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100 Missions North: A Fighter Pilot's Story of the Vietnam War
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$19.95
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Manufacturer: Potomac Books Inc.
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9781574886399
ISBN: 1574886398
Label: Potomac Books Inc.
Manufacturer: Potomac Books Inc.
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: 2003-04-16
Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.
Studio: Potomac Books Inc.
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Editorial Reviews:
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In 100 Missions North, Ken Bell recounts the harrowing sorties that he and his comrades flew in F-105 Thunderchiefs-the famous "Thud"-in 1966-67, when pilots faced a 50 percent loss rate. What was it like to face these odds day after day? We learn that men sustained by faith in each other and joined by the unique bonds of combat can overcome anxiety, fear, and even terror to achieve common goals.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Selection
Comment: The book arrived on time and in excellent condition.
It will be a good read.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A Ferry Crossing?
Comment: Ken Bell's story of a tour flying F105 Thunderchiefs in Viet Nam is a masterpiece of the technique of making things dramatic by being understated.
Although, like a number of military writers, he tends to put exclamation points after quoting an order from somebody, none of his own writing hits you in the head. Not in any one sentence. It's the accumulation that is gripping.
Bell, although an experienced fighter pilot, had had no command time and no combat time when he was ordered to Southeast Asia. So while we don't hear much about his problems just keeping the aircraft aloft, we do see him feeling his way through demanding staff jobs in addition to his flying.
This contrasts with Jack Broughton's book, "Thud Ridge" where Broughton is immediately immersed in the problems of command--he'd had earlier command slots--along with the flying.
Very shortly after arriving, Bell was put in charge of standards and evaluation, a job in addition to his flying. It appears that most pilots had such additional taskings. Stan/eval meant keeping the pilots and their flying up to Air Force scratch, modified for local conditions. This had Bell monitoring and evaluating others, sometimes during combat missions, and some of them his seniors. Later, he was put in charge of developing and selling technical and operational modifications to the higher ups. Obviously, his seniors had confidence in him.
The book gives us, as do Coonts' fictional story of Viet Nam flying, and Broughton's books, one each of various missions. We get to see how it all goes.
Bell sets out the immense effort it took to put some bombs in Pak Six. A dozen and a half tankers, a squadron or two of F4s for Mig Cap, SAR on standby, electronic warfare aircraft, recce either before or after. If it works out right, a couple of dozen Thuds put two or three tons of bombs apiece on a target.
Which brings up a point. Some of these major efforts of a major industrial and military power were devoted to a ferry landing site. A ferry landing site!? You could bomb one of those for generations, and until you changed the course of the river by the accumulation of bomb craters, nothing useful would happen.
Lose guys for a ferry landing site?
Or a steel mill. A generating plant?
This was not Germany or Japan during WW II where they were making their own stuff and the manufacturing assets could be destroyed.
Bell only hints at what Broughton explains in outraged detail. Some or most of the targeting decisions were made by non-military geeks playing war games back in the White House.
While we were pissing away men's lives on ferry landing sites, the important targets, Haiphong Harbor, the Hanoi-Haiphong transportation axis, the railroad up to China, were all left alone. It would seem that the propensity to leave a good target alone was directly proportional to its use to the enemy, to the prospects of victory, and the number of American lives which would probably be saved.
Broughton, having a bigger picture as a commander, got sufficiently outraged about such things in "Thud Ridge" as to make that part of his book, and all of his later book, "Going Downtown, The Air War against Washington and Hanoi".
Another point that Bell makes, not meaning to, I expect, is the incredible complexity of flying combat.
He speaks of landing just behind his lead. Lead reminds him to pop his drag chute immediately and to tell him when the chute is working so lead can pop his. If lead goes first and decelerates quickly, number two runs into him. So Two pops the chute first and tells lead who then pops his. There are a million little ways to screw up and get somebody killed. And you have to be watching all the time. It puts one in mind of Kipling's poem about the extremely young naval officers of WW I, referring to the "drowsy second's lack of thought that costs a dozen dead."
Great book to learn about the war in Southeast Asia and the men who flew in it.
And it also gives us, inadvertently, an insight into fighting a guerilla war with conventional tactics. You end up losing guys to bomb a ferry landing site.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of the best books about the airwar over North Viet Nam
Comment: I was mechanic on the F-105 in Thailand when Major Bell was flying his missions there. I believe he has written a superb account of the trials, skills and frustrations the Thud pilots had during Viet Nam. He brought back many memories of the two years I spent in Thailand.
Customer Rating:
Summary: couldn't put it down
Comment: My dad, a Wild Weasel 105 pilot who was there around the same time Bell was, recommended this book to me and once I started, I literally couldn't put it down. As other reviewers mentioned, you really feel like you are experiencing it firsthand. I think it's important to mention that it is written in a way that your ordinary person can understand exactly what is going on (something I feared before I bought it). It is an outstanding book and while I've always respected what my dad did, I feel I have 100% more insight into the extent of what he, and his fellow pilots, were up against-how they were able to face those odds day after day is almost unbelievable. The (physical and mental) strength and bravery of those men leaves me speechless and in awe. Thank you Ken Bell.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Captivating, Fast Paced Vietnam Air War Memoir
Comment: I first learned about the F-105 strikes against Hanoi in G.I. Basel's masterpiece; "Pak Six". Prior to reading that book, my concept of the air war over North Vietnam were the B52 strikes that were publicized, in the popular media, in the late sixties. The breavity of "Pak Six" left me hungry for more which Ken Bell delivers in " 100 Missions North" "100 Missions North" fleshes out the details and gives the reader a better idea of what the job, and life, were like for the pilots who flew the dangerous missions into Hanoi. While life, planning and debriefing are covered in more detail, there is still plenty of in-the-cockpit action, rocketing toward earth in full afterburner through clouds of flak to put the bombs on target.
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