“I could hear him coming,” Norris said during a Library of Congress Veterans History Project interview. After carefully maneuvering around enemy units all night, Norris’ team picked up on Clark’s movements in a river that he’d been instructed by radio to float down. On the night of April 10, Norris and a team of five Vietnamese SEALs began their mission through more than a mile of heavily controlled enemy territory to find Clark, the more recently downed pilot. He was comfortable running operations with them. Norris said he believed he was chosen because he was one of the few special operators remaining in the country who had worked with the Vietnamese teams involved. military leaders decided that the only way to get to the two pilots was by ground troops, so they asked Norris to lead that rescue effort.

Mark Clark, who had also been shot down, was now stranded with Hambleton in enemy territory.

Two Americans had been taken prisoner, and close-air support pilot Air Force 1st Lt. According to an Army War College text, in six days of air rescue efforts, more than a dozen men were killed and six aircraft were either downed or damaged. The Air Force then began its largest rescue mission in history, and it didn’t go well. Army helicopters tried to reach him, but one was shot down and the rest were unsuccessful.

Iceal “Gene” Hambleton, 53, was the only survivor, and he was trapped in the thick of the enemy offensive. On April 2, one EB-66 aircraft was shot down just below the DMZ.

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