F-8 Crusader Units of the Vietnam War
Author Peter Mersky

“As VF-24's Lt Phil Wood and flight leader Lt Bobby Lee approached their target, Lee called out a MiG. At first only he could see the enemy fighter, but eventually Wood spotted the MiG-17 saddling in on the tail of an A-6 Intruder from VA-35, which was also on the raid. Wood fired a Sidewinder missile but was too far away, the AIM-9 failing short of the target. Seeing the threat, the MiG pilot turned away, followed by Lt Wood in hot pursuit, who fired his Crusader's 20 mm cannon in two long bursts.

The sky was full of flak bursts and missile trails as the engagement wound its way towards Hanoi, the light gray puffs of 37 mm flak mingling with the darker gray of the 57 mm bursts and almost black puffs of the 85 mm shells. The SA-2 trails turned from white to pink in the bright sunlight and brilliant blue sky.

As he rejoined his flight, Wood quickly became aware of cannon fire hitting his fighter from behind - he was the target of another MiG-17, whose pilot had found himself in a solid position. Wood racked his F-8 into a left turn, desperately trying to throw off his pursuer's aim. He could see two other MiGs failing, and he later learned that one of them had been Lt Lee's victim. Wood's MiG was 1000 ft behind him as he held his stick hard left and punched in his afterburner.

Slowly, the MiG pilot lost his advantage as the American fighter came around, destroying the former's aim. He then tried to run for it, allowing Wood to come in behind and fire another Sidewinder - having launched with only three missiles, he was now down to just one AIM-9 on his upper right rail. But the second shot was enough. The MiG went down when the Sidewinder severed its T-tail from the fuselage, the enemy fighter pitching over and then failing towards the ground. Its pilot ejected. Although Wood flew close enough to his defeated adversary to see the patches on his flight suit, the North Vietnamese pilot did not survive the action for his parachute streamed and he fell to his death.”

This book is packed with first hand accounts like the one above! This soft back book is a great reference for the modeler and enthusiast. It’s the seventh book in the Osprey Combat Aircraft series, and it’s the first on a post-WWII topic. The writing, like the sample above, entertains like a novel. (I read it cover to cover in one night!) The book is, however, a comprehensive history of the F-8’s Viet Nam record. Almost every page has a black and white photo or illustration. There are 33 color side profiles of various F-8s, 6 color paintings and bio’s of famous Crusader pilots, and 19 color pictures. The appendix is packed full of info including the most comprehensive list of F-8 MiG killers I’ve ever seen; it even includes the “probables” with controversies and politics of the disputed kills. The modeler will find the 1/72 scale drawings very detailed and useful. This title costs around $16 US; price varies depending on where you buy it- a steal!

What separates this Crusader history from others I’ve read is the coverage of the daily operations besides the glamorous MiG hunting: the F-8 idiosyncrasies; the terror of the night trap; bad weather ops; combat losses; fighting SAMs; ground pounding; and combat rescue successes and tear inducing failures; it’s all here! Of course, any history of Viet Nam must discuss disillusionment of warriors flying and dying for a war their political leadership was unwilling to win. These attitudes influenced the US military establishment 3 decades. Mr. Mersky lays out these issues without injecting his opinions or bogging down the book’s quick pace. Another surprise is Chapter 6: a concise and objective analysis of the North Vietnamese Air Force strengths and limitations without any “we should’a nuke’em” or “bourgeois imperialists” spin. Especially welcome for “Marine” modelers is the Leatherneck chapter; USMC operations gets a heavily illustrated chapter on it’s combat operations and ‘sader pilots. This type of info is hard to find for any price.