Operation Thunderhead, by Kevin Dockery

Operation Thunderhead: The True Story of Vietnam's Final POW Rescue Mission - and the Last Navy SEAL Killed in Country, by Kevin Dockery
Berkley Publishing Group, 2008
278 pages, plus 8 pages of b&w photos, appendix and index

Description
As the Vietnam War slowly ground to an end, American forces were being withdrawn and removed from combat duty. But there was still one battle the United States was willing to fight...

In the last year of the Vietnam conflict, even as American troops were leaving for home, there were still those fighting for their lives: prisoners of war being held in the Communist north. There were two operations launched to rescue the POWs. One mission,-the leendary Son Tay raid-was revealed to an astonished public. The other mission was classified as Top Secret for years.

This is the incredible true story of that almost-forgotten mission-Operation Thunderhead.

Among the personnel recruited for the mission was a select group of operators from both the US Navy SEALS and the Underwater Demolition Teams who knew that if they were captured, they would be killed, tortured, or more likely disappear forever into enemy hands. Also involved were the men of the submarine USS Grayback-who would deliver the team while trting to avoid being detected by their own Navy-and two SR-71 Blackbirds, the most secret aircraft in the American arsenal, which were used to make contact with the POWs themselves.

Here, for the first time, the details of Operation Thunderhead are revealed-the mission, the materials, and the men who put their lives on the line to save their brothers in arms....

Table of Contents
1. Vietnam
2. Fear
3. Code of Conduct
4. A Start
5. Punching Out
6. Captured
7. Moving
8. Interrogation
9. Escape
10. Run
11. The Goose and the Bug
12. Torture
13. The Dungeon
14. Heartbreak and Beyond
15. The Zoo
16. Coker and McKnight
17. Bid for Freedom
18. The Zoo Annex
19. Planning and Preparation
20. Escape from the Annex
21. Freedom Runners
22. Ordeal
23. Seals, frogmen, and dark waters
24. New time
25. Operation Diamond
26. Blackbirds booming the Hanoi Hilton
27. Operation Thunderhead
28. Launch
29. Deadly Waters
30. Final Return
Appendix
Index