One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University

1967
were trapped and killed by a flash fire in an Apollo capsule while conducting
a preflight rehearsal at Cape Kennedy, Florida.
February 6: North American Aerospace Defense Command’s Space Defense
Center moved into Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, completing the
movement of all units into the hardened, underground command and
control facility.
February 22: Twenty-three C–130s provided airlift for the first paratroop
drop of the Vietnam War. The 173d Airborne Brigade made the jump
in support of Operation JUNCTION CITY.
February 24: Flying an unarmed and unarmored O–1 Bird Dog aircraft near
Di Linh, South Vietnam, forward air controller Capt. Hilliard A.
Wilbanks, USAF, attacked a large body of Vietcong, who had
ambushed a numerically inferior force of South Vietnamese rangers.
Repeatedly flying over the enemy force, Captain Wilbanks used smoke
rockets and a rifle to draw the fire of the enemy force and interrupt its
advance. He sacrificed his life to protect the withdrawing rangers,
earning the Medal of Honor for his bravery.
March 10: F–105 Thunderchiefs and F–4C Phantom IIs bombed the Thai
Nguyen steel plant in North Vietnam for the first time. During this
attack, Capt. Merlyn Hans Dethlefsen earned the Medal of Honor for
silencing enemy defenses with his severely damaged F–105 Thunderchief
despite intense enemy ground fire and fighter attacks.
March 11: Navy fighters attacked North Vietnamese targets using a new television-guided
Walleye glide bomb, thereby introducing precisionguided
weapons into the Vietnam conflict.
March 15: The Sikorsky HH–53B, the largest and fastest helicopter in the
USAF inventory, made its first flight. It would be used for air rescue
operations in Southeast Asia.
April 3: Paul W. Airey became the first chief master sergeant of the Air
Force. As the highest-ranking enlisted member, he advised the USAF
leadership on enlisted issues.
April 19: Maj. Leo K. Thorsness earned the Medal of Honor for protecting
a mission to rescue downed airmen in North Vietnamese territory. Flying
an F–105 Thunderchief critically low on fuel, Major Thorsness
shot down one MiG–17, damaged another, and drove off three more.
Despite his urgent need for fuel, Major Thorsness elected to recover
at a forward operating base, allowing another aircraft in emergency
condition to refuel from an aerial tanker. Shortly after this incident,
Thorsness was shot down, captured, and held prisoner until his release
on March 4, 1973.
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