On March 10, 1966, the runway at A Shau was no longer a runway.
It was a torn strip of pierced steel planking, cratered by mortar fire, littered with wreckage, and surrounded by enemy troops. Above it, a low ceiling pressed American aircraft into a narrow valley where hostile guns could fire down from the hills.
Major Bernard F. Fisher of the 1st Air Commando Squadron was flying an A-1E Skyraider when he was diverted to support the Special Forces camp below. Roughly 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers were attacking the position. Fisher and the other Skyraider pilots descended through a break in the clouds and began striking the forces closing around the camp.
Then Major Dafford W. Myers’ aircraft was hit.
Myers crash-landed on the battered airstrip and ran from his burning Skyraider for cover. Enemy troops were already between the runway and the camp. A helicopter rescue could not reach him in time.
Fisher made a different calculation: if the runway could hold an airplane once more, it could carry both men out.
He announced his intention to land, directed his own air cover, and brought his Skyraider down through the fire. The strip was broken and crowded with debris from destroyed aircraft. Fisher stayed on it, taxiing nearly its full length until Myers left cover and ran toward him.
Myers climbed aboard. Fisher turned the aircraft around.
There was no safe pause and no clean takeoff roll. Ground fire followed them down the runway. Nineteen bullets struck Fisher’s aircraft as he accelerated across the damaged steel, gained enough speed at the overrun, and lifted both men clear of A Shau.
Fisher was awarded the Medal of Honor, presented by President Lyndon B. Johnson on January 19, 1967. He became the first living member of the U.S. Air Force to receive the medal.
Tenacity is refusing to let the word “impossible” make the final decision. It is putting your aircraft onto a runway everyone else has written off—because one of your own is still standing beside it.
This.... is what Tenacity Is.
Tenacity Watches is the only company that allows you to truly Wear Your Story.
Get Your Timepiece Today.
www.tenacitywatches.com
