Charles “Chuck” Jackson has little memory of the crushing sound of metal as his F-4 Phantom II broke apart.
What he does remember most is the split second before ejecting.
A heat-seeking missile, about 6 to 8 feet long, fired by a pursuing North Vietnamese MIG-21 went right up the two-seater’s jet exhaust while he and pilot Lt. James McCarty were on their return trip home from a bombing mission north of Hanoi.
For Charlie Plumb, a retired Navy captain shot down after 74 successful missions, seeing many of the guys he was held with in a North Vietnamese prison was an indescribable experience on Tuesday, May 23. “Seeing these guys I haven’t seen in a long time is really neat, especially when
When the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center held the sixth Annual POW/MIA Run in September to honor all current and former prisoners of war and Americans still listed as missing in action, the big story that particular day was the run. However, the real story to remember from
A gaunt but cheerful 108 American prisoners of war regained their freedom today, with the senior ranking prisoner in North Vietnam declaring the U.S. POWs “performed magnificently … they were first class soldiers.” “I would like to say I’ve been in better places but I have never been with better
Col. James Lamar was shot down during a bombing mission over North Vietnam in 1966 and spent 7 years as a POW, including at the prison camp called the ‘Hanoi Hilton’
David Everson got zapped on March 10, 1967. He fired a missile at his target then two seconds later heard a crack on the left side of his Thunderchief F-105. The shell didn’t explode, but it ripped into the main structural spur of his left wing, nearly flaying it from