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00:00American pilots flew thousands of bombing missions against North Vietnam throughout the mid-1960s.
00:08They confronted the most formidable anti-aircraft defenses on Earth,
00:13while operating under the most complex and restrictive rules of engagement in history.
00:19Hundreds were shot down and killed. Hundreds more were imprisoned for years.
00:24But for more than three and a half years, the men continued to hurl their aircraft into combat
00:29each day with the hope that they could put an end to a bloody struggle that ultimately claimed millions of lives.
00:37This is the story of the pilots who flew those missions.
00:42It is the story of Rolling Thunder.
00:59On a beautiful day in October of 1967, Major Bob Barnett was leading a flight of 16 F-105s
01:16on a strike mission into some of the most heavily defended territory in North Vietnam.
01:21Supporting the flight were several F-105 Wild Weasels, which had moved out in front of the strike force
01:28to guard against the launch of lethal surface-to-air missiles.
01:34The pilots received surprisingly light anti-aircraft fire as they approached the capital city of Hanoi.
01:41But suddenly, a warning light lit up in Barnett's 105.
01:45A SAM sight had come online, and at least one missile had already been fired.
01:52The flight of Weasels immediately turned back to try to help the force.
01:56They were coming outbound, and they fired two SAMs.
02:02And, of course, I knew they were up, and I was sort of looking for them.
02:06And the Weasel pilot said, no sweat, it's going behind the force.
02:10And next thing, this thing goes off right behind me.
02:13It didn't hit the airplane.
02:14It went off right maybe about 40 or 50 feet behind the airplane.
02:18Of course, it blew into the airplane.
02:20And the airplane was porpoising, and, of course, I got fire lights right then.
02:25So I turned, and just as I rolled out, I could feel the controls getting stiff.
02:30So I looked down, and I saw I had no hydraulic pressure.
02:34And there was, of course, a lot of chatter on the radio.
02:36So I told the flight to go over on another channel so I could talk to them
02:40and find out, you know, what they see with my airplane.
02:44And so I went over there, and they all checked in, and then I lost my radio.
02:48So I wasn't quite sure what had happened.
02:53Barnett was just north of Hanoi when he was hit.
02:56For several minutes, he struggled to fly out to the coast of North Vietnam,
03:00which he could clearly see in the distance.
03:04But he soon lost all oil pressure.
03:07The 105's massive engine ground to a halt, and Barnett's plane started to roll.
03:13Seconds later, he was forced to eject.
03:17A survival raft became entangled in the lines of his chute as it deployed.
03:21He struggled furiously to free more of the canopy as he plummeted toward the jungle below.
03:26I was kind of spinning around, going down.
03:32And it was a beautiful day, and I was sitting there going down.
03:35I could see Hanoi, and I'd go swimming around and see Haiphong, and, you know, all the energy.
03:41I just saw almost this pent.
03:43Anyway, I was going down, and I got close to the ground, and I knew that I'd probably fallen fairly fast.
03:49And I was going into the trees, and so I put my feet together, and I felt myself ricocheting through the branches.
03:56And I fell for about 10, 15 feet into a bunch of bushes.
04:01So I got out of the parachute, and I tried to get away from there pretty quickly.
04:07And I went up to a little area, and I got on my radio, and I called them, and I said I was on the ground, and I was okay.
04:14Barnett managed to evade North Vietnamese troops for two days.
04:20But on the third day, he was captured.
04:23For the next five and a half years, he remained a prisoner of war in various facilities, including the notorious Hanoi Hilton.
04:34Barnett was one of several hundred airmen shot down during the first phase of the American air war against North Vietnam.
04:40During a campaign that came to be known as Rolling Thunder.
04:49My fellow Americans, as president and commander-in-chief, it is my duty to the American people to report that renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin
05:09have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply.
05:18On August 5th, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson ordered limited airstrikes against North Vietnamese targets in retaliation for alleged attacks against U.S. destroyers operating in the Gulf of Tonkin.
05:43Additional strikes were conducted for several more months in response to specific attacks launched by communist Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam.
