"A GRIPPING CLASSIC. Exhaustively researched, The Hunter Killers
puts you directly into a Wild Weasel fighter cockpit during the Vietnam
War. Dan Hampton lets you feel it for yourself as no one else
could."--Colonel LEO THORSNESS, Wild Weasel pilot and Medal of Honor
recipient
At the height of the Cold War, America's most elite aviators bravely
volunteered for a covert program aimed at eliminating an impossible new
threat. Half never returned. All became legends. From New York Times
bestselling author Dan Hampton comes one of the most extraordinary
untold stories of aviation history.
Vietnam, 1965: On July 24 a USAF F-4 Phantom jet was suddenly blown from
the sky by a mysterious and lethal weapon--a Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air
missile (SAM), launched by Russian "advisors" to North Vietnam. Three
days later, six F-105 Thunderchiefs were brought down trying to avenge
the Phantom. More tragic losses followed, establishing the enemy's SAMs
as the deadliest anti-aircraft threat in history and dramatically
turning the tables of Cold War air superiority in favor of Soviet
technology.
Stunned and desperately searching for answers, the Pentagon ordered a
top secret program called Wild Weasel I to counter the SAM
problem--fast. So it came to be that a small group of maverick fighter
pilots and Electronic Warfare Officers volunteered to fly behind enemy
lines and into the teeth of the threat. To most it seemed a suicide
mission--but they beat the door down to join. Those who survived the 50
percent casualty rate would revolutionize warfare forever.
"You gotta be sh*#@ing me!" This immortal phrase was uttered by Captain
Jack Donovan when the Wild Weasel concept was first explained to him.
"You want me to fly in the back of a little tiny fighter aircraft with a
crazy fighter pilot who thinks he's invincible, home in on a SAM site in
North Vietnam, and shoot it before it shoots me?"
Based on unprecedented firsthand interviews with Wild Weasel veterans
and previously unseen personal papers and declassified documents from
both sides of the conflict, as well as Dan Hampton's own experience as a
highly decorated F-16 Wild Weasel pilot, The Hunter Killers is a
gripping, cockpit-level chronicle of the first-generation Weasels, the
remarkable band of aviators who faced head-on the advanced Soviet
missile technology that was decimating fellow American pilots over the
skies of Vietnam.
