Thomas Collins III would like to clarify one point about his bombing missions in Vietnam, and the more than seven years he spent as a prisoner of war:
It was not a mistake, not a waste, not a failure.
“We needed to stop communism,” says Collins, 74, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel. “It was a good mission. We needed to nip that in the bud, and we did. Actually, Vietnam was successful. We stopped communism.”
When Lieut. David Matheny drove home for lunch the other day, he saw that his wife’s car was gone. He turned around and left without even going in. Lieutenant Matheny was a prisoner of war in North Viet nam for about six months. Most of that time was spent in
It was the hardest thing Lt. Col. John Yuill had to do after the B-52 Stratofortress he and five crewmembers were flying in over Hanoi, Vietnam, was struck by two surface-to-air missiles on Dec. 22, 1972, during their third mission in four days as part of Linebacker II. It was
Soon after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973, the United States prepared for Operation Homecoming. Five hundred and ninety-one American prisoners of war returned home from Vietnam during the two-month process. Previously, during the war, 129 pows “escaped from,evaded, or were released by their captors,” including
n December 1972—40 years ago this month—the US executed Linebacker II, the largest B-52 bombing campaign of all time. The period from Dec. 18 to Dec. 29 saw the huge USAF bombers mount shattering strikes on North Vietnamese railways, airfields, surface-to-air missile storage sites, petroleum dumps, and other infrastructure targets
We are sad to announce that Wilfred Keese Abbott passed away peacefully after a brief but intense battle with cancer. In his final days, he was surrounded by loved ones. Will is survived by his wife, Sharon Abbott of Coronado; sons Mike (Melissa) of Anchorage, Alaska and Steve (Shawn) of