Deep in the sweltering jungles of central Laos, Long Tieng played a central role in the United States’ fight to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. Fifty years after its fall, we ...

In 1964, he began flying for Air America. ... “They’d (military pilots) bailout over Laos. It would take time for the Air Force to get permission to cross over into airspace.

A day or so later, those coordinates were bombed. U.S. Air Force T-28Ds from the 56th Special Operations Wing from Nakhon Phanom RTAFB took part in “Operation Barrel Roll” a covert interdiction and ...

But they weren’t alone over the skies of Laos. Pilots from Air America, a secret CIA-owned airline, also operated in Long Tieng; they flew in crucial supplies to the base and conducted daring ...