Our TOT (Time Over Target) was scheduled for 1153. What could I possibly say to the President of the United States that he hadnt already heard 334 times before? Phew II! My gratitude to those of you who gave so much. Just to the right of Scottys lifeless figure was the light-brown and white cloud characteristic of an SA-2 detonation! I am grateful to him for that, beyond measure. Joe I want to start by thanking you profusely for attending and speaking at my brother Johns funeral 3 years ago. Sobering reading for every American ! But survival instincts and thorough ejection training were running the show. I served as Navy, lost friends both in country and after returning home with one still carried as MIA Army Helicopter Pilot. Glad to see you made it home, I remember that in 1972, 3, 4 & 5 most of America was oblivious to the fact that there was still a war going on & had moved on. Elizabeth Hartsook, Stuart Slade. [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. 1972: U.S. claimed 51 MiG-21s destroyed; North Vietnam claimed 53 US aircraft shot down by MiG-21s, including two B-52 Stratofortress bombers. May God bless you. After liftoff, caution must be exercised to avoid over-rotation. A year and a half after his plane was shot down over North Vietnam, Porter sat in a filthy cell shared with another American prisoner of war, and learned that he was supposedly dead. 17, 1965, Commander Lou Page (pilot) and Lieutenant JC Smith were flying F-4B bureau number (buno) 150646 not 151488 as sometimes reported. Asia time after time. In fact all those who kept us in the air were. Top rudder pedal, however, broke us out at about 5 grand. Outwardly grateful to Jesus Christ above all and to our United States military service members is the way of life I choose to live and pass on to my children. I even remember glancing around the cockpit at the throttles and the control stick. During this relatively minor ordeal, I asked permission of my guard, using sign language, for permission to relieve my bladder. On 3 January 1969 Light Attack Squadron Four (VAL-4) was commissioned at NAS North Island, California and after an intense period of training was transferred to Vietnam. In burner, diving out of 20, didnt take long to head toward So China Sea. Hull blown-up. I replied that I still had a positive lock to a radio nav-aid and if he could get us through the clouds I could get us to the target. The pain was unbearable except that I had to bear it whether I wanted to or not. Our Motto YOU YELL, WE SHELL LIKE HELL, OPEN 24 HOURS A DAY. And I still think of that crash not itself something that caused a loss of life, but something that reminds me of how significant the memory of wounded F-4 pilots, limping back to base in badly-damaged airplanes, was, and is, to those who served during the Vietnam war. 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,. Instead Ill thank & bless Mr. Crecca for being among those whom A. Solzhenitsyn-himself a survivor of Communist Russias gulags-called our first heros for successfully resisting an overwhelming enemy, alone, then returning with honor. God Bless them all. The NVA never admitted to capturing them! At Tulsa TRACON, I would have lumped him in with any group you could think of that wouldnt give a damn about anyonehow wrong that lumping would have been. May God continue to bless you, Joe. Joes epilogue sums it all up. Sorry about your Dad. If you do that, itll be your first time in harms way. I hope that this article and your word of mouth/teachings help other people stand up against stupidity and question the orders of those place in authority. God Bless You for your service. I wondered what good it did to tell us there were guns, MiGs and SAMs everywhere. Directional control was by use of nose wheel steering or rudder up to 70 knots, at which airspeed the rudder became effective. Phew III! These were probably the local militia. [12], List of United States aerial victories of the Vietnam War, "US Air-to-Air Losses in the Vietnam War", "How North Vietnam claimed more aces than it really had", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Vietnam_War_flying_aces&oldid=1101889530, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 2 August 2022, at 09:45. I wish you and yours peace and happiness all the days of your life. Thanks for the details of this mission. From the refueling track exit over northern Thailand, our route took us over northern Laos and into North Vietnam. I would spend the next six years and three months in five different prison camps around the city and countryside in North Vietnam; the farthest very near to the Chinese border. . I cannot express my admiration for you and others who went thru what you did. Soviet General Fesenko, the main Soviet adviser to the North Vietnamese Air Force in 1972, recorded 34 MiG-21s destroyed in 1972. There, I waited for about five hours, during which time it seemed that everyone in the village, save the oldest and youngest, came to visit the new arrival. Lockhart is still alive, although. Our trip to Corregidor and visit to the USS Houston are two of my greatest memories. It was great to learn about your time before FTL/FDX. You softy, dont deserve the freedom which we veterans fought and died for! I dont know if they ever found the horse. I remember the day we lost a crew in Cambodia. As I learned about him, I remember more of him lecturing rather than delivering the news. Id pulled the lower ejection handle and was away from my burning Phantom. Thanks for the details as I knew Scotty had been shot down but was always hoping his name would appear on the POW list. How many f4 were shot down? 