Customer Reviews

Bury Us Upside Down: The Misty Pilots and the Secret Battle for the Ho Chi Minh Trail

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
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After 27 years and 6,000 hours of flying fighters for the USAF.USN, USAFR and the Kansas ANG and 110 missions over Viet Nam, I have been there and done all that. But, I could not put the book done until I finished it. Extremely well written and documented. Tells the story from the Jock's point of view and from the sad life of all those left behind to wait. Brought me tears and laughter. You will love it very much. This really is a 10 star story!
Ronald K. Williams, Fighter pilot, Colonel USAFR

"Bury Us Upside Down" came as a real surprise. Although I am of the Vietnam era, I am not a Vietnam veteran. (I lucked into No. 366 in the draft lottery and, frankly, was relieved that I wouldn't have to go.) Nor am I an avid reader of military histories of the war. But this book grabbed me from the start and wouldn't let me put it down. The story of "The Misty Pilots and the Secret Battle for the Ho Chi Minh Trail" is compelling on its face and not well known to the general reader. Here it gets a taut telling in tightly constructed, thoroughly researched chapters packed with detail and drama. The accounts of the Misty pilots' attempts, successful and otherwise, to rescue downed aviators are especially gripping and, I'm not ashamed to say, made me proud to be an American. It's amazing to think that fully one-fourth of the Misty pilots were either shot down, captured, or killed. The risks they took were stunning. We may now associate American air superiority with precision-guided weapons that allow our forces to dominate from a great distance, but this flying was up close and personal. One author of "Bury Us Upside Down" is a seasoned magazine writer, and the other is a former Misty who became an Air Force general and now is a TV commentator. It's a winning combination. They give the Misty pilots, incredibly skilled aviators and men of unquestioned courage, their due without glossing over their human foibles and occasional lapses in judgment. The Misty pilots come alive as men in these pages, and you get to feel you know them. The authors also provide a pilot's view of the war that is often a portrait in frustration and a case study of the limits of air power. The unremitting flow of men and materiel down the Ho Chi Minh Trail is awesome in its own way. Finally, the authors round out the story by showing the effects of the war on Misty families on the home front, both during the war and after. I saw an otherwise glowing review of "Bury Us Upside Down" in the Wall Street Journal that criticized this aspect of the book, but it couldn't have been more wrong. That kind of storytelling is what makes "Bury Us Upside Down" more than just a military history. It's truly a slice of American history and will richly reward even the reader who comes to it unawares, as I did.

In 1967 I got my F100 "dollar ride" at Cannon AFB in New Mexico. I was an Air Force Academy cadet who only knew about the Misty pilots through the USAF grapevine and references to "fast FAC" programs. Those F100 fast FAC pilots and the POWs, like Lance Sijan (read "into the Mouth of the Cat: The Story of Lance Sijan, Hero of Vietnam"), were real heros to us. Cadets who were my upperclassmen knew many of the pilots. Their brothers, cousins and friends were in my squadron. All of us lived the Vietnam war every day.

This book is a fantastic story and well structured around the story of Howard K. Williams. His experiences as a Misty pilot are a foil for the telling of the history of the entire program. Not just the Misty program but the entire nightmare of the MIA experience for the families of all those missing is covered in this book. The POW experience in Hanoi, Laos (short and deadly) and south Vietnam is well covered and tied into the Misty program.

Misty was a finished program by the time I graduated and went on active duty but Vietnam was not. I worked the Igloo White program, the instrumentation of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Misty pilots did not have a lot of use for the "pinball wizards" at NKP/TFA. That is another story but one that will one day be told. We worked closely with the successors to Misty. All of us in Southeast Asia came away with different views of the "elephant" that was the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The one thing upon which we could all agree was that the Washington politics over shadowed the technology, the bravery and the efforts put in by those "on the ground" to make an attempt to win a politically un-winnable war. Let's hope that after three years Iraq doesn't end up this way.

I am a good friend of Don Shepperd, but that didn't bias my review in the least. I read his first book.."Misty," and was absolutely mesmorized by the stories and the familiar names. After all, I flew the Hun also, out of Tuy Hoa in 1970 as the Mysty's were ending their glorious life.Many of them still guided us into the same dumb locations in Laos, but it wasn't the same.
This second book shows a lot more polish and skill as one would expect, after having done one before. Give credit to Rick Newman here. The rough edges have definitely been honed smooth.Together these two men, and all their helpers did one fine job of sewing a piece of time with all the players together.Not easy by a long shot.
Some of the stories are the same as before, but too good to leave out. Those are precious. So are the heartbreaks. That's what makes this book such a wonderful read. You can feel the emotion, whether you are the fighter jock, or the wife thousands
of miles away.
Some might say I'm biased because I did fly the F-100 in combat,and have known "Shep" for about 30 years now, and also know many of the people in the book. I say..."what's that got to do with it?" My opinion is the story is very real, and very
well written, told better than most of us would like to believe.
It's reality, it happened, funny at times, tragic at others. So is life. Damn good read. Don't pass on this one.

