At dusk, two heavily armed AT-28s scrambled from the 3,300-foot runway at the Bien Hoa, South Vietnam, military encampment. It was January 1962. The Air Force "air commando" pilots launched to support US Army Special Forces embedded with an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) company under attack. On reaching the target area, the airmen found the Viet Cong had started grass fires, creating dense gray smoke. In the fading light this significantly reduced visibility, making the mission especially difficult. The ARVN soldiers were located in a triangular-shaped fort designed to protect an adjoining village. To point out the enemy's location, one of the soldiers marked the attackers' location with a white phosphorous rocket. Then, in a series of passes, the two AT-28s delivered four cans of napalm and raked the target area with machine gunfire.
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