Customer Reviews

Flying Through Midnight: A Pilot's Dramatic Story of His Secret Missions Over Laos During the Vietnam War

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I guess I wasn't reading the same book as everyone else. I had seen the book and was really looking forward to reading it, when a friend mentioned that he was reading it and commented that the author was "a real whiner". He, too, is retired military so I value his opinion on such topics, but not enough to put me off another all-to-rare opportunity to get a glimpse of the "night war" carried on over Laos from Naknom Phanom (NKP). As a retired F-111 WSO and amateur historian, I have tremendous curiosity about (and respect for) how those who came before the `Vark coped with their night wars. And the reviews seemed great, comparing it to "Catch 22" and remarking about how great a movie Hollywood could make of it. SO, I borrowed my friend's book. He was right (on the bright side, Mr. Halliday escaped the war with his ego intact!). A far better book about the war from NKP was Richard Drury's "My Secret War". A far more enlightening book about flare ship operations is Frederick Nyc's "Blind Bat" (C-130s instead of C-123s, but essentially the same mission). I guess I wouldn't be so bothered by Midnight if he wove his story so that it agreed with known facts or had just cut to the chase and called it a novel. To me, it read like a bunch of "war stories" that get told around the bar after the consumption of lots of alcohol and tend to become more glorious after each retelling. Example 1 (p. 23): The night before his first mission (10 June 1970), the author reports seeing "an old janitor" stumbling around the O'Club peeing into the curtains. Turns out to be the (very upset) wing commander whose wingman was shot down and killed the day before in an A-1. I looked up this "loss" in Chris Hobson's "Vietnam Air Loses" catalog of US fixed wing losses in SEA to get more details. The most recent fatal A-1 loss from NKP had been on 21 March 1970 and the next one didn't occur until 7 October 1970. To clarify the claim (p. 24) that NKP lost an airplane "every week or so", in the year prior to the author's arrival they lost 36 aircraft (14 KIA) and during his tour they lost 14 aircraft (8 KIA). Example 2 (pp. 78-80): After explaining how the pilot of a flare ship basically drove the navigator using a Starlight scope around the sky so he could hunt for trucks, the author tells how one of the wing's senior leaders, whom he calls "Kaniver", called in numerous air strikes and claimed to have destroyed hundreds of trucks. When they finally replace Kaniver's plane on station, they discover lots of bomb craters, but no trucks. His conclusion is that this was Kaniver's fault and not the navigator with the Starlight scope-the only one who could actually see what was going on. Example 3 (Chapters 14-16): One night, they are panicked by the apparent attack of a MiG-17 fighter, that the author reports flies 600 mph, is armed with air-to-air missiles AND bombs! To make an excruciatingly long tale short, to escape the MiG they fly into a fog-enshrouded valley (complete with a dog leg!) based on the navigator's knowledge of the terrain (bad maps, you know) and stopwatch! PLEEZE--Spare me! First, IF any part of that happened, they were derelict in not knowing their opponent any better than to know that the MiG-17 had virtually no capability at night (certainly none that the reader is led to believe), and lucky beyond reason to have escaped their own breathtaking stupidity and bad judgment. Example 4 (Chapters 23-24): Another wild tale of "shooting down" an enemy helicopter by dropping tie-down chains on it. Two quick points: It is claimed that this helicopter had "two huge rotating blades" (p. 192). NO operational Russian helicopters had/have twin rotors (like the US H-46/H-47). It is claimed that after they brought it down, credit was given to an A-1 because no one wanted to admit a transport could score an aerial victory. All that hooey aside, no USAF A-1 ever scored a kill (either). Example 5: Chapter 26 relates the tale of good buddy Ralph, who was shot down while flying his O-2 with its lights on over Laos at night. The ONLY fatal loss of an NKP O-2 during the author's tour was on 12 December 1970. It apparently had a midair collision with a B-57G while both aircraft had their lights turned off. Both O-2 crewmembers (Capts Charles Griffin & Bruce Greene) apparently survived the collision, but their bodies were never recovered. Example 6: The description of the geography around of Lon Tieng (the book spells in Long Tien) in this book is outrageously exaggerated (why am I not surprised?). With descriptions of a "mile high karst wall at the end of the runway" (p. 29) and a "two thousand feet straight down" (p. 370) drop off at the other end, it's made to sound like (literally) landing in the Grand Canyon at night. There is a panoramic montage of photos of Lon Tieng in Christopher Robbins "The Ravens" that show those descriptions to be about an order of magnitude off. Lon Tieng was a legendarily "interesting" place to fly in and out of, but descriptions that sound like they're out of a science fiction movie don't help the author's credibility. Hey, look at the bright side. If Hollywood does make a movie of this fairy tale (watch it star George Clooney!), Mr. Halliday has saved the screenwriters a lot of the work they normally have to do to books like "Bat 21", "Air America", and let's face it, just about every other aviation war movie ever made, to make them inaccurate enough that the masses will be entertained. In short, this may be a whale of a tale, but it ain't history.

