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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBob Pardo TranscriptionCity of College Station Heritage Programs Oral History Interviewee: Bob Pardo Interviewer: Tom Turbiville Place: College Station, Texas Project: Veterans of the Valley Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt 00:01: Tom Turbiville (TT): What I want to do today is just get sort of a, an overview of what. So that I can guide the conversation, Wednesday, in, in the direction that, that you want it to go and I want it to go. J-, tell me a little bit about your, your military background and what, how you, how you got to Vietnam and, and obviously you’re, you’re a military man all the way right? 00:30: Bob Pardo (BP): Yup. TT: You, you went to the Air Force Academy? 00:32: BP: No. TT: Where, where’d you go to school? 00:34: BP: I didn’t. TT: You didn’t okay. 00:35: BP: I, I enrolled at the University of Houston. TT: I see. 00:39: BP: Ended up in Fine Arts Department. Was in the first T.V. show that the University of Houston T.V. Department put on. However [noise]. TT: Okay. 00:56: BP: And, and had no money. TT: Right. 00:59: BP: And quit school, went back home, went to work for my dad on the Lone Star Gas Company pipe line. At that time, the different military services N-, Navy, Marines, and Air Force, required the minimum of two years of college to get into pilot training. And I already had the desire to fly. Wanted to be in the military. I felt that, even at that age, of, of 18, 19, what I had experienced in this country, made it the greatest place in the world to live. And I thought, “Okay. It’s my turn to give something back. And the way to do it is through the military.” TT: Right. 01:51: BP: Lo and behold a friend of mine, walks up to me on the job one day. And I’m out in the middle of the field diggin’ a hole in the ground. He says, “The Air Force has just lowered their requirements for pilot training to a high school diploma.” And I was afraid my dad wasn’t gonna give me a day off to take the test, but he did. [chuckle] And we passed the test, were entered into aviation cadets. Graduated from aviation cadets right here at Bryan Air Force Base. One of 8 of a class of 550, selected to go to fires. Which is exactly what I wanted to do. And I thought, “I’m, I’m not one of the top 8 guys.” But thank goodness some of the, the guys with better grades than I had, wanted bombers and transports and different things. And because I had the desire for fires. I was one of the few that were selected to go. And theoretically we were gonna in through the very first supersonic jet fighter which was the F84G, or F84F. And, by the time we got to that phase of training, something had gone wrong with the airplane and it was grounded. And so went through the straight wing then went to (England?) Air Force Base in Louisiana. Into the (sweat wing?). Wanted to be overseas. So a friend of mine and I, both as soon as we got there, volunteered for reassignment overseas. And three months later well we were shipped out to England. Flew the F84F and the F100 on that tour. Came back to the States to, a GCS squadron. Radar controller. Served in that capacity for three years. Both in the manual system and the automotive system. And went to Kansas City, Missouri to fly F102 Interceptors. From there to (Loring?), Maine to fly F106 Interceptors. And it was during that tour that I put in a volunteer statement for Vietnam. With a stipulation that it be in single-engine single-seat fires. And I waited and I waited and I would call personnel. And nothin’ was happening. No, no vacancies. Finally I told my guys just to get me an assignment, as long as it’s in the fighters. And about two days later, had an F-4 assignment. And, went to school on the F-4 for six months. From there to the Philippines where we went through jungle survival school. We were due to get on a transport and head on over to Southeast Asia. And about four or five days, maybe a week after we had completed our training. And that wasn’t quite quick enough for me so I hitchhiked a ride. Went on over. Spent one night in Bangkok waiting for an airplane, to go up country. And, the next day jumped on a C130 and. We made quite a few stops at little jungle outposts. We’d landed and then start rollin’ stuff off the back of the airplane while we were taxiing down the, the little taxi strip to get back to the takeoff position. TT: Right. 05:37: BP: Never even slow down, not stop. Just shove it out the back. And close the door and away we go up to the next place. And eventually we got to (Ubon?). Which is where I was assigned. TT: Right. 05:54: BP: Met the wing commander, (Robin Oals?) the second day I was there. Took about two days to read everything you were supposed to read. The, the operations order for “Rolling Thunder.” All rules of engagement. What you can do and what you can’t do. And. Away we went. TT: Away you went. And March 10, this was a, this was a mission that involved what? The, the, the bombing of the steel manufacturing? 