What do you think?
Rate this book
Saving Bravo: The Greatest Rescue Mission in Navy SEAL History
From the author of A Captain's Duty , the New York Times best-selling account of Captain Phillips, comes the untold story of the most important rescue mission not just of the Vietnam War, but the entire Cold War.
One American aviator, who knew our most important secrets, crashed behind enemy lines and risked capture by both the North Vietnamese and the Soviets. One Navy SEAL and his Vietnamese partner had to sneak past them all to save him.
At the height of the Vietnam War, few American airmen are more valuable than Lieutenant Colonel Gene Hambleton. His memory is filled with highly classified information that the Soviets and North Vietnamese badly want. When Hambleton is shot down in the midst of North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive, US forces place the entire war on hold to save a single man hiding among 30,000 enemy troops and tanks. Airborne rescue missions fail, killing eleven Americans. Finally, Navy SEAL Thomas Norris and his Vietnamese guide, Nguyen Van Kiet, volunteer to go after him on foot. Gliding past hundreds of enemy soldiers, it takes them days to reach Hambleton, who, guided toward his rescuers via improvised radio code, is barely alive, deeply malnourished, and hallucinating after eleven days on the run.
In this deeply researched, untold story, award-winning author Stephan Talty describes the extraordinary mission that led Hambleton to safety. Drawing from dozens of interviews and access to unpublished papers, Saving Bravo is the riveting story of one of the greatest rescue missions in the history of the Special Forces.
One American aviator, who knew our most important secrets, crashed behind enemy lines and risked capture by both the North Vietnamese and the Soviets. One Navy SEAL and his Vietnamese partner had to sneak past them all to save him.
At the height of the Vietnam War, few American airmen are more valuable than Lieutenant Colonel Gene Hambleton. His memory is filled with highly classified information that the Soviets and North Vietnamese badly want. When Hambleton is shot down in the midst of North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive, US forces place the entire war on hold to save a single man hiding among 30,000 enemy troops and tanks. Airborne rescue missions fail, killing eleven Americans. Finally, Navy SEAL Thomas Norris and his Vietnamese guide, Nguyen Van Kiet, volunteer to go after him on foot. Gliding past hundreds of enemy soldiers, it takes them days to reach Hambleton, who, guided toward his rescuers via improvised radio code, is barely alive, deeply malnourished, and hallucinating after eleven days on the run.
In this deeply researched, untold story, award-winning author Stephan Talty describes the extraordinary mission that led Hambleton to safety. Drawing from dozens of interviews and access to unpublished papers, Saving Bravo is the riveting story of one of the greatest rescue missions in the history of the Special Forces.
336 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2018
495 people are currently reading
949 people want to read
About the author
Stephan Talty
36 books303 followersStephan Talty is the New York Times bestselling author of six acclaimed books of narrative nonfiction, as well as the Abbie Kearney crime novels. Originally from Buffalo, he now lives outside New York City.
Talty began as a widely-published journalist who has contributed to the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Men’s Journal, Time Out New York, Details, and many other publications. He is the author of the forthcoming thriller Hangman (the sequel to Black Irish), as well as Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Double Agent who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day (2012) and Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe that Ended the Outlaws Bloody Reign (2008).
His short e-book, The Secret Agent: In Search of America's Greatest World War II Spy was the best-selling Amazon Single of 2013.
Talty began as a widely-published journalist who has contributed to the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Men’s Journal, Time Out New York, Details, and many other publications. He is the author of the forthcoming thriller Hangman (the sequel to Black Irish), as well as Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Double Agent who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day (2012) and Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe that Ended the Outlaws Bloody Reign (2008).
His short e-book, The Secret Agent: In Search of America's Greatest World War II Spy was the best-selling Amazon Single of 2013.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews
March 4, 2023
This book chronicles BAT-21, the greatest rescue mission in Navy SEAL history, inadvertently raising the question How much background information is too much when telling a non-fiction story? In his work, Stephan Talty demonstrates that he is a good storyteller, but his narrative lacks focus, making for a rather disorganized reading experience.
The prologue introduces us to the main character, Gene Hambleton, and to the predicament that he was in: his aircraft was shot down, forcing him to eject behind enemy lines. He was rightfully afraid that he would be discovered and captured by enemy soldiers, and sent to the North, where KGB agents would be more than happy to see him. We learn that he had been in the Air Force for almost thirty years and had worked on highly classified missile systems, specializing in electronic counter-warfare and collecting information that the Soviets were dying to know. Committed to memory he had the inner workings of radar systems and the names of cities that American nuclear warheads were pointed toward at that moment. We also learn that his brother was a war hero and that he loved his wife, Gwen – and that the Air Force was trying to save him. This is an informative enough prologue, which establishes who Hambleton was and why preventing him from falling into the Communists' hands was important. From then on, the story could have turned to the rescue attempts, to the Navy SEAL Tommy Norris, who would eventually save Hambleton, and to all the other interesting things.
Instead, the author embarks on a lengthy summary – several chapters – of Hambleton's biography for some reason. We are told all about his Midwestern roots, his father, who was born during the farm boom, the high price of corn after the First World War, what a mischievous boy Gene was in his childhood, his love story with Gwen, including her inability to have children, his Air Force training, and the beginning of his involvement in the Vietnam conflict. All of this goes on for fifteen pages. Then, the author dedicates five more pages to a similarly impertinent to the narrative biography of Norris, completing the second chapter of his work. These are two chapters of information suitable for a novel or a biography of Hambleton, but not for an account of the rescue mission.
In the next chapter, we find ourselves in Thailand, and we learn way more about Hambleton's hooch, Thai maid, the taste of Singaporean and Filipino beer, what the Air Force crews ate for breakfast, the parties they threw, and the jewelers of Bangkok than about the combat missions flown to Vietnam from there. There is barely any explanation of what EB-66s were and why they accompanied B-52s on missions. The only interesting and useful thing is the depiction of North Vietnam's SAM missiles, actually Russian, which had become icons of the Cold War and which shot down aircraft really effectively. The Americans had bought a model from Indonesia to study them, but failed to make an anti-missile missile or a laser that could intercept SAM, so the Air Force had to develop a technique called "jinking" – quickly maneuvering the aircraft to avoid the missile.
Long story short, nine chapters later, the narrative has not moved past the point from which it started, Hambleton behind enemy lines. We know how BAT-21, as his EB-66 was called, was shot down, a lot of unnecessary information about his crew members, such as who had gone to the 1955 Sugar Bowl, who was good at math, and so on. We are even treated to several paragraphs about the son of one of them, who had become an anti-war demonstrator, and to a paragraph of Gwen Hambleton's preparations for her trip to Thailand, including her cheklist of important things that she had to do before leaving her suburban Tuscon home, such as asking the neighbors to water the plants. All of these particulars are just mixed into the narrative, interrupting the account of what was happening to BAT-21, and are greatly distracting. It feels like a friend has begun telling you a story, but keeps remembering other stories and includes so many of them that you are starting to forget what the initial story was even about. All the important information in this first section of the work could have been condensed into thirty pages. Instead, one hundred pages into the author's work the story has still not got to the rescue mission. The only interesting piece of information so far is about the Soviets, who sent KGB agents to North Vietnam to advise their fellow Communists on interrogating the Americans and who organized teams of specially trained operatives to search the battlefields for radar systems, missiles, and classified weapons from airplanes, which were then studied in government laboratories. According to the author, they were using the Vietnam conflict to steal secrets.
When the story does finally meander to the rescue attempts, things get way more interesting. The author's account is still lengthy, but it is not boring by any means, so I will not spoil it for you. My problem with it is that it does not contribute much new to the topic. In the author's note, Talty thanks Darrel Whitcomb, an Air Force forward controller who wrote THE RESCUE OF BAT 21, a brilliant account of the rescue mission, and who allowed Talty to use his extensive collection of mission interviews, research materiel, maps, and photos to write his account. However, Talty's work had turned out inferior to Whitcomb's. All the new information that it presents is background and has little to do with the mission.
Furthermore, when trying to explain why the Air Force was so determined to rescue Hambleton, going as far as to organize a rescue mission on an unprecedented scale and persevering to save one man after losing nine, he provides the same unconvincing reason Whitcomb does: the Air Force men's unbreakable bond to one another, their conviction that nothing in Vietnam was worth an American life, and their desire to prove that they could do something brave and good, that they were not just "mercenaries," as some of them had been called back in America, where the anti-war sentiment was strong. These are all reasons why the airmen might have wanted to save Hambleton indeed, but they are not solid enough reasons for the men higher up the chain of command, for whom the navigator's life did not matter. During the Vietnam conflict, the Air Force had over 1,700 of its aircraft shot down, fifteen B-52s among them – not to mention the thousands of helicopters. I doubt that Hambleton was the only American airman to fall behind enemy lines. However, there were not any such massive rescue missions neither before not after BAT-21. This makes the author's claim that "Hambleton could have been some pogue lieutenant or a dumb-ass private who’d fallen out of a Jolly Green and they would still have gone out to save him" questionable.
