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[narrator] 1966.
A war that begins in the rice paddies
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
of South Vietnam
moves into the skies over the North.
and US pilots are paying a high price.
You could die at any time and you might not see it coming.
[narrator] Follow a fearless commander.
[Olds] Missiles streak past,
flak black in the sky.
[narrator] A gung-ho prodigy.
[Richter] Set up your sights, babe, there's a MiG out there.
[narrator] And a cautious rookie.
[Rasimus] I'm afraid of being captured, I'm not ready to die.
[narrator] Their goal, survive 100 missions.
The hundred missions gives them that light at the end of the tunnel.
[narrator] Their reward,
a raucous send off,
and a ticket home.
[men cheering]
[plane engine roaring]
[electric guitar playing]
[narrator] Few fighter pilots in Vietnam are as renowned as Flying Ace,
Robin Olds.
[Olds] Fighter pilot is an attitude,
it's aggressiveness, it's self-confidence.
It is a streak of rebelliousness.
But there's something else,
a desire to be second to no one.
[Hankins] If anyone is to be held as the example to live up to of
what the brash, aggressive, hard drinking,
hard talking fighter pilot is, it's Robin Olds.
During World War II, he had flown P-38 Lightings and P-51 Mustangs.
He had become a double ace. He had twelve kills,
and had been very successful.
[narrator] Swashbuckling pilots like Olds
are becoming relics by the time Vietnam begins.
The US Air force is focused on strategic bombing,
and has put behind it the classic dogfights of World War II.
[Hankins] Fast forward to mid-1966,
to the eighth tactical fighter wing in Vietnam,
which is having a little bit of a morale problem.
Robin Olds gets plucked out and dropped into Vietnam
purposefully to try to infuse this sort of warrior spirit,
fighter pilot culture mentality into that unit.
[narrator] The eighth tactical fighter wing
is based in Ubon, Thailand.
One of seven bases the US is using
to bomb North Vietnam.
Its campaign, called Rolling Thunder,
is rolling North, and into the most heavily defended areas.
[Olds] The action was heating up.
Our fighter squadrons were striking targets around Hanoi,
and there was heavy opposition.
-[man speaking over radio] -[bombs exploding]
[narrator] For the pilots, the odds of capture or death are staggering.
And the thought of serving a typical one year tour is bleak.
To boost morale, the Air Force sets a limit.
Fly one hundred sorties into Vietnam,
and you can go home.
[Hankins] As a pilot keeps flying more and more missions,
it's taking a toll,
emotionally, physically.
There's got to be an end point that they can work towards.
That's what the hundred missions does.
It gives them that light at the end of the tunnel.
[narrator] To Robin Olds, the benchmark is a nuisance.
[Olds] The magical one hundredth mission
would send me home sooner than end of tour.
There was no way I would leave my men.
[narrator] But most pilots do not have the experience
and proven skill of Robin Olds.
Lieutenants like Ed Rasimus ave never even flown in combat.
[Rasimus] I was on my way to fly in the air war
against North Vietnam.
Hell, six months earlier,
I didn't even know there was an air war
against anybody.
[narrator] After completing ROTC,
Rasimus was surprised to rise to the top of his flight school class.
But his skill has not come with nerves of steel.
[Rasimus] Now the thought is, how do I get out of this?
To say I felt sick is an understatement.
[narrator] The good news for Rasimus is that he gets to fly
the supersonic F-105 Thunderchief.
In 1966,
he's posted to the US base at Korat, Thailand.
Home to 36 Thunderchiefs, known as Thuds.
The super fast Thuds are flying most of the bombing missions into North Vietnam,
and suffering the highest losses.
[Rasimus] In the previous seven days,
Korat had lost eight aircraft and pilots.
New aircraft were being ferried in daily from Japan,
but pilots were in extremely short supply.
[narrator] Rasimus is relieved to see Karl Richter,
a buddy from F-105 training
who arrived ten days earlier
and is much more eager for the fight.
Like me, you know, what happens, you know, if, uh, if I get shot down?
I'm too mean. They'll never get me anyway.
[Rasimus] I trusted him.
He didn't exaggerate or make up stories.
And I was pretty sure that unlike me,
he had never had a moment's fear about flying combat.
[narrator] Taught to fly as a boy,
Richter became a skilled pilot by eighteen
when he enrolled in the Air Force academy.