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. As my turn got closer and closer, I was still mentally tongue-tied. Mr. Creccas response (farther below) displays considerably more class than that displayed by b fearn in this particular instance. Sadly the other pilot and crew chief and door gunner did not make it. Iwo Jima. Sign up for our free email newsletter, packed with tips, tricks and news for pilots. I hope some day that our government will find the courage to ask what happened to the missing pilots whose names or Escape and Evasion codes and authenticator numbers were photographed by U.S. satellites long after the war was overDavid Allinson(8888), Peter Matthes (GX2527), and Henry Serex (SEREX) to name a few. Just recently back from the Academy F-4 Phantom ceremony. https://airfactsjournal-images.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/06165124/F-4C-64-0755-480TFS-Da-Nang1000.jpg, https://airfactsjournal-images.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/06142440/Air-Facts-Logo340.jpg, COPYRIGHT 2011-2023, SPORTSMAN'S MARKET, INC. All Rights Reserved. The intercom was intermittent. When naval aviator Porter Halyburton deployed for Vietnam, he left behind his young wife and five-day-old daughter, Dabney. I thought to myself, Im dead. I just didnt know what the moment of death would be like. 532 aircraft were lost in combat and 329 more to operational causes, resulting in the deaths of 401 naval aviators, with 64 airmen reported missing and 179 taken prisoner of war. A Shau Valley. Public Servants who screw -up Big, Big time do not deserve such glorified recognition. At this moment, I felt a great calm envelope me. The baro switch was supposed to open my chute at 10,000 ft. At 0600, I awoke to the annoying buzzer of my Telechron alarm clock. Richard Stephen "Steve" Ritchie and Weapons System Officer Capt. Charles Barbin DeBellevue successfully shot down a North Vietnamese-flown Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 from their McDonnell Douglas F-4D Phantom II. We would have to fight if not listened to. Overcome with his Ivy League false sense of academic Superiority, he stupidly turned them down, not even a crucial, critical, disastrous war saving meeting. I taught math, physics, automotive theory and practice, and classical music in the Hanoi Hilton. The upper estimate puts it at nearly 260 million! Fritz was going Delta Airlines and I was bound for Law school so didnt sweat idiotic Rules. Got this forwarded in late 2017. Energy Management Clich or Exactitude? I flew the airplane to a point in space below the beautiful Stratotanker where I judged the contact position to be. Other than the bullet-hole scar in his leg, which my father would sometimes say was caused by an Indians arrow (that story fit in well with the TV shows I was watching in the 1950s), growing up I never got any stories out of him about what war was like. God Bless America and her brave warriors! Despite our brief conversation enroute to the tanker about pilots who had ejected from their burning airplanes prematurely (their aircraft flew on for long distances before going out of control) what happened next got my attention. Kos Media, LLC. When my feet hit the floor with my elbows on my knees at bedside, a feeling of total despair came over me. Yep. . Our flight should never have been going into the target. Model names were normalized in 1962 to UH-1s. I knew none of this before he died. The Republic of Vietnam lost 1,018 aircraft and helicopters from January 1964 to September 1973. You certainly are my Hero! [I was USAF SAC (enlisted) 62-66. We attended the Colonels memorial service one week ago today. Ritchie's #463 with drag chute open Phantom F-4Ds flying over Vietnam General Characteristics Crew: 2 Length: 63 ft 0 in (19.2 m) Wingspan: 38 ft 4.5 in (11.7 m) Height: 16 ft 6 in (5.0 m) Wing area: 530.0 ft (49.2 m) Airfoil: NACA 0006.4-64 root, NACA 0003-64 tip Empty weight: 30,328 lb (13,757 kg) Loaded weight: 41,500 lb (18,825 kg) I was a flight engineer in the Air Force and National Guard. Your writing is superb and I wonder if you have considered writing a book about your experience in the USAF. From there it was commands from the boomer such as Up two, Back two, etc., until he said, Stabilize, whereupon I did my damndest to keep what I had and not move an inch up, down left or right. The plane was unveiled . After 52 years, the remains of Air Force pilot Col. Roy Knight Jr., who was shot down in 1967 during the Vietnam War, have finally come home. A sub-standard OER means you dont get promoted on time. So glad that you made it back in one piece, and were able to continue flying. First loss: 1964, final loss: 1967. Hi, Joe. Joe, thanks for sharing and honoring Scotty. Thank you for sharing. On their MiG-killing mission of Jun. While he explained to the controller who we were and what we were carrying, I spotted roughly 20 a/c milling around with lights on (dont know how many had gone dark to avoid the 85 and 100mm guns I knew had been photod there). Cant really say I enjoyed reading your piece, although I could not stop reading. Since we were shot down well before reaching our target and also because most of the strike flights had declined to enter the target area due to decidedly unfavorable weather, my story had to deny the Vietnamese any foreknowledge of the real target. We knew radio chatter was recorded. Million-dollar wound some would call it through the knee, with the bones barely nicked. I had breakfast with 1stLt. Galand Kramer at the Danang Officers Open Mess, the DOOM Club, so appropriately named for those of us flying into the teeth of North Vietnams AAA, missile and MiG air defenses. Wed had it. This room was known, unaffectionately, by all who suffered there as the room with the green, bumpy walls. Seated on a small, wooden stool, the interrogation began in the usual way with, Name, rank, serial number and date of birth. 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