23 and four, come in and hose them down one more time. Take me just north of the downed pilot. Roger, Sandy one. Now we've got the down pilot site. We're coming in from your 6:00 o'clock at this time. Quite a bit of ground. You're going to work. I think we can go for our small arms. We can move them in along the line. Please let me know. I'm coming in. Eight through A8 through Alpha Sandy. 1. Support. Pop your smoke. OK, alright, alright. Smart start off. They want you to pull back. 30 I'm over. Position. Now over position now breaking right. OK. Straight ahead, straight ahead. All right. Here. The Skyraider is a brute. A Hulk. Big bulky body. Long wide, straight wings. And just one powerful engine. The same engine used on the B29 bomber. That big engine allowed the plane to carry freakish weapons, loads more than the World War 2B17 bomber and four times the ordinance on the P51 Mustang. Not all missions lasted this long, but the A1 could stay aloft for as long as 10 hours, and thanks to those long, wide wings that could maneuver at low speeds. To protect the pilots, extra steel plating was added to the cockpit area. Skyraider was nicknamed the SPAD after the French World War One fighter that was flown by many American pilots. Eddie Rickenbacker became an ace and Medal of Honor recipient, flying the SPAD over France and Germany. The Skyraider first established itself in combat in 1950 in the Korean War, attacking rail yards, factories and protecting troops on the ground. Even with great pilots flying a great airplane, there are always losses. Men and planes in Korea, 128A ones and many crews were lost. Next came Vietnam. The Navy Spads flew in the very first attack on North Vietnam, August 5th, 1964, from aircraft carriers in the Tonkin Gulf. The targets were fuel depots at Vin. The Air Force also flew the SPAD in various roles in Vietnam. They hunted truck convoys on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They flew close air support and dramatic life saving sandy missions. They were called flying cover for rescues of threatened and injured troops on the ground. Again, there were losses in Vietnam, 266A1 Spads and 144 pilots were lost. The Navy's last Vietnam missions were in 1968. The Air Force continued to fly the SPAD until the war ended. The Sky Raiders retired now some say it was the most effective ground support aircraft ever. A carrier based dive bomber at Torpedo plane bus Skyraider evolved into one of the most versatile aircraft ever deployed by the US military. Was Skyraiders ability to carry a wide assortment of weapons they did a devastating ground attack aircraft. This band stayed around long enough to be 3 points. It was initially the BT2D. Ben was the ad. And there it was, the A1. It was such a success that the only major criticism. Leveled it was such a success, but the only major criticism leveled at it. Was that not enough for bills? The first Douglas Skyraider, known then as the destroyer, took took off in March 1945. Beginning a service career that was to stretch unbroken to Vietnam. After the last U.S. Navy A1 combat missions were full. The plane was still being used ashore by the United States and South Vietnamese air forces. Where or when the last Skyraider in combat service Foo a mission is somewhat of a mystery. It's probable that they were amused in the African state of church as recently as 1979. Even as the Skyraider was in development, it was already widely believed to be obsolete. After all, it was designed and constructed at the same time as the development of jet engine aircraft in an era that was obsessed with speed. While other designers were scratching their heads about the best way to get around the sound barrier, Douglas engineers were wrestling old-fashioned problems with propellers radial inches. Nobody questioned that the design was a pinnacle of piston powered aviation, but many questioned the need for climbing that Pinnacle. In hindsight it can be seen that the Sky Raider was the sum of an enormous Bank of knowledge built up over time. In 1925, just 20 years before the first fight of the sky rigging, the US Navy had won aircraft carrier. By 1935, this figure had only increased to four. Naval Aviation was an experimental area. There was no debate about the use and worth of these big ships, but the navies of the world still assessed each other's strength. In the number and calibre of battleship guns deployed. Through the 20s and 30s the numbers of ships and planes slowly increased experimentation and testing, but a long way towards sorting out the systems, methods and value of naval aviation. The increasing sophistication and expertise of the cruise soon demonstrated. Telling points in the debate about the function and worth of carriers. It became evident to many that the future of naval conflict would be dominated by airpower. Her old Harper not only settled all arguments from the die hard battleships of leaders in the Pacific, it also settled the matter in a practical way, for the moment the only American force of real power capable of. Action was the carriers. At the outbreak of war Beccaria compliments were, as usual, in transition. It was a major turning point in aviation, with monoplanes taking over from the trusty biplane. As war started, the planes in use were quickly shown to have major flaws or demanded different specifications. Fortunately, the conflict in Europe gave a short but significant lead time to aircraft designers, and production was already underway on new, more effective way. Curtis Helldivers and Grumman Avengers were to carry the bulk of the weight of war for the US ships. These followed the established pattern of two seat dye bombers and three seat torpedo bombs by Helldiver order in 1939 and 1st flown in 1940. They came the standard Navy dive bowler of the last two years of the war, but throughout its career it was troublesome and displayed several flaws. Among these were instability, an operational range of only 250 miles and poor maintenance access the train had not lived up to. Expectation as a load carry or for its short takeoff ability. But the Helldivers were the best blames available for the job, and they were used to good effect. On the other hand, the Grumman Avenger torpedo bombers were a great success. The planes they were to replace, the aging duck was devastators were so outdated that The Avengers were ordered to full production even before the prototype flew. The gamble paid off for the 2000 pound bar or torpedo load. The Avengers when they went into service were invaluable and they were to stay with the fleet until 1954. Another message was also loud and clear. The layout of attack and bomber aircraft had become outdated. The speed and firepower effects was such that there was no way for bombers to protect themselves. Their Gunners were no deterrent to fighter retired. They needed to depend on their own fighter escorts for control of the sky. This meant there was no real point in the wasted weight. The revolving gum charts load would be better carry as fuel and bonds. Naval aviation was clearly one of the most powerful weapons at America's disposal and plans were developing to meet needs far beyond the wars air. New, reliable and powerful engines were available. Experience made it possible to predict accurately the behavior of a design shape. Combat indicated that the Gummer was a redundant concept, and in the same way the observer Obama deer was wasted in a specialized airframe. The next specification for a Navy attack plane to be issued was for a single seat aircraft. Douglas had been working on their submission the BTD 1 from 1942, but it was clear that the plane, essentially a pre war design, was no match for its competitors, including the formidable Martin AM 1. While war went on, the situation deemed to ahead on the 16th of June 1944, at a meeting between the heads of the Douglas team and Lady Representatives in their hotel overnight, he and two assistants, working on the basis of the knowledge they had gained in the years since designing the VTD, came up with the outlines for a new play. Those sketches they presented the next morning, accompanied by their technical explanation, intrigued and impressed the Navy's representatives. Douglas was, in effect, allowed to reenter the competition. They had only nine months to get their plane into the air and it had to comply with their a tight and unforgiving specifications. It was, in fact, nine months and one day, one day late to its first point. About an hour after takeoffs, the test pilot was back on the ground, enthusiastic about the play. It had exceeded his expectation as it was to exceed the expectations of many people during its lifetime. Wartime contracts for 548 planes were canceled. Three were delivered in 1945, the only another 22 in 1946. But this minimal production saved the sky. Though the future of a piston engine aircraft seemed questionable. This plane was clearly something to be reckoned with, and in 1947 the Navy purchased 239 in three different versions. In time the new plane would operate him. Many other boats abducts ECM platform RPV or drone directed target tone anti submarine warfare aircraft might