Salute!
Remember it well. Was on CSAR alert duty as a Sandy in the A-7D at Korat. Walked into Ft Apache to get threat briefing and there were 5 or 6 losses and then we noticed the types and coordinates. Wow! Downtown. About time, and maybe we'll get a buncha my friends outta prison.
I didn't get on a raid for another two days, but on 23 December I got my "counter" across the Red River and due to great weather got to bomb visually right downtown. Pic is attached. We came in from east and rolled in heading south. I could see the chaff corridor that an F-4 flight had laid down ahead of us, and until we rolled in below the cloud not much ack, but then..... The AAA was everything they talked about and there were cloud layers according to the caliber, so 23mm, 37mm, 57mm 85mm up at 20K where we rolled in from.
The blitz worked and we got our buddies back two months later.
Gums recalls...