perseverance of the men who fought in this unforgiving forest is without question. theirs is a war story that deserves to be told. i'm oliver north. good night. tonight on "war stories" -- >> how do you spend people to war and then pull the rug out from under them? >> the rules of engagement made a dangerous job deadly. >> it was a frustrating thing. we knew we had to fight within these rules of engagement. >> still in the skies over vietnam, they did their duty. >> it was like a football game. send me in, coach. i'm ready. >> "operation rolling thunder," that's coming up on "war stories." the men who flew this plane

call it the thud or the lead sled. it was the f-105 thunder chief, and during the veietnam war, it was a workhorse. i'm oliver north and this is "war stories." between 1961 and '73, over 3,000 aircraft like this one were shot down or destroyed in southeast asia. 1968, the last year of rolling thunder and 652 men piloting these planes lost their lives. from march of '65 to october of '68, air force navy and marine airmen dropped nearly a half million tons of bombs. rolling thunder was far from a triumph. as you'll see and hear, orders straight from the white house forced the men flying these missions to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. and those restrictions inevitably cost american lives. join us tonight as we pay tribute to the heroes of

operation rolling thunder. >> took this huge hit. every warning light came on. nothing to do. >> could this war have been won? >> of course it could. it could have ended any time we wanted it to. >> in 1965, vietnam was divided and at war. the south was democratic and america's friend. the north, communist and allied with our cold war enemies, the soviet union and china. ho chi minh ruled the north with a singular purpose. an independent, yun fid, and

communist vietnam. >> i thought it was the right thing to do, to take the communists on. >> george day grow up 7,000 miles from vietnam on the banks of the sioux river in iowa. after the war, he switched to the air force and had already flown combats in the korean war. >> it really started with charlie lindbergh. he was like an all-consuming hero. we used to throw parachutes up in the air, handkerchief with a rock tied to it and yell "charlie lindbergh." >> jackie cochran, who was the first woman to break the sound barrier, came to our little town of corona. she talked to me and invited me to her ranch. >> years later, jack would think cochran by giving her his first set of marine corps wings. his first assignment was in california. >> i said, i want to be a fighter pilot. he said, we have one slot left. they're going to vietnam in

august. i said, that'd be great. >> by 1965, the beatles and rolling stones had invaded america, and there were thousands of american military advisers in south vietnam. early that year, president lyndon johnson decided to increase america's commitment to the south and its leader. and the public agreed. polls showed that 80% of americans supported helping south vietnam. >> the advance of communism had to be stopped. >> jim mcer inny began his military career as a paratrooper in the 82nd airborne. by the korean war, he decided it was better to land them than jump out of them. >> i had the high honor indeed of getting the last kill of the korean war. >> rolling thunder reflecting the caution of the guy who ran it, the president of the united states, lyndon johnson. >> wayne thompson is an author.

>> the insurgency in south vietnam was being run from hanoi. so johnson reluctantly agreed to a very limited bombing campaign. >> gradualization basically violates every known rule of war. >> principal airfields in north vietnam had not been bombed in over two years. the capital city of hanoi was barely bombed so ships could come in and unload supplies. >> roughly two-thirds of north vietnam's imports came to the port. closing the port would have crippled the enemy. but white house restrictions allowed the supplies to keep flowing. and that wasn't all. pilots were virtually forbidden from attacking enemy surface-to-air missile sites. >> the inability to go after a

s.a.m. site before it was fully built and operational and fired at us, because of the political danger, we would pick up if we killed a couple russians. >> and we didn't want to hurt the russian advisers. >> that's right. >> when rolling thunder began in march of 1965, david, howard, and thousands of men like them were forced to fight by rules like these. >> who picked the targets? >> the tuesday lunch bunch. that's president johnson and secretary mcnamara. i think four or five other civilians. >> in the skies over north vietnam, texan bob parr doe would see the price of hesitation by the tuesday lunch bunch. this is a conversation between secretary of defense robert mcfor that mar ra and lbj on the eve of rolling thound ining th.