05:56But on March 7th, 1965, Johnson's policy of limited retaliatory strikes gave way to Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam that lasted for more than three and a half years.
06:13In theory, the strategy behind the campaign was simple. Gradually increased the intensity of bombing raids until Ho Chi Minh and the government of North Vietnam realized that a Viet Cong victory in the South was not worth the price.
06:34In reality, though, complex implementation of the campaign, coupled with the fierce determination of the North Vietnamese, resulted in one of the largest air wars in history against one of the most heavily defended countries on Earth.
06:51Many pilots had serious doubts about the effectiveness of Rolling Thunder from the start.
06:58The chain of command for day-to-day operations literally stretched all the way to the White House.
07:04President Lyndon Johnson retained almost complete control over which targets could be attacked.
07:10Johnson's decisions were relayed to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who in turn provided a list of targets to the Pentagon.
07:20Eventually, the list made its way through the chain of command, and the targets were fragmented, or fragged, among various Air Force and Navy aircraft stationed throughout the region.
07:31The convoluted and highly political targeting process caused tremendous concern among strike crews from the earliest days of the campaign.
07:44The first target that I was assigned on the forestall, I still remember vividly.
07:48I went up to where the briefings took place, I punched in the target number, and pictures of the target came out, and that target had been bombed 27 times before.
07:59It was a pile of rubble. It was called the VIN military barracks.
08:03A very short distance away was a bridge, a bridge that was obviously used to transport supplies and troops to the south.
08:10That bridge was not on the target list, so we were not allowed to strike it.
08:14Dozens of highly strategic targets remained off-limits for most of Rolling Thunder.
08:21There was a 30-mile restricted area around Hanoi, and a 10-mile area around the port of Haiphong.
08:28MiG bases and SAM sites that were under construction were also generally off-limits.
08:33And strikes were never directed against the extensive network of dams and dikes, which would have caused significant damage to food supplies and flooded vital transportation routes.
08:43President Johnson and Secretary McNamara defended these restrictions, citing concerns about a widening war that could involve China or the Soviet Union.
08:58But they became increasingly troublesome for strike crews, who felt that they were being sent into combat with one hand, if not both, tied behind their backs.
09:11We were very frustrated by our inability to hit targets that need to be hit.
09:16We could observe Russian ships coming in the port of Haiphong, offloading surface-to-air missiles.
09:22Those missiles taken on trucks and put into position, either around Haiphong or Hanoi, which we could not strike.
09:29And then, of course, having to dodge those same missiles sometime later.
09:33Debate about targeting restrictions continued throughout the campaign.
09:38But there was also tremendous concern about the strategy for employing air assets once a target was authorized.
09:50In March of 1967, frags were issued for strikes against the Tai Wen Iron and Steel Works.
09:57The steel mill had previously been off-limits, despite the fact that it was the only facility in Southeast Asia that manufactured critical bridge sections, barges, and oil drums.
10:07On March 10, F-105s and F-4s from Thailand began launching on missions against the mill.
10:14Poor weather prevented the force from launching nine days earlier, when less than 300 guns defended the site.
10:21By the time the weather broke, more than 1,000 guns and six SAM sites had been moved to within five miles of the target.
10:32At least seven aircraft were lost on the first mission alone.
10:43Despite mounting casualties, repeated strikes were ordered against the same targets throughout the month.
10:49There were three major separate areas in a steel mill.
10:55One was the ability to transport the steel out, load it, and get rid of it.
11:02We hit it for 10 days.
11:04It was dead after the second days.
11:06We continued to hit it for 10 days.
11:08Twice a day.
11:09Karatakli.
11:10Go in there, bomb the snot out of it.
11:11And we were losing airplanes like it went out of style.
11:13We probably lost 15 or 20 airplanes on a stupid rail facility.
11:18Then we moved over and took out the blast furnaces.
11:22And we did that for 10 days.
11:24And it was dead after the second day.
11:26And they moved in more and more SAMs, more and more guns, more and more MiGs.
11:29We lost a whole group.
