There is lots to see and do around the Mu Gia Pass. If you’ve been following along in parts 1 & 2, you know just how much effort the US put into trying to interdict this area. Part 3 is the final installment for the Mu Gia Pass. I hope this has given you a glimpse of what went on. I’ll finish talking about those efforts, and then I (and Don Duvall) will go over the places to go and things to do.
In the sixteen months from Nov 68 through Mar 70, there were 30 more aircraft shot downs near Mu Gia; 22 KIA and 2 POW. There were also Continue reading →
I became intimately familiar with SARs only ten days after I arrived at NKP. Although I didn’t directly work this SAR, it affected everyone at NKP. On Christmas Day, 1968, PJ A1C Charles King volunteered for the SAR mission to rescue a downed F-105 pilot. King was lowered to the ground to rescue the pilot, Major Charles Brownlee. It all went wrong. A1C King and Maj. Brownlee were ever seen again.
Over the next year, the SAR forces at NKP made many rescues. By rough count, there were over 100 SARs during my year… a little over half of them were successful. Unfortunately, during SARs we also lost four Sandy A-1s (602nd SOS), an HH-53 Jolly Green Giant (40th ARRS), an O-2 (23rd TASS) and an OV-10 (23rd TASS.) Of those SAR aircraft losses, there were three KIA.
My last SAR started on 5 Dec 68… just days before I got on the “Freedom Bird.” An F-4C out of Cam Ranh Bay, call sign Boxer-22*, was shot down in the Phanop Valley. Both the pilot, Capt. Ben Danielson (Boxer-22A) and the GIB**, 1Lt. Woody Bergeron (Boxer-22B), successfully ejected. Radio contact was made with both crew members. They were separated by the 50 foot wide Nam Ngo river, and both were in “good condition.”
This photo shows the area of the Boxer 22 SAR looking south. (Photo courtesy of former PJ participating in the rescue, Doug Horka.
If you are following along and waiting for Places To Go – Mu Gia Pass Part 3… not to worry; it will be coming soon. But for now I’ve been run out of Florida by the hurricane. I’m hunkering in my favorite place to hunker… New Orleans. Places to go and things to see by day… and “Spirits on Bourbon” at night.
I can hear all of you snickering right about now… “Yeah, right… he’s just off to NOLA to have fun.” Ok… ya got me. But can you think of a better excuse to go to NOLA than the threat of a hurricane. And can you think of a better place to hunker. So here I am waiting till Dorian is well clear of Florida… like up into Nova Scotia some time next week.
