9781422277126

O n the map, the area was labeled the Tam Dao range, part of a large group of mountains about 70 miles northwest of Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam. But for American fighter pilots who flew bombing missions over those treacherous peaks during the Vietnam War, it went by another term— Thud Ridge. Nearly every morning and afternoon, from 1965 to 1968, a group of Air Force pilots flying the supersonic F-105 Thunderchief, a fighter-bomber com- monly called “Thud” by its crews, raced along this slab of rock to drop their deadly ordnance . M ission B riefing

Words To Understand communist based on the principles of communism, a political philosophy in which the state controls all social, economic, and political aspects of a country ideological based on a system of ideals and ideas, usually concerning economics or politics ordnance explosives, bombs, ammunition sorties attacks Viet Cong communist guerrillas that fought against United States and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War

6 6