Shortly before my year was up in Vietnam, I received what many call a Million Dollar Injury. To qualify for this there are three requirements. First, it can’t kill you. Second, is that you get sent back to the United States. And third, you’re able to lead a normal life.
Red Bank pilot, soldiers honored 59 years after plane vanished on the way to Vietnam
Filmmaker Ken Burns visits the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial
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Capt. Gregory Thomas was a 48-year-old pilot with nearly 20,000 flight hours under his belt. Described as “colorful and heroic,” he flew with the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II and later safely landed a cargo plane on a beach after all four engines quit. He lived on a 55-foot yacht in Red Bank.
On March 16, 1962, he was at the controls for one of the biggest tragedies and mysteries in U.S. aviation history.
Capt. Gregory Thomas was a 48-year-old pilot with nearly 20,000 flight hours under his belt. Described as “colorful and heroic,” he flew with the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II and later safely landed a cargo plane on a beach after all four engines quit. He lived on a 55-foot yacht in Red Bank.
On March 16, 1962, he was at the controls for one of the biggest tragedies and mysteries in U.S. aviation history.
Early that morning Thomas was piloting Flying Tiger Line Flight 739, a military-chartered transport plane that disappeared over the Pacific Ocean with 107 people aboard, including 93 American soldiers. They were headed to Vietnam on a mission whose objective remains secret to this day.