Now Richter and Rasimus
have combat skills to learn.
[Rasimus] The first missions
were the most dangerous for new pilots,
because of fear, lack of experience,
and unfamiliarity with the whole pattern of the war.
[Hankins] They're being shot at from all kinds of enemies that they can't see,
that they don't know are there.
They're trying to pull maneuvers.
They're trying to hit their targets.
This is all very different
than the training that they've had.
[narrator] New arrivals are supposed to get their feet wet
on low risk flights.
But only four days after arriving,
Richter receives a baptism by fire.
[man speaking over radio]
[Rasimus] In a perfect world,
Karl wouldn't have been anywhere near
a mission that dangerous.
But with the losses of the previous week,
it was almost inevitable that he be thrown into the cauldron.
Any fresh meat was welcome.
[narrator] The target is a railroad to Hanoi,
a strongly defended supply line.
And the sky is thick with anti-aircraft fire.
[man over radio]
Richter dives in exactly as planned.
[man speaking over radio]
But as he climbs away,
he flies into the bomb blast of a friendly plane.
[man over radio] Vegas one is hit.
[narrator] The blast blows away part of his tail,
and his Thud pitches violently.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] Richter's flying skill saves him
from bailing out over North Vietnam.
The close call seems only to embolden him.
[Rasimus] As he recounted the story, Karl's voice got louder
and the tale was punctuated with more and more profanity.
All the story meant to me was that you could get killed
flying even one mission.
Just a few days later, Rasimus gets his turn in combat
on his third mission.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] The target is far from Hanoi.
But it's an anti-aircraft site,
a ring of guns that can down an F-105
with a few lucky shots.
[man speaking over radio]
[Hankins] By far, the largest amount of aircraft losses
over North Vietnam
are coming from small arms fire
and anti aircraft artillery,
which are claiming 60 to 70 percent or more of fixed wing aircraft.
[man over radio] I got a guy at twelve.
-[narrator] His fear briefly forgotten, -[beeping]
Rasimus is spellbound by what he sees.
[Rasimus] The valley floor, ten miles long by five miles wide,
was a sea of white flashes.
It was amazing.
[narrator] Then, the reality sinks in.
[man shouting over radio]
[Rasimus] The flashbulbs, the fireballs,
the twinkling circles, they were guns.
This was flak. They were shooting at me.
[narrator] He's got two choices.
Quit now, or face the danger head on.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] Ed Rasimus is feeling the heat
on his third mission in Vietnam.
Diving onto an anti-aircraft gun
he sees it explode, hit squarely by the plane ahead of him.
He drops his two massive bombs...
[man speaking over radio]
And escapes unscathed.
But he's shaken up,
and he's got 97 missions to go.
[Rasimus] I'm not ready to die,
and I'm afraid of being captured.
One hundred could be done in four or five months,
one hundred could be survived, couldn't it?
[Hankins] It was such a deadly environment,
a lot of pilots thought they were not going to make it to 100 missions.
And among some of the F-105 squadrons
there were sayings that developed,
pilots saying, "there's no way I can make it to 100 missions."
That became a catchphrase.
[narrator] North Vietnam's defenses
also surprised Robin Olds.
[Olds] Nothing I had experienced
in World War II matched it.
Missiles streaked past, flak blackened the sky,
tracers laced patterns across my canopy,
and then, capping the day, MiGs would suddenly appear.
[narrator] Fighter pilots are famous for their bravado
in the face of danger.
[Hankins] This is a job where you could die at any time
and you might not see it coming.
The psychological stresses that these pilots are going through
require some sort of coping mechanism, some release valve
to deal with that fear.
[narrator] The release valves get a workout.
-Drinking, horseplay... -[men cheering]
And especially bucking minor regulations.
Robin Olds overgrown mustache quickly catches on.
[Olds] I was far away from home.
It was a gesture of defiance.
The kids on base loved it.
[Rasimus] If there was any truth to the notion
that mustaches made you bulletproof
we weren't about to press our luck.
[narrator] New arrivals quickly trade their blue caps
for Australian boonie hats,
that double as log books.
[Rasimus] When you flew a combat mission
you inked a hash mark on the band.
If there was ever any question about your mission count,
your hat was the primary source document.
