MACV-SOG

Honoring the stories and photos from the men of SOG

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Jerry “Mad Dog” Shriver started his deployment in 1966, and for almost 3 and a half years he kept extending. He spent over 1,000 days in country.

Instead of debriefing and relaxing after a mission, Shriver would sneak out and tag along with another team for another patrol.

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10/23

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The truth will be uncovered

[Aircraft history junky @AircraftJunky]

THE CAPTURED T-28 THAT HUNTED A COVERT C-123

Before North Vietnam’s MiGs became famous, one of its first successful interceptions came from a captured American-built T-28 Trojan.

The aircraft, No. 963, had originally served with the Royal Lao Air Force before being flown into North Vietnam by a defecting pilot. Hanoi repaired it and turned it into an improvised night interceptor.

On 15–16 February 1964, radar picked up an aircraft approaching from Laos. Ground controllers vectored 963 toward the target until pilot Nguyễn Văn Ba spotted a twin engine transport in the dark.

It was a C-123 Provider.

Ba closed in and fired two bursts from the T-28’s 12.7 mm guns. The C-123 caught fire and crashed near the border.

The strange part: Vietnamese accounts say the Provider was carrying a commando or agent team into North Vietnam.

That places this little known shootdown inside the much larger clandestine air war already underway, CIA-backed infiltration missions, covert C-123 operations, and the transition toward what became MACV-SOG.

The exact C-123, crew, and operator are still unclear.

But the basic story is wild enough:

A captured American trainer, guided by North Vietnamese radar, shoots down another American-built aircraft apparently carrying a covert infiltration team.

No MiGs. No missiles. Just a stolen T-28 hunting in the dark.

AIRCRAFT HISTORY JUNKY

#AircraftHistoryJunky #T28Trojan #C123Provider #CovertAviation #VietnamWar #SecretWar #MACVSOG #CIA #AviationHistory

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@SiriusInquiry MIKE Force I believe

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Monday

Let’s get to work

[𝙶𝚛𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚙𝚊 👴 @Gruntpa]

“Lock in G.I.”

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John St. Martin

RT South Carolina 1-2
RT New York 1-0

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@TheReconCast Air assets. Both Spider and Pat as well as reports from the 37th ARRS confirm RT Alabama fought a division of NVA. Couple that with Lynne seeing the flag of a divisional base camp these numbers completely add up.

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@TheReconCast Also, if you’re willing to say that there might have been 10k in the AO, put your SOG thinking cap on. With the amount of downed aircraft from this mission what would the NVA have done? They would have pulled every possible person to the area to continue fighting to pull in more

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RT Alabama VS 10,000 NVA soldiers

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On this day in 1968, RT Alabama was inserted into Laos with 1-0 Jim Stride, 1-1 Steve Engelke, and 1-2 Lynne Black

As the helicopter was coming in, Black noticed an NVA flag flying which told him there was a large NVA base camp nearby. Stride ignored the request to abort (1/6)

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Dave Maurer

Recon Team Louisiana 1-0
Recon Team Hawaii 1-0

[Aircraft history junky @AircraftJunky]

RAVEN 25 — THE AIR FORCE PILOT WHO WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE

The date beneath this photograph reads March 1973.

The man is Captain Darrel D. Whitcomb. Behind him is an unmarked O-1 Bird Dog. There is no uniform, visible rank or American flag, because officially, Whitcomb was not fighting a war in Laos.

A 1969 Air Force Academy graduate, Whitcomb had already flown the C-7 Caribou in Vietnam before returning as an OV-10 forward air controller known as Nail 25. Then he volunteered for the classified Steve Canyon Program and became Raven 25.

The assignment meant surrendering his military identification, changing into civilian clothes and entering Laos under embassy cover. Operating from Long Tieng, Whitcomb supported General Vang Pao’s CIA-backed Hmong army, flying low over the Plain of Jars to locate enemy forces, mark targets and direct American, Lao and Hmong aircraft onto them.

During an NVA attack on Skyline Ridge, friendly troops were caught in an ambush. Whitcomb repeatedly exposed his Bird Dog to enemy fire while directing strikes dangerously close to the men below. AK-47 rounds eventually tore through the aircraft’s oil system and killed the engine. He still managed to dead-stick the crippled O-1 back into Long Tieng.

The mission earned him the Silver Star.

Whitcomb was also photographed with Hmong T-28 pilot Touxiong Lee, whom he credited with saving his life during another mission, a reminder that the Ravens survived because Lao and Hmong airmen fought beside them.

After Raven operations ended, Whitcomb returned to the OV-10 and continued flying over Cambodia. On August 15, 1973, he was given the honor of being the last aircraft in his four-ship formation to land as America’s combat-air campaign there ended.

He later retired as an Air Force colonel and Delta international captain. But here he remains Raven 25: a young American pilot in civilian clothes, standing beside an aircraft without a flag, at the end of a war his country spent years pretending it was not fighting.

#AircraftHistoryJunky #RavenFAC #Raven25 #DarrelWhitcomb #SecretWar #LongTieng #O1BirdDog #Project404 #AviationHistory