Source: City of Broken Arrow
Maj. John E. “Jack” O’Connor, retired, says he’s not a hero, but his counterparts at the Military History Center disagree. He’s the guy everyone there says you need to talk to when you want to talk war stories with someone who’s been there.
O’Connor, 87, remembers every mission with meticulous detail. He laughs when he talks about teaching a Captain and a Second Lieutenant how to drink and gets teary-eyed, remembering the guys he couldn’t save during the war.
The Vietnam Veteran joined the Air Force in 1954 and served 24 years in the military as a Flight Navigator. He recalled an early morning mission out of U Tapao Air Force Base in southern Thailand on March 6, 1974, that was shrouded in mystery.
His crew was instructed to bring their Class A uniforms with full ribbons and aircrew wings worn for special occasions “like for the surrender of an airbase to the enemy,” he says.
The mission’s mystery deepened as O’Connor learned that a brigadier general listed as a passenger was boarding the flight. After topping off their fuel in Saigon, O’Connor and the others realized they would be going to Hanoi to retrieve the bodies of the first Americans who died in captivity.
Before this mission, O’Connor had experience flying into Hanoi and knew the ground stations around the area had a reputation for getting American airplanes lost. He instructed the pilots and flight crew to ignore the direction from the ground and directed the plane’s landing solely by his radar navigation and visual acuity.
“Approach Control tried their best to fool us and threatened to have us shot down!” he said. “We told them we were still coming and hoped they were bluffing about the shoot-down part.”
The Mission Commander instructed the flight crew to follow O’Connor’s instructions to land the plane based on his experience, radar proficiency, and ability to visualize landmarks. They all breathed a sigh of relief when they landed without incident, but that was the beginning of the story.
O’Conner went on to discuss the shock and outrage he felt when he saw his 12 murdered comrades in “two stacks of basic, sage green wooden boxes, which measured roughly 30 inches by 18 inches by 18 inches.”
A plain rock accompanied each box with the name of the victim and the date of death written on it in white paint. The Americans set up an honor guard in their Class A uniforms in front of the small green boxes.
“The Vietnamese just couldn’t understand it,” O’Connor said. “After two and a half hours in the heat, the Vietnamese had a 10-minute ceremony at the aircraft to release the remains to us.”
When the Vietnamese came forward to help load the aircraft, the Americans refused.
“We stood shoulder to shoulder and said, ‘No, you don’t,” O’Connor said. The crewmen refused to allow the Vietnamese to touch the green boxes carrying the American heroes again.
“Two of us carried the green boxes, and one of us carried the rock up the ramp of the C-130,” O’Connor said. “Inside the plane, we put those green boxes inside regular-sized coffins, secured them, and draped them with an American flag,” O’Connor recalled.
O’Connor has written a book retelling his experiences in the war, especially that day in March 1974 called They Touched Our Heroes for the Last Time Repatriation of Fallen POWs and Other Tales. Here is an excerpt from his book that is available at the Military History Center in Broken Arrow.
“At that juncture, we were given the OK to begin the process of boarding our silent passengers. The North Vietnamese soldiers immediately stepped forward to help us with the boarding. We also stepped forward and formed a cordon between the armed guards and our waiting passengers. We motioned with head and hand gestures that they should come no closer to our men. They stopped with a puzzled look but never tried to cross the line. Somehow, they understood that we were serious, and they never challenged us. We were flat certain, and they got the message: They had touched our heroes for the last time,” page 399.
President Richard Nixon commended the crewmen for a job well done. Many years later, O’Connor met one of the widows of the 12 men who were brought home that day.
“We both cried, holding each other,” he said.
Veterans Day, which commemorates veterans of all wars, is recognized on Nov. 11 of each year in the U.S. in honor of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 that signaled the end of World War I.
Leave a Reply