Route Pack 6

by Walter J. Boyne: It was the most dangerous of the “Route Packages,” taking airmen into the deadly defenses around Hanoi.  In every war, there is a place that comes to symbolize its most ferocious moments. For airmen in the Vietnam War, it was Route Pack 6, taking the battle to the heart of Hanoi-“going downtown.” A relatively small band of US pilots fought a long and valiant war under conditions that rarely made sense to them. Handicapped by onerous-foolish might be the better term-rules of engagement, they nonetheless flew into battle every day, delivering bombs on the most well-defended targets in history. Many brave men died in the process, and more suffered the fate of imprisonment by a cruel enemy.”