| Date: 29 June 1966 |
| Aircraft type: F-105D Thunderchief |
| Serial Number: 60-0460 |
| Military Unit: 333 TFS, 355 TFW |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Takhli |
| Name(s): |
| Capt Murphy Neal Jones (POW) |
| POL storage had become a regular target by the end of the month and on the 29th the heaviest raid so far on a POL target was made in two simultaneous strikes by 46 USAF and Navy aircraft. Navy aircraft from the Constellation and the Ranger hit a storage site on the outskirts of Haiphong while the USAF struck at storage sites close to Hanoi. This was the closest that raids had come to North Vietnam’s two major cities. Maj James H Kasler, the operations officer of the 354th TFS, planned and led the USAF strike force that consisted of F-105s from both wings. Some of the Thunderchiefs made more than one pass at the target and it was on Capt Jones’s second ‘pop up’ to attack that his aircraft (call sign Opal) was hit by 85mm AAA. The aircraft quickly became uncontrollable and the pilot ejected just one mile north of Hanoi’s Gia Lam airport. Capt Jones was wounded in the leg by shrapnel from the flak burst. He also sustained a compression fracture of his spine and a severely broken left arm when he ejected at a very low altitude and was not able to assume the correct ejection posture before his seat fired. Despite his injuries he was paraded through the streets of Hanoi in the back of a truck and, like most of his fellow prisoners, was tortured by the North Vietnamese. He was on his third tour of duty when he was shot down and was released on 12 February 1973. Three other F-105s suffered battle damage during the first Hanoi POL strike. |
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