Last mission over Hanoi

John McCain:

EARLY in the morning I prepared for my 23rd bombing run over North Vietnam - and my first attack on the enemy capital, Hanoi, writes White House hopeful John McCain

Our target was the thermal power plant near a small lake almost at the centre of the city.

About 9000ft, as we turned inbound on the target, our warning lights flashed and the tone for enemy radar started sounding so loudly that I had to turn down the volume.

I could see huge clouds of smoke and dust erupt on the ground as surface-to-air missiles were fired at us. The closer we came to the target, the fiercer the defences.

I recognised the target sitting next to the small lake and dived in on it, just as the tone went off signalling that a missile was flying towards me.

I knew I should roll out and fly evasive manoeuvres - "jinking" in flyers' parlance - but I was just about to release my bombs and, had I started jinking, I would never have had the time, nor probably the nerve, to go back in once I had lost the missile.

So at 1000m, I released my bombs, then pulled back the stick to begin a steep climb to a safer altitude. In the instant before the plane reacted, a missile blew my right wing off.

I knew I was hit. My A-4 aircraft, travelling at about 900km/h, was spiralling violently to Earth. I reacted automatically the moment I took the hit, reached up and pulled the ejection seat handle.

I struck part of the aircraft, breaking my left arm, my right arm in three places and my right knee, and was briefly knocked unconscious.

Witnesses said my chute had barely opened before I plunged into the shallow water of Truc Bach Lake.

Wearing about 25kg of gear, I touched the bottom of the lake and kicked off with my good leg. I did not feel any pain as I broke the surface and I did not understand why I couldn't move my arms to pull the toggle on my life vest.

I sank to the bottom again.

When I broke the surface the second time, I managed to inflate my life vest by pulling the toggle with my teeth. Then I blacked out again.

When I came to the second time, I was being hauled ashore on bamboo poles. A crowd of several hundred Vietnamese gathered around me, stripping my clothes off, spitting on me and kicking and striking me.

...

There is much more including the torture he endured. I am very aware of the brutality of the communist in North Vietnam. I met some of the former POW when I was prosecuting the men who swindled them out of their back pay. I remember a gruff foreman from the King Ranch and a black woman social worker who served on the jury in Kingsville, Texas who gave the salesman the maximum penalty under the Texas Securities Act. It was the first time anyone had ever received the maximum. Others came in to plead guilty to do hard time, another first.

It should be understood that the torture of the communist inflicted on our air crews was very different from the discomfort inflicted on al Qaeda. The communist were trying to use these men for propaganda purposes and to embarrass our military. When three members of al Qaeda were subjected to intensive interrogation it was to get information to save innocent lives. That is a huge distinction. There is no moral equivalence between the two. It is unfortunate that John McCain does not see that distinction.

McCain can also think the Democrats' Strategy for Defeat in Vietnam. The book is by Adm. U.S. Grant Sharp who tried to get the Johnson administration to use a more intelligent air war against the enemy. It would have been one that would not be sending men like John McCain into a heavily protected buzz saw. One of McNamarra's aids even said that that the communist had no intention of using the anti air craft batteries. I guess someone in Hanoi did not get the word.