William “Bill” Talley was eating lunch in the cafeteria at his senior living center one day in June when a man walked up to him.
This was the man’s greeting: “Hey, I’m Jim Null. I remember when you got shot down.”
U.S. Air Force pilots Talley, 88, and Null, 77, were both in the air above Vietnam on May 11, 1972, as part of a bombing mission.
Their days started when their planes took off. Null’s day ended when he landed his plane. Talley’s day ended when his was shot down.
The bombing started on Dec. 18, 1972 and lasted 11 days. Waves of B-52s dropped 20,000 tons of ordnance on and near the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi and the port city of Haiphong. For the nearly 600 American POWs held by the North Vietnamese, the destruction wreaked by Operation
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