While she was at Hahn, “terribly lost and crazed,” she met Bruce’s Vietnam hooch mate, who’d been close to the pilot in the months before he was shot down. The two talked about Bruce constantly. They began a relationship. “Sometimes we would make love and I didn’t know whether it was you or him,” she wrote in Goodbye. “It was like, I don’t know, some kind of mystical thing, but in the middle it was like you were the same people . . . it sounds weird . . . I grew to hate him . . . I hated him because he wasn’t you.”
Eventually, Martha left the airman and returned to America. She took up jazz singing, an old love, and raised her and Bruce’s daughter, who bore an uncanny resemblance to her father. Every time she moved, she would carry the boxes of Bruce’s clothes with her; this went on for twenty years. And she continued to have dreams about him in which he appeared and stood stock-still in front of her. “Why did you go away from me?” she would ask. In these visions, Bruce never replied.
On April 8, a cluster of Air Force officers arrived in Smyrna, Delaware, and told the Potts family what had happened to Larry. Each member was affected by the disappearance in his or her own way. His aunt Louise, who’d taken Larry in as a young boy and raised him as her own, was admitted to a local hospital, suffering from shock. “She had a nervous breakdown,” says Larry’s nephew Trent Wicks. “She was never the same.”
Many in the family dreamt about Larry for years afterward. Wicks, an Army infantry veteran, had one dream so vivid it seemed like a transmission from Larry himself. “I was in his place,” he said. “I had got shot down, I was running through this tall grassy opening trying to get to a tree line. I couldn’t see the enemy soldiers, but I could hear them. I was running and running and I felt my leg was on fire. I lay down, and I was thinking about my family. I’m all this way from home, thousands of miles away, and I’m going to die right here.” Wicks woke up, breathing hard. “I was in his body. I could smell everything, I could feel everything.”
Wicks compared losing his uncle to an abduction. “It’s as if your kid or your wife goes missing, and they never find the body. It’s a wide-open void.”
Notes
(ST) denotes an interview conducted by Stephan Talty. (DW) denotes an interview conducted by Darrel Whitcomb.
PROLOGUE: THE RIVER
Gene Hambleton pushed himself away: For Hambleton’s stumbling onto the Mieu Giang, see Gene Hambleton with Marjorie Johnson, unpublished memoir manuscript, pp. 114–17 (hereafter unpublished Hambleton manuscript).
“Thank you, sweet Jesus”: William Anderson, BAT-21 (New York: Bantam, 1983), p. 168.
“What had looked like a godsend”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 123.
“You goddamn son of a bitch”: Interview with Major Donald Lunday, October 1994 (DW).
“Damn, I didn’t know they made ’em that small”: Tom Norris and Mike Thornton with Dick Couch, By Honor Bound: Two Navy SEALS, the Medal of Honor, and a Story of Extraordinary Courage (New York: St. Martin’s, 2016), p. 22.
he’d managed to improve his vision: Interview with Tommy Norris and Michael Thornton, Academy of Achievement, http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/#interview.
“He simply did not seem to notice”: Norris and Thornton, By Honor Bound, p. 5.
1. MIDWESTERN
Then a letter arrived instructing him: Interview with Sharon Fitzpatrick, July 2017 (ST).
a company that bred and sold Percheron horses: Ibid.
“He was opinionated and bullheaded”: Interview with Pam Forrest, June 2017 (ST).
“soft and fuzzy”: Interview with Sharon Fitzpatrick, July 2017 (ST).
“a carbon copy of thousands of little communities”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 38.
“By a family’s reputation from generations past”: Ibid.
“All my life I’ve been looking for the guy”: Radio interview with Gene Hambleton and Roy Leonard, undated, Hambleton family archive.
“big boned and with perfect posture”: For an account of the schoolroom and the strap incident, see unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 37.
He and his friends put a smoke bomb: Ibid., p. 39.
they occupied themselves by picking up: Ibid., p. 40.
“In the most concentrated propaganda campaign”: Transcript, March of Time newsreel, January 21, 1938, quoted in “The March Toward War: The March of Time as Documentary and Propaganda,” http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma04/wood/mot/html/germany.htm.
“‘Hitler’ was a name we were hearing”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 23.
