| Date: 27 October 1967 |
| Aircraft type: F-105D Thunderchief |
| Serial Number: 62-4231 |
| Military Unit: 469 TFS, 388 TFW |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Korat |
| Name(s): |
| Col John Peter Flynn (POW) |
| Aircraft type: F-4D Phantom |
| Serial Number: 66-7513 |
| Military Unit: 435 TFS, 8 TFW |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Ubon |
| Name(s): |
| Capt Jon David Black (POW) |
| 1Lt Lorenza Conner (KIA) |
| Aircraft type: F-105D Thunderchief |
| Serial Number: 61-0122 |
| Military Unit: 357 TFS, 355 TFW |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Takhli |
| Name(s): |
| Maj Robert Lewis Stirm (POW) |
| On the morning of the 27th the USAF flew a major raid against the Canal des Rapides Bridge about five miles northeast of Hanoi. Col John Flynn, the 388th TFW’s vice-commander, led the raid. As Col Flynn rolled his Thunderchief (call sign Olympia 2) at 15,000 feet to dive on the target it was rocked by an explosion from an SA-2 missile. The aircraft became a mass of flames and Col Flynn ejected near the target. He was quickly captured and became the highest-ranking American officer to be held as a POW. With his fellow leaders, Cdr Jim Stockdale and Lt Col ‘Robbie’ Risner, he organized the POWs and, when conditions relaxed later in the war, formed the Fourth Allied POW Wing.
Within seconds of Col Flynn’s Thunderchief being shot down, one of the CAP flight Phantoms (call sign Ford) was hit by AAA as it orbited over Thud Ridge, about 20 miles northwest of Phuc Yen. The aircraft’s port engine caught fire and the WSO ejected a few minutes later. The fate of the pilot, 1Lt Conner, was unknown at the time, but it is reported that he told his WSO that he was unable to eject and was presumed to have died in the crash. Capt Black was captured and taken to the Plantation prison in the centre of Hanoi but was only held for four months and was handed over to two American peace activists on 16 February 1968 for return to the USA. 1Lt Conner’s ID tag was handed over by the Vietnamese government in 1992 and between 1993 and 2003 several investigations into the suspected crash site were made by joint US/Vietnamese teams. It was not until an excavation took place in 2007 that human remains were recovered and later identified as being those of 1Lt Conner. The remains were buried at Cartersville, Georgia on 25 October 2008. About half an hour after the loss of the first two aircraft Maj Stirm was leading Zebra flight over the target when his aircraft (call sign Zebra 1) was hit by an SA-2 as he was climbing through 12,000 feet to commence his attack. Maj Stirm ejected and was captured as soon as he hit the ground. Col Flynn had joined the USAAF in 1942 and had flown P-51 Mustangs with the 31st FG in the Italian theatre. He became one of the first US pilots to fly jet fighters when he converted to the P-80 in 1946. He flew P-80s with the 49th FW in the ground attack role during the Korean War and was stationed in the UK and Germany during the 1950s and 1960s. In August 1967, with almost 4,000 hours flying time to his credit, he was assigned to Korat as the vice-commander of the 388th TFW. Following his release from captivity on 14 March 1973 he became the commandant of the Air Command and Staff College and then Inspector General of the USAF. He retired from the Air Force in the rank of lieutenant general in October 1978 and died on 5 March 1997 after a long illness. Capt Jon Black was only held in captivity for four months. On 16 February 1968 he and two other POWs were released into the custody of two US peace activists and flown back to the USA. This early release caused huge consternation amongst the other POWs and much criticism was directed at Capt Black in particular. However, he did greatly assist US intelligence agencies by providing detailed maps and sketches from memory of the Hanoi Hilton and the Plantation prisons as well as names of many other US prisoners. Maj Stirm had converted to the F-105 after many years flying interceptors including the F-86D, F-89, F-94, F-102 and F-106. In at least one record he is reported to have been a member of the 333rd TFS when he was shot down. He was released on 14 March 1973 and flew corporate jets from San Francisco after retirement from the Air Force. |
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