In 1962, while he was stationed at Lakenheath, England, young Lieutenant Chuck Horner was in North Africa, at Wheelus, Libya, flying an F-100D Super Saber, training on the gunnery range that the Air Force had established in those days of friendship with the Libyan government of King Idris. The weather in Libya was better than anywhere in Europe; there were hundreds of miles of desert to spare for a gunnery range; and for recreation, the old walled town had a camel market, Roman ruins, decent Italian restaurants, and beaches nearby for relaxing on weekends. The officers’ club rocked every night, and the pilots had plenty of time to drink and lie, two of their most pleasurable activities. It was fighter pilot heaven.

One day at Wheelus, Horner was number three in a group of four, flying strafe patterns. Imagine four lines in a square pattern on the ground whose corners are—very roughly—a mile apart. At each of these corners is an F-100. The target is located in one corner of this box. The airplane on the corner turning to head toward the target is rolling in to shoot at the target. The airplane behind him at the corner diagonally across the box is turning base leg; he is getting ready to shoot next. The airplane behind him is flying toward the base leg turning point. And the airplane coming off the target has just completed his gunnery pass and is trying to visually acquire the other three aircraft so he can space on them for his next turn at the target. It’s extremely important to maintain that spacing. If the pilot puts the base leg too far out, then his dive angle is flat and he can pick up ricochets. If he gets it in too close, his dive angle’s too steep, and he’ll hit the ground while trying to pull up from his firing pass on the target.

That day there was a ghibly blowing—a sandstorm. Visibility was bad, less than a mile, which meant each pilot could see where he was in relation to the ground and could sometimes dimly spot the location of the aircraft ahead of him, but it was next to impossible to see the target itself or determine how the aircraft were spaced in relation to each other and the target. In other words, it was a day they shouldn’t have been on the range.