Hmong find F-105 pilot hanging from trees
334 F-105s were lost in Indochina War
This is a tough story, but for me, a mysterious one that peaked my curiosity and hoisted my respect for F-105 pilots in the Indochina War.
I was researching clandestine CIA Lima Sites (LS) in Laos during the US “Secret War” in Laos, and came across what I thought was a startling report by Don Moody, who has since passed away. Moody wrote,
“The body bag held the contents of one Major Sanders, former F-105D pilot, whose remains had been retrieved and returned to (Lima Site 20) Alternate (LS-20A) that very afternoon by a CIA case officer whose Hmong team cut them down out of the trees where he had been hanging for several weeks still in his ejection seat.”
I was stunned. I decided to study this further.
Major Steven Roy Sanders, USAF, was an F-105D pilot with the 357th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS) "Licking Lizards" based at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base (RTAFB). He was the flight lead of four 357th TFS F-105s attacking enemy ground forces.
The official statement listed Sanders as “killed during operations on ‘Barrel Roll’ while making a strafing pass after five bombing passes on enemy troops." The report said he was hit by ground fire.
This graphic shows the Barrel Roll region. Broadly speaking, the Barrel Roll included all northern Laos, while Steel Tiger included the southern Laotian panhandle, as shown on the map. The Ho Chi Minh Trail, heavily protected, extended from roughly Steel Tiger East all along the Laotian-Vietnam border and into Cambodia.
I have learned from Sanders' brother that Sanders' wingman said he saw the aircraft explode but did not see a chute.
Enemy forces were moving through northern Laos near the Plaines des Jars (PDJ) as part of their effort to fully control the PDJ and position themselves to overthrow the Royal Laotian Government (RLG). The white area on the graphic marks the PDJ. The red dot marks the crash site.
As the war developed in Laos in the late 1960s, the North Vietnamese installed a dense anti-aircraft network over the PDJ that made flying over it or near it more dangerous.
Major Sanders was an experienced F-105 combat pilot, having served once before in Southeast Asia (SEA) with the 469th TFS at Korat RTAFB, 1965-1966. He flew 100 missions, mostly over North Vietnam (NVN) on his first tour. That was an important milestone marker of pride for pilots flying on combat missions over hostile territory in Indochina.
A family member has said that after the first tour, he was assigned to an air base in Oklahoma to train pilots. He didn't like it and asked to return to the F-105 and the war. His wish was granted, and he arrived at the 357th at Takhli RTAFB during February 1969.
The USAF provided the coordinates of Sanders' crash site and listed it as near Ban Then Phoun, Xiangkhoang Province, Laos. The province has mainly a mountainous topography of high ridges, rolling hills, and grasslands. The crash site was in a mountainous area. I suspect the crash site was where the downed F-105 aircraft was found. My guess is Major Sanders was probably found in the surrounding hills.
Also, note the location of the PDJ in Barrel Roll West. The Sanders crash site was about 35 miles east of the PDJ, so it appears he was flying near or over some dangerous anti-aircraft artillery defenses. Long Tieng, LS-20A, where is body bag was turned in, is about 50 miles from the crash site as the crow flies, a much more difficult trek by land.
That’s about as much as I have found about Major Sanders and his mission the day he was shot down.
Don Moody’s Report
I should now go into Don Moody’s report a bit more.
Moody wrote about the “high-risk business” of special and commando operations. He discusses “secret covert operations in Laos under the U.S. Embassy and Project 404”. He highlights that “The CIA, with guidance from the Ambassador, was largely responsible for directing military operations in Laos.”
Moody goes into why such operations were covert and dangerous, and explains why the “Raven” pilots were so “carefree” and even a “little shaggy” and “motley.” The Raven pilots were USAF pilots flying undercover forward air controller (FAC) missions used to direct US, Laotian, and even Thai pilots to their targets.
