Ed Rasimus straps the reader into the cockpit of an F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber in his engaging account of the Rolling Thunder campaign in the skies over North Vietnam. Between 1965 and 1968, more than 330 F-105s were lost—the highest loss rate in Southeast Asia—and many pilots were killed, captured, and wounded because of the Air Force’s disastrous tactics. The descriptions of Rasimus’s one hundred missions, some of the most dangerous of the conflict, will satisfy anyone addicted to vivid, heart-stopping aerial combat, as will the details of his transformation from a young man paralyzed with self-doubt into a battle-hardened veteran. His unique perspective, candid analysis, and the sheer power of his narrative rank his memoir with the finest, most entertaining of the war.
Commission Earned
Great airplane, great pilots.
ReplyDeleteWas at an RRVA reunion in Sacramento a few years back and one of the old Thud pilots brought along his now grown kids and grandkids. They all got to sit in the F-105 that is in the air museum at McClellan. They remarked that after sitting there and seeing the cockpit, and its myriad of switches/controls, that all of Dad's/Grandad's stories really hit home.
If memory serves, the 105 was designed for a very different role than the one it filled in Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteNuclear strike fighter that was never meant to live in the AAA environment.
ReplyDeleteDid 800+ knots at sea level in 1955.
You fight with what you’ve got and in the early part of the war it was the ‘105. Didn’t help that they were picking the targets and tactics in Washington DC
Or that the politicians were telling the NVA what the targets were in advance.
DeleteGreat book
ReplyDeletePaul J