Editorial Note: From Balloons to Drones is pleased to announce our new podcast series. Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, the series builds on the success of From Balloons to Drones, and provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here.
In this episode, we interview Eileen A. Bjorkman, a retired Colonel in the United States Air Force. In this interview, we talk about Eileen’s latest book Unforgotten in the Gulf of Tonkin: A Story of the U.S. Military’s Commitment to Leave No One Behind. In particular, we talk about combat search and rescue operations in the Vietnam War and F-8 pilot Willie Sharp’s harrowing story.
Eileen A. Bjorkman is a former flight test engineer in the USAF with more than thirty-five years of experience and over 700 hours in the cockpits of F-4s, F-16s, C-130s, and C-141s. She is the author of The Propeller under the Bed: A Personal History of Homebuilt Aircraft and has published articles in the Smithsonian’s Air & Space Magazine, Aviation History, Sport Aviation, the Everett Daily Herald, and the Herald Business Journal.
Header Image: A US Navy Vought F-8J Crusader of VF-191 is recovered aboard the attack aircraft carrier USS Oriskany (CVA-34) in November 1970. (Source: Wikimedia)
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