06:29: BP: The time when, the time when. As Americans say (Tinugyn?). TT: Yes. 06:36: BP: Steel mill. The only steel mill in north Vietnam. And, they really did not want to lose that target. They, they, that was vital to them. Early on the reconnaissance showed that there were about 185 guns within a five mile circle, radius of the target. And. That was, that was pretty formidable right there. But the weather was preventing us from hitting the target. We’d form up the strike force and go. But these are pretty to, to entering north Vietnam, we’d get a weather report that it was totally sogged dead and we couldn’t get there. And the, the mission commander would say,, “Okay everybody go to your secondary targets.” So, the, the entire strike force would split up and people would go bomb their secondary targets and go home. Every other day it looked like the weather was a, marginal that it would be good enough. And so we would head for the target. Same route. And, somewhere between the initial point which is where you start your bomb run, and the target, the mission commander would say, “Okay the weather is, bad. We’re just gonna fly straight on through.” And of course the guys on the ground are sittin’ down there are warming up you know, with their, their guns. And, shootin’ at us through the clouds. They had some radar control guns. The majority were visually sighted. But nonetheless the, the north Vietnamese knew that we were intent on striking this target. And so they started bringing in more defenses. And to make the story a little shorter, over the, the next nine days between March the 1st and March the 9th, it went from 185 guns to right at 1,000 guns. TT: Wow., 08:39: BP: Within five miles of the target. And they also brought in three mobile surface to air missile sites. And so it was as well defended as anything up there. Including the city of Hanaoi. TT: So it really was a (high?) target. 08:55: BP: They, they only, they had, if I remember correctly 4200 anti-aircraft weapons. And so they elected to put 25% of ‘em at that one target, to keep us from striking it. March the 10th, the weather did give us a break and we were able to hit it. TT: Things went a little bit out of normal didn’t it? 09:20: BP: Oh they were abnormal every day. We, we lost at least one airplane a day. On the, on the prepatory missions goin’ in there. But on that day, the we were. See the F4 played a dual role. It could be mid-cav. Which is combat air patrol. And all you carried was missiles. You carried eight missiles and protected the strike force from the MiG fighters. It could be pure strike. Which means you take four of the missiles off and hang bombs and so now you’re a bomber. And then it had the dual role of strike, cav. Where you carried iron bombs and missiles and if attacked by MiGs you jettison the bombs and fought the MiGs. And you would be integrated right into the strike force. And the way we would do it, we had two flights, of F4s embedded in the strike force. The first flight, directly behind the mission leader. The other flight, tail end Charlie. And I also got tail end Charlie. And that’s where I was that day. I was the number two man in the flight. Earl (Amond?) was number four. And. He got hit the first time over the initial point. Which was about 40 miles north of the target. And he could very easily have left right there. He could have told the flight leader he was hit and he was goin’ to the tanker and goin’ home. But he didn’t, he elected to, his airplane was flying okay. Most of the warning lights had gone out, after they (hit?) back. And [speaking to an unidentified person] now, now be careful don’t hit Tom’s care when you back out of there. TT: Oh do I need to move? [Unidentified Woman]: No. TT: Okay. 11:46: BP: I’ll, I’ll text you. [Unidentified Woman]: I’ll see you Wednesday. TT: Okay, thank you. 11:56: BP: So he and his backseater talked it over and, and decided they’d continue the mission. And to tell you how cool those guys were, they took turns flying the airplane while the other one prayed. TT: Wow. 12:12: BP: And. Uh. At any rate as we continued on into the target, the, 600 gallon center-line tank on my airplane wouldn’t adjust. When the tanks, when the external tanks ran dry, we would jettison them to reduce drag and get better fuel consumption and so forth. And my 600 gallon tank wouldn’t jettison. Which means I had to carry a little extra power on the airplane to be able to stay in formation because the, the bombs were high-dragger. I mean it created a lot of drag. And, and so, I was having to carry a little bit of extra power, using a little bit more fuel and, there was another point right there that I wanted to make. But it’s, it’s apparently not that significant but. When we got to the target, we