Major John Pattee, had been rescued. “If you went
down, it was a pretty good bet you’d be caught
by the Pathet Lao guerillas. A trail-watcher told
me about seeing an A- 26 crash, and the guerillas
pulled the two guys out of the plane and beheaded
them on the spot. Nobody knew what would
happen if the NVA caught you, but it couldn’t be
good.” The pilots of the 606th dyed their flight
suits black. The squadron patch was a crossed
sword and the word “Zorro” across a red mask
on a black background. “We took that callsign
because it symbolized a hero who fought the bad
guys in the dark.”
to relieve himself. “I had held it all night because
I was afraid they’d smell me, and I had to go real,
real bad.”
Brown returned to a tumultuous welcome at
Nakhon Phanom. In the rest of the war, only
one other pilot who went down over the Ho Chi
Minh Trail would be rescued. Brown himself
would suffer life-long physical disabilities from his
bailout, receiving operations to replace both knees
and a hip.
A run through the jungle
Afraid the searchers would hear his radio, Brown
put the speaker inside his mouth and turned it up
just enough to hear through his ear bones. “Nail-
43” reported rescue forces could not get into the
area for a night pickup, and Brown began a night
of evasion as the guerillas searched the jungle for
him. After an hour of hiding in bamboo groves and
trying to move further from the crash site, “The
voices were moving again. As they came closer I
could see they had lights. One person with a light
was coming almost directly toward my location. I
tried to get as small as I could and thanked God I
had listened to what the road watch team said about
not wearing deodorant, aftershave, or cologne,
because they could use them to smell you out and
find you even if they couldn’t see you. Just when
I thought the next swing of his flashlight would
hit me, the next guy down the line yelled out.” As
Brown tried to become invisible, the two searchers
conversed, then the first resumed his search. “He
came so close I thought he’d hit me, but he moved
on.” Gradually, the noise faded and Brown found a
larger bamboo grove to hide in next to a fallen tree
trunk, where he spent the rest of the night.
First light revealed Brown had spent the night
in a bamboo grove at the foot of a watchtower!
Quickly ascertaining it was unoccupied, he used
his radio to re-establish contact. The good news
was the rescue force was on its way. Brown was
amazed to discover that with all the evasion during
the night, he was only some 400 yards from where
his parachute still hung in the tree. Minutes later,
“I hear the drone of the A-1Js and also some jets.
I looked up and saw two A-1Js making spiraling
vapor trails in the damp morning air, then Sandy
Lead called, ‘Smoke NOW!’” Brown popped his
orange smoke grenade and a moment later, four
F-4s attacked what turned out to be an NVA camp
less than a kilometer distant. Skyraiders dropped
white phosphorus to either side of Brown’s
position as the HH- 3 “Jolly Green” hovered and
dropped the penetrator. “All I had to do was pull
down the seat, zip open the bags holding the body
straps, climb into the straps, and onto the seat.
I heard a few rounds of small arms fire, but the
penetrator ride up was fairly quick.” Once aboard,
Brown’s first request was to get by the open door
The mission that didn’t exist
Officially, Brown and the other pilots who flew
with the 606th were never near the Ho Chi Minh
Trail, and never involved in combat. As Brown
explained, “Our families had no idea what we
were doing.” Officially, the Air Force had stopped
using the T- 28 in combat in 1964, and the pilots in
Thailand were only there to instruct Thai pilots in
how to fly their T-28s. Their aircraft did not carry
U.S. insignia.
In its original guise, the T-28A
was the U. S. Air Force's
standard advanced trainer,
replacing the T- 6 Texan which
in the jet age was relegated to
primary training duties. The Air
Force never adopted the popular
name Trojan and the Navy did so
only belatedly. These factory-fresh T-28As are lined up at a
training base in the American
Southwest, preparing to serve
as the final mount for future
airmen before they pin on their
silver wings. (Photo courtesy of
Robert F. Dorr)
