U.S. Air Force veteran Bob Pardo, who rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served in the Vietnam War and the Cold War, passed at 89 on Dec. 5. He was famous for the unorthodox and extremely dangerous maneuver he used to save his fellow airmen when their plane began leaking fuel after taking fire over enemy territory.
Pardo knew that if the other crew ejected, they would quickly be captured or perhaps killed, so he took extraordinary measures – he literally used his own plane to push the damaged one into safer territory.
It all went down on March 10, 1967, when Pardo and his First Weapons officer were flying their F-4C Phantom on a bombing run north of Hanoi. It was like a Top Gun movie — yet it was real life:
“I knew if I didn’t do anything, they would have to eject over North Vietnam into enemy territory, and that would have resulted in their capture for sure,” Pardo…
