May 21, 1961

Second Lieutenant Nguyễn Văn Cử idled his A-1 Skyraider as First Lieutenant Phạm Phú Quốc pulled up in front of him to lead their element to bomb Viet Cong positions in the Mekong Delta. He squinted his eyes at the flight tower, and almost thought he could make out Ky staring at him intently, but he wasn't quite sure–not that it really mattered at this point.

Quốc and Cử's aircraft were rugged relics of the 1940s; a mighty piston engine moving a heavily armored plane armed with 4 Colt 20mm auto cannons; a number of "Mighty Mouse" rockets, and several plebeian 250lb bombs. As would prove to be relevant later, though, there was no fire control system on these old birds–these were attack aircraft, not fighters.

As they began their takeoff roll, climbing above the clouds that often lingered over Vietnam, they turned south. Heading on bearing 200, they climbed high above the clouds to 22,000 feet, in the process of which they unloaded their bombs somewhere over South Vietnam–hopefully nowhere important–in the first sign that they were not, as their mission briefing officially stated, on course to attack a Viet Cong command post, in which case 250lb bombs might have proven quite helpful.

Instead, they cruised straight south, checking watches, checking maps, and checking compasses–hardly rocket science. This is where having an air to air radar would have been very, very useful, but given even proper fighters often didn't have them, you really couldn't complain too much. As minutes ticked by, Quốc and Cử squinted out the cockpit, straining their eyes to look for something. Abruptly, Quốc gestured to Cử and the pair turned slightly to the southeast.

Suddenly, they caught sight of it, a distant silver glint, coming from the south. As it drew closer, it revealed the form of a Lockheed Constellation, a strange, dolphin-like aircraft that spoke of elegance and beauty in the precise opposite way that the Skyraider screamed "brute force". Quốc and Cử twitched their wings ever so slightly, screaming past the silver bird at a closing rate of over 600 knots, entering the merge. To his dying day, Quốc would swear he saw the doomed man inside wave to him cheerily as he went by. Quốc and Cử began a rapid turn, descending to the flight level of the Connie, turning about as they opened the throttles on their engines. Cử flipped the master arm switch. This was it.

He led the Connie by a little and began closing, staring at the pipper, leading it slightly like he had been taught by that old salty WWII vet in Florida so many years ago. Then–he released a full salvo of rockets, producing a massive quantity of smoke as he pulled up. Soaring above, he came about to see the Constellation still aloft–in fact, it appeared wholly unscathed, and given the explosive power of a Mighty Mouse it would be surprising if any of them had hit. No matter. He bent the plane almost sideways, lining it up again, and let it know the full fury of his cannons; and, tailing behind him, Quốc did the same–all his rockets had also missed. Flashes and smoke suggested he had hit this time, and the Constellation seemed to be losing altitude. Circling round again, he slowed, coming onto its six, then accelerating into it as he held down the trigger on the four unaligned auto cannons, the Spad shuddering slightly with the recoil of the cannons–or maybe that's just what it did normally. A piece of the tail broke off and flew right across his field of view; the now maimed dolphin, critically wounded, descended into the cloud deck trailing smoke and debris, presumably to its final doom somewhere in the vast mangroves of the Mekong Delta.

Quốc finally broke radio silence. "Target believed destroyed; returning to base." Turning off the radio, he tried to cheer best he could in his flight suit. When he was going to land, it was going to be in a very different Vietnam.