To those families that faithfully waited us out with the hope that we would be among the ones coming home, whether we did or not. Contents Forewords Introduction Prologue 1 Earning my Wings 2 To War 3 The Night the Lights Went Out in Route Pack II 4 Walleye Targets and Other Adventures 5 “Wolf” FAC 6 R&R and Other Escapades 7 Silver Star Mission 8 “Sherman Lead” 9 Combat Skyspot and Bad Weather Missions 10 Offset Bombing, Dive Toss and “Wild Rides” 11 “PDJ” and Barrel Roll 12 “Jeb” Stewart is Down 13 More R&R and a Staff Posting 14 Home Stretch 15 Final Chapter Appendices Glossary List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Plates Copyright Forewords This book is a must-read for anyone interested in knowing the demands placed on a young fighter pilot during his first test in combat. It explains how skilled crews extracted the maximum performance from their F-4D Phantom IIs so that they could become a truly effective fighting force. Capt Peck was a fast learner whose flying skills and abilities enabled him to make the best of the opportunities on offer in combat and quickly become a seasoned veteran. I know Gail Peck, and it has been a pleasure for me to see what started out as a pinpoint of light grow into a glaring beacon that not only brightened his USAF career, but enhanced our fighter force many fold. Lt Gen Walter D. (Dan) Druen, Jr (USAF) Ret. No history of America’s long and painful war in Vietnam would be complete without the story of how our military prepared and equipped its airmen to carry the fight to North Vietnam and to Laos through which they infiltrated forces to the south. In Sherman Lead, Gail Peck tells that story in a captivating way and with a level of detail that is unmatched. Gail and I both flew the F-4D and later the F-15C. We served together three times, though he would likely recall only our time together in the 18th Tactical Fighter Wing in the mid 1980s. But two decades earlier, Gail flew his first combat sortie out of Ubon Royal Thai Air Base. On nearly the same day in September of 1968 I flew my first combat sortie in the O2-A out of Pleiku Air Base in Vietnam, about two hundred miles to the southeast of Ubon. And a few years earlier Gail was one of my upper classmen at the Air Force Academy. If you share an interest in airplanes, military aviation, air combat or the air war in Vietnam you will find this book captivating. You will gain insights into how the Air Force trains its pilots and prepares them for combat. The complexity of the F-4D and the tactics used to make it effective in combat are revealed in amazing detail. The anecdotes describing some of Gail’s most memorable missions are vivid and capture the emotions that every pilot who has experienced combat has felt. The tributes to those who helped us along the way, and to those who made the ultimate sacrifice while answering their country’s call to arms, are heartfelt and moving. The US Air Force flew more than 5 million sorties during the war in Vietnam and lost 1,737 aircraft to hostile action. More than 20 percent of those were F-4s. Our military commitment to the war was near its peak when Gail and I deployed in the fall of 1968. By the time we returned home a year later the drawdown that culminated in the truce of January 27, 1973 was unfolding at a rapid pace. The lessons from that experience shaped the military that serves this nation so well today. Gail Peck was one of those who helped capture those lessons and put them to work in the training programs that served us so well in Desert Storm and every subsequent combat operation. Gail earned his spurs as a fighter pilot flying combat missions over North Vietnam and Laos. He went on to be one of the select few chosen to attend the Air Force’s graduate school for fighter pilots at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, and later to instruct in that same prestigious program, the Fighter Weapons Instructor Course. He helped give birth to a then-classified program using Soviet-built fighter aircraft to train post-Vietnam generations of fighter pilots in air-to-air combat, the subject of his earlier book, America’s Secret MiG Squadron. I served alongside Gail in the 18th Tactical Fighter Wing at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan. It was the best assignment of my 35-year Air Force career.