Return with Honor
New York: Doubleday, 1995. Sixth Printing. Hardcover. 25 cm. [14], 206, [4] pages. Illustrations. Code of Conduct. The poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. Scott Francis O'Grady (born October 12, 1965) is a former United States Air Force fighter pilot. On June 2, 1995, he was shot down over Bosnia and Herzegovina by an 2K12 Kub mobile SAM launcher and forced to eject from his F-16C into hostile territory. After nearly a week of evading the Serbs he was eventually rescued by Marines. Previously he took part in the Banja Luka incident where he fired upon six enemy aircraft. The 2001 film Behind Enemy Lines is loosely based upon his experiences. The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), after popular pressure, had decided to intervene in the Bosnian War after allegations of war crimes against civilians were made by various media organizations. NATO military involvement primarily involved enforcement of a "No Fly Zone" code named Operation Deny Flight to discourage military aircraft of the Bosnian-Serb Armed Forces from attacking Bosnian civilians and Bosniak and Croat forces. On August 30, NATO launched Operation Deliberate Force, a massive airstrike campaign which eventually lifted the siege of Sarajevo and led to the end of the war in Bosnia. When Air Force pilot Scott O'Grady was shot down over Serbian-held Bosnia, no one, not even the upper echelons of the military, knew where he was for six, long days. Return with Honor is O'Grady's riveting account of that time, filled with the incredible, never-before-revealed details about the tricks and strategems he used to avoid the enemy and survive. On the ground, a Bosnian Serb Army switched on their missile radars sparingly, giving F-16 fighters little warning. Waiting until a plane was directly overhead, where the aircraft's warning and countermeasures would be at their weakest, they fired two missiles. The first missile exploded between the two aircraft. The second struck the F-16 piloted by O'Grady. His flight lead, Captain Bob Wright, saw O'Grady's plane burst into flames and break in two. Wright did not see a parachute, but O'Grady survived by ejecting from the aircraft. O'Grady landed among a Bosnian-Serb population he was briefed would be unfriendly. He quickly secured a 29-pound survival bag, ran, and hid. Rubbing dirt on his face, he hid face-down as Bosnian-Serb forces came upon his parachute, half a dozen times shooting their rifles only feet from where he was hidden in an effort to flush him out or kill him. During the next six days, he put to use the lessons learned during a 17-day Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training session he had undertaken near his hometown of Spokane, Washington. He ate leaves, grass, and bugs, and stored the little rainwater he could collect with a sponge in plastic bags. O'Grady radioed for help immediately but had to remain quiet with paramilitaries coming within feet of him; he used the radio following standard operating procedures as the U.S. Air Force had taught him so not to give away his position to unfriendly forces. On his 6th night on the ground he made radio contact, signaling his location using his radio's limited battery power. Just after midnight on June 8, he spoke into the radio. An F-16 pilot from the 510th responded and, after confirming his identity, the rescue was set in motion. At 4:40, Admiral Leighton Smith, commander of NATO Southern Forces, called US Marine Colonel Martin Berndt aboard the USS Kearsarge with orders to "execute". Two CH-53 Sea Stallions with 51 Marines from the 3rd Battalion 8th Marines within the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, lifted off the USS Kearsarge to rescue the pilot. At 6:35 a.m., the helicopters approached the area where O'Grady's signal beacon had been traced. The pilots saw bright yellow smoke coming from trees near a rocky pasture where O'Grady had set off a flare. The first Stallion, commanded by Major William Tarbutton, touched down and 20 Marines jumped off the aircraft and set up a defensive perimeter. As the second Sea Stallion landed, a figure with a pistol who turned out to be the missing pilot appeared running towards the Marines and immediately went to the Sea Stallion. After a quick head count, the Stallions took off. They had been on the ground no more than seven minutes. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Aerial Operations, Scott O'Grady, Bosnia/Hercegovina, Escape and Evasion, F-16 Fighter Plane, Fighter Pilots, Heroism, Military History, SERE, NATO, Martin Berndt, USS Kearsarge, 3rd Battalion 8th Marines
ISBN: 0385483309
[Book #74141]
Price: $30.00