The Brutal Reality of Flying the F-4 Phantom

Army aircraft play an essential role on today's battlefield in close support of our warfighters, but aircraft are, of course, vulnerable to enemy ground fire. Aircraft, of course, are vulnerable to enemy ground fire. To enemy ground fire. I was in the hospital for 6 months, he was in 13. so just that second and a half was like seven or eight months in the hospital so that's how close we came to not making it if there is a hell was that was 45 minutes of hell right there this and other stories on today's In Your Army Report show, you may be wondering how we recreate these missions in such detail and the answer is simple using the sponsor of this video, War Thunder, but instead of me Tell me about them, I'll let the star of this story tell them to you. himself F4 ghost pilot Carl parlor I've been on War Thunder for oh I don't know five or five and a half years straight uh every day I go into the game and I play it and I really enjoy it, I just don't I don't know how they do it, the graphics are amazing, I hate to say it, but I'm an arcade type of person.

I sit in front of the computer late at night after dinner and it makes me feel very good and that's how I live my youth. indirectly through War Thunder, so if you want to join Carl and 70 million other players in the most complete vehicle combat game ever created, use the link below and download War Thunder completely free. It's available on P PC, PlayStation and Xbox, and now all new players can do it. get a huge bonus pack using my link below, so don't wait, take command of over 25,200 tanks, planes, helicopters and ships for over 10 different nations and if you're lucky you might even end up fighting Carl yourself, use the link below and join us today thanks again to War Thunder and now enjoy it for as long as I can remember.

I always wanted to fly. I don't have any reason. I have no idea why I wanted to do that, but I wanted to fly. I obtained my pilot's title. license when I was 17, the interesting thing about that was I lived in Nashville County and you couldn't get your driver's license until you were 18, so my mom had to take me to the airport so I could fly and I couldn't. I drive a car but I could fly an airplane, but Carl was not satisfied with civilian airplanes, he wanted to go faster and feel the thrill of aerial combat.

He wanted to fly fighter planes and the only way to do that was to join the army, so he said okay, I'll join the army, but that was my dream: to always fly. The fighters with the United States recently entering the conflict in Vietnam meant that his timing would be perfect to join the fry and here he would be assigned to the plane of his dreams, the main fighter aircraft of the US military, the F4 Phantom. My first impression of the F4 was: wow, that's a big airplane. Can this thing really fly? And he had those two big J79s, uh, I think his 17 in the back generated 19,000 pounds of thrust. full blast and she could get up and go and um, it was a magnificent airplane and I was totally enthralled to be able to fly the airplane, the training was incredible, we had a good year and a half of training before we went into combat.

We had survival training, we had jungle training, we had sea survival, we had because I was in the back seat. I had the radar that I had to control, so we had six intensive radar courses, uh, training and then we had 6 months of

flying

in the F4. After about a year and a half of training, which was pretty intense, I was assigned to go to Vietnam to Cameron Bay and assigned to the 391st Tac Fighter Squadron, where I flew F4s in combat for the first time, luckily, thanks to Carl and the others. The new drivers weren't thrown directly at the Wolves, at least not yet.

The first missions were easy missions and, uh, we had a term that was troops in contact, but the first missions were IT trees in contact that would continue there. They were actually milk races, you know, knocking down some trees and just to make sure you had an idea of ​​what was going on, so the really heady missions, the really difficult ones, didn't happen until you had about five or six missions. . under your belt, where you felt like you knew the systems, you pretty much knew the local procedures, what they expected of you, and how to handle it now.

