Winning

As they completed a southerly leg and began a port turn back to north, they began to get MiG calls for their immediate area. The MiGs were above the overcast as expected, and the Phantom RIOs plotted a course to place the flight in a position to intercept them.

For Freeborn’s RIO, Bob Elliot, this was only the ninth combat mission, and Guy kept reminding him to check their rear for MiGs. At that moment the radio came alive with the call: “Bandits/south 50!” This placed the MiGs about 15 miles directly astern of the two Phantoms, in perfect position to bounce them. Davis broke hard left, with Freeborn following and crossing under to maintain position. Just as he slid under Davis’ Phantom, Freeborn thought he spotted something high overhead. He did a double-take and . . . there was the unmistakable planform of one, then two MiG-21s. The MiGs had descended out of the cloud layer at 22,000 and were headed north at about 400 knots. They were silver and had no apparent markings, and were carrying wing tanks. As they had hoped, the MiG pilots apparently had not spotted them. Now the two F-4’s were in perfect position for a classic six a-clock firing pass. Freeborn called: “MiGs, one o’clock high!” Davis rogered that he had them, as both Phantoms continued their hard left turn to pull into position behind the MiGs. They both went to the afterburner and, with all firing switches set, rolled out directly behind the MiGs. The MiGs were flying the same approximate formation as the F-4’s, with the wingman about 100 yards left astern of the leader. Davis called: “I’ll take the one on the right!” His RIO got a good lock on, and he squeezed off a Sparrow missile. Nothing! Nothing happened! Every second in this situation was precious, and Davis quickly selected heat. Meanwhile, Freeborn, with a new RIO had decided to attack with Sidewinder missiles. (The Sidewinder, a heat-seeking missile, can be aimed and fired by the pilot alone. The radar-guided Sparrow must be fired with the aid of the RIO for maximum effect. ) As Davis was attempting to fire his Sparrow, Freeborn got a good annunciator tone and fired a Sidewinder. It fired off the rail, shot out ahead of the Phantom, and like a predator sniffing its prey, guided to the MiG.

It exploded in a brilliant flash of flame just left of the MiG, which immediately began to stream either smoke or fuel. At about the same time Davis, with a good tone fired a Sidewinder. It was practically a carbon copy of Freeborn’s attack, as it too failed to explode close enough to the MiG to kill it. Davis, again with a good tone, fired a second Sidewinder, which did not guide and went ballistic.

The MiGs, now aware that they were under attack, instead of breaking hard and reversing, began a slow weave. This increased the closure rate drastically and suddenly the two Phantoms were in danger of overshooting. Davis, closest to the MiGs, realised this and immediately executed a high yo-yo left. As he came back down on the MiGs, he lined up on Freeborn’s target. (The MiGs had changed relative positions in the weave. ) Freeborn, farther back, continued to bore in on his target, waiting until he was in sure kill range. Davis, now at 14,000 feet, got a good tone on the MiG, who was at 12,000 and a 45-degree left turn. As the annunciator rose to a steady growl, he fired his third Sidewinder. It flashed out ahead of the big fighter and homed straight to the MiG’s tailpipe. Without waiting to observe the results of his third missile, Davis fired a fourth. He needn’t have bothered . . . his third Sidewinder had done the job, and the fourth exploded in the resultant fireball.

Freeborn, intent on his target, was surprised to see it explode before he had a chance to fire. “The bastard shot my MiG!” he exclaimed to his RIO. But the other MiG was well within range, and Freeborn immediately turned his attention to it. The MiG was ahead of him and about a thousand feet lower. The MiG pilot, now aware that he was in deep trouble, was trying to reverse before the Phantoms could fire again. Freeborn spotted him as the MiG pilot was cranking his nimble fighter around in a hard, nose-up left turn. The F-4’s nose went down as Freeborn cut the MiG’s circle. Then, with a perfect tone, he squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened! Misfire! “This just isn’t my day!” went through Freeborn’s head as he squeezed again. His third Sidewinder fired off the launch rail and, after a tentative wiggle, guided straight to the MiG. It seemed to disappear momentarily, then the MiG exploded in a fireball. The front half of the MiG emerged from the fireball and, as it decelerated, spun crazily toward the ground.

