Jack Broughton (1925–2014)

Part memoir, part personal treatise on what the USAF needed to fix in '67. Two things help and make this book stand out, the fact it was written right after he finished his tour and the fact he carried a tape recorder to record and then listen to the radio chatter from the missions. Blunt, crisp, and effective writing, still stands the test all these years later.

Col. Broughton made some noise when he published Thud Ridge in 1969, a gritty memoir of airstrikes over North Vietnam, and a scathing indictment of Operation Rolling Thunder, the USAF, and the Johnson administration. I haven't found a copy of Thud Ridge, but I hear it's great.

Going Downtown seems very much a companion to Broughton's previous book, and is lesser for it. The first third concerns Broughton in Korea, where he flew the F-84 Thunderjet and tested out the Oerlikon 8 cm Flz.-Rakete show more rocket. Compared to the US equivalent, the Oerlikon was small, precise, and very deadly. Broughton really enjoys hunting tanks through the Korean mountains. The second third is Vietnam, a collection of anecdotes about the risks and thrills of flying over North Vietnam, the heroism of Broughton's comrades, and the stupidity of the multiple layers of command which tied the hands of American airpower and got pilots killed to no good end. The last third is where the book gets weird. Two pilots under Broughton's command strafed a Soviet freighter in harbor, a miscall in the heat of combat when suppressing nearby flak so they could escape from a bad bomb run. Knowing that this would be the end of the pilots careers, Broughton had their gun camera footage destroyed. The Soviets complained, USAF needed a scapegoat, and Broughton wound up the personal target of future Air Force Chief of Staff General John Dale Ryan. Broughton was interrogated, bounced around the Pacific, imprisoned overnight in a mental hospital in the Philippines, and finally court-martialled and convicted. He spent a year in a dead-end Pentagon office writing Thud Ridge, then retired and eventually got his court-martial reversed on the grounds of "undue command influence", putting him in a very small club of people who fought the system and were vindicated, along with Billy Mitchell.

The Korean War stuff is a lot of fun, along with the general fighter pilot attitude towards risk and danger. The gripes against Rolling Thunder bombing restrictions and Lyndon and Robert (Johnson and McNamara respectively, who Broughton always refers to by first names) have a worn, over-rehearsed quality. He clearly believes airpower could have broken North Vietnamese logistics and morale if used to the fullest extent. The last third is probably the most unique section; how many people have gone through the grinder of a court-martial and survived? But it's also a legal mess.

Regardless, back in the summer of '67, an elite brotherhood of a few hundred pilots based in Thailand and off carriers on Yankee Station were the only ones waging an offensive war in Vietnam, going downtown twice a day against even stiffening defenses and the mismanagement of their own commands. show less

The very tactical story of a fighter pilot during the Vietnam war. This story goes very well with the story of Robin Olds. The author, Jack Broughton, was a seasoned fighter pilot and was serving as the vice commander of the Air Force wing at Takhli, Thailand. Flying and fighting, it also contains several vignettes about other people who helped in the effort, the base civil engineer and the chaplain for example. Broughton also discusses the poignant stories of attacks on Hanoi and lost show more buddies--I'd like to find out how they fared. Besides the yank and bank of the fighter pilot's world, we also got a glimpse of the amount of [idiotic] control placed on the people who fought...a ultimately a symptom of LBJ's dirt poor childhood. Lives were lost because of it. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. show less

This is Jack Broughton's sequel to Thud Ridge. As an F-105 Thunderchief pilot during the Vietnam War, he flew many missions over North Vietnam, some of which are retold in this book (the first book does some of them as well). Often hamstrung by rules of engagement established by politicians without regard to military necessity or survival, he became disenchanted with the leadership and soon was flagged as a troublemaker. Broughton was finally court martialed for attacking ships in Haiphong show more harbor. They were made strictly off-limits by the politicians because some were Russian, but many mounted anti-aircraft guns and shot down American pilots. Broughton finally became so incensed at this that he strafed the ships on one mission. He was court martialed and convicted. Much later Congress overturned the conviction, but much too late to be of use to Broughton. The latter part of the book relates the story of the legal proceeding and the subsequent actions Broughton took to publicize the government's cover up of it's ineptness.

I would recommend this book for those who are interested in the air war in Vietnam. It does rather bog down towards the end in the politics, but should be considered a necessary read for those of the current generation who may not be aware of how badly the Vietnam air war was conducted by Washington. show less