Operation Thunderhead by Kevin Dockery

orientation was, his view of the instruments blinded by the smoke, Dramesi punched out. The last thing he remembered was squeezing the trigger.
    When the ejector seat shot out of the plane, the windblast was so powerful that it knocked Dramesi unconscious. The next lucid thought Dramesi had was when he found himself standing on the ground, unbuckling his parachute harness. His training had taken him through the parachuting process without his having to think about a single aspect of it. Now came the realization that he was deep inside enemy territory. He had punched out over North Vietnam, and the rest of his training would have to be employed for survival as well as to prevail over whatever was going to come next. And it was probably going to involve a bunch of the same people who had just shot him out of the sky.
    The parachute landing had put Dramesi on the side of a brush-covered hill overlooking a small valley. He was unsure of his exact location, but he did have a sense about where he had landed. Getting up onto the crest of the hill he was standing on would also give him a better view of the area, where the rescuing forces would be approaching from—and just where the enemy might be. According to the reports filed later, the location of Dramesi’s shoot-down was at coordinates 173800N and 1062300E. That put him about 225 miles south-southeast of Hanoi and seventy miles north of the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam. He was deep inside enemy territory, and his only sure way home would be a pickup by a search-and-rescue chopper.
    As Dramesi moved up the hill, he heard gunfire coming from the area where he had made his parachute landing. There was little cover beside the brush and the occasional tree as he reached the ridge going along the hill’s crest. The high ground was where Dramesi figured a rescue helicopter could most easily find him; the trouble was that a small trail ran along the ridge, which meant the enemy traveled there and they would be able to find him, too. He had twisted his left knee either during the ejection or while landing. Adrenaline had kept the injury from slowing Dramesi down much as he evaluated his situation and planned his course of action.
    In the briefing prior to his mission, Dramesi had listened to an intelligence officer tell the fliers what they could expect in the way of assistance if they were forced down in enemy territory. Outside of the American search-and-rescue units, there was basically no help they could expect in North Vietnam. The final admonition of the intelligence officer stuck with Dramesi: It was people who caught people. It was a simple enough rule that so many other pilots forgot in their time of stress after ejecting. It took people—the North Vietnamese—to catch the American fliers who were forced down. To evade capture, you had to avoid people. There was no one to turn to for help except for yourself, and the men whose job it was to come in and rescue you. Everyone else had to be avoided. Dramesi looked around and steeled himself to getting out of his present predicament.
    To his west side, there was a small cliff that would help prevent ground troops from approaching from that direction. The cliff ran around to the south of his position, covering him from approach from that direction as well. And the top of the ridge did give him a good position to see the surrounding area. Moving along the path as he headed north, Dramesi could see North Vietnamese moving in the valley below. It was time to hide.
    A leap took him off the path and into the brush without leaving any sign of an escape route. On his survival radio, Dramesi contacted his wingman, Ken Gurry, who still orbiting overhead in his F-105D. Gurry had to leave the area due to low fuel, but he had already notified the search-and-rescue teams about Dramesi’s situation and location. Rescue helicopters and escort aircraft were already on their way. In spite of his