Winning

“Bolo” really stung the enemy, and in the days following it, they began to jump hard on the RF-4C recce planes that flew up over North Vietnam early in the morning to check the weather. On January 5 and 6, we led a flight of two F-4s on the morning weather recce. In both cases, we were the only American airplanes flying over the Hanoi area of North Vietnam. On January 5 nothing came up. On the 6th it was different.

There was a solid overcast, with the tops at about 7000 and the bases at 3500 feet, as we flew the route north of Hanoi. We turned south and began a descent that would bring us out of the bottoms of the clouds just over Thai Nguyen and on down the northeast railroad. This was our 13th mission, and we really weren’t all that wise in the ways of flying over North Vietnam. But Thai Nguyen was very quiet.

And the northeast railroad was very quiet. I knew, from looking at our ECM scope, that they were looking at us and I didn’t understand why they weren’t shooting at us, because we were pretty low. We continued on down the northeast railroad, looking for Phuc Yen and about the time between Hanoi and Phuc Yen, they decided we were right in the middle of the biggest concentration of guns, and they opened up on us. We climbed back up on top of the clouds and headed for home. We had no sooner set course for Ubon when we got a call from College Eye, the EC-121 radar surveillance aircraft that orbited outside the border of North Vietnam watching for enemy aerial activity. They had someone airborne over Phuc Yen. We turned around and picked up four aircraft on our aircraft radar. We knew they had to be MIGs because we were the only friendlies flying over North Vietnam at that time. We started a head-on pass and were almost within firing range when they turned around and headed the other way. The range of the Sparrow missile is greater in a head-on situation than it is when you are chasing someone so we began a long tail chase, trying to overtake them. Which had almost closed within range when they reversed course again. We immediately set up for a Sparrow shot and, as they turned through about 150 degrees track crossing angle, we fired two Sparrow. The lead MIG got hit by one of them and started burning fiercely from the root back.

He flipped into an inverted spin and crashed without citing. We jumped on the number two MIG, trying to position ourselves for another shot. In the meantime, the number three and four MIGs had jumped on our number two, so we let our MIG go to get the MIGs off of him. We got onto the three and four MIGs and started shooting Sidewinders at number four. These were the early model Sidewinders and they couldn’t follow the MIG’s hard breaks. Were fired three Sidewinders and he evaded all of them. About this time, the number three MIG decided that he had had enough of the fight for all so alone. he did just a split-S then, out our number the fight, two leaving got back his number into the fight, and he was in a better firing position, so we passed lead to him. He fired a Sparrow at the MIG. The MIG driver saw the missile coming and pulled hard to avoid it. He must have been just about out of airspeed when he pulled because he fell off into a spin. Just before he went into the clouds we saw his canopy come off, and the seat comes out.

He had lost it and, knowing that the cloud bases were pretty low, decided to punch out while he had the chance. These were “C” models of the MIG-21 and they never lit their afterburners during the fight. In fact, Dick kept complaining that they weren’t going very fast as he overran them in the firing runs. If we had had a gun, we could have had a couple more. I still had a contract, which we were chasing, when we reached bingo fuel and had to turn for home.

5 June, 1967 MIG-17 F-4C, 555th TFS, 8th TFW, Ser. No. 63-7647, Code “FP” Call Sign “Chicago 02”

Capt. Dick Pascoe

Capt. Norm Wells

On June 5 we flew number two to the wing commander, Col. Olds. We were MIGCAP for the Thuds going in to hit Thai Nguyen. Major Raspberry was leading the MIGCAP to cover the Wild Weasels. Just about the time the Thuds pulled off the target, the MIGs showed up and hit the Weasels. Our Thuds didn’t need any help from that point on, since they were headed home. (The Thud goes home at just about the speed of light!) So we went on down to see if we could help out Raspberry. He had already gotten one by the time we got there, and the MIGs had gone into a big defensive circle. We tried to get at them and, Col. Olds fired several of his missiles at them, but didn’t get any hits. (He had AIM-4s on that day and they were pretty hard to fire in a tactical situation. ) We made a few passes through the circle without getting anything and finally, the boss had used up all of his missiles, so he passed the lead to us.