It is important to note here that when Carl was assigned to Vietnam during his first tour, there would not be the front seat pilot but the back seat in charge of radio radar and other duties, yes, the front seat and back seat configured in the F4 They were mainly the front seat that flew the planes, he had the control stick, although I had one in the back with throttles uh but he could he was the commander you know he was the last word he did what he did uh he flew the plane he uh was the one who had the weapons controls and all that my job mainly in the back The seat was to control the radar, work the radios, so I took as much load off him as possible so he could concentrate on

flying

the plane in combat, which required an incredible amount of intensity and concentration, and anything he could take off his shoulders did his job. much easier, which kept him alive and also kept me alive, so that's what I did in the back seat and I also looked around to make sure that, you know, if someone was shooting at us, I could see them. and several Sometimes I could see things coming towards us that the front seat wasn't aware of simply because he was focused here and I was looking over my uh 93 to make sure something didn't come and try to pinch us.

Carl began his tour, as expected, he was nervous, but soon realized that he was not yet in the thick of things and that he could feel comfortable as a fighter pilot. One of the first missions I had was uh, we, uh, I was in the back seat. and the first couple of missions are like you're not thrown straight into the Briar area, you go out and do some kind of tree breaking exercise or something and one mission was to go north. Vietnam and I were, you know it's going to be tough, so we went up to root pack one, which was the southern part of North Vietnam, and I was looking over my shoulder to see if there were Sam gut migs or something like none of that appeared so I looked down and there was an ov1 down there and he was doing a fact job and very low and I said it can't be that bad because this guy is down there and in the brush and I'm up here in this fighter flying at 400 knots, so that was the first combat memory when he and the rest of his squadron began to put missions under their belt and prove themselves to be formidable fighter pilots, the mission style began to change a lot from what what they would be doing.

In the near future there was low level support dropping ordinances on precise military targets in support of US troops on the ground, most of the material was the 30° dive bomb where you would enter at a 30 Dee angle and you'd leave it, 1500 feet retreated and then we got things down, which was when the guys on the ground really needed support. You would have Hy drag Napal Rockets where you would go down to 500 feet 450 knots 500 kns sometimes if it was hot enough and then you could really, I mean you could put a mark, a heavy duty mark 82, which is a 500 lb bomb with these big metal fins that come out the back and they would almost stop and come right down and you could put it right into almost a bucket, they were very accurate but you would have to duck into the brush to do it and that's where the bad guys could really make your day , say, to give your day a bad turn, one of the first missions that The car that remembers in this style was with an experienced front seat and was a baptism of fire that established a key model for the young Carl Paror.

The first assignment I had was flying with a guy named Harley Hughes in the He was once older but retired as a three star, probably one of the best. The pilots have the flu. They took us out of the warning hole. We were on alert and we went out and, uh, this particular target that I was flying with. Harley at the time was a 50 quad in a valley and we had H drags. I couldn't imagine, oh my God, this is going to be really intense and Harley was calm and collected and I was a little nervous because I'm sitting there.

I know he's flying the plane, so he has control of it and knows what he's doing. I'm sitting there, you know, 3 feet behind him and we get closer and there's lead flying everywhere. There were some of the things that You know, the moisture in the air was so thick that sometimes when the things got closer you could see something passing through the canopy, well, he pulled out the guns, we went back and I'll tell you what it was. Wow, if I ever get there! in the front seat I want to fly like this guy, we landed and debriefed and that was the mission as Carl continued his tour, he flew many missions like this, learning the ins and outs and dropping Napal and dropping bombs on North Vietnamese targets across the The field was covered in jungle, but from the air it was sometimes difficult to see how much this support really meant to the soldiers below.

There was a time when there were young men we called grunts. I love growls. Those are the guys carrying rifles and I saw the really ugly part of the war, they would come to Cameron Bay for RNR, that's how safe the place was and this kid couldn't have been and now I didn't see this but someone told me this, he must have been him. He wasn't 20 years old and they evicted him, his uniform was dirty and he asked to go out on the flight line, okay, we'll take you and see you and show you enough and the way they told me is that this young man, you could see that he was looking for something special and he walked down the flight line, then F and then he saw a plane that had a name and he walked up and hugged the plane and they asked him why he did that. he was in really serious trouble and this plane came and went so low to take out the bad guys that he could even read the name on the plane.

