It offers references from the opposing side and some perspectives of the maintainers and ground forces. Walter additionally takes the reader through a chronological order of the operations adding to the ease of readability and allowing the reader to effortlessly keep track of the timeline.Ī minor shortcoming of the book is a few missing perspectives. Readers do not have to be familiar with gunships to understand the book. He also does an excellent job of explaining in detail each crewmember’s position on the aircraft as well as their roles and responsibilities. A great level of detail exists of the specific missions executed and offers a unique point of view from those who were there. Walter does a terrific job of telling the stories of crew members who flew on the AC-130 Gunships. But that did not come without a cost: 6 AC-130 gunships were destroyed, and 52 crewmembers lost their lives (286).
These operations proved to be very successful, saving countless lives and destroying thousands of tons of supplies. Ghostriders provides detailed accounts of AC-130s hunting trucks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and supporting ground forces in the area. In 2001, Walter was inducted into the Air Commando Hall of Fame and the US Special Operations Command Hall of Honor in 2011. He participated in every AC-130 combat operation from 1980–94.
Walter is a retired US Air Force chief master sergeant and was an AC-130 Gunship aerial gunner. For example, Walter stated that modifications to the aircraft did not come with technical data, leaving crews and maintainers to deal with complex troubleshooting problems (86). It provides a fascinating perspective of the missions conducted by aircrew members and the challenges of employing a newly modified aircraft. Ghostriders is compiled from historical accounts of declassified material and information gained from interviews with Special Operations Forces (SOF) veterans. William Walter’s Ghostriders 1968–1975 is an excellent history of AC-130 gunships and the combat operations conducted in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Ghostriders 1968–1975: “Mors de Caelis” Combat History of the AC-130 Spectre Gunship, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia by William Walter, 2022, 352 pp.
0 kommentar(er)
