Iceal Eugene "Gene" Hambleton (November 16, 1918 – September 19, 2004) was a career United States Air Force navigator who was shot down over South Vietnam during the 1972 Easter Offensive.

The 42 TEWS was equipped with EB-66C/E Destroyer aircraft that flew radar and communications jamming missions to disrupt enemy defenses and early warning capabilities.

[4] On his 63rd mission, on April 2, 1972, Hambleton was a navigator aboard an EB-66C gathering signals intelligence, including identifying enemy anti-aircraft radar installations, to enable jamming.

The aircraft was helping escort a cell of three B-52 bombers tasked with attacking entrance passes to the Ho Chi Minh trail.

[9] Hambleton was a USAF ballistic missile expert with a Top Secret/SCI clearance and his capture by the North Vietnamese Army would have been of tremendous benefit to them and the Soviet Union.

[4]: 84 Hambleton was rescued after eleven and one half days by Navy SEAL Lieutenant Thomas R. Norris[10][11] and VNN commando Nguyen Van Kiet[9] in a covert, night-time infiltration 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) behind enemy lines.

[12] The story of Hambleton's evasion and rescue was told in the 1980 book, Bat 21, written by Air Force Colonel William Charles Anderson.