| Date: 31 May 1968 |
| Aircraft type: F-105D Thunderchief |
| Serial Number: 60-0409 |
| Military Unit: 34 TFS, 388 TFW |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Korat |
| Name(s): |
| Maj Eugene Paul Beresik (KIA) |
| Original Report: Tiger Island is a small island about a mile across situated about 15 miles off the coast just north of the 17th Parallel. The island was occupied by the North Vietnamese who had several gun sites that threatened any aircraft that came close to the island. It was subjected to many air attacks throughout the war. On one such attack Maj Beresik was shot down and killed. He was making a strafing run over one of the gun sites when his F-105 (call sign No Trump) was hit by ground fire and crashed in the sea less than a mile from the island. Thunderchief 60-0409 was known as ‘Thunder Valley’ and ‘Bunny Baby’ at various times while at Korat.
The following eyewitness account has been provided by LtCol Joe Sechler, USAF (Ret): In early April of 1968, 7th AF began fragging large Alpha strike forces in RP-1 (like the ones performed in RP-6 before President Johnson called a halt in March) to provide such training for pilots in case we were ever fragged to go back down town (Hanoi). Majors Gene Beresik and Dick White were a part of that strike force as a two-ship. Captains Joe Sechler and Larry Bogemann were another two-ship in the strike force. After striking both of their primary targets, the two two-ships were directed to a FAC near Tiger Island off the coast of RP-1. He asked that the flights attack AAA sites on the island. The two flights joined up as a four-ship with the following lineup: Gene - lead; Dick - #2; Joe - #3; and Larry as #4. We only had our guns for the attack, having expended all of our bombs on our primary targets. Gene, being SRO and lead, directed us to perform high angle strafing because of the high threat. On our second pass, Gene called off hit. From that point on, we each heard or didn’t hear Gene make different calls and saw him or didn’t see him at different points in his parachute descent because of scattered to broken cloud layers. The three of us had started our descents over the water east of the island to try to track Gene’s progress. While I was rolling in as #3, I heard Gene call that he was hit. I believe I heard him call that he was ejecting. At least two of us saw him descending in his chute at different points and land in the water east of Tiger Island. We saw the chute collapse but didn’t see the chute fall away as if Gene had activated his quick disconnects. After multiple passes we lost sight, believing that the current had dragged the chute under. We never heard from Gene after his initial calls before ejection, no beeper, no nothing and never saw his survival kit deployed. We reached Bingo and had to go hit a tanker. The SAR folks arrived after we left. Based on interviews with all of the SAR participants, no one heard a beeper, no further transmissions from Gene, nor did anyone see a deployed survival kit and life raft. The details of Gene’s downing from the perspectives of each SAR participant, including his flight members, are contained in the pdf at the link below, which is a part of Gene’s history on the 34th TFS’s web site: http://34tfsthuds.us http://34tfsthuds.us/resources/Pictures/A-F/Beresik_Eugene_P.pdf |
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