Surviving Hell Read Online Free

smoke.

    Harry and I knew that the maximum ejection speed for an F-105 was 525 knots. But we also knew of pilots whose Thuds had exploded while taking the time to slow down. We had decided that if we were ever hit hard we would eject immediately.
    I shouted “GO!” Harry knew that if he hesitated to blow his canopy and I ejected before he did, my rocket would throw fire directly into the rear cockpit. He said, “Shit!” and, as I heard his canopy blow and seat eject, I pulled my handle.
    Vivid in my mind to this day is the feeling of catapulting into the slipstream doing nearly 600 knots (690 mph). My helmet ripped off, my body felt as though it had been flung against a wall, and my legs flailed outward. Two seconds later, the chute opened, violently yanking me upward. My body rotated a couple of times, then settled into a float.
    Falling downward, I tried to take stock. When I cleared the cockpit, the wind had apparently caught my lower legs and forced my knees straight sideways at about 90 degrees. My boots were still on but the little pencil-sized zipper pockets on my sleeves were ripped away. As I looked up at my chute I saw that at least a quarter of the panels were ripped open; I would be slamming into the ground faster than normal—with destroyed knees.
    One bright spot: a mile or two to the east I could see Harry’s chute. I did not know at the time, but my wingman Bob Abbott had also been shot down by an Atoll.
    The sky was full of F-105s. Colonel Jack Broughton, our wing commander and the strike force commander that day, had obviously diverted some or all of the planes to help the three of us floating down into enemy territory.
    When you are doing zero airspeed dangling in a parachute, and a Thud zips by 100 feet away at 500 knots giving a thumbs up, it is a loud thrill. I pulled out my emergency radio from the pocket attached to the parachute harness. I pushed the “press to talk” button and gave them my name—then added, “Get me out of here!”
    We had ejected at about 10,000 feet and so had several minutes of float time before we hit. Many thoughts I had then are still crystal clear today. I thought about my wife Gaylee and our daughter
Dawn, who were at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Gaylee and I had many fighter-pilot friends at Nellis. Some had come to Takhli before I did and some of those had been shot down and captured, or, worse yet, never heard from or about again. I felt devastated for what my wife and daughter might be forced to endure. My floating-down thought was: “If I’m killed when I hit the ground, will they ever find out?” I felt guilty, too: reasoning that I had failed them. I was putting them in what could be years of limbo.
    With the ground getting larger and larger below me, I also felt that I must have made a mistake and that what was about to happen to Harry and me was my fault. I knew the odds were high that I would be killed or captured within the hour, especially because my knees would not support an attempt at evasion. But there was another thought that alternated with the guilt that flooded me—a voice, actually, rather than a thought. It was loud and clear and kept repeating like a tape loop, “Leo, you are going to make it.... Leo, you are going to make it....” It was the first time in my life that the Lord preemptively answered my prayers. The voice and these words would stay with me for the next six years. This was God’s gift to me as I descended into a nightmare.
    I was still 2,000 to 3,000 feet in the air when something in a small darker area in the jungle caught my eye. I concentrated and realized that it was muzzle flashes. They were shooting at me!
    As I entered the canopy of jungle, I remembered to cross my legs. Branches banged and slapped as I readied to hit hard on bad knees. Suddenly I stopped, bounced a bit and hung still. I looked up and saw that my chute had caught on a dead branch. I was