Air force: BAT 21

As a U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, "Gene" Hambleton commanded the 57first Missile Squadron at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, from 1965 to 1971. He is better known as by his tactical radio call-sign, "Bat 21", he used in Vietnam when he was shot down in 1972, while jamming enemy radar, and parachuted behind enemy lines. When on the ground, Colonel Hambleton found himself in the midst of an invasion force of over thirty thousand North Vietnamese troops. While evading capture for eleven days, he used his survival radio to call in air strikes against the invasion force. Rescue crews gave him coded instructions for where to go to be rescued, based on golf courses, on which he had played, at different Air Force bases. Hambleton's harrowing ordeal was recounted in the book Bat 21 (1980), which was made into this movie. He died from cancer on September 19, 2004 at age 85.

In the movie, the aircraft flown by "Bird Dog" was not actually a Cessna O-2 observation aircraft, but was a civilian Cessna 337 Skymaster, painted gray. An O-2 would have multiple windows in the doors and floor to allow visibility of the ground.

Edited into Mercenaires (1999)