[Hankins] Any young pilot that comes in
that's walking around the squadron
is gonna know just from looking how experienced someone is.
That's an instant sign of,
that is a veteran that's been through some business.
[narrator] After the pilots adopt a mutt named Roscoe,
they start to read his behavior for signs of danger.
[Rasimus] If Roscoe slept through the briefing,
the mission would be an easy one.
If he was agitated or walked out midway,
well, things would not go smoothly.
[narrator] Whether by superstition or skill,
Ed Rasimus survives his first 20 missions.
[Rasimus] I'd seen I could do this.
I was part of this group,
and I'd glimpsed maybe just a bit of fear in the other pilots.
Because I'd kept my mouth shut and done my job,
no one would know about my fear.
[Hankins] These behaviors are seen as the ideal.
We won't talk about the fear. We won't let that seep into our brains,
because we need to stay concentrated on our job.
We need a little bit of that arrogance to be able to do this job effectively.
[narrator] Despite a perilous first flight to Hanoi,
Karl Richter only grows more eager for battle.
He skips R and R
to fly high-risk observation missions over the South,
and doesn't care that they won't count towards the magical 100.
[Richter] I really enjoy the flying.
You know, it's so good, I can't believe it.
Everybody says "yeah, I'm waving a flag",
but where are you gonna stop communism?
Are you gonna wait until they're in Des Moines, Iowa?
[narrator] By September, 1966,
Richter has flown more than 80 missions over North Vietnam,
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] He is near the port city of Haiphong
when he spots two MiG-17s closing in on the planes ahead of him.
[man speaking over radio]
[Richter] Right away, the only thing that passed my mind
was, "set up your sights, babe, there's a MiG out there."
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] Richter drops his bombs,
and races after the MiGs.
[man speaking over radio]
[Richter] I started firing,
I thought, "this is really going to be embarrassing
if you miss this guy."
Then, the second time I fired, I saw my 20 millimeter rounds
start to sparkle on his right wing.
[man speaking over radio]
He ejected okay. He got a good parachute.
[narrator] At 23,
Karl Richter is the youngest US pilot
to shoot down a MiG over Vietnam.
[Hankins] It's very difficult to get a MiG kill in an F-105.
The F-105 is designed specifically
to go really fast, really low,
drop a bomb on a target and then get out of there really quickly.
[narrator] Richter's MiG victory is a bright spot
in a bombing campaign that is dragging on.
And frustration is rising.
Particularly among F-4 pilots
who are best equipped to tangle with the MiGs.
[Olds] I could sense lethargy among the troops.
Morale seemed to be in the toilet.
Things had to change.
[narrator] Spirits lift when Olds dubs his fighter wing the Wolf Pack,
in honor of his World War II commander.
He recruits as his second in command
a fighter pilot who flew 100 combat missions in Korea.
Daniel James, who goes by "Chappie",
is a strong mentor to young pilots.
[James] We had an outfit that believed in us.
It was mutual.
We believed in them, too.
[Hankins] Their men gave them the nickname "Black Man and Robin",
as a way to kind of refer to them as this dynamic duo
that commanded so well together.
[narrator] James and Olds set out to bolster the team work
among the fighter wings in South East Asia.
During a bombing pause for the Buddha's birthday,
the Korat base welcomes them in style
for a meeting of pilots from across the region.
[music playing]
[Olds] I led a parade
from the flight line to the O club.
There was a lot of whiskey drinking,
fun and games, songs, skits and stuff.
But the serious business of talking to one another went on, too.
[narrator] A top concern is North Vietnam's growing arsenal
of supersonic MiG-21s.
Olds comes up with a bold scheme to defeat the MiGs,
dubbed Operation Bolo.
[Hankins] The main plan for Operation Bolo,
which some historians describe as an electronic Trojan horse maneuver,
was to trick MiGs
into attacking what they would think
was some vulnerable F-105s.
[narrator] F-4 pilots will fly into North Vietnam
disguised as a strike force of F-105s.
They'll be armed with a Thuds' radar jamming gear,
but instead of bombs,
they'll have missiles for air to air combat.
[Olds] The MiGs would come up after us
and get a deadly reception.
[narrator] After weeks of planning,
the daring mission gets the green light.
With dozens of pilots lives
in the balance.
[narrator] January 2nd, 1967.
H hour for Operation Bolo.