I found a very moving story at that time in late 1968. Carl was an experienced. A pilot, he had more than 50 combat missions under his belt and knew the ins and outs of flying low-level support missions over Vietnam, but no combat experience could have prepared him for the events that would take place on September 3, 1968. He flew with Major Tom, who is my assigned AC aircraft commander and we were on alert and we were boxers five and six, now boxers one and two had been scrambled that morning because I think we would go on from 88 to 6:00 or something like that and they scrambled immediately, they took off and went to this particular, in Three Core, a special forces camp called Kenan and the special forces camp was under siege and the C7s that we call them Caribo were coming in and they would give them a big shot and they couldn't resupply these guys so there was a Gunner who was really good and the one and two boxer came in and shot through the canopy so when he came back it was white. like a sheet and I said this guy is pretty good so later in the afternoon we rush back to the same target and I tell Tom this guy is the gunner we have to be very careful we take off and it takes about 20 minutes . get down there from where Camon was, we orbit, fact says okay guys, we have the Special Forces camp on one side, we have a tree line on the other and I have to restrict your running direction because I don't want you flying . the good ones, so we're going to throw Hydra eggs into a gun in a restricted run and head to drop them at low altitude.

I'm sitting there and I'm like, "I don't know, this sounds really good to me and number two there was napom and a gun we had Hy drgs and I said, I told my front seat, I said, let's see if the faculty letter dropped the uh number two first, so he dropped an Aon and set fire, we didn't know where the gun was, we had a general idea, but we didn't know where we dropped an Aon, we could put smoke and hide behind the smoke and then we could catch this guy. He said no, the fact wants, he wants us to go in first, blow up the trees so we could see properly, you know, yes, sir, well, we had just arrived and we were on our first pass, the fact had told us to restrict our heading between this tree line and the Special Forces camp as we went.

I'm concentrating on the altitudes, indicating altitudes for the front seat and telling you when to pull or is this just some kind of information to give you an idea of ​​when you really had to. Get rid of the bombs before hitting. the ground so it doesn't crash, so you can go boom bo, you can feel those bombs coming out of the plane. It started with a 45 g lift and at that point Boom, the plane takes a hit and the first thing. in your mind is what that is, you know what that was and the plane immediately goes into a violent spin and I realized it was rolling because the sun was here and as the plane spins you get a bright light in the cockpit and then there's no light at all, so it's Shadow and then sun shadow, sun shadow and I'm thrown forward because the plane is doing one of thesepitching and the sand, eh, we were in Cameron Bay and there was a lot of sand there now.

The maintenance troops are really good, but they could keep all the sand out of the planes, so the sand just hit me in the face, so we had some negative G's at that point and somewhere in here Tom yells expel, expel, expel and boom, so I go. I go down my handle and look up and the canopy goes boom. I go without even touching the handle why because in the F4 when the front seat pulled the actual handle you go first you always go first why well because if he goes first and then you go there will be a collision and it also has Rocket engines in the back part, at the bottom of the seat, if he gets on top of you, he's going to fry you, so the back seat always went first, so when he pulled his arm out of the handle.

I was. I was ready because I'm left-handed. I'm going to read the handle with my left hand, even though they say you're supposed to do it with your right hand. I am left. I grab down here, boom, I go, the canopy goes here, I go boom, the helmet comes off, my gloves come off, I had a big watch, kind of wisteria air with my name on it, boom, it comes off, it's probably safe from someone right now like a war. moment because it had my name on it the sliding screen grabs my arm wraps it around the chair breaks my arm now it's dislocated I get out I'm spinning Boom the shot opens boom boom into I go into the trees I'm what What the hell is happening and as I made my way through the trees, the branches simply sliced ​​into my face in a period of less than 30 seconds.

