the extraordinary story of the first wild weasels, the band of maverick aviators who flew the most dangerous missions of the Vietnam War
Vietnam, 1965: on July 24, a USAF F-4 Phantom jet was shot down out of the sky by a mysterious and lethal weapon. It turned out to be a Soviet SA-2 surface missile (SAM) launched by Russian "advisors" to North Vietnam. As the U.S. tried to counterattack, they realized that the SAMs were the deadliest threat in military history and that Soviet technology might win the war. The Pentagon ordered a top secret program called Wild Weasel I to counter the SAMs. A small group of maverick fighter pilots and Electronic Warfare Officers volunteered to fly behind enemy lines to eliminate the SAMs threat. Those who survived the fifty percent casualty rate would revolutionize warfare forever.