The ruse to trick North Vietnam's air force gets underway,
as F-4 pilots, including Chappie James and Robin Olds,
strap themselves in.
Even the Commander is nervous
about the biggest gamble of his career.
[Olds] I felt a searing pain in the pit of my stomach
and was already drenched in sweat by the time I reached my bird.
Dear God, please let me lead these wonderful men into a successful battle
and safely back home.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] The first to launch are F-105s.
They'll suppress ground fire.
Electronic warfare planes, known as Big Eyes,
will orbit nearby to detect threats,
and jam North Vietnamese radar.
Then, 56 Phantoms take off from bases in Thailand
and South Vietnam.
The plan calls for them to take turns sweeping over airfields
to lure the MiGs into attacking.
But the F-4s from Da Nang run into bad weather,
and they turn around, cutting the force by a third.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] It leaves the entire mission
in the hands of Robin Olds and the Wolf Pack.
[ man speaking over radio]
[narrator] Olds flight fuels up,
it activates the radar jammers
borrowed from the F-105s.
[Hankins] This jamming pod gave off a certain
electronic signature that the MiGs could detect.
The F-4 Phantoms also flew in the same formations and used the same call signs
as the F-105s would typically use.
That way if the MiGs
had picked up any communications,
they would think that it was that group of F-105s
that they were used to seeing in that area.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] And the MiGs fall for it.
[Olds] Chappie calls a MiG-21 on my flight
that has popped up out of the undercast.
I break hard just in time to see another MiG at my eleven o'clock.
MiGs are popping out of the cloud deck everywhere.
[man yelling over radio]
[narrator] Olds spots a third enemy fighter.
[man speaking over radio]
[Olds] I got up on top of him and half upside down,
waited for him to complete his turn,
Then timed it so I continued down behind him.
Frankly, I am not sure he ever saw me.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] Meanwhile, two MiGs attack the second flight,
lead by Chappie James.
[James] The MiG broke left and for a split second
I could clearly see the pilot
and the bright red star markings.
I immediately started a barrel roll
to gain separation for attack
but he broke right into the flight path of my number two.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] James' wingman gets the victory.
In just 13 minutes,
US fighters down 7 North Vietnamese MiGs,
without a single loss.
The deliberately planned fighter sweep went just as we hoped.
The MiGs came up, the MiGs were aggressive,
we tangled, they lost.
[Hankins] This is a huge morale boost for the Wolf Pack.
They come out of this celebrating. They're excited.
What operation Bolo does, it shows that
in the hands of skilled pilots, in the right conditions,
these Phantoms can wreak havoc against a North Vietnamese Air Force.
[men cheering]
[narrator] The Wolf Pack wipes out almost half
of North Vietnam's supersonic MiG-21s.
[narrator] Many in the Wolf Pack have also moved closer
to the coveted 100 missions.
But Robin Olds has no plans to go home.
[Olds] I started covertly erasing my missions.
Nobody could figure out what number
I had or hadn't flown.
[narrator] The Wolf Pack is happy to keep him.
North Vietnam's leader, Ho Chi Minh,
has plenty of tricks of his own.
[Olds] Missions got tougher than ever.
Uncle Ho had lost a lot of his MiGs
but he rewarded us with barrages of SAMs.
[narrator] North Vietnam deployed the first Surface to Air Missiles,
or SAMs, in 1965.
[Hankins] If you're a pilot, it's terrifying.
Now you've got this telephone pole sized missile
flying right at you at way faster than the speed of sound.
And it can track you, it can follow you.
[man speaking over radio]
[Rasimus] Whether or not you got targeted
depended on something between luck and magic.
And they chased you down to kill you.
[men over radio] Oh man. Take it down, Take it down, baby. See the launch.
[Rasimus] The best defense was a last-second hard turn up
and into the missile's flight path,
forcing it to overshoot.
[man over radio] Oh, they're big mother--!
[narrator] Fail to spot the missile, and you lose your plane,
and maybe your life.
[man over radio] It we'd gone down, we would've run right into him.
[narrator] The missile threat devastates the pilots' hopes
of surviving 100 missions.
The air force responds with a fleet of aircraft
equipped to destroy North Vietnam's SAMs,
dubbed Wild Weasels.
[Rasimus] I like the idea of viscous carnivores
attacking the enemy that was trying to kill me.
