“Blowtorch jockeys,” he called them: Anderson, BAT-21, p. 29.
“almost been a computer game”: Ibid., p. 31.
“Dropping a bomb from a plane”: Hambleton obituary, Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2004.
“Turning healthy human beings”: Ibid.
10. JOKER
“I had clear instructions”: Interview with Major General John Carley (DW).
“were the sole combat element”: Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie (New York: Vintage, 1988), p. 762.
“At my side, I had an Army liaison”: Interview with Daryl Tincher, June 1993 (DW).
“This has been part of American society”: Colin Daileda, “The Military History of ‘Leave No Man Behind,’” Mashable, June 14, 2014, https://mashable.com/2014/06/14/bowe-bergdahl-are-american-military-soldiers-ever-left-behind/#QYhi2v9VwGq3.
“We knew who he was”: Interview with Tincher (DW).
Hambleton could have been some pogue lieutenant: This sentiment is repeated in interviews with Bill Henderson (ST) and with Tommy Norris (DW), among others.
“the Very Nice Air Force”: The term was in common usage among USAF personnel and is mentioned in Cobleigh, War for the Hell of It, Kindle location 831.
“There is nothing over here worth an American life”: Interview with Whitcomb (ST).
“I would have ripped”: Interview with Ferentchak (DW).
“The feeling when you get”: Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Lachlan Macleay, February 1993 (DW).
One crew flying a nighttime mission: Stoffey, Fighting to Leave, p. 43.
“We were in full-scale war”: Interview with David Brookbank, August 1990 (DW).
“He read the message carefully”: Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 43.
“You’ve got to shut it down”: Interview with Jerry Turley, June 1993 (DW).
“We were deeply involved in a war”: Ibid.
“My god, my god”: Ibid.
“Where are the American planes?”: Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 118.
“People were just begging for artillery”: Interview with Brookbank (DW).
“Mass hysteria”: Turley in “Just One Man,” Battlefield Diaries, episode 7, Military Channel, 2008.
“One?” he said. “Just one man?”: Interview with Turley (DW).
“I said, Screw you, I’m not going to do it”: Ibid.
“This was the attitude”: Interview with Brookbank (DW).
“They would have killed you”: Ibid.
“I was absolutely up the wall”: Interview with D’Wayne Gray (DW).
“I would rather lose two ARVN divisions”: Ibid.
11. YESTERDAY’S FRAT BOY
“yesterday’s college frat boy”: Bernard Fipp, Triple Sticks: Tales of a Few Young Men in the 1960s (self-published, 2014), p. 2.
The son of a World War II flight engineer: The details of Henderson’s boyhood and war service are drawn from an interview with the pilot (ST).
“Break it off, break it off!”: Interview with Bill Harris, February 1993 (DW).
Crowe experimented with the speed: The details of Jay Crowe’s mission are drawn from an interview with the pilot, April 1993 (DW).
“Extreme, intense fire”: Ibid.
“Where in God’s name had those guns come from?”: Anderson, BAT-21, p. 33.
“Like a busy anthill that had its top kicked off”: Ibid., p. 34.
“like some melancholy emblem”: Ibid., p. 35.
12. “THEIR GLOWING TRAJECTORIES”
“Fliers used every trick to confuse ground detection”: Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 69.
“triumphant”: Newsweek, April 17, 1972, p. 20.
“The loss of the EB-66C”: Ibid.
“The EB-66C contains highly secret electronic equipment”: Times (London), April 22, 1972.
Bill Henderson continued orbiting above the clouds: Unless otherwise noted, the account of Henderson’s shootdown and capture are drawn from an interview with the pilot (ST).
At that moment the missile appeared: Letter from Captain Fred Boli to Darrel Whitcomb, May 28, 1990. Boli was the pilot who watched the SAM pass over his aircraft.
“There were a lot of people”: Evasion and Recovery Report, Mark Clark, Part III: Ejection/Bailout.
“SAM, SAM, vicinity of Khe Sanh!”: Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 61.
“something really big”: Interview with Warrant Officer Ben Nielsen, May 1994 (DW).
“The shit lit up”: Interview with Henderson (DW).
