Word: kasler
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Dates: during 1966-1966
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Shiny Rails. Recently Kasler was roving over North Viet Nam's southern panhandle, where intelligence said no trains had operated for months. "I noticed the tracks were shiny," he recalls. "So I followed them and suddenly I saw a train. Since then, we have destroyed several trains there and put the line out of commission." Last week, busy as ever, Kasler picked out some suspicious tracks leading into an out-of-the-way forested area near North Viet Nam's Mu Gia Pass. "I dropped down to 500 ft., and sure enough, there was a truck. My first...
Yellow Birds. Typical of the breed-and to many the hottest pilot-is U.S. Air Force Major James Kasler, 40, of Indianapolis, who is dubbed by his wingmates a "one-man Air Force." A World War II tail gunner and six-kill ace in Korea, Kasler in five months of flying missions over the North has limped home four times with his F-105 riddled by flak or MIGs, has seen 30 SAM missiles ("They're long, very slender and a dirty-yellow color") zoom up in his vicinity, tangled in the longest dogfight with MIGs thus...
...forte is the fine art of target spotting-the No. 1 challenge of a war in which U.S. airmen, in contrast to World War II's saturation-bombing of sprawling cities, must search out isolated objectives against a foe supremely skilled at camouflage. Says a fellow pilot of Kasler: "He is part hawk." Blue-eyed Kasler has his own explanation of the job. "When you know where to look for ground targets," says he, "suddenly they start popping into your vision. When you look at rivers, you are looking for camouflaged boats under overhanging trees. You look for roads...
...approached, I knew we had a go," said Hopkins. "The weather was beautiful, but the sky was filled with automatic-weapons fire and flak. I laid my bombs down the center of the area occupying the storage buildings and pump houses." Hopkins' co-leader, Major James H. Kasler, 40, of Indianapolis, recalls: "The whole place was going up. Every bomb that went in set off a secondary explosion. As we pulled out, the flak was real heavy. It was as thick as I've ever seen up there...