Jay Hess was 14 years into his Air Force service.
The fighter pilot, in the cockpit of an F-105 Thunderchief, was dropping 600 pound bombs in the heavily defended area around Hanoi, in north Vietnam. Hess finished the steep dive, released his bombs and began to pull out when his aircraft was hit by enemy fire. With no way out, he pulled the ejection handle.
Retired Navy Capt. Charles Gillespie Jr. of San Marcos, who was shot down over Vietnam and spent 5 1/2 years in the “Hanoi Hilton” POW prison, was identified Thursday as the pilot killed in a civilian plane crash, officials said. Gillespie, 60, was flying a turboprop plane 80 miles northwest
Call it fate, chance or even a divine appointment. A woman just happened to come across the name of the man whose POW bracelet she wore 40 years ago. When the two got the chance to meet, she called it an answer to prayer. Jerry Singleton didn’t know when he
Joe Milligan knew he had a problem when his North Vietnamese prison guards began wearing handkerchiefs over their faces when they entered his cell. The odor of rotting, infected flesh came from his arms, badly burned after Milligan ejected from his crippled F-4C Phantom and into a fireball. His burns
Walking next to his father near a lake he fished as a boy, Navy Lieut. Markham Gartley looked up at the clear, blue sky and filled his lungs with crisp autumn air. The 28‐year‐old pilot noted the colors of the northern Maine woods—the McIntosh reds of the sugar maples, the