Having served in the same squadron at NKP as the author's, only a year earlier than his experience, I found this book almost laughable in it's exaggerations and inaccuracies. The Candlestick mission, by and large, was one of minimal hazards or risk, nothing of the "flying through flak" type of experience the author tries to make us believe he experienced. Furthermore, he begs for sympathy with his portrait of life at NKP being fraught with hardships and deprivation. In fact, for those of us who served "in country" in Vietnam, life at NKP was truly "country club living." The author also seems to believe that the key to good writing is good dialogue...the shame in that is that his dialogue is completely lacking in realism. There are very very few things in this book which jibed with my experience and I'm surprised that it made it into print.
This book comes across as a pathetic attempt by the author to portray himself as the "hero" he never was...and as an opportunity for him vent his bile over never making it beyond Lt. Col. in 26 years of service. Such mediocrity is clearly reflected in his writing "abilities"...one suspects that he probably displayed the same lack of integrity during his Air Force career that is so clearly shown in this book.

The review by "Raven" is dead on...it's a bit scarey to read the glowing reviews of this book, predominantly from those who never served in SEA and who obviously believe "JT's" fairy tale.
Having read hundreds of books on the Vietnam era, and having performed the identical mission that Halliday did...he'd get laughed out of any "Candlestick" reunion.

I spent 27 months in combat in Southeast Asia as a Forward Air Controller (FAC). Six months at a remote outpost in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, nine months as a Raven FAC at Long Tiene, Laos (ending in December 1969), and another tour as an RF-4 pilot at Udorn RTAFB from April 1972 to April 1973. I lived where John Halliday said he went.

Okay -- he's telling a story to get the reader somewhere. It is not a history. However, stories like this should be based on some degree of factuality. Halliday presents the reader with one set of BS after another. I gave up at page 102 with some 60 notes on things that were not. Then we get to Long Tiene, the focus of his book.

Halliday's description of Long Tiene, how he arrived there, what he saw there -- is all fantasy (I am being nice). I made four night landings at Long Tiene in a period of nine months I can guarantee that it is a scary proposition. However, everything that Halliday describes is made up from common stories (e.g., the bears, which were not Vang-Paos pets)and the Air America site book which described the runway (deliberately inaccurate). Everything he writes about Long Tiene -- Vang Pao, the people there, the communications facility, the CIA bar, the "keyhole" approach, the runway -- is not true.

I guess he has a point somewhere in all this. He lies repeatedly to make whatever that point is. People who were there when he says this happened agree with the above. His telling diminishes the people at Long Tiene -- CIA, Air Force, Air America, and the Hmong -- but also himself.

Do not buy this book.

This fella is a pretty good writer but the content of the book and especially his claims leave it with one star. The part about throwing a chain out back of the aircraft and bringing down a chopper was the least believable part. If it were to be found under "Fiction" I would gladly give it a couple more stars.

My unease with this book started from the very first page. I had just finished Tom Yarborough's excellent "Da Nang Diary", documenting his experiences as a special forces forward air controller in Vietnam, and was hungry for more on this topic. But "Flying Through Midnight" proved to be a very different book, and I plowed though it trying to ignore the red flags that kept popping up far too frequently.

Small inaccuracies like the rainy season starting rather than finishing in November, or the Thai waitress using the polite ending "krup" which is reserved for men (women say "ka") I put down to forgetfulness and lax editing. But anyone who writes about a vintage MiG 17 trying to destroy an unlit transport aircraft at night with air-to-air bombs has little idea of military aviation.

Numerous other small technical inaccuracies that one would not expect from a career pilot grate throughout the book. An example: the air cushion that forms under a low flying aircraft is called "ground effect" not "water effect". Its influence is felt at half a wingspan not half a wing chord length, and it's a well known effect taught to every trainee pilot, so Halliday's experienced copilot would not have been stunned by experiencing it for the first time so late in his career. Small inaccuracies for sure, but they accumulate throughout the book to increasingly test its veracity.

All the characters appear to be caricatures with such exaggerated traits that they are difficult to accept as real people. In particular, the inflexible rule-spouting copilot, who becomes worried about dumping government property overboard to lighten an aircraft in mortal danger, beggars belief. Nothing you can place a finger on, but the book's characters just don't read true.

The first two-thirds of the book is little more than a rant against an Air Force hierarchy that deliberately stifles even the slightest innovation. I would have thought that like most military organizations, this squadron would have adapted rapidly to wartime conditions, and welcomed suggestions from its combat pilots. The last third is an admittedly very well written account of an emergency landing that is reminiscent of the best writing of Richard Bach, including all of that author's mysticism. But even the good part of the book is marred by implausible characters and airstrip topography only Hollywood would normally have thought up (as pointed out by another reviewer).