fighter play rescue helicopter, escort early warning radar pipe form and even as a transport seating 12 passengers. You know, there were to be around 30 major types, about the same number of subtypes. The sky ringer never ran out of uses. Relating to was was a very stable aircraft. It was not difficult to fly, in fact, a checkout. And going from one plane to another, going from training command where I flew Corsairs to the to the A2. Merely read the handbook and took an open book test. And sit in the cockpit and learning the location of everything. And then it was time to go. Very quick and a lot of fun. 82 was a. Good plane to land on a carrier. I went on one full cruise of six months and never got a wave off. And I was not, you know, I was not the exception. It was just a neat thing in the carrier. When I was a young pilot, I even took off with the flaps up. By mistake still got airborne. It's just, it's just fine. Taria saw Skyraiders thrown into complete where they played a major part in that war. Korea brought the world's remaining ideological camps into conflict remnants of the 1930s school of dictators would be swept under the skirts of 1 camp or the other for the next 40 years, and history would come to see the Cold War as a continuation of the Second World War. But the new American technologies of war pitted against infantry armed with rifles and trenches. The helicopter became a major weapon. United Nations air domination was, for most of the war, complete the services of Korea's giant Maber. China effectively replaced North Korean forces because these have been destroyed. Jets were deported, but their need for long, straight runways hampered their effectiveness, especially in the frantic early days of the war as the N Koreans swept the peninsula, captured all but the tiny pocket around Pusat. The Air Force was hampered by having to fly from Japan with relatively short range jets. The Navy's carriers were called on for a high proportion of support, but the soldiers fighting desperately to hang on. Sky Raiders are essentially a big fighter plane. They don't have an internal Bombay. It was reasoned that strengthened wings with multiple mums would accommodate a greater range of stores packages. In fact, the Sky Raiders would carry at one time or another the whole inventory, including weapons that were rumors or theories in 1944 when the plane was first drawn up. During the Korean War, Skyraiders took part in highly secret experiments carrying nuclear weapons, and later in 1953, the AD 4D variant would be developed specifically for that purpose. But it would never be called on to deliver these weapons. It would make and Polish its enduring reputation with a range of conventional stores. In the desperate days, early in the Korean War and later as the fighting dragged on, the Sky Raiders were increasingly accepted as being the Navy's Big Punch. Their varied loads were delivered precisely and effectively and could include rockets and napalm and a range of small and large boxes to suit particular targets. Their loads had one other outstanding feature. They were enormous. On several occasions a Skyraider would deliver a weight of bombs that was greater than its own weight. Loads of up to 14,000 pounds were carried in a plane that weighed only £11,000. This was well outside the parameters of what could be expected from most other aircraft in service, and the longer the war went on, the more additional orders flowed into the Douglas factory. They orders had in fact been stockpiling due to delays and delivery. There was a series of problems with the new engine. There had also been problems with the introduction of the plane and disservice. The design team had expended a great deal of energy on minimizing weight. This led to some modifications to cure stress problems which had developed in the initial carrier trials of the plane. These problems were partly the result of poor landing technique. In response, pilots were given additional practice, while the Skyraider was also strengthened to withstand heavier impacts. Most of the brains they served with in Korea were to be phased out rapidly, The Jets because of the rapid developments in technology and the piston planes because of their age, the Sky Raiders future was also already being scrutinized in order to develop specifications for a replacement aircraft. The conclusion was a tribute to the Big Douglas aircraft because the Navy decided to buy 3 aircraft, splitting the roles performed by the Skyraider to a range of air freight. In 1949, the future of the 80s could have best have been described as uncertain. The very few could have predicted they would endure long into the jadira, but orders continue. Shannon production eventually ceased on the 18th of February 1950. Seven 3180 skyraiders have been doped. It would be many more years before they would be found in museums. When we would get back to Japan on rest and recreation, if we ever met Army people or marines that had been on the ground up in the front lines and told them what we flew. They always said, well, you guys are the ones that saved our lives and we wouldn't have your job for anything. Oftentimes we find, particularly a Vietnamese pilot who was rather short, that we'd have to put a seat cushion or pillow behind them so we could move the move the Vietnamese pilot forward so that they can get full right rudder, particularly with a heavy load on a short runway where needed. Full power instantly. In September 1960, the first Skyraiders arrived in a new theatre of conflict in a new role as Spiders to join the Vietnamese Air Force. In May, a further 25 arrived where they became a major factor in the Air War over Vietnam. The United States involvement with the Vietnamese Air Force grew not only in supplying aircraft, but helping in many ways to tune the Vietnamese into a combat ready force. It 1962 pilot training was transferred to the United States. Military aviation experimentation was being directed toward the question what type of aircraft would best answer the tactical requirements in counterinsurgency operations. The answer was on aircraft with the attributes of the Douglas Skyrim. US involvement with the Vietnamese Air Force had formally started in 1955, but it was not until the early 60s that US advisers were sent to the Vietnam in noticeable numbers. American pilots supplemented the locals. American administrators, ground crew and trainers also multiply and the flow of aircraft continued. Also increasing through this time was the level of insurgent activity. The flow of arms and then troops from the north made the situation in much of the South untenable. For military efforts to work, the nature of the regime would have to change, giving some recognition to the interests of the people. Sadly, Southern politics would be limited to a series of presidents. The system persisted. That eventually became deceit. When I started out in the pilot training, I wanted to fly the A1 terribly so, but we didn't have any left. So I took a C123 for one year tour in Saigon, quickly volunteered for a concurrent tour to get into the A1 and it worked out great. I flew the A1. Out of NKP and towards the end of that. Tour let's NKP. Nakon panom, that's where we had our A1 station towards the end of that tour and this will bring you up to speed of us going to Utah, how to get these airplanes. General Aderholt had contacted some of the A1 people and said I need some T28 advisors. If you all want to do that, I'll send you to the Defense Language Institute to study tie for a year and then back over to work for him. I had come back and was going to work as a T28 advisor when he introduced me to the stove Porter, which the ties had just acquired, and I became an advisor for that. This year is 73 and then we had 74 and then in 75 is when South Vietnam bill. During the 7374 time frame. General Aderhold was working behind the curtain, so to speak, with the ambassador in Cambodia and the one in Vietnam. We had given them the South Vietnamese, most of our airplanes and the Vietnamization, and they had become the 4th largest Air Force over 2000 airplanes in the world. When they received their first skyraiders, the Vietnamese were disappointed. They had been expecting jets. However, the Geneva Agreement outlawed the introduction of such advanced weapons into the conflict. The Vietnamese Air Force would not get its first jets, Northrop F fives, until 1967. In the interim, they used a variety of aircraft in well organized and effective operations against the guerrilla forces. Spotters and attack aircraft worked together closely to provide powerful and precise support to ground operations. Under the coast, often hands on guidance of the US Air Force advisers, the VNAF developed tactical responses to guerrilla operations that were to remain marbles for much of the war. Smoke markers fired by Cessna BERGDORFS operating as forward air controllers would indicate targets for the SKYRAIDERS. In 1962, the name of the Skyraider changed again to the A1. Most Skyraiders third official designation actually suited the plane perfectly. A one was certainly an accurate description. Over the skies in Vietnam, Sky