"Where do we get such men?"

[<RonaldS842@aol.com>]

Hi all-

   There was a program on the History Channel several days ago about Air 
Force missions in Vietnam called "suicide missions". They interviewed many of 
the personnel involved. They were lone F-114 flights with pilot and radarmen 
called "weasels" and "bears". (we loved to give nicknames in the AF).    The 
idea was to fly a mission directly into enemy territory until detected by 
enemy radar. We had radar interception equipment on board that would give the 
location of the enemy radar. The plane would then fly directly toward the 
radar facility which we knew would be protected by a "sams" missile site. The 
F-114 was armed and the objective was to find and take out the radar and the 
missile site.
   As the plane got close to the target the enemy sams would be fired at 
close range. Close enough that there was very little chance the attacker 
could avoid being hit. But the pilots were good and developed a strategy that 
often times worked. They would put their plane into a steep dive at the last 
minute as the sams came close so that the sams would nose down to follow. 
They would then pull up abruptly and  the sams would hopefully miss. Worked 
about half the time. A very high percentage of these crews were killed or 
taken prisoner. You want to talk about heroes, these kids were heroes, burned 
toast or not. 
   The reason  this was interesting to me is that we were doing the same 
thing during the Korean War, a little less sophisticated perhaps. We would 
send an F-84 into Russia or China until they were detected by enemy radar. In 
those days the enemy would "scramble" We were monitoring their radar and we 
could tell when it was time for our man to turn around and "haul ass". 
Sometimes he made it. 
   The strange thing to me is I haven't read anything yet of this happening 
during the Korean War or before Vietnam. Maybe Joe wrote about it. You can 
bet I'm getting "Korea, the Untold Story of the War". 

Ron