SAVING BRAVO is rather weak for a non-fiction account. Talty's writing style is vivid, but the author seems to have been trying to reach a certain word count because his work is longer than it needs to be. This book is not an essential read, especially if one is already familiar with the rescue of BAT-21.
The prologue introduces us to the main character, Gene Hambleton, and to the predicament that he was in: his aircraft was shot down, forcing him to eject behind enemy lines. He was rightfully afraid that he would be discovered and captured by enemy soldiers, and sent to the North, where KGB agents would be more than happy to see him. We learn that he had been in the Air Force for almost thirty years and had worked on highly classified missile systems, specializing in electronic counter-warfare and collecting information that the Soviets were dying to know. Committed to memory he had the inner workings of radar systems and the names of cities that American nuclear warheads were pointed toward at that moment. We also learn that his brother was a war hero and that he loved his wife, Gwen – and that the Air Force was trying to save him. This is an informative enough prologue, which establishes who Hambleton was and why preventing him from falling into the Communists' hands was important. From then on, the story could have turned to the rescue attempts, to the Navy SEAL Tommy Norris, who would eventually save Hambleton, and to all the other interesting things.
Instead, the author embarks on a lengthy summary – several chapters – of Hambleton's biography for some reason. We are told all about his Midwestern roots, his father, who was born during the farm boom, the high price of corn after the First World War, what a mischievous boy Gene was in his childhood, his love story with Gwen, including her inability to have children, his Air Force training, and the beginning of his involvement in the Vietnam conflict. All of this goes on for fifteen pages. Then, the author dedicates five more pages to a similarly impertinent to the narrative biography of Norris, completing the second chapter of his work. These are two chapters of information suitable for a novel or a biography of Hambleton, but not for an account of the rescue mission.
In the next chapter, we find ourselves in Thailand, and we learn way more about Hambleton's hooch, Thai maid, the taste of Singaporean and Filipino beer, what the Air Force crews ate for breakfast, the parties they threw, and the jewelers of Bangkok than about the combat missions flown to Vietnam from there. There is barely any explanation of what EB-66s were and why they accompanied B-52s on missions. The only interesting and useful thing is the depiction of North Vietnam's SAM missiles, actually Russian, which had become icons of the Cold War and which shot down aircraft really effectively. The Americans had bought a model from Indonesia to study them, but failed to make an anti-missile missile or a laser that could intercept SAM, so the Air Force had to develop a technique called "jinking" – quickly maneuvering the aircraft to avoid the missile.
Long story short, nine chapters later, the narrative has not moved past the point from which it started, Hambleton behind enemy lines. We know how BAT-21, as his EB-66 was called, was shot down, a lot of unnecessary information about his crew members, such as who had gone to the 1955 Sugar Bowl, who was good at math, and so on. We are even treated to several paragraphs about the son of one of them, who had become an anti-war demonstrator, and to a paragraph of Gwen Hambleton's preparations for her trip to Thailand, including her cheklist of important things that she had to do before leaving her suburban Tuscon home, such as asking the neighbors to water the plants. All of these particulars are just mixed into the narrative, interrupting the account of what was happening to BAT-21, and are greatly distracting. It feels like a friend has begun telling you a story, but keeps remembering other stories and includes so many of them that you are starting to forget what the initial story was even about. All the important information in this first section of the work could have been condensed into thirty pages. Instead, one hundred pages into the author's work the story has still not got to the rescue mission. The only interesting piece of information so far is about the Soviets, who sent KGB agents to North Vietnam to advise their fellow Communists on interrogating the Americans and who organized teams of specially trained operatives to search the battlefields for radar systems, missiles, and classified weapons from airplanes, which were then studied in government laboratories. According to the author, they were using the Vietnam conflict to steal secrets.
When the story does finally meander to the rescue attempts, things get way more interesting. The author's account is still lengthy, but it is not boring by any means, so I will not spoil it for you. My problem with it is that it does not contribute much new to the topic. In the author's note, Talty thanks Darrel Whitcomb, an Air Force forward controller who wrote THE RESCUE OF BAT 21, a brilliant account of the rescue mission, and who allowed Talty to use his extensive collection of mission interviews, research materiel, maps, and photos to write his account. However, Talty's work had turned out inferior to Whitcomb's. All the new information that it presents is background and has little to do with the mission.
Furthermore, when trying to explain why the Air Force was so determined to rescue Hambleton, going as far as to organize a rescue mission on an unprecedented scale and persevering to save one man after losing nine, he provides the same unconvincing reason Whitcomb does: the Air Force men's unbreakable bond to one another, their conviction that nothing in Vietnam was worth an American life, and their desire to prove that they could do something brave and good, that they were not just "mercenaries," as some of them had been called back in America, where the anti-war sentiment was strong. These are all reasons why the airmen might have wanted to save Hambleton indeed, but they are not solid enough reasons for the men higher up the chain of command, for whom the navigator's life did not matter. During the Vietnam conflict, the Air Force had over 1,700 of its aircraft shot down, fifteen B-52s among them – not to mention the thousands of helicopters. I doubt that Hambleton was the only American airman to fall behind enemy lines. However, there were not any such massive rescue missions neither before not after BAT-21. This makes the author's claim that "Hambleton could have been some pogue lieutenant or a dumb-ass private who’d fallen out of a Jolly Green and they would still have gone out to save him" questionable.
SAVING BRAVO is rather weak for a non-fiction account. Talty's writing style is vivid, but the author seems to have been trying to reach a certain word count because his work is longer than it needs to be. This book is not an essential read, especially if one is already familiar with the rescue of BAT-21.
May 28, 2019
Definitely better than I had anticipated; the "golf" code talk grabbed me and kept me glued to the end. I was enamored by Hambleton's knowledge and ability to remember all those courses!
"Over the years, the two men have been asked the same questions over and over, mostly by those who’ve never served: Was the mission worth it, eleven lives to save one? What, after all, is the value of a single human life? The two struggle to explain that, for them, the question is bewildering. It is as though one world were talking to another. “It’s not the value of one life,” Kiet finally exclaimed to one interviewer. “It’s the principle that we as warriors, as comrades, will never leave our fellow soldiers behind enemy lines.”"
"Over the years, the two men have been asked the same questions over and over, mostly by those who’ve never served: Was the mission worth it, eleven lives to save one? What, after all, is the value of a single human life? The two struggle to explain that, for them, the question is bewildering. It is as though one world were talking to another. “It’s not the value of one life,” Kiet finally exclaimed to one interviewer. “It’s the principle that we as warriors, as comrades, will never leave our fellow soldiers behind enemy lines.”"
September 10, 2021
Watched the movie Bat 21 when I was a kid.
Now I found this.
I have no regret picking up this one.
4.5 stars.
Now I found this.
I have no regret picking up this one.
4.5 stars.
December 4, 2018
The true story of what was known as BAT-21, a rescue mission in 1972 for down Lt. Colonel Gene Hambleton. The difference in this book this book than others that I have read is that you find out that there were 11 attempts first to rescue him that all failed. You find out about the men in those missions the young and not so young who did not come home and two who were captured and released years later. The author takes you to the very back story where many planes and other equipment were diverted for this attempted rescue attempt. This later would hurt gourd forces for us and for the Vietnamese army. This whole story was told once as Bat-21 a book and later a movie. Both of which were nothing like what really happened. You then get the back story of the Navy Seal Tommy Norris and his Vietnamese soldiers who went with him behind enemy lines for the rescue of first Owens then Hambleton, which was just Norris and one soldier. The rest of the story of what happened to all of the men once they came was very interesting as well. I found this to be a very well written and researched book. The information was much more than any other of the previous books, and of course the movie. Well done and once again shows you what we were capable of if they D.C. would have let the men fight and not made it into politics. A very good read. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 5 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com
May 22, 2020
Intense and easy to read, this is a made-for-film true story about an Air Force pilot who was shot out of the sky over Vietnam, and his incredible rescue by a U.S. Navy SEAL and his Vietnamese counterpart.
