The Hunter Killers: The Extraordinary Story of the First Wild Weasels, the Band of Maverick Aviators Who Flew the Most Dangerous Missions of the Vietnam War

by Dan Hampton

Overview

At the height of the Cold War, America's most elite aviators bravely volunteered for a covert program aimed at eliminating an impossible new threat. Half never returned. All became legends. From New York Times bestselling author Dan Hampton comes one of the most extraordinary untold stories of aviation history.

Vietnam, 1965: On July 24 a USAF F-4 Phantom jet was suddenly blown from the sky by a mysterious and lethal weapon—a Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM), launched by Russian "advisors" to North Vietnam. Three days later, six F-105 Thunderchiefs were brought down trying to avenge the Phantom. More tragic losses followed, establishing the enemy's SAMs as the deadliest anti-aircraft threat in history and dramatically turning the tables of Cold War air superiority in favor of Soviet technology.

Stunned and desperately searching for answers, the Pentagon ordered a top secret program called Wild Weasel I to counter the SAM problem—fast. So it came to be that a small group of maverick fighter pilots and Electronic Warfare Officers volunteered to fly behind enemy lines and into the teeth of the threat. To most it seemed a suicide mission—but they beat the door down to join. Those who survived the 50 percent casualty rate would revolutionize warfare forever.

"You gotta be sh*#@ing me!" This immortal phrase was uttered by Captain Jack Donovan when the Wild Weasel concept was first explained to him. "You want me to fly in the back of a little tiny fighter aircraft with a crazy fighter pilot who thinks he's invincible, home in on a SAM site in North Vietnam, and shoot it before it shoots me?"

Based on unprecedented firsthand interviews with Wild Weasel veterans and previously unseen personal papers and declassified documents from both sides of the conflict, as well as Dan Hampton's own experience as a highly decorated F-16 Wild Weasel pilot, The Hunter Killers is a gripping, cockpit-level chronicle of the first-generation Weasels, the remarkable band of aviators who faced head-on the advanced Soviet missile technology that was decimating fellow American pilots over the skies of Vietnam.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062392947
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/23/2015
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	592
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Dan Hampton flew 151 combat missions during his twenty years (1986–2006) in the United States Air Force. For his service in the Iraq War, Kosovo conflict, and first Gulf War, Col. Hampton received four Distinguished Flying Crosses with Valor, a Purple Heart, eight Air Medals with Valor, five Meritorious Service medals, and numerous other citations. He is a graduate of the USAF Fighter Weapons School, USN Top Gun School (TOGS), and USAF Special Operations School. A frequent guest analyst on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC discussing foreign affairs, military, aviation, and intelligence issues, he has published in Aviation History, the Journal of Electronic Defense, Air Force Magazine, Vietnam magazine, and Airpower magazine, and written several classified tactical works for the USAF Weapons Review. He is the author of the national bestsellers Viper Pilot and Lords of the Sky, as well as a novel, The Mercenary.

Table of Contents

Author's Note xiii

Maps xviii

Prologue 1

Part 1

1 Spring High 21

2 Hitchhiker in a Hailstorm 44

3 Wild Weasel 80

4 Charlie and SAM 117

5 Hunter Killers 157

6 Make Mud, Not War 205

Part 2

7 A Full Day's Work 243

8 Year of the Monkey 293

9 Warts on a Frog 331

10 Winds of Change 386

11 Death from Above 413

Epilogue 460

Acknowledgments 487

Glossary of Terms and Acronyms 492

Appendix A Wild Weasel Combat Losses, Vietnam: 1965-1973 498

Appendix B Aircraft Loss Tables 501

Appendix C The Bamboo Dragon: Background Notes on Ho Chi Minh, France, and the Origins of the Vietnam War 505

Notes and Sources 528

Editorial Reviews

A gripping classic. Exhaustively researched, The Hunter Killers puts you directly into a Wild Weasel fighter cockpit during the Vietnam War. Dam Hampton lets you feel it for yourself as no one else could.

Colonel LEO THORSNESS

04/13/2015
Hampton (Viper Pilot), a former U.S. Air Force pilot, offers an incongruous mixture of an in-the-cockpit air combat chronicle entwined with a detailed and opinionated analysis of the Vietnam War. The air-combat sections zero in on pilots who flew the U.S. aircraft known as Wild Weasels. These were most often F-105 and F-100 jet fighter bombers with new, secret electronic countermeasure equipment that detected, suppressed, and destroyed North Vietnamese missile and anti-aircraft sites. In these sections, Hampton uses the words of surviving Wild Weasel aviators to imaginatively recreate dramatic and dangerous missions over enemy territory. He focuses on the use of American air power in extensive but stuffy sections on the war’s history, offering his opinions on the war’s origins and the policymaking of presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Hampton places the blame for the war’s outcome on both civilian political leaders and the top military leadership, especially Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Gen. William Westmoreland. The “most significant strategic error,” he says, was “neither recognizing nor admitting that the conflict was a civil war.” Hampton’s aviator action reconstructions are gripping, but their effectiveness is diminished by the drier sections of military history. (June)