>> len den johnson had well remembered the chinese and the korean war. they might bring in full divisions to combat american forces. >> where did you grow up? >> i was an army brat. my father-in-law was career army. my brother-in-law was west point class of '66. >> paul bucked family tradition and graduated from the naval academy in 1962. >> the cold war is very much on the minds of certainly people at the naval academy. >> that's what it was. we knew sooner or later we were going to cross horns with the chinese communists and bash heads have a big war with them. >> he flew the skies of north vietnam in an a-4. >> throwaway bomber, tinker toy.

official name was the a-4 sky hawk. >> but it also had a nuclear mission. >> oh, yeah. >> many of the aircraft that flew into vietnam were designed with an entirely different war and mission in mind. >> we got more and more and more embroiled with the so-called cold war. and the mission of the air force became one of nuke, retaliation, nuke, threat, nuke this, nuke that. there was a long period of where actual fighter tactics and conventional warfare were not really considered. >> 1943 west point graduate robin became an ace during world war ii. his experience dropping unguided so-called dumb bombs on the nazis wuould prove vital to the pilots flying jets over vietnam. >> the f-4 was a fighting

machine, built just for that. navy built as an intercepter, but it turned out to be a marvelous conventional warfare airplane. >> for vietnam, the f-105 thunder chief's nuclear bombay was turned into a fuel tank. and the b-52, designed for long-range nuclear strikes, was modified to carry scores of conventional bombs. >> 30 of those b-52s were sent to guam just before. and the air crews thought they were going to bomb north vietnam. >> we deployed on february 11th, 1965. >> don was a co-pilot in one of those bombers. >> the mission from that point was to go down to 500 feet, paralleling the coast of north vietnam, not gaining altitude, going over hanoi, probably 200 to 300 feet, and then pop up and vaporize the airfield northwest of hanoi about ten miles.

that is the only mission, the only mission in the vietnam war that had a chance of stopping the war before it got started. >> what might have been mattered little to the men tasked with flying north. restrictions are orders, and order are followed. >> you never work against your own country during wartime. >> it's the same old thing. just like a football game. send me in, coach. i'm ready. >> our pilots call it the flying telephone pole, and they closed in on their aircraft at more than 2,000 miles an hour. doing battle with the sa-2 is doing battle with the sa-2 is next on "war stories. i'm leaving the track behind, but i'm not standing still... doing battle with the sa-2 is next on "war stories. and with godaddy, i've made my ideas real. ♪ i made my own way, now it's time to make yours. ♪ everything is working, just like it should ♪

we cannot be defeated by force of arms. we will stand in vietnam. >> in july 1965, president johnson announced that u.s. troop levels in vietnam would

rise to 125,000. from the 24th, two u.s. air force captains were already at war. cruising at 23,000 feet, 40 miles west of hanoi, they and their f-4 phantom were in a part of north vietnam designated as route pack six. >> where did those terms come from? >> is they just draw a line across a map, route package one being near the dmz, route package five and six being the northern most part of north vietnam. >> route pack six probably became the most heavily defended real estate anyone had ever seen. >> they spotted smoke trails streaking toward their f-4. before they could react, a missile scored a direct hit. making them the first of many to be taken out by this weapon. after ejecting, they were both captured. like most pows, their treatment

was brutal. torture, limited medical treatment, and malnutrition were the norm. only cairn survived. >> you ever see a missile go by you? >> oh, yeah. >> how big is it? >> just like they say. about like a telephone pole. >> the russian sa-2 is quite the opposite of the low-tech pajama wearing vietcong in the south. it contained many weapons, being tested in the skies over vietnam. >> wild weasel was a very highly classified program. essentially, it was mating an experienced tactical fighter pilot with an electronic warfare officer. the electronic warfare officer played with his equipment to find out what it was doing. the pilot figured out how to handle the situation. >> we would keep them busy while

the strike force went in. >> dave was one of those electronic warfare officers affectionately referred to as the guy in back. >> you don't think about the fear, the danger, or anything else. because you can't hesitate. >> flying a wild weasel mission, what's the greatest vulnerability? enemy migs? >> all of the above. >> the sa-2 was a new threat. we had to look at it and come up with ways to beat it. now, it took us a while. we lost a lot of airplanes initially. >> in time, wild weasel flights routinely escorted strike aircraft. >> the strike force typically was 16 f-105s and escorted by what was called an iron-hand flight. the iron-hand flight typically had two wild weasel aircraft and two f-105 single seaters.

