Phantom in the Sky
A Marine's Back Seat View of the Vietnam War
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Phantom in the Sky is the story of a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in the back seat of the supersonic Phantom jet during the Vietnam War—a unique, tactical perspective of the “guy in back,” or GIB, absent from other published aviation accounts. During the time of Terry L. Thorsen’s service from 1966 to 1970, the RIO played an integral part in enemy aircraft interception and ordnance delivery. In Navy and Marine F-4 Phantom jets, the RIO was a second pair of eyes for the pilot, in charge of communications and navigation, and great to have during emergencies. Thorsen endured the tough Platoon Leaders Course at Quantico and barely earned a commission. He underwent aviation and intercept training while suffering airsickness issues—and still earned his wings. Thorsen joined the oldest and most decorated squadron in the Marine Corps, the VMFA-232 Red Devils in southern California, as it prepared for deployment to Vietnam. In combat, Thorsen felt angst when he saw the sky darken around him from anti-aircraft artillery explosions high above the Ho Chi Minh Trail. On his first close air support mission in support of ground troops (the majority of his Marine aviation missions), he witnessed tracers whiz by his canopy. On one harrowing sortie, he and his pilot purposely became the target to save an Army unit battling an enemy just a hundred feet away. On secret missions with secret weapons, they dove at anti-aircraft artillery muzzle flashes and flew as a low as fifty feet off the deck during close air support sorties, "scraping" the napalm off their plane. For one mission a friend survived a crash landing, but a training instructor vanished without a trace.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Thorsen, who joined the Marine Corps in 1966 to avoid being drafted into the Army "and possibly end up in the infantry," offers a straightforward, detailed Vietnam War memoir. He takes the reader through Marine Corps Boot Camp and Naval and Marine Corps aviation training and into an action-filled 1968 1969 tour of duty as a radar intercept officer flying in the back seat of Navy and Marine F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber jets. Despite having "airsickness issues" and questions about the war, Thorsen flew 123 missions. He describes dozens of them, many replete with dodging enemy antiaircraft artillery and other dicey experiences. Thorsen makes good use of his letters home, in which he expressed strong feelings about the war and his role in it. To wit: "I have flown almost every mission variety they have here.... And I hate that a year of my life has to be spent in this manner. But I do it for the sake of my country, which is to say, all Americans, and that includes my relatives." This solid reconstruction of a Marine aviator's training and Vietnam War experiences adds an F-4 back-seater's perspective to the expanding Vietnam War aviation memoir canon.
