From: "John Carrier"

For example both Navy
aces
flew together as a team. To compare their claims at first glance it seems
they
downed ten aircraft together and there is a photo of thier aircraft with
ten
victory markings but in fact
together they only destroyed five.

Well, the RIO gets the same grave or prison cell if you screw up. It seems
only fair he shares the credit for the kills. A good RIO is worth his
weight in gold. A fair to middlin' one isn't worth 300 pounds of JP. I've
experienced both.

All true I am sure and it is a trivial thing compared to all that a combat
aircrew must deal with and be prepared for to question how victory claims are
credited or painted on an aircraft. Certainly the RIO deserves credit. I
gather that early in the war the Air Force credited each one of a two man crew
ony half credit for each victory so that for many years Robin Olds was
officially credited for only 4 half victories. I suppose there is no way of
establishing credit that would please everyone and certainly the crews actually
involved know best who deserves it.

I've never seen a publicity shot of the Cunningham/Driscoll jet with ten
kills displayed, just the five.


I checked my books and found the photo but it shows Cunningham and Driscoll in
an F-4 with 8 victory markings. This is a signed photo to the author Chris
Shores. The markings are small Vietnamese flags and are on the right side of
the aircraft. Maybe these are the kill markings credited to an individual
aircraft? The photo doesn't show bureau numbers though the tactical number
seems to start with 10..... and is from the book Air Aces

John Dupre'