Carl Parlor and Tom alone went from a low level attack to eject and Landing in hostile territory, his F4 Phantom just as he was rising from his attack dive was hit by an enemy anti-aircraft round, immediately his F4 turned and miraculously in question Within seconds both pilots were able to eject before their plane hit. the ground and exploded but now wounded alone and surrounded by the enemy his fight was far from over so I ended up on this tree which is a pretty big tree, it's one of those Vietnamese trees that are maybe 100 feet tall or something like that luck.

It would turn out that the dear Lord did not want him to die that day. I landed on the edge of this crater that had been created by a 2000 P. It had to be a big gun because it's a huge crater and I'm hanging from the top. from this tree from my session, my arm is broken, my leg is kind of screwed up because it hit the tree and I'm sitting there wondering, what's going on? You know, because it just happened, boom, boom, boom, that. quick and here boom boom boom there are noises happening I'm sweating there's blood on my face I'm not very H I'm not a happy camper right now then suddenly he what the hell is that and there's this little branch Shut up you crazy thing and this little leaf does Falling Leaf right next to me.

A guy on the other side of the shadow had an AK and was attacking me now. I don't know if he was trying to scare me or not, but he was trying. to scare me, he didn't have to because I was already scared and he shoots his branch and I don't, maybe he was trying to make me trick other guys so I couldn't move this arm, so I had bow 10 spokes there, the radios of emergency, so I take the uh. I had two of them, one here and one here. I took this one out. I said you know, this is boxer five, bravo bravo, the back seat, alpha, the front seat.

I'm hurt. I'm in a tree. I need help. I never knew I made that call because I don't remember it, but our partner clearly heard me say that on the radio. To this day I don't remember making a call, so I wait. a little bit and here and here comes a user interface an army uh1 God bless those guys and he comes in, lands in the crater and now he's in a crater, there's things being thrown around the earth in my face and then these two gunners come running Come out, we'll get you out, we'll get you out, okay, yeah, so they run and try to get me out of the tree, but they can't because the coke is released, they call it coke harness release. that's holding me back, they don't know how to operate it, you know, I can't help it because my shoulder is like this, so I said, okay, we'll do it, so he puts on a belt. around my leg and it cuts off the rises so I squawk and fall down now I'm hanging upside down and my legs are up pretty good and I guess I'm using some pretty flowery language this guy says get me out of this because it really hurts so he says okay, so he takes his knife, cuts the belt and boom, I fall about 8 feet on the back of my head.

I get another duel score here, so I don't care. I just want to get the hell out of this thing, so they grab me by the back of the head, drag me across the ground, this shit to the helicopter, just as they're about to throw me into this yui boom, they hit him and he falls, and me and I have a photo of this too, by the way, an HH 53 from outside came and took a photo after I was rescued, so I still have that photo. The UI falls to the right now if it had fallen. on the left I wouldn't be here today because you've been landing right on top of me because I was sitting there they were just about to throw me into the Hui, it crashes and breaks slopes, they drive flying back and forth so the co-pilot of this guy from the U named Ian Dawson.

I found this guy after 40 years. He comes out, he has his AK-47 in his hands, he comes out of the crater and drags an AK barrel across my face. I talked. to this guy, 40 years after this happened, he said that he still felt bad for doing that because what I did was I took the muzzle and I kind of pushed it away. I told him, I told Ian, I said, no, don't feel bad about it. I don't remember if that ever happened so after a couple more minutes a Loach and an HH 58 arrive and he comes and like he was on a Sunday flight he cared and this guy had no brains. a real set of nads, he comes, lands, they take me because I'm the guy who's hurt the most, they take me and put me in the back of the helicopter, now I have this little part in the front where the pilot and co-pilot sit , then there's the transom that goes up to the helicopter blades where the engine is and then they just reclaimed the space here, well, they take me and throw me in there because they're afraid I'm going to leave. to fall out of the helicopter Ian Dawson comes in with me, holds me up so I don't fall and we take off and head back towards T in theater 45 which was the closest hospital.

