The Projector Boys

In the spring of 1951, two sophomores at Sac City High School in Iowa ran the school's movie projectors, a job that got them out of class. The yearbook called them the famous class skippers. In November 1955 they joined the Navy four days apart, and the service kept their names adjacent on its list of officers for the next twelve years. Max Otto spent his career landing the A-3 Skywarrior, the heaviest airplane ever flown routinely from a carrier deck and one built without ejection seats. Jimmy Buckley flew the A-6 Intruder off USS Constellation into the most heavily defended airspace on earth. In June 1967 both men were flying from two carriers at the same coordinates in the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 21, 1967, Buckley's Intruder came down inside the People's Republic of China. His bombardier/navigator, Lieutenant Commander Robert J. Flynn, was held two thousand and thirty-two days, nearly all of it in solitary confinement, and spent the next fifty years maintaining an account that contradicted his own government's file. Built from family letters, hometown newspapers, squadron histories and Navy deck logs. Includes photographs and documents.