title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: In response to President Ngo Dinh Diem's abrogation of the 1956 reunification election and suppression of communists during the late 1950s, Hanoi had begun sending arms and materiel to the Vietcong (VC), who were fighting an insurgency to topple the American-supported Saigon government. To combat the VC and to shore up the government in the south, the U.S. initially delivered monetary aid, military advisors, and supplies. Between 1957 and 1963, the U.S. found itself committed, through its acceptance of the policy of containment and belief in the domino theory, to defending South Vietnam from what it saw as expansive communist aggression.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: U.S. policy was for a time dictated by its perception of improvement in the Saigon government. No further commitment by the Americans would occur without tangible proof of the regime's survivability. Events in South Vietnam, however, outpaced this plan. By the beginning of 1965, the policy was reversed in the belief that without further American action the Saigon government could not survive. As late as 8 February, however, in a cable to US Ambassador to South Vietnam Maxwell Taylor, Johnson stressed that the paramount goal of a bombing campaign would be to boost Saigon's morale, not to influence Hanoi, expressing hope "that the building of a minimum government will benefit by ... assurances from us to the highest levels [of the South Vietnamese government] that we ... intend to take continuing action."


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Questions then arose among the U.S. administration and military leadership as to the best method by which Hanoi (the perceived locus of the insurgency) could be dissuaded from its course of action. The answer seemed to lie in the application of air power. By 1964 most of the civilians surrounding President Lyndon B. Johnson shared the Joint Chiefs of Staff's collective faith in the efficacy of strategic bombing to one degree or another. They reasoned that a small nation like North Vietnam, with a tiny industrial base that was just emerging after the First Indochina War, would be reluctant to risk its new-found economic viability to support the insurgency in the south. Constantly affecting this decision-making process were fears of possible counter moves or outright intervention by the Soviet Union, China, or both. The civilians and the military were divided, however, on the manner of affecting Hanoi's will to support the southern insurgency. The civilians thought in terms of changing the regime's behavior while the military men were more concerned with breaking its will.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: In August 1964, as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, in which U.S. naval vessels were attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats, President Johnson ordered retaliatory air strikes (Operation Pierce Arrow) launched against the north. This did not, however, satisfy the military chiefs, who demanded a wider and more aggressive campaign.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: In March 1964 the Commander in Chief Pacific (CINCPAC) began developing plans for a sustained eight-week air campaign designed to escalate in three stages. This was published at the end of August as CINCPAC OPLAN 37-64, which included the "94 target list". Bridges, rail yards, docks, barracks and supply dumps were all targeted, and selected based on a criterion system considering:


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: There was widespread concern that an air campaign could lead to a wider conflict involving the Chinese or Soviets. Westmoreland referred to "an almost paranoid fear of nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union" and a "phobia" that the Chinese would invade. Johnson later noted:


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: For a time, no overt action was taken, and the plans continued to evolve. A further refinement of the plan was developed by William and McGeorge Bundy on 29 November 1964, with a more moderate target list, which the Joint Chiefs opposed. No action was taken while these, and other, plans were considered. But matters came to a head with the attack on Camp Holloway on 7 February 1965, which demanded immediate action, and resulted in a reprisal raid known as Operation Flaming Dart. A sapper raid against an American enlisted men's billet at Qui Nhon on the 10th led to Flaming Dart II. These small-scale operations were launched against the southern region of the country, where the bulk of North Vietnam's ground forces and supply dumps were located.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: These actions led to the plans for a sustained air campaign being reconsidered. On 13 February a new plan was approved and given the name "Rolling Thunder", merging targets and priorities from the lists produced by the Bundys and the JCS. This campaign was not aimed at specific actions on the part of the North Vietnamese, but was intended as a larger response to the growing hostilities as a whole. Although some within the administration believed that the campaign would be costly, and that it might not work, they reasoned that it was "an acceptable risk, especially when considered against the alternative of introducing American combat troops." "Rolling Thunder" called for an eight-week air campaign consistent with the restrictions imposed by that Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. If the insurgency continued "with DRV support, strikes against the DRV would be extended with intensified efforts against targets north of the 19th parallel."


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: It was believed that selective pressure, controlled by Washington, combined with diplomatic overtures, would prevail and compel Hanoi to end its aggression. The military was still not satisfied, since, for the time being, the bombing campaign was to be limited to targets below the 19th parallel, each of which would have to be cleared individually by the President and McNamara.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The first mission of the new operation was launched on 2 March against an ammunition storage area near Xom Bang. On the same day, 19 RVNAF A-1 Skyraiders struck the Quang Khe Naval Base. The Americans were shocked when six of their aircraft were shot down during the mission. Five of the downed crewmen were rescued, but it was a portent of things to come.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Under the doctrine of "gradualism", in which threatening destruction would serve as a more influential signal of American determination than destruction itself, it was thought better to hold important targets "hostage" by bombing trivial ones. From the beginning of "Rolling Thunder", Washington dictated which targets would be struck, the day and hour of the attack, the number, and types of aircraft and the tonnages and types of ordnance utilized, and sometimes even the direction of the attack. Airstrikes were strictly forbidden within of Hanoi and within of the port of Haiphong. A thirty-mile buffer zone also extended along the length of the Chinese frontier. According to U.S. Air Force historian Earl Tilford:


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Targeting bore little resemblance to reality in that the sequence of attacks was uncoordinated and the targets were approved randomly – even illogically. The North's airfields, which, according to any rational targeting policy, should have been hit first in the campaign, were also off-limits.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Although some of these restrictions were later loosened or rescinded, Johnson (with McNamara's support) kept a tight rein on the campaign, which continuously infuriated the American military commanders, right-wing members of Congress, and even some within the administration itself. One of the primary objectives of the operation, at least to the military, should have been the closure of Haiphong and other ports by aerial mining, thereby slowing or halting the flow of seaborne supplies entering the north. Johnson refused to take such a provocative action, however, and such an operation was not implemented until 1972. There was also little consultation between Johnson and the military chiefs during the target selection process. Even the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Earle G. Wheeler, was not present for most of the critical discussions of 1965 and participated only occasionally thereafter.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The majority of strikes during "Rolling Thunder" were launched from four air bases, in Thailand: Korat, Takhli, Udorn, and Ubon. The aircraft refueled from aerial tankers over Laos before flying on to their targets in the DRV. After attacking their targets (usually by dive-bombing) the strike forces would either fly directly back to Thailand or exit over the relatively safe waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. It was quickly decided that, in order to limit airspace conflicts between air force and naval strike forces, North Vietnam was divided into six target regions called "route packages", each of which was assigned to either the air force or navy and into which the other was forbidden to intrude.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Navy strikes were launched from the aircraft carriers of Task Force 77, cruising off the North Vietnamese coast at Yankee Station. Naval aircraft, which had shorter ranges (and carried lighter bomb loads) than their air force counterparts, approached their targets from seaward with the majority of their strikes flown against coastal targets.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: On 3 April the Joint Chiefs persuaded McNamara and Johnson to launch a four-week attack on North Vietnam's lines of communications, which would isolate the country from its overland sources of supply in China and the Soviet Union. About one-third of the North's imports came down the Hanoi–Lào Cai railway from China, while the remaining two-thirds came by sea through Haiphong and other ports. For the first time in the campaign, targets were to be chosen for their military, rather than their psychological, significance. During the four weeks, 26 bridges and seven ferries were destroyed. Other targets included the extensive North Vietnamese radar system, barracks, and ammunition depots.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The panhandle of southern North Vietnam remained the primary focus of operations, and total sorties flown there rose from 3,600 in April to 4,000 in May. Slowly moving away from the destruction of fixed targets, "armed reconnaissance" missions, in which small formations of aircraft patrolled highways, railroads, and rivers, searching for targets of opportunity, were authorized. These missions increased from two to 200 sorties per week by the end of 1965. Eventually, armed reconnaissance missions constituted 75 percent of the total bombing effort, in part because the system through which fixed targets were requested, selected, and authorized was so complicated and unwieldy.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: If "Rolling Thunder" was supposed to "send signals" to Hanoi to desist in its actions, it did not seem to be working. On 8 April, responding to requests for peace negotiations, North Vietnamese premier, Pham Van Dong, stated that they could only begin when: the bombing was halted; the U.S. had removed all of its troops from the south; the Saigon government recognized the demands of the VC, and it was agreed that the reunification of Vietnam would be settled by the Vietnamese themselves.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: As part of a large attack on the Thanh Hóa Bridge on 3 April, the VPAF first appeared as two flights of four Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17s launched from Noi Bai airbase and shot down an F-8 Crusader, while losing just one of their own aircraft, written off when it landed on a river bed after running short of fuel. A repeat the next day resulted in a classic dogfight with F-100 Super Sabres and F-105s fighting with more MiG-17s. In total, the USAF lost eleven aircraft to air and ground forces, while the VPAF lost three of their fighters.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The entire complexion of the American effort was altered on 8 March 1965, when 3,500 U.S. Marines came ashore at Da Nang, ostensibly to defend Da Nang Air Base which was committed to prosecuting "Rolling Thunder". The mission of the ground forces was expanded to combat operations, and the aerial campaign became a secondary operation, overwhelmed by troop deployments and the escalation of ground operations in South Vietnam. Until the third week of April, "Rolling Thunder" had enjoyed at least equal status with air missions conducted in the south. After that time, strikes that interfered with requirements for the southern battlefield were either cut back or canceled.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: On 5 April 1965, U.S. reconnaissance discovered that the North Vietnamese were constructing positions for what could only be surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries. The air force and navy then filed a joint appeal to Washington for permission to strike the sites, but they were refused since most of the sites were near the restricted urban areas. Then, on 24 July, an F-4 was shot down by a SA-2 Guideline missile. Three days later, a one-time strike was authorized against the two offending missile sites. The Americans, however, fell for an elaborate trap when the sites turned out to be dummies surrounded by anti-aircraft artillery defenses. One American pilot described the action which followed as "looking like the end of the world." Six of the strike craft were destroyed (two of the pilots were killed, one missing, two captured, and one rescued) during the ambush.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: On 29 June 1965, airstrikes against the North's petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) storage areas were authorized by Johnson. The American military had advocated such strikes since the inception of the operation, believing that to deny North Vietnam its POL would cause its military effort to grind to a halt. At first, the strikes appeared highly successful, destroying tank farms near Hanoi and Haiphong and leading the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to estimate that 70 percent of North Vietnam's oil facilities had been destroyed for the loss of 43 aircraft. The loss of the oil storage tank farms and refineries proved to be only a short-term inconvenience for North Vietnam, however, since Hanoi had anticipated just such a campaign and had during that time dispersed the majority of its POL stocks in drums across the length of the country. The POL attacks were halted on 4 September, after U.S. intelligence admitted that there was "no evidence yet of any shortages of POL in North Vietnam."


