In November 1972, an aircraft from the 36th Bomb Wing, home based at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas, went down in history as the first B-52 Bomber ever lost in combat to enemy fire. Ron Sellers was one of three wounded among the 6-man crew when his plane was hit by a Surface-To-Air (SAM) missile over North Vietnam. For the first time since their dramatic pick-up by Air-Sea Rescue, the crew met again for a reunion 25 years later at Randolph AFB in San Antonio. Ronald W. Sellers was born in 1944 in Maracaibo, Venezuela. He spent his first fourteen years in South America with his family of Texans (his father was with ESSO, now known as EXXON). He was sent home to Texas...
Vietnam
RUFUS DYE, JR.
This is a fighter pilots story, shot down behind enemy lines, parachuted into the middle of a major German withdrawal, and pedaled to safety by a French boy on his bicycle. In WWII, Lieutenant Rufus Dye was a 9th Air Force fighter pilot in the 392nd Squadron, 367th Fighter Group. The 392nd was a squadron of P-38 Lightnings that normally flew missions of Bomber Escort, Armed Reconnaissance, Interdiction, or Close Air Support. On the evening of September 8, 1944 his unit had been ordered to do something unusual, that was to conduct a very late in the day raid into Germany. Normally the 367th Fighter Group was a daylight operations unit. The squadron bombed a rail marshalling...
ARTHUR MANN – USMC – Vietnam
Arthur Mann was in the Brown Water Navy, and the engineer aboard the type of small river patrol boat made famous in the movie Apocalypse Now. He earned a Silver Star along with his three awards of the Purple Heart. Here is that story in brief. In 1967 and 1968, Arthur Mann was assigned to the ARMY-NAVY MOBILE RIVERINE FORCE, RIVER DIVISION NINE, RIVER ASSAULT FLOTILLA ONE (CTF117). Almost everyone in Vietnam simply knew them as the "Riverine Force". Petty Officer Arthur Mann was the Engineer on Assault Support Patrol Boat 91-3, that operated on the waterways of the Mekong Delta and the Rung Sat Special Zone, and was variously based at Dong Tam and My Tho, while...