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Sgt Duane Kimbrow (Skip)
to remember
Walker, Samuel Franklin, Jr., CMSgt.
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Then SSgt. Samuel Walker and his crew were killed in a collision with one of the B-57E Canberras (#55-4284) involved in the night operation causing both aircraft to crash. Both crews remain MIA
CMSgt. Samuel F. Walker Jr., United States Air Force. Then Staff Sargent Samuel F. Walker Jr. was one of two Loadmasters, part of a seven-man crew flying the Fairchild C-123K Provider aircraft, call sign, Candlestick 44. On December 13, 1968 the aircraft took off from Nakhon Phanom Airfield located in northern Thailand. Their nighttime Forward Air Controller (FAC) Search and Destroy mission was to guide several B57B bombers onto a convoy of enemy trucks traveling along Routes 911 and 912. These routes cut through rugged jungle covered mountains near the DMZ and was part of the complicated Ho Chi Minh trail southwest of the Lao/North Vietnamese border.
At 0300 hours, as Candlestick 44 was nearing its target, 30 miles southwest of the Ban Karai Pass in Laos, the crew was jolted by a staggering blow on the top of the aircraft by a B57B aircraft, call sign, Yellowbird 72.The impact caused in an explosion in the aft section of the aircraft resulting in the aircraft losing control.
After regaining consciousness, C-123K pilot, First Lieutenant Thomas H. Turner exited through the cockpit window after finding the co-pilot's seat empty and fire coming into the cockpit from the fuselage. After parachuting, Lieutenant Turner noted that there was another parachute below his along with 2 or 3 fires on the ground. Lieutenant Turner was rescued from a treetop on December 13th. The pilots beeper was the only one heard by the Search and Rescue (SAR) team. Unfortunately, all other crewmen from both aircraft involved in the tragic collision were declared Missing in Action at the same time. The area was under enemy control, no ground search was possible. These two aircraft crews are among nearly 600 Americans who disappeared in Laos.
Let we spare no effort to secure the repatriation of the remains of those who died bravely in the defense of liberty and the full accounting of those missing. Thank you. By Darryrl Johnson
Vietnam War/Counteroffensive Phase V Campaign (1968)
From Month/Year
July / 1968
To Month/Year
November / 1968
Description This period was from November 1, 1968-February 22, 1969.
Following the cessation of bombing on October 3,. 1968, the United States for the next 4 years restricted flights over North Vietnam primarily to reconnaissance missions. The Air Force diverted airpower resources committed to the campaign over North Vietnam to the air campaign in Laos in an attempt to slow the flow of suppliesfrom North Vietnam down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This interdiction effort covered an area in the Laotian panhandle from about the 16th to the 18th parallel and focused on the Laotian/North Vietnamese border near the Keo Nua, Mu Ola, and Ban Karai Passes. Much information about targets on the l-lo Chi Minh Trail came from air-dropped electronic sensors. When American bombing choked the major transportation arteries. the North Vietnamese directed truck convoys along secondary roads where they became more vulnerable to tactical air strikes. Throughout November and December 1968 U.S. tactical aircraft and B-52s attacked targets in the Laotian panhandle. AC-130 gunships, flying at night and relying on infrared, radar, and other sensors. proved especially effective in destroying trucks. To counter the intense air attacks, the North Vietnamese quadrupled the number of anti-aircraft guns along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, while adding logistical personnel in Laos for repair work and transport duties.
The USAF also provided close air support to hard-pressed Royal and irregular Laotian forces in northem Laos, where on December 25, North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops launched a strong offensive. By late February 1969 the enemy had driven the Laotian forces back across the Plain of Jars to Na Khang.
In South Vietnam, meanwhile. the Viet Cong suffered temporary setbacks under Allied air and ground attacks. On November 1, 1968, the Republic of Vietnam began a military and civic pacification program intended to bring most of the onuttry quickly under government control. Two operations underscored Allied military approaches to pacification.
In the first, the Allies learrted of a large enemy force moving into the Savy Rieng Province, Cambodia. the so-called “Parrot's Beak" that jutted deep into South Vietnam northwest of Saigon. To thwart this penetration, between October 18 and November 11, 1968, the U.S. Air Force airlifted 11,500 men of the U.S. lst Cavalry Division and 3,400 tons of cargo in C-130s over 500 miles from Quang Tri Province in the north to Tay Ninh. Binh Long. and Phuoc Long Provinces. northwest of Saigon. Until the tum of the year, these U.S. Army forces. working with the South Vietnamese, conducted operations in the Cambodian/South Vietnamese border area along the Parrot‘s Beak between the Vam Co Tay and Vam Co Dong Rivers. The USAF supported these operations with tactical aircraft and B-52s flying air support and interdiction missions against troop concentrations, base areas, logistics complexes and transportation lines. In the second major winter operation. starting the first week of December. the Seventh Air Force launched another air campaign in the A Shau Valley, located near the Cambodian border some 30 miles southwest of Hue. Afterward, in January 1969. U.S. Marines entered the valley and found large amounts of materiel that the Communists had abandoned unable to move it during the sustained air attacks. After months of negotiations on January 18, 1969, representatives of the government of South Vietnam and of the National Liberation Front. the Communist political branch in South Vietnam joined the United States and North Vietnam in the Paris peace talks. While negotiations continued in France, the Communist forces in Vietnam launched their first offensive of the new year.
