Military Snapshots - Bird Dog over the DMZ

From 1968-1969, the "Catkillers" of the 220th Recon Airplane Company strapped into the cockpits of their two-seat, propeller-driven Cessna O-1 Bird Dogs and went to war in Vietnam. As forward observers, they flew hundreds of feet above one of the deadliest battlefields in modern history, all in an airplane no larger than a small pickup truck. In the process, they saved the lives of thousands of American servicemen. Here, a Bird Dog makes a low pass for a bomb damage assessment after an air strike in the DMZ. Photo courtesy of Don Long, from A Hundred Feet Over Hell: Flying With the Men of the 220th Recon Airplane Company Over I Corps and the DMZ, Vietnam 1968-1969 by Jim Hooper