In the middle of Moody’s writing pops up his cutting report of a visit to Long Tieng, Lima Site 20 Alternate (LS-20A) by Major General Robert Pettit, Commander 7th/13th Air Force headquartered at Udorn RTAFB, also the home base for CIA operations in Laos. Moody referred to General Petit as “Bob.” Moody relates that Petit cast his gaze on the Ravens and said,
“You people are disgraceful. You look like a bunch of Mexican bandits. You obviously have no discipline.” Moody proceeds to mock the general for failing to comprehend the rigors and stress of their operations over Laos.
All that notwithstanding, the Ravens take General Petit to their “FAC House,” which was where they received their intelligence briefings and planned their missions. General Petit’s aide, a second lieutenant, asked about a body bag lying in the corner. He was told it held the body of Major Sanders, an F-105D pilot,
“…whose remains had been retrieved and returned to Alternate (LS-20A) that very afternoon by a CIA case officer who’s Hmong team cut it down out of the trees where he had been hanging for several weeks still in his ejection seat. The body was not recovered without risk or casualty.”
General Petit reportedly accused the Raven pilots they were being insensitive. The Raven who spoke to out wanted to underscore that the Hmong risked a great deal cutting down Sanders, retrieving his remains, and getting them to their CIA case officer.
I am familiar with the Ravens and many others who flew over northern Laos and understand why they might have reacted this way.
They were hardened by the war in which they participated, the destruction it had wrought, and some, perhaps many, privately questioned why the US was doing what it was doing. Like special forces we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, they did not wear uniforms; their military discipline was there when flying, but loosened up when on the ground.
That Major Sanders’ remains were in a bag on the floor in the corner of the FAC House is sad, but I will cut the Ravens some slack. They likely have seen more than their share of body bags and ghastly combat. I suspect Sanders’ family was happy that the Hmong found him, retrieved him, and handed him to their CIA colleague, who in turn brought the remains to where they could be repatriated.
My curiosity: the trees and the ejection system
I want to talk a bit about the conditions in which Major Sanders’ body was found.
The Hmong, working for the CIA, were the CIA’s ground combat force in northern Laos. They were involved in many draining battles with the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese, especially in the PDJ area. I don't know when they found Major Sanders. I know he was shot down on August 25, 1969, and a CIA case officer brought his remains to LS-20A on December 8. There can be many reasons why it took so long for his remains to get to LS-20A.
The crash site was about 50 miles from LS-20A the way the crow flies. It was no easy trek by foot, there may have been some battles fought in between, etc.
One might ask why Sanders was hanging from a tree. I flew aboard EC-47 airborne direction finding missions over northern Laos more than once and can testify that the country up there was rugged and heavily forested, with double canopy forests. We flew at about 10,000 ft. and 110 knots, and I often wondered what it might be like to bail out into that landscape.
Imagine bailing out over a double canopy forest. I envision my feet hitting the tree tops, then crashing through the branches, and my parachute getting caught in the trees. I cannot imagine making it to the ground in one piece. I am therefore not surprised that Major Sanders got hung up in the trees after ejection. An open question is whether he was alive when he hit the trees.
Regardless of what one sees in the movies, ejection from a fighter aircraft is a very dangerous event and is the option of last choice, last resort. Explosive charges propel the seat and pilot out of the aircraft at high speed. Ejection carries a risk of injury because the pilot experiences rapid, large forces.
Capt. Vic Vizcarra, USAF, flying the F-105, was hunting for North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites just above the Vietnam DMZ in November 1966. He experienced an engine compressor stall and decided he had no choice but to eject. His aircraft was traveling at 172 knots, and he was at only 1,700 ft. above the terrain, 300 ft. below the recommended ejection altitude.
Vizcarra said,
“The seat ballistics took me in a large backward somersault where I was inverted at the peak of the arc. At about the peak of the somersault, my seat belt and harness opened automatically, and the butt snapper forced me out of the seat.”
He explained that the butt snapper process would bounce the pilot out of his seat. He said,
“(Without the butt snapper), too many individuals would tense up and never let go and ride the seat all the way to their deaths.”
Vizcarra said his low speed at ejection made the shock of the ejection “very mild.”
He prepared to land in the trees. He said landing in the trees was “more like an uncontrolled crash. It was a very sudden stop. In addition to ending up tangled upside down in the tree, it also knocked the wind out of me. Hanging upside down from my right ankle, wedged in a fork of a branch, it was nearly impossible to determine my height from the ground.”
