A U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, “Gene” Hambleton commanded the 571st Missile Squadron at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base from 1965 to 1971. But he is better known as “Bat 21”, the radio call sign he used in Vietnam when he piloted a radar jamming plane. He was shot down in 1972 while jamming enemy radar, and parachuted behind enemy lines — into the midst of an invasion force of 30,000 North Vietnamese troops.
He was able to avoid capture for six days, and used his survival radio to call in air strikes against the invasion force. Rescue crews gave him coded instructions on where to go to be rescued, but that came at a great cost: his rescue chopper was shot down, killing all six crewmen aboard. “It was the most terrible day I had ever lived,” he wrote to the crewmen’s families. “I had to stand by and watch six young men die trying to save my life. Heroes, you bet they were.” A second helicopter rescued him successfully.
Hambleton’s harrowing ordeal was recounted in the book Bat 21 (1980), which was made into a movie of the same name in 1988. He died from cancer on September 19 at age 85.