There were a lot of aeroplanes on the scope, but one of them was down low, flying by himself. Since we normally never flew alone, we figured that there was a pretty good chance that it was a MIG. Dick centred the aim dot and we drove up on him. It turned out to be a MIG-17 that had gotten thrown out of the fight and was on his way home alone. The MIG-17 is a pretty small aeroplane and when you’re looking tail-on at him and he’s close to the deck, he is pretty hard to spot. We drove on through the minimum range of the Sparrows and still didn’t see him. As we were approaching the minimum range for the Sidewinders, the MIG made a slight turn and we picked him up. Col. Olds had spotted him long before this and couldn’t understand why we didn’t shoot. About the time his exasperated voice came over the radio with; “Well, shoot him Pascoe!” was the time that Dick picked him up and fired off two Sidewinders. Since we were close enough to the range it didn’t take long for the Sidewinders to get there. The MIG exploded in a fireball and crashed. Dick came back with; “I just did!”

Getting a MIG gives you a tremendous sense of accomplishment, though in the 8th TFW, it got a little expensive. It was traditional for MIG killers to celebrate their victories with practically the whole base. We bought one hundred drinks each at the Officer’s Club, NCO Club, and the Airman’s Club. We sure didn’t mind doing it though, and it was especially good for the morale of the Airmen, who worked, very hard on the aeroplanes and really appreciated knowing that their efforts had paid off. The esprit de corps in the 8th was exceptional. Colonel Olds was an inspirational leader.

16 April, 1972 MIG-21 F-4D, 13th TFS, 432nd TRW A/C Ser. No. 67-550 Code “PN” Call Sign “Basco 3”

Major Dan Cherry

Capt. Jeff Feinstein

Dan Cherry enlisted in the Air Force in July of 1960. He went through pilot training in 1964 and subsequently received an F-105 assignment with the 49th TFW at Spangdalem, Germany. In December of 1966 he volunteered for a tour in Southeast Asia. From January 1967 to August 1967 he flew 100 missions over North Vietnam in the F-105, with the 44th TFS, out of Karat TRAB. Upon return to the United States, he was assigned to McConnell AFB, Kansas as an F-105 instructor pilot. In 1971 he volunteered for a second tour of duty in Southeast Asia. After checking out in the F-4, he reported to the 432nd TRW at Udorn RTAB, in June 1971. In the one year that his second tour lasted, Dan Cherry flew 185 combat missions, 50 of them over North Vietnam during the “Linebacker” campaigns. This was one of his most memorable.

“At Udorn we had the prime responsibility for providing MIGCAP for the strike fights going deep into North Vietnam. On April 16, 1972, the 432nd TRW briefed five flights of four Phantoms each for MIGCAP missions in North Vietnam. Four of the flights were assigned CAP areas in the Hanoi area, covering the main strike of the day. Our flight, led by Capt. Fred Olmsted, who at that time had one MIG to his credit, with Capt. Steve Cuthbert on his wing and Capt. Greg Crane on my wing, was assigned CAP duties for a secondary strike of Phantoms from Koral. We were to rendezvous with the Korat F-4s over North Central Laos, and then proceed to the target with them. Since ours was a secondary strike, and the major effort included a lot of aeroplanes, we were not able to get tanker support. We took off with 600-gallon centreline tanks, two 370-gallon wing tanks, two Sidewinder missiles, and three Sparrow missiles each.

After take-off and join-up, we proceeded north into Laos. We reached the rendezvous point, over the Laotian city of Ban Ban, and began to orbit while we waited for the strike flight from Korat to join us. As the minutes dragged on and the strike flight failed to show, we began to think about our secondary CAP station. Finally, with our fuel at a critical point, insofar as our briefed primary mission was concerned, and with no word on the whereabouts of the strike flight, we decided to proceed with our secondary mission. (We later found out that the strike flight had had aircraft problems. They did not make their TOT, and we heard nothing from them while we were in North Vietnam. )

About the time we made the decision to go to our secondary CAP station, the centreline tanks ran dry. Since there are some pretty stringent limitations on the jettisoning of the centreline tanks, it was common practice to punch them off when they ran dry, if combat was anticipated. We climbed, slowed down, and punched off all four tanks in unison. Then we put the nose down and, heading straight for Hanoi, picked up speed for our dash into North Vietnam.

As soon as we crossed the border into North Vietnam we started picking up SAM and Triple A strobes on our ECM gear. They were locking on to us, and we were all keeping an eye out for SAM firings, as well as searching on the radar for MIGs.