The book includes all the well- researched details of the mission and events leading up to the crash, the two survivors and their long fight for survival and evasion of the NVA (North Vietnamese soldiers) until their rescue.
Tom Norris and the mission are legends among SEAL's and spec-ops operators. Current tactics and rescue training continue to be influenced by this operation.
The book includes all the well- researched details of the mission and events leading up to the crash, the two survivors and their long fight for survival and evasion of the NVA (North Vietnamese soldiers) until their rescue.
Tom Norris and the mission are legends among SEAL's and spec-ops operators. Current tactics and rescue training continue to be influenced by this operation.
April 25, 2019
It’s a little slow at first but gets more exciting quickly. The main story is amazing, so it’s worth the read just for that.
August 1, 2022
“You never know how strong you are,” he told them. “You never know how long you could hold out.”
WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?
- At the height of the Vietnam War, few American airmen are more valuable than Lieutenant Colonel Gene Hambleton. His memory is filled with highly classified information that the Soviets and North Vietnamese badly want. When Hambleton is shot down in the midst of North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive, US forces place the entire war on hold to save a single man hiding among 30,000 enemy troops and tanks. Airborne rescue missions fail, killing eleven Americans. Finally, Navy SEAL Thomas Norris and his Vietnamese guide, Nguyen Van Kiet, volunteer to go after him on foot. Gliding past hundreds of enemy soldiers, it takes them days to reach Hambleton, who, guided toward his rescuers via improvised radio code, is barely alive, deeply malnourished, and hallucinating after eleven days on the run.
BAT 21
- the EB-66C, which carried the call sign Bat 21 for this mission.
- Note: This is the rescue mission that was dramatized (read: highly ‘Hollywood-ized’) in a book and movie called ‘Bat 21’. See ‘Bonus’ section for movie trailer.
A SERIES OF SETBACKS DURING HAMBLETON’S LIFE
- But it wasn’t to be. We don’t know whether Gene failed some part of the physical for flight school or whether the competition to become an aviator was simply too fierce, but he gave up the dream of flying bombers over Germany and settled for navigation school. It must have been a searing disappointment.
- While Gene had been working the assembly line, his kid brother had gone out and become a [WWII] war hero…Both brothers were anxious to make their mark, but only Gil had excelled among the very best the country had to offer. “It caused an estrangement.”
FAILURE LED HIM TO DISCOVER A NATURAL TALENT
- Navigation school did provide one pleasant revelation for Hambleton. He found that he had an almost uncanny sense of cardinal direction, that is, a sense of where north, south, east, and west lay without the use of a compass. He was a natural.
MORE SETBACKS
- When he was finally ready, waiting for his first assignment, the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The war had ended before Gene Hambleton could get into it.
- He did some tests and told the couple they were unable to have children.
HAMBLETON HAD ACCESS TO SENSITIVE INFO
- With his security clearance, Hambleton was briefed on the highly classified list of Soviet cities, airfields, and military headquarters inside the USSR that would be struck first in a nuclear exchange.
- Capture is what he worried about most. If Hambleton was caught, he believed he would almost certainly be tortured to reveal his secrets.
- The secrets Hambleton was keeping didn’t just concern Vietnam; they could affect the Cold War itself.
HAMBLETON WASN’T IN GREAT SHAPE TO BEGIN WITH
- On his best day, Hambleton probably couldn’t run a hundred yards without hacking up a lung.
UNDERESTIMATING THE ENEMY
- Years of experience, the ambient cockiness of the airmen around him, and the winking space-age equipment of the EB-66C all told him that he would be practically invulnerable during the flight.
- The men of Detachment 62 had purposefully not turned on their radar or guidance systems. They’d decided on an optical-only launch, something that Hambleton and the other crews had never experienced before.
- The North Vietnamese controller on the ground guided the missile by sight alone, maneuvering it by radio signals sent to two sets of small antennas placed just ahead of the forward fins…Finally, the controller switched on the guidance system. The missile “found” the American plane and darted toward it…At that moment, the warhead detonated beneath Bat 21,
LOSS OF THIS PLANE WAS A SHOCK, UNEXPECTED
- “The loss of the EB-66C dramatically underscored the new sophistication of North Vietnam’s air defense system,” reported Newsweek.
- “We’re supposedly fighting a primitive enemy,” he told the magazine. “But the way things are going, that just isn’t so anymore.” With the NVA’s new tactics, the missiles that had brought down Hambleton’s plane could change the war, or future, larger wars.
SHOT DOWN DURING A MASSIVE, UNNOTICED ENEMY OFFENSIVE
- The navigator wasn’t falling toward anything that resembled a demilitarized zone. Three days before, the North Vietnamese had launched what the Americans would name the “Easter Offensive”
- Thousands of feet below, hundreds of Soviet tanks, missile batteries, and heavy artillery threaded through the normally half-empty landscape of rice paddies and jungle roads as they rolled toward the cities and firebases of South Vietnam. Along with them were thirty thousand NVA troops. It was Hanoi’s all-out push to demolish Richard Nixon’s strategy of Vietnamization, humiliate the regime of Nguyen Van Thieu, and win the conflict once and for all.
- Hambleton was falling into the midst of the largest enemy invading force of the war. It was an almost ludicrously awful place to be rescued from.
BIAS AGAINST ONE’S BELIEFS
- When Crowe, confused by the lack of action, asked about one part of his report, the sighting of SA-7 missiles, the intel guy looked at him. “There aren’t any SA-7s in-country,” he said.
FATE, LUCK IS A FUNNY THING
- The plane had been traveling at 130 mph, and the fraction of a second between their ejections had determined the airmen’s respective fates:
MADE THE MOST OF A BAD SITUATION
- This was bad news, terrible news, for his rescue, but it did give him a chance to be useful. He was not just a man on the run; he was a soldier of a nation at war. While he waited to be rescued, he could act like one. He radioed the FAC above and started calling in what he was seeing.
THE RAVAGES OF WAR TAKE ON A NEW MEANING FOR HIM
- Hambleton found the amount of devastation hard to comprehend. His directions, which he’d relayed to the FAC above with such excitement, had left men torn apart and wriggling in the mud.
- But here he could almost reach out and touch the dying. The navigator felt repulsed. He thought to himself that for thirty years his idea of war had “almost been a computer game—his electronic sophistication matched against that of the enemy in the crisp blue skies of the upper atmosphere.” He’d imagined that winning glory would be somehow painless, almost mechanical. “Dropping a bomb from a plane is not an emotional experience,” he said. “I got on the ground and found out what war was.”
HAMBLETON ENDS UP KILLING A MAN UP CLOSE
- Hambleton rushed at the figure and brought his knife forward, stabbing at the shadowy thing.
- “Actually killing a man face to face had been the most terrifying thing he had ever done in his life,” wrote his biographer. His training hadn’t prepared him for the reality of death, for the physical sensation of it.
SPARING NO EXPENSE TO RESCUE HIM
- When we had a rescue mission, everybody backed off. We had everything in Southeast Asia right there at our fingertips.”
- The [South Vietnamese Marine] commander, seeking to understand, held up his index finger. “One?” he said. “Just one man?”
- All told, there were about forty aircraft in the air preparing to rescue him and Mark Clark. Forty aircraft for two airmen; it might take your breath away if you thought about it.
FINDING MEANING
- One OV-10 pilot who flew the Hambleton mission found only one thing that gave his service meaning, and it wasn’t Vietnamese democracy. It was rescuing his brothers from behind enemy lines.
PROMPTINGS
- But, all in all, [Hendserson - another pilot shot down] was in good spirits. He thought of the voice that had sounded in his ears and told him to eject. He was shaken by it, and comforted. He believed he’d heard, in his moment of extremity, nothing less than an angel.
COURAGE TO DO THE RIGHT THING
- Despite the unrelenting pressure, Abrams didn’t call off the Hambleton mission; he kept to his pledge to retrieve every American airman whenever possible.
- The photographer stepped up into the open cargo door and disappeared into the darkness inside. In the short time between the meeting and loading, Alley had somehow overcome the premonitions that had haunted him [thought he would die on the mission]
RESCUE VIA AIR SEEN AS UNTENABLE; FIND ANOTHER WAY
- It was clear within seconds that the lack of ground fire had been a trap. The NVA had been lying in wait for the rescue choppers.
- “No more rescue attempts by helicopter.” The effort to save Hambleton and Clark was, for the moment, over.
TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT
- There was, the men knew, one final way, a simple rescue method that had been practiced for centuries: sending a team of soldiers overland into hostile territory to get the survivors out.