Raiders performed an outstanding role in counterinsurgency and another custom. the United States Air Force, was soon to be flying them alongside the Vietnamese. My fellow Americans. As President and commander-in-chief, it is my duty to the American people to report. That renewed hostile actions. Against United States ships on the high seas in the. Gulf President Johnson's announcement after the Gulf of Tonkin incident was not actually the first American involvement in the Vietnam conflict. President Kennedy had promoted counterinsurgency as essential, and Air Force units had grown up around this specialty. Nor have they taken long to arrive in Vietnam with its long running guerrilla war. The entire conventional weight of the US was committed in a guerrilla war. Helicopters would be the enduring image of the Atma as dumb ships, as choke carriers and as rescue for downed pumps. Airborne at 16 and then 101-4 over. 8-1 this is Clearwater. Roger your pigeons to point Cairo 28014 over. Helicopters provided a focus for forces on the ground and became a persisting symptom of the conflict. The increasing weight of war machinery and new methods of employing developed along with that the Wildering series of political skirmishes. US Air Force Skyraiders had started Vietnam operations in May 1964 with Vietnamese observers who were nominally in charge of activity. The twin seat A1 ease they used were to be the first of many US Air Force SKYRAIDERS to serve in the theatre. By the time the ease began to run out, the US was fully involved. They could be replaced with the still numerous single seaters. The use of these planes alongside Mach 2 jets was not in Congress. It was a result of specialization. Skyraiders had exceptional attributes, but ground troops appreciated their heavy load of ordinance and the fact that they could loiter waiting for work. That pilots loved the accuracy that could be achieved when flying something as stable, slow and maneuverable as their a once. They were also grateful for the armored toughness of the planes. In their long career, the Sky Raiders earned several nicknames. There was a drive to have them known as the pulverizer, which never took. They were known after their coach sign in Korea as a V's which were able dogs. They also had other names. They were spats and in their rescue work they were sent. Their activity and close support was unmatched. They pounded away with an accuracy impossible with supersonic aircraft. They provided this service in virtually all weather. When The Jets were grounded, the Sky Raiders were out there working. Admittedly, they offered a pretty good target. Someone who had been trying to hit a mock 2 jet with the rice would have welcomed the sight of a spare to shoot at. But the spared soaked up damage and kept on going, at least to the extent of getting home, even if they wouldn't fire again. The US Air Force lost 153 skyraiders in combat in Vietnam between 1962 and 1973. A further 41 were listed as operational losses. 146 of the US Air Force losses were caused by ground fire. One occasion we had a four ship with A1's land and the confirm. And between us, for a ones and the two helicopters, there were 619 holes in our aircraft. That's exciting and it was immediate and oftentimes it was dramatic high drama over a long period of time. There comes a time in the life of an aircraft when the next rebuild cannot be justified, and the E marbles had come to that point. The US Air Force would continue to use SKYRAIDERS, replacing the aging ease with the single seat H Muffel. The last E model flew its spinal mission on the 10th of April 1967. Well, nicknamed spare referred to a First World War biplane. At first it expressed the scorn of the jet pilots from a lumbering old war horses the cluttered their airfields. However, the Spads in Vietnam changed that scorn into grudging respect and then into awe. She in time many of the jet jockeys would know of great deal to the spare ribs because Vietnam had given the skyraiders a new task. Many knowledgeable people maintain that the sparks found their finest hour in this new role. The rescue parties involved a variety of aircraft, control aircraft spotters, the rescue chops and the pugnacious a ones as escorts. The controlled aircraft would patrol that height, listening for the radio beacon of a downed pilot. After establishing the pilots whereabouts, a rescue team would be directed to the area. Strike aircraft could also be involved in covering the operation, especially when the rescue was conducted deep inside North Vietnam. Despite the danger, the units pressed each mission as hard as possible and in the course of the war were credited with an amazing 3833 rescues. Where is the lead? Rooster Lead is the crown one where verified your identity. Sandies Aaron Root will arrive in your area in eight minutes. Jolly greens in 19 minutes. We have called Mick kept for you. It should be in your area by now right? Yeah. I have Kelly how to make cap. Thank you. Stay in orbit over Red Rooster 2 until Sundays arrived. Tragic crane. Hi Roger Crown is Sunday one. Go ahead. Red Rooster Lead is still orbiting over down product at coordinates 1020 N 10550 E He is reported enemy automatic weapon fire one mile north of downed pilot. There may be a lot more around a pilot himself. Sandy Oneness is crown. I am designating you unseen. Commander. Take over. Our eyes are crown. I've got it. Skyraiders still the role of escort? Well, they had the endurance to stay aloft per hours. They could quite happily hover along with the slow helicopters at the location of a rescue. They could bring their firepower into play to suppress any hostile activity in the area, allowing the jolly greens to go about their business with little interference. For these missions, the Sky Raiders were fully loaded with ordnance and ammunition. Because of the vulnerability of the helicopters to ground fire, it was essential but enemy activity be suppressed before the choppers presented themselves as stationary targets hovering above the downed crew. As a result, the A ones would engage in what was referred to as trolling for fire. This consisted of flying low and deliberately drawing fire from any guns near the sea. When these guns have been located and silenced, the air would be safer for helicopters. It did, however, make a Skyraider a dangerous place to be. Rescue teams matter was that others may live. The Parajumpers, the men who went down the wire to the pipe, were trained scuba dives in case the rescue took place over water. They were qualified parachutists and experts with small arms and hand to hand combat. They were also fully trained in first aid. With the rest of the crew, they faced the danger of flying low and slow in their chopper to the rescue site, often under intense fire. Then they left even the aircrafts limited safety to become dangling charts that others may live. Tremendous personal satisfaction to have out of seeing a guy step out of that helicopter. Was. It was tremendous. It was a very exciting experience from a tactical standpoint. A beautiful thing about the A1 is that it could stay over the guy for hours on time. It had a a versatile load. With 15 external stations you could put a wide variety of ordnance on the aircraft, so it meant that when you got airborne you could be applied to a wide variety of targets in situations. The disadvantage to be a one is obvious. Because while it was a an airplane with tremendous staying power and time and air, it was very slow and as a result it was a it was a fairly easy target for less sophisticated automatic weapons and anti air. The lady had apparently replaced the Skyraider when it split the roles of the plane among three-year grades. A Grumman tracker was to take over anti submarine mission, so meaning to service in 1954. For 1952, Douglas Skywarrior was to carry out long range bombing, including nuclear bomb. And the debris. Skyhook was superb. A4 was to do everything else. But no one had told the Skyraiders they were still there in 1964 when the carriers found themselves in Vietnam, still a standard medium attack way. Certainly the other types were there as well, but mingling with the screaming jets of The Phantoms, Skyhawks and vigilantes was the throbbing piston engine roar of the scary things. They were an important part of the striking power of the carriers in the early years of Navy involvement and their slow and accurate. Attacks brought huge bomb modes to targets with deadly effect. In contrast to their jet powered comrades, they were likely to be found on their way back to the ship, quietly looking for targets of opportunity. Their accuracy, huge loads and long range made them uniquely valuable. But all good things come to an end. If the production lines were not to be reopened for further construction. For only the existing skyrims, they were getting old not just because of their date of manufacture, but because they were being worked so hard. What happens to a plane in combat is extraordinary, and the Sky Raiders were in the process of being replaced by a fourth aircraft. Although some were taken out of mothballs to be revitalized by the US Air Force, the A