He could not determine how far above the ground he was, so he dropped his helmet, which did not give him much information. He then took a chance and released his body from his chute. Remember, he was upside down when he did this. He was surprised to find he dropped only about six feet, which meant his head, facing downward, was only three feet from the ground. He figured out how to get upright and to the ground and was picked up by a Navy helicopter.
Vizcarra said the helicopter’s downwash kicked up debris from the jungle floor, broke some branches, one of which hit him in the head without injury. Thankfully, he was saved.
I have read of one pilot hanging in the jungle canopy alive. A rescue helicopter came to rescue him, but the helicopter wash blew his parachute and caused the pilot to fall to the ground some 70 feet below. A pararescueman was lowered to the site, cut the pilot from his parachute, and secured him to the rescue device. In this case, the helicopter crew dragged the pilot about 20 feet to reach an open clearing so they could hoist him up, avoiding the trees.
Unfortunately, just as the helicopter crew was ready to hoist both men, the two men on the ground came under heavy hostile fire. The helicopter pulled away, hoping to execute the rescue, but the hoist line became snagged in the trees and broke, dropping both men about 10 ft. to the ground. The helicopter came under heavy fire and was forced to leave. The Search And Rescue (SAR) attempt was abandoned. Both men on the ground were listed as Missing in Action (MIA).
On another rescue, the helicopter crew let the jungle penetrator down 240 ft. to reach the pilot. The downed pilot described the ride up as one “through a tangle of breaking limbs, leaves, and tree trunks (that) took my breath away.”
That Major Sanders was still attached to his ejection seat when the Hmong found him suggests that he might not have been alive when he hit the trees.
I’m not a pilot, but I have learned that the F-105D had a rocket-propelled ejection seat. After ejection, a drogue chute on the seat would activate and stabilize the seat and pilot from tumbling through the air.
In this instance, the pilot wore his own parachute, which was not part of the seat. The pilot would release his seat's harness while in the air, freeing him from the seat and enabling him to fall free with his chute. He would then pull the rip cord on his own chute to activate it and slow his return to the ground, or in this case, into the trees.
Some pilots were known to have "frozen" in their seats from the shock of the ejection at high speeds, so a system was installed that was supposed to pull the pilot away from the ejection seat.
I do not know why Sanders was still attached to his seat when he was found. It is possible his aircraft inverted and he ejected downward straight into the trees. It is possible his ejection seat failed to separate and that he was either too shocked from the ejection, too injured, or already dead to force the separation.
Failure of the ejection seat to separate after ejection is rare, but it has happened.
I almost had to bail out from the EC-47 over Laos on two occasions when we lost one of two engines deep over Laos. The Pathet Lao enemy was in my mind on both occasions. It was a revolutionary movement in Laos supported by the North Vietnamese, the USSR, and China. At USAF Survival School, I recall being told that the Pathet Lao were a nasty bunch, that we would be better off to be captured by the North Vietnamese. A FAC pilot underscores this view,
"Pilots (who had bailed out in Laos) were machine-gunned while hanging from trees in their parachute harnesses.”
I’ve seen no mention of this happening to Major Sanders, but you get the idea.
During his Air Force career, Major Sanders received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, and, by my count, 15 Air Medals. He was buried in the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. He was a seasoned combat pilot.
F-105 was not designed for Indochina
Major Sanders was a well grounded pilot who flew combat over North Vietnam and Laos over two assignments.
Nonetheless, I feel obliged to highlight that the F-105 was designed for a nuclear mission, high speed, low altitude, one bomb, get in, drop your load, and get out. When the Indochina War broke out the Air Force had not envisioned a conventional fight like that. In short, the F-105 was not designed to do what our pilots did in the Indochina War.
