'Topgun': Pearl Harbor, Vietnam & F-35s

Review by Bill Doughty
This pioneer of modern naval fighter aviation is fearless in his recounting of experiences during the Vietnam War and Cold War – and in his views about the F-35 fighter jet.

USS Ranger renders honors to the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor.

Dan Pedersen, founder of Topgun and a former CO of USS Ranger in the early 80s, writes with reverence about being a leader of Sailors coming into Pearl Harbor, January 1967, after combat in Vietnam. "Every skipper in the Navy knew this channel like his own hometown."

"Ahead and off to port, USS Arizona lay in her grave. Above the national memorial, her flag flew proudly, the Stars and Stripes full in the wind. Beneath it lay the remains of more than a thousand Sailors, killed on the first day of war on December 7, 1941, a full generation earlier. The USS Arizona Memorial is the closest thing to a shrine that the Navy has, this side of John Paul Jones's crypt at the Naval Academy. Ever since that day of infamy, it has been tradition to render honors to those Sailors whenever a warship arrives in Pearl Harbor. A flight-deck parade was the order of the day. A voice came over the ship's loudspeaker, 'Attention on deck, hand salute!' As one, the crew of the Enterprise touched our foreheads with our right hands and held position. I'd done this before aboard the Hancock, but it was different now, and everyone could feel it. Some of my shipmates held back tears in their eyes. After three years of war, we knew the cost. All those men, entombed in that shattered hull. Airpower did this."

"Topgun: An American Story" (Hachette Books, 2019) offers a personal and heartfelt assessment of what it takes to be a good naval aviator and leader – the wisdom of empowering and trusting young people, pushing machines and innovation to the limit, and developing strong strategies and tactics before going to war. 

Pederson calls it as he sees it when it comes to Vietnam: "In the 1960s, America fought in Vietnam with the wrong planes, unreliable weapons, bad tactics, and the wrong senior civilian leadership."
He focuses blame for the tragedy of the Vietnam War on President Johnson's administration via the Pentagon, especially on Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who micromanaged combat operations.

"Destroying the targets given to us by the Pentagon seemed to make no difference in the war to the south. The losses mounted, and the MiGs started seeking us out. The North Vietnamese possessed a small but well-trained air force, proxied by their Chinese and Soviet allies. As good as it was, they were not in the same league as the Soviet Air Force, so it sent shock waves through the Navy when the North Vietnamese pilots started shooting us down. During the Korean War, the North Korean Air Force was virtually wiped out in the opening months. A decade later, the Vietnamese MiGs gave us a real fight. They shot down one of ours for every two MiGs that we claimed. We considered the loss rate intolerable, given our long history of deeply one-sided kill ratios. In World War II, U.S. naval aviators crushed the Japanese in the central Pacific on the way to Tokyo, with Hellcat pilots, who scored three-fourths of the Navy's air-to-air victories, posting a kill ratio on the order of nineteen to one. In Vietnam, we simply were not allowed to win, so the Navy bureaucracy did what bureaucracies do best: It continued on course. Micromanaged from Washington, D.C., we made the same mistakes month after month. It nearly crippled U.S. naval aviation."

President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at a cabinet meeting, February 7, 1968. In the wake of the Tet Offensive, the Johnson administration began to question its strategy in Vietnam. (National Archives, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum)

Pedersen notes that when LBJ authorized airstrikes against Communist targets in August 1964, the first U.S. naval aviator to be shot down was Everett Alvarez, the son of Mexican immigrants, who endured eight years of torture by the North Vietnamese as a POW.

USS Durham Sailors rescue Vietnamese refugees in the South China Sea, 1975. (National Archives)

If Alvarez represents one bookend of U.S. naval aviation in Vietnam, several other events can serve as bookends more than a decade later.

Pedersen describes flights to and from USS Coral Sea to guard an evacuation armada and flights from USS Midway to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. He gives a front-row-seat report about the recovery of the Mayaguez from Cambodian Khmer Rouge. And, he reveals his role as the CO of Ranger in the rescue of Vietnamese "boat people" in 1981. Each event became deeply personal.

Pedersen became lifetime friends with some of the Vietnamese refugees. "It was impossible not to be affected by their ordeal, and by what they had risked everything for – the same things that drove generations to American shores." Most of the 138 men, women and children would migrate to the West Coast of the United States. One of the migrants, who was 13 at the time of the rescue, named his son "Dan" in honor of Pedersen.


"For naval aviation, the problem of Vietnam never seemed to go away," Pedersen writes.

