We have thousands of veterans living here in San Diego many of them have visited memories of their time in combat and our guests today have stories that lives up to the best of them. He served five tours as a fighter pilot and he flew bombers in the Vietnam War. Mayor -- major heart and story runs through a new book which is called mid air by San Diego-based writer Claire -- Craig Collins. They both spoke with Allison St. John. Don I know this is a story that would take the whole hour to tell but I want you to give us a picture of the story that starts the book because it is so gripping. The moment is amazing. It was June 18, 1965 we had landed in one we waited for 4 1/2 months on the beach so then they said okay and it was Northwest of Saigon. Took off at 4:00 in the morning and looked up and here comes the B-52. I had a better second and a half before we hit head-on and went through the different things that happen like anger and denial and all that and then displaying to run into the cop -- cockpit and I put both handles on his left one came up so I squeeze the trigger and nothing happened. I squeezed it a few more times and tried to pull up the right handle the realized I'm going to die if I don't get out here. I looked down and squeezed in a fired. It broke my neck I'm coming down and I should open and there's fires all over the ocean. The fact is you survived falling from 30,000 feet through a typhoon into a rough South China Sea with all of those injuries and you continue to fly. I have survivors go. I am still obsessed with it. I still feel bad about it Craggy first told the story back when you were five years old at show and tell. When I was five years old I went into kindergarten about two months after my uncle crash and it was one of the first stories ever told I went in with the plastic model of the B-52 in the clipping of my uncles crash. One of my most visited -- vivid memories while he was on leave and he took me out on the tarmac and that was amazing experience. It is truly one of the most ex--- astonishing survival stories. He wrote a book about 10 or 12 years ago and it took a lot of that information the minors combat pilot stories for dummies. We are trying to reach and I think it's really time to bring the story to the general public. The general public has really never heard of. It's an amazing story. Is that the story of Vietnam and how it unfolded? There's the amazing crash My uncle was on a top-secret mission and he said what could up abruptly halted the war in February 1965 and that mission was canceled. That's an important thing I need to now. My uncle during his stay really truly was one of the top pilots if not the top fighter pilot in the world. I wanted to follow-up on that issue that could have saved a lot of lives. When were deployed -- they love the bombs and feel They were on the airfield and then they would say -- That could have forestalled -- It would've ended the Vietnam War before it got started. When you think the Vietnam War was part of our nation's psyche? I spent a lot of time studying Vietnam and with my uncle being in the war but my opinion is obviously that it was such a traumatic event for this country there was a giant slug in the last 58,000 troop and there were many many social issues and it continues to rear his head more Vietnam has not made a huge role. Have one presidential candidate you have a candidate whose husband and a former president who was able to win his way out of service for the country it says a lot about who serves and who does not serve in the honor of serving and what it is to be an American and Whelchel had to only one or two and could of done anything else and he chose to serve his country. We have come to the end of our time but I would like to thank you both. The book is called Midair the off -- the author is Craig Collins. Thank you for coming in.
Maj. Don Harten flew more than 300 combat missions during the Vietnam War. He was there from the time the first bomb dropped in 1965 to the last in 1972.
His military experience, including a head-on collision of two B-52 bombers during a typhoon over the South China Sea and botched rescue operation, runs through a new book written by Harten’s nephew and San Diego author, Craig Collins.
"I had about a second in a half before we hit head-on," Harten said. "I went through all the different things that happen like anger and denial when you die, and I did it in about two micro seconds but then this plane went right into the cockpit."
Collins said it was time to bring this story to a mass audience.
"I tried to do three things in the book. There's the amazing crash story, which really pulls you in, the second thing is the historical, political component ... and the third thing I tried to do is to talk about what it's like to be a combat pilot," Collins said.
Collins and Harten discuss the book “Midair” and the Vietnam War Tuesday on Midday Edition.