The action had occurred in a matter of seconds and the Phantom crews were able to observe both MiGs impact on the enemy homeland. Neither MiG pilot ejected.

After the action, the victorious aviators continued northward. They spotted another aircraft, which they tentatively identified as a MiG, but it was five miles away and pulling away from the Phantoms. A quick check of their fuel state indicated that it was time to head home anyway.

They banked away to the east and, with Freeborn constantly reminding his rookie RIO to: “Check our six, we’re not home yet!” they coasted out. Once again they made their rendezvous with a waiting tanker and, assured of enough fuel to get back aboard, headed for the Connie. Their twin killing was celebrated with special enthusiasm, for these were the first MiG-21s downed by the Navy in the Vietnam War.

March 6, 1972 Mig-17

 F-48, VF-111

MiG-17 CVW-15, CVA-43 A/C No. NL1201 BuNo

153019

Lt Garry Weigand

LTJG Bill Freckleton

My flight leader and myself were assigned what we called “FORECAP”. It was for a photo reconnaissance mission of Quang Lang airfield. Previous photo missions had indicated that they were stocking the airfield pretty heavily with MiGs, and we wanted to keep track of their activities. The photo plane was to fly up into Laos and enter North Vietnam through the “back door”. He had an escort of fighters that were to remain in Laos while he made the run over the airfield. If he ran into trouble, they would be there to assist him. (Author’s note: This was before the North Vietnamese offensive against the South, and the rules of engagement at that time prevented armed aircraft from entering North Vietnam unless the North Vietnamese attacked a reconnaissance aircraft or its escort. ) Our mission was to set up a CAP station out over the Gulf of Tonkin, due east of Quang Lang, and to orbit there, just in case we were needed. We suspected we might be since the MiGs had increased their flying significantly in recent days.

We didn’t have a tanker available, so my flight leader and I decided to launch about 20 minutes after the photo force, in order to conserve fuel and give them a chance to fly over South Vietnam and begin their run up through Laos. While we waited on deck, we “hot refuelled”. (Kept the fuel hoses connected and pumping, with engines running. ) When it came time to launch, we disconnected the hoses, and taxied to the cats. At that time, my flight lead had a utility hydraulic failure, and had to abort. We had planned for such a contingency though, and had a spare standing by, who had briefed with us, and was able to assume the lead. Jim Stillinger was now my lead, and we launched on schedule.

After launch, we formed up and headed for Brandon Bay, where we were to orbit over Red Crown, the USS Chicago. We had no sooner arrived when we heard the photo bird, who was by now making his first run, call out that a MiG-21 just flew by him and there were several MiG-17s in the area. The escorting fighters immediately left their holding station in Laos and went in to engage the MiGs. We continued to listen as they engaged, and a big free-for-all fight started. We heard calls that the MiGs were firing their guns and some Atoll AAMs, and the Phantoms were firing Sidewinders. Neither side suffered any losses.

Then Red Crown vectored us into North Vietnam. They wanted us to set up a CAP station to the north of the fight, hoping that we would get a chance to cut the MiGs off if they returned to the airfield we figured they had come from. Our station was about 50 miles north of Quang Lang, and we had just set up a port orbit when Red Crown came up with a “bogey” call, about 25 miles south of us. They cautioned that this was not a vector and that they would keep us advised of its progress. We continued to orbit.

