On July 24, 1965, Soviet advisors to North Vietnam launched an SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM), blowing an American F-4 Phantom out of the sky—the first of several U.S. kills using this fearsome new technology. To counter this new weaponry, stunned Pentagon officials created a classified program—“Iron Hand”—that offered a small group of maverick pilots a chance to counter this deadly threat.

Fifty years later, Dan Hampton provides a cockpit view of this highly classified military program that was a radical departure from practiced tactical jet aviation—and carried a fifty-percent casualty rate. Yet despite the odds, a band of courageous, daring, and skilled pilots—warriors who took the name Wild Weasels—risked their lives to save their Air Force brothers.

Using first-hand accounts, declassified documents from both sides of the conflict, and featuring unpublished photographs, Iron Hand takes readers int