![canberra bomber crew positions canberra bomber crew positions](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50323321207_2dbf8ae5c8_b.jpg)
On November 1, 1964, an NVA mortar team rained bombs on the planes for thirty minutes, destroying five B-57s, damaging fifteen, and killing six American and Vietnamese personnel. Though not flying combat missions, the American bombers attracted hostile attention. Inauspiciously, two B-57s collided on landing at Bien Hoa, and another fatally crashed at the backup airstrip at Tan Son Nhut. Navy (one later found to be a false radar contact), American President Johnson ordered a retaliatory naval air strike and had these B-57s deployed to Bien Hoa airbase on August 1964, despite a treaty forbidding deployment of U.S. After two apparent clashes between North Vietnamese and U.S.
![canberra bomber crew positions canberra bomber crew positions](http://www.letletlet-warplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/11-canberra.jpg)
The last two B-57B units, the 8th and 13th Bomber Squadrons, were deployed to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. An even larger RB-57F with 122-foot wide wings was also deployed, but the type was mostly replaced by the legendary U-2 spy plane. These flew on strategic spy missions over the Soviet Union and China that lasted up to seven hours-though a Taiwanese RB-57D became the first aircraft destroyed in combat by a surface-to-air missile. However, specialized reconnaissance Canberras proved more long-lasting, particularly the RB-57D which had gigantic 103-foot wide wings allowing it loft up to 70,000 feet high. Thus the B-57B and the similar B-57C and E trainer and target tug models began to be replaced by supersonic fighter-bombers after only three years in service. Impressively, the B-57B’s maximum speed of 580-600 miles per hour and a service ceiling of 48,000 feet high matched first-generation F-80 jet fighters, but the Soviet-built MiG-15s encountered over Korea were faster and could fly just as high.
![canberra bomber crew positions canberra bomber crew positions](https://www.nms.ac.uk/media/1150511/canberra-cockpit.jpg)
Indeed, B-57s were rushed to Cold War hotspots during crises in Lebanon and over the Taiwan Straits. The bomber also included a toss bombing computer, allowing Canberras to pull up and chuck a nuclear bomb, then circle away in hopes of escaping the blast. The B-57 also sported a then-sophisticated rear-ward facing Radar Warning System, a chaff dispenser for decoy missiles, navigational and targeting radar, ejection seats.