A raid into North Vietnam to free American POWs
23 Nov 1970
A raid into North Vietnam to free American POWs comes up empty-handed.
Thanksgiving 1970:
I left Quang Tri on Thanksgiving Day 1970 to come home. We were to go to Can Ranh Bay. Like most guys, we got orders to go home, but not given a way to get there. Jerry Beverage and I bummed a ride on a C 130 to Da Nang, hoping to find another flight to Cam Ranh from there, but no flights were leaving in the forseeable future. The Air Force ran the club at Da Nang and wouldn’t let us in, because it was their Thanksgiving celebration. ( I always thought they were a bunch of pansy as &*%$*&%$). Somehow, we found our way to a French restaurant just outside the base. We celebrated with another guy over some wine. We truly had something to be thankful for, we were on our way home. When we returned to the airport, it was deserted and dark, but we found a cargo flight going to Cam Ranh Bay. There were no seats, just cargo, us, and four or five Vietnamese that looked like farmers and probably had no business in the plane. We flew through the worst storm I’ve ever flown through. The plane even leaked. I think we landed about 2:00 a.m.
John Sharpe