We welcome your comments on this interview at [email protected]
Catalog number: VIS 201.0788
In this interview, Jim Hoogerwerf recalls his experiences serving in the United States Air Force as a C-130 pilot in the Vietnam War. He recalls his growing up years, including living in Paris in 1949 where his family had a chance encounter with former German SS officer and lifelong Nazi Otto Skorzeny. He attended George Washington University where he enrolled in ROTC and describes his flight training and later flying elements of the 82nd Airborne Division into Washington D.C. during the riots following Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. In May of 1968 he was sent to the Philippines where his unit was based during the Vietnam War. He describes the missions they flew all over Vietnam and the types of cargo they carried, including night flying and carrying aviation fuel. He remembers some of the passengers they carried, including Korean soldiers and Australian show girls. He describes living conditions both in Vietnam and in the Philippines. He explains his post-military career as a commercial aviation pilot for Delta Air Lines. He recalls in detail the reunions fellow Delta pilot and retired Marine Corps Colonel Charlie Tutt organized with North Vietnamese fighter pilots. He remembers a trip he made behind the Iron Curtain to West Berlin while his family lived in Amsterdam.