13 February 1970

Friday night
13 February 1970

This has been another long day of hard, tiring flying - and no news about our missing crew.  They’ve been missing for over 24 hours now and, I guess are officially missing action. 

They were (are?) Mike Breeding, my roommate, and Peck Bradshaw.  Mike was my pilot and we had flown together several times. In fact we flew together yesterday morning.  We’ve got all his personal gear together and put it on his bed, which is about 3 feet from my bed.  You’ve never seen anything as depressing as this is.  We still don’t know what happened to them, but we suspect they crashed in the ocean just east of Hue, South Vietnam. 

They’ve been searching by boat and air all day, but have found nothing.  I guess no news is good news.  There is a very good chance they ejected okay and we just can’t find them.  I sure hope so.

Peck was probably the most popular guy in the squadron and everyone is more depressed about him than Mike.  Of course no one else has known Mike for 4 years as I have.  Peck has a wife and son.

The weather has been very bad all day, (which is hampering the search effort) so the flying wasn’t to good.  I did get to fly two hops - one a TPQ this morning and an escort this afternoon.  The hop this afternoon I flew was with Maj. Gibson and was his 200th mission.  On this escort we were escorting a TA-4 that was making a recon of the roads in Laos that are used by the north to get troops and supplies to the south.  This is the commonly known “Ho Chi Min” trail.  They found a truck which we tried to bomb, but missed - because Maj. Gibson goofed!!!!!!  Boy was he mad at himself - and on his 200th mission!  Ha.

The movie tonight is something awful called “The Ugly Ones” so I skipped it.

Photo - First Lieutenant Michael H. Breeding, USMCR, KIA 12 February 1970.

http://www.facesonthewall.com/Faces_On_The_Wall/Michael_Breeding/michael_breeding.htm

http://thewall-usa.com/info.asp?recid=5475

http://thewall-usa.com/info.asp?recid=5262