11:30A lot of the guys knew we went to some other piece of crap.
11:32And by the time we were through, we'd been here for 30 days.
11:34The place looks like the moon.
11:36And we could have finished the whole bloody thing in three or four days.
11:41Many pilots attributed heavy losses at the steel mill to poor tactics set forth in the frags issued for the strikes.
11:48Frag orders were often written in great detail, preventing flight commanders from using their discretion to adjust tactics as necessary.
11:57The process angered many pilots, who felt that poor planning and excessive control by men far removed from the fighting,
12:05frequently resulted in unnecessary losses.
12:08At Taiwen Iron and Steelworks, strike pilots were ordered to fly the exact same ingress and egress routes,
12:16at exactly the same times, against the same targets, day after day.
12:23Pilot concerns about the policies and strategies behind Rolling Thunder,
12:27were further heightened by the declaration of numerous bombing pauses.
12:31The first bombing halt was declared only nine weeks into the campaign.
12:36So many bombing halts were eventually ordered, that a major study by US government historians
12:42could not account for the exact number that took place.
12:46The pauses were intended to encourage the North Vietnamese to reconsider continuing support of war in the south.
12:54But in reality, their impact was far different, and usually resulted in much worse conditions for pilots when they returned to the skies over North Vietnam.
13:05The Vietnamese used these opportunities to jam the roads with trucks and supplies going south.
13:14And they told me themselves that they were incredulous, that we would give them this opportunity to rebuild their defenses
13:22and to supply the south by declaring these so-called bombing pauses.
13:28And that, of course, was frustrating to those of us who were trying to conduct the war in a successful manner.
13:39As the Vietnam War escalated, and the anti-war movement in the US grew,
13:43some erosion in morale began to take shape among ground forces that were taking heavy casualties in the south.
13:50For the pilots who flew strike missions against the north, there was also anger and frustration.
13:56But it was largely limited to debate about the policies and strategies that were limiting their success while costing them dearly.
14:04Even though we were severely limited in the kinds of combat that we could engage in and the rules of engagement were so strict,
14:15it was also a belief that we were going to hopefully bring the war to an end.
14:20And remember, this was before the anti-war movement became so strong and so active in the United States.
14:29It was still a kind of a, certainly in the circles that I was in the military, a belief that we were doing the right thing.
14:42U.S. bombing missions against North Vietnam were split between Air Force squadrons stationed in Thailand
14:48and naval squadrons that launched from carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
14:51Naval strikes were carried out by pilots in A-4 Skyhawks, advanced all-weather A-6 intruders,
15:00and late in the campaign, A-7 Corsairs.
15:04But it was the pilots of the small and simple Skyhawk, a single-seat light attack aircraft
15:10capable of operating from the shorter decks of older carriers that bore the brunt of offensive operations during Rolling Thunder.
15:17The vast majority of Air Force bombing missions were carried out by the pilots of F-105 Thunder Chiefs,
15:26stationed at Korat and Takli Royal Thai Air Force bases.
15:30The Thunder Chief, or THUD, was one of the biggest and fastest single-seat aircraft of its time.
15:37It was designed during the height of the Cold War to be America's premier nuclear strike fighter.
15:42But in Vietnam, hundreds of 105s were modified to carry large loads of iron bombs, rockets, and missiles.
15:53In order to reach targets from their bases in Thailand, pilots had to refuel the heavily-laden bombers almost immediately after takeoff.
16:03As soon as all of the thuds had topped off, the strike force crossed the border into North Vietnam and ingressed toward their target.
16:14A typical Air Force strike package initially consisted of four flights of four 105s spaced several minutes apart.
16:22The pilots normally remained at medium altitude, roughly 12 to 15,000 feet, until they reached the Red River, which ran from China in the northwest, right through the capital city of Hanoi.
16:37The force then dropped to treetop level and used landmarks, such as a line of mountains that came to be known as Thud Ridge, to guide them to their target.
16:48The North Vietnamese air defense network was relatively primitive at the start of Rolling Thunder.