[narrator] Wild Weasels have a second seat
for an electronic warfare officer.
They fly ahead of the strike force.
[Hankins] The basic concept of the Wild Weasels
is you're going to serve as bait.
You're gonna go up there.
You're gonna get an enemy radar to lock onto you.
[man speaking over radio] We're in the main beam.
[Hankins] And you will then fire a missile
that is specifically designed
to track those radar signals
down to their source and take out that radar.
The first time this mission was briefed, one of those officers says,
"So, sir, you want me to go get a SAM to lock on to me and get shot at?
You've gotta be shitting me."
And that phrase was turned into an abbreviation,
YGBSM, which is now the official motto
of the Wild Weasels to this day.
[man shouting over radio]
[narrator] The first Weasels are slaughtered.
Five are shot down within weeks of arriving in Vietnam.
But one crew seems unstoppable
on its path to 100 missions.
Stan Goldstein
and pilot John Revak.
[Goldstein] John and I were both New Yorkers,
we were happy to drink and fly.
It was my first marriage.
[narrator] Goldstein and Revak managed to fly 99 missions
over North Vietnam together,
completely unscathed.
Wild Weasel pilots have over 50 percent loss rate.
A combination of high losses
with just the realities of staffing,
most of those duos don't fly together every single mission.
[narrator] The pair are a flight away from 100
when stunning news arrives from President Lyndon Johnson.
I have now ordered
that all air, naval, and artillery bombardment
of North Vietnam cease.
[narrator] Washington's bombing pauses are an attempt
to test North Vietnam's desire to negotiate.
For the pilots, the pause means missions no longer count.
Instead of one more combat flight,
Goldstein and Revak settle in for six more months.
[Goldstein] We were becoming rather infamous
for possessing 99 missions.
John and I wonder
what we can do to change our luck.
[narrator] It takes the misfortune of another air crew.
25 days after the bombing halt,
the two are over Laos
when word comes of a downed plane across the border,
in North Vietnam.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] A reconnaissance flight has gone bad.
The Weasel pair gets the go ahead
to cross into enemy territory to protect the rescue.
[man speaking over radio]
[Goldstein] Unfortunately, the downed pilots
land close to a North Vietnamese
army jungle encampment.
[narrator] The rescue fails.
Goldstein and Revak return to Korat with mixed emotions.
They're frightened for the downed pilots,
but they finally completed their 100th mission
into North Vietnam.
[Goldstein] We smoke back to Korat.
John agrees to give me the stick
and let me make the flyby from the back-seat.
Climbing down is like descending from a heavenly experience.
[Hankins] 100 missions is one of the most
celebratory moments in a fighter pilot's tour.
You're going to be greeted with the entire rest of your squadron.
There's gonna be champagne on the flight line,
maybe some flares being lit up.
[Goldstein] I could not have felt better
than Caesar riding his chariot.
We were greeted with cheers, water hoses
and ignited smoke canisters,
and then we were carried to the pool.
John and I rang the bell,
signifying we would buy the bar.
100 Missions, like most things in fighter pilot culture,
it is both very serious and also very goofy.
[narrator] Goldstein and Revak don dry flight suits
with a new patch.
The first 100 mission celebration at Korat
in 25 days goes on all night,
while others wonder if they'll survive for a party of their own.
[narrator] The Vietnam War drags on.
The bombing pauses don't rev up peace talks.
Instead, the North beefs up its defenses,
and Rolling Thunder resumes,
with even larger strike forces.
These formations could be dozens,
maybe up to or over 100 planes.
Most of those aircraft are not putting bombs on target.
It just takes that many more aircraft to try to protect
that core group at the middle.
And even that doesn't always work.
[narrator] Ground crews work tirelessly through the night
to turn the planes around quickly.
[Rasimus] Preflight and taxi
were in the morning twilight.
These guys worked hard in horrendous heat and humidity
to give us safe, mission-ready airplanes.
[narrator] Ed Rasimus now has 80 missions behind him,
and his fears have given way
to a fire in the belly.
[Rasimus] I seldom felt a fear anymore.
Running along the treetops at 540 knots
loaded with high explosive iron
may be the most exciting thing a man can do with his pants on.
[Olds] Flying is not just a job, it's a love affair.
You don't climb into an aircraft and sit down.
