Across the Wing

From March 1965-December 1972 the United States carried out the longest sustained naval aerial bombardment campaign in the history of modern warfare. By the time the conflict formally ended in January 1973 nearly 600 Navy aviators had lost their lives in Southeast Asia. Many of those men remain missing, with their ultimate fates unlikely to ever be known. Every cat shot, every mission and every recovery aboard the carrier was a roll of the dice on whether they would live, die, or be taken prisoner and brutally tortured or murdered. Even as losses mounted and public support for the conflict plunged, these men continued to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. When they returned home there were few heroic welcomes. Instead they were widely mocked, ridiculed and scorned. Across the Wing is the result of four years of painstaking research and interviews with more than fifty naval aviators who bravely flew these highly-dangerous combat sorties during the long and bitter conflict. From the aerial hellscapes of Nam Dinh, Vinh, Hanoi and Haiphong to the unforgiving jungles of Laos, each mission could very well be their last.