ones were being phased out of service, this time for real. On Sunday the 20th of February 1968, Lieutenant Theodore Hill landed his Skyraider on the USS Coral Sea after completing a combat mission over Vietnam. He was 23 years old and the Sky River had been in service for 23 years. He had just completed the last combat mission of U.S. Navy skyraiders. That was it. The whole planes had finished their Navy service. No amount of publishing could extend their lifespan. They could still have been loaded with arms and sent on more missions, but it was time to call it a day. After a career as a full-time anachronism, Skyraider had finally earned a long overdue retire. Their replacements were already in a service. Indeed, some of their episodes were due for replacement themselves. Pilots had a love affair with beret ones. They were disappointed that they had to give up the spare parts. This was no reflection on their new plates, but there was simply no replacement for the seat of your pants supplied. The ponderous but dynamic control. The stability, the leisure, the intensity of action, the accuracy and power. The skyraiders. Two American aviators join us today. Both flew the SPAD in Southeast Asia. John Goldenbaum is a retired United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. He served 20 years active duty, including two tours. In Vietnam 608 combat hours, he earned numerous decorations including the Distinguished Flying Cross, 11 air medals and more. John commanded the famous 71st Tactical Fighter Squadron at Langley Air Force Base. As a civilian, he continues to use aviation to connect and work with at risk young people. Last year here at Warbirds, John shared his Vietnam SPAD experiences. And joins us today to highlight another SPAD pilot's dramatic A1 record in skies over Southeast Asia. He is Roger Youngblood, also a retired United States Air Force officer who served 24 years active duty. He logged 4000 flight hours in 12 different types of aircraft. He is highly decorated with 48 air service medals, including four distinguished flying crosses. And four meritorious service medals. He was a program manager and a test pilot for the A10F16 joint Program, chief of Air Operations in Korea and advisor to the United States Air Operations Thailand. Roger and a fellow pilot. Saved for A1 Spads for history one of those four planes currently airworthy in the United States is on the ramp today, tail number 139606. Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm David Hartman. And please, Oh my gosh, thank you. Thanks. Hi, everybody. Please welcome our guests, Roger Youngblood, Ken Holston, I'll introduce you to in just a moment and Shay Goldenbaum. Jay, where are you? There's Jay down here. That you just saw in the video, gents. Enjoy. So, hi, everybody. This is one of the most remarkable dramatic stories of thousands of them actually, from the Vietnam period. Ken Holston is an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, retired, also highly decorated, has 187 combat missions, but they were flown later in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. And Ken joins us. He flew 6, which is 606. I can't tell you're six O 6. We flew this airplane in so it would be here today. Ken, welcome to the to the trio. Thanks, David. You know, the number one question we get about these airplanes and the history is what were US Air Force pilots doing flying propeller driven, former Navy carrier based attack airplanes in the jet age in a place called Vietnam? And to truly answer that question you sort of have to take a step back in time and knock some rust off of some world geography and some history and go to the end of World War Two. 194445 we'd won the war in Europe. We were taking the war to Japan and the whole islands, and the B29 Superfortress was a technological marvel of its day. And one of the key points that made that airplane possible was the development of the right 3350 engine. Now the Pentagon, fearing that we would have to actually invade Japan, went to the Douglas Company, which made some superior airplanes like the DC3 and the SBD Dauntless dive bomber. The Pentagon went to Douglas and said, hey, we love the dauntless, but now that we have this new 3350 engine available and we might have to invade Japan. Is that the engine exclusive interrupting? Is that the same engine that we just heard about that was on the B29? Exactly, exactly. So that as we weave the story together, this is essentially the same basic engine that's on the B29. And they said to Douglas, why don't we take that engine and build a successor to the dauntless. So we'll call it the Dauntless 2. Douglas did that. They built a prototype and it flew just a few more a few months before the atomic bombs dropped and ended the war, preventing the need for that invasion. And the war ended, of course, with the dropping of the bombs. But the Pentagon like the airplane so much they put it into production. But instead of calling it Dauntless 2, it became the Skyraider. As World War Two ended a course, two of our allies, Russia and China, chose to follow a communist path and quickly became enemies in the start of the Cold War and that Cold War. Lay dormant until the 50s started and the heat began in a place called Korea. And interestingly, it was similar to what happened later in Vietnam, split down the middle with North and South just as North and South Vietnam, but it was Korea in the early 50s. You're exactly right. Now map is up on the Jumbotron there on the other side of the globe. If you just want to really a quick refresher of your world geography with you see the Japan in between Russia and China. Korea is just to the left of that, so in the same neighborhood in Asia and the Skyraider was the primary ground attack. They're playing for the Navy and Marines, both flying off the ships and ground bases. Many of you may have seen a movie, a great color movie from the 50s called the Bridges at Toko Ree, while the stars of the movie were Grumman, Panther, Jets, the that's a little bit of a Hollywood ISM. The real heroes of that movie or in the in the in the history books were the Skyraiders that went in and actually took down those bridges. When that period of time ended, the Pentagon looked back and said, wow, we have worn out our Skyraider fleet. And while we would love we love the silver screen version, we would love to build more jets. The truth is, jets are not ready for prime time. They couldn't carry the load, they didn't have the fuel efficiency and the metallurgy and the engines just didn't allow the lifespan of the end of the engine like the good old SPAD so. The spat was put back into production and several hundred more were built in a production run from 54 to 57 and R 606. Here was is a 1955 model. Into the 60s President Kennedy, of course, was in the White House and one of the pillars of our foreign policy at that point, you may remember, called the domino theory. That was a concern that if Communism continued to try to spread its tentacles and knock down small countries one at a time, it could set a tumbling like dominoes and allow communism to spread. Again, it's interesting when we get to this. With the early 60s, we talk about this war. The Vietnam War. And yet there were many more countries involved than just the two vietnams. That's exactly right. And on the chart up there that we had earlier, when you zoom in on the area, we call it the Vietnam War, but it was really the Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand War. President Kennedy had hoped to keep us out of direct involvement, and we think of him as the father of special forces, the Green Berets, advisors that would go in and help the the indigenous folks of their own country help themselves. And lesser known is that the Air Force stood up a unit called the Air Commandos, which were sort of the equivalent of the green braces and the Air Force. South Vietnam had been supplied with Skyraiders as early as 1960 and became the second largest operator of a ones in the world. And the Air Force took over from the Navy, working with the South Vietnamese in the early 60s flying missions using the E model. That's A2 seat version of this airplane where a US pilot and a Vietnamese pilot could fly together. Where would those pilots train the South Vietnamese pilots? I mean, there's long and detailed and deeper processes. That was, where would they? Train. The short answer is many of them came to America and did flight training in the States and then went back to Vietnam to serve that. That joint flying only lasted a couple years after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. America then took on a frontline role in Vietnam and. Flew the the Multiplace A1E single pilot. Those airplanes were used up and by this time into the mid to late 60s, jet technology did catch up and the Navy was now able to build their ship squadrons using A4 Skyhawks, A7 Corsair twos. And the single seat skyraiders like our 606 and H model were now surplus. If you will. And the Air Force, said boy, we'll take all you'll give us. And they stood up 4 squadrons of single seat, mostly single. Seats where would they fly out of? Well, three