“was no way for our country to stay out”: Ibid.
“‘When the time comes, I’m going to get into the action’”: Ibid.
Gene Hambleton fully expected to be flying bombers: Interview with Sharon Fitzpatrick (ST).
Chapman grew up in a plain farmhouse: The sketch of Chapman’s childhood is drawn from interviews with Brad Huffman and the pilot’s sisters Beth, Carol, and Jean, August 2017 (ST).
The military quickly sent him home: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 23.
He found a job at the enormous Joliet Arsenal: Interview with Donna Cutsinger and Mary Ann Anderson, March 2017 (ST).
“She was the rock in that family”: Interview with Joy Hukill (ST).
When he was nine years old: Interview with Donna Cutsinger and Mary Ann Anderson (ST).
“We always thought of her as a movie star”: Interview with Sharon Fitzpatrick (ST).
When he argued about his salary with his supervisor: Interviews with Donna Cutsinger and Mary Ann Anderson (ST).
“We bet there are a lot of taxicab drivers”: Quoted in Lieutenant Colonel Jay A. Stout, The Men Who Killed the Luftwaffe: The U.S. Army Air Forces Against Germany in World War II (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 2010), p. 208.
Over the course of the war: Marilyn Pierce, “Earning Their Wings: Accidents and Fatalities in the United States Army Air Force During Flight Training, World War Two” (Ph.D. diss., Kansas State University, 2013).
“honest, truthful, reliable”: Quoted in William Mitchell, From the Pilot Factory, 1942 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005), p. 26.
he flew thirty missions over Germany: Interview with Sharon Fitzpatrick (ST).
“On top of his resentment over not becoming a pilot”: Ibid.
“In 1945, I graduated”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 24.
2. ROCKET MAN
“They would have been awesome parents”: Interview with Donna Cutsinger (ST).
“He was a delightful uncle”: Interview with Pam Forrest (ST).
“I love you so damn much”: Letters from Gene Hambleton to Gwen Hambleton, Hambleton family archives.
“for five years or five stars”: Anderson, BAT-21, p. 49.
“I’d been in targeting for most of my career”: Marv Wolf, “Bat 21: Down Near the DMZ,” Soldier of Fortune, May 1991.
Hambleton flew to Turkey: Gene Hambleton service records, Hambleton family archive.
“he’d even had a paper route”: Norris and Thornton, By Honor Bound, p. 20.
Tommy and his brothers heard on the radio: Ibid., p. 19.
“More than the other boys”: Ibid., p. 21.
he failed the crucial depth-perception test: Interview with Norris and Thornton, Academy of Achievement.
“I rattled off”: Ibid.
He washed out: Interview with Sharon Fitzpatrick (ST).
“It was devastating”: Ibid.
“too small, too thin and not strong enough”: Peter Collier, Choosing Courage: Inspiring Stories of What It Means to Be a Hero (New York: Artisan, 2006), p. 118.
Norris came down with a stomach virus: Norris and Thornton, By Honor Bound, p. 15.
“as tough as one man could be”: Interview with Darrel Whitcomb, May 2017 (ST).
“Tommy’s the nicest guy in the world”: Ibid.
He rarely drank: Norris and Thornton, By Honor Bound, p. 4.
“A real gentleman, very engaging”: Ibid.
“Probably more than any of the rest of us”: Ibid., p. 15.
3. KORAT
he might have spotted in the corner of his mirror: For this and other details about life at Korat, see Colonel Dennis Ridenour, ed., The Vietnam Air War: First Person (self-published, 2016), especially the chapter “Early Days at Korat Flying the Thud” by John Schroeder. Also see Jay R. Jensen, Six Years in Hell (self-published, 1989), pp. 11–14.
a visiting American nurse at another Thai base: Dave Richardson, Vietnam Air Rescues (self-published, 2011), Kindle location 3338.
One aspiring jock remembered the moment: Lieutenant Colonel Jay Lacklen, Flying the Line: An Air Force Pilot’s Journey; Pilot Training, Vietnam, SAC, 1970–1979 (self-published, 2014), p. 20.
And there was Roscoe: Jensen, Six Years in Hell, p. 16.
