Gun Battle at Ban Karai Pass: Fire in the Night Sky

Late in evening of February 22, 1967,  at the Royal Thai/U.S. Air Commando air base  at Nakhon Phanom (NKP), Thailand, fire trucks, ambulances, and other emergency, service, and Air Police vehicles rolled into place on the taxiways of the 6,000-foot pierced steel planking runway. One of the 606th Air Commando squadron’s A-26 attack-bombers returning from a combat mission on the border of Laos and North Vietnam had been badly damaged in a ferocious gun battle with North Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns. With their landing gear unusable, one of their two engines shut down, a fuel leak, and one of its main landing gear tires burning, their choices were grim.

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