I still remember this. I remember my head was on the floor of the helicopter and I could see the trees flying by it's crazy what you can't what you remember fortunately for Carl after he found himself injured and hanging from a tree help came in the form of an army Huey helicopter however this rescue did not go as planned after knocking Carl down and then nearly loading him back into the Huey, the helicopter took a direct hit from enemy fire and crashed at this point, both Carl and his rescuers now needed to be rescued, but Fortunately the US Army and Air Force responded to his distress call and immediately began pouring firepower on all enemy positions in the area, suppressing their fire so that a second rescue attempt could be made, which It would come shortly after in the form of a small Lo Heli and fortunately this will be a success, but once again, Carl was still seriously injured and needed a lot of medical attention.

We arrive at the 45th Surgical and I am quite devastated. There was an orthopedic specialist on call that day or at Three Core and he was. on leave but since he had nothing to do he decided to come to work thank God he did it CU he comes in and they say hey this lieutenant is very screwed he looks at my leg my right leg and it is bent the foot is bent that way so he can feel the pulse on the bottom of my foot, he couldn't get it, he said, look, I'm 23 at the time, two hours before I was in perfect health, now I'm pretty busted.

Upstairs he says I'm GNA I have to I'm G so I have to adjust your leg and if I have a pulse everything will be fine, but if I don't I'll have to take your leg, that's not good information. I want to listen, he said, but I don't have time to give you anesthesia. I'm going to have to set it up right, so he grabs it, puts it back in, that didn't feel right and then my shoulder was screwed and he says. Okay, I'll take you out and sit on the shoulder where I wake up in a Mash unit, since God is my witness.

I can still close my eyes and see you wake up and you know it before you wake up. in the morning and you're a little sleepy and you know it, but you're still conscious but you know you're sleeping and I said to myself and I still remember this to this day Carl, you're dead, I said, I have no idea why I said that. because I didn't remember what was going on, my mind had simply closed, so I wake up and I'm in a room like in Dante's inferno, there are these 23-year-olds, excuse me, I'm 23, there's 17. Children of 18 year olds who are all broken up found out then they were in an APC and their heads were blown out from under them they just cut them off and there was blood there moaning and I looked around and there was a guy next to me who looked very familiar who the hell do I give I realize it's Tom Asom and these are my exact words because I remember clearly what I said I said Tom what are you doing here and he looks at me and said what am I doing here look at yourself and then I realized what had happened to me , holy man Mackel, so I took inventory of all my parts to see if I was still in one piece, thank God I was, except for a couple of broken bats, I just placed things like that on the shoulders, so then in came the doctor.

He says uh, I want to take more x-rays of you, okay, yeah, okay, so these two young men come in, they're 17 and 18 years old. I don't think they were. I don't even know if they shaved or not. They came in, they laid me out like I was porcelain, they put me on this stretcher, they took me to the X-ray room, they put me on the X-ray table at that moment, they shot us and these units of mass are these big buildings. which are covered with airbags to keep it for support, go over the top of this thing, so these two kids, and I mean kids, take me off the stretcher and put me on the ground.

A guy lies on my blankets. his my chest with his body the other guy lies down and covers my legs with his body throughout the attack they were sacrificing their bodies to save me. I will never forget that while he was alive Carl Parlor eventually made a full recovery and after a short time at home, he had already fully decided that he would return to flying F4 Phantoms over Vietnam. She comes over and looks me in the eyes and says: Carl, you're coming back. I told her: Mom, you know the answer, of course. I have to say you do that, I'm going to break your other leg, my dad couldn't look at me, then I recovered and then I came back and flew again and went to another couple of Tours, I mean. this from the bottom of my heart supports the story of tj3 and War Thunder you will really enjoy it join Carl today and download War Thunder totally free at the link below to help us save more stories like this please consider joining my patreon at link next thanks for watching and see you next time