You strap the machine to your butt,
become one with it.
[narrator] After more than six months,
Robin Olds has kept his mission count a secret.
[Olds] We were busier than hell.
Damned if I was going to record one hundred
before I was ordered home.
I kept the number hovering in the high 80s and low 90s.
[narrator] In the late spring of 1967,
the path to 100 missions once again becomes very steep.
North Vietnam has replenished its MiG-21s,
and expanded it's network of guns.
F-105 pilots can now expect to bail out twice
before they even reach mission 70.
[Waldrop] It really got serious.
Sometimes the flak would be so heavy,
you'd think you could walk on it.
We were losing a lot of guys.
[narrator] David Waldrop starts his tour
as a 90 day temporary replacement.
But Korat is desperate for new pilots,
and he volunteers to stay despite the danger.
[Waldrop] I wanted to get my 100 missions.
I wanted to be able to put on my flight suit,
that patch with 100 missions in the F-105.
[narrator] Waldrop's got more than 45 missions behind him
when he joins a large strike force
sent to destroy a railroad yard near Hanoi.
[Waldrop] A concrete floor
wouldn't be as hard as my stomach.
And your mouth is like cotton.
You know what you're up against.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] Protecting the strike from MiGs are F-4s,
led by Robin Olds.
[Olds] About 60 miles northwest of our target,
Big Eye called, "Bandits! Bandits!"
[man speaking over radio] Bandits, Bandits!
Northwest at 60, heading 3-6-zero.
[Waldrop] The force commander was saying,
"Robin, you gotta get those guys."
[man speaking over radio]
[Waldrop] And we were looking. We were doing the best we can.
And sure enough these MiG-21s come in, one point two mach,
right out of the sun.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] The MiGs use the sun and clouds as cover.
[Olds] Suddenly, two MiG-21s came screaming in
supersonic at six o'clock and knocked my guys down.
[man speaking over radio] May day, mayday, mayday. Get out. Get out!
[narrator] Two Phantoms are destroyed.
Three of the four pilots manage to eject.
[man over radio] I got three chutes. I got three chutes.
[narrator] With rescue impossible over such a hostile area,
Waldrop and the strike force continue.
[Waldrop] I dropped the bombs and I'm smoking along.
I'm in the process of turning hard north,
and I look up and I see this F-105 just going straight and level.
There's two MiG-17s no more than 1500 feet behind.
[man over radio] Two MiG-17s have just gone over the target.
[narrator] Thinking fast,
Waldrop dives and turns sharply
to catch the trailing MiG.
[Waldrop] So I was pulling about eight and a half Gs
to stay behind these guys.
I closed on the guy going about 1000 miles an hour
almost 500 feet off the ground.
[narrator] Waldrop sees his gun round strike the MiG.
He pulls up to get another surprise.
[Waldrop] And all of a sudden,
out of this broken layer of clouds,
here comes this MiG-17.
[narrator] It's a third MiG.
[Waldrop] How did this happen?
I just pulled the nose down and I rolled out.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] Once again, Waldrop unleashes the gun
in the F-105s nose.
[man speaking over radio]
[Waldrop] The first bullets went right through the cockpit.
[narrator] This time, Robin Olds is watching.
[Olds] It looked like a shark chasing a minnow.
He was scoring numerous hits on the MiG.
I breached radio discipline and shouted,
"Go get 'em, Thud!"
God, it was a thrilling sight.
[narrator] Both pilots see the MiG crash.
[man over radio] He's down! He went down!
[narrator] And then hightail it back to their bases.
[Olds] When I got home I jumped on the phone and called Korat.
"I wanna confirm some great goddamn son of a bitch's kill today!"
[narrator] At 45 years old, and a full colonel,
Olds enjoys mentoring lieutenants like Waldrop.
He also takes a liking to Karl Richter.
[Olds] Pilots from other wings
often dropped over for social times at the O club.
One of my favorites was a kid named Lieutenant Karl Richter.
Karl and I were great pals.
[narrator] Like his mentor, Richter's a bit of a maverick.
He also does not want to leave combat.
[Richter] People are only
starting to do effective work
after 70 or 80 missions.
At 100, you're really getting your stride.
[narrator] Richter puts in for a second tour.
[Rasimus] Richter had made up his mind that he would become the first
to reach an almost magical 200 missions.