Sometimes you would see pilots and their navigators: Ridenour, The Vietnam Air War, Kindle location 1073.
When he checked in, Hambleton learned: Interview with Hambleton, February 1993 (DW).
But the navigator scheduled to fly: Letter from Thomas McKinney to Gene Hambleton, undated, Hambleton family archive.
“Our conversation usually runs to sharp banter”: Ed Cobleigh, War for the Hell of It: A Fighter Pilot’s View of Vietnam (Paso Robles, Calif.: Check Six Books, 2016), Kindle location 439.
“I’ll tell you one thing”: Radio interview with Gene Hambleton and Roy Leonard, undated, Hambleton family archive.
The CIA had secretly bought a Fan Song radar: Steven J. Zaloga, Red Sam: The SA-2 Guideline Anti-Aircraft Missile (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2007), Kindle location 291.
It was a simple, if terrifying, process: The description of jinking is drawn from Jensen, Six Years in Hell, p. 9; and Ridenour, The Vietnam Air War, Kindle location 1578.
“Every day,” said one airman, “was like going to the OK Corral”: Interview with Bill Henderson, March 2017 (ST).
4. THE BOYS IN THE BACK
“There is no way a SAM could hit my airplane”: “Air Force Veteran Recalls 12-Day Ordeal in Vietnam,” Arizona Daily Wildcat, February 4, 1982.
passing them extra cash: Remembrance of Levis posted by Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Miller on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund site, http://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/30499/CHARLES-A-LEVIS.
“You crows in back wake up”: Anderson, BAT-21, p. 3.
As they approached the DMZ: The account of the shootdown is drawn from the unpublished Hambleton manuscript, various interviews with Hambleton, his after-action report, and Darrel Whitcomb, The Rescue of Bat 21 (New York: Dell, 1999).
Detachment 62: This account is from a newspaper article, Xuan Viet and Dac Tu, “Vinh Linh Detachments Damage B52 Aircraft,” Nhan Dhan (Hanoi), April 5, 1972.
“Avenge our murdered compatriots!”: Ibid.
530 mph: Initial Evasion and Recovery Report on the Hambleton incident, p. 2. Hambleton reported that the EB-66C was traveling at 460 knots.
“Oh shit,” shouted the pilot: Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 27.
“SAM on scope!”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 1.
“We were five seconds late”: Ibid.
“Negative, negative, negative, move left, move left!”: Buzz Busboom interview with Hambleton, November 1993.
5. THE TIME OF USEFUL CONSCIOUSNESS
“tremendous noise”: “Training, Equipment Paid Off,” Las Vegas Sun, April 26, 1972.
His windscreen melted away: Wolf, “Bat 21: Down Near the DMZ.”
“the impatient jangle of a doorbell”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 3.
looking back and down at Bolte: Initial Evasion and Recovery Report on the Hambleton incident, p. 2.
“It’s gone,” he thought to himself, “it’s completely gone”: Buzz Busboom interview with Hambleton.
But the force of the blast had pushed him: Ibid.
“Everything I did made me spin faster”: Ibid.
“I thought, I’m going to black out”: Ibid.
“I’m going to hang here the rest of my life”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 22.
Inside the plane sat First Lieutenant Bill Jankowski: Interview with Bill Jankowski, August 1990 (DW).
“‘Bat 21 Alpha’”: Ibid. Jankowski was the only service member who reported hearing Bolte’s call on the radio that day.
“Look up,” Hambleton said: Hambleton repeated this response in several interviews and, in a slightly altered form, in the unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 5.
“It about blew my mind”: Interview with Jankowski (DW).
“The great opportunity to end the U. S. war of aggression”: “Appeal to All VC Cadre, Soldiers and People,” Hambleton family archive.
“I could see troops all around me”: Interview with Hambleton (DW).
“I said to myself, ‘Don’t breathe’”: Undated newspaper clipping, Hambleton family archive.
6. ERNIE BANKS
Hambleton knew he couldn’t stay: Hambleton’s moves immediately after the shootdown are drawn from the unpublished Hambleton manuscript, pp. 6–13.
he estimated there were 150 to 200 enemy soldiers: Ibid., p. 26.