16:56A few anti-aircraft guns posed a serious threat, but the vast majority of ground fire came from local militia units armed with everything from Russian AK-47s to handguns.
17:07The 105s often maintained speeds of 500 to 600 knots at altitudes of less than 100 feet to minimize their exposure time.
17:19At the last second, they quickly popped up and rolled in at an extremely steep angle of attack.
17:28The strategy appeared sound in theory, but nobody had anticipated the enormous amount of fire the crews would take from below.
17:40At least five aircraft were lost on the first Rolling Thunder mission.
17:46A surface-to-air missile brought down an American aircraft for the first time on July 21, 1965.
17:58By the end of the year, ten more had been down, and dozens more had been lost to ground fire.
18:03Both the Navy and the Air Force began experimenting with various forms of electronic warfare in an attempt to prevent the loss of additional aircraft.
18:16Among the most effective was the support provided by Air Force EB-66 crews, who often spearheaded the F-105 and F-4 missions launched from Thailand.
18:25The EB-66 contained an extremely powerful set of generators, sensors, and jamming devices that could detect and interfere with enemy acquisition radars.
18:40Four of the 66s generally orbited just inside the North Vietnamese border, creating a safe channel for the strike force to fly down.
18:48The U.S. also initiated anti-radiation missions, codenamed Iron Hand, in an attempt to address the growing SAM threat.
19:01Iron Hand aircraft, like this two-seat F-105 Wild Weasel, were initially equipped with electronic indicators that allowed crews to ride a SAM's radar signal to its source.
19:12Once the station was pinpointed, the radar was destroyed with conventional bombs.
19:23In early 1966, Iron Hand flights began operating with the AGM-45 Shrike, a radar-seeking missile that revolutionized SAM suppression operations.
19:34The Shrike could be launched several miles from an active surface-to-air missile battery and would continue to home in on the installation's radar as long as it remained on line.
19:50Upon impact, the SAM's guidance system was instantly rendered useless, even for missiles that had already been launched.
19:58They didn't often hit the target, but what they would do is cause the radars to go off.
20:06And that, of course, impaired their ability to keep tracking on us.
20:10But you reach a point, such as around Hanoi, where there's just so many of the SAM installations.
20:16There was three concentric rings around Hanoi of surface-to-air missiles that the Shrikes could neutralize some,
20:23but it just wasn't possible to neutralize all of them.
20:28The Shrike did reduce the surface-to-air missile threat, but it could rarely protect pilots from SAM attacks that had already been launched.
20:36To make matters worse, the primitive ECM packages aboard most strike aircraft could only alert a pilot to potential threats,
20:44a capability that was quickly rendered useless.
20:47The ECM equipment, electronic countermeasures equipment, although okay, was not designed to counter the kind of threat that you experienced
20:59when you flew into a high-threat area like Haiphong or Hanoi.
21:02It gave you indications that a missile or radar was tracking on you.
21:05That's fine if there's one or two, but if there's 20 of them, it doesn't matter.
21:09We used to just turn down the volume because it didn't matter.
21:12The Air Force began experimenting with a more powerful ECM pod in late 1966 that was supposed to allow strike crews to independently jam enemy radar.
21:25The pods were relatively weak by modern standards, but did appear to offer limited protection.
21:31It seemed to work very, very well because they'd still fire the SAMs, and the SAMs would come flying through our flights, oftentimes really quite close to us.
21:44But they wouldn't detonate where we were.
21:46So the proximity fuses or whatever that they had just weren't working, and so we were able to survive a very, very high-threat defensive weapon.
21:56The battle for air superiority and the struggle to combat SAMs commanded tremendous attention.
22:04But ground fire remained the greatest threat to U.S. strike pilots.
22:09Bolstered by larger caliber anti-aircraft guns arriving from China, areas in and around Hanoi and the Port of Haiphong became some of the most heavily defended positions in history.
22:21Only eight thuds were lost to MiGs and Sams during 1966, but more than a hundred were brought down by ground fire.
22:39High loss rates had a tremendous effect on morale.
22:42Evening wakes in which airmen toasted comrades who had been lost during the day became a tradition.