of the squadrons were in Thailand and one was in Vietnam. The airplanes did a variety of missions, everything from forward air control, armed reconnaissance, close air support for troops. Ohh more recently declassified support of Green Beret special operations teams. And then finally the most well known mission, the search and rescue mission where they use the call sign Sandy went in to protect downed pilots and then protect the helicopters that went in to pick up those downed pilots. Under President Nixon and the Vietnamization program we needed to reduce our footprint in Vietnam and began a slow withdrawal. So piece meal remaining skyraiders were handed over to the South Vietnamese and by the end of 1972 we had stopped operating. Americans had stopped operating the Skyraiders in South Vietnam and the Vietnamese were were fighting on their own until the fall of South Vietnam in 1975 and the last part of the story. Really is that many of us have seen the Discovery Channel footage that when South Vietnam fell and the tanks rolled in on the the embassy and in the South and Saigon folks clamored to escape. Mostly using helicopters to fly out to the ships offshore and the footages of the the decks being cleared, helicopters being pushed over the side to make room for more. Less documented was the escape of fixed wing airplanes. Many of them went over to Thailand. And our 606 was was used by a South Vietnamese pilot. So why would these airplanes sent over to Thailand? Thailand provided an ideal place for the Skyraiders and the Jolly Green Rescue helicopters to base out of because of the proximity of what's called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Not just one trail, but really a network of thousands of paths and roadways that work down around Vietnam. And on one of the the maps that you see there, you see that Vietnam is a very narrow country and our forces in Vietnam formed what you would call a roadblock. And what do we do when you come up against a roadblock? You go around it. And therefore the war spilled over into Laos and Cambodia and that proximity of our. Places in Thailand allowed us to operate and fight what they called the Secret War, stopping the the flow of men and material from North Vietnam through those neighboring countries into South Vietnam. So how many hundreds or how many airplanes were parked over there to keep them from the North Vietnamese? I would estimate the number is probably 50 or 60. I know eleven of them were skyraiders and four of them Roger and another pilot named Jack Young, Jack Drummond, Jack Drummond were able to save. So Roger, there's the backgrounder on all of this, which, by the way, is one of the best brief backgrounds about the Vietnam War. In fact, that was Awesome, Roger. Yeah. You know, this is part of what we do here. We're trying to present some of this history because I guess most of you, if you were born when that was going on, you're awful. You were awfully young. And so one of our goals is to not only honor veterans, which is the major reason we're here, but to try to refresh people's memories or give them some memory about who did what to make sure that we could be here today. And live the lives we lead and we honor these veterans every day, in every way. So. Mag. Roger. You're up. Thank you and thank all of y'all for coming out here in this hot sun to listen to a little bit of history. When I started out in the pilot training, I wanted to fly the A1 terribly so, but we didn't have any left. So I took a C123 for one year tour in Saigon, quickly volunteered for a concurrent tour to get into the A1 and it worked out great. I flew the A1. Out of NKP and towards the end of that too. Let's NKP. Nakon Phanom, that's where we had our A1 station towards the end of that tour and this will bring you up to speed of us going to utapao to get these airplanes. General Aderholt had contacted some of the A1 people and said I need some T28 advisors. If you all want to do that, I'll send you to the Defense Language Institute to study tie for a year and then back over to work for him. I had come back and was going to work as a T28 advisor when he introduced me to the stove. Order which the ties had just acquired and I became an advisor for that this year is 73 and then we had 74 and then in 75 is when South Vietnam bill. During the 7374 time frame, General Aderholt was working behind the curtain, so to speak, with the ambassador in Cambodia and the one in Vietnam. We had given them the South Vietnamese, most of our airplanes and the Vietnamization and they had become the 4th largest Air Force of over 2000 airplanes in the world. And things were going South for them and the same way with the camera which was approaching into Cambodia. The General Aderhold came up with a plan to get everybody out, my partner in crime, and I can't quite see the slides back there, but if they bring up Jack Drummond, he's the one that worked with me. General Aderholt had called him and called me and said y'all had flown a ones before, I need you to help me out. So Cambodia was about to fall and they did fall back in early part of April and that was about 60 or 97 airplanes came out of Cambodia, mostly T28. Into Utah power. Now set the stage here. You had Four Nations, 4 air forces at Utapao at one time. Once Saigon fell and the South Vietnamese Air Force came into Utpal, we had the US Air Force that had B52 still there. We had the Royal Tire force. We had the Cambodian Air Force and the and the South Vietnamese Air Force. And nobody could hardly talk to anybody. It was a Wild West show beyond imagination. So my partner in crime. Was Jack Drummond. Uh, he had a great background, although not in combat. In the A1 he had one at Eglin Air Force Base. He was a weapons tester. He worked directly for General Aderholt. That was one of the reasons. General Aderholt, when he went over to Southeast Asia, he took Jack Grumman with him because he trusted him. So once he had Jack Drummond in country and I was in country and Cambodia fell. He had called me and told me. He said I need you to go down to utapau. Look things over. I'm I'm understanding that the South Vietnamese are gonna try to come out of there fairly quickly, and they did on April the 29th before they came out. He sent me down to a little field and it's on one of the maps. I can't quite see him, David, but anyway. There's a small grassy strip next to Cambodia called trot TRT. He said check that out because a lot of the airplanes coming out of Cambodia and South Vietnam are not going to have gas like especially the UH ones and the old ones, they're going to need to land. So I went down there, I found a 3004 thousand foot strip. It checked it out. It was OK. I got back to outer hole and I said you can tell them through your channels that there is a strip short of utapau. DuPont was further to the West. So when Cambodia came out it was kind of. Nominal General Aderholt designed the OPS plan for them to leave. They literally loaded their T20 eights in Phnom Pen with Mark 80 twos and in doing so they put all their families on a bus to go West to a place called Bonbon. Once the families were there, the T28 took off. They bombed the kamaru, they RTB into bottom bond. They picked up their families and put them in the back seat of the T28, loaded up again with Mark 80 twos and went back out to the camera. Who bombed the camera and then returned into Thailand to land and that's that's the way it all happened and that was because our whole lined it out for him exactly what to do. So he not only saved their families but he did two strikes prior to them he backing out to. Utah families were in the back seat of T20 eights on bombing. Missions as many as a wife and two or three kids in the back seat of a T28. The whole story of this evacuation, whether it's Cambodia or Vietnam, is unbelievable. We had a 30 sevens landing with the pilot and four people in the right seat. We had C-40 Sevens designed for 30 or 40 people landing, with 150 Vietnamese people in there. It was a it was a Wild West show, believe me. So I had trots set up for him, and we were evacuating people out, and as we were getting them off, the helicopters that would land. Was trying to check things out and see who was coming in and all because we didn't know who was on the helicopters and what was meaningful to me. Was there was an elderly lady got off of the helicopter. She was in her LOI, Vietnamese Aaliyah. She was about, according to my interpreter, pilot, Vietnamese pilot. He went and talked to her. She was over 90 years old and she was carrying a plastic bag in her hands, wrapped up like this, and she had tied a knot in it. And most of you or any of you that's been in Asia know that the the Asian people carry a lot of things, food and everything, in these plastic bags. Well, she had a clear plastic bag that was filled with water. I said, what's in there? He came back and he said she got out of Vietnam with her goldfish so she that was important. The other end of the spectrum was that a 17 year old girl got off a helicopter with a four day old baby. Wow. So there we were. Anyway, Jack Grumman and I knew that the South Vietnamese was