“It was not uncommon to have green marks from the trees on our wings after this type of mission.”
Rick O’Connor was just 23 years old when he was sent to Vietnam in 1968 to fly F-4 Phantoms. Assigned to the attack squadron VMFA-334 (known as “The Falcons”), he flew dozens of missions a month well into 1969. His callsign was “Joker.” O’Connor survived the war, returned home and raised a family, but he never forgot his wartime experiences.
In recent years, the aging O’Connor embarked on a quest to record and share what he and his comrades from the squadron lived through. The result of his efforts is the book Phantom Phury: A Marine F-4J Phantom Squadron During the Viet Nam War. Sadly, O’Connor died in August of 2026, but his book hits the shelves this week.
Through a special arrangement with the editor of Phantom Phury, Ranee A. Spina, MHN is pleased to publish this abridged excerpt about one of O’Connor’s first sorties in Vietnam: a harrowing close-air-support mission flown on Sept. 11, 1968.
By Rick O’Connor
THERE was a force of North Vietnamese about to overrun a Marine unit near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ, Border between North and South Vietnam), which was usually hot. As we finished our briefing from the FAC (forward air controller), an FAC/airborne informed us the enemy was only 30 meters from our Marines.
When you are diving at the ground at 500 mph and dropping ordnance 100 feet off the ground, things are going by fast. In addition, 500-pound bombs cause a lot of damage over a large area (more than 30 meters) when they hit. What was unsafe in training was now necessary if it saved lives on our side.
The first challenge we had was to drop our ordnance on the enemy without hitting the Marine unit that was under attack. The second challenge was the trees. The trees in this area run 50 to 60 feet tall and make it extremely hard to see anything. The third challenge was the weather. A thunderstorm was moving in over the target as we approached. It had closed in on two sides approximately 1,000 feet above the target, which effectively left one approach for our attack runs—and everybody knew it.
To better understand the challenges, you need to know a little more about an F-4. When you pull off a target of this type, you usually pull up and then turn to get out of the way of your own bombs and away from enemy fire.
This pull-up usually goes up to approximately 3,000 feet, where you turn and run a racetrack-shaped pattern to return for another run. Dropping this close to the friendly unit requires you to release no more than two bombs at a time and make multiple runs.
The cloud cover on this mission was at 1,000 to 1,500 feet, which meant if we pulled up normally to 3,000 feet, we’d pull into the clouds and probably would not be able to find the target again. The solution was to pull level after the run and immediately make a 90-degree banked turn. When you are going 500 mph, 100 feet feels like you are touching the ground, especially since the trees are tall enough to meet your wing tip. It was not uncommon to have green marks from the trees on our wings after this type of mission.
Flying an F-4J is a two-man job. The pilot flew in the front seat, and the RIO (radar intercept officer) was in the rear seat watching instruments closely—verifying altitude, airspeed, and location. To my dismay, my RIO, Jerry, was having radio trouble, and as we approached the target, I became aware that he was unable to talk to me or anyone else. I would now have to do both jobs and a lot of praying in my spare time.
The reason we were rushed to this target was then laid out for us. The North Vietnamese unit had four .50-caliber machine guns. Most aircraft shot down in Vietnam were shot down by .50-caliber machine guns—not SAMs, not other aircraft, but .50-calibers. This specific problem was enhanced by the fact that we were flying in a box created by the weather, with only one approach. This made it easy for the NVA to set up their machine guns aimed directly at incoming aircraft.
It was time. As we came in, the FAC shot a smoke rocket at the target, to get us aimed in the right direction. Apparently, the enemy was not sure the crews in the F-4s could see them, so they just laid low.
The lead rolled in and dropped his first two bombs; then all hell broke loose. The NVA realized we knew where they were and started shooting. I dropped two 500-pound bombs and pulled hard left. It felt as if I was in the trees and my wingtip would turn green from the leaves. The North Vietnamese had a large unit, and they were taking casualties.
We had to do it again. The weather was getting worse, making it harder to stay below an already low ceiling. Lead rolled in toward the target. The machine guns were shooting tracers, which helped them aim. The storm was moving in, and from my vantage point, it appeared lead was a streak in the clouds going toward a long line of glowing red.
Then it was our turn again. Jerry and I rolled in toward the target. As I lined up and rolled level, the world came back. They aimed their remaining three machine guns and opened fire. As we drove in, I was trying to remind myself that if I released my ordnance too soon, it would have no effect. If I was off by only a few meters in either direction, the wrong people would die.
When they opened fire, it turned red in front of me. The tracers were going past my canopy within inches of my head, close enough to touch if I just raised my hand. I looked down the line of tracers and realized where the machine guns were at the end of the line of red. So, I set my sight on the base of the line as my target and continued until I could hand them the bombs.
They were good enough to keep up the fire, so I never lost sight of my target. The ground was getting closer; the machine guns knew their target was right in front of them. He who flinched first, lost. Hand them the bombs, pull level, roll 90 degrees to the left, pull hard, and keep breathing.
Somehow, it worked. We lived; most of the NVA did not. Suddenly, the FAC came up on the radio: “Hold high and dry, I see white flags from the bad guys.”
The few that were alive surrendered to our ground unit. It turned out we were the first air flight to ever get credit for taking POWs!
Rick O’Connor is the author of Phantom Phury: A Marine F-4J Phantom Squadron During the Viet Nam War. The book is available to buy on Nov. 10, 2026.