22:51To make matters worse, it became clear that North Vietnam was not going to buckle under the weight of rolling thunder.
22:58A protracted campaign in which many more would be lost seemed inevitable.
23:03Yet the pilots continued to fly each day, confident that they would make it back safely, but hoping that it would all be over soon.
23:12You had to believe that it wouldn't happen to you.
23:18There's the golden BB theory.
23:20You weren't there unless you wanted to fly.
23:24So you flew.
23:25And the theory was that, hey, you have no control.
23:29You have to do your best.
23:31You do what you were trained to do, and if it's your day, it's your bad day, it's your bad day.
23:36The golden BB is one that comes out of nowhere.
23:44The intensity of rolling thunder bombing operations against North Vietnam escalated dramatically in mid-1967.
23:53Frustrated by a lack of progress, President Johnson released numerous targets that had previously been off limits to strike crews.
24:00At the time of the escalation, Air Force and Navy assaults were evolving into much larger, integrated strike packages that included numerous supporting aircraft.
24:12Major Air Force assaults typically included several flights of F-4s to suppress the threat of MiGs,
24:19several EB-66s to jam North Vietnamese radars, and several wild weasels to suppress the threat from SAMs.
24:26Navy assaults also evolved from individual strikes by two or four aircraft into what became known as alpha strikes that could contain as many as 120 strike and supporting aircraft from multiple carriers.
24:41The Navy began launching as many as three alpha strikes a day against major targets in North Vietnam as the pace of operations intensified.
24:56The missions were extremely complex and often resulted in several casualties.
25:00They were pretty complicated operations, a lot of coordination, a lot of training and a lot of skills involved.
25:10And over the target, of course, it would get very busy with lots of airplanes and lots of surfaced air missiles and artillery.
25:19At that time, Hanoi was the most heavily defended place in the history of warfare against air attacks.
25:25North Vietnam was divided into six target areas known as route packages to clarify the operational responsibilities of Air Force and Navy crews.
25:37But the notorious region in Route Pack 6 remained split between both services.
25:43It contained the vast majority of the country's industrial base, the heaviest concentration of anti-aircraft defenses, and the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong.
25:51The area is relatively small geographically, and by mid-'67, North Vietnamese radar operators had become accustomed to U.S. tactics and had developed highly sophisticated tracking techniques.
26:06The increasing complexity and danger drove many strike force commanders to assert much greater control over their day-to-day operations.
26:14As a force commander, at that time, I took tremendous time in figuring my route.
26:26And if the frag order did not go along with what I thought was the proper way to attack this target, I, as a force commander, disregarded the frag.
26:38And I realized that sometimes that's not a good thing to do. But in this case, it was. They were very far removed from the day-to-day things and the changes in the enemy air order of battle.
26:51And, hey, we've just been there. You know, the day before, I've been there. I know where that lead, that SAM lead is. And I know where that .57 is. And I know where that .85 and that .100 is.
27:01I know where those guns are, because I was there.
27:06The experience gained by strike crews in the first phase of Rolling Thunder began to pay off in a major way in mid-1967, when several major targets were released for the first time.
27:17On August 11th, 26 F-105s launched on a mission to strike the Paul Dumer Bridge.
27:30The bridge was an essential rail and road link that crossed the Red River on the outskirts of downtown Hanoi.
27:35It was the largest bridge in North Vietnam and could be seen by pilots flying missions throughout the region.
27:43But for more than two years, it had remained strictly off-limits.
27:49We've been hitting airfields there for about a week.
27:52And Ho Walk Airfield is almost due west of Hanoi.
27:59So I said, hey, guys, I'll tell you what we're going to do.
28:03We're going to come off the tankers.
28:04We're going to drop down to the top of the hills, 8,000, 10,000 feet.
28:08And we're going to go right at Ho Walk.
28:11And just before we get to Ho Walk, and they'll start shooting just before we get there, trust me,
28:16we're going to make about a five-degree turn to the right, and we're going to go right downtown Hanoi,
28:23roll in over the lake, so we're going to knock down the Dober Bridge.