“The ‘war is over’ syndrome was rapidly evaporating”: Lieutenant Commander Jay Crowe, after-tour report submitted to Rear Admiral J. W. Moreau, United States Navy, April 27, 1973.
“big into researching things”: Interview with Ty Crowe, September 2017 (ST).
The pilot grabbed a ride aboard the Jolly Green: Interview with Jay Crowe (DW).
“There aren’t any SA-7s in-country”: Ibid.
13. TINY TIM
On the ground, Hambleton heard the FAC: Unless otherwise noted, the details and quotations in this chapter are drawn from the unpublished Hambleton manuscript, pp. 29–54.
While this was going on, Bill Henderson: Interview with Henderson (ST).
14. FUTILITY
“In my opinion, this gave the enemy”: Quoted in Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 112.
“In early 1972,” Nixon wrote: Richard Nixon, No More Vietnams (New York: Arbor House, 1987), p. 140.
“That’s one determination I’ve made”: Douglas Brinkley and Luke Nichter, The Nixon Tapes (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), p. 383.
“It looks as if they are attacking in Vietnam”: Ibid., p. 429.
“only barely able to control his temper”: Ibid., p. 436.
“What is his job out there?”: Ibid., pp. 436–37.
“Haig says, correctly,” Kissinger told Nixon: Ibid., p. 451.
“We want to see more B-52s”: Ibid., p. 382.
“a rapid global mobility response”: Matthew Brand, “Airpower and the 1972 Easter Offensive” (thesis, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, 2007), p. 15.
“reckless and wrong”: Nixon, No More Vietnams, p. 147.
“has thrown down the gauntlet of nuclear war”: Ibid.
up to ninety sorties a day: Southeast Asia SEA (CHECO) Office, Project Checo Southeast Asia Report: Search and Rescue Operations in SE Asia, 1 April 1972–30 June 1973, p. 38.
“I want Abrams braced hard”: Brinkley and Nichter, The Nixon Tapes, p. 441.
“If this isn’t fought more aggressively”: Ibid., p. 457.
“It was my understanding”: Interview with Cecil Muirhead (DW).
15. “I KNOW WE’RE GOING TO DIE”
“Fear is nibbling at your gut”: Fred Boli in “Just One Man.”
Alley was from Plantation, Florida: Details of James Alley’s boyhood are drawn from an interview with Tim Alley, June 2017 (ST).
“On any given night”: Author interview, July 2017 (ST).
“He was drafted in the Army”: Letter from Alley’s mother to Hambleton, Hambleton family archives.
“I think he thought they would be lonely”: Interview with Tim Alley, June 2017 (ST).
“I know we’re going to die”: Alley’s words in this section are from an interview with Doug Brinson, September 2017 (ST).
“When conditions are right”: Whitcomb,Rescue of Bat 21, p. 59.
“I was like, ‘Oh, really?’”: Interview with Brinson (ST).
What Alley said was: “I’m not going”: Ibid.
“You’re either going to get on the chopper”: Ibid.
“Today,” he believed, “was the day of his deliverance”: Anderson, BAT-21, p. 76.
16. LOW BIRD
“It was my turn”: Bill Harris in “Just One Man.”
Not long before, Chapman had been the low chopper: Interview with Harris (DW).
His tour was up and he’d received orders: Interview with Brad Huffman (ST).
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p; “I briefed the crew that they should not make an attempt”: Interview with Crowe (DW).
Brinson spotted a sixth figure waiting to board: Interview with Brinson (ST).
The aircraft headed to a point southeast of Quang Tri: The details of the Jolly Green 67 mission are from Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, pp. 70–76.
“The good Lord was showing His favor”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 72.
“I was just stunned”: Interview with Crowe (DW).
“I’m hit! They got a fuel line”: Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 73.
“We’re taking hits, we’re taking hits!”: Interview with Brinson (ST).
“I knew right then we were in deep trouble”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 73.
“Turn south, Jolly, turn right”: Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 74.
“Jolly’s down, Jolly’s down!”: Interview with Captain Mark Schibler, November 1992 (DW).
“Anyone getting out would be the result of a miracle”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 74.
“I hate to see a grown man cry”: Buzz Busboom interview with Hambleton.