RECOVERY FOLKS DESPONDENT BECAUSE THEY HAD NOT PREVIOUSLY BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN SAVING ANYONE
- the Recovery Studies Division…the Division’s track record looked much, much worse. In many months of trying, it hadn’t managed to save a single American airman.
- Andersen was deeply distressed at the Division’s long list of failures. “He burned to rescue a fellow American from the clutches of the communists,”
- After so many disappointments, the Division had accomplished—at least once—what they’d set out to do six years before.
OTHERS TAKING RISKS TO DO THE RIGHT THING
- But the fiery Marine ruminated for only a few seconds before coming to “a bold and perhaps dangerous decision”—dangerous not only to his men but to his future prospects in the Marine Corps. He took the call.
- Perhaps fearing that he’d find a way to scuttle the mission, Andersen hadn’t notified his commanding officer that he was leaving for the Mieu Giang; in fact, he’d failed to tell anyone at all in his chain of command the first thing about this daring and perilous operation he was going to lead behind enemy lines. Instead, he “kind of disappeared,”
THE NEW RESCUE PLAN
- What he was proposing was this: a team of commandos trained in “water work” would proceed to a forward operating base on the Mieu Giang. At the same time, the survivors would be directed to make their way to the river and then swim down it to the east, traveling only at night, when the risk of capture was lowest. The commandos would then cross the front lines into enemy territory and be poised on the banks of the river to bring the survivors in.
OPSEC
- No one even announced a team was going in…The number of men privy to information about the unfolding operation was radically reduced.
- the rescue planners had to figure out was how to get an emaciated, fifty-three-year-old man across land overrun with thirty thousand enemy troops and to the Mieu Giang River. They would have to guide him around the obstacles—gun emplacements, natural barriers, NVA positions—over an open radio channel. How could they accomplish that without giving away his route?
“ANYONE UP FOR GOLF?”
- Gene Hambleton was a stone lunatic for the game of golf.
- Golf is a game of numbers. Many obsessive duffers—and it soon became clear that Hambleton was about as obsessive as they got—knew how far a famous hole was from its tee. That meant the planners could map out his first walk toward the river, measure the distance, then match it up with the distance of a hole that Hambleton knew. The first tee at Tucson, his home course, was 430 yards. They could begin with a walk of that same length and then move on.
- So the code would have to contain both distances and directions.
- What if, the planners thought, they overlaid those links onto the map of central Vietnam and used Hambleton’s memory and geeky skill set to get him to the river?
VERY FEW ON-HAND TO GO ON THE RESCUE
- All his highly trained operatives were slated to head stateside in three days…He had the mission he wanted but no one to execute it.
- Almost all of the Army Rangers, Green Berets, and Navy SEALs had departed months before. The Marine officer picked up the phone, hoping to get lucky.
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS
- The night before, Norris [US Navy SEAL] had spotted a number of sampans, moored along the river banks. What if they grabbed one and used it to smuggle the American out? It would be easier than carrying the navigator on their backs.
FINALLY RESCUED
- “Colonel Hambleton, get your ass in here.”
COURAGE
- Kiet [South Vietnamese sea commando] shook his head. “No, Dai Uy, I’m going with you.” Norris was struck by the offer, but he thought the Vietnamese sailor was underestimating the odds of disaster. “Look, Kiet,” he said, “this might be a one-way trip. We might not be coming back.” Kiet said, “If you go, Dai Uy, I go.”
IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY ON A TEAM
- the Vietnamese commando had “the greatest pair of eyes of anyone I know.” He could see things on the riverbank the two Americans had no inkling were there.
SACRIFICE
- Suddenly Hambleton heard a high whistle, and a mortar round hit the outside of the bunker. Three of the soldiers leaned over Hambleton to protect him. He was moved. “Kindness needs no words in a time like that.”
FOR ONE MAN’S LIFE
- One asked about the men who’d died in the rescue operation. “It was a hell of a price to pay for one life,” Hambleton said. “I’m very sorry.”
RISK-AVERSE LEADERSHIP
- Major Gerald Bauknight, showed up at the hospital and told him about the talk he’d had with Colonel Frank Zerbe, and about Zerbe’s threats to leave them dangling in the wind if the mission failed.
- “[Major] Andersen went in there and chewed out the colonel, told him where to get off.” The fact that Clark and Hambleton were both safe—and that Andersen had been wounded in the operation—most likely saved the Marine from serious consequences from the military command.
IMPACT ON FUTURE RESCUE EFFORTS
- The Bat 21 event was already changing how rescue missions were conducted. “This episode absolutely stunned the rescue community,” says military historian Darrel Whitcomb. “The message was: There are places helicopters can’t go.” Search and rescues had to be approached as combat events, and other options besides the Jolly Greens had to be contemplated. The commander wanted Hambleton to speak to his airmen and talk about his evasion techniques so that they might survive when the rescue choppers weren’t able to come for them.
A SILVER LINING
- The navigator’s saga represented a victory in a war that had produced so few.
HAMBLETON FINALLY FELT LIKE AN EQUAL TO HIS BROTHER
- He’d been the overlooked Hambleton for so many years, living in the shadow of his brother’s World War II exploits, and now it was his turn to shine a little. “I always thought it was Gene’s way of saying, ‘I’m an important person and just as successful as my brother,” Gil’s daughter Sharon says. “But my father always felt Gene overplayed the whole thing.”
- Sharon could feel his disapproval. “[Hambleton’s father] always felt that Gene should have been a little more humble about it.”
REMINDERS
- Minutes later, the niece and her husband heard him in the bathroom, throwing up. They asked Gwen if he was sick. Gwen reminded them it was April second, four years to the day since Gene had been shot down.
- Sometimes, standing in the shower, he would hear a little plink sound and look down and see a piece of flak shrapnel that had worked its way out of his skin lying on the floor. But the anniversary was the toughest. The memories returned every year, along with the nausea.
FEELING OF GUILT, UNWORTHINESS OF THE SACRIFICES MADE
- Meeting these people would be to confront what his moment in the sun had cost. It would be to consider the question “Am I really worth eleven lives?”
- In private moments, the ex-navigator was tormented. “He was always very much embarrassed and concerned about the number of guys killed trying to get him out,” said his closest friend, Dennis Armstrong. “He wasn’t worth that and nobody was worth that. It shouldn’t have happened.”
- “He was very sorry it happened. He had survivor’s guilt, absolutely. He broke down. He would cry.”
THOSE WHO SACRIFICED SAID IT WAS WORTH THE COST
- His path had changed so drastically on that spring day in 1972 that it could almost be said that one life ended and another, darker one began in the air over the Mieu Giang River. But he never regretted going after Hambleton. “It was worth it,” he said. “We got him out.”
- He felt no bitterness toward Hambleton.
- “you expect your compadres to come after you.”
*** *** *** *** ***
FACTOIDS
- Over the course of [WWII], fifteen thousand airmen—as many men as made up an infantry division—would die in training before they left the continental United States.
- Redstone Arsenal. During World War II, Redstone had been used as a chemical weapons plant which produced 27 million bombs and other munitions containing lethal poisons such as phosgene and mustard gas. After the surrender of Japan, Redstone switched its focus to missiles.
- The Air Force would drop over twice as much ordnance on Vietnam as the total used in World War II,
- [As seen in the ‘Bat 21’ book and movie] Anderson also created a fictional African American FAC named Captain Bartholomew, who guides Hambleton throughout the entire eleven-day operation.
- [Gene] Hackman [who portrayed him in the movie] had been raised in Danville, Illinois, not far from where [Hambleton] had been born and lived before his family moved to the nearby town of Wenona.
HAHA
- Old Air Force buddies wrote him from all over the world. “I was really shocked to see your name in the paper,” wrote one USAF officer from São Paulo, including with the letter some news clips about the rescue from the Brazil Herald. “SOME PEOPLE WILL DO ANYTHING TO GET THEIR NAME IN THE HEADLINES,” read a telegram from his pals at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. “WE DID NOTICE THAT YOU FAILED TO SHAVE AND THAT YOUR UNIFORM WAS REALLY TERRIBLE.”
BONUS
- Short documentary about the rescue: https://youtu.be/gBTDQ9r5-nM
- Tommy Norris, Medal of Honor: https://youtu.be/gS57YKGHDKc
- EB-66 aircraft: https://youtu.be/sC-OgR_ZqOE
- Gravel mine: https://youtu.be/QTWuzIL-Tlo
- A-1 Skyraider: https://youtu.be/mv_T4Zw3-8s
- HH-53 “Jolly Green” rescue helicopter: https://youtu.be/tl4_IPADQlM
- ‘Bat 21’ movie trailer (1988): https://youtu.be/Gt2nbFGp8wA
- Michael Thornton, Medal of Honor (later on rescued Norris): https://youtu.be/FmUXfMZ5hEY
WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?
