ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL
CAPTAIN RONALD LOVE, THE U.S. MARINE FORWARD AIR CONTROLLER, SHOUTED OVER THE RADIO, “SHARKBAIT ZERO-ONE, YOU’RE RECEIVING HEAVY FIRE: PULL OUT! PULL OUT!” The McDonnell F-4 Phantom pilot taking fire, Colonel Ralph S. Parr, was a double jet ace from the Korean War and director of operations for the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing at Cam Ranh Air Force Base in South Vietnam. In the fighter-bomber’s back seat was Captain Thomas McManus, who later described the scene: “We flew down into the low, hazy visibility of the ravines—below the hilltops on both sides. I looked back and forth for the mortars that were pounding the Marines at our Khe Sanh Combat Base (KSCB). Suddenly there was a mass of enemy troops on the hill to my left, shooting down at our canopy. Several hundred enemy troops had been waiting dead center of the KSCB’s only runway to ambush and destroy the approaching C-130 resupply aircraft we were escorting. In addition, we had stumbled onto an entrenchment of hidden heavy anti-aircraft and machine guns.”
The final effort by the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN)
