Phantom in the Sky: A Marine's Back Seat View of the Vietnam War

by Terry L. Thorsen

Phantom in the Sky is the story of a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in the back seat of the supersonic Phantom jet during the Vietnam War—a unique, tactical perspective of the “guy in back,” or GIB, absent from other published aviation accounts. During the time of Terry L. Thorsen’s service from 1966 to 1970, the RIO played an integral part in enemy aircraft interception and ordnance delivery. In Navy and Marine F-4 Phantom jets, the RIO was a second pair of eyes for the pilot, in charge of communications and navigation, and great to have during emergencies. Thorsen endured the tough Platoon Leaders Course at Quantico and barely earned a commission. He underwent aviation and intercept training while suffering airsickness issues—and still earned his wings. Thorsen joined the oldest and most decorated squadron in the Marine Corps, the VMFA-232 Red Devils in southern California, as it prepared for deployment to Vietnam. In combat, Thorsen felt angst when he saw the sky darken around him from anti-aircraft artillery explosions high above the Ho Chi Minh Trail. On his first close air support mission in support of ground troops (the majority of his Marine aviation missions), he witnessed tracers whiz by his canopy. On one harrowing sortie, he and his pilot purposely became the target to save an Army unit battling an enemy just a hundred feet away. On secret missions with secret weapons, they dove at anti-aircraft artillery muzzle flashes and flew as a low as fifty feet off the deck during close air support sorties, "scraping" the napalm off their plane. For one mission a friend survived a crash landing, but a training instructor vanished without a trace.

400 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 15, 2019

Reviews

[Paul Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve read a lot of books about pilots, airplanes and the Vietnam Air War, I’ve never read one with quite so much vomiting involved though. This book is not so much a story as it is a rereading of his diary and various letters home, which is fine, but it slogs on every repeated detail, and there are not many edge of your seat combat events. In fact most combat is waved away with the bare minimum description of whether they hit the target or not. He spends a great deal of time discussing his wife as well, and she’s a handful who apparently was unaware there was a war on, and had no idea the commitment involved with military service. It was breathtaking.

I was hoping to get a slightly different take on the Phantom and its crew dynamic from a RIOs point of view, but it fell quite short of the mark.

[Ken Daigrepont · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding read!

This is a very open and honest book written about that ugly war that Johnson and McNamara made a total mess of. It’s also a great read on flying the Phantom.

Many young men gave it all and never returned.