>> the weasels flew five minutes ahead of the strike package. their goal, to get the bombers in and out with bombs on target. but in order to target a s.a.m., the sight needed to turn on its radar. >> so they turned on their radars, you could actually fire back at that radar. >> that's right. the sa-2 sight commander could tell when he was being fired at. >> it was a very dangerous cat-and-mouse game. risking their lives to try to destroy a surface missile sight before that sight strikes them. >> the north vietnamese realized what we were doing. it didn't scare them anymore because they could keep their radar off until the last minute and put it back on. >> in late december 1965, president johnson temporarily halted the rolling thunder raids, hoping ho chi minh would agree to talk. the north vietnamese ignored the

gesture and improved defenses and targets. when "war stories" returns, one

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across multiple locations. every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. comcast business outmaneuver. june 1966, astronaut edward white took america's first walk in space. that month on mother earth, lyndon johnson allowed the first rolling thunder strikes near hanoi. this telephone call between secretary of defense mcnamara and the president occurred on 6th june. >> forces are ready and weather forecasts favorable for strikes against targets. >> later in the conversation, lbj raises concerns over a soviet tanker that might be caught in the cross fire.

>> it's going to be their response. >> i think that we have told the russians that we have put it in writing and done everything possible to avoid antagonizing them in this military conflict. so if we hit the tanker, i doubt that it would lead to military action. >> in the skies over vietnam, the pilots flying the missions wondered how they could win a war if we were going to avoid antagonizing one of our enemy's principle sources of supply. >> the restrictions were so ridiculous. >> june 17th, 1966. not a good day. >> paul was off the coast of vietnam aboard the "uss hancock" preparing for his second mission of the day. >> what was the target? >> we couldn't get in because of the weather.

we went in to hit boxcars. rolled in. i got hit right at the bottom of the dive bombing run. i looked down and saw the two hydraulic gauges go down to zero. i said, this is not good. tail blew off the airplane and i ejected. i pulled my radio out. i got down, looked around. they're all coming toward me. last transmission was, send the airplanes, send the helicopters back. see you after the war, thinking in my mind it was going to be another six months. >> that the point, 17th june, 1965, did you know anybody who was already a p.o.w.? >> a bunch of them. my friend john, one of our photo birds, he'd been shot down. we thought he was a p.o.w. >> you didn't know for sure who was and who wasn't? >> no, no. >> because they weren't telling

anybody. >> at this point in the war, the north vietnamese refused to disclose what pilots they held in captivity. torture and interrogations were a fact of life, as common as the sunrise. follow his shootdown, paul's fate remained a mystery for years. when an airmen went down in enemy territory, the race to rescue was on. >> the rescue people were unbelievable. the navy would actually fly across south vietnam to get to an air force pilot that had been shot down in laos. >> that's a pretty risky mission. >> it is. it certainly is. >> it was up to them to come in and clear the area. jolly greens would come in taking heavy fire. >> the jolly gereen giant hel helicopters and sandy were essential in many rescue missions. the a-1 flew low, slow, and loaded with armament.

it was great for attacking enemy ground troops searching for our downed flyer, but it was also vulnerable to ground fire. >> there were two navy pilots looking for major norman schmidt. >> norman schmidt's f-104 was shot down. the navy pilots ran low on gas. air force sky raider pilot and his wingmen took over the search. >> him and his wingmen started their zigzagging pattern looking for signs or parachutes or flares. that's when his plane was hit. and there was no other sign of my dad or no radio or parachute or anything. >> i answered the door when three air force officers were at the door. and they came in and my mom saw them and she said, carol, take jim out in the backyard and push him on the swing.

and i was back there pushing him, and i knew something was wrong. >> she was told not to talk about it because the north vietnamese government would use any information like that and use it for propaganda. >> i pretty much cried myself to sleep every night of my life. when i was in grade school and high school, just thinking he was being tortured. >> i assumed he was captive and in a prison camp somewhere. >> when "war stories" returns, we'll take you inside one of the war's greatest deceptions, operation bolo is coming up.