22 AH july 2016
AFTER CROSSING THE SERBIAN BORDER AT 18,000
FEET, U.S. AIR FORCE LIEUTENANT COLONEL WILLIAM
“BRAD” O’CONNOR’S F-117 NIGHTHAWK INITIATED
A COMPUTER-PROGRAMMED HARD TURN WEST
of the night lights of Belgrade, toward his primary target, the
Baric munitions plant on the Sava River. He completed his
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Streams of silvery anti-aircraft rounds swung back and forth
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tinge of yellow. O’Connor pitied the poor schmucks over in that
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him directly into the thick of it.
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shooting at me º
The Nighthawk was the world’s most invisible attack bomber;
radar was nearly blind to it. So what the hell was going on? Some
guy down there with a $200 pair of night-vision goggles?
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and O’Connor’s sixth sortie
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The White House under
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cally ordered all agencies to
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The latest round of car-
nage in the former Republic
of Yugoslavia involved the
ethnically Serbian part of
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terror attacks either killed
or displaced nearly a million
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Secretary General Javier
Solana directed the supreme
allied commander Europe,
U.S. General Wesley Clark,
to initiate air operations
against the Federal Republic
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pable of continuing his per-
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key targets the next night with
1,000 aircraft operating out of
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and from the aircraft carrier
USS Theodore Roosevelt in the
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the first U.S. conflict fought
entirely from the air and the
largest sustained action since
Vietnam, with more than
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days from March 24 to June
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the campaign.L
ong before O’Connor
ever set eyes on the
top-secret Nighthawk,
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Force pilots training out of air
bases at Nellis, Holloman and
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An F-117A arrives in Italy
(above) in 1999 to support
operations over the former
Republic of Yugoslavia and
Kosovo. Lt. Col. William
“Brad” O’Connor (opposite)
poses with a Nighthawk
after completing his training. PREVIOUS PAGES: GREG L. DAVIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; LEFT: U.S. AIR FORCE; RIGHT: COURTESY OF LT. COL. WILLIAM B. O’CONNOR (USAF, RET.)