“I’m sitting in an airplane six and a half miles up”: Hambleton radio interview with Roy Leonard, Hambleton family archive.
The Air Force would drop over twice as much ordnance on Vietnam: Stuart Auerbach, “Wide Devastation by Big Bomb Told,” Washington Post, December 28, 1971.
“I had information that they must know”: Jensen, Six Years in Hell, p. 41.
Moscow also sent a team of specially trained operatives: Ilya Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), p. 64.
At one point they even located and recovered the intact cockpit: Merle L. Pribbenow, “The Soviet-Vietnamese Intelligence Relationship During the Vietnam War: Cooperation and Conflict,” working paper, Wilson International Center for Scholars, December 2014.
“How could we find and attack their SAM sites?”: Merle L. Pribbenow, “Who Interrogated American Electronic Warfare Specialists in North Vietnam During the War: The Riddle of the Task Force Russia 294 Report,” December 11, 2014, http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2014/12/tfr294.html.
“six or seven”: Buzz Busboom interview with Hambleton.
“What is your dog’s name?”: Anderson, BAT-21, p. 11.
“It started to look like the Fourth of July”: Interview with Jankowski (DW).
7. BLUEGHOST 39
Born in Tijuana, Mexico, Astorga had immigrated: Astorga’s story is drawn from several interviews with him, March–August 2017 (ST).
“What’s-his-name’s sick”: Ibid.
He’d grown up in rural northwestern North Dakota: The account of Kulland’s boyhood and service is drawn from interviews with his brother Lee Kulland, his sister Karen Wallgren, and his wife, Leona Hauge (ST).
“We would walk down the street in New Town”: Interview with Karen Wallgren, July 2017 (ST).
“We used to wrestle”: http://arlingtoncemetery.net/bkkulland.htm.
“It was like it was out there somewhere”: Interview with Karen Wallgren (ST).
“One day we had gone someplace after dark”: Interview with Leona Hauge, August 2017 (ST).
“Rescue choppers are airborne”: Anderson, BAT-21, p. 32.
“was being rapidly converted”: Whitcomb,Rescue of Bat 21, p. 35.
“Sir, there’s a lot of smoke coming out of the engine”: This and all subsequent quotations from Astorga are from interviews with him (ST).
“It was almost like the time for the shift change”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 14.
“They were looking and looking hard”: Ibid., p. 11.
“It was dark as pitch”: Ibid., p. 12.
“My crew and I ran out to the airplane”: Interview with Dennis Constant (DW).
“I was thinking this guy sounds cool as a cucumber”: Ibid. The quotations that follow are also from the Constant interview.
“I’d never seen so much
ground fire in my whole life”: Interview with Don Morse, May 1993 (DW).
“Every hill looked like a Christmas tree”: Robert E. Stoffey, Fighting to Leave: The Final Years of America’s War in Vietnam, 1972–1973 (Minneapolis: Zenith Press, 2008), p. 32.
“I’d gotten five and couldn’t see number six”: Interview with Gary Ferentchak, April 1993 (DW).
“I was like, ‘Holy shit, man’”: Interview with Constant (DW).
In the early eveningof April 2: The account of the downing of Blueghost 39 is drawn from interviews with José Astorga (ST); and Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, pp. 32–38.
“Can you dig in for the night?”: Anderson, BAT-21, p. 34.
“It was the worst night of my life”: Interview with Morse (DW).
8. TUCSON
Gwen Hambleton was cleaning up: The account of Gwen Hambleton is drawn from Anderson, BAT-21, pp. 23–24.
One time near Hanoi: This anecdote is from Jensen, Six Years in Hell, p. 14.
“99 percent of the family”: http://arlingtoncemetery.net/bkkulland.htm.
In the small Minnesota town of Wadena: This account is drawn from an interview with Karen Wallgren (ST).
In Colorado Springs, the younger Giannangeli children: This account is drawn from interviews with Dennis and Robert Giannangeli and Mary Lou Giannangeli, March–September 2017 (ST).
9. BLOWTORCH JOCKEYS
“It was dark dark”: Interview with Hambleton (DW).
He woke and raised his head: Unless otherwise noted, the details in this chapter are drawn from the unpublished Hambleton manuscript, pp. 12–35.
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