Kenneth Werrell, writing "Did USAF Technology Fail in Vietnam" for the Spring 1998 edition of Airpower Journal, wrote this:
"Vietnam was not what the Air Force envisioned as its next conflict. Thinking in terms of a massive nuclear exchange, the airmen planned, equipped, and trained for nuclear war. In fairness, this was the direction from above, and it did give the United States a formidable offensive force and effective deterrent (Strategic Air Command) against Communist aggression. However, this emphasis not only put the other services at a disadvantage, it also crippled other Air Force missions. Consequently, the Air Force story in Vietnam is how an air force designed for one kind of war performed in a drastically different one.
"it (F-105) was the Air Force’s primary strike aircraft during the decade of the 1960s and what the Air Force had when the Vietnam War began. It flew three-quarters of the Air Force’s strike missions during Rolling Thunder, the American strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam between 1965 and 1968.
"The F-105 did not fare well in combat. The Thunderchief served as a fighter-bomber but was limited by its avionics designed for nuclear, not conventional, missions. Ironically, the bomb bay was used to carry a fuel tank, not bombs. At low level it was the fastest aircraft of the war, but was at a disadvantage in air-to-air combat because of its lack of maneuverability.
"The F-105 was neither as rugged nor as survivable as its World War II predecessor, the P-47, which was rightly celebrated for its toughness. The Thunderchief was designed to fight a nuclear war in which the delivery of one nuclear weapon at low altitude and high speed was all that was required. Little thought was given to a campaign consisting of hundreds of missions extending over years. Therefore, survivability was not a major design consideration; ruggedness, redundant systems, armor, and the like were not priority items. In fact, some survivability factors were traded off to enhance other performance."
The problem of the F-105’s belly
Carl Hoffman, writing for Air Space Magazine, wrote about work done by Robert E. Ball, Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He quoted Ball saying:
"There was very little attention paid during the design of any aircraft of that era (Vietnam) to the damage that enemy guns or guided missiles might do.”
Hoffman then went on to say:
"Increasingly sophisticated high-altitude surface-to-air missiles forced pilots to fly low, which made them vulnerable to small arms fire."
Hoffman then wrote about comments made by Chuck Myers, the former director of air warfare in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He quoted Myers saying:
"All of the planes flying in Vietnam were designed for a completely different environment … The F-105 was designed as a low-altitude nuclear-strike airplane to drop bombs and leave. You didn’t worry about bullets. But those planes were terribly vulnerable. We sent them into the conventional [warfare] morass of Vietnam, and when those SOBs got hit with bullets they came apart.”
Jack Broughton's Thud Ridge pointed out that the hydraulic and fuel systems were placed for easy access by maintenance crews with very little thought to hardening the systems. The net result was that even minor damage could cause you to catch fire or to lose your control systems due to your vital fluids draining out.
The problem for the nuclear designed conventionally used F-105 was that the secondary hydraulic system originally was close to the primary system, which made it extremely vulnerable to enemy fire. Let's focus on this for a moment. I asked about these lines and was told by an experienced F-105 veteran:
"(This photo shows) the hydraulic lines (lower left) because the bomb bay doors are removed. When the doors are installed they cover up everything behind them. Hydraulic lines are the small metal lines. The larger metal tube you see just above them contains electrical wires and the big black tube just above that contains hot air piped directly from the jet engine. This is the hot air that is used to power the ATM which provides AC electrical power and Utility Hydraulic pressure."
The issue here is that these hydraulic lines were too close together, and they were not well protected.
Kenneth P. Werrell, writing "Did USA Technology Fail in Vietnam" for the Spring 1998 Airpower Journal, wrote:
“Some survivability factors were traded off to enhance other performance. Two such instances proved critical. First, the fighter's two sets of hydraulic lines were run close together, apparently to ease manufacture and maintenance, so that a hit on one could easily take out the other. A loss of hydraulic pressure caused the stabilizer to lock in the full 'up' position, pushing the nose down. Second, the internal and bomb-bay fuel tanks were not self-sealing … At the very least, even a small caliber hit could cause a leak. This helps explain why the F-105 was so vulnerable to fire and explosion."
Werrell does acknowledge that by mid-1965 modifications began on the hydraulic systems "so that if the hydraulic system were hit, the pilot could mechanically lock the horizontal stabilizer at an optimum setting" after which he could play with the wing flaps and engine power to fly out of the immediate area before he had to eject. He also said self-sealing tanks and bomb-bay fire extinguisher modifications were also added.