Then Red Crown came up with a confirmed “Bandit”, bearing 230 at 15 miles. We could hear the urgency in the voice of the controller as he instructed us to reverse hard to starboard to intercept the MiG. As we turned we kept getting continuous calls on the bandit . . . 240 at 10 . . . 250 at 8 . . . 270 at 6 . . . 295 at 4 . . . and finally, 330 at 2 miles, and we still couldn’t see him! We called “No Joy” as we passed through a heading of 350. The controller came back with: “Look low!” We rolled up into a left bank, looked down, and there was the MiG! It looked as though he had just pulled his nose up to come after us. The flight lead called “Tallyho” . . . and a couple of seconds later, I called: “Roger, Tallyho on one MiG- 17!” He called: “I’m engaging, go to cover!” He came over the top and rolled down into the MiG, and they met just about on even ground, with the MiG turning hard into him, forcing Jim to overshoot. Stillinger then went into a high yoyo. The MiG pulled around, and reversed into him as he came down and overshot again. Once more he went into a high yoyo and as he came down, the MiG reversed into him again.

This continued, with the majority of the turning being to the right. The eventual heading came out about due south I had gone to cover position, over the fight. When I first rolled out to get some separation, then rolled back, I lost sight of the MiG momentarily. When I reacquired him, I kept my eyes padlocked on him, while Bill Freckleton kept an eye on our six, to make sure no other MiGs were behind us. I kept telling Stillinger where I was, and that I had both of them in sight, and that I was positioning myself to enter the fight when Jim was ready for me to take over. The fight continued in the same manner and finally, on about the fourth pass, as Stillinger pulled down into the MiG he fired a Sidewinder. When the MiG driver saw the missile come off the Phantom, he pulled extremely hard . . . probably in excess of six Gs . . . and the missile did not guide. Although he was maintaining a position somewhat to the rear of the MiG, Jim realised that he was not going to be able to get a good shot on him. I could see this situation developing, and just about the time I figured it was about time for me to get into the fight, Jim called: “I can’t stay behind him. I’m going to unload and run. Do you have me in sight?” I rogered that I had him, and that I was rolling in on the MiG. I rolled up over the top of the MiG, then continued around in a left-hand roll, coming out below and behind the MiG. I figured that he was preoccupied with Jim, and had not seen me. He pulled hard into Jim, who was now running straight out. Then, just as I put my nose on him, he straightened up . . . and pulled hard into me! I figured he had now seen me and was going to come around and start fighting with me. But I pushed down, trying to get at his blind six, and then reversed back onto the flight lead, who was now directly in front of him. So he hadn’t seen me after all! When I had first rolled in on him, I had a lot of excess airspeed and had started to overshoot. To correct this, I went to idle and put the speed brakes out. As the MiG reversed onto the lead, he lit his afterburner and got his speed up pretty good. I got the speed brakes in and went to military. The MIG was fairly close to Jim, but his reverse had cost him some position, and Jim had picked up a lot of energy when he unloaded. We were down to 500 feet and Jim was pushing 600 knots. Jim was opening on him pretty fast. The MiG must have thought he had a chance at a gunshot though, and that’s why he lit his burner, and continued to jockey for position.

I pulled my nose onto the MiG just as he lit the burner. Jim came up with: “Do you have the MiG?” I rogered that I had him. He said: “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!” I was at 480 feet, looking down about 50 feet to the MiG as I squeezed the trigger. After what seemed like hours, the missile came off, and did a couple of zig-zags, and flew right up his tailpipe. I figured we were about ¾ mile behind him a dead six.

The instant that I squeezed the trigger, everything went into slow motion. I saw the missile disappear into the tailpipe of the camouflaged MiG, but nothing seemed to happen right away. I was just about to fire another missile when a big piece of debris few up into the airstream behind the MiG. Then suddenly his whole tail came off, tumbling end over end, and a tremendous gout of black smoke erupted from him. He started into a glide for the ground. I figured I had better check my six, since it had been a long time. I pulled hard right, reversed left, and by that time the MiG had hit the ground. Jim watched him go all the way in, exploding on a hillside. The MiG driver did not eject, probably because he was incapacitated.

By this time, the North Vietnamese Air Defence Controller had vectored four MiG-21s onto us, they were only about 15 miles away and closing fast. We were low on fuel and couldn’t afford another engagement, so we lit the burner and exited North Vietnam, supersonic at 1200 feet, outdistancing the MiG-21’s. Once in the relative safety of our own naval forces, we refuelled from airborne tankers and returned to the USS Coral Sea.

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