coming out. And we were down there looking around and then on the 29th of April, Saigon fell. And I don't know where the slide program is up there, but anyway, I'll just tell you how it was when the, when the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong overran Saigon, it was unbelievable. People were the South Vietnamese military was running or Air Force was running to see if anything had any gas and just take off and go West. And so a lot of them landed on the roads, a lot of them helicopters landed in rice paddies. In Thailand, some of them made it all the way to utapao. There was approximately 165 Vietnamese aircraft there, and those were F fives, some of them nearly brand new, a 30 sevens, C-40 Sevens, a C1, nineteens O ones, Hueys, etcetera. Well, Aderhold's plan was he said, we're not leaving those airplanes there. And he he was the art of the deal before the art of the deal. I'm just going to tell you he was a a real trooper, and if you have the chance to read his book, it'll be time well spent. So he sent at her whole tonight down to utapau, little bit before the planes come out and we were there when they were coming in. The B50 twos had a 12,000 foot runway and these planes coming in from Vietnam, they couldn't speak English. They didn't know anything other than they were needing a place to land. And we literally saw airplanes landing at both ends of the runway at the same time. C-40 Sevens coming in with an engine on fire, another airplane landing in the gear just collapsing underneath it. Well, they sacked Commander there. Colonel Austin had a number of people there working for him and he had them out there with trucks and tractors and all clearing the runway. So if you can imagine this place here and all these planes here, instead of being in a row and in order, were parked all different kind of ways. Some no gear, some props bent, some wings bent up. That's the way it was. And it was just unbelievable. So. When Jack Grumman and I got there after all the A ones had landed, we went down and tried to check them out. And we found out that they were starting the airplanes, the US was into the type of airplane that that that was available. They had all the a ones together and all the AC119C one 30s etcetera. So the morning after they got through sort and I took Jack back down in the Porter and. We said, well were they a ones? And so we got in a truck and he took us way to the back of the one of the runways where there was a taxiway and then utapao, it's very flat. It's right on the Bay. So in order to build a runway and taxiways that would uphold a B52 taxi and they had to dig what we call in Texas and bar ditches, I mean they had to dig some deep ditches and pound that dirt up. Well, they had parked all the a ones in a row in the ditch, back them off the taxiway in the ditch in the grass. Two nights before we went down there to get them. It had started raining and it rained every day and monsoon and then it was sunshine and it rained. So when Jack. I finally got out of the truck and we saw 11A ones. They were literally underwater above the tire. So you go here and you look at the tire up about halfway on the strut. That's how deep the water was that they were sitting in. And so I told Jack, I said, you know, we don't even know if these hydraulics are going to work, the brakes are going to work or anything. So we had chief match certain day. And I think that was who it was we asked him said can you get these things out of the water up here on the grass so we can look them over and he's as. Far as you knew, were all of them flyable or did? You well, they had here was the good thing. They had just flown in. And when we got him out on the grass and we got up on the wing, started looking around, there's no checklist, there's no 781 manual talking about the condition of the airplane. The cockpits had been left open and when I reached over into that cockpit. Of maybe 606 and press down on the parachute seat cushion. The water came up between my fingers. So I told Jack. I said we're not flying with this seat armed. We're leaving the pen in. So the ejection seat PIN was right here at the base of the seat. So we flew those with no chance of getting out, which was fine. We left the canopies. Open. That was fine, yeah. Well, I don't know too many people that bailed out with wet silk and it opened up into a parachute. I put it that way so. We had a plan and this was all fly by night. I hadn't flown the A1 for three years. Jack hadn't flown it for five or six years. So we're trying to put together in our mind the checklist of how to start the A1 and we started remembering over and over. I said, well, I remember we need to put the power on. We need to set the throttle about here for 1000 RPM when it cranks up. We need the prop lever and the mixture lever up. And I said we count 16 blades going across the nose, and after 16 it's pretty greased up and. You turn it on and go to both on the mags and believe it or not, our memories were pretty close to correct and they cranked. Up you wouldn't be here today. Well, that's true and there's a lot to that. We had gone over to base operations and told them we're going to try to get in and turn the power on and see if we can find a radio that Jack and I can talk plane the plane on and that we were going to try to get them out of there. And one thing to note about the whole deal of two or 300 airplanes sitting there from. Three or four different countries. Only four airplanes were flown out of Utapau to safety. The rest of them were put on trucks or slung out or whatever. Those four airplanes were a ones and six O 6 sitting here today is one of those four airplanes. Wow. So. When when Jack and I finally decide we're going to give it a shot, we said let's take we had one e-mail emodel there, 683, and I said, well, let's get in it, let's fly around. Just to kind of refresh ourselves. When we got on the wings and looked in the cockpit, there was no right seat and no right stick. So that ended that conversation. So I have been a captain and him and a major. I got to fly the fat face of single seat, big one, and he got the 332, which was a single seater. We got in there and we turned on the radios and we talked and all and we said OK, let's give it a shot. And all we had done to that airplane was put oil in it and one 15145 avgas that was it. We walked around and walked around. We were literally looking for bullet holes or damage to the airplane that it might have happened when they were escaping from South Vietnam. Because they tried these airplanes out of the water yet. Yeah, they dragged them up on the grass and we looked around and you know, what can you say? The water drained out of the wheels and the brakes and and we were going to give it a shot no matter what. When Aderhold asked you to do something, you you don't, you don't argue with that man. When he initially called me about flying the A1, I said. Yes, Sir, I'll do that. I said, you know, it's been three years and he just said Youngblood, you were drive a bicycle. I said yes Sir, thank you can do it again. I said yes, Sir. He said get your ass down there and get them a ones and and and that was the whole story, believe it or not. That's the leadership. Well, I'm telling you, you go with that man anywhere. So we had walked around and pre flighted as best we could. What we soon learned was there was no de arming at the end of the runway when the Vietnamese landed the guns were still hot. So I told Jack, keep your finger off the trigger. You know, we this is, it's an unbelievable situation to sit in an airplane you haven't flown for three years and crank it up and say, I'm going to just take it up and have some fun here. Well. It was. It was unbelievable, but anyway. We told the tower we were gonna tax you out that morning with 683 and 332 and we cranked them up and we chose to call sign Sandy one and Sandy two and just would have it as we. Got out on the taxiway and turned and we started taxiing towards the parallel taxiway. There was two jolly Greens sitting over there waiting to rescue people with their engines running. So here after all these years was 2A ones taxiing past two jolly greens, which was a little emotional so. We got to the end of the runway to arm and we were going to take off north to South over the ocean just in case the engine quit or whatever. We could just ditch it in the ocean and try to get out. We had T28 harnesses, but the coke fittings fit the harnesses and the A1. So we did that and then we locked the seats and locked the harness so we couldn't fall forward. But the seat PIN was in, so there was no ejecting like I told you. So we got on to the runway and I told Jack, I said, Jack, if you have to abort, just let it drive off of the end of the runway. If you get on the brakes and one of them hangs up, you're going to cartwheel and we don't know what will happen. So we we agreed to that and we didn't maximize the power on takeoff. They were clean birds and so we got up at an adequate. Up individually or. Together, yeah, Jack took off 1st and so I was behind him and I was looking at his airplane and kind of talking to him. He had selected half