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The pilot, John Verde, I didn't remember his name, had two or three hundred missiions in Korea in the Panther. He was commisioned in the Marines after dropping out of M.I.T. engineering school. After Korea he worked as a mercenary in French Indochina flying everything the French had. The story I heard is that he was flying a Fairchild C-119 Boxcar as a mercenary in Vietnam and it was loaded with captured Viet Cong guerillas. The C-119 blew an engine and being overloaded started coming down. They discarded all the weight they could but were still descending. The Viet Cong were shackled to wooden palettes and Verde ordered them pushed out the back of the airplane!
Lighter, the airplane avoided crashing in the jungle and made it back to it's base. When I was in VMA-124, I had heard this story, but it was at the airshows later all the warbird people were telling and confirming the story. As to him flying F-4's I don't know or remember that story. There's a lot more on this guy.
John Verdi commanded VMFA-122 during it's 1967-68 combat tour in VN flying at least 250 missions. The C-119 story is not exactly correct. It June 4, 1954 and was a flight from Cat Bi to Ton San Nhut about 600 miles at 10,000' with 79 people (71 VC prisoners onboard). Since the overmaxed C-119 would fly like and anvil with 1 engine out, Verdi ordered the VC tied down 12 to a pallet and rigged has jettisionable cargo with the intention of dropping them it the situation arose. Has far as I know, the flight was completed with it's cargo intact.
Whether or not the F9 and it's pilot were missions capable, he wasn't legal and the weather sucked big time. The jet should have been in the hanger and the crew should have been tossing down a few tall cold ones!
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