Since the Navy had the primary responsibility for the coastal areas, we didn’t want to infringe on their territory, so midway into North Vietnam we turned due south. We flew south to an area we called the “fish’s mouth”, which is where Route 7 comes out into Laos, all the time searching on the radar for bogies. When we reached Route 7 we turned 180 degrees and headed back north, almost directly towards Yen Bai. As we approached Hoa Binh, two things happened almost simultaneously. Captain Stu Moss, in the back seat of Olmsted’s aeroplane, picked up a bogie on his radar at 20 miles. Our airborne controller called us and directed us to proceed to an orbit point down by the DMZ. Since we had a contact,’ and an engagement seemed imminent, we disregarded their instructions and turned to put the bogies on our noses.

Stu maintained his radar contact and called them as we closed to 15 . . . 10 . . . and at five miles we picked them up visually. We saw two silver MIG-21s, about 5000 feet higher than us, and on a reciprocal heading. Olmsted called for a hard right turn after jettisoning the tanks. We cranked it around, trying to keep the two MIGs in sight. I was on the outside of the turn, so I fell behind as we turned. About halfway through the turn, my wingman called the third MIG. It was a camouflaged MIG-21 and he “:’ as at 12 o clock level to me and climbing into position on behind Olmstd element. The North Vietnamese had apparently been setting a trap, using the two silver MIGs for bait. The camouflaged MIG had been at a low level and as we started our turn he had climbed, hoping to sandwich us between the two lead MIGs and himself. Their separation wasn’t great enough though, and the hunter had suddenly become the hunted. W_e ca_lled Olmsted and, as we had prebriefed, separated the flight to elements. He continued after the two lead MIGs, and I went for the camouflaged 21. The MIG must have spotted me about the same time I rolled out of my turn and? headed for him for he turned hard left away from me and into a cloud.

There were scattered cloud build-ups at 3000 feet high all around us. Outside of the clouds, the visibility was unlimited. The tops of the clouds were about 15, 000 feet and we were skimming them at 450 knots when the MIG disappeared.

I thought; “Well, I’ll never see him again! Then I figured I might as well go in after him . . . I might get lucky and spot him as we came out the other side. So we bored into the cloud. After what seemed like minutes in the cloud, I got nervous and pulled up. You’re always worried about them shooting SAMs at you anyway, and if you don’t see them coming you can’t do anything about avoiding them. When we popped out of the top of the cloud we looked all around and didn’t see anything. In the meantime, Olmsted’s element was still . . . in pursuit of the other two MIGs, so I thought I had better go after him and offer as much support as possible. I made a hard right turn, towards the direction I had last seen Olmsted heading. As we rolled out of the turn, my hawkeyed wingman Greg Crane spotted our MIG again! How about two o’clock and 5000 feet higher than us in a climbing turn? I went to max after Burner and pulled around to go after him. While I was doing this we could hear radio transmissions from Olmsted. He was locked onto the other MIGs and was about to shoot one of them down.

As I pulled the nose of the Phantom up, I had a beautiful set-up for a Sidewirider shot. The sun was more or less behind us and there was nothing out 111 front except the MIG. I pulled the nose out in front of him a little bit as I selected HEAT and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened squeezed again still nothing. Recheck the armament switches. All ok … squeeze again … nothing … squeeze again … still nothing. Despair. The Perfect shot and the aeroplane broke. But in the meantime, I had maintained the position of the MIG as he went over the top and started down a diving spiral. My wingman is out about 1000 feet, 111 perfect fighting wing formation and I know he can t understand why I haven’t shot . . . ‘ I can’t either! We can’t get a radar lock on the MIG so when Greg Crane calls “I’m taking the lead, passing on t 1 he right” . . . I acknowledge “Roger, you have the lead. ” I rolled around him into fighting wing position, and we continued down after the MIG.

We must have been at about 25, 000 feet when we started down. Greg had no Sidewinders, but he did have four Sparrows. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get a radar look on the MIG either but since we all thought that I was t going to be able to shoot anyway, he decided to fire while he had the chance. His first missile malfunctioned. His next two narrowly missed the MIG. Remember, they still didn’t have a lock, and consequently were not firing with optimum parameters for the missile. His fourth and last missile was headed for the MIG. At the critical point, the MIG driver broke hard, and the Sparrow went right by his tail without detonating. When the MIG made his hard break he dissipated all of his energy, and I figured there was no way he was going to get away from us now. The only thing that could prevent a kill was the fact that we had no ordnance left to shoot at him. (What we had left was my three Sparrows. My Sidewinders had apparently gone ballistic . . . or something. We really never figured out what happened to them.)