- At the height of the Vietnam War, few American airmen are more valuable than Lieutenant Colonel Gene Hambleton. His memory is filled with highly classified information that the Soviets and North Vietnamese badly want. When Hambleton is shot down in the midst of North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive, US forces place the entire war on hold to save a single man hiding among 30,000 enemy troops and tanks. Airborne rescue missions fail, killing eleven Americans. Finally, Navy SEAL Thomas Norris and his Vietnamese guide, Nguyen Van Kiet, volunteer to go after him on foot. Gliding past hundreds of enemy soldiers, it takes them days to reach Hambleton, who, guided toward his rescuers via improvised radio code, is barely alive, deeply malnourished, and hallucinating after eleven days on the run.
BAT 21
- the EB-66C, which carried the call sign Bat 21 for this mission.
- Note: This is the rescue mission that was dramatized (read: highly ‘Hollywood-ized’) in a book and movie called ‘Bat 21’. See ‘Bonus’ section for movie trailer.
A SERIES OF SETBACKS DURING HAMBLETON’S LIFE
- But it wasn’t to be. We don’t know whether Gene failed some part of the physical for flight school or whether the competition to become an aviator was simply too fierce, but he gave up the dream of flying bombers over Germany and settled for navigation school. It must have been a searing disappointment.
- While Gene had been working the assembly line, his kid brother had gone out and become a [WWII] war hero…Both brothers were anxious to make their mark, but only Gil had excelled among the very best the country had to offer. “It caused an estrangement.”
FAILURE LED HIM TO DISCOVER A NATURAL TALENT
- Navigation school did provide one pleasant revelation for Hambleton. He found that he had an almost uncanny sense of cardinal direction, that is, a sense of where north, south, east, and west lay without the use of a compass. He was a natural.
MORE SETBACKS
- When he was finally ready, waiting for his first assignment, the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The war had ended before Gene Hambleton could get into it.
- He did some tests and told the couple they were unable to have children.
HAMBLETON HAD ACCESS TO SENSITIVE INFO
- With his security clearance, Hambleton was briefed on the highly classified list of Soviet cities, airfields, and military headquarters inside the USSR that would be struck first in a nuclear exchange.
- Capture is what he worried about most. If Hambleton was caught, he believed he would almost certainly be tortured to reveal his secrets.
- The secrets Hambleton was keeping didn’t just concern Vietnam; they could affect the Cold War itself.
HAMBLETON WASN’T IN GREAT SHAPE TO BEGIN WITH
- On his best day, Hambleton probably couldn’t run a hundred yards without hacking up a lung.
UNDERESTIMATING THE ENEMY
- Years of experience, the ambient cockiness of the airmen around him, and the winking space-age equipment of the EB-66C all told him that he would be practically invulnerable during the flight.
- The men of Detachment 62 had purposefully not turned on their radar or guidance systems. They’d decided on an optical-only launch, something that Hambleton and the other crews had never experienced before.
- The North Vietnamese controller on the ground guided the missile by sight alone, maneuvering it by radio signals sent to two sets of small antennas placed just ahead of the forward fins…Finally, the controller switched on the guidance system. The missile “found” the American plane and darted toward it…At that moment, the warhead detonated beneath Bat 21,
LOSS OF THIS PLANE WAS A SHOCK, UNEXPECTED
- “The loss of the EB-66C dramatically underscored the new sophistication of North Vietnam’s air defense system,” reported Newsweek.
- “We’re supposedly fighting a primitive enemy,” he told the magazine. “But the way things are going, that just isn’t so anymore.” With the NVA’s new tactics, the missiles that had brought down Hambleton’s plane could change the war, or future, larger wars.
SHOT DOWN DURING A MASSIVE, UNNOTICED ENEMY OFFENSIVE
- The navigator wasn’t falling toward anything that resembled a demilitarized zone. Three days before, the North Vietnamese had launched what the Americans would name the “Easter Offensive”
- Thousands of feet below, hundreds of Soviet tanks, missile batteries, and heavy artillery threaded through the normally half-empty landscape of rice paddies and jungle roads as they rolled toward the cities and firebases of South Vietnam. Along with them were thirty thousand NVA troops. It was Hanoi’s all-out push to demolish Richard Nixon’s strategy of Vietnamization, humiliate the regime of Nguyen Van Thieu, and win the conflict once and for all.
- Hambleton was falling into the midst of the largest enemy invading force of the war. It was an almost ludicrously awful place to be rescued from.
BIAS AGAINST ONE’S BELIEFS
- When Crowe, confused by the lack of action, asked about one part of his report, the sighting of SA-7 missiles, the intel guy looked at him. “There aren’t any SA-7s in-country,” he said.
FATE, LUCK IS A FUNNY THING
- The plane had been traveling at 130 mph, and the fraction of a second between their ejections had determined the airmen’s respective fates:
MADE THE MOST OF A BAD SITUATION
- This was bad news, terrible news, for his rescue, but it did give him a chance to be useful. He was not just a man on the run; he was a soldier of a nation at war. While he waited to be rescued, he could act like one. He radioed the FAC above and started calling in what he was seeing.
THE RAVAGES OF WAR TAKE ON A NEW MEANING FOR HIM
- Hambleton found the amount of devastation hard to comprehend. His directions, which he’d relayed to the FAC above with such excitement, had left men torn apart and wriggling in the mud.
- But here he could almost reach out and touch the dying. The navigator felt repulsed. He thought to himself that for thirty years his idea of war had “almost been a computer game—his electronic sophistication matched against that of the enemy in the crisp blue skies of the upper atmosphere.” He’d imagined that winning glory would be somehow painless, almost mechanical. “Dropping a bomb from a plane is not an emotional experience,” he said. “I got on the ground and found out what war was.”
HAMBLETON ENDS UP KILLING A MAN UP CLOSE
- Hambleton rushed at the figure and brought his knife forward, stabbing at the shadowy thing.
- “Actually killing a man face to face had been the most terrifying thing he had ever done in his life,” wrote his biographer. His training hadn’t prepared him for the reality of death, for the physical sensation of it.
SPARING NO EXPENSE TO RESCUE HIM
- When we had a rescue mission, everybody backed off. We had everything in Southeast Asia right there at our fingertips.”
- The [South Vietnamese Marine] commander, seeking to understand, held up his index finger. “One?” he said. “Just one man?”
- All told, there were about forty aircraft in the air preparing to rescue him and Mark Clark. Forty aircraft for two airmen; it might take your breath away if you thought about it.
FINDING MEANING
- One OV-10 pilot who flew the Hambleton mission found only one thing that gave his service meaning, and it wasn’t Vietnamese democracy. It was rescuing his brothers from behind enemy lines.
PROMPTINGS
- But, all in all, [Hendserson - another pilot shot down] was in good spirits. He thought of the voice that had sounded in his ears and told him to eject. He was shaken by it, and comforted. He believed he’d heard, in his moment of extremity, nothing less than an angel.
COURAGE TO DO THE RIGHT THING
- Despite the unrelenting pressure, Abrams didn’t call off the Hambleton mission; he kept to his pledge to retrieve every American airman whenever possible.
- The photographer stepped up into the open cargo door and disappeared into the darkness inside. In the short time between the meeting and loading, Alley had somehow overcome the premonitions that had haunted him [thought he would die on the mission]
RESCUE VIA AIR SEEN AS UNTENABLE; FIND ANOTHER WAY
- It was clear within seconds that the lack of ground fire had been a trap. The NVA had been lying in wait for the rescue choppers.
- “No more rescue attempts by helicopter.” The effort to save Hambleton and Clark was, for the moment, over.
TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT
- There was, the men knew, one final way, a simple rescue method that had been practiced for centuries: sending a team of soldiers overland into hostile territory to get the survivors out.
RECOVERY FOLKS DESPONDENT BECAUSE THEY HAD NOT PREVIOUSLY BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN SAVING ANYONE
- the Recovery Studies Division…the Division’s track record looked much, much worse. In many months of trying, it hadn’t managed to save a single American airman.
- Andersen was deeply distressed at the Division’s long list of failures. “He burned to rescue a fellow American from the clutches of the communists,”
- After so many disappointments, the Division had accomplished—at least once—what they’d set out to do six years before.