flaps on takeoff and he got down about 2000 foot and he said no flaps, no flaps because it was coming on up and ready to roll. So he popped his flaps up and I raised mine too. And about 3000 foot or so you could see him start to just touch a little left, right. And then all of a sudden he was airborne and we were going to make for sure that we got up a little ways before he sucked the gear up and he popped the gear and I said the gear. Being good buddy the gear clean good. So when he took off we were going to exit the back to the east over outside of Budapest and head up to Takali and he made a giant turn to the right to give me time and I was going down and I told him I'm off, I'm off and I said gear up and so then he started his turn back to the left and I joined up on his echelon to the left and we turned out and we flew it 1000 feet. Some of the pictures are on these slides. I don't know where that show is but. I was up on his wing, about 500 foot above him, taking pictures of him flying that Vietnamese A1332 up to Tackley. And I had her. Holter told us to take the airplanes to Tackley. And the reason being was there was a huge hangar that he had built himself or had built up there. And this is no nothing confidential. I mean it was to hide you twos in there. If EU twos had an engine problem and had to emergency land, they could land and totally and they could put them in a hangar. So he said I want you to put those a ones in that hangar. So there's a slide here in a minute to show that we landed in the first H Model 332. We turned over to the tie Colonel there at the base and we just. Came down initial just like we owned the place. We pitched out. We land Sandy one on final and Sandy 2 on final and we touched down, taxied in, turned the keys over to that tie. Colonel and Aderholt had directed that an army fixed wing aircraft come up to tackle and pick us up and take us back down to utapau. So we got all that. Fixed wing army plane and we were headed back to DuPont and we're sitting up close to the bulkhead and that Army captain flying in the left seat. He leaned back and he said, man, it's the first time ever heard. And he was following us on the radio. He said the first time I ever heard 2 pilots talking over the radio how to fly the airplane as they were flying the airplane. So and we did the whole way up there we said well we know we need to do this. We'll hold this much on final. We'll you know and in those days is I tell some of my best friends like Ken. Carry a little extra on final for the family and you'll never regret it. It's hard to get when you need it if you can't get it. So anyway, they took us back down to Utah power and it was getting late in the evening and the the master Sergeant had fueled the the rest of the airplanes, the seven, and he said they're ready to go. And I said, well, if we have a problem cranking and getting airborne, I said it's going to be close to dark when we get up to tackley. I said we'll get it next thing in the morning. So we came out the next morning and we were standing there next to 665, which now lives in Sevierville, TN at the Tennessee Air Museum, and six O 6, which was mine, which is right here and it's at Kavanaugh. And now I think the Mr. Jim Kavanaugh's in the crowd. And I'd like to thank you very much. Jim, are you here? Where's Jim? There he is. Sir. A lot of time and effort and money went into getting six O 6 back to where it is today, and thanks to Ken Holston and him being a captain with Delta Airlines, he finagled delta to repaint six O 6 back to its original spec. So that's good, you've got an authentic A1 Skyraider in 606. Wow. So. When we got out to the last two aircraft, 3665 and 606, there comes this Blue staff car screaming down the taxiway to where we were located. The door swings open and this Lieutenant Colonel gets out and he's from SAC. And so, you know, they do everything by the book, whether it's going to the restroom or whatever, it's by the book. So he comes up to us and he said, wait a minute, he said, I got a call from headquarters and they said they heard you. Do these airplanes they want to know when did you get current you you can't fly these airplanes when did you get current in these A ones and Jack and I looked at each other and looked back at him and said yesterday. He he didn't say a word. He got back in his car and headed out, so we just got in those A ones. And how many of you active duty were in sack? Any of you? There are few nothing against Zack, but that's the way they operate. Well, I just want to identify my old gangs. Yeah. And now, by the way, I know there's some people here visiting today that worked on the A1, whether you were weapons, troops, gas, troops, whatever you were radio, would you raise your hand? I'd like to thank you. Yeah. Also, Roger, would you identify John Goldenbaum's over here? Yeah, two of your. This is sandy, guys. This is a little unusual. Maybe the first time since we came back from Vietnam. When you go into the A1 squadron, you fly on the wing for a couple of flights and then you're OK to go up and be hobo one. They call it. You lead a flight or two. After you fly hobo missions for a while, they upgrade you to Sandy's wingman, whether it's Sandy four or Sandy 2. And after you've flown a few sandy missions and they got a lot of faith in you, they upgrade you to Sandy 1. Sandy one is in charge of the whole SAR force. All the sandies, the jollies, the forward air controllers. He communicates with the AC130 kingbird. I mean, he is in charge of the SAR force. It just so happened that. John Goldenbaum, John Ralston and Cliff Groves and I were in the same flight and we were all sandy ones, qualified flight leaves. I'd like these guys to stand up, stand up. Here you go. Hey, how are you? Good to see you. It was a. It was really an honor for you to fly this pad and go and pick people up. That was a. Just the greatest. So when we got to. 332 and I mean 685 and 606 off and we landed at Talk Lee. We pitched out again and landed. And as I saw Goldie rolling out on the runway, I just jokingly said to him, are you down? He said, yeah, I just landed and I'm turning base. And I said, well, I guess that makes me flying the last day one in the US Air Force and I was on base turn. That was a joke. But I do. Enjoy it so much. And when we came out of there, the State Department had found out what we had done and they said you cannot say that you stole those airplanes from the North Vietnamese. You can say that you repositioned previously US owned property. So that's where that was. And they gave Aderholt a hard time. And while Aderholt was running the show, he stole every F5, every a 37. He took a bread truck with his crew of people with a settling torch and went up and down the line. He cut the guns out of the AC119 gunships. He cut the dash out of a lot of airplanes that he couldn't do anything with. So if the North Vietnamese were coming to claim their spoils, they were going to get junk. They didn't get Jack. Save a bunch of wore out, broke airplanes. So Aderholt was just unbelievable. So, and kind of winding it up, when I got through with my tour in 75, he called me in his office and he said what do you want to do? And I said, I don't know anything but close air support. And he said well how about an A7? And they were kind of coming online and I said, Sir, that'd be great. So he got me an A7 today, this month. And after the A7, I moved to Myrtle Beach in the A7, then I transitioned to the A10. So I've just been attack, attack, attack below 5000 foot all my life and. I I just enjoyed that was in 24 years. And I and I don't regret a second of it, especially flying 606. When I got back in 75, for some reason. I was at Eglin Air Force Base doing something and I'd heard that all the refugees, a lot of them, had been relocated to Eglin. They were out on the grass in these fifty men's army tents and I went over there and I'm not sure why. But I went over there. To see those guys that had come back. So I ask, do you have these? These Vietnamese refugees segregated by aircraft and they said yes. And. So I said, well, who are the A1 pilots? And they gave me a tent number and there was a lot of tents. So I went down there to that tent I walked in and. Here's about 30 or 40 cots in that tent. It's hot and typical fashion for Asian pilots and all. They're in their underwear and T-shirt, they're playing cards on their cots and that's all they had. So I sat in there and talked to him a little bit. I said you know, I I flew the A1 and and and Saigon for a while or not in Saigon, but I saw you everyone in Saigon and I got to fly the A1 and then I was involved in you getting out of out of out of Vietnam. And so the next day I went back and I said, what do I need to do to take one of these guys with me? And that Lady sitting there, she turned this piece of paper around, said, sign here. That was about what it took, so I signed off on possibly doing that. So I went to the tent and I found this one that I like this guy was talking to. I said, you know, you don't know me. I don't know you. But we both flew the A1. If you wanna get out of here, I'll take you with me to live with me. He