had been, we had been gradually forced down because of the clouds. Now you wanted to stay in visual conditions. To avoid mid-air collisions and, and so forth. Even though the airplane, the flights are separated by approximately one minute or seven miles, under normal circumstances. Once you pass the initial point, you don’t, you don’t cruise at 420 knots anymore. You pump it up to at least 480. Well we had, been doin’ that for nine days and been shot at so much that the faster you went, the safer you were. And on this particular day, I think the 105s were going, probably cruising at about 600 knots. And our flight had, had pushed up the power, to stay with ‘em and we were doin’ 630. And I could put the airplane in (acrabuner?) and it wouldn’t even accelerate. That’s simply as fast as it was gonna go. So we came back out of (acrabuner?) and we were just sitting there cruisin’. And like I say the weather had forced us down to about 8,000 feet and of course that’s not good because the, the more, the lower you go the more accurate the, the guns become. The smaller calibers, the .35s and the .57s and, they get real accurate when you’re down there 8,000 feet or so. TT: Right. 14:51: BP: Our normal rolling altitude was 14,000 feet. And so approaching the target we started climbing up. And, we were offset to the left of the target so we’re making a right-hand roll in. And just as we’re coming over the top on a roll-in, Earl (Amon?) got hit again. He says, “Well we’re directly over the target. There’s no sense leavin’ now. We’re gonna drop the bombs.” And so, down we go all four us. Drop our bombs and pull off target. And during the pull out, Steve and I got hit. Well the first thing off target, as soon as you’re, you’re headed out now. We got to a different radio frequency, an outbound radio frequency to stay off, the strike frequency to, to reduce confusion. So we go to outbound freq and, flight leader calls for a fuel check. And this is same routine every time off target. Fuel check. Battle damage check. Well he called for the fuel check and, and the leader was on schedule. 7,000 pounds of fuel remaining, which is what we were scheduled to have over the target. To make it home without refueling. 5,000 pounds minimum to make it to the tanker. So, I checked in, I was short 2,000 pounds of gas. Number three checks in, he’s on schedule with 7,000 pounds. Earl (Amon?) checks in. He’s 5,000 pounds short. He’s only got 2,000 pounds left. That’s not enough gas to him out of north Vietnam. Much less make it to the tanker. TT: How much did you have? 16:45: BP: I’ve got 5,000. We didn’t. Well we assumed that a, a portion of that was because of the hit we took because what little extra power I had to use because of the tank, wouldn’t have put me 2,000 pounds short. TT: Right. 17:08: BP: At any rate. Earl was having trouble maintaining formation. He because he was very concerned about his airplane at this point. We stayed down at our normal (A-Grass?) altitude which was about 12,000 feet. Until we got to the Red River. And once you passed the Red things started to, basically improve. There were fewer guns, no missile sites, in the direction we were going. And. TT: It still wasn’t a place you wanted to eject. 17:52: BP: Oh no, if, if, at that point if you ejected you were, there were, there were two possibilities. If you were captured by the civilians you were killed. If you were captured by militia or active duty military, you were goin’ to jail. And so neither of those are very good options. TT: No. 18:15: BP: And, so as we passed Red, Earl started climbing. And of course what he wanted to do was just get as high as he could get so when it did flame out, he would have, he could, he could glide as far as possible. Whereas if he were down low when it quit, you couldn’t glide anywhere. TT: Sure. 18:35: BP: So while we’re climbing out, I’m lookin’ his airplane over. Of course the, one of the mistakes that was made is the, the flight leader didn’t call for battle damage check. Or he would’ve discovered that both of us had been hit and needed cover for one thing. And could’ve used someone with us for moral support, but, that’s neither here nor there. Once they did find out we were in trouble which they ascertained by listening to our conversation between number two and number four and, then their, their main objective was to get to the tanker and get their gas so they could come back and, and cover us, when we went down. Because subsequent fuel checks, between myself and Earl (Amon?) showed that we weren’t gonna make it out of there either. That we were gonna run out of gas before we could get to the tanker. And so my attitude was very, very straightforward. If this airplane’s dead, I’m gonna get somethin’ else out of it before it gets buried. TT: Right. 