OTHERS TAKING RISKS TO DO THE RIGHT THING
- But the fiery Marine ruminated for only a few seconds before coming to “a bold and perhaps dangerous decision”—dangerous not only to his men but to his future prospects in the Marine Corps. He took the call.
- Perhaps fearing that he’d find a way to scuttle the mission, Andersen hadn’t notified his commanding officer that he was leaving for the Mieu Giang; in fact, he’d failed to tell anyone at all in his chain of command the first thing about this daring and perilous operation he was going to lead behind enemy lines. Instead, he “kind of disappeared,”
THE NEW RESCUE PLAN
- What he was proposing was this: a team of commandos trained in “water work” would proceed to a forward operating base on the Mieu Giang. At the same time, the survivors would be directed to make their way to the river and then swim down it to the east, traveling only at night, when the risk of capture was lowest. The commandos would then cross the front lines into enemy territory and be poised on the banks of the river to bring the survivors in.
OPSEC
- No one even announced a team was going in…The number of men privy to information about the unfolding operation was radically reduced.
- the rescue planners had to figure out was how to get an emaciated, fifty-three-year-old man across land overrun with thirty thousand enemy troops and to the Mieu Giang River. They would have to guide him around the obstacles—gun emplacements, natural barriers, NVA positions—over an open radio channel. How could they accomplish that without giving away his route?
“ANYONE UP FOR GOLF?”
- Gene Hambleton was a stone lunatic for the game of golf.
- Golf is a game of numbers. Many obsessive duffers—and it soon became clear that Hambleton was about as obsessive as they got—knew how far a famous hole was from its tee. That meant the planners could map out his first walk toward the river, measure the distance, then match it up with the distance of a hole that Hambleton knew. The first tee at Tucson, his home course, was 430 yards. They could begin with a walk of that same length and then move on.
- So the code would have to contain both distances and directions.
- What if, the planners thought, they overlaid those links onto the map of central Vietnam and used Hambleton’s memory and geeky skill set to get him to the river?
VERY FEW ON-HAND TO GO ON THE RESCUE
- All his highly trained operatives were slated to head stateside in three days…He had the mission he wanted but no one to execute it.
- Almost all of the Army Rangers, Green Berets, and Navy SEALs had departed months before. The Marine officer picked up the phone, hoping to get lucky.
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS
- The night before, Norris [US Navy SEAL] had spotted a number of sampans, moored along the river banks. What if they grabbed one and used it to smuggle the American out? It would be easier than carrying the navigator on their backs.
FINALLY RESCUED
- “Colonel Hambleton, get your ass in here.”
COURAGE
- Kiet [South Vietnamese sea commando] shook his head. “No, Dai Uy, I’m going with you.” Norris was struck by the offer, but he thought the Vietnamese sailor was underestimating the odds of disaster. “Look, Kiet,” he said, “this might be a one-way trip. We might not be coming back.” Kiet said, “If you go, Dai Uy, I go.”
IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY ON A TEAM
- the Vietnamese commando had “the greatest pair of eyes of anyone I know.” He could see things on the riverbank the two Americans had no inkling were there.
SACRIFICE
- Suddenly Hambleton heard a high whistle, and a mortar round hit the outside of the bunker. Three of the soldiers leaned over Hambleton to protect him. He was moved. “Kindness needs no words in a time like that.”
FOR ONE MAN’S LIFE
- One asked about the men who’d died in the rescue operation. “It was a hell of a price to pay for one life,” Hambleton said. “I’m very sorry.”
RISK-AVERSE LEADERSHIP
- Major Gerald Bauknight, showed up at the hospital and told him about the talk he’d had with Colonel Frank Zerbe, and about Zerbe’s threats to leave them dangling in the wind if the mission failed.
- “[Major] Andersen went in there and chewed out the colonel, told him where to get off.” The fact that Clark and Hambleton were both safe—and that Andersen had been wounded in the operation—most likely saved the Marine from serious consequences from the military command.
IMPACT ON FUTURE RESCUE EFFORTS
- The Bat 21 event was already changing how rescue missions were conducted. “This episode absolutely stunned the rescue community,” says military historian Darrel Whitcomb. “The message was: There are places helicopters can’t go.” Search and rescues had to be approached as combat events, and other options besides the Jolly Greens had to be contemplated. The commander wanted Hambleton to speak to his airmen and talk about his evasion techniques so that they might survive when the rescue choppers weren’t able to come for them.
A SILVER LINING
- The navigator’s saga represented a victory in a war that had produced so few.
HAMBLETON FINALLY FELT LIKE AN EQUAL TO HIS BROTHER
- He’d been the overlooked Hambleton for so many years, living in the shadow of his brother’s World War II exploits, and now it was his turn to shine a little. “I always thought it was Gene’s way of saying, ‘I’m an important person and just as successful as my brother,” Gil’s daughter Sharon says. “But my father always felt Gene overplayed the whole thing.”
- Sharon could feel his disapproval. “[Hambleton’s father] always felt that Gene should have been a little more humble about it.”
REMINDERS
- Minutes later, the niece and her husband heard him in the bathroom, throwing up. They asked Gwen if he was sick. Gwen reminded them it was April second, four years to the day since Gene had been shot down.
- Sometimes, standing in the shower, he would hear a little plink sound and look down and see a piece of flak shrapnel that had worked its way out of his skin lying on the floor. But the anniversary was the toughest. The memories returned every year, along with the nausea.
FEELING OF GUILT, UNWORTHINESS OF THE SACRIFICES MADE
- Meeting these people would be to confront what his moment in the sun had cost. It would be to consider the question “Am I really worth eleven lives?”
- In private moments, the ex-navigator was tormented. “He was always very much embarrassed and concerned about the number of guys killed trying to get him out,” said his closest friend, Dennis Armstrong. “He wasn’t worth that and nobody was worth that. It shouldn’t have happened.”
- “He was very sorry it happened. He had survivor’s guilt, absolutely. He broke down. He would cry.”
THOSE WHO SACRIFICED SAID IT WAS WORTH THE COST
- His path had changed so drastically on that spring day in 1972 that it could almost be said that one life ended and another, darker one began in the air over the Mieu Giang River. But he never regretted going after Hambleton. “It was worth it,” he said. “We got him out.”
- He felt no bitterness toward Hambleton.
- “you expect your compadres to come after you.”
*** *** *** *** ***
FACTOIDS
- Over the course of [WWII], fifteen thousand airmen—as many men as made up an infantry division—would die in training before they left the continental United States.
- Redstone Arsenal. During World War II, Redstone had been used as a chemical weapons plant which produced 27 million bombs and other munitions containing lethal poisons such as phosgene and mustard gas. After the surrender of Japan, Redstone switched its focus to missiles.
- The Air Force would drop over twice as much ordnance on Vietnam as the total used in World War II,
- [As seen in the ‘Bat 21’ book and movie] Anderson also created a fictional African American FAC named Captain Bartholomew, who guides Hambleton throughout the entire eleven-day operation.
- [Gene] Hackman [who portrayed him in the movie] had been raised in Danville, Illinois, not far from where [Hambleton] had been born and lived before his family moved to the nearby town of Wenona.
HAHA
- Old Air Force buddies wrote him from all over the world. “I was really shocked to see your name in the paper,” wrote one USAF officer from São Paulo, including with the letter some news clips about the rescue from the Brazil Herald. “SOME PEOPLE WILL DO ANYTHING TO GET THEIR NAME IN THE HEADLINES,” read a telegram from his pals at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. “WE DID NOTICE THAT YOU FAILED TO SHAVE AND THAT YOUR UNIFORM WAS REALLY TERRIBLE.”
BONUS
- Short documentary about the rescue: https://youtu.be/gBTDQ9r5-nM
- Tommy Norris, Medal of Honor: https://youtu.be/gS57YKGHDKc
- EB-66 aircraft: https://youtu.be/sC-OgR_ZqOE
- Gravel mine: https://youtu.be/QTWuzIL-Tlo
- A-1 Skyraider: https://youtu.be/mv_T4Zw3-8s
- HH-53 “Jolly Green” rescue helicopter: https://youtu.be/tl4_IPADQlM
- ‘Bat 21’ movie trailer (1988): https://youtu.be/Gt2nbFGp8wA
- Michael Thornton, Medal of Honor (later on rescued Norris): https://youtu.be/FmUXfMZ5hEY
February 21, 2026
Years ago I had watched the movie played by actor Gene Hackman as Hackman portrayed Lieutenant Colonel Gene Hambleton.