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: By 24 December 1965, 180 U.S. aircraft had been lost during the campaign (85 Air Force, 94 Navy and one Marine Corps). Eight RVNAF aircraft had also been lost. Air Force aircrews had flown 25,971 sorties and dropped 32,063 tons of bombs. Naval aviators had flown 28,168 sorties and dropped 11,144 tons. The RVNAF had contributed 682 missions with unknown ordnance tonnages.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: "Rolling Thunder" exposed many problems within the American military services committed to it and tended to exacerbate others. A key interservice issue (and one which was not solved until 1968) was the command and control arrangement in Southeast Asia. The USAF's 2nd Air Division (replaced by the Seventh Air Force on 1 April 1966) was ostensibly responsible for aerial operations over North and South Vietnam. It was subordinate, however, to MACV and its commander, U.S. Army General William C. Westmoreland, who tended to see his problems centered in the south. The U.S. Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force, based in Thailand (which carried out the majority of the Air Force's strikes in North Vietnam), had a dual command structure. It reported to the Seventh on operational matters and to the Thirteenth Air Force (whose headquarters was in the Philippines) for logistical and administrative concerns. These command and control complexities grew even more tangled with the division of the aerial effort into four competing operational areas (those in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and Laos (both north and south).


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The Navy's Task Force 77 took its orders via 7th Fleet from CINCPAC, a Navy admiral based in Honolulu, through his subordinate, the Air Force commander of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF). Due to their influence, the Navy could not be persuaded to integrate its air operations over North Vietnam with those of the Air Force. General William W. Momyer, commander of the Seventh, had the impression that CINCPAC and PACAF wanted to keep the Thai-based aircraft out of his hands. "By denying Momyer, they were really denying Westmoreland and keeping air operations against the DRV under their control." To complicate matters, the U.S. ambassadors to Thailand (Graham Martin) and Laos (William H. Sullivan) exerted undue influence over operational and command arrangements.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: This bizarre command structure went against the grain of the Air Force's single air manager concept, which dictated that one commander was to control and coordinate all aircraft within a combat theater. The chain through which operational strike requests had to flow gave some indication of the growing overcomplexity of the campaign. Requests for airstrikes originated with the 2nd Air Division and Task Force 77 in Vietnam and then proceeded to CINCPAC, who in turn reported to his superiors, the Joint Chiefs, at the Pentagon. After input from the State Department and the CIA, the requests then proceeded to the White House, where the president and his "Tuesday Cabinet" made decisions on the strike requests on a weekly basis.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Another problem exposed by "Rolling Thunder" was the unpreparedness of the Air Force for the operations it was undertaking. Its aircraft had been designed and its pilots trained for strategic operations against the Soviet Union – for nuclear, not conventional war. The new campaign exposed years of neglect in conventional tactics, while aircraft capabilities and armament were ill-suited to the task at hand. The Air Force was also embarrassed by the fact that the Navy was better prepared. It possessed the only all-weather bomber in the U.S. inventory in the new A-6 Intruder and was also responsible for the development of the F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber, which became ubiquitous during the Vietnam War.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Once air-to-air combat began over North Vietnam, the Air Force was again found lacking. The mainstay missiles of the air war turned out to be the Navy-developed AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-7 Sparrow, not its own AIM-4 Falcon. The Air Force continuously opposed adapting to the war in Southeast Asia, since its leadership believed that it was an aberration that would be quickly resolved. It could then turn its attention (and its more modern weapons) against the greater threat posed by the Soviet Union. None in the Air Force high command foresaw that the war would drag on for nearly a decade.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The Air Force did possess an aircraft which had an all-weather capability, radar-guided bombing equipment, and considerable destructive potential – the B-52 Stratofortress. The civilian administration, however, never considered utilizing the big bombers (whose operations remained under the control of the Strategic Air Command) very far north of the DMZ, believing that it was too overt an escalation. Air Force Chief of Staff John P. McConnell also opposed sending the bombers into the air defense environment in the north and limited B-52 strikes to Route Package One.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Compounding these issues was the one-year rotation policy adopted by the Pentagon in Southeast Asia. Although the first aircrews arriving in-theater were highly experienced, the rapidly growing tempo and ever-expanding length of the operation demanded more personnel. This exacerbated a growing lack of experienced aircrews. This dilemma was further compounded by an Air Force policy which dictated universal pilot training while proscribing involuntary second combat tours, which combined, had the effect of rotating personnel to different aircraft. Conversely, the Navy tended to maintain its aircrews within the same community for the duration of their careers, thereby retaining their expertise, but also incurring greater losses among experienced crews undergoing multiple combat tours.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Another factor was the weather within the operational theater. The cyclical monsoon patterns meant that the weather was deplorable for flight operations eight months of the year (from late September to early May) when rain and fog tended to conceal targets. Lack of adequate all-weather and night-bombing capability made it necessary for the majority of U.S. missions to be conducted during daylight hours, thereby easing the burden on the air defense forces of North Vietnam.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: According to American writer Stephen Budiansky, "...captured documents showed that the North Vietnamese had at least thirty to forty-five minutes' warning of 80 to 90 per cent of Rolling Thunder missions." The North Vietnamese signals intelligence staff of 5,000 "proved adept at exploiting traffic analysis as NSA was. Every U.S. bombing mission was preceded by an upsurge of traffic involving logistics, ordnance loading, weather flights, and aerial refueling tankers, and even if none of the content of the signals was readable, the pattern was a dead giveaway." Additionally, "nearly all radio communications of the U.S. air operations used unencrypted tactical voice."


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Before "Rolling Thunder" even began the North Vietnamese leadership knew what was coming. It issued a February 1965 directive to the military and the population to "maintain communication and transportation and to expect the complete destruction of the entire country, including Hanoi and Haiphong." The communist leadership declared "a people's war against the air war of destruction...each citizen is a soldier, each village, street, and plant a fortress on the anti-American battlefront." All except those deemed "truly indispensable to the life of the capital" were evacuated to the countryside. By 1967, Hanoi's population had been reduced by half.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Since gaining air superiority over U.S. forces was out of the question, the northern leadership decided to implement a policy of air deniability. At the beginning of the campaign, North Vietnam possessed approximately 1,500 anti-aircraft weapons, most of which were of the light 37 and 57mm variety. Within one year, however, the U.S. estimated that the number had grown to over 5,000 guns, including 85 and 100mm radar-directed weapons. That estimate was later revised downward from a high of 7,000 in early 1967 to less than a thousand by 1972. Regardless, during "Rolling Thunder", 80 percent of U.S. aircraft losses were attributed to anti-aircraft fire.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Backing up the guns were the fighter aircraft of the VPAF, which originally consisted of only 53 MiG-17 fighter aircraft. Though considered antiquated by the Americans when compared to their supersonic jets, the North Vietnamese turned their aircraft's weaknesses into strengths. They were fast enough for hit and run ambush operations and they were also maneuverable enough to shock the American fighter community by shooting down more advanced F-8 Crusaders and F-105 Thunderchiefs, which had to quickly develop new tactics. The newer missile-armed F-4 Phantom would become the Americans' primary dogfighting platform.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The simple appearance of MiGs could often accomplish their mission by causing American pilots to jettison their bomb loads as a defensive measure. In 1966, the MiG-17 were joined by more modern Soviet-built Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21s, which could fight on a more equal footing with the American aircraft. By 1967, the North Vietnamese Air Force was maintaining an interceptor force of 100 aircraft, many of which were based on Chinese airfields and out of reach of American air attack.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The northern economy was decentralized for its protection, and large factories, located in the heavily populated Red River Delta region, were broken up and scattered into caves and small villages throughout the countryside. In the more heavily bombed southern panhandle, entire villages moved into tunnel complexes for the duration. Food shortages in North Vietnam became widespread, especially in the urban areas, as rice farmers went into the military or volunteered for service repairing bomb damage. When the nation's transportation system came under attack, destroyed bridges were repaired or replaced by dirt fords, ferries, and underwater or pontoon bridges. The system proved to be durable, well built, easily repaired, and practically impossible to shut down.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Perhaps North Vietnam's ultimate resource was its population. During 1965, 97,000 North Vietnamese civilians volunteered to work full-time in repairing the damage inflicted by U.S. bombs. Another 370,000–500,000 civilians worked part-time. When the nation's lines of communication came under attack, railroad supply trains and truck convoys were split into smaller elements which traveled only at night. The logistical effort was supported by citizens on sampans, driving carts, pushing wheelbarrows, or man-portering supplies on their backs to keep the war effort going. They were motivated by slogans like "Each kilogram of goods...is a bullet shot into the head of the American pirates."


