Picture of the day (general)....

Gnomey · Mar 10, 2024

Good shots!

Lucky13 · Mar 15, 2024

Beautiful ships after the rebuild....

Lucky13 · Mar 15, 2024

Lucky13 · Mar 16, 2024

Many photos have interesting stories behind them and this is one of them.
On the 1st of November 1965, a McDonnell RF-101 Voodoo was shot down just off the coast of North Vietnam, not too far from Haiphong Harbor. The pilot, Norman Huggins, ejected and came down near an island and swam ashore. Unfortunately, it was inhabited and the locals started shooting at him. He got back into the water and started swimming away. The local militia piled into to their sampans and chased after him. A flight of USAF Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs arrived and tried to persuade the sampans to return home. About this time a Grumman HU-16 Albatross amphibian arrived on scene and landed. While taxiing towards the pilot and sampans, both sides started shooting at each other (pistols at 100 paces). The F-105's ran out of gas and returned to base. The HU-16 (piloted David Westenbarger) and the sampans circled the very tired pilot, continuing to trade shots at each other. One sampan made a dash directly at the pilot just as the parajumper (John Ratcliff) on the HU-16 jumped into the water to swim to the pilot. About this time a Navy Douglas A-1 Skyraider dived on the sampan and very neatly stitched it with a volley of 20mm canon fire. As a result of this superior marksmanship, three things happened: the sampan sank, the remaining sampans turned around, and the PJ dragged the very waterlogged pilot to the HU-16. Shortly after the taking off, the HU-16 was joined by the heroic Spad which is the subject in the photo....

Gnomey · Mar 16, 2024

Nice shots!

Lucky13 · Mar 25, 2024

Lucky13 · Apr 6, 2024

US Army helicopters pour machine-gun fire into a tree-line to cover the advance of South Vietnamese ground troops in an
attack on a Viet Cong camp near the Cambodian border, March 1965.