19:49: BP: And. I started lookin’ over Earl’s airplane which was flying perfectly normal. Trying to figure out if there was anything I could do. And. It dawned on me that if he would jettison the drag shoot, perhaps I could put, the pointy end of the radium, right in the drag shoot compartment and give him a push. And we attempted that but we could, if when we got within about four feet of the airplane, the turbulence, the, the wash comin’ off the over services of the wings and the, the tail were just too much. And,, and. TT: You risking crashing into each other then. 20:31: BP: Couldn’t, we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t keep the wings level or anything. TT: Right. 20:35: BP: So we backed away from him and, and said, “Okay it’s not gonna work on top, let’s see what’s underneath.” And we went down underneath his airplane and thought, “Okay. Maybe we can get in there and just use the top of our fuse lodge up against the belly of his airplane. And support him that way. And we’ll just push the power up and maintain 250 knots and whatever descent that gives us. When we run out of gas, we jump out.” And we would get within about a foot of his airplane and we could feel a vacuum trying to pull us together. And I thought “Well I won’t smash into the bottom of his airplane and possibly jam the canopies because we’re gonna have to punch out of this thing here, very soon.” TT: Sure. 21:25: BP: So we backed out from under him and, and we’re lookin’ him over. And I saw the tail hook. I said, “Well that comes down about a 45, 50 degree angle. It’s five and a half, six feet long. It’ll stick down the airplane quite a bit, that might get out of the wash.” And, about that time he was down to 200 pounds of fuel which is, maybe a minute. TT: Yeah. 21:54: BP: And I said, “Just go ahead and shut the engines down and get rid of the jet wash.” And sure enough when he shut the engines down, there was no wash coming out of the engines. TT: He’s a glider now. 22:05: BP: He’s a glider. And we eased in, put the tail hook right in the center of our windshield which is the only flat place on the front of the airplane. TT: So he, he put the tail hook down first. Then he, shut off the engines. 22:17: BP: Yeah. Then, because when we were, when we were trying to. TT: This is a crazy thing you were about to try right? 22:23: BP: I think he thought it, well and in fact later he had said he had thought I was crazy. TT: Yeah. 22:28: BP: But. We, we were able to, to get the windshield up against the hook. And very gently used the power up and, where he had a glide rate of 3,000 feet a minute. We were able to reduce that to 1500 feet a minute. Effectively doubling the glide distance. And it all worked out later, mathematically because we calculated the airplane would have glided about 46 miles, from the altitude where he started this thing. And, we actually got him about 88. But, almost, almost double. But we, encountered a little problem. We could only maintain contact for about 30 seconds at a time. The, the tail hook is held down hydraulically but it is allowed to swivel from side to side so that if, if you’re landing in a cross wind and gonna take the cable. You can land into the wind and soon as you take the cable, the airplane weathervanes right straight down the runway. So, the, the swiveling action of the hook allowed it to slip off to the sides. The, there was just no way that I could keep it perfectly aligned all the time. But we had done this. TT: Is it, is the, the tail hook is a hook. It’s not (like it has a?) slot in it, I mean it’s just a round I guess. 24:00: BP: Well it’s, it’s, it’s the, the part that hits the air, carrier deck or the runway is flat. TT: Okay, okay. 24:07: BP: And it’s got a groove cut in the front side of it, that fits the cable. TT: I see. Oh okay, okay yeah sure. 24:13: BP: But on the, on the back is just. Has no particular shape to it that has any function. And so with the hook down, the flat portion was, was, it didn’t really fit the windshield per say. TT: I wonder what your windshield is like. Is there, is there metal involved? Is it like I say a metal bar in the middle or something or, is it right on against the glass? [shuffle] TT: Okay. [shuffle] TT: That’s, that’s an inch think isn’t it. 24:56: BP: Yeah. TT: So you weren’t. 24:59: BP: It was right here. TT: You weren’t terribly concerned. So this is the windshield. 25:04: BP: That is, that is an actual windshield out of (the corps?). TT: So you’re lookin’ straight out of the middle. So what you’re seein’ is this. With the tail hook right in (your face?). 25:12: BP: Yeah, and it. Your view would be like this. You’re, you’re sitting back here. TT: Huh-huh. Okay, right. 25:21: BP: So you’re, you’re. And the hook is right there. TT: So you’re, you’re. You’re, you’re right there and your tail hook is right there. 25:25: BP: Yeah. TT: So you’re not terribly concerned that. You’re not terribly concerned that it. 25:333: BP: Well. TT: Well obviously there (wasn’t enough of concern.). 