“I felt it necessary to talk it over”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 70.
“You are by yourself”: Ibid., p. 71.
“I really cocked this up”: Whitcomb,Rescue of Bat 21, p. 75.
17. THE DIVISION
“It’s been a bad two days”: Harold Icke cassette tape courtesy of Darrel Whitcomb.
“We now had two survivors”: Interview with Crowe (DW).
“not move out of Cam Lo”: Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 63.
“[We] found this impossible to accept after so much sacrifice”: Crowe, after-tour report.
“the Recovery Studies Division”: The Division’s unclassified name was the Joint Personnel Recovery Center.
“short, stocky, fiery”: George J. Veith, Code Name Bright Light: The Untold Story of U.S. POW Rescue Efforts During the Vietnam War (New York: Dell, 1999), p. 321.
“He burned to rescue a fellow American”: Ibid.
18. THE REAL JOHN WAYNE
April 7 brought no relief to Hambleton: This account of Hambleton’s actions is drawn from the unpublished Hambleton manuscript, pp. 82–92.
“had a fire burning”: Interview with Captain Bob Covalucci, January 1995 (DW).
“bold and perhaps dangerous decision”: Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 85.
One major who planned to go with Lieutenant Colonel Andersen: Interview with Lunday (DW).
“It couldn’t have been better”: Crowe, after-tour report.
“do it black”: Interview with Paul Broshar, June 1993 (DW).
“It was, ‘we’re going to do something special’”: For the remaining quotations in this chapter, see ibid.
19. THE HURRICANE LOVER
“Well, it just so happens, he’s sitting right here”: Norris and Thornton, By Honor Bound, p. 14.
“Tom,” Dorman recalled, “was chomping at the bit”: Ibid.
20. WHEN THE MOON GOES OVER THE MOUNTAIN
“I felt like a corporate exec”: Ibid., p. 15.
“This guy knows something that they want back”: Interview with Norris (DW).
a “superb, hard-charging” officer: Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 89.
“E & E”—escape and evade: Interview with Muirhead (DW).
“My concern was, well, suppose we don’t get him”: Interview with Norris (DW).
“I would have liked to have him say”: Ibid.
“We function much different than they [the Navy] do”: Ibid.
“What Andersen said didn’t affect me”: Ibid.
“I don’t mind saying”: Norris and Thornton, By Honor Bound, p. 18.
“Nothing else really mattered”: Ibid., p. 30.
“He . . . told us, directly in his broken English”: Ibid., p. 26.
“They didn’t know what was happening”: Interview with Major Gerald Bauknight, October 1994 (DW).
“We are going to have to do something different”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 85.
“What have you been smoking?”: Interview with Hambleton (DW).
“the damnedest thing I had ever heard”: Ibid.
Not once during the long and complex journey: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 92.
“This is a decision that is going to be entirely up to you”: Ibid., p. 86.
“If this succeeds,” Kissinger told the president: Brinkley and Nichter, The Nixon Tapes, p. 458.
“Every great power must follow the principle”: Ibid.
In Moscow, Dobrynin’s superiors were equally disturbed: The account of the Soviet reaction to the Easter Offensive is drawn from Gaiduk, The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War, pp. 218–38.
“If the mission had failed”: Interview with Major Donald Lunday, December 1994 (DW).
“I want to know some success”: Veith, Code Name Bright Light, p. 321.
“In the early years, I felt free”: Interview with Nguyen Van Kiet, November 2017 (DW).
he announced he would shoot anyone: Whitcomb, Rescue of Bat 21, p. 93.
“It was understood amongst them”: Interview with Norris (DW).
“I thought of the . . . men who had been lost”: Unpublished Hambleton manuscript, p. 86.
“I’ll go with the plan”: Ibid.
“tremendous numbers” of people: Evasion and Recovery Report, Mark Clark, Part III: Ejection/Bailout. Clark’s words in this section are from the same report.
21. THE FIRST AT TUCSON NATIONAL
Hambleton could just make out the moon: The details in this section are drawn from the unpublished Hambleton manuscript, pp. 93–95.