"I found through my Navy career that some men revel in the challenge and rush of  combat. That pace off Vietnam? It was their hunting ground. Me, I never got to that point. Combat was a responsibility, even a sacred duty. That moment as we passed the Arizona was a reminder of that legacy and the connection we combat pilots shared in it. I took it very seriously, of course, but I never liked it. Those men I would never see again, those families I would see to soon again – they were the cost of that adrenaline rush others craved. That was a burden I couldn't carry and love at the same time."

Also deeply personal for the author is the future for naval aviators. He says the F-14 Tomcats and A-6 Intruders were fine aircraft, and their loss to the military in 2006 was the result of the actions by one of McNamara's successors, then-SECDEF Dick Cheney.

"Focused on acquiring the Tomcat's replacement, the F-18 Hornet, and the A-12 Avenger II stealth bomber, an upgrade for the A-6 Intruder, the Navy decided there wasn't enough money to keep the Tomcats flying. It didn't help the old bird's cause that the secretary of defense, Dick Cheney, seemed to have it in for New York's congressional delegation. Grumman Aircraft was located on Long Island. As the Pentagon's axe fell, it was a sad case of the new and the expensive driving out the affordable and the reliable. When Secretary Cheney ended the lives of those two iconic Grumman carrier planes, the Intruder and the Tomcat, the future got a whole lot more costly."

Pedersen notes that American F-14s are now being flown by Iran, which began acquiring them from the United States in 1976, when Washington and Tehran were on friendly terms. "The Iranians are having a laugh, I'm sure, still flying one of the best fighter aircraft ever built to serve the U.S. Navy."

Is Pedersen an old-fashioned luddite or a voice of wisdom? He used the tools of air combat to meld art and science and create top-notch Topgun warriors; and at 83 years old at the time he wrote this book, he offers sage advice to those who will listen.

He describes with stark honesty the creation of the "fifth-generation" Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, 27 years in development and "the most expensive weapons system in history ... figuring to exceed a trillion dollars." He describes problems with the tail hook, oxygen system for the pilot, and the "super-sophisticated helmet, noting that pilots call it "'the penguin.' It flies like one."

"No one agency can fix this problem. Not the Navy of the other services, not the defense contractors, and not Congress. Each of these has powerful incentives to avoid doing the right thing. The lucrative subcontracts associated with the F-35 are spread strategically across most every congressional district in America. With so many House members having a stake in the program, it is assured to have broad-based political support, regardless of its actual capabilities or costs. So when a defense contractor proposes a new feature for the new aircraft, even if it's not one that the Navy's frontline squadrons want or need, there's nobody on hand to say no. Why would some rear admiral at the Pentagon stand in the way of a 'yes' vote for the Navy's appropriations in the House of Representatives by turning down the unwanted bells and whistles? A lot of those admirals, you know, have golden parachutes waiting for them after they retire – a well-paying job as an executive vice president at that one-and-the-same company. Should he risk the windfall by asking questions?"

F-35

If the question is "what's the alternative?" Pedersen has a suggestion: "simpler is better." Imagine: "A basic hot rod, a single-seater akin to the old F-5. Light, maneuverable, and compact – hard to see in a fight. I'd want it cheap, easy to mass-produce and replace should we start taking losses in combat over time."

Pedersen, naval aviator and leader of warriors.

In "Topgun" (the book is inspired by a request from Jim Hornfischer, president of Hornfischer Literary Management for the 50th anniversary of the Navy Fighter Weapons School) Pedersen describes action during Israel's Yom Kippur War – and Topgun's role in "averting...Armageddon" – and tensions at Gonzo Station in the Persian Gulf facing threats from Iranians in the 1980s.

Will we learn the lessons of the past?
"Something is rotten in Washington," he writes, "and one day, sadly, we will lose a war because of it. Maybe that tragic result will serve to wake up our political and defense establishments and give them the courage to begin removing the rot. "Victory in World War II and the Cold War – as well as the tragedy of the Vietnam War – should inform our decisions.

CAPT Pedersen

There's much more packed into this well-written, fascinating book. Why did Topgun aviators visit Area 51? How does it feel in the cockpit of an F-4 or a Soviet MiG (like "flying an anvil")? What happens when you have to make an emergency ejection? How tense was it going through the Strait of Malacca? What does Pedersen think about the Topgun movie(s)? What happened inside the Cubi Point Officers Club in Subic Bay? What message did USS Ranger send to the "Red Chinese" about Taiwan? And what tragedy took place after his ship left Hong Kong in 1981?

This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the first centennial of naval aviation. Without revealing too many details, it's also a love story and a look at the sacrifices warriors make in the name of duty and the love of service. "For us, flying always came first."

A pilot performs preflight checks on an F/A-18C Hornet aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Pacific Ocean, July 31, 2016. (MC3 Alexander Delgado)