Major Gordon Clark “Bud” Hill ’67 USAF
Gordon Clark “Bud” Hill was born on October 9, 1944 in Huntington WV to Gordon and Anna Hill. His father served during World War II and reentered the service in 1947, ultimately retiring as a Lt. Col. from the USAF in 1964. As a child Bud lived in numerous locations as his father moved from assignment to assignment. In 1962 he enrolled at New Mexico State University, ultimately graduating in December 1967 and being commissioned as an officer in the United States Air Force. While at NMSU he met Julianne Andrews and in January 1966 they were married. Julianne completed her degree and graduated in May 1967. In 1968, while stationed at Webb AFB in Big Spring TX their son, Brian Ray Hill was born. Bud transitioned to flying the Phantom F 4E after undergraduate pilot training. At this time the USAF placed rated pilots in both the front and back seats of the aircraft.
After training at Fairchild AFB in Washington he was assigned to the 469th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Korat Royal AFB in Thailand.
On June 30, 1970 Lt. Bud Hill was copilot on a Tiger Forward Air Control mission in F4E tail number 67-0729. The pilot on the mission was Captain Mitchell Sadler. Pilots on Tiger FAC missions were volunteers. These were fast moving forward air control missions then being flown over Laos in support of an ongoing guerilla war being led against the North Vietnamese.
The mission required flying sorties up to six hours long with four to six air-to-air refuelings. It demanded extraordinary teamwork and bravery, and this small group of men paid the price, suffering up to eighty percent of the combat damage of a seventy-two aircraft wing. (Note 1)
They were flying under the call sign “Tiger 01”. During the mission “Tiger 01” refueled and then returned to its assigned area to conduct weather reconnaissance over the existing road and trail networks. Approximately one hour later “Tiger 1” radioed that they were departing the area to refuel. They were never heard from again and despite extensive searches the plane and aircrew have yet to be located. They are two of the 294 US military personnel still unaccounted for in Laos. Our nation continues efforts to this day in Laos to locate and identify each of those missing. Lt. Bud Hill was posthumously promoted to the rank of Major by the USAF and today he is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Major Gordon Charles “Bud” Hill was 25 years of age at the time that he gave his life in service to our nation.
Lt Hills wife, Julianne, became a leader in the national POW MIA effort. In 1980 she remarried and lived in Palo Alto CA. Their son Brian was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy at an early age. He also attended New Mexico State University. In 2003 Brian passed away as a result of injuries sustained in a fall. In 2011 Julianne passed away. Today her files from 20 years of work advocating for our nations POW’s and MIA’s are archived in the Stanford University Library Archives. Each family member also serves our nation.
Note 1 – Taken from The Tiger FACs - A Dance with the Devil, The Forward Air Controllers that History Forgot by Don Bell