Tony Bulat,LTC,USAF(Ret)

This is a superb book about brave aviators who flew one of the most dangerous missions of the Viet Nam War, and their families who agonized when their loved ones were killed or went missing. The F-100F pilots who performed as Fast Forward Air Controllers (FACs) along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in northern South Viet Nam and Route Package 1 in southern North Viet Nam made Misty FACs into combat aviation lore which has been largely ignored until this book. While the stories of Medal of Honor winners Lance Sijan in "Into the Mouth of the Cat" and Bud Day in "Return With Honor" give tantalizing glimpses, this book tells the complete and compelling story in comprehensive detail. From 1967 through 1970 there were 157 Misty pilots; 34 were shot down-two of them twice, three were captured and imprisoned in Hanoi and seven were listed as Missing In Action (MIA), later to be declared Killed In Action (KIA). Only those of us who flew over the Ho Chi Minh Trail can completely appreciate how brave and resolute these men where as they controlled mostly F-4 and F-105 fighter/bomber strikes against truck parks, antiaircraft batteries and other targets on and along the trail, but this book goes a long ways toward giving the reader the full picture. Author Shepperd, who retired as a Major General, was one of the Misty pilots and his narrative is fast paced, authentic and exceptionally entertaining reading. The authors also delve deeply into the horrors visited on the families of those missing and dead, as they battle an often intransigent US Air Force and bureaucratic officials. The uncertain fate of shot down or missing pilots in one of the most inhospitable areas on earth led to long and often unsuccessful searches, occasional violent rescue missions and interminable waits for the families. The struggles of the wives to find the truth makes for some of the best, yet disturbing, reading as over time the US government provides the answers to most of their questions, but not all. The reader will be left, as are some of the families, to wonder. This is a wonderful book written by one who was there, and it is highly recommended for anyone who has any interest in combat aviation and the war in Viet Nam.

You know how you hear a word for the first time and then for the next week it seems everyone is using it? I had never heard of the "Misty" pilots until last year when I was taking a lunch break with some fellow volunteers at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson. All of a sudden at the end of the table I heard one of the guys say..."You were a Misty?..You were at Phu Cat??"...It turns out that one of the F-100 drivers from that era had recently become a volunteer. The guy asking the questions had been a part of the flight line crew there. It wasn't long before we were listening to very interesting war stories about a part of the air war in Viet Nam that most of us know little about.

That no longer needs to be the case as Rick Newman and Don Sheppard have written a very interesting account of this band of brothers who took on the mission of fast forward air controllers.
Normal air controllers during that war flew slow propeller driven aircraft that marked targets with smoke rockets and then called in the fighter-bombers.

To get a better view of the enemy, the F-100's (the first USAF plane capable of exceeding the sound barrier in level flight) would go down "in the weeds" looking for targets. They flew long and dangerous missions and kind of became a law unto themnselves as to how they did thier jobs. It was dangerous business. In the three years the unit was active 157 pilots flew there and 34 of them were shot down. Not all lived to fight another day.

Bury Us Upside Down tells the story of those who flew and those who supported them both at Phu Cat and back home and it does it in a way that makes the book very readable. The frustrations of the way the war was waged from Washington is well told and one comes away from the story with great admiration for those that willingly stepped into the fray and tried to do their duty while the politicians took charge of the war and made it unwinnable.

I agree with those that have lamented the chapters concerning what went on back home with the wives and families. They are predictable and add little to the story.

When the story turns to the pilots it is good stuff and while you will find the Misty pilots to be something else, the guys that flew the Jolly Greens (rescue helicopters) and Sandys (Douglas Sky Raiders)are quite a breed as well. Some of the rescue stories are absolutely rivieting.

