By Robert D. Seals, USASOC
Operation IVORY COAST was a joint special operations mission executed on November 21, 1970, to liberate American prisoners of war (POW) held at Son Tay, near Hanoi, North Vietnam. The rescue effort, launched from allied air bases in Thailand, was a “mission of mercy,” according to President Richard M. Nixon. If the plan succeeded, Nixon planned to possibly have the freed POWs at the White House for Thanksgiving dinner. A successful raid might also bring hope to the other POWs in North Vietnam and their families back in the U.S. Operation IVORY COAST did not succeed; however, the raid demonstrated that well-trained and rehearsed joint special operations forces could conduct missions deep inside denied areas. American POWs continued to languish in inhumane conditions until the last prisoner was released in April of 1973.
His journey began when he had to rewrite a paper for English class as a high school senior in Reeseville, Wisconsin.
George Kohn decided to research his topic on the investigation of aircraft accidents. He wrote a letter addressed to anyone at Truax Air Force Base in Madison, Wisconsin. It landed on the desk of the base safety officer who happened to be an F-102 pilot. The pilot invited Kohn to visit the base. He picked Kohn up for a tour and returned him home the next day. Kohn, a less than stellar student, got a passing grade on his paper and completed the class.
The Air Force’s first overseas-based F-35A squadron will be nicknamed the “Valkyries,” for the mythological Norse women who chose who would live or die in battle, the 48th Fighter Wing said Tuesday.
On April 4, 1968, Air Force 2nd Lt. Lloyd âFigâ Newton was enjoying the afternoon in San Francisco with friends before deploying from Travis Force Base for Vietnam. Hours before his scheduled departure, he got the news.
Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis. As a young black officer, Newton felt he had to decide whether to go ahead and fight a war outside this country during a time of racial turmoil in the United States.
âMy whole day, my whole life, changed at that point,â Newton said. His Air Force friends stayed with him for a short time until he went off by himself to think about his decision.
Advanced air-to-air capabilities could be a gamechanger for America’s newest stealth bomber.
Here s What You Need to Remember: If the B-21 does fly in 2021, as planned and ends up including the air-to-air capabilities that have been proposed, it could finally fulfill the A-12’s multi-role promise from nearly 30 years ago.
The U.S. Air Force’s new B-21 Raider stealth bomber could fly as early as 2021. And at least one Air Force general believes the new Northrop Grumman-made bomber could gain air-to-air capabilities in order to help it fight its way to its target.
There is some precedent for a bomber aircraft with a secondary air-to-air mission. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the U.S. Navy paid General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas billions of dollars to develop the A-12 Avenger II, a stealthy, carrier-launched medium bomber that was supposed to replace the Navy’s A-6 Intruders.