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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
Interesting memoir. The narrative is a little scattered but still readable.
Col. Broughton made some noise when he published Thud Ridge in 1969, a gritty memoir of airstrikes over North Vietnam, and a scathing indictment of Operation Rolling Thunder, the USAF, and the Johnson administration. I haven't found a copy of Thud Ridge, but I hear it's great.
Going Downtown seems very much a companion to Broughton's previous book, and is lesser for it. The first third concerns Broughton in Korea, where he flew the F-84 Thunderjet and tested out the Oerlikon 8 cm Flz.-Rakete rocket. Compared to the US equivalent, the Oerlikon was small, precise, and very deadly. Broughton really enjoys hunting tanks through the Korean mountains. The second third is Vietnam, a collection of anecdotes about the risks and thrills of flying over North Vietnam, the heroism of Broughton's comrades, and the stupidity of the multiple layers of command which tied the hands of American airpower and got pilots killed to no good end. The last third is where the book gets weird. Two pilots under Broughton's command strafed a Soviet freighter in harbor, a miscall in the heat of combat when suppressing nearby flak so they could escape from a bad bomb run. Knowing that this would be the end of the pilots careers, Broughton had their gun camera footage destroyed. The Soviets complained, USAF needed a scapegoat, and Broughton wound up the personal target of future Air Force Chief of Staff General John Dale Ryan. Broughton was interrogated, bounced around the Pacific, imprisoned overnight in a mental hospital in the Philippines, and finally court-martialled and convicted. He spent a year in a dead-end Pentagon office writing Thud Ridge, then retired and eventually got his court-martial reversed on the grounds of "undue command influence", putting him in a very small club of people who fought the system and were vindicated, along with Billy Mitchell.
The Korean War stuff is a lot of fun, along with the general fighter pilot attitude towards risk and danger. The gripes against Rolling Thunder bombing restrictions and Lyndon and Robert (Johnson and McNamara respectively, who Broughton always refers to by first names) have a worn, over-rehearsed quality. He clearly believes airpower could have broken North Vietnamese logistics and morale if used to the fullest extent. The last third is probably the most unique section; how many people have gone through the grinder of a court-martial and survived? But it's also a legal mess.
Regardless, back in the summer of '67, an elite brotherhood of a few hundred pilots based in Thailand and off carriers on Yankee Station were the only ones waging an offensive war in Vietnam, going downtown twice a day against even stiffening defenses and the mismanagement of their own commands.
Going Downtown seems very much a companion to Broughton's previous book, and is lesser for it. The first third concerns Broughton in Korea, where he flew the F-84 Thunderjet and tested out the Oerlikon 8 cm Flz.-Rakete rocket. Compared to the US equivalent, the Oerlikon was small, precise, and very deadly. Broughton really enjoys hunting tanks through the Korean mountains. The second third is Vietnam, a collection of anecdotes about the risks and thrills of flying over North Vietnam, the heroism of Broughton's comrades, and the stupidity of the multiple layers of command which tied the hands of American airpower and got pilots killed to no good end. The last third is where the book gets weird. Two pilots under Broughton's command strafed a Soviet freighter in harbor, a miscall in the heat of combat when suppressing nearby flak so they could escape from a bad bomb run. Knowing that this would be the end of the pilots careers, Broughton had their gun camera footage destroyed. The Soviets complained, USAF needed a scapegoat, and Broughton wound up the personal target of future Air Force Chief of Staff General John Dale Ryan. Broughton was interrogated, bounced around the Pacific, imprisoned overnight in a mental hospital in the Philippines, and finally court-martialled and convicted. He spent a year in a dead-end Pentagon office writing Thud Ridge, then retired and eventually got his court-martial reversed on the grounds of "undue command influence", putting him in a very small club of people who fought the system and were vindicated, along with Billy Mitchell.
The Korean War stuff is a lot of fun, along with the general fighter pilot attitude towards risk and danger. The gripes against Rolling Thunder bombing restrictions and Lyndon and Robert (Johnson and McNamara respectively, who Broughton always refers to by first names) have a worn, over-rehearsed quality. He clearly believes airpower could have broken North Vietnamese logistics and morale if used to the fullest extent. The last third is probably the most unique section; how many people have gone through the grinder of a court-martial and survived? But it's also a legal mess.
Regardless, back in the summer of '67, an elite brotherhood of a few hundred pilots based in Thailand and off carriers on Yankee Station were the only ones waging an offensive war in Vietnam, going downtown twice a day against even stiffening defenses and the mismanagement of their own commands.