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Answer by John Chesire, former naval aviator and combat fighter pilot:
When I was a fighter pilot, I never dropped any bombs without knowing exactly what my target was. I also prided myself on being extremely accurate. The only exceptions were “sky spots” in free-fire combat zones in South Vietnam when flying off an Air Force lead aircraft with better navigation than ours.
The only strike that ever bothered me—and bothers me still today more than 40 years later—was a strike on a PT boat factory in downtown Haiphong. I was just about the last one to roll in on an alpha strike on the target. Being “Tail End Charlie,” I took horrendous fire from many anti-aircraft fire sites providing multiple burning tracers zinging by my cockpit. I was so distracted by the intense enemy fire that I could not totally concentrate on my bombing parameters.
The factory was in the center of the city. Although I prided myself on, and was usually very good at, my bombs hitting their targets both in training and in war, I doubt that my bombs on this occasion were very accurate because of the heavy enemy fire. Maybe, maybe not. Such is war, and war is hell.
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