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Between 1964 and early 1965, the Vietnamese had nothing to threaten American pilots in the air. U.S aircraft flew at an altitude of 4−5 kilometers, and the Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns were unable to reach them. However, after an SA-2 shot down some U.S aircraft, the U.S bombers began to descend below three kilometers. This brought them within the reach of Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: On 24 July 1965, four USAF F-4C Phantoms took part in an airstrike against the Dien Bien Phu munitions storage depot and the Lang Chi munitions factory west of Hanoi. One was shot down and three were damaged by SA-2 missiles. This was the first time that U.S aircraft had been attacked by SAMs.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: After two days, President Johnson gave the order to attack all known SA-2 positions, which had also been discovered outside the 30-mile exclusion zone. On the morning of 27 July, 48 F-105s were to participate in the strike, designated Operation Spring High. But the Vietnamese knew that U.S. aircraft were coming and set up many 23 mm and 37 mm anti-aircraft guns at the site. These anti-aircraft guns were lethal at close range, the Vietnamese shot down six aircraft, and more than half of the remaining U.S aircraft suffered damage from groundfire. Both SAM sites were devoid of missiles and equipment, as the Vietnamese had substituted white-painted bundles of bamboo for the fake SA-2s. The U.S strike had destroyed two worthless targets for the loss of six aircraft and five pilots.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: North Vietnam's deployment of SAMs forced American pilots to make hard choices: either approach targets at higher altitudes (to avoid anti-aircraft fire) and become prey to SAMs, or fly lower to avoid the missiles and become the target of anti-aircraft batteries. Due to altered tactics and the increased use of electronic radar jamming, the record of SAM kills decreased over time. U.S claimed missile success rate fell from one kill in 30 launches to less than one kill in 50.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The nature of the gradual escalation had given Hanoi time to adapt to the situation. By 1967, North Vietnam had formed an estimated 25 SAM battalions (with six missile launchers each) which rotated among approximately 150 sites. With the assistance of the Soviet Union, the North Vietnamese had also quickly integrated an early warning radar system of more than 200 facilities which covered the entire country, tracking incoming U.S. raids, and then coordinating SAMs, anti-aircraft batteries, and MiGs to attack them. During 1967 U.S. losses totaled 248 aircraft (145 Air Force, 102 Navy, and one Marine Corps).


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: To survive in this ever more lethal air defense zone, the U.S. had to adopt newer, more specialized tactics. Large-scale strikes, known as force packages in the Air Force and multi-carrier "Alpha strikes" by the Navy, were assigned numerous support aircraft to protect the fighter-bombers. First into the target areas were specialized "Iron Hand" flak suppression missions. These consisted of F-105 Wild Weasel hunter/killer teams configured with sophisticated electronic equipment to detect and locate the emissions associated with SAM guidance and control radars.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The Wild Weasels also carried electronic countermeasures (ECM) equipment to protect themselves. They directed flak suppression strikes and carried AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missiles (another Navy development), which homed in on the radar systems of the SAMs. The SA-2 had greater range than the Shrike, but if the Shrike was launched and the radar operator stayed on the air, the American missile would home in on the signal and destroy the radar source. A sophisticated cat and mouse game then ensued between North Vietnamese radar operators and the Wild Weasel pilots.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Next came the bomb-laden strike aircraft protected by escort fighters (Combat Air Patrol or MIGCAP) and electronic jamming aircraft to degrade enemy radar. New ECM devices had hurriedly been deployed to protect aircraft from missile attacks, but they remained subject to frequent breakdowns because of climate conditions in Southeast Asia. Also included in the missions were KC-135 aerial tankers and Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopters, which were, in turn, protected by propeller-driven A-1 escorts.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The Vietnamese were able to adapt to some of these tactics. The USSR upgraded the SA-2 radar several times to improve ECM resistance. They also introduced a passive guidance mode, whereby the tracking radar could lock on the jamming signal itself and guide missiles directly towards the jamming source. This also meant the SAM site's tracking radar could be turned off, which prevented Shrikes from homing in on it. Some new tactics were developed to combat the Shrike. One of them was to point the radar to the side and then turn it off briefly. Since the AGM-45 Shrike was a relatively primitive anti-radiation missile, it would follow the beam away from the radar and then simply crash when it lost the signal (after the radar was turned off). SAM crews could briefly illuminate a hostile aircraft to see if the target was equipped with a Shrike. If the aircraft fired one, the Shrike could be neutralized with the side-pointing technique without sacrificing any SA-2s. Another tactic was a ""false launch"" in which missile guidance signals were transmitted without a missile being launched. This could distract enemy pilots, or even occasionally cause them to drop ordnance prematurely to lighten their aircraft enough to dodge the nonexistent missile.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: At the same time, both the evasion maneuvers were used, and intensive bombardments of the identified SAM firing positions were organized. Under these conditions, measures to observe the regime of camouflage and radio silence became especially important. After the combat launches, the anti-aircraft missile division was to leave the region immediately, otherwise it was destroyed by a bomb-assault strike. Until December 1965, according to American data, eight SA-2s systems were destroyed. However, not infrequently American aircraft fiercely bombed dummy positions that were equipped with fake missiles made of bamboo. Soviet and Vietnamese calculations claimed the destruction of 31 aircraft, the Americans acknowledged the loss of 13 aircraft. According to the memoirs of Soviet advisers, on average before an anti-aircraft missile unit was put out of action it destroyed five to six American aircraft.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: From mid-1966 until the end of 1967, President Johnson continued to dole out sensitive targets one by one to the generals while simultaneously trying to placate the doves in Congress and within his own administration with periodic cutbacks and half-hearted peace initiatives. In the end, this erratic course satisfied no one and did little to alter the course of the war.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The nature of the targets and the risks involved in striking (and re-striking) them began to take a toll. Chief of Naval Operations David McDonald reported to his co-chiefs after a trip to South Vietnam in September 1966, that "Rolling Thunder" aircrews were angered with the targeting process and that they faulted the campaign due to "guidelines requiring repetitive air programs that seemed more than anything else to benefit enemy gunners." During 1967, the second full year of "Rolling Thunder" operations, 362 U.S. aircraft had been lost over North Vietnam (208 Air Force, 142 Navy, and 12 Marine Corps).


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: During the war, the Soviet Union delivered 95 SA-2 systems and 7,658 missiles to the Vietnamese. 6,806 missiles were launched or removed by outdating. According to the Vietnamese, the SA-2 shot down 31% of all downed US aircraft. By comparison, air-defense guns brought down 60% and 9% were shot down by MiG fighters. The higher rate of anti-aircraft artillery is partially caused by the fact gun units received data from the S-75 radar stations that significantly improved their effectiveness.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: "Rolling Thunder" reached the last stage of its operational evolution during 1967 and 1968. The chief purpose of the American air effort in the higher Route Packages of North Vietnam was slowly transformed into that of interdicting the flow of supplies and materiel and the destruction of those segments of the north's infrastructure that supported its military effort.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: In 1965, the VPAF had only 36 MiG-17s and a similar number of qualified pilots, which increased to 180 MiGs and 72 pilots by 1968. The Americans have at least 200 USAF F-4s and 140 USAF F-105s, plus at least 100 U.S Navy aircraft (F-8s, A-4s and F-4s) which operated from the aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin, plus scores of other support aircraft. The Americans had a multiple numerical advantage.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Although most U.S. aircraft losses continued to be inflicted by anti-aircraft fire, U.S. Air Force F-105s and Navy A-4s increasingly encountered SAMs and MiGs. North Vietnamese fighters also became a particular problem because of the lack of radar coverage in the Red River Delta region, which allowed the MiGs to surprise the strike forces. Airborne early warning aircraft had difficulty detecting the fighters at low altitudes and the aircraft themselves were difficult to see visually.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: VPAF flew their interceptors with superb guidance from ground controllers, who positioned the MiGs in perfect ambush battle stations. The MiGs made fast and devastating attacks against US formations from several directions (usually the MiG-17s performed head-on attacks and the MiG-21s attacked from the rear). After shooting down a few American planes and forcing some of the F-105s to drop their bombs prematurely, the MiGs did not wait for retaliation, but disengaged rapidly. This "guerrilla warfare in the air" proved very successful. In December 1966 the MiG-21 pilots of the 921st FR downed 14 F-105s without any losses.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: While F-105s did score 27 air-to-air victories, the overall exchange ratio was near parity. On 2 January 1967, the Americans sprang a surprise on the MiGs when they launched Operation Bolo. F-4 Phantoms, using the same radio call signs, direction of approach, altitude, and speed as a typical flight of bomb-laden F-105s, lured a group of MiG-21s toward what the MiG pilots thought would be easy prey. The result was seven MiG-21s shot down within 12 minutes for no U.S. losses.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The U.S. Air Force and the US Navy continued to have expectations of the F-4 Phantom, assuming that the massive arms, the perfect on-board radar, the highest speed and acceleration properties, coupled with the new tactics would provide "Phantoms" an advantage over the MiGs. But in encounters with lighter VPAF's MiG-21, the F-4 began to suffer defeats. From May to December 1966, the U.S lost 47 aircraft in air battles, destroying only 12 enemy fighters.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Although the MiG-21 lacked the long-range radar, missiles, and heavy bomb load of its contemporary multi-mission U.S. fighters, with its RP-21 Sapfir radar it proved a challenging adversary in the hands of experienced pilots, especially when used in high-speed hit-and-run attacks under GCI control. MiG-21 intercepts of F-105 strike groups were effective in downing US aircraft or forcing them to jettison their bomb loads.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Later in the year, the U.S. launched its most intense and sustained attempt to force North Vietnam into peace negotiations. Almost all of the targets on the Joint Chiefs' list had been authorized for attack, including airfields that had been previously off limits. Only central Hanoi, Haiphong, and the Chinese border area remained prohibited from attack. A major effort was made to isolate the urban areas by downing bridges and attacking LOCs. Also struck were the Thai Nguyen steel complex (origin of the Pardo's Push), thermal and electrical power plants, ship and rail repair facilities, and warehouses. North Vietnamese MiGs entered the battle "en masse", as their capital was threatened and kill ratios fell to one U.S. aircraft lost for every two MiGs. During 1968, MiGs accounted for 22 percent of the 184 American aircraft (75 Air Force, 59 Navy, and five Marine Corps) lost over the north. As a result, operations against the last of North Vietnam's airfields, previously off-limits to attack, were authorized.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Despite the best interdiction efforts of "Rolling Thunder", however, the VC and PAVN launched their largest offensive thus far in the war on 30 January 1968, striking throughout South Vietnam during the lunar new year holiday. The Tet Offensive concluded as a military disaster for North Vietnam and the VC, but it also adversely affected U.S. public opinion, which in turn affected the will of Washington. Fortunately for North Vietnam, many U.S. bombing advocates (including Air Force Chief of Staff McConnell) did not want to risk the one aircraft capable of delivering a lot of bombs in bad weather – the B-52. Without them, there was little that could be done over the north in response to Tet, since bad weather minimized fighter operations until the beginning of April.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Writing after the war, Robert McNamara stated that by spring 1967 he and other civilians in the administration had become convinced that both "Rolling Thunder" and the ground war in South Vietnam were not working. McNamara claimed that he and others within the administration continuously opposed the Joint Chief's recommendations for an increased tempo of bombing and the loosening of target restrictions. The generals found themselves on the horns of a dilemma of their own making. They continuously claimed that the campaign was working, yet they also had to continuously demand greater latitude in order to make the campaign succeed. The limited goals entailed in American foreign policy and the military's goal of total victory were simply not reconcilable. The great conundrum had then become how to defeat North Vietnam without defeating North Vietnam.On 9 August 1967 the Senate Armed Services Committee opened hearings on the bombing campaign. Complaints from the armed services had sparked the interest of some of the most vocal hawks on Capitol Hill. The military chiefs testified before the committee, complaining about the gradual nature of the air war and its civilian-imposed restrictions. It was obvious that McNamara, the only civilian subpoenaed and the last to testify before the committee, was to be the scapegoat. The Secretary of Defense marshaled his objections to an indiscriminate air war and adeptly rebutted the charges of the military chiefs. He bluntly admitted that there was "no basis to believe that any bombing campaign...would by itself force Ho Chi Minh's regime into submission, short, that is, of the virtual annihilation of North Vietnam and its people."


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: It had now become clear to President Johnson that McNamara had become a liability to the administration. In February 1968, McNamara resigned his position and was replaced by Clark Clifford, who was chosen because of his personal friendship with Johnson and his previous opposition to McNamara's suggestions that the number of troops in the South Vietnam be stabilized and that "Rolling Thunder" be ended. McNamara's position, however, was almost immediately taken up by Secretary of State Dean Rusk, until then an ardent advocate of the bombing campaign. Rusk proposed limiting the campaign to the panhandle of North Vietnam without preconditions and awaiting Hanoi's reaction. Within months Clifford too began to adopt the views of the man he had replaced, gradually becoming convinced that the U.S. had to withdraw from an open-ended commitment to the war.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Disappointed by perceived political defeats at home and hoping that Hanoi would enter into negotiations, President Johnson announced on 31 March 1968, that all bombing north of the 19th parallel would cease. As a result of that decision, the Air Force and Navy began to pour all the firepower they had formerly spread throughout North Vietnam into the area between the 17th and 19th parallels. The Air Force doubled the number of sorties sent into Route Package One to more than 6,000 per month with the campaign concentrated on interdiction "choke points", road closing, and truck hunting. Once again, the military commanders were faced a familiar dilemma: having opposed the bombing cutback, they then decided that the new policy had a lot of merit, especially when considering the alternative of no bombing at all. The North Vietnamese responded by doubling the number of anti-aircraft batteries in the panhandle, but most of their SAM batteries remained deployed around Hanoi and Haiphong.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Hanoi, which had continuously stipulated that it would not conduct negotiations while the bombing continued, finally agreed to meet with the Americans for preliminary talks in Paris. As a result, President Johnson declared that a complete bombing halt over North Vietnam would go into effect on 1 November 1968, just prior to the U.S. presidential election. Although the bombing halt was to be linked to progress in the peace talks, the Joint Chiefs were skeptical that the administration would reopen the bombing campaign under any circumstances. They were correct. North Vietnam was not the target of intense bombing again for another three and one-half years.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Between March 1965 and November 1968, USAF aircraft had flown 153,784 attack sorties against North Vietnam, while the Navy and Marine Corps had added another 152,399. On 31 December 1967, the Department of Defense announced that 864,000 tons of American bombs had been dropped on North Vietnam during "Rolling Thunder", compared with 653,000 tons dropped during the entire Korean War and 503,000 tons in the Pacific theater during the Second World War.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: The CIA privately estimated that damage inflicted in the north totaled $500 million in total damage. They also estimated that by April 1967, 52,000 casualties including 21,000 deaths had occurred as a result of the operation. The CIA estimated that 75 percent of casualties were involved in military or quasi military operations including civilians working on military and logistical operations. 45 percent of casualties in 1965 were civilians and logistics workers while that figure was 80 percent in 1966. In June 1967, they estimated 19,000 to 26,000 deaths including 13,000 to 17,000 civilian deaths were caused by the bombing. At the end of 1967, the CIA estimated 27,900 military and 48,000 civilians killed and wounded. The US government has estimated that 30,000 civilians were killed in total as a result of the operation.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Due to combat and operational circumstances, 506 USAF, 397 Navy and 19 Marine Corps aircraft were lost over or near North Vietnam. During the operation, of the 745 crewmen shot down, the USAF recorded 145 rescued, 255 killed, 222 captured (23 of whom died in captivity) and 123 missing. Figures on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps casualties were harder to come by. During the 44-month time frame, 454 naval aviators were killed, captured, or missing during combined operations over North Vietnam and Laos.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: "Rolling Thunder" had begun as a campaign of psychological and strategic persuasion, but it changed very quickly to interdiction, a tactical mission. Its ultimate failure had two sources, both of which lay with the civilian and military policy-makers in Washington: first, neither group could ever conceive that the North Vietnamese would endure under the punishment that they would unleash upon it. The civilians, moreover, did not understand air power well enough to know that their policies might be crippling it; second, the American military leadership failed to initially propose and develop, or later to adapt, an appropriate strategy for the war.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Along the way, "Rolling Thunder" also fell prey to the same dysfunctional managerial attitude as did the rest of the American military effort in Southeast Asia. The "process" of the campaign became an end unto itself, with sortie generation as the standard by which progress was measured. Sortie rates and the number of bombs dropped, however, equaled efficiency, not effectiveness.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Studying the outcome of the events in Rolling Thunder, the Air Force and Navy came to very different conclusions on how to adapt. The Air Force noted that most of their air-to-air losses were due to unseen attacks from the rear, and thus the problem could be addressed through additional technology that would provide early warning of such attacks. They began modifying their aircraft with built-in M61 Vulcans for close-in use, adopted the Sidewinder and began upgrading them to improve their performance, and introduced new ground and air-based radars to provide an overall watch over the battlefield. The Navy concluded that the primary problem was that their pilots had not been given proper air combat maneuvering training, and were forced to rely on missiles that were not performing as expected. In 1968 the Navy introduced the TOPGUN program, a move that was welcomed by the F-8 pilots who had been campaigning for this all along.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: Which of these two policies was more effective was immediately clear: during Rolling Thunder the US claimed a 3.7:1 kill ratio over the VPAF as a whole, but the Air Force's portion of that was closer to 2:1. By 1970 the Navy's kill ratio had climbed to 13:1. The Air Force, however, saw its ratio stagnate and actually decrease, for a short time being less than one. More critically, in 1970 the VPAF inflicted a kill on the USAF every three times they tried, while it took six missions to do the same against the Navy, and inversely, the VPAF lost a MiG every two engagements with the Air Force, but every time they engaged the Navy.


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: From April 1965 to November 1968, in 268 air battles conducted over North Vietnam, VPAF claimed to have shot down 244 US or RVNAF's aircraft, and they lost 85 MiGs. During the war, 13 VPAF's flying aces attained their status while flying the MiG-21 (compared to three in the MiG-17).


title: Operation Rolling Thunder

text: It was not until Operation Linebacker in 1972 that the problem became acute enough for the Air Force to finally take note. In the three months following the start of Linebacker in May 1972, the U.S. lost 48 aircraft, 21 to VPAF MiGs and 27 to improved ground defenses. In the same period, only 31 MiGs killed were claimed by U.S. aircraft and things worsened in the summer with 13 U.S. aircraft lost to MiGs and only 11 MiGs shot down were claimed. General John W. Vogt Jr., commander of the Seventh Air Force, reported to the USAF Chief of Staff that they were losing the air war. One immediate outcome was Operation Teaball, which reorganized the entire operational side of the Air Force's early warning systems, and tying them with the Navy's, so that every aircraft had a channel providing immediate warning of incoming aircraft. It was not until 1975, however, that the Air Force introduced Exercise Red Flag to match the performance of the Navy's TOPGUN.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: The Shenyang J-6 (Chinese: 歼-6; designated F-6 for export versions; NATO reporting name: Farmer) is the Chinese-built version of the Soviet MiG-19 'Farmer' fighter aircraft, the world's first mass-produced supersonic aircraft.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: Although the MiG-19 had a comparatively short life in Soviet service, the Chinese came to value its agility, turning performance, and powerful cannon armament, and produced it for their own use between 1958 and 1981. While the basic Soviet-built MiG-19 has been retired from all nations, the Shenyang J-6 still flies for nine of its original 15 operators, however, in a very limited capacity. The J-6 airframe contributed to the Chinese ground attack version, the Q-5, which still flies for numerous nations.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: The J-6 was considered "disposable" and was intended to be operated for only 100 flight hours (or approximately 100 sorties) before being overhauled. The Pakistan Air Force was often able to extend this to 130 hours with diligent maintenance.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: A number of J-6 based at Lianchen and Yantan-li bases appeared to have been converted into unmanned aircraft. Work on unmanned J-6 was first reported in 2013.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: The J-6 has a maximum speed at altitude of 1,540 km/h (960 mph), Mach 1.45. Service ceiling is 17,900 m (58,700 ft). Combat radius with two drop tanks is about 640 km (400 mi). The aircraft is powered by two Liming Wopen-6A (Tumansky R-9) turbojet engines. In addition to the internal cannon armament, most have provision for four wing pylons for up to 250 kg (550 lb) each, with a maximum ordnance load of 500 kg (1,100 lb). Typical stores include unguided bombs, 55 mm rocket pods, or PL-2/PL-5 (Chinese versions of Soviet K-13 (NATO AA-2 'Atoll') air-to-air missiles.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: Albanian Air Force J-6s replaced the J-5s on the border to intercept Yugoslav incursions into Albanian airspace. However, the J-6 was ineffective against the faster Yugoslav MiG-21 'Fishbed'. Once the F-7A became available, the J-6 was redeployed to protect Tirana. As of 2005 all Albanian fighters were grounded due to a lack of spare parts.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: Between 1965–1980, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) received 260 F-6 fighters which went on to serve with 10 PAF squadrons at various times. During their service, Pakistani F-6s also underwent 140 modifications at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex to improve its capabilities in the interceptor and close air support roles. These modifications included installation of Martin-Baker ejection seats, Gun cameras, Western Avionics, AIM-9B/J/P missiles, French 68mm SNEB rockets, underbelly "Gondola" fuel tanks and a special ground power unit to quickly start it's two engines in order to shorten scramble time.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: When the 1971 War broke out, the PAF had operationalized three F-6 squadrons which were the No. 11, No. 23 & No. 25 Squadrons. The F-6s of these squadrons collectively flew 945 sorties out of which 834 were combat ones.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: Throughout the war, the F-6 flew 650 Air Defence sorties in which they shot down approximately 8 Indian warplanes while damaging 2 more.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: On 4 December 1971, Flightt Lieutenant Javaid Latif of the No. 23 Squadron shot down an Su-7 over Risalewala Airfield while Flying Officer Qazi Javed of the No. 25 Squadron shot down a Hakwer Hunter over Mianwali Airfield.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: On 5 December 1971, Wing Commander Saad Hatmi (the Officer Commanding of the No. 25 Squadron) and his wingman Flight Lt. Shahid Raza shot down 2 Indian Hunters near Sakesar.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: On 8 December 1971, Wing Commander Hashmi shot down a Su-7 which was attacking the Risalewala Airfield.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: On 14 December 1971, Flight Lieutenant Amir Sharif of No. 11 Squadron claimed to have shot down a superior IAF Mig-21 over Shakargarh.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: Moreover, the F-6 flew 184 Ground Attack sorties where their 3 x 30 mm guns and 57 mm S-5 rockets were particularly effective against Indian armour, military vehicles, bunkers, and troop concentrations. Their Close Air Support missions at Shakargarh were the most successful.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: At the end of the war, the PAF had lost two F-6s to ground fire while losing one F-6 to an Indian Su-7. An F-6 was also lost to friendly fire.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: Some notable Pakistani F-6 pilots are Mushaf Ali Mir who later became the PAF's Chief, Wajid Ali Khan who was taken as a POW after being shot down by Indian AAA, he later became a Member of the Parliament in Canada and Syed Manzoor ul Hassan Hashmi. The single-seat F-6 was retired from the Pakistan Air Force in 2002 and replaced with the Chengdu F-7P/PG aircraft.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: The supersonic speed advantage provided by the MiG-21's more modern turbojet engine was found to be not as useful in combat as originally thought, because aerial dogfights at the time were conducted almost entirely at subsonic speeds. The J-6 (and hence the MiG-19 too) was found to be more manoeuvrable than the MiG-21 and, although slower, its acceleration during dogfights was considered adequate. The North Vietnamese Air Force fielded at least one unit of J-6s during the war, the 925th Fighter Regiment, beginning in 1969.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: Somalia ordered at least eleven F-6Cs and two FT-6s in 1979. Deliveries started in 1980. They were used during border skirmishes with Ethiopia in 1981, and they also saw combat during the Somali Rebellion, in the second half of the 1980s and until 1991.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: Twelve F-6 fighters and two FT-6 trainers were reportedly delivered to the Sudanese Air Force, starting in 1973. Moreover, twelve F-6Cs were delivered between 1981 and 1983. Another batch of twelve F-6Cs might have been acquired in 1990, as well as two FT-6s in 2001. Sudanese F-6s participated in the Second Sudanese Civil War, from the 1980s to the early 1990s. One F-6 was claimed shot down by the rebels in 1988, and two more in the autumn of 1991.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: The Tanzania Air Force Command received its first batch of twelve F-6s starting in June 1973. An additional twelve F-6Cs and up to four FT-6s were also delivered in 1982. Tanzanian F-6s participated in the 1978–1979 Uganda-Tanzania War. However, they aren't known to have been involved in any air-to-air combats.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: Twelve F-6s were delivered to the Zambian Air Force, probably between 1976 and 1978. On 8 June 1980, Zambian F-6s intercepted and shot down an Angolan Yakovlev Yak-40, under unknown circumstances.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: In the era of Khmer Rouge control of Cambodia (1975–1979), Chinese-supplied Khmer J-6s participated in Kampuchea-Vietnamese border clashes for ground attacks. During the Vietnamese invasion in 1978, the Cambodian aircraft were reluctant to take-off to intercept the Vietnamese ones, thus the Vietnamese captured a number of J-6s and put them on public display.


title: Shenyang J-6

text: During the 1980–88 Iran–Iraq War, both sides deployed J-6 fighter jets. Documents from the US Defense Intelligence Agency released under the Freedom of Information Act (United States) on Chinese arms sales to Iran reveal that between 1980 and 1987 China delivered 100 J-6 fighter jets to Iran. Iraq's J-6 fighters were transferred from the Egyptian Air Force. Most missions J-6s performed during the Iran-Iraq War were air-to-ground attack.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Rachel Clare Hurd-Wood (born 17 August 1990) is an English actress, best known for her film roles as Wendy Darling in "Peter Pan" (2003) and more recently for her television role as Rachel Maddox in "Clique" (2017–2018).


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Hurd-Wood was born in the Streatham district of South London, England, the daughter of Philip and Sarah Hurd-Wood. She lived in London till the age of eight, when she and her family moved to a Victorian cottage in Godalming, Surrey.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: She has a younger brother, Patrick who appeared with her in "Peter Pan" as one of the sleeping children in the "I Do Believe In Fairies" scene. He also plays the role of Samuel Crowthorn alongside his sister in her later film, "Solomon Kane" in which she plays Meredith Crowthorn.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Her father's work involves performing, writing scripts and doing voice-overs for commercials. He appears in one of her films, An American Haunting, as one of the guests in the Christmas party scene towards the beginning of the film. She joined a drama club in her school and took part in its stage production during her second year. Hurd-Wood dispelled the false rumour that her uncle is Hugh Laurie in a 2009 September–October interview for the magazine "Little White Lies: The An Education Issue" and then again in a 2010 live Myspace web chat for the film "Tomorrow, When the War Began". "My uncle lives in Wales and is an artist", she says.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Hurd-Wood attended Rodborough Technology College in Milford, Surrey from 2001 to 2006. She had tutored lessons during the filming of "Peter Pan" in Australia during 2002 to 2003 as her work lasted for a span of 8 to 9 months. She later attended Godalming College from 2006 to 2008 to study for her A-Levels in Art, English Literature, Psychology and Philosophy.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Hurd-Wood had considered becoming a marine biologist because of her love for dolphins. She gave up on the idea when she discovered that it would require studying science because she thought she was not very good at it.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: She became interested in working with children who have special needs or disabilities. Hurd-Wood began studying linguistics at University College London in 2008, but left the course after a year, before travelling to Australia for the filming of "Tomorrow, When the War Began", when she decided to focus entirely on her career in acting.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Hurd-Wood's career in acting started in 2002 when she was picked for the role of Wendy Darling, after her grandparents spotted a television clip that said P.J. Hogan was searching for a "young English rose" for the feature film "Peter Pan". She travelled to Gold Coast, Australia for eight months of filming. Her performance received good reviews and was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor, and a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actress.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Hurd-Wood portrayed the character Imogen Helhoughton in the 2004 TV film "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking", as a 13-year-old victim of a serial killer. Also in 2004, she had a major role of Betsy Bell in the thriller "An American Haunting", as a girl who is haunted and tormented by an unrelenting demon. Her performance came in for some praise, one critic remarking, "The actors are the saving grace… Hurd-Wood a mix of radiant approaching womanhood and animal terror. Their impassioned performances make you really care what happens to these people…"; another reviewer comments, "Rachel Hurd-Wood… delivers a fantastic and nuanced performance as Betsy Bell, the very central role that essentially carries the entire movie." Hurd-Wood was nominated for the 2006 Teen Choice Awards in the category Movie – Choice Scream for her role.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: In 2005 she appeared in an adaptation of the best-selling novel by German writer Patrick Süskind, "". Set in 18th century France, Hurd-Wood portrayed Laura Richis, the red-headed virgin daughter of a politically connected merchant played by Alan Rickman. She had her brunette hair dyed red. She was nominated for the "Best Supporting Actress" award at the 33rd Saturn Awards by The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for her role.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: The year 2007 saw Hurd-Wood starring as a waitress in the music video for the song "A Little Bit" by Madeleine Peyroux. She appeared alongside the musicians in the music video for "Fatherhood/Motherhood" by Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: In the 2008 film "Solomon Kane", she played Meredith Crowthorn, a Puritan captured by a band of marauders who killed her family and whom Kane sought to rescue. Her younger brother Patrick appears in the film as her brother Samuel.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Later in the year she acted in the film "Dorian Gray" based on the Oscar Wilde novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray". She was in the small but key role of the young budding actress Sibyl Vane, with whom Gray falls in love. She was studying in the first year of the linguistics course at UCL while working in this film.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: In her first contemporary role, Hurd-Wood was cast as Corrie Mackenzie, one of the principal characters in the 2009 Australian action-adventure film "Tomorrow, When the War Began", based on the novel by John Marsden. (The novel was one of the books she read while being tutored for the filming of "Peter Pan".) At this point, she discontinued studying for a Linguistics degree to concentrate full-time on acting. She learned an Australian accent for the role. The film became the highest-grossing movie for that year in Australia.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Hurd-Wood portrayed the lead character Mae-West O'Mara in the 2010 film "Hideaways", narrating a story to her six-year-old daughter, about the strange powers of the men in the Furlong family. Her performance was well received by critics, calling her "charismatic" and "...the heart and soul of the film, the one the girls will relate to and the guys are going to love...". "If the film works it's due in large part to her stellar performance", says a reviewer. Another reviewer commented, "When the light hits Mae's eyes, it's like you can see whole worlds being born and being destroyed ad infinitum ... Hurd-Wood's chemistry with Treadaway is instant, the two are a joy to watch, and their romance is the heart of the film ... [Rachel's and Harry's] two great central performances". Later in the year, she played the younger version of the character Isabel, played by Jenny Agutter, in the short film "The Mapmaker". Also in the same year, she was featured in the music video for "Revolver" by Warehouse Republic.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: She played the role of the babysitter in the 2011 teaser for a proposed feature-length film, "Let's Go Play at the Adams", based on the book of the same name by Mendal Johnson. She next played the role of the daughter of the character Teddy, in the short film "It Ends Here", directed by her friend Zimon Drake.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: In 2012, Hurd-Wood played the female lead role of Elisabeth James in the film "Highway to Dhampus", a story about the effect foreigners in Nepal and Nepali expatriates have on the locals. Later in the year, she narrates the words of her fashion-designer friend, Matthew Williamson, in an advertisement/mini-film. She next starred alongside the singers Tyler James and Kano in the music video for the single "Worry About You" (feat. Kano) by Tyler James.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Hurd-Wood posed for the publicity and poster material for "Volstead Putsch", an underground bohemian party organised by "The Triumvirate of Fez" at the London's Volstead Club in 2008. The same year she posed for Raw Riddim Records promoting their merchandise such as chains, T-shirts, hoodies, etc.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Hurd-Wood was a member of the international expert jury panel for "European debuts" at the "52nd International Film Festival for Children and Youth" at the Zlin Film Festival held from 27 May 2012 to 3 June 2012 at Zlin in the Czech Republic.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Hurd-Wood signed for World Famous StarCards, a charity supporting the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) Children's Charity, at the world charity premiere of the movie Peter Pan in London on 9 December 2003. Her autographed card was auctioned in 2009. It tops the chart for the most popular signing, according to Paul Brett, founder of the StarCards charity.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Hurd-Wood along with other celebrity supporters of the charity Shooting Star CHASE, Keeley Hawes, Matthew MacFadyen and Max Clifford joined more than 50 children with life-limiting illnesses and their families for the event on Sunday, 20 December 2009. The charity worked with Coca-Cola and the Merlin Group, which runs Alton Towers, Chessington World of Adventures and the London Eye, to transform Christopher's (CHASE) Hospice in Guildford, Surrey into a winter wonderland and gave the children at hospice a wonderful Christmas surprise.


title: Rachel Hurd-Wood

text: Hurd-Wood married Scottish actor Russ Bain in Camden Town in November 2017. Their son Liam was born in May 2018. Previously based in North London, they have since moved out to Oundle, Northamptonshire. Their daughter Stella was born in April 2021.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: The Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) was a secret society founded in 1854 by American George W. L. Bickley, the objective of which was to create a new country, known as the Golden Circle (), where slavery would be legal. The country would have been centered in Havana and would have consisted of the Southern United States and a "golden circle" of territories in Mexico (which was to be divided into 25 new slave states), Central America, northern parts of South America, and Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and most other islands in the Caribbean, about in diameter.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: Originally, the KGC advocated that the new territories should be annexed by the United States, in order to vastly increase the number of slave states and thus the power of the slave-holding Southern upper classes. In response to the increased anti-slavery agitation that followed the Dred Scott decision (1857) the Knights changed their position: the Southern United States should secede, forming their own confederation, and then invade and annex the area of the Golden Circle to vastly expand the power of the South. In the United States, the new country's northern border would roughly coincide with the Mason–Dixon line, and within it were included such cities as Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Mexico City, and Panama City.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: The KGC's proposal grew out of previous unsuccessful proposals to annex Cuba (Ostend Manifesto), parts of Central America (Filibuster War), and all of Mexico (All of Mexico Movement). In Cuba, the issue was complicated by the desire of many in the colony for independence from Spain. Mexico and Central America had no interest in being part of the United States.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: As abolitionism in the United States grew in opposition to slavery, the KGC members proposed a separate confederation of slave states, with U.S. states south of the Mason-Dixon line to secede and to align with other slave states to be formed from the "golden circle". In either case, the goal was to increase the power of the Southern slave-holding upper class to such a degree that it could never be dislodged.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: During the American Civil War, some Southern sympathizers in the Union or Northern states, such as Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, were accused of belonging to the Knights of the Golden Circle, and in some cases, such as that of Lambdin P. Milligan, they were imprisoned for their activities.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: Although nominally a secret society, the existence of the Knights of the Golden Circle was not, in fact, a secret.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: European colonialism and dependence on slavery had declined more rapidly in some countries than others. The Spanish possessions of Cuba and Puerto Rico and the Empire of Brazil continued to depend on slavery, as did the Southern United States. In the years prior to the American Civil War, the rise of support for abolition of slavery was one of several divisive issues in the United States. The slave population there had continued to grow due to natural increase even after the ban on international trade. It was concentrated in the Deep South, on large plantations devoted to the commodity crops of cotton and sugar cane, but it was the basis of agricultural and other labor throughout the southern states.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: George W. L. Bickley, a doctor, editor, and adventurer who lived in Cincinnati, founded the association, organizing the first "castle," or local branch, in Cincinnati in 1854. Membership increased slowly until 1859 and reached its height in 1860. The membership, scattered from New York to California and into Latin America, was never large. Records of the KGC convention held in 1860 state that the organization "originated at Lexington, Kentucky, on the fourth day of July 1854, by five gentlemen who came together on a call made by Gen. George Bickley". Some Knights of the Golden Circle active in northern states, such as Illinois, were accused of anti-Union activities after the Civil War began in 1861.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: Hounded by creditors, Bickley left Cincinnati in the late 1850s and traveled through the East and South, promoting an armed expedition to Mexico. The group's original goal was to provide a force to colonize the northern part of Mexico and the West Indies. This would extend pro-slavery interests. In August 1861 "The New York Times" described the order as a successor to the Order of the Lone Star, which had been organized for the purpose of conquering Cuba and Nicaragua, succeeding in the latter cause in 1856 under William Walker before being driven out by a coalition of neighboring states. At that time the order's prime objective was said to be to raise an army of 16,000 men to conquer and "Southernize" Mexico, which meant making slavery, not legal in Mexico, again legal, while supporting the "Knights of the Columbian Star"—those in the KGC's highest level of membership—for public office.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: Several members of President James Buchanan's administration were members of the order, as well as Virginia's secessionist Senator James M. Mason. The Secretary of War, John Floyd and of Treasury, Howell Cobb, were members of the circle, in addition to Vice President John Breckenridge. Floyd received instructions from the Order to "seize Navy-yards, Forts, etc. while KGC members were still Cabinet officers and Senators". The plan was to prevent Lincoln from reaching Washington by capturing him in Baltimore. Then they would occupy the District of Columbia, and install Breckinridge as president instead of Lincoln. Floyd used his position as Secretary of War to move munitions and men to the South towards the end of Buchanan's presidency. His plot was discovered, and led to greater distrust of secret societies and Copperheads in general. This distrust was the result of a confirmed plot to overthrow the federal government, rather than general discontent.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: Robert Barnwell Rhett, who has been called "the father of secession", said a few days after Lincoln's election:


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: In 1859, future Confederate States Army brigadier general Elkanah Greer established KGC castles in East Texas and Louisiana. Although a Unionist, United States Senator Sam Houston introduced a resolution in the U.S. Senate in 1858 for the "United States to declare and maintain an efficient protectorate over the States of Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and San Salvador." This measure, which supported the goal of the KGC, failed to be adopted. In the spring of 1860, Elkanah Greer had become general and grand commander of 4,000 Military Knights in the KGC's Texas division of 21 castles. The Texas KGC supported President of the United States James Buchanan's policy of, and draft treaty for, protecting routes for U.S commerce across Mexico, which also failed to be approved by the U.S. Senate.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: With the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, the Texas KGC changed its emphasis from a plan to expand U.S. territory into Mexico in order to focus its efforts on providing support for the Southern States' secession from the Union. On February 15, 1861, Ben McCulloch, United States Marshal and former Texas Ranger, began marching toward the Federal arsenal at San Antonio, Texas, with a cavalry force of about 550 men, about 150 of whom were Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) from six castles. As volunteers continued to join McCulloch the following day, United States Army Brevet Maj. Gen. David E. Twiggs surrendered the arsenal peacefully to the secessionists. Twiggs was appointed a major general in the Confederate States Army on May 22, 1861.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: KGC members also figured prominently among those who, in 1861, joined Lt. Col. John Robert Baylor in his temporarily successful takeover of southern New Mexico Territory. In May 1861, members of the KGC and the Confederate Rangers attacked a building which housed a pro-Union newspaper, the "Alamo Express," owned by J. P. Newcomb, and burned it down. Other KGC members followed Brig. Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley on the 1862 New Mexico Campaign, which sought to bring the New Mexico Territory into the Confederate fold. Both Baylor and Trevanion Teel, Sibley's captain of artillery, had been among the KGC members who rode with Ben McCulloch.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: In early 1862, Radical Republicans in the Senate, aided by Secretary of State William H. Seward, suggested that former president Franklin Pierce, who was greatly critical of the Lincoln administration's war policies, was an active member of the Knights of the Golden Circle. In an angry letter to Seward, Pierce denied that he knew anything about the KGC, and demanded that his letter be made public. California Senator Milton Latham subsequently did so when he entered the entire PierceSeward correspondence into the "Congressional Globe".


