The American Air Museum at Duxford stands as a memorial to the 30,000 American airmen who gave their lives flying from UK bases during the Second World War, and also honors those who fought in Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Iraq and other conflicts and battles of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, It houses the largest collection of US historic military aircraft in Europe. This picture shows the tail section of a Boeing B-52 D 'Stratofortress', part of the fuselage and vertical stabilizer of a Boeing B-17 G 'Flying Fortress' (238133), the twin vertical stabilizers of a Consolidated B-24 M 'Liberator' (451228), and, suspended from the ceiling, part of a Douglas C-47 'Skytrain'. Standing in front of the tail of this B-52 D with its quad .50- cal machine guns, brought back some memories from the last time I was TDY (temporary duty) at Da Nang AB, Vietnam during July and August 1967. On 8 July 1967, while on an arclight mission at night, a B-52 D (56-0601) was hit over Vinh and suffered complete hydraulic failure. Rather than bail out, the aircraft commander elected to divert to Da Nang and attempt an emergency landing.He touched down long and was unable to either stop the aircraft or initiate a go-around. He overshot the runway, went across the perimeter road into a mine field. According to our night crew he was doing about 90 kts when he overshot the runway. The aircraft caught fire, and it wasn't too far away from our own aircraft and our fuel bladders. Of the crew of six, only the tail gunner survived (in a B-52 D the tail gunner was sitting in the tail, as he was in all the other models, except the G and H models where the tail gunner was sitting in the front). Our own aircraft, the Convair F-102 'Delta Dagger' interceptor, and the Boeing B-52 D had similar engines. The F-102 was powered by a Pratt & Whitney J 57 engine with afterburner, the B-52 D was powered by eight Pratt & Whitney J 57 engines with water injection (used during take off). So the next day, our engine man and myself were sent to the crash site in the minefield (all the mines were cooked off by the fire) and had a look. The impact of the 4 engine pods (each pod holding two engines), and the main gear was clearly visible. The fuselage was totally destroyed and not much was left of the engines. Only the tail section (on a B-52 D the tail was 48-ft 4-in high), painted black with red serial numbers (56-0601) was left. On 15 July 1967, at 0020 the VC initiated an attack on the Da Nang AB. 83 rounds of 122 mm and 140 mm rockets and mortars came in, setting off the bomb dump (luckily the napalm had been moved to a new underground storage facility).10 aircraft were destroyed a further 49 aircraft were damaged and 8 US servicemen were KIA and a further 175 WIA. The attack lasted 45 minutes and caused $80 million (1967) in damages. On 29 July 1967 a fire broke out on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier 'Forrestal' (CVA 59) which killed 134 sailors and injured another 161. It required the carrier to be put into Subic Bay, P.I. for a lengthy repair. This picture was taken on 13 July 2014, Sig...