463, frames 1620 and 1651–1652.
14. Lavalle, Tale of Two Bridges, 63.
15. Hoang Ngoc Lung, The General Offensives of 1968–69 (McLean VA: General Research Corporation, 1978), 9.
16. William J. Luti, “Did Fake News Lose the Vietnam War?” Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2018, www.wsj.com/articles/did-fake-news-lose-the-vietnam-war-1517270406.
17. Ibid.
18. “Walter Cronkite’s ‘We Are Mired in a Stalemate,’” https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/cronkite—1968.html.
19. Johnson’s announcement, March 31, 1968, as quoted on the LBJ Presidential Library website: www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/680331.asp.
20. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 983. In his book Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America’s Involvement in and Extraction from the Vietnam War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 46, Kissinger goes further: “The Tet offensive turned into a major psychological victory for Hanoi. One can reflect with some melancholy on the course of events had, in its aftermath, American leaders stepped up pressure on the North Vietnamese regular combat units, which were now deprived of their guerilla shield. Had Johnson done so, it is probable that he would have achieved the unconditional negotiations he was so desperately seeking, and maybe even an unconditional cease-fire. This is suggested by the rapidity—maybe less than seventy-two hours—with which Hanoi accepted Johnson’s renewed offer to negotiate, which was coupled with a unilateral partial bombing halt based on the San Antonio formula.”
CHAPTER 15. “COURAGE IS FEAR THAT HAS SAID ITS PRAYERS”
1. McNamara, In Retrospect, 209–212.
2. John Clark Pratt, ed., Vietnam Voices: Perspectives on the War Years, 1941–1975 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010), 275.
3. “Neil Armstrong,” Wikipedia, https://en.wiki
pedia.org/wiki/Neil—Armstrong.
4. “Buzz Aldrin,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz—Aldrin.
5. “U.S. Civilian Plane Shot Down Near Cuba,” CNN, February 24, 1996, www.cnn.com/US/9602/cuba_shootdown/25.
6. Risner, The Passing of the Night, 175.
7. Colby Itkowitz, “How Jane Fonda’s 1972 Trip to North Vietnam Earned Her the Nickname ‘Hanoi Jane,’” Washington Post, September 18, 2017, citing an Associated Press report in April 1973, which quoted an interview Fonda gave to KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. On July 4, 2018, Colorado Springs Gazette columnist David Ramsey had this to say: “Fonda offers a cautionary tale for those outraged by the strange turns of American politicians. She traveled to North Vietnam… on what she called a peace mission but got lost on the journey and declared war on her own countrymen.… Her once-idealistic opposition to [the] war—a war most Americans now believe was misguided—soured into loss of sight. Enraged by evil on one side, she failed to see evil on the other.”
8. Washington Post, September 18, 2017.
9. “Peel, Robert Delaney,” POW Network, www.pownetwork.org.bios/p/p058.htm.
10. “Merritt, Raymond James,” POW Network, http://pownetwork.org/bios/m/m127.htm.
11. Will Dunham, “The POW Who Blinked ‘Torture’ in Morse Code During TV Interview Has Died,” Huffington Post, March 28, 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/28/jeremiah-denton-dies_n_5050132.html.
12. Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War, 248–249.
13. Franke conversation with Tillman, 1987.
14. Risner, The Passing of the Night, 116–117.
15. “Vice-Admiral James Bond Stockdale,” http://a4skyhawk.org/3e/va163/stockdale.htm.
16. Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War, 169.
17. Larry Smith, Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 351–353.
18. Stockdale and Stockdale, In Love and War, 94.
19. Ibid., 168.
20. Jennifer Abbey and Margaret Aro, “Three Vietnam POWs Mark 40 Years of Freedom,” ABC News, May 28, 2013, http://abcnews.go.com/US/vietnam-pows-mark-40-years-freedom/story?id=19275515.
21. Flynn obituary, Pensacola News Journal, May 23, 2014.
CHAPTER 16. NIXON AND KISSINGER
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