Werrell did not give the F-105 aircraft high marks for the "role in which it found itself…a mediocre performer in difficult conditions … (though) it served honorably and capably." I might also add that it is difficult to know how many F-105s were so modified. My gut instinct is the modification process was probably slow since the aircraft were in such high demand, especially during Rolling Thunder.
This concern seems to be confirmed in reading pilots' accounts of taking hits; they frequently found it very hard or impossible to control their damaged aircraft. Even a small caliber bullet could cause a major and catastrophic leak from hydraulic systems and fuel tanks. It was quite vulnerable to fire and explosion.
All that said, I have seen several expert reports, one of which summed them all up:
"Most of the dangerous bugs that had plagued the type (F-105D) early on had been worked out, and the Thud could take a lot of punishment and come back home."
Degree of difficulty issues
While most of its pilots were experienced with the F-105, they were for the most part not seasoned conventional warfighters, especially at the beginning of the war. Pilots learned what they learned while in the fight — GIs call that "OJT," or on-the-job training. By January 1966 the pilots were developing pretty good tactics, and relied more on their own experiences than the tactics handed to them from on high.
For a Laos mission, the pilots liked working with a FAC but sometimes they could not make radio contact, and had to find the targets on their own. .
The pilots had to fly burdened by numerous restrictions. I know from listening to pilots that reading the rules of engagement (ROE) in the briefing room fast became too hard. The briefing book was in volumes. They did they best they could.
The F-105 pilot occasionally had to refuel in the air from a drogue system rather than the boom system with which he was more familiar. On occasion, a pilot had little experience with the drogue, which increased the degree of difficulty. I’ve read of one pilot missing the drogue on his first attempt, commenting, “it was a battle, believe me.”
The F-105 itself was a handful, a complicated aircraft flying complicated missions at high speeds and in formations.
Robert S. Deas, writing the book "Two Days of Rolling Thunder,” made an acute comment:
“The mission: the cold, hard fact of life that has an underlying influence on everything you do these days (is the mission) … The problem of course is that even though you appreciate the hell out of a clearly defined mission statement, its simplicity belies the complexity of its execution.”
It's was often like a football coach using the chalkboard to describe a play. The chalkboard is one thing. Executing that play on the field is altogether different. One mission flown against a thermal power plant employed 108 aircraft, each with his own job. The choreography for that must have been really something. And I suspect it was done without practice.
Weather was a huge challenge. They flew through rain, multiple cloud layers to fairly high altitudes obscuring the targets, and severe thunderstorms were usually encountered on the way to the target, or on the way home.
Most of the pilots had never encountered the kind of threat environment they saw while over NVN and Laos. There was a plethora of different kinds of anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) weapons the enemy could use; AAA presented the F-105 its greatest challenge.
They also carried different ordnance, often day to day, depending on what their target was. That in turn required them to adjust their tactics.
Missions were often aborted due to foul weather, or missions were re-tasked to different jobs while in the air. Often they were diverted to support rescues for other downed pilots. Such rescues, known as RESCAPS, themselves were complicated.
Sit back and imagine working in unfamiliar areas, always ready to attack targets on the ground threatening the downed pilot. They had to avoid the many different kinds of aircraft flying in the area, make way for the in-bound rescue helicopters, assure they were protected while making the rescues, and at the same time listen to radio frequencies filled with many conversations among all those involved. In such an instance, the pilots departed home base with an attack plan and often had to totally change mindset and tactics midstream.
I must say that I greatly admire those who flew the F-105 in the Indochina War. My roommate at Survival School was an F-105 pilot. He went to the 40 hour “POW jailhouse” experience before me. I was nervous about this training, as I had heard many stories. When my roommate came back, I looked at him and he simply crashed on his bunk. I asked him how it was. He said, “Piece of cake,” and he was already asleep.
I did not find it to be a piece of cake. After I returned to the room following the training, I saw my F-105 buddy sporting a smile on his face. I think he said something like, “I lied.” I too crashed on my bunk.
Click to zoom graphic-photo