talked to his buddies. It's OK, I'll go. So I took him in the car. We went straight to the BX. I got a cart and the biggest suitcase. We loaded up. And we hit it across country to Tucson, AZ, where he lived with me for a year. I got him a job. HEB stocking shells. Got him a checking account. Bank of America got him enrolled in an English class. After a year, he and zombies. Some some of these bugs want to head out. I said OK, I blessed them. They had bought a car. We went to the bank, got all his money out, got him travelers checks, shook his hand and he headed out. And that kind of summed up my tour and my career, what I wanted to do. Wow. Yep. Were you able to keep track of him? But you keep track of him at all or? He attracted it. Ah, I'm trying to track him down. A few times. I'd heard it, believe it or not. He went to Minnesota and I think there's a lot of Vietnamese people in Minnesota and he's probably 40 years plus now. So he's he's well on his way doing something, but. This whole thing happened 40 something years ago and 19 five and six May 1975. And probably this story wouldn't have come about had desonia Air and Space magazine not published a story about the fall of Saigon. It was labeled escape to utapau. You can Google it. And it told the whole story about how it all happened, except some of the minor details I told you about were left out about Jack and I. So. I got the phone calls and they said, well where are those airplanes and tell us what happened and all this, we didn't know anything. So this is 40 plus years. So I started checking around and thanks to Ken Holston, he called me one day and he said Youngblood. There's only three Jack Drummonds in the United States and I didn't know where Jack had gone. And he said, guess what? One of them's in Round Rock, TX. Well, Round Rock, TX is 40 miles from my home. So I call him up and believe you me, when he answered the phone I knew I had the right number and he said hello and I said Jack. And he said young blood and that was pretty much it. So after 40 years we got back together. Now, he had severe diabetes and he was confined to a wheelchair, but thanks to Mr. Kavanaugh and the Cavanaugh Flight Museum in 2018 they did a weekend show about the 6:06. And there are other E models there, and it's a great place. If you ever get to Texas around Dallas, go to the Cavanaugh Flight Museum and visit. It was well worth your time. So we had this show, Jack and his wheelchair with diabetes, rented a van and drove 3 1/2 hours from Round Rock to Dallas to sit in the hangar and we could tell the story one time about how we got. Those airplanes out of there. And then he drove back. And then late 2018, his dialysis machine failed him and he went into Hospice and he passed. So the otterholt is gone, Charlie Day is gone, Drummond's gone. And and I'm in it and I'm not looking to leave. So that's it. Yeah. All of this was happening when you were in grade school. What is it like for you to sit here and know him and work with him now fly this airplane? What's this experience like for you? That is hard to put into words. You know, I've built models of skyraiders as a boy. I read about these guys and now to be friends with them and to share in this history is it's really hard to put into words. Uh. The airplane is just a joy to fly and to get to know someone like Roger and and Goldie and Cliff. To know the history that you're carrying with you. Sometimes I made the analogy and not to be too uh you know touchy feely but you're flying the airplane and you just feel like you have hundreds of eyes looking over your shoulder because you're you're carrying. If this airplane could talk you know the the missions that flew the people that saved or and I'm sure there were there were certainly heartbreak missions where things didn't work and and that's the that's war. But to be able to honor the Vietnam Veterans now they they're they're recognitions a little overdue. And the fact that we're able to show the airplane and its original colors, tell the story and have Raja here tell it from the horse's mouth. It's history. It if we don't remember our history, we're doomed to repeat it. Amen. And once again, here is Roger and his colleagues and thousands, 10s of thousands over. Couple of 100 years, millions of Americans have put their lives on the line so we could be here and live the way we do today. So gratitude to all of you gentlemen and. Ladies. So, Sam. Sam Bass, who's a? 50 Year safe Flyer with his 10s of thousands of hours. And by the way, Ken has almost 20,000 hours too as a pilot. Sam's going to about talk with these guys about the airplane. John, thank you for being with us there. John. John Ross and Sam take. Over. Yes, Sir. Hello, we're here. Tell us a little bit about the the design of the airplane. What was its purpose when it was designed? Well, as we alluded to earlier in the presentation, at one point we thought we were going to have to invade the home islands of Japan. And so the airplane was designed to replace the dauntless dive bomber and it the Skyraider and I think the BearCat both to me are the pinnacle of the World War 2 technology. People that know antique airplanes know that the gear handles aren't always in good spots and and whatnot. There's no ergonomics. But this airplane has a lot of ergonomics that actually sent Douglas representatives out in the Pacific and asked pilots and mechanics what do we need to do with this next new airplane to make it user friendly and pilot friendly? Well, what is the hours? We were talking about rage not as distance but in hours. Loitering range for instance. The internal fuel on the airplanes. 380 gallons. And if you just want to use a round Number of 100 gallons an hour, that's 3.8 hours to flame out on internal fuel. And then these drop tanks that you see here each 150 gallons so that you can add increments and range. You know the airplane empty is about £12,500 but the gross is £25,000. So it in essence can carry its own weight in stuff which you can divvy up between ordinance and fuel. So it. Not uncommon for missions in Vietnam to go out to the 8 hour mark if need be. We're speaking tomorrow, Mark. What? What is the armament on this airplane? Of course, I'm sure it varies depending on its mission, but what what's typical armament for? In Vietnam, of course, the 420 millimeter cannons in the wings, and they typically carried also a 7.62 mini gun, which show you a replica here on the stub pylon. They also carried a lot of cluster munitions, which are kind of the equivalent of grenades, all packed into dispensers, white phosphorus bombs, rockets for both marking and high explosives. And then of course it could carry hard bombs, napalm mines, rescue kits. The beauty of the airplane is if it would hang on there, it could carry it. Well, if all of these that are built, how many do you think are still flying? The number is less than 20. I don't recall the exact, but there are less than 20 flying of the H model here, only two fly in the world and it's thanks to Roger Youngblood that the airplanes were saved. The J model, which was the last version, none fly. OK, how about flying the airplane? They have all the airplanes you've flown. You've got a vast knowledge of airplanes you've flown in the Air Force and in the airlines. How does this compare? I'd love flying. This airplane is such an honest, stable machine. Back in the day with the high octane fuels, the manifold pressure was limited at 56 inches. Today with 100 octane, we're limited to 49 and we applied a across the board. Met actually a 45 just for engine longevity. However, we fly the airplane with no armor and no armament, so I think the way it handles on reduced power and reduce weight is probably somewhat similar to what it was like in combat. Very stable, very well harmonized. Amazing what the designers did. We're here. We just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. All done with slide rules. And again, what an amazing thing that the engineering minds of America did. They decided to put hydraulic assist ailerons in but but manual elevator and rudder. Yet the whole airplane just feels just easy and naturally harmonized. Well, thanks to your Kavanaugh Museum, now you get to fly this around the country. You as an individual, what does it mean to you to be able to? Present this to the public. It's a lot when I. As a quick aside, when we decided to repaint the airplane and put it in its accurate colors, I went in search of experts. With the quotation marks experts to help me confirm the fonts of the stencils and all this other stuff. And I found out that there really weren't any. So when they say in the land of the blind the one Eyed Man is king and I became the the Skyraider expert on that. So to be able to to to be a conduit to history to get to know Roger personally and to be able to help relate the stories, share it with the public and in particular because Vietnam America was. Wanted to put all things Vietnam behind it, and uh, in the years since Desert Storm, we've done such a better job of embracing the Vietnam Veterans and the Vietnam era to make sure that as citizens we don't forget the price of freedom.