I made up my mind that I would stay at the MIG’s six o’clock no matter what. Even if my Sparrows wouldn’t fire, I would chase him until I hit “bingo” fuel . . . then turn for home. I called Greg that I was taking the lead back. No answer. “Break left, Beef! I got him wired!” Greg’s nickname was “Baby Beef”. Still no answer. We were both in max AB, so I couldn’t overtake easily. His radio had gone down at that exact moment, and he didn’t know I wanted to take the lead back. He was thinking the same as I was . . . chase the MIG until bingo fuel. He. was too far in front of me for me to risk shooting a missile. I could hit him by mistake. So I continued tracking the MIG and trying to overtake it, calmly Greg all the time to break out of the way so I could shoot. Flying to the inside of his turn, I began to gain on him. While this s was going on, I called Jeff in the back seat and too old hit; I’ve got the reticle on the MIG . . . lock him up! He did, and the analog popped out indicating a & good radar lock. It took a full two minutes for me to pull up line abreast of Greg. When I finally did, I clamped down on the trigger again . . . never expecting the Missile to came off. Suddenly, WHOOSH! That big AIM-7 smoked out in front of us. We were going down in a right turn accelerating through 500 knots and closing on the MIG as the missile came off. At first, I. thought it would miss him anyway . . . It appeared to be going too far out in front of him . . . but it was just pulling lead, and they came together about 400 feet out in front of me. The Sparrow impacted at the right-wing root of the MIG, blowing the right wing completely off. Fire immediately went out of control in a spin to the left, trading smoke and debris. After about two turns the MIG driver ejected right in front of me. I mean he came right out in my face! I pulled off to the left to make sure that Jeff would see the guy in his cute, and the MIG going down in flames. We were really excited_. . . there was a lot of hollering on the radio. The whole thing had a dreamlike quality to it . . . there we were . . . smoking by this guy just as his parachute opened. We must have been close to supersonic with the after-burners cooking. . . and I know we weren’t more than 30 feet away from him when we passed. Even at that, I got a good look at him . . . he had on a black flying suit, and his parachute was mostly white, with one red panel in it. I thought, “This is just like in the movies!”

We could still hear Olmsted’s element and, though they were fairly close to us, we couldn’t see them because of the cloud cover. Within a minute of my victory, he locked onto the wingman of the lead MIG element. The leader had split and eased for the ground. The wingman didn’t seem to know quite what to do and Fred knocked his right stabilator off with his first Sparrow. The MIG went into a gentle right spiral and Fred up came back down on him and fired a second AIM-7. His second missile hit the MIG dead centre, exploding it in a huge fireball, leaving nothing but fluttering debris.

We were low on fuel and I had but one thought at that point . . . let’s get out of here before more MIGs show up! We dove for the deck and levelled off right on the treetops, heading for Udorn. I wanted to find a tanker so I could get enough extra gas to show off when we got back to the aerodrome, but there were too many guys egressing that really needed the gas, so we just pressed on for home. We made it back with about 1000 pounds of fuel. We had flown the entire mission with the fuel we had taken off with, and shot down two MIGs in the process of doing it . . . and we had done it with no help from radar controllers. That was fairly unusual, and the length of the engagement (four minutes ) was pretty rare.

12 August 1972 MIC-21 F-4E, 58th TFS, 432nd TRW, Tail Code “ZF” (TDY Homestead AFB) Serial No. 67-239

Capt. Larry Richard (USMC) LCDR Mike Ettel (USN)

I was on exchange duty with the USAF and was attached to the 58th TFS, out of Eglin AFB, Florida. We deployed to Udorn RTAB for six months under what was termed the “Summer Help program”, when the forces in Thailand were bolstered in the summer of 1972.

On August 12 I was the leader of a flight of four, on a target weather reconnaissance mission into North Vietnam. We were to recce the target area to determine the feasibility of sending the strike force in on that particular day. Normal procedures call for an 0100 brief for an 0430 takeoff, then hit the tanker, and press on into the target area. We would normally make about three runs on the target area and return to base. Headquarters would then make the decision to send or stand down the strike force. On this particular day, we got slid because of the weather at Udorn, and we didn’t take off until about 0730. Our flight of four included three F-4Es and one RF-4C. Ironically, the RF-4C was flying my wing, so the normal fighter tactics of mutual support in a fight did not strictly apply in this instance.