A single American aviator, who knew our most important secrets, crashes behind enemy lines and risk capture by both the North Vietnamese and the Soviets. Fortunately there happens to be a single Navy SEAL (Tommy Norris) and his Vietnamese guide, Nguyen Van Kiet, volunteer to go after Hambleton on foot.
As a veteran this is a must read for ALL active duty soldiers across ALL branches of service to read providing insight to Escape & Evasion having to desire to live.
👍👍👍👍👍
A single American aviator, who knew our most important secrets, crashes behind enemy lines and risk capture by both the North Vietnamese and the Soviets. Fortunately there happens to be a single Navy SEAL (Tommy Norris) and his Vietnamese guide, Nguyen Van Kiet, volunteer to go after Hambleton on foot.
As a veteran this is a must read for ALL active duty soldiers across ALL branches of service to read providing insight to Escape & Evasion having to desire to live.
👍👍👍👍👍
February 1, 2020
Based off of true events, it’s amazing of what really happens when the will to survive is so great that you will do anything to survive. Good read.
February 8, 2025
Great read, very immersive story.
February 7, 2023
Fantastic account of a true story. Takes a little long to get started but after a few chapters you are attached! Loved the book.
January 2, 2019
The true story of what was known as BAT-21, a rescue mission in 1972 for down Lt. Colonel Gene Hambleton. The difference in this book this book than others that I have read is that you find out that there were 11 attempts first to rescue him that all failed. You find out about the men in those missions the young and not so young who did not come home and two who were captured and released years later. The author takes you to the very backstory where many planes and other equipment were diverted for this attempted rescue attempt. This later would hurt gourd forces for us and for the Vietnamese army. This whole story was told once as Bat-21 a book and later a movie. Both of which were nothing like what really happened. You then get the backstory of the Navy Seal Tommy Norris and his Vietnamese soldiers who went with him behind enemy lines for the rescue of first Owens then Hambleton, which was just Norris and one soldier. The rest of the story of what happened to all of the men once they came was very interesting as well. I found this to be a very well written and researched book. The information was much more than any other of the previous books, and of course the movie. Well done and once again shows you what we were capable of if they D.C. would have let the men fight and not made it into politics. A very good read. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 5 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com
November 25, 2018
This story has been told over and over and over. It is like King Arthur and the knights of the round table...how many different ways can it be told already???
February 20, 2020
Fantastic story, principally about how a high ranking air force officer with personal knowledge of highly classified Cold War secrets gets shot down over Vietnam in the midst of a Vietnamese offensive that the army hadn't realized was happening. Perhaps the aspect of the book that will stick with me most is how lucky Hambelton was to get out. It sounds like his actions were largely received as contributing to a well executed rescue, and he did have an abundance of mental fortitude to continue his communications with his rescuers and not totally lose it. However he struck me as a middle aged man who had somewhat let himself go physically, at least for being in a war, who had the misfortune of getting shot down in an area filled with enemy. From leaving his parachute in the open field, to harvesting only a minimum of food when he had the change, to having to fight a Vietnamese village to the death in hand to hand combat, it seemed that there were plenty of mental lapses that he survived through the work of his observers and sheer luck. Clark, the other soldier rescued in the operation, came across as more physically and in many ways mentally capable in my opinion, although his ordeal was shorter and perhaps in slightly less densely hostile territory. It also amazed me how the army unwittingly opened up a very large "no fire" area during the initial, air power based, rescue attempt. This led to missed opportunities to harm the enemy and likely contributed to the significant loss of men and material in the rescue attempt. The use of an improved code using US based golf courses was hilarious and ingenious. Once the story moved to SEAL based rescue attempt, the competence of these highly trained soldiers seemed to shine through. Of course, Norris had an abundance of luck on his side as well, finding Clark after he had been forced to let him swim past their position due to nearby enemies, and then narrowly escaping death as a N Vietnamese machine gunner open fire on him prematurely when he had nearly completed the rescue mission. Norris' S Vietnamese companion likely did not receive the credit he was due for sticking with Norris when the rest of the S Vietnamese commando crew abandoned Norris.
Finally Norris came across as even more of a badass as the author reveals what happened to the characters following the rescue mission. Norris was eventually horribly wounded (and saved by the type of ballsy one man rescue that you would think only happens in overdone action movies). When reflecting on his injuries, he basically said that he had seen a lot of horrible things, that losing his eye was relatively benign, and that what else could he do but keep going.
Hambelton (mostly deservedly) became something of a national hero, and seemed to play it up in the press and film just a bit. Norris on the other hand seemed to keep things understated despite his exceptional effort to enact the successful rescue, and then go on to further clandestine operations that would ultimately get him critically injured.
Finally Norris came across as even more of a badass as the author reveals what happened to the characters following the rescue mission. Norris was eventually horribly wounded (and saved by the type of ballsy one man rescue that you would think only happens in overdone action movies). When reflecting on his injuries, he basically said that he had seen a lot of horrible things, that losing his eye was relatively benign, and that what else could he do but keep going.
Hambelton (mostly deservedly) became something of a national hero, and seemed to play it up in the press and film just a bit. Norris on the other hand seemed to keep things understated despite his exceptional effort to enact the successful rescue, and then go on to further clandestine operations that would ultimately get him critically injured.
October 29, 2020
Damn good. Kept me up past my bedtime.
The subtitle is a bit of publisher misdirection/teaser - "The Greatest Rescue Mission in Navy Seal History". The naïve reader might think this is another Iraq or Afghanistan rescue mission that in the back of your mind you think you may already know the story.
But no, it is the story of BAT-21, the odyssey of Gene Hambleton, a navigator who survived a SAM hit at the beginning of the 1972 April NVA offensive up near the DMZ. Hambleton survived 11 days behind NVA lines before being rescued by a Navy Seal and ARVN sea commando team. The story was huge news back in 1972 and ultimately became a movie starring Gene Hackman - "BAT 21". I saw the movie when it came out.
Fortunately for me, the reader, I had forgotten virtually every detail of the movie except the clever trick the Air Force used to guide Hambleton to a pickup point. So, the book was riveting.
Chapters are concise and since the real story unfolded over many days, each more fraught than the next, you are glued to your easy chair. Talty pulls no punches over the command decisions that allocated and then deallocated resources to rescue Hambleton. He also does a good job of portraying the aftermath and gives due homage to the rescuers, not all of whom survived. There's an interesting tie-in to the subject of a book I recently read about the Special Operations Group (SOG) SOG: Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam
Oddly, despite the key role played by Forward Air Controllers in OV-10 planes, none of them are mentioned by name in the book. It also would have been nice to get the point of view from the NVA side, especially so many years later as tensions between combatants have eased. There is a good map to help you orient yourself.
It will take you 2-3 days to finish the book unless you choose to stay up all night. A remarkable story.
The subtitle is a bit of publisher misdirection/teaser - "The Greatest Rescue Mission in Navy Seal History". The naïve reader might think this is another Iraq or Afghanistan rescue mission that in the back of your mind you think you may already know the story.
But no, it is the story of BAT-21, the odyssey of Gene Hambleton, a navigator who survived a SAM hit at the beginning of the 1972 April NVA offensive up near the DMZ. Hambleton survived 11 days behind NVA lines before being rescued by a Navy Seal and ARVN sea commando team. The story was huge news back in 1972 and ultimately became a movie starring Gene Hackman - "BAT 21". I saw the movie when it came out.
Fortunately for me, the reader, I had forgotten virtually every detail of the movie except the clever trick the Air Force used to guide Hambleton to a pickup point. So, the book was riveting.
Chapters are concise and since the real story unfolded over many days, each more fraught than the next, you are glued to your easy chair. Talty pulls no punches over the command decisions that allocated and then deallocated resources to rescue Hambleton. He also does a good job of portraying the aftermath and gives due homage to the rescuers, not all of whom survived. There's an interesting tie-in to the subject of a book I recently read about the Special Operations Group (SOG) SOG: Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam
Oddly, despite the key role played by Forward Air Controllers in OV-10 planes, none of them are mentioned by name in the book. It also would have been nice to get the point of view from the NVA side, especially so many years later as tensions between combatants have eased. There is a good map to help you orient yourself.
It will take you 2-3 days to finish the book unless you choose to stay up all night. A remarkable story.
July 5, 2019
This is a book about how a mission to save a downed aviator in Vietnam, Gene Hambleton, goes awry and eleven members of the military die (with two others captured and carried off to prison in North Vietnam) in order to get one guy out from behind enemy lines.
What surprised me is first that to drop every other thing and pursue a downed airman was the express policy of the commanding general of forces in Vietnam. Is that any way to run a war? Second, the willingness and commitment of guys to put their own lives on the line to go rescue a downed buddy is admirable and remarkable, if poor strategy in a war.