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: Appealing to the Confederacy's friends in both the North and the border states, the Order spread to Kentucky as well as the southern parts of such Union states as Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri. It became strongest among Copperheads, who were Democrats who wanted to end the Civil War via settlement with the South. Some supported slavery and others were worried about the power of the federal government. In the summer of 1863, Congress authorized a military draft, which the administration soon put into operation. Leaders of the Democratic Party opposed to Abraham Lincoln's administration denounced the draft and other wartime measures, such as the arrest of seditious persons and the president's temporary suspension of the writ of "habeas corpus."


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: During the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign, scam artists in south-central Pennsylvania sold Pennsylvania Dutch farmers $1 paper tickets purported to be from the Knights of the Golden Circle. Along with a series of secret hand gestures, these tickets were supposed to protect the horses and other possessions of ticket holders from seizure by invading Confederate soldiers. When Confederate Maj. Gen. Jubal Early's infantry division passed through York County, Pennsylvania, they took what they needed anyway. They often paid with Confederate States dollars or with drafts on the Confederate government. The Confederate cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart also reported the alleged KGC tickets when documenting the campaign.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: That same year, Asbury Harpending and California members of the Knights of the Golden Circle in San Francisco outfitted the schooner "J. M. Chapman" as a Confederate privateer in San Francisco Bay, with the object of raiding commerce on the Pacific Coast and capturing gold shipments to the East Coast. Their attempt was detected and they were seized on the night of their intended departure.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: In late 1863, the KGC reorganized as the Order of American Knights. In 1864, it became the Order of the Sons of Liberty, with the Ohio politician Clement L. Vallandigham, most prominent of the Copperheads, as its supreme commander. In most areas only a minority of its membership was radical enough to discourage enlistments, resist the draft, and shield deserters. The KGC held numerous peace meetings. A few agitators, some of them encouraged by Southern money, talked of a revolt in the Old Northwest, with the goal of ending the war.


title: Knights of the Golden Circle

text: The "Los Angeles Times" noted that one theory, among many, on the origin of the Saddle Ridge Hoard of gold coins is that it was cached by the KGC, which "some believe buried millions in ill-gotten gold across a dozen states to finance a second Civil War".


title: Mia Zapata

text: Mia Katherine Zapata (August 25, 1965 – July 7, 1993) was an American musician who was the lead singer for the Seattle punk band The Gits. After gaining praise in the emerging grunge scene, Zapata was murdered in 1993 while on her way home from a music venue, at age 27. The crime went unsolved for a decade before her killer, Jesus Mezquia, was arrested in 2003. Mezquia was tried, convicted and sentenced to 36 years in prison.


title: Mia Zapata

text: Mia Zapata was raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended high school at Presentation Academy. Zapata learned how to play the guitar and the piano by age nine, and was influenced by punk rock as well as jazz, blues, and R&B singers such as Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles, Hank Williams, and Sam Cooke.


title: Mia Zapata

text: In 1984, Zapata enrolled at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio as a liberal arts student. In September 1986, she and three friends formed the punk rock band The Gits. In 1989, the band relocated to Seattle, Washington. Zapata found a job at a local bar and the four band members moved into an abandoned house they called "The Rathouse." The band released a series of well-received singles on local independent record labels from 1990 to 1991. As the Gits were making a name for themselves in the local music scene, they often played shows with their friends' band, 7 Year Bitch. In 1992, the band released its debut album "Frenching the Bully". Their reputation progressively increased within the grunge scene in Seattle, before the band began work on their second and final album "", released in 1993.


title: Mia Zapata

text: Zapata came from an affluent family but often lived without material comforts. As her father described it: "Mia [lived] in two different worlds. She lived on two different sides of the street—the straight side on one, with parochial schools, an affluent family, and tennis clubs. But when she crossed the street, material things didn't mean anything to her." Zapata's music often led to a rejection of financial comfort, but regardless of status, Valerie Agnew describes Mia as "commanding respect and interest immediately".


title: Mia Zapata

text: Zapata was well connected to her community. Peter Sheehy recalls: "Mia [was] the hub of several social circles; a magnetic personality who drew all sorts of people together who otherwise might never have met." On his way to her funeral, Zapata's father became lost and recalls many people carrying yellow roses: the admission ticket to her service. Judge Sharon Armstrong, the judge during her killer's trial, highlighted Zapata as an "extraordinarily vibrant" girl, who was "obviously talented"; she was "struck by how closely Zapata had connected to so many people".


title: Mia Zapata

text: The Gits, who included guitarist Andrew "Joe Spleen" Kessler, drummer Steve Moriarty, and bassist Matt Dresdner, met in Ohio in 1986. A few years later, the band decided to move to Seattle to engage in city's burgeoning music scene. The band quickly developed a following within the local underground punk scene. The band as a whole and Zapata in particular became popular with the Seattle feminist community.


title: Mia Zapata

text: In 1990 the Gits went on a successful international tour without the support of a record label. In 1992, their first independent album, "Frenching the Bully", was released. The album had hits such as "Another Shot of Whiskey", "Second Skin", and "Here's to Your Fuck", receiving positive reviews. The band had planned a large U.S. and European tour as well a series of local shows and was being courted by various labels. Before the band could finish and release their second album, "Enter: The Conquering Chicken", Zapata was murdered. After her death, the band continued to make music and found success in their second album with singles such as "Seaweed" and "Precious Blood".


title: Mia Zapata

text: Around 2 a.m. on July 7, 1993, Zapata left the Comet Tavern in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. She stayed at a studio space in the basement of an apartment building located a block away, and briefly visited a friend who lived on the second floor. This was the last time Zapata was seen alive. She may have walked a few blocks west, or north to a friend's apartment, or may have decided to take the long walk south to her home.


title: Mia Zapata

text: Zapata's body was discovered near the intersection of 24th Avenue South and South Washington Street at around 3:30 a.m, located in Seattle's Central District. She had been beaten, raped, and strangled. It is believed she encountered her attacker shortly after 2:15 a.m. Her body was not initially identified as she had no identification on her when she was found. An episode of the cable television show "Forensic Files" revealed that she was identified after the medical examiner, who was a fan of the Gits and had been to their concerts, recognized her. According to the medical examiner, if she had not been strangled, she would have died from the internal injuries suffered from the beating. According to court documents, an autopsy found evidence of a struggle in which Zapata suffered blunt impact to her abdomen and a lacerated liver.


title: Mia Zapata

text: Zapata is interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in her hometown of Louisville. The Seattle music community, including its most famous bands – Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden – helped raise $70,000 to hire a private investigator for three years. The funds dried up without any major breaks in the case, but the investigator, Leigh Hearon, continued to investigate on her own time. In 1998, after five years of investigation, Seattle police detective Dale Tallman said: "We're no closer to solving the case than we were right after the murder."


title: Mia Zapata

text: In 2003, Florida fisherman Jesus Mezquia, who had come from Cuba in 1980 in the Mariel boatlift, was arrested and charged in connection with Zapata's murder based on DNA evidence. A DNA profile was extracted from saliva found in bite marks on Zapata's body and kept in cold storage until the STR technology was developed for full extraction. An original entry in 2001 failed to generate a positive result, but Mezquia's DNA entered the national CODIS database after he was arrested in Florida for burglary and domestic abuse in 2002.


title: Mia Zapata

text: Mezquia had a history of violence toward women including domestic abuse, burglary, assault, and battery. All of his ex-girlfriends, and his wife, had filed reports against him. There was also a report of indecent exposure on file against him in Seattle within two weeks of Zapata's murder. However, there was no known prior link between Mezquia and Zapata.


title: Mia Zapata

text: Mezquia did not testify in his own defense and maintained his innocence. The prosecution theory was that he saw Zapata leave the bar and followed her a short distance before he attacked her. Her headphones covered her ears so she would have been unaware of any danger until he grabbed her and dragged her to his car, where he assaulted her in the back seat. Mezquia was convicted in 2004 and initially sentenced to 37 years. On appeal he was given a sentence of 36 years, beginning in January 2003. Mezquia died in a Washington hospital on January 21, 2021, at the age of 66.


title: Mia Zapata

text: In the aftermath of Zapata's murder, friends created a self-defense group called Home Alive. Home Alive organized benefit concerts and released albums with the participation of many bands, including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Heart, and the Presidents of the United States of America. Joan Jett also recorded an album with the surviving members of the Gits called "Evil Stig" ("Gits Live" backwards). The Home Alive group's instructors offered a range of courses, from anger management and use of pepper spray to the martial arts.


title: Mia Zapata

text: In 2005 a documentary film, "The Gits Movie", was produced about Zapata's life, the Gits, and the Seattle music scene. Its first showing occurred at the Seattle International Film Festival in May of that same year. Another version of the film appeared two years later at the 2007 SXSW (South By Southwest) Film Festival. The final cut was released theatrically in over 20 North American cities on July 7, 2008, the 15th memorial anniversary of Zapata's death. The following day the film was released on DVD along with a "Best of the Gits" CD (both from Liberation Entertainment).


title: Mia Zapata

text: "¡Viva Zapata!", by punk band 7 Year Bitch, was released in June 1994, on C/Z Records in Seattle, as a tribute to Zapata. Some of the songs on the album address the issue of Zapata's murder directly. Following her death, Jett and Kathleen Hanna wrote a song called "Go Home" that was later released on Jett's 1994 album, "Pure and Simple". Later, a video for "Go Home" was released which depicts a woman who is being stalked and attacked but is then able to defend herself against the assailant.


title: Mia Zapata

text: In February 2013, a play called "These Streets", inspired by the stories of and featuring music by Zapata and other female musicians in Seattle, debuted at ACT theatre in Seattle.


title: Mia Zapata

text: Zapata's death caused a sense of defeat and fear within the Seattle community. The "Seattle Times" marked the murder as the moment "the Seattle scene lost its sense of invincibility." Cristen Storm recalls Zapata's death as a reality check, stating: "[They were] all very tough people and as a group of women, [they] are all really strong, outspoken, and hard-hitting, very opinionated women and that perception of, 'We're not victims at all in any way and this can't happen to women that aren't victims,' and I think [Zapata's death] shattered that myth for us, [and showed] that it happens to all types of women."


title: Mia Zapata

text: Zapata is often cast as a symbol for feminist activism, a martyr, and an angel. Dresdner said "[Mia] was sainted, and that was very peculiar... she became this icon for feminism and all kinds of things that she had very little to do with in her actual life." Margaret O'Neil Girouard, who wrote her thesis on Zapata, believes she is an example of women artists being classified based on the perceived motivations behind their art. Moriarty wrote that "[Mia wanted] to relate to people on a personal level in her lyrics [rather] than on a political level." It has been speculated that this association may be due to her presence as a "charismatic female musician" in the Northwest, who was performing throughout the emergence of the riot grrrl movement.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Rivaroxaban, sold under the brand name Xarelto among others, is an anticoagulant medication (blood thinner) used to treat and prevent blood clots. Specifically it is used to treat deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary emboli and prevent blood clots in atrial fibrillation and following hip or knee surgery. It is taken by mouth.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Common side effects include bleeding. Other serious side effects may include spinal hematoma and anaphylaxis. It is unclear if use in pregnancy and breastfeeding is safe. Compared to warfarin it has fewer interactions with other medications. It works by blocking the activity of the clotting protein factor Xa.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Rivaroxaban was patented in 2007 and approved for medical use in the United States in 2011. In the United States, it will not be available as a generic medication until 2024. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. In 2020, it was the 86th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 8million prescriptions.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: In those with non-valvular atrial fibrillation, it appears to be as effective as warfarin in preventing ischemic strokes and embolic events. Rivaroxaban is associated with lower rates of serious and fatal bleeding events than warfarin, though rivaroxaban is associated with higher rates of bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: In July 2012, the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommended rivaroxaban to prevent and treat venous thromboembolism.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Because of the difficulty associated with managing bleeding, rivaroxaban should be discontinued at least 24 hours before surgery, then restarted as soon as adequate hemostasis is established.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Dosing recommendations do not recommended administering rivaroxaban with drugs known to be strong combined CYP3A4/P-glycoprotein inhibitors because this results in significantly higher plasma concentrations of rivaroxaban.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: The most serious adverse effect is bleeding, including severe internal bleeding. Rivaroxaban is associated with lower rates of serious and fatal bleeding events than warfarin but is associated with higher rates of bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: , post-marketing assessments showed liver toxicity, and further studies are needed to quantify this risk. In 2015, rivaroxaban accounted for the highest number of reported cases of serious injury among regularly monitored medications to the FDA's Adverse Events Reporting System (AERS).


title: Rivaroxaban

text: In October 2014, Portola Pharmaceuticals completed Phase I and II clinical trials for andexanet alfa as an antidote for Factor Xa inhibitors with few adverse effects, and started Phase III trials. Andexanet alfa was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May 2018, under the trade name "AndexXa".


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Rivaroxaban inhibits both free and bound Factor Xa in the prothrombinase complex. It is a selective direct factor Xa inhibitor with an onset of action of 2.5 to 4 hours. Inhibition of Factor Xa interrupts the intrinsic and extrinsic pathway of the blood coagulation cascade, inhibiting both thrombin formation and development of thrombi. Rivaroxaban does not inhibit thrombin (activated Factor II), and no effects on platelets have been demonstrated. It allows predictable anticoagulation and dose adjustments and routine coagulation monitoring; dietary restrictions are not needed.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Unfractionated heparin (UFH), low molecular weight heparin (LMWH), and fondaparinux also inhibit the activity of factor Xa, indirectly, by binding to circulating antithrombin (AT III) and must be injected, whereas the orally active warfarin, phenprocoumon, and acenocoumarol are vitamin K antagonists (VKA), decreasing a number of coagulation factors, including factor X.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Rivaroxaban has predictable pharmacokinetics across a wide spectrum of patients (age, gender, weight, race) and has a flat dose response across an eightfold dose range (5–40 mg). The oral bioavailability is dose-dependent. Doses of rivaroxaban under 10 mg can be taken with or without food, as it displayed high bioavailability independent of whether food was consumed or not. If rivaroxaban is given at oral doses of 15 mg or 20 mg, it needs to be taken with food to aid in drug absorption and achieve appropriate bioavailability (≥ 80%).


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Rivaroxaban bears a striking structural similarity to the antibiotic linezolid: both drugs share the same oxazolidinone-derived core structure. Accordingly, rivaroxaban was studied for any possible antimicrobial effects and for the possibility of mitochondrial toxicity, which is a known complication of long-term linezolid use. Studies found that neither rivaroxaban nor its metabolites have any antibiotic effect against Gram-positive bacteria. As for mitochondrial toxicity, "in vitro" studies published before 2008 found the risk to be low.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Rivaroxaban was initially developed by Bayer. In the United States, it is marketed by Janssen Pharmaceuticals (a part of Johnson & Johnson). It was the first available direct factor Xa inhibitor which is taken by mouth.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Using rivaroxaban rather than warfarin costs 70 times more, according to Express Scripts Holding Co, the largest U.S. pharmacy benefits manager. As of 2016, Bayer claimed that the drug was licensed in 130 countries and that more than 23 million patients had been treated.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: In September 2008, Health Canada granted marketing authorization for rivaroxaban to prevent venous thromboembolism (VTE) in people who have undergone elective total hip replacement or total knee replacement surgery.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: In the same month, the European Commission also granted marketing authorization of rivaroxaban to prevent venous thromboembolism in adults undergoing elective hip and knee replacement.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: On July 1, 2011, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved rivaroxaban for prophylaxis of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which may lead to pulmonary embolism (PE), in adults undergoing hip and knee replacement surgery.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: On November 4, 2011, the US FDA approved rivaroxaban for stroke prevention in people with non-valvular atrial fibrillation.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: On March 25, 2019, over 25,000 lawsuits over rivaroxaban in the US were settled for $775 million to get paid out to those affected. Plaintiffs accused the drugmakers of not warning about the bleeding risks, claiming their injuries could have been prevented had doctors and patients been provided adequate information.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute have been accused of withholding clinical data used to evaluate rivaroxaban. Duke tested rivaroxaban in a clinical trial known as the ROCKET AF trial. The clinical trial, published 2011 in the New England Journal of Medicine and headed by Robert Califf, then Commissioner of the FDA, found rivaroxaban to be more effective than warfarin in reducing the likelihood of ischemic strokes in patients with atrial fibrillation. The validity of the study was called into question in 2014, when pharmaceutical sponsors Bayer and Johnson & Johnson revealed that the INRatio blood monitoring devices used were not functioning properly, A subsequent analysis by the Duke team published in February 2016 found that this had no significant effect on efficacy and safety in the trial.


title: Rivaroxaban

text: Under-representation of racial minorities in clinical trials has been noted. Compared to warfarin, efficacy and safety was found to be similar across racial subgroups.


title: Thilo Kehrer

text: Jan Thilo Kehrer (; born 21 September 1996) is a German professional footballer who plays as a defender for Premier League club West Ham United and the Germany national team. Mainly a centre-back, he can also play in either full-back position.


title: Thilo Kehrer

text: Kehrer is a graduate of Schalke 04. He made his Bundesliga debut on 6 February 2016 against VfL Wolfsburg in a 3–0 home win. He scored his first goal for the club on 1 April 2017 in the Revierderby against Borussia Dortmund at home, producing the equalizer in a 1–1 draw.


title: Thilo Kehrer

text: On 5 May 2018 he scored twice as Schalke secured second place in the Bundesliga for the 2017–18 season and UEFA Champions League football for the 2018–19 season.


title: Thilo Kehrer

text: On 16 August 2018, it was announced that Kehrer had been transferred to Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain for €37 million.


title: Thilo Kehrer

text: On 10 April 2019, Kehrer scored his first goal for Paris Saint-Germain, in a league match against Strasbourg that ended 2–2. He scored his second goal for the club in a 2–1 league win away to Nantes on 4 February 2020. On 24 July 2020, in the Coupe de France Final, Kehrer suffered an injury and was replaced by Colin Dagba. PSG went on to win the match 1–0.