So what to make of it all? There seems little doubt that Halliday is a retired airline captain who did fly C-123s over Laos. His detailed narrative of the difficulties he endured in getting his book published mentions real people, some well known, who helped him. So why is the book full of so many niggling, doubt-inducing entries? Perhaps, in his desperation to get published, the author adopted many of the edits suggested by literary rather than aviation people during the numerous re-writes he was forced to make to get the book published. Or perhaps, as other reviewers have suggested, this is a "faction" book, a Vietnam version of Catch-22 loosely based on the author's experiences, not intended to be an accurate autobiography.

Either way, the book disappoints.

For a first-class read about the work of an unorthodox forward air controller during the Vietnam war, I strongly recommend Tom Yarborough's "Dan Nang Diary" instead.

While I enjoyed the authors description of the spooky guys who met his plane after his night landing in Long Tieng, it never happened.

I worked/lived at Long Tieng from early 1970 until almost the end of the war in Laos. No C123 ever made a a night landing at Long Tieng in the 2 plus years that I was there. A query to others who lived there before me elicited no one who saw such a thing happen.

Buy this book as fiction.

After reading a favorable review of Flying Through Midnight I bought a copy and thoroughly enjoyed reading and rereading the vivid account of a fellow pilot's experience flying C-123's and the "Candlestick" mission over Laos during the Vietnam War. During the time that John Halliday was flying "Candlestick", I was flying "Alleycat", a C-130E that carried the Airborne Battlefield Combat Control Center(A B Triple C). Coincidentally, I was assigned the night time orbit that flew the Barrel Roll (Laos and the PDJ - Plain of Jars), and I can recall the steady and continuous illumination of flares as the "Candlesticks" flew their night time missions.

This is a novel about the Vietnam War, aviation, the C-123, the "Candlestick Mission", and of course the Air Force and careerism. It is not an accurate anthology of combat losses, correct call signs, and the vacillating intrigue of military and political decision making. It is a singular story of (forgive me) an old pilot's recollection of extraordinary events and extremely unique characters. This story is not meant to be criticized for authenticity. It should be understood as a memory carried in one man's soul more than 35 years after he left Southeast Asia.

For those of us who loved the music, the accompanying lyrics were a special addition to a personal recollection of the hit records we remember from our combat tour in 1971. John Halliday obviously cared deeply for the characters he developed in his book. The dialog was believable, and I felt I could pick many of them out of a crowd after reading about them.

I recommend this novel as a narrative that will make us reflect on a time long ago where world events and dear friends determined the course of our lives. A time when young pilots were designated Aircraft Commanders and they built their experience on missions flown with navigators and enlisted flight engineers and loadmasters that were wise beyond their years. It is satisfying to read John Halliday's book and realize that one of those young pilots flew airplanes for a lifetime, and became . . . . . . an old pilot.

JAMES P. HANNY, Colonel, USAF, Retired

"American Pie" Don Mclean, c.1971

So how did the name, "Miss American Pie," wind up on the nose of Halliday's plane the year BEFORE Don Mclean released the song? As if to explain this apparent inconsistency in the story, the weird mechanic character claims that "Miss American Pie" was the name of the plane that Buddy Holly died in. But Buddy Holly died in a ordinary, everyday, Type 35 Beechcraft Bonanza, NOT some WWII surplus C47. The Bonanza was a small civil aircraft that had NO name on its nose, only an N number on its tail. What can one say but... Hmmmmmm. Who knows? Maybe Don Mclean owes Halliday one heck of a royalty check?

Another important point: There are literally dozens of images, including aerial images, of the airport at Long Tieng (also spelled Long Chieng, Long Cheng, or Long Chen) in Laos avaliable on line. I've been a pilot for thirty years, and If I were going to brag about making an impossible night time approach and landing, I'd want EVERYONE to see where I put it down; charts, topos, photos, anything at all to demonstrate what I accomplished. Flying through Midnight doesn't offer us any images of the place. As a pilot I wanted to SEE for myself what Halliday was talking about. Turns out, he decided not to include those doccuments for a very good reason. I hereby invite everyone who read Flying Through Midnight to go have a look at some of those images on line. I challenge you to find the place that Halliday described in those pictures. You can't, because the only place Halliday's Long Tieng exists is in words, in Flying Through Midnight, and that place doesn't look anything like the real one. I'm sorry, but there it is. Flying Through Midnight is still a great story, but don't think you're reading history from 40 years ago, because it's loaded with things that never happened, and places that don't exist.

This book is virtually complete fiction. The author gives a hyper inflated description of his "heroic" deeds which is sickening to those of us who served in the same squadron at the same time he did. It's especially disturbing to see that some of his reader's actually buy his apocryphal meanderings. Very, very little of his descriptions of the hazards involved in the Candle Stick mission are true. What makes a person write a make believe tale of their own false heroism?

Potentially good story turned into a stupid book full of inaccuracies, wooden dialogue and unlikely events. A waste of time. A real editor would have helped.