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“Apollo’s Warriors: United States Air Force Special Operations during the Cold War”
is a book written by Col Michael E Haas (USAF, Ret) that tells the story of the rise of Air Force Special Operations post World War Two and up until the late 70s.

It's available from the Air University Press as a free download:
www.AirUniversity.AF.Edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/b_0037_haas_apollos_warriors.pdf

There are some fascinating stories about the Command, including stories like these…

Maj Bernard F. Fisher
1st Air Commando Squadron

In the humid early-morning darkness of 9 March 1966, an entire North Vietnamese Army assault regiment slammed down on a remote Special Forces camp near South Vietnam’s mountainous border with Laos. Mortar shells rained down on the small camp, quickly reducing critical defensive bunkers to rubble and temporary disrupting the camp’s vital communications lifeline to the outside world.

The camp, located in the Communist-dominated A Shau Valley, usually had only two kinds of weather: either rain or rain with fog.

Having learned to their bitter cost what American airpower could do against them under clear skies, the NVA forces wisely scheduled their attacks during the worst possible weather.

Despite their precaution, however, the attack was momentarily stymied when a particularly determined Air Commando AC-47 managed to get in under the low-hanging clouds to fire its miniguns into the front ranks of the assault troops. But flying under the 400-foot cloud base also made the gunship an easy target. Concentrated NVA ground fire quickly disabled one engine, then blew the other entirely off its mount before driving the gunship into a hillside near the camp.

Responding to the AC-47’s last-minute distress call, fighters scrambled from Pleiku, Qui Nhon, and Nha Trang to join the fray. Maj Bernie Fisher, 1st Air Commando Squadron, was piloting one of the first propeller-driven A-1 Skyraiders to reach the camp. He and his wingman flew with priority orders to keep the downed AC-47 out of enemy hands by completely destroying the still partially intact gunship.

Quickly finishing off the AC-47, the two Skyraiders moved to cover two C-123 Providers parachuting medical supplies and ammunition into A Shau’s increasingly desperate defenders. Hit hard by ground fire as they made their low-level drops, the Providers were lucky to escape from the valley. Major Fisher’s flight, low on fuel, was also forced to abandon the camp and return to base for refueling.

With the next morning’s weather only marginally better, Fisher’s three-ship flight was ordered back into the deadly A Shau Valley. Arriving just as the camp was being overrun, Fisher’s and two other A-1s immediately began strafing passes right up to the camp’s last ditch perimeter. So desperate was the plight of the remaining defenders that Fisher’s flight attacked with their 20 mm cannon without first dropping their bombs, the standard procedure in ground attack missions. Picking up the Skyraiders’ attack pattern, the NVA hit the number three A-1 piloted by Maj “Jump” Myers of the 602d Air Commando Squadron. With the Skyraider’s engine dead and spewing fire at very low altitude, Myers had little choice but to ride his plane in.

If the plane went into the surrounding jungle, Myers had little chance of surviving the crash. His only chance was the pierced-steel-planking (PSP) runway that served the camp . . . a runway now controlled by the North Vietnamese. Out of choices and altitude simultaneously, Myers jettisoned his bomb load into the jungle and made for the runway. Smashing down hard in a wheels-up landing, he skidded sideways nearly 600 feet before hitting an embankment and bursting into a fireball. Overhead, Myers’s wingman, also hit by ground fire, had been blinded and forced to leave the area. In moments Fisher had become the sole survivor in his flight.

Taking in this carnage, Fisher thought surely Myers had died in the crash and in fact reported this back to his airfield. But just then, the smoke cleared momentarily to reveal Myers running out of the inferno and into a nearby ditch. Fisher promptly asked a nearby Marine helicopter for a rescue pickup, then returned to the fight.

When 10 minutes passed with no chopper in sight, Fisher again called, only to learn the chopper was at least 20 minutes away—not good enough because NVA troops were only yards away from Myers. Twenty minutes might as well have been 20 days. With little time and perhaps less inclination to consider his odds, Fisher made the snap decision to rescue Myers himself.

Flying through the smoke and fire surrounding the camp, he broke into the clear just over the edge of the runway. In spite of the litter cluttering the strip and damage from mortar fire to the PSP runway itself, Fisher somehow avoided a crash of his own. Skidding as he braked hard, he finally brought the huge fighter to a stop near a fuel dump at the far end of the runway. Ignoring the damage to the rugged A-1’s wings and tail from the runway debris, Fisher turned the aircraft around and headed back up the runway toward the burning wreckage of Myers’s aircraft. Seeing Myers jump up as he passed by, Fisher braked his plane for the pickup.

As Fisher later recalled, sitting there waiting for Myers was the worst moment of all. Every second became an hour as he steeled himself to remain still amidst the chaos of blazing structures, smoke, machine-gun fire, and desperation that made up his entire world in that moment. “The enemy was so close I was afraid a couple of them might actually jump aboard my Skyraider before Myers could make it.” Of little comfort was his sudden realization that his wingmates, their ammunition already expended, were now making fake strafing runs around him with the dubious hope that this alone would keep the heads of the enemy down.

Myers made it to the A-1 only to find the propeller wash generated by the Skyraider’s massive 18-cylinder, 2,700-horsepower engine was keeping him from mounting the wing. Seeing Myers’s plight, Fisher momentarily throttled back, allowing Myers to clamber up the wing before spilling headfirst into the side-by-side, two place cockpit. Without waiting for Myers to strap in, Fisher turned the plane around again and jammed the throttle against its forward stops. With Fisher holding the plane down until the last possible moment, the A-1 raced down the runway before leaping for the sky and safety. Following his return to home base, ground crews counted no fewer than 19 bullet holes in Fisher’s sturdy Skyraider.

Maj Bernard F. Fisher’s bravery under fire as he risked his life to save a comrade from capture or death earned a much deserved Medal of Honor. In the process, Fisher also became the first US Air Force recipient of the Medal of Honor in Vietnam

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Direct link video 1: www.YouTube.com/watch?v=Er1toj_dvXU


When I read this A-1 Skyraider had a side-by-side 2-seat arrangement, I figured the 1st Air Commando Squadron had converted A-1 training aircraft. A little research revealed that Douglas built 28 variants of the A-1 Skyraider.
Configurations included single pilot in an enclosed cockpit, a pilot and another person (either a radar operator or a co-pilot) in side-by-side seats, a pilot and three crew in dual side-by-side seats. Another variant designated the AD/A-5 carried a crew of four, plus four passengers or 12 troops, four stretchers, or 2,000 pounds of cargo.

I found a YouTube video of the Douglas A1-E Skyraider side-by-side variant:


Direct link video 2: www.YouTube.com/watch?v=QVkmz3zosH4




Direct link video 3: www.YouTube.com/watch?v=8Sz5IPsc6xs



Direct link video 4: www.YouTube.com/watch?v=wT6j_9vvaPg


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Good Story… Thanks for sharing

Thanks for sharing this
The A-1 Skyraider is one of my favorite planes (along with P-47, Ju-87, etc..)


I knew they made a few variants but not 28.

Truly amazing bravery.