“It scared the living hell out of me”: Evasion and Recovery Report, Mark Clark, Part III: Ejection/Bailout.
Hambleton looked around his hiding place: The details in this section are drawn from the unpublished Hambleton manuscript, pp. 95–103; and Anderson, BAT-21, pp. 127–47.
22. DARK ENCOUNTER
“I’m still on my way down”: Evasion and Recovery Report, Mark Clark. Part III: Ejection/Bailout. Unless otherwise noted, the quotations in this section are from the same document.
“I just about drowned myself”: Interview with Mark Clark, January 1993 (DW).
Hambleton stood stunned: The material in this section is drawn from Anderson, BAT-21, pp. 147–48.
“Actually killing a man face to face”: Ibid., p. 154.
“galloped off like a wild fool”: Ibid.
Tommy Norris and his team: The material in this section is drawn from Norris and Thornton, By Honor Bound; an interview with Norris (DW); and Norris and Thornton interview, Academy of Achievement.
“I said, ‘Uh-oh, I’m not going to put my guys in that’”: Interview with Norris (DW).
“We’d burned up so much time”: Ibid.
“Oh, Jesus, why me?”: Ibid.
23. THE GROVE
“He was a fifty-three-year-old man running around up there”: Interview with Tincher (DW).
“was the most intense we had ever seen”: Letter from an airman named Batte, Hambleton family archives.
“I had five sets of controllers on that mission”: Interview with Tincher (DW).
“like the crazy-looking Road Runner bird”: The material in this section is drawn from the unpublished Hambleton manuscript, pp. 108–9 and 112–18.
“I was so damn excited”: Buzz Busboom interview with Hambleton.
24. CLARK
“a-huffing and a-puffing”: Norris and Thornton, By Honor Bound, p. 39.
“All I could see were blackened faces and wide eyes”: Ibid.
“I’ve really done it now”: Interview with Norris (DW).
“He got past me,” he told Andersen: Ibid.
“I’m sitting out there in the middle of no-man’s-land: Interview with Tommy Norris, Pritzker Military Museum and Library, Chicago, November 9, 2006.
“For a second,” Kiet said: Interview with Kiet (DW).
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bsp; “Mark, I’m an American”: Norris and Thornton, By Honor Bound, p. 42.
“Oh good Lord”: Evasion and Recovery Report, Mark Clark, Part IV: Initial Actions on the Ground.
“I’m here to take you home”: Norris and Thornton, By Honor Bound, p. 42.
“No, no, no, he’s with me”: Ibid., p. 43.
“If I drop, you drop; if I turn, you turn”: Ibid.
“I wouldn’t have gone in there after me”: Interview with Clark (DW).
25. PLACES LIKE THE MOON
Bill Henderson was marching toward Hanoi: The details in this section are drawn from an interview with Henderson (ST).
“I gave him that”: Stars and Stripes did publish the name and rank of captured soldiers, but not serial numbers.
“There were lots of bombs”: Interview with Nguyen Quy Hai by Khuyen Tuong, Hanoi, June 2017.
“After the bombs fell, some soldiers died”: Interview with Doan Cong Tinh by Khuyen Tuong, Hanoi, June 2017.
“Go South,” it went, “and die”: Michael Lee Lanning and Dan Cragg, Inside the VC and the NVA: The Real Story of North Vietnam’s Armed Forces (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008), p. 31.
“There were many bombs”: Interview with Nguyen Thi Uong by Khuyen Tuong, Hanoi, June 2017.
“They took me to a village and decided to execute me”: This material is drawn from an interview with Astorga (ST).
26. ZEROED IN
Hambleton spent the morning of April 11: Details in this section are drawn from the unpublished Hambleton manuscript, pp. 118–22.
“We’ve got big trouble”: Interview with Norris (DW).
“A big piece of shrapnel went through his right arm”: Ibid.
“Lieutenant Colonel Andersen has been hit”: Ibid.
27. ESTHER WILLIAMS
As nightfall approached, Hambleton heard a surge: Details in this section are drawn from the unpublished Hambleton manuscript, pp. 122–28.
“They wanted to go back”: Details in this section are drawn from Norris and Thornton, By Honor Bound, p. 54.
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