The Hunter Killers: The Extraordinary Story of the First Wild Weasels, the Band of Maverick Aviators Who Flew the Most Dangerous Missions of the Vietnam War

Hampton (Viper Pilot), a former U.S. Air Force pilot, offers an incongruous mixture of an in-the-cockpit air combat chronicle entwined with a detailed and opinionated analysis of the Vietnam War. The air-combat sections zero in on pilots who flew the U.S. aircraft known as Wild Weasels. These were most often F-105 and F-100 jet fighter bombers with new, secret electronic countermeasure equipment that detected, suppressed, and destroyed North Vietnamese missile and anti-aircraft sites. In these sections, Hampton uses the words of surviving Wild Weasel aviators to imaginatively recreate dramatic and dangerous missions over enemy territory. He focuses on the use of American air power in extensive but stuffy sections on the war’s history, offering his opinions on the war’s origins and the policymaking of presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Hampton places the blame for the war’s outcome on both civilian political leaders and the top military leadership, especially Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Gen. William Westmoreland. The “most significant strategic error,” he says, was “neither recognizing nor admitting that the conflict was a civil war.” Hampton’s aviator action reconstructions are gripping, but their effectiveness is diminished by the drier sections of military history. [em](June) [/em]