25:38: BP: Concern. Because the F4. An (E.V.?) F4 weighs, 30,000 pounds. So that’s a lot of pressure. TT: Yeah, yeah, on the glass. 25:42: BP: To be on a piece of glass. TT: Wow. Okay. 26:03: BP: But now. We, we did this several times. We did start to see cracks in the windshield. TT: Right. 26:16: BP: And then we obviously became quite concerned. At the base of the windshield is a, is, a small piece of metal where hot air comes out over the windshield for ice removal or rain removal. And, although we were tryin’ to stay as far below the airplane as we could, we found that if, if we were gonna continue that it was gonna be necessary to, for us to move up so that the hook went further down onto that little metal area. And that’s what we did. TT: Right. 26:51: BP: And thank goodness it was. It did not increase the amount of wash or turbulence comin’ off his airplane to any great degree, TT: Right. 27:05: BP: About ten minutes into this, our left engine caught fire. So we had to shut it down. TT: So you’re down to one engine. 27:16: BP: Now we’re down to one engine. And of course, with one engine, the engine was being a little bit offset. That creates what we call a (y’all?). In other words the airplane turns sideways just a little bit. Now you can, you can counteract that with rudder and keep the airplane goin’ straight. But it, really increased the difficulty of what we were tryin’ to do. And so I told Steve, I wa-, I said “I’m gonna go ahead and crank it back up and, and see if it holds together.” So I restarted the left engine and it lasted about oh, two minutes. And it caught fire again. And so I said “We can’t take a chance on blowin’ this thing up. I’m gonna shut it down and leave it.” So we shut down the left engine again. Continued to push, with one engine. So now instead of havin’ a, a rate of 3-, of about 1500 feet a minute. We’re back up to about 2,000 feet a minute. And, we just kept goin’. And we got down to about 6,000 feet and I said, “That’s as low as we’re goin’. And you guys need to get out of there.” And so we watched Earl and, and Bob (Howton?) eject. Saw both parachutes open. Knew they were alive and well and. We didn’t, we only had about 300 pounds of gas left at that time. We knew where a, a special forces camp was., That was, we thought was within about 20 miles of us. And we turned and headed that direction, but we never got there we ran out of gas and ejected and. Now we’re all four in the jungle. With all four alive. And out of north Vietnam. We, we made it about, oh I don’t. 30 or 40 miles into the jungle. TT: (Did they all?) rescue you or? 29:19: BP: Yeah. TT: Yeah. 20:20: BP: Yeah. TTL And rescued them also? 29:22: BP: Hmm-hmm. It was, it was kind of comical the, the, flight leaders (joined?) up to rescue you and so forth. And the, the Jolly Greens are escorted by what we call the Sandies. The A, A180 Skyraider. Well of course, one of the Skyraiders races on ahead in some instances, and this was one of those. To locate the guys on the ground so that he can rely specific information to the helicopter so there’s no wasted motion. And also to perform the identification process. To be sure that the guys on the ground are really who they say they are instead of English-speaking north Vietnamese with captured radios. TT: Right. 30:17: BP: Because they did in fact, several times, sucker us in, until we caught on to what they were doin’. They were stealing, or getting radios that, from air crews that had been shot down and so forth. And so then when they had a shoot down, they would rush their guys in there, and start making radio calls, pretending to be the downed crew. And when the helicopters and Skyraiders would get it, come in, well they’d be waitin’ on ‘em. TT: Right. 30:47: BP: But at any rate the, Skyraider, the, the Sandies were on scene. And I, I told these guys I said, “The other guys are closer to you, than I am and I’m, I’m okay.” I said I ca-, I can hear people hollerin’ and shootin’ down the mountain there at the crash site of my airplane. So I said, “Go ahead and get those other guys first.” And, sure enough they picked up Earl and Bob. Well Earl and Bob had been chased the whole time they were on the ground. Both of them had suffered a, a, a compressions, fracture of the spine. The ejection seat in that plane was very powerful. And it was almost a, a, certainty that if you had to eject you were gonna have a compression fracture of the spine. Well not particularly dangerous, it was very painful. And so these guys are runnin’ around being chased by people and dogs and, they stayed on the run the whole time they were on the ground, which thank God was not very long. They were, they were picked up in about one hour. I’m still talkin’ to the guys in the air and I said, “Okay my backseatter is between where you picked them up sand where I am. Get him.” “Okay.” So they picked my backseatter. And then I could hear the helicopter comin’ towards me. And the next thing you know I can actually see it. And I said, “Well tell me when you want me to pop smoke.” And he said, “Don’t, don’t pop any smoke yet.” And the helicopter flew right over me and I said, “Well you’re directly above me.” And they said, “Well, we’re goin’ up country to pick up some gas soi we can make it home so there’ll be another helicopter in to get you a little bit later.” [chuckle] TT: That’s not what you wanted to hear. 32:39: BP: Yeah. So, sure enough about 45 minutes later. After I’ve sweated off about 10 pounds, here comes another helicopter. And they pick me up and they too had to head north and, and pick up some fuel at a little outpost they had. This little, john spot in the jungle where they had some fuel stashed. And, we headed north to this little jungle location. And I don’t think I’d been in the helicopter three minutes and I heard one of the engines windin’ down. And I thought. I, I was really getting excited by this time. And the, P.J. looked around at me and apparently could tell from my expression that, I didn’t like the sound of things. He came over and sat down beside me and he said, “Captain.” He said, “Don’t worry.” He said, “There’s nothing wrong with the helicopter.” He said, “This guy flying’s on his first mission.” And, and the instructor with him just gave him a simulated engine failure. So I said, “Okay. Tell him to train some other time.” TT: [laughs] Right. 33:47: BP: But we all. TT: They didn’t know what you’ve, just been through necessarily. You thought. 33:51: BP: Well no they, they. Just some guy in the jungle needs a ride home. TT: Needs a ride home. Right. [laughs] You didn’t need, you had all the excitement you’d need. 34:00: BP: No I had just about enough excitement for one day. But. We all, we all ended up gettin’ on one helicopter for the ride home. TT: The four of you? 34:10: BP: Yeah. TT: Yeah. 34:11: BM: And the other helicopter immediately went back on station, rather than, than to take both helicopters out of action, just to haul us back to, a friendly base, was not good. So one helicopter took us and the other helicopter went right back on, on rescue. So, we got to Udorn. And were checked out by the doctors and so forth and, given a little mission whiskey. And then we, had to wait for a ride home, which didn’t occur until the following day. Next day we jumped on a C-130 went back to Ubon. All our buddies were waitin’ for us and, we got together in the squadron. They wanted to be briefed on what all happened and so forth. And we briefed them and as soon as the briefing was over, we were, drinking champaign again and having fun and. As soon as the briefing was over well, the commander said, “I’d like to see you four in my office.” TT: (mumble?) I heard it was, I probably heard what you, didn’t know what to think right? Didn’t know what they were gonna do. 35L26L BP: No I do-, I just knew that was bad news. And, sure enough it was. Someone up the chain of command somewhere was very upset. Thought that we should’ve been able to make the tanker. Both airplanes. Then it became my airplane, should’ve been able to make the tanker. So two or three of us were, were charged with, having to recompute the fuel numbers to prove that we could have made the tanker. Well, you can, you can do that all day long. But if you’ve got fuel flowing out a hole in the airplane, there is no way to calibrate that to tell how far the airplane will go. But my big question was, what difference does it make? The airplane cost $3.5 million dollars. And McDonald Douglass is making ‘em as fast as they can. So why are we concerned. We went up there nine days in a row, lost an airplane every day. Didn’t hit the target. Accomplished absolutely nothing. And you’re worried about one more airplane? And, yeah I was, I was pretty upset by it. TT: Sure. 36:43: BP: The, flight leader. His extra duty was to, inventory all of the (S.F.s?) at the officer’s club. Countin’ silverware. Really a neat job. It was so petty, it was unbelievable. And I said, “Hey. This is, this is absolutely ridiculous.” I had a long talk with the scheduling officer. And I said, “Nobody has told me, I’m not allowed to fly.” But me and Steve back on the schedule. Of course Bob and Earl have been shipped off to the Philippines, to the hospital. TT: Right. 37:26: BP: For, to recover from their back injuries. TT: Well. 37:29: BP: Well, my medical records didn’t make it from (Udarn?) to (Ubon?), indicating that I had two cracked vertebrae in my neck. From landing. Landed in a, a pile of rocks and didn’t do a very good job of it. So the day after, Steve and I were back on the flying schedule, which got us out of most of that mess. And I said you know, “Let those guys argue among themselves. We didn’t do anything wrong.” From, from my perspective. In addition to our two airplanes, three other airplanes were shot down that day. There. I, we didn’t lose one that day. Five airplanes. The only ones that were heard from again, were the four of us. The crews in the other airplanes were never heard from again. One was an F105 pilot that, we heard talking on the radio, after he hit the ground. So we know he was alive when he hit the ground. Never heard from again. So obviously the civilians got him and killed him. The other two I don’t have any history on them. TT: Right, right. 