That was hilarious! It's funny cuz half of the Vietnam War sites you go to are anti-war, the other half are historical. And both sets of sites have different opinions. As early as 1980, Salamander Books' excellent "Fighter Series: F-4 Phantom" debunked the "Colonel Toon" theory (that Cunningham had shot down Nam's top ace) by casually mentioning that "Toon" is not even a proper Vietnamese type of name. Additionally, no one can really say whether Cunningham's kills were all '21's either.
Several of the websites really berate Cunningham as being a cowboy (reckless, immature) and that his kills were more to Vietnamese error than his "killer skill." History Channel's "Dogfights" interviewed the other May 10th killer, Matthew Connelly, and he was "absolutely positive" that Cunningham was not only (a) a stellar pilot but also (b) that "Top Gun" was based on his life.
Cunningham oddly enough, has never used the Top Gun link in any of his pickup lines, so it's hard to say, either way. Half of the interviews with Driscoll are also hard to make out. The interviews prior to Duke's arrest/political career, are all "yeah Duke was a great pilot" and the ones post-arrest tend to be "yeah, he was a showoff and a risk taker." Connie's records show LT Steven Shoemaker as Duke's wingman and his testimony (8 kills for the day) has tended to survive both USN and Vietnamese scrutiny.
Once Vietnam opened up and became quasi-friendly, information flowed that "seemed" to verify Duke's kills and status. And hey - if your head's spinning now, the USAF's record keeping was just as bad, with Robin Old's wingman claiming that it was **HE** and not Robin, that bagged the last Mig-21 of the day. Oooops. Vietnamese guy on History Channel claimed to be the '21 driver shot down (Olds has always maintained that his last kill was a Mig-17).
Either way, much scotch is needed before proceeding further. And I always thought the "who really shot down Yamamoto" story was the worst...
Cheers,
Don
Responses
« Back to index | View thread »