28:26We did. Just as I said, as we come over the mountains, there's Ho Walk and we start for it,
28:33the whole world lit up.
28:35It was perfect timing because, hey, they're coming after this airfield.
28:39Twenty-six thud crews swarmed down on the bridge in three waves.
28:44Each flight was escorted by eight F-4s for flak and MiG suppression
28:48and four F-105 Wild Weasels to guard against the threat from SAMS.
28:52One man was shot down and captured, but the strike was a success.
28:58Several bridge spans were damaged, and one of the pilots scored a direct hit,
29:03dropping the center section into the river.
29:05For the first time in the war, the massive and vital Doomer Bridge was out of action.
29:14Authorization for assaults against North Vietnamese airfields was perhaps the biggest change in targeting policy.
29:20The first strike was launched against Ho Walk in April of 67, but for several months the main airfield at Fukien remained off limits.
29:32Then in October, President Johnson personally authorized a major raid against the airfield.
29:39Strike crews were ecstatic. They knew they would lose some men, but many had been waiting for a chance to hit Fukien for years.
29:47We were sending roughly two missions a day up to North Vietnam, up to root pack six.
29:56And we got very, very tired and frustrated coming down Thud Ridge to see the MiG-21s coming out of Fukien Air Base, operating with impunity there.
30:09We could not touch them. We couldn't engage them. We couldn't make a pass at them in a pattern.
30:16We couldn't do anything. It was just totally off limits, and yet these were the defenses that were coming up.
30:22And every day when we went up there, they would make passes at us and shoot their IR missiles at us and whatever.
30:29A strike force of more than 40 F-105s, supported by dozens of other aircraft, launched on the mission against Fukien in late October.
30:44Poor weather had prevented two consecutive strike attempts earlier in the month.
30:48Then, as was often the case, the airfield disappeared from the target list.
30:58Many pilots were sure they had missed their golden opportunity.
31:03By the time they finally rolled in on Fukien late in the month, their desire to put the airfield out of action had reached a fevered pitch.
31:11The pilots were so anxious to hit it, so determined, knowing that this may be the only chance they'd ever had, is that they bombed with incredible accuracy.
31:24It was unbelievable to see the attack going on, you know, in progress, and then to see the strike films afterwards.
31:31I don't think there was a target that wasn't hit and destroyed. We destroyed a number of MiGs on the ground and tower and all that stuff.
31:40I mean, it was just absolutely incredible.
31:43For three days, Fukien and Kat Bai, an airfield near the port city of Haiphong, were pounded by Air Force and Navy bombers.
31:51Several aircraft were lost, but more than 20 MiGs were damaged or destroyed on the ground.
31:56At least one was shot down, and runways at both facilities were severely cratered.
32:14The success of strike crews during the escalation of Rolling Thunder came at an extremely high price.
32:19More than 420 Air Force and 180 Naval aircraft were lost in Southeast Asia in 1967 alone.
32:29A-4 and F-105 pilots continued to suffer the most.
32:36Dozens of Skyhawks and more than a hundred thuds were lost in combat.
32:41Mounting losses began to take a serious toll on strike force morale.
32:46The strain was particularly heartfelt at the 105 bases in Thailand.
32:53New airmen were being rotated into combat, but there weren't enough airplanes or instructor pilots to train men properly while conducting combat operations.
33:04Instead, a dwindling pool of pilots was used to meet the extreme demands of strike schedules that had to be filled each and every day.
33:12It was not uncommon for a pilot to fly 20 missions, maybe 22 missions in a month.
33:22And you think about that, 32 days, and that's flying those missions.
33:25And on those other days, he probably was a spare.
33:28So he was on the schedule virtually every day.
33:31And when you consider the kinds of missions that we were flying and the early goals and so forth, it got to be a very demanding physical as well as an emotional drain on the pilot.
33:45So it was tough. Very, very tough.
33:49The goal for every Air Force pilot in Vietnam was 100 missions.
33:56Many opted to fly more.
33:58But if a pilot made it to his hundredth mission, he could go home.