38:49: BP: But. I like to point it out with, all four of us were only about a third of the way through our tour, and produced an additional 400 combat sergeants. McDonald Douglass could build an airplane in six months. It takes 24 years to produce a pilot. So, I felt there was absolutely nothin’ wrong with what we did. And I also like to point out that you know people ask me, “Why did, why did you take the risk?” I didn’t consider it a great deal of risk for one thing. But the other thing and more important is what I, what I think of as personal integrity. Had I come home, if I had just ignored it, let him go down. And I had come home and discussed that flight with my dad, I can guarantee you he would’ve asked “What, what did you do to help?” TT: And you have a story to tell your dad. Difficult decision to make. Yes. 40:15: BP: There’s. There’s just. That would’ve been totally unacceptable. TT: Sure. Sure. 40:28: BP: So far, respect for my uniform, respect for my parents. There wasn’t any way I couldn’t. TT: Right. 40:37: BP: I had to. TT: Right. 40:39: BP: There’s all there is to it. I was the only one there. There was no one else to. TT: How did it, how did it evolve into, what’s, what’s known as Pardo’s Push. I mean how did it evolve from? 40:55: BP: Well our wing commander had been on, on R&R. TT: Right. 40:59: BP: He got back, found out what was goin’ on and said, “Everybody just knock it off. This is over.” And we didn’t hear another thing about it for quite a while. 22 years later, I was at a squadron reunion down in, Albuquerque. And, this goes back for the entire history of this particular squadron. So there were a lot of guys from World War II that were there who had been in this squadron previously. An artist, well there were several artists there, but this one particular artist, got together with several of us that were sittin’ around havin’ a beer. And he said, “Hey,” said, “From Vietnam. Anyone with a good story? That doesn’t include a MiG fight. Because everybody that had a MiG, wants to, wants a picture of it” you know. TT: Right. 42:00: BP: And I said, “Well yeah. I, got one I can tell you I don’t know if you’d be interested or not” and he said, “Well let’s find out.” And so I told him the story and, and he said, “Yup! We wanna do a picture of that.” And so that’s. TT: That’s what’s hanging in the. 42:16: BP: What’s hanging in, in the living room. And, he titled it “Pardo’s Push.” TT: So it’s the artist that gave it the moniker? 42:25: BP: Yeah. TT: Yeah. 42:27: BP: And. Like I say, we had not (welfed?). I don’t know about Steve but I didn’t even mention it, for a year or so, after I left Vietnam. Just, there was no need to talk about it. TT: Right. 42:43: BP: So. I was at a River Raft reunion which the River Rafts are all the guys who had flew in the Hanoi and, and Hai Phong area of north Vietnam. We were having a reunion one year and, and, one of my buddies that actually flew escort for the (wrecking?) airplane after the mission. Asked me, he said, “What, what kind of recognition did you and Steve get?” And I said, “We didn’t get any. We didn’t want any.” And he said, “Well that’s not right.” I said, “No, no, no. It’s, this thing’s been asleep for a lot of years now, let’s just leave it alone.” And he said, “No.” He said, “That’s not right.” He said, “I’m gonna, I’m gonna see if I can’t take care of that.” He said, “I’ve, I’ve been, John Tower’s military assistant in Congress.” And, never asked him for a favor. And it was during the time when John Towers was being. TT: Investigated? 43:53: BP: Investigated prior to being assigned Secretary of Defense. Two weeks later I get a phone call from the Pentagon saying, that Steve and I have been awarded the Silver Star. And, I thought, “Well that’s.” This, this country is doing way more than, is necessary. And, but, at that point we said, “Okay.” Very nice ceremony, at Shaw Air Force Base. I had, by that time I had been retired for several years. And, Steve was still in. He said, “My boss, is a three star. He’s a, a, you know Vietnam-era fighter pilot.” And he said, “He’s a really good guy.” Turned out to be Chuck Horner. TT: Mmm-mmm. Wow. 44:51: BP: And so General Horner, took care of the presentation. Had a, a retreat ceremony. It was, it was very nice. TT: And where did this? 45:01: BP: At Shaw Air Force Base. South Carolina. TT: Okay. 45:06: BP: And, again we just kind of, said, “Okay that’s that.” Never got a bill for an F-4. TT: [chuckle] 45:17: BP: And, but since then, it’s, it’s received a lot of, recognition in the military, papers and so forth. Magazines. And the next thing you know, started getting invitations to go here, there, and yonder. Doin’ speeches and, and motivational talks and so forth. TT: Yeah. Can I speak here? 45:47: BP: Go ahead. TT: Okay [chuckle] And your wife said that, both Wings and History Channel have? I mean WINGS is on the History Channel right? Is that? 46:01: BP: No. Wings, Wings is on a, different channel. And we don’t, and we don’t, we don’t get it. TT: Okay. 46:08: BP: But we do. TT: Oh I know, I know where it is. 46:09: BP: But we do see the History Channel. TT: Discovery. The Wings part of Disco-, Discovery. 