Publishers Weekly

A gripping classic. Exhaustively researched, The Hunter Killers puts you directly into a Wild Weasel fighter cockpit during the Vietnam War. Dam Hampton lets you feel it for yourself as no one else could.” — Colonel LEO THORSNESS, Wild Weasel pilot and Medal of Honor recipient

“Exciting. ... Hampton’s command of the nuances of technology, in addition to his knowledge of the Vietnam War on the ground and in the air, renders this book both informative and moving. A fast-paced Vietnam War story.” — Kirkus Reviews

“An in-the-cockpit air combat chronicle. ... Hampton uses the words of surviving Wild Weasel aviators to imaginatively recreate dramatic and dangerous missions over enemy territory. ... Gripping.” — Publishers Weekly

“Intense. ... [Hampton’s] overall writing style is excellent; in particular, his vivid, fast-paced combat narratives. ... Will appeal to military history fans or anyone looking for an absorbing read.” — Library Journal

From the Publisher

05/01/2015
By the time of the Vietnam War, countermeasures to aerial warfare had become considerably more sophisticated owing to improved radar systems and more effective surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). This was tragically apparent on July 24, 1965, when a U.S. Air Force F-4 was shot down by the North Vietnamese Army with a Soviet-made SAM. In response, the Air Force developed the Wild Weasels program. Each Wild Weasel fighter jet contained a pilot and an Electronic Warfare Officer, and relied on experimental equipment and tactics. Aiming to provoke enemy radar in order to precisely locate and destroy SAM nests, their missions proved to be the most dangerous of the war as many Weasels were killed or captured. Hampton (The Viper Pilot) uses first-hand accounts from surviving Wild Weasels to tell their stories, including intense narratives from Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Linebacker. The author also provides insight into the fateful political decisions that prolonged the Vietnam War, making it clear that it took an exceptional person to be a Wild Weasel. VERDICT Hampton uses a lot of military terminology, some of which might be difficult for the lay reader to understand, but his overall writing style is excellent; in particular, his vivid, fast-paced combat narratives. His latest work will appeal to military history fans or anyone looking for an absorbing read.—Dave Pugl, Ela Area Pub. Lib., Lake Zurich, IL

Library Journal

In a distinctive baritone, John Pruden nearly flawlessly delivers this amazing account of heroism, initiative, and sheer guts. In 1965, the U.S. military was blindsided by the capabilities of Soviet surface-to-air missiles (SAMs.) A group of fighter pilots and “electronic warfare officers” volunteered to go after the heavily defended (often by Soviet troops) SAMs and developed a highly effective way of defeating the missiles. Nicknamed the “Wild Weasels,” these men have been given a splendid account by author Hampton, who was a “Wild Weasel” himself in the post-Vietnam Air Force. Pruden’s voice is strong, steady, and confident in delivery. He enunciates splendidly, and the only thing that takes away from his performance is some mispronunciations of military acronyms/abbreviations. Still, this is a splendid reading of a history that needs to be told. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2015 - AudioFile

2015-04-01
Weapon wizardry and exciting, in-the-moment pilots' accounts comprise this homage to the group of first trackers of the pesky surface-to-air missiles during the Vietnam War. Former Air Force lieutenant colonel and bestselling author Hampton (Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, from the Red Baron to the F-16, 2014, etc.) fashions the book as a kind of tribute to the lost pilots. Of the 72 "Hunter Killers" shot down during the Vietnam War, 31 were killed in action, 19 were POWs, two died in captivity, and 20 were rescued. Soviet specialists aided the North Koreans in developing the SAMs necessary to knock down American fighters, as was disastrously proved in July 1965 when USAF F-4 Phantoms were successfully targeted, to the Americans' utter surprise. Although American tactical aviation was supreme, not much had changed in military mentality since the Korean War until the advent of the anti-aircraft missiles. With President Lyndon Johnson's long-sustained bombing campaign Operation Rolling Thunder unleashed in March 1965, the pilots, flying low in altitudes without specific intelligence or specialized technology, became increasingly vulnerable to SAMs, the launch sites of which were frequently moved and expertly camouflaged. The key to a countermeasure would be radar detection: developing an antenna for the bottom of the jets tuned in to the SAMs' specific signal. The California-based Applied Technology, Inc. was employed to come up with the answer in a stunning 30 days in August 1965. Without training, the pilots were supposed to "just make it work," as successfully validated by pilots Jack Donovan and Allen Lamb, who knocked out the first SAM in November. Hampton's command of the nuances of technology, in addition to his knowledge of the Vietnam War on the ground and in the air, renders this book both informative and moving. A fast-paced Vietnam War story that cheekily employs the pilots' vernacular as well as plenty of technological terminology.

Kirkus Reviews