Combat mission???? How heavy and sustained was the flak???
The Marines pounding on the flight deck door to get in was deafening.
And how many combat missions do you have. No airfield, let alone some remote landing strip, is completely safe to fly into. The bad guys have RPGs, mortars, and even a few MANPAD SAMS.
But even that is not the point. Anytime you fly into, out of, or within, a combat zone, it's a combat mission.
This may have been the first all female C-130 crew, but I ran into an all female crew 20 years ago, in the Transit Billeting office at the old Carswell AFB. Trouble is I can't remember what kind of aircraft they were flying. C-141 or maybe KC-135, I just can't recall. It's called getting old.