34:02The length of a Navy pilot's tour was tied to the amount of time the Air Wing was on station.
34:09Many airmen amassed more than 200 missions in squadrons that suffered some of the highest loss rates of the war.
34:15Loss rates for thud crews were especially dire.
34:26At one point, an analysis of strike operations found that it was statistically impossible for a 105 pilot to fly more than 68 missions without being shot down.
34:37We had in the wing a 100 mission board on which the names of all of the pilots who completed 100 missions would be inscribed.
34:48We also had a missing man board on which all of those pilots who were shot down would have their names inscribed.
34:58The one 100 mission board was twice as long as the missing man board, which translated says that one out of three guys, prior to the time that I left, in search of their 100th mission, didn't make it.
35:19Few things instilled more fear in strike pilots than the prospect of having to bail out over North Vietnam.
35:26If they weren't killed on ejection, or by a rogue gunner as they parachuted to the ground, they were likely to face years of confinement, mental abuse and torture.
35:38Fortunately for hundreds of airmen, a dedicated search and rescue force was developed in Vietnam that specialized in recovering downed airmen from hostile territory.
35:49Air Force rescue attempts were conducted by A1 Sky Raider pilots, known as Sandys, in conjunction with the crews of HH-3 and HH-53 Jolly Greens.
36:02Navy rescues were performed by SH-3 Sea King crews that launched from carriers under the call sign Big Mother.
36:11Big Mother.
36:13Both rescue forces remained on high alert throughout the day, and during larger bombing raids, the Jolly Greens orbited high above the border of North Vietnam until the last bombing runs had ended.
36:28The uncommon bravery of search and rescue crews resulted in the recovery of more than 3,900 airmen, many of whom were pulled to safety as enemy forces arrived on scene and began firing from below.
36:45But despite the valiant efforts of rescue crews, hundreds of other airmen were downed in areas that were too heavily defended to effect rescue, and were subsequently killed, captured, or never found.
36:59Incredibly though, most pilots continued to fly into combat with almost reckless abandon, even in squadrons that suffered some of the highest loss rates of the war.
37:09There was intense camaraderie, and especially among the pilots of more seasoned air wings, a certain sense of invincibility.
37:18Senator John McCain remembers the feeling well.
37:22It was almost palpable on October 26, 1967, the day that he and 19 other pilots aboard the USS Oriskany were ordered to take out a North Vietnamese power plant.
37:34It was one of the first strike missions conducted inside the city limits of Hanoi, and although McCain was concerned that some men might go down, he remained extremely confident.
37:47We knew it was a tough target, small target.
37:50We knew it was heavily defended, and we knew it was going to be a very risky business.
37:56But again, I guess the best way that I can describe our attitude is that after the briefing and I was headed out to my airplane, I ran into an old friend of mine who was one of the ship's company officers.
38:11His name was Lou Chatham, and Lou said, you better be careful this time, we're going to lose some people on this strike.
38:17And I said, well, you don't have to worry about me, Lou.
38:20And an hour later, I was in a lake in the center of the city of Hanoi.
38:24Bursts from anti-aircraft shells filled the sky as the strike force approached downtown Hanoi.
38:41McCain evaded the fire as best he could, but just before he reached the power plant, a warning light began to glow in his cockpit.
38:49A SAM battery's radar was locked on his Skyhawk.
38:55I got over the target, rolled in.
38:57I had indications that a missile was tracking on me or missiles.
39:01I had just released the bombs and was starting to pull back on the stick when a missile hit my right wing of the airplane, taking it off.
39:09I was at very high speed, headed straight down.
39:12I ejected.
39:14The plane was going very fast and was gyrating very badly, so I broke both my arms and hit my knee when I went out.
39:23Landed, according to observers, my parachute opened when just about the same time my feet hit the lake and went into the lake.
39:32I tried to inflate my life vest.
39:36I was unable to do so because my arms were broken.
39:39I got my teeth around a toggle switch, inflated the life vest, came to the surface, and a bunch of Vietnamese had jumped into the water.
