Big Mother 40 — Marc Liebman

U.S. Air Force pilots are becoming reluctant to fly missions into North Vietnam from their bases in Thailand because the North Vietnamese are shooting them down from a missile site they cannot find. Together with the unexplained loss helicopters on deep penetration missions lead Josh Haman and his friend Marty Cabot, the leader of SEAL Team Sierra Six, to suspect a leak in the Navy's secure communications. No one believes them until Cabot aborts a reconnaissance mission after capturing several maps that that has their insertion and extraction landing zones plotted. At the secret missile base, Colonel Alexei Koniev, one of the Soviet Army's leading experts in surface to air missile warfare is testing his theories. His napalm scarred counterpart, Colonel Nguyen Thai, is being pressured to force Koniev to shoot down more airplanes while the Russian wants to be more selective to preserve the element of surprise that has helped them bag almost sixty airplanes. Both know that it is only a matter of time before the Americans find and attack the hidden missile base, but how and when? Ride with Josh Haman as he flies an HH-3A with the call sign BIG MOTHER 40 on combat search and rescues. inserting and extracting SEAL teams in the hunt for the secret missile base.