At any rate, this book is very readable and moves fast enough that you don't lose interest. Gene Hambleton is eventually rescued thanks especially to a Navy Seal who, along with some Vietnamese special forces, put their own lives on the line to go behind enemy lines to rescue him (and another airman who was shot down in a previous attempt to rescue him). Indeed, after reading this book, I got to wondering why Mr. Talty didn't just write a book about this Navy Seal (Norris) who had a fascinating story of his own, including being the first FBI agent (or maybe the second) to join the ranks having only one eye!
What surprised me is first that to drop every other thing and pursue a downed airman was the express policy of the commanding general of forces in Vietnam. Is that any way to run a war? Second, the willingness and commitment of guys to put their own lives on the line to go rescue a downed buddy is admirable and remarkable, if poor strategy in a war.
At any rate, this book is very readable and moves fast enough that you don't lose interest. Gene Hambleton is eventually rescued thanks especially to a Navy Seal who, along with some Vietnamese special forces, put their own lives on the line to go behind enemy lines to rescue him (and another airman who was shot down in a previous attempt to rescue him). Indeed, after reading this book, I got to wondering why Mr. Talty didn't just write a book about this Navy Seal (Norris) who had a fascinating story of his own, including being the first FBI agent (or maybe the second) to join the ranks having only one eye!
December 30, 2024
This book was well written with a fascinating subject. I was a child of the 60s, and I always enjoy learning about events during the Vietnam war. However, this book was a conundrum for me. The author referenced an autobiography written by Colonel Hambleton, the individual who is trapped behind enemy lines and is the subject of a massive manhunt by the Vietnam, as well as several daring rescue attempts by the Americans, in which the colonel alters/lies about many of the key details. A number of men involved in the attempted rescues lost their lives, and it is offensive to me that anyone would think it would be acceptable to change the story. In the end, I was left wondering where is the truth in this whole story lies.
November 18, 2018
A very interesting tale of survival as it details the extraordinary rescue efforts taken to rescue 1 navigator Gene Hambleton during the Vietnam War. It details the air campaign to save him in which several other men are either captured or on the run and several others are killed. It details the bureaucratic problems as he has landed right in the middle of a major NVA attack and they keep telling the rescuers that their should be minimal enemy activity. After the air option has been exhausted 1 Navy Seal Tommy Norris goes in with some South Vietnamese soldiers to rescue Hambleton and one of the other downed airmen.
August 8, 2022
This narrative-style nonfiction about the rescue of a downed US airman during the Vietnam War is a story of an unrelenting will to survive as well as a determined effort to leave no man behind. Without knowing the potential for critical information to be passed to the Vietcong by the downed navigator who had worked in a number of sensitive areas while serving in the Air Force, his fellow airmen nevertheless risked life—and sometimes gave it—to bring him out from behind enemy lines. This tale of survival in the face of overwhelming odds against success will keep you turning the pages. A must read for those interested in military history on a personal scale.
August 15, 2019
Incredibly well Researched. Accurate recounting of the actual BAT 21 rescue that occurred at the end of Vietnam. Unbiased review of the political situation, comprehensive telling of the actions and screw ups of the military, along with heartfelt portrayal of the background and actions of the military members who put themselves in harm’s way in an effort to recover one of their own. Well done. It is unfortunate that Hollywood could not have achieved a more factual accounting of the real-world events. No revisionism or political agendas. Just the truth.
March 20, 2020
I picked this up as a daily deal about a year ago as it got good reviews. The story moves very well and as an audiobook was almost like a thriller up until the rescue. Additional information on lives of most of the key characters at the end was a great wrap up. Overall I found this a very compelling listen and would recommend this title to anyone interested in this type of book.
I had seen the Bat 21 movie a long time ago and vaguely remember the story - having this book explain the background and differences was interesting.
Recommended.
I had seen the Bat 21 movie a long time ago and vaguely remember the story - having this book explain the background and differences was interesting.
Recommended.
December 3, 2023
Saving One man
Saving Bravo is so unbelievable at times, its hard to believe the story is not fiction. But the story is true and honors a great many men who worked to save Gene. The details and coolness under very extreme conditions show the the courage and will to live can overcome
incredible odds. Tommy Norris is one bad ass dude who took the assignment nobody else would do. It is unbelievable what this soldier went thru to try and save Gene. An American hero unwilling to accept the praise and glory he so rightly deserved. Great book.
Saving Bravo is so unbelievable at times, its hard to believe the story is not fiction. But the story is true and honors a great many men who worked to save Gene. The details and coolness under very extreme conditions show the the courage and will to live can overcome
incredible odds. Tommy Norris is one bad ass dude who took the assignment nobody else would do. It is unbelievable what this soldier went thru to try and save Gene. An American hero unwilling to accept the praise and glory he so rightly deserved. Great book.
December 30, 2025
The Greatest Rescue Mission in Navy SEAL History
This chronicling of the struggles of an American airman behind enemy lines was excellent, yet I found it difficult to fully engage with. This surprised me, considering I typically value this type of reading material. One aspect I particularly enjoyed was the creative method they used to locate "Bravo." With his radio, they employed a spotter aircraft to fly over his general area. As the aircraft neared his location, Bravo could hear the sound of the engine, allowing him to guide them closer and closer to his position.
This chronicling of the struggles of an American airman behind enemy lines was excellent, yet I found it difficult to fully engage with. This surprised me, considering I typically value this type of reading material. One aspect I particularly enjoyed was the creative method they used to locate "Bravo." With his radio, they employed a spotter aircraft to fly over his general area. As the aircraft neared his location, Bravo could hear the sound of the engine, allowing him to guide them closer and closer to his position.
April 11, 2019
Like any war story, there is heroism, sacrifice, will, and determination in this true story. There is also waste, disfunction, failed communication, and politics. Stephan Talty does an incredible job of tying together a 50-year old, oft-told story into a timeline of both facts and feelings, leaving the reader to apply their own lens upon which to frame the actions of men fighting a war and trying to survive.
May 6, 2019
A sad tale of sacrificing the many for the one. War is an experience that you are changed from being a part. I think LC Hamblen was selfish when he went on the mission in the first place. Just because you’re smart and in charge doesn’t mean you are equipped for the job. He should have stayed behind his desk and made informed decisions. This book should be about all the men who did their jobs, selflessly trying to save his butt.
June 20, 2019
Why would we send up someone with so much missile knowledge over enemy lines is beyond me. Looks like the same cat and mouse games are starting up again with Russia and China...maybe we should do a reverse and back other countries going against these two and get some payback. What a struggle it was to get Lieutenant Colonel Gene Hambleton to a place so he could be extracted safely without the loss of anymore planes and lives!
March 2, 2021
Inspiring story
Real life heroes exist in all ages, in all times, in all colors - with the conviction , determination, and the stubborn will to survive and succeed. This story tells of a rescue of one man by so many men who lived and died throughout the mission. The author did an excellent job of telling the facts of the story fleshed out by interviews and quotes from the people involved. Well worth your time in reading this story.
Real life heroes exist in all ages, in all times, in all colors - with the conviction , determination, and the stubborn will to survive and succeed. This story tells of a rescue of one man by so many men who lived and died throughout the mission. The author did an excellent job of telling the facts of the story fleshed out by interviews and quotes from the people involved. Well worth your time in reading this story.
November 29, 2022
Incredible story, well-written. Loyalty of servicemen to one another is often spoken of--this book shows it. Talty doesn't romanticize. Hambleton is saved at the cost of the lives of nine of his fellow US servicemen and the lives of an unknown number of Vietnamese. Although the book is not overtly a critique of the war, it is one. On the small scale, the personal--great bravery & courage. In the larger view--Why was the US there?
December 9, 2018
This is a good book written about a war that for many today is ancient history. I remember the events though I was young. Over the years I have read several books about the Easter Offensive. Many of them talk about the lack of air support, but they don't mention why that occurred. The movie "BAT-21" like most movies based on books leaves a lot to be desired. The books straightens things out.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the Vietnam War or wartime rescue missions.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the Vietnam War or wartime rescue missions.
June 18, 2019
Saving Bravo: The Greatest rescue Mission in Navy Seal History from author Stephan Talty is the best book I've read this year. Well written & enjoyable. Narrator Henry Strozier’s voice was perfect for this book and added greatly to the listening enjoyment. I was given an Audible copy of this book & am voluntarily reviewing it. (RIP Marley January 20, 2014 - July 24, 2018).
Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews