num_pages: 300
description: Going Downtown was the pilots term for air raids against Hanoi and Col. Jack Broughton a veteran of the Korean War and former leader of the Thunderbirds found himself leading young American pilots from bases in Thailand into North Vietnam. They flew F-105 Thunderchief fighter bombers against targets more dangerous than any experienced even during World War II. This is Broughtons story of those missions of encounters with Mig fighters of split-second maneuvering to dodge SAM missiles of struggling to avoid radar-guided antiaircraft fire and of trying to cope with the worst flying weather in the world. It is also a bitter and disturbing story of young fighter pilots sacrificed in a war controlled by politicians ten thousand miles away. Politically motivated restrictions prevented Broughtons men from shooting at enemy planes until they had left the ground. Attacking enemy guns or missile sites was made difficult by a maze of imaginary lines and forbidden zones drawn in Washington. Missions were planned by nonflying bureaucrats using the same attack routes day after day and as a result many lives were lost unnecessarily. Broughton recites a host of sinsoverreliance on rear area battlefield management systems overconfidence unshakable faith in our technological superioritythat made Washington an enemy as formidable as Hanoi. Broughton warns us sharply against this woeful blindness to the capabilities of our enemies that may cost us dearly in future conflicts. Broughtons involvement in the war came to an end with the Turkestan incident in which two of his pilots in the heat of battle inadvertently fired on a Soviet ship docked in Cam Pha harbor. The ritual court martial that followed detailed here with savage irony convinced Broughton that his men were being asked to do the impossible in a world not of military necessity but of political gamesmanship and a true American hero ended his career on a sour note. Going Downtown is a thrilling account of air combat and a fierce indictment of our Vietnam-era political leadership.
language: English
title: Going Downtown: The War Against Hanoi and Washington
publisher: Crown Publishers, Inc.