Beloit’s native son, Vietnam POW shares heart and soul of defending freedom (Mastin, Storey)

The engineered violence U.S. Air Force pilots Ron Mastin and Tom Storey felt ejecting from an F-4 Phantom at 500 miles per hour was more shocking than impact of North Vietnamese ordinance that sent their jet crashing to the ground on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

On Mastin’s 34th aerial reconnaissance mission out of Thailand on Jan. 16, 1967, he was to photograph a modest bridge northeast of Hanoi. Their twin-piloted jet was cruising over rough terrain at 1,000 feet when it sustained the lethal blow while crossing over a deep valley.

“All of a sudden we felt a ‘thump, thump.’ Nothing more. I wish I could tell you a good shoot-down story. That’s all it was. We started losing hydraulic pressure. We started losing fuel. We started to get smoke in the cockpit. Before long, the aircraft went into an uncontrolled right turn. We had to punch out.”

Other Publications You Might Be Interested In

Vietnam, 1964-1973:-An American Dilema

This bibliography was requested by the Department of Historyfor the 14th Military History Symposium, which will be held atthe United States Air Force Academy from 17 to 19 October 1990.It consists of a highly selected portion of the U. S. Air ForceAcademy Library’s holdings on the indicated topic. Included arebooks,

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MEMORIES OF VIETNAM (Giles Norrington)

Navy Lt. Giles Norrington was making his 22nd reconnaissance flight into North Vietnamese territory when communist rebels shot off the right wing of his RA-5C Vigilante. The plane erupted into a fireball. As Norrington and his navigator, Richard Tangeman, tried to escape, Norrington thought, “It’s taking a long time to

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Wellfleet general was Vietnam POW (Kenneth North)

In the last few months of his life, as Alzheimer’s gradually crept over his orderly mind, retired Air Force Gen. Kenneth Walter North began to recall vividly his years spent as a prisoner of war, a time that exemplified his devotion and service to his country. It started gradually. A

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