After take-off, we joined up on the tanker, refuelled, and headed north, coming into North Vietnam through Laos. We had targets to recce along the Red River, and on the Northeast Raily. As we approached the Red River, 60 to 70 miles west of Hanoi, we checked in with Red Crown. Red Crown advised us that it looked as though there was going to be MIG activity out of Bullseye. As we crossed the river, Red Crown called bandits airborne out of Bullseye, heading south. We pressed on towards the target area, and a few minutes later Red Crown called the bandits turning to a heading of 270. Thud Ridge was just disappearing under our noses as Red Crown called the bandits turning to 360. “At your six o’clock, 30 miles, and attacking!” We slowed down, punched off our centreline tanks, did an in-place turn to put the MIGs on our nose and checked our “fluid four” formation. We were at 15-000 feet as we began descending to pick up speed for a possible engagement. As we continued south Red Crown kept the MIG position reports coming. We were advised that there were two MIG-21s. At 18 miles we began to search for them with our own radar, as we went to afterburner to get rid of the notorious Phantom smoke trail. We had a lot of energy up by this time, and we figured that if we didn’t spot them we could just keep right on going for home, and they would never catch us.

As we drove on south, the· calls from Red Crown indicated that the MIGs were drifting off to our left. The last call we got before picking them up visually was 120 at eight miles. We spotted them at four miles, as they were starting their stern conversion on us. They were supersonic, while we were at. 92 match, and I don’t think they had acquired it visually, but were following the instructions of their CCI controller. The lead MIG-21 was silver, and his wingman was a mottled green camouflage . . . a really pretty aeroplane. I called Tallyho, and we blew off our wing tanks, as my element began a slice turn down into their inside. The MIGs had begun a slow port turn, which they hoped would put them at our six o’clock. Our other element went high to protect my six.

At two miles we got a radar lock on the lead MIG-21. I don’t think they saw us yet, as their manoeuvers were not in the least bit evasive. As we closed to a mile and a quarter, I fired a Sparrow. The Sparrow came off the airplane and started leading out in front toward the MIG. I was about 20-30 degrees off his tail and something must have told him to look back just then. He got the surprise of his life because the Sparrow was about halfway to his aeroplane when he spotted it, and that big plume of smoke it trails must have really gotten his adrenalin going. He reefed it right into me, and the missile went over the top of his aeroplane. I couldn’t tell if it was really as close as it looked . . . if it was, then the fuse must have malfunctioned because it didn’t detonate. He passed me, canopy to canopy, no more than a couple of hundred feet away, rolled around my six, and dove out of sight. As he did this, I unloaded my airplane and picked up some more speed. and locked onto the wingman, who was still in the turn. His leader had just left him in the turn and my high element assured me that he was smoking for home and was no threat to me.

I had pretty much the same parameters for firing at the second MIG, and I fired another Sparrow. It came off the rail, smoked out in front of us, pulling lead on the MIG, and finally hit him just forward of the vertical fin. The MIG snapped up and rolled over into a spin, as the tail fell off. I didn’t see any big fireball or plume of smoke, and as I pulled up I lost sight of him. Our other element came down and joined on us, and we called Red Crown to find out where the first MIG had gone to. They told us he was 12 miles away and going strong for home, so we headed for home.

We hit the tanker, refuelled, and I made a low pass for my Marine buddies at Nam Phong en route back to Udorn.

One of the funny aspects of the mission was that the recce pilot on my wing had no idea that we were going to engage the MIGs. When we turned around, he thought that we were just smoking at home. He had good reason to think so too, since recce flights. were often chased out of North Vietnam by MIGs. The first indication that he had that things were not as he thought they should be was when the wing tanks began coming off aeroplanes, and we went to full burner in a high G turn. He was just hanging on for dear life, trying to keep from getting spit out the rear end of the fight, and ending up on his own. Until he saw the Sparrows come off my aeroplane, he didn’t know we were in a fight. He was as happy with the results as I was though, and being a recce pilot, he took great delight in putting half a star on his intake ramp after the mission.

My back-seater on this mission was LCDR Mike Ettel, who had been attached to the 10th Weather Squadron at Udorn. When they closed down operations, he was left without a job, so he went around to the various squadrons hoping to get assigned. Our squadron agreed to fly him in the back seat until he got current in the aeroplane, and he flew with me most of the time until he was qualified as an aircraft commander. That worked out well since we were both on exchange duty with the Air Force.

(This series will be continued in the next edition of AADR.)