This will go down as one of the greatest books of airpower in Vietnam but it is so much more. General Shepherd was a LTC at the 162nd when Steve Hepburn and I went through the ground portion of Fighter Weapons School at Tucson and probably signed the paperwork allowing us to fly in the backseat of F-100s. I flew with Bob Cassaro on an air-to-air mission who was Misty 83 during the war. I met him again when I traveled with the CHECKMATE group to give a road show briefing during a drill weekend at the unit in Tucson. His attention to detail during the aviation portion combined with the human side of both the crews, support staff and their families put this book in a class of it's own and above most books about the Vietnam War. It is a testament to exceptional note taking at the time and research later. Being further South at Portcall, we seldom worked Misty FAC's because they always went North to Route Pack 1 but we did send them a lot of the fighters that they used to try to slow the traffic coming down the trail. If you want to know about a really heroic effort during the War this is the book for you. The authors detail the rescue efforts numerous efforts to save not only their own, but others such as Lance Sijan. It was Misty's that were with Sijan when he passed as a POW still fighting with his last ounce of energy. The book also addresses the loss of General Bob Worley in the RF4C. For many years I had a tape given to me by Jim Beemer that was made at Waterboy when the Misty's inspected the crippled Strobe and made repeated calls to Worley to exit the airplane before it impacted near the beach. At over 600 pages it is a long book but I never found it boring, tedious, nor so out of touch with non-aviator that one lost interest. In fact, just the opposite...I hated to see it end. This is the best book on airpower I've read in a very long time and strongly recommend it to both those that want to learn for the first time as well as those that want to remember the days of heroes.

If anyone had told me that this book would be as interesting as it turned out to be, I wouldn't have believed it. After all, the Vietnam War was something of a low point in American history, what with its poor political leadership, its anti-war demonstrators, too many brave men killed, a disappointing ending, and still more brave men scorned. This is not something most Americans, particularly conservatives, would look forward to reading about. But this book surprised me.

In the main, it details the heroic actions of a small cadre of pilots in a top-secret organization in Vietnam in the 1960s. Code named "Commando Sabre," the unit was better known by the call sign of its first commander, "Misty." Misty's task was to impede the flow of arms, supplies, men, and munitions which were moving down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North to South Vietnam. To do so, it was necessary to fly Forward Air Control (FAC) missions at low altitudes and jet speed up and down the 450 mile long trail, all the while scanning the jungle for hidden targets of opportunity. When one was found, it was generally well camouflaged and protected by hidden Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) batteries. The Misty airmen's task then became one of calling-in fighter bombers to destroy the target while flying at higher altitudes. Before doing so, however, the Misty pilots had to fly back over the area at a low altitude and mark the concealed target using smoke producing rockets. The work was tedious and extremely dangerous. So, all Misty pilots were volunteers and their tours of duty were limited to only four months or 60 missions, although some volunteered to stay longer (one up to 107 sorties).

But the book tells more than just the saga of Misty. It is set in a much broader context and almost tells the story of the entire Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of those who fought it in the air and those they left behind - sometimes forever. It begins with the "remains" of one Misty flyer, a tooth and a bone fragment, being ceremoniously buried in Arlington National Cemetery twenty some years after he was shot down in Vietnam. Then it flashes back to the beginning and tells us his story and that of many others who served with him, or who also served with Misty. Some of those also didn't return. Along the way, it lets us know what the women and children who were left behind were doing and thinking, and how they felt -- particularly when their men also went Missing In Action (MIA). It also gives us a glimpse of what it was like to be captured and tortured and try to survive in the Hanoi Hilton. In the end, the book returns to its beginning, with the recovery of one flyers "remains" which wouldn't fill a coffee cup, a small bone fragment and one tooth.

This is an outstanding book about some truly great Americans. It will help you better understand those who fought our past wars and may give you a little better insight into what we as a nation are up against in today's world and the kind of men and women who are fighting our battles for us. Best of all, it's so well written that you won't be able to put it down.

A gritty, well-told story of the "Misty" pilots who flew low and fast, trolling for North Vietnamese gunfire so they could locate the trucks, fuel dumps, and other targets being defended by those gunners. Of 157 pilots who flew for the Mistys, 34 were shot down, a couple of them more than once. At least three became PWs, with the suffering that entailed, and one of them died of torture and starvation. Others simply vanished. (The lucky ones were snatched to safety in rescues that were often more exciting and costly than the Misty flights themselves.) One of the authors is a professional writer, the other is a Misty veteran, which accounts for the excellence and the immediacy of the story. Unlike some others who've posted here, I was put off by the too-many chapters devoted to the tribulations of the wives and children at home; the book would be better had this been halved or omitted altogether. -- Dan Ford at the Warbird's Forum

My congratulations to Don Shepperd and Rick Newman for telling so vividly the story of the Misty Foward Air Controllers. Having flown 180 combat missions over the same territory as did the Mistys, I can testify that these stories ring true. I would especially recommend the story of Medal of Honor recipient Bud Day. Anyone interested in combat flying in its most challenging dimensions should read this book and pass it on to others.