This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Greg Smith-Family
to remember
Austin, Charles David, Maj.
If you knew or served with this Airman and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
Major Charles David Austin served with the 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron, 8th Tactical Fighter WIng out of Ubon RTAFB, Thailand. On 24 April 1967, Lt. Austin was serving as bombardier navigator onboard Major Herman L. Knapp's F-4C Phantom fighter/bomber. The aircraft was the lead in a flight of four dispatched from Ubon Airfield, Thailand on a strike mission over Vietnam. The strike was on a five-span bridge four miles north of the center of Hanoi. The raid's purpose was to sever North Vietnam's rail links with Communist China. An electrical transformer station seven miles north of Hanoi was also attacked. During the strike, Knapp and Austin's aircraft was struck by a flak burst, disintegrated, and two large pieces of flaming wreckage were seen to strike the ground in a fireball. No parachutes were seen and no beepers were heard.
This Veteran has an (IMO) In Memory Of Headstone in Hickok Cemetery, New Canaan, CT.:
Aircraft/Missile Information
On 15 August 1990, 24 F-4G Wild Weasel Vs and six RF-4Cs were mobilized to the Middle East for Operation Desert Storm. The reason for this was that the F-4G was the only aircraft in the USAF inventory equipped for the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) role since the EF-111 Raven lacked the offensive capability of the AGM-88 HARM missile, while the RF-4C was the only aircraft equipped with the ultra-long-range KS-127 LOROP (long-range oblique photography) camera. In spite of flying almost daily missions, only one RF-4C was lost in a fatal accident before the start of hostilities. One F-4G was lost when enemy fire damaged the fuel tanks and the aircraft ran out of fuel near a friendly airbase. The last USAF Phantoms, F-4G Wild Weasel Vs from 561st Fighter Squadron, were retired on 26 March 1996. The last operational flight of the F-4G Wild Weasel was from the 190th Fighter Squadron, Idaho Air National Guard, in April 1996.[63] The last operational USAF/ANG F-4 to land was flown by Maj Mike Webb and Maj Gary Leeder, Idaho ANG
