Tiburon vet, grandson produce documentary on daring Vietnam pilots

May 9—Public broadcasting filmmaker Danny McGuire worked for years on the story of a top-secret Air Force squadron that flew missions in the Vietnam War.

When he suffered a stroke in 2020, it was clear that finishing the film would be a challenge.

Now it's airing on PBS stations across the country, thanks to a Marin veteran and his film producer grandson, who volunteered to take on the passion project.

"The Misty Experiment: The Secret Battle for the Ho Chi Minh Trail" premieres this month on public television stations across the country, and will air at various times on PBS, including at 8 a.m. on Memorial Day on KQED World.

The film examines the story of the "Mistys" — a special squadron of nearly 160 Air Force pilots recruited to fly missions to identify enemy weapons-supply routes.

Air Force veteran Dean Echenberg and filmmaker grandson Ian Adelson, both of Tiburon, took on the film in 2021. McGuire, formerly of KQED, had interviewed numerous squadron members.

"Over the years, I got to know Danny pretty well," Echenberg said. "It became obvious talking to him that he wasn't going to be able to finish it."

The documentary features first-person accounts from more than 20 veterans, describing months of flying into danger. The job was to bring home details on enemy locations to map out their movements. Pilots nicknamed their spotting abilities "misty eyes" for identifying signs of enemy troops such as splash patterns on creek beds or canopies that looked man-made.

They saw success within the first few weeks of flying missions, according to the documentary.

"There was an atmosphere of innovation," Misty Intelligence Officer Roger Van Dyken said in the film.

"One flight reconnaissance fed into the next. The next day's group of pilots tested the theories from the day before. There was constant pressure."

The missions were secret and very dangerous. Of the 157 Misty pilots who served during the Vietnam War, 34 were shot down at least once. Eight were killed and four became prisoners of war. Less than half of the men are still living.

Many went on to great success. Merrill Anthony "Tony" McPeak and Ronald Fogleman became Air Force chiefs of staff. One Misty received the Medal of Honor for his service, and another became the first man to fly nonstop around the world.

Echenberg said the film demonstrates how their elite experience and demonstration of dedication shaped later successes in life.

"They became rather prominent in whatever field they decided to go into afterward," he said.

Echenberg served as a medic in the squadron and became a public health physician and epidemiologist, and later, the head of infectious disease control in the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

"I became very close to them, I actually flew missions with them," he said.

"That year was perhaps the single most ... important year of my life. They are still — to this day — my best friends."

He and Adelson relied heavily on Misty pilot Don Shepperd's memories and research. Shepperd wrote two books about his experience flying 58 missions. He became a major general and head of the Air National Guard from 1994 to 1998.

"These were a bunch of guys who would do anything to accomplish the mission we were given ... an impossible mission to stop the flow of arms and material coming south," Shepperd said. "These were the guys directing airstrikes, taking hits, rescuing people, getting shot down themselves — some of them getting killed."

Shepperd also praised Echenberg for his time on the front: "He kept us healthy, kept us safe. He knew us."

He said the documentary conveys how limited resources were, with pilots often working without flares, night capability or radar.

"The reason we don't lose a lot of airplanes in the war today is because of what we now have," Shepperd said. "We (later) worked hard in the Air Force to procure what we needed in the way of stealth ... precision weapons and weapons that would attack moving targets."

Looking back, Shepperd said he isn't haunted by his experiences.

"I never tried to shoot at or kill anybody," Shepperd said. "I am sorry the war happened, because we lost our people and the enemies lost even more people. It was a difficult war we did not understand, in retrospect."

Adelson, co-founder of Floor 1 Productions and a director in New York City, said he was glad to learn about the pilots, and his grandfather, "understanding a piece of my family history and my grandfather's history."

"We spent so much time together working on this film, talking about his memories and stories and old photos and arrival footage," he said.

"When you undergo a project like that, you really get to know someone in a completely different way. To meet my grandfather in a different way through this project was unbelievably special."

"The Misty Experiment" was shown last year at the Tiburon Film Festival. It will air on public television stations across the country starting May 2, and on KQED 9 at 6 p.m. on May 21. Viewers can check local listings or visit MistyVietnam.com for information.

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