Until he got the word that his extension was going through,
he was fudging his flight records.
[narrator] When a Sortie takes Richter over North Vietnam
he logs it as a mission over Laos
to keep his count below 100.
[Rasimus] He was hooked on the rush.
We knew instinctively that it wasn't a good thing.
[narrator] Since he arrived,
Richter's wing has lost 36 F-105s.
As many planes as it started with.
More than half the pilots have failed to complete their tours,
with many killed or captured.
Richter gets his wish for an extension.
But he'll need more than flying skill
to survive another 100 missions.
[narrator] By the summer of 1967,
Karl Richter has become one of few
to rack up 197 combat flights
into North Vietnam.
For his 198th,
he's leading a new arrival
on a low risk initiation flight.
He spots a target and dives in.
But a lucky shot knocks out his controls.
The ejection breaks both of Richter's legs.
He manages to open his chute, but lands hard
and suffers more injuries.
[man speaking over radio]
[Rasimus] An intense rescue effort
snatched Karl out of the jungle,
but shock and loss of blood were too severe,
and Karl expired in the chopper.
[narrator] Karl Richter is just 24 years old.
As Ed Rasimus approaches his 100th mission
the fate of his buddy is on his mind,
and fears creep back in.
[Rasimus] The worst parts of the tour
were the first ten and the last ten.
Stories of guys getting shot down
with mission counts in the high 90s
raised lots of superstitions.
No one was going to get a new flying suit.
If you wore red socks, you kept doing it.
[narrator] Rasimus and two others
get orders for their 100th mission.
They'll fly it together,
going in ahead of a strike force
to take out a SAM site.
One of the most dangerous missions of the war.
[Rasimus] We didn't want to wait any longer
to get our 100th mission,
but we weren't sure if being up at the pointy end of the spear
for as long as required on a Weasel mission
was a really good idea either.
[narrator] Over North Vietnam, an F-105 is hit.
The pilot ejects.
Rasimus circles above to keep watch for ground fire,
as the rescue team snatches the pilot from the jungle.
But now, Rasimus is running out of fuel.
The slightest mistake, and he won't make it.
[Rasimus] There's no go around, there can be no overshoot.
I can't screw it up.
[man speaking over radio]
[narrator] The celebration for all three starts immediately.
[cars honking]
[Rasimus] Guys from the squadron
and the intel shop and maintenance
are in the back of the various trucks.
Some are waving orange smoke flairs.
[men cheering]
[Rasimus] We reach down and pull the handle
to extend our refueling probes.
We give the world the finger.
[narrator] Rasimus dons a fresh new flight suit
before he even leaves the tarmac.
[Rasimus] On the left shoulder,
incredibly, there's that shield.
The 100 mission patch is mine.
Some pilots talk about just seeing the patch
when they got it for the first time
moved them to tears.
[Rasimus] My face hurts from smiling
and laughing so much.
The three of us are giddy.
For the first time in six months
we're certain that we will live through tomorrow.
[narrator] MiG killer David Waldrop
returns safely from his final mission
in December, 1967.
[Waldrop] I felt very proud
of having flown that airplane to its maximum,
having taken good care of it, never abused it.
[narrator] Waldrop's name joins every 100 mission flyer in his squadron
on the unit's celebratory scarf.
[Waldrop] To have completed that tour
and gotten out of it intact, of course, is a relief.
I had done my part.
[men cheering]
[narrator] Robin Olds ends his tour
in September, 1967.
As he intended, he has served a full year.
[Olds] The guys surprised me by carrying me to the club
and up the front steps.
It's a good thing there was a lot of shouting going on,
because I couldn't stop the tears running down my face.
[Hankins] Olds really reinvigorates this unit
and pushes them to take the fight to the enemy
in ways that they hadn't been doing before.
[narrator] His mustache lives on as well.
[Hankins] The month of March in the Air Force
is Mustache March.
It's a place where most officers and enlisted folks
will grow out their mustaches in honor of Robin Olds.
[narrator] As he leaves Thailand,
the originator of the Bulletproof Mustache
finally reveals his mission tally.
He flew over North Vietnam 105 times.
Escaping uninjured,
and never losing an aircraft.
Along the way, he exemplified the boldness
and bravery that helped so many others survive
to 100 missions.