39:48Latest reports, by the way, there must have been about 10,000 of them that have claimed that they pulled me out.
39:53But they pulled me out, pulled me up on the bank.
39:58A crowd of Vietnamese came around.
40:00They were very angry, bayoneted me in the ankle and in the groin, smashed my shoulder with a rifle butt, and it was very tense, to say the least.
40:12McCain's right knee was also badly broken during ejection.
40:17North Vietnamese troops pulled him from the hostile crowd, threw him in the back of a truck, and drove him to a local prison that American airmen sarcastically dubbed the Hanoi Hilton.
40:32For the next five years, McCain, like hundreds of other pilots turned prisoner of war, endured severe beatings, mental abuse, and torture.
40:45On April 1st, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson ordered a halt to bombing operations north of the 20th parallel, effectively ending the Rolling Thunder campaign against North Vietnam.
41:00In spite of the dramatic decision, the war in South Vietnam continued to rage on.
41:08American forces suffered heavy losses, both in the air and on the ground, while South Vietnamese, Viet Cong, and North Vietnamese casualty figures reached staggering proportions.
41:21American airmen who had been shot down and captured during Rolling Thunder also remained imprisoned in various North Vietnamese facilities.
41:31Most endured harsh physical and mental abuse during their confinement.
41:38But for many, the anguish created by years of complete separation from loved ones back home was far worse.
41:49On March 30th, 1972, North Vietnam invaded the South in an all-out offensive that many analysts had been predicting for years.
42:00A week later, President Richard Nixon ordered U.S. Airmen to return to the skies over North Vietnam under a bombing campaign that came to be known as Linebacker.
42:13The periodic talks aimed at the war continued, but on December 13th, the North Vietnamese government broke off all negotiations.
42:26In response, President Nixon initiated Linebacker 2, the first maximum round-the-clock bombing effort against the urban centers of Hanoi and Haiphong.
42:39More than 700 B-52 sorties were launched against the cities over the course of 11 days.
42:49On December 29th, 1972, President Nixon ordered a halt to the massive bombing campaign.
42:58Within a week, the North Vietnamese government resumed negotiations that ultimately led to the end of American involvement in the war.
43:08Rolling Thunder has been called one of the most ambitious, wasteful and ineffective air campaigns in the history of warfare.
43:18Many who flew in it would agree.
43:23They argued that among other things, complex rules of engagement, White House micromanagement, and numerous political restraints ultimately prevented U.S. Air Forces from ending the conflict much sooner.
43:39In the eyes of most American servicemen, Linebacker 2 finally put an end to a tragedy that had dragged on unnecessarily for far too long.
43:49It also ultimately ended the confinement of more than 600 prisoners of war, most of whom were F-105 or A-4 pilots who had been shot down during Rolling Thunder.
44:04But it could never put an end to the pain and frustration of those airmen who fought hard to bring the conflict to a close years earlier.
44:13We finally got mad. We finally did something, and it worked.
44:19We could have done it in 65, whatever.
44:23We could have taken the dykes out in 65 and starved up.
44:25Oh, you can't do that.
44:27Well, what the hell do you think we're doing? It's a war.
44:29You know, people are dying. We're dropping bombs, stuff's falling on them.
44:32This is not any fun.
44:34If you go to a war, you go in and you be violent, and you get it over quick and you go home, i.e., the Gulf War.
44:42Okay?
44:43You fight a war and you lose 100 people?
44:45That's wonderful.
44:47That's phenomenal.
44:48That's the way you ought to.
44:50You get it over.
44:51If you go mess around and you put 50,000 names on a wall, you've lost.
44:59And we can't blame it all on Johnson and McNamara.
45:04Not one general officer ever fell on his sword.
45:07We didn't have any Billy Mitchells.
45:09And we lost all these people. We lost all these airplanes.
45:12Over half of the production run of the F-105 was shot down in combat.
45:17That's a record.
45:19Not even the zero lost 50% of the production run.
45:22And they lost, as I remember.
45:25Of course, so did we.
45:29That's a record.
45:34No.