46:14: BP: It could be. TT: Discovery Wings is that. 46:15: BP: Okay. TT: Right. Right. Perfect. The Discovery is what it is. 46:21: BP: I don’t. You don’t see, you don’t see too many of the interviews I’ve, I’ve done quite a few interviews, but not too many of ‘em show up on the air. Because. TT: Because their. 46:36: BP: The people, the people, doing the interviews, don’t like what I tell ‘em. TT: Huh-huh. 46:44: BP: And I’ll tell ‘em straight up we won that war. TT: Right. 46:46: BP: Hands down, we won it. TT: Right. 46:49: BP: Yes we lost 58,000 men and women. But they lost 500,000. Ten or eleven days after we turned the B-52s lose up north. They are the ones who wanted to resume the Paris Peace Talks. And they agreed to our, to what we wanted. And then once hostilities were over, the negotiators gave it away. Absolutely gave it away. Bargained it away. Nonetheless, we got our, our most precious asset, our P.O.W.s home. And after that, I’m not sure if anybody really cared what happened. TT: Right. 47:45: BP: We do in fact care. We, we care because we didn’t achieve the goal that we had set for ourselves. TT: Right. 47:55: BP: Which was to keep the people of the South free. Because I guarantee you freedom, is the only thing that counts. Peace means absolutely nothing. It means the absence of violence. The folks in Eastern Europe. 50 years of Cold War. 50 years of peace. Cold War is over. They’re all broken. Their countries are in shambles, because they weren’t free to make their own decisions, to sink or swim on their own. We continue to grow, because we’re free. That’s it. TT: On Wednesday. Somehow we, we gotta tell this story, I don’t want. I, I’ve gotta ask you, because I don’t want to be one of those people who, don’t let you say that we won the war in Vietnam. I want to let you say that. And. So I, I wanted to. We’ll do essentially what we’ve done here. And we’ll just be on the T.V. set. You sitting in a chair, me sitting in a chair. And just to talk to each other. And you tell ‘em your, your, your story again. I’m, I’m gonna be. 49:13: BP: Oh I can tell it a lot shorter. TT: I’m gonna be conscious of the time. Well, even right then. You told it in not, not too much longer than, than, than we’ll take, so I don’t want you to be conscious of the time, if I have to fast forward just I’ll have to do that by leading you little bit forward but. It’s just, it’s, it’s a magnificent story and I’m just, I’m honored to be able to, to bring it to people. Do you have. Do you have a picture of this picture? 49:48: BP: Yeah. TT: Or, you do? 49:50: BP: Yeah. TT: Something you can bring? 49:52: BP: I can let you have it right now. TT: Okay. Any, or any other photographs or, or, or anything that. I, I don’t need a, a lot of things but any type of memorabilia. 50:06: BP: Right. You know I. TT: I, I, I, I do have a (sign?) with WTAW Radio and I’m the sports director and, every morning we have a, we do a show from 6-9 on WTAW a lo-, local oriented show. The fellow that I work with that’s been around for a long time, his name is Scott DeLucia. 50:26: BP: Hmm-hmm. TT: And Scott’s son, one of Scott’s sons, is named Marcus (Fladge?). And Marcus has just been commissioned as a fighter pilot. He’s a graduate of Stanford and he just been commissioned as a fighter pilot. And I was telling Scott this morning that I was gonna come and see you and let it read the story and all of that and, Marcus is stationed in, Alabama, right now. And, he’s gonna be home in a couple of weeks and he would just be honored to meet you. Marcus is a brand-new fighter pilot. 51:02: BP: I would love to. TT: And I’m. So I’m gonna call you when he’s here and all that and see if I can just come over and just let him shake your hand. 51:07: BP: Sure. TT: I’m gonna let him listen to our interview here today. So, Marcus is quite a young man. He went to Allen Academy here and he, he played soccer. And he had a choice between Air Force Academy and Stanford and, I forgot one of the, Ivy League schools and I forgot which ones. He, he chose to go to Stanford. And, was, in the ROTC there and then went, straight down to Alabama and he’s, he’s now a brand-new commissioned fighter pilot so. Pretty exciting, I know he’d be excited just about.