Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, From the Red Baron to the F-16 (61 page)

Air support consisted of the Far East Forward Group, composed of U.S.-supplied C-47s and initially Spitfire F-IXs from 273 Squadron, RAF, out of Tan Son Nhut. Though jets were available, the French air force preferred fast, powerful piston-engine aircraft like the American F-9F Bearcat. They were aware that a very survivable attack aircraft with a long loiter time and a relatively quiet engine might be of more use than the more glamorous jets.
Groupes aériens tactiques
(GATACs), aerial tactical groups, were formed: GATAC North in Hanoi, GATAC Center in Hue, and GATAC South in Saigon.

Bases Aero-Terrestres
, called BATs, were essentially fortified airstrips in remote locations. Like a castle or a fort in Indian country, it was a striker base intended—at least in theory—to dominate a specific geographic area. One of these was constructed near a remote town ringed by low hills near the Laotian border. Deep in Tonkin Province, Dien Bien Phu was an ideal location from the French standpoint, and its fortification was a nasty shock for the Viet Minh. By March 1954 there were 10,133 French soldiers in the little valley accompanied by ten Chaffee light tanks with several F8F-1’s on the old Japanese airstrip west of the village. Col. Christian de Castries, the French commander, had eight pillboxes built on the surrounding hills and emplaced twenty-nine pieces of artillery covering his position.
^*

Determined to wipe out the BAT and send an unmistakable signal to the French, Viet Minh soldiers hand-carried 144 field guns and mortars, together with over 100,000 rounds of ammunition, through the jungle. These were dug into the jungle hillsides and concealed along with 130,000 troops. On March 13, 1954, the siege began and “Béatrice” fell. Despite having 107 combat aircraft available from GATAC North near Hanoi, bad weather and lack of coordination usually prevented any real close air support. The Viets also had nearly two hundred anti-aircraft guns carefully placed around the airstrip and the approaches into the valley. Six F8Fs with one F6F-5 fighter, plus at least three transports, had been lost by March 15 when “Gabrielle” fell. Dismayed by his failure to halt the enemy, the French artillery commander, Lt. Col. Charles Piroth, promptly rose to the occasion and committed suicide with a hand grenade.

By early April two parachute battalions had been dropped into the perimeter, but with little success. The Pentagon came up with a plan code-named “Vulture” that included massive B-29 strikes on Viet Minh positions around the valley, and even the nuclear option was briefly considered. Both were discarded, either for fear of provoking the Chinese or because of the belief that enough American boys had already died for France. In any event, Dien Bien Phu fell on May 7 with a French surrender that cost 2,293 dead, 5,134 wounded, and nearly 9,000 men taken prisoner. GATAC North flew 3,700 combat sorties, losing forty-eight aircraft with 167 damaged.

The next day peace talks began in Geneva, and a formal cease-fire took effect on July 21, 1954. Vietnam would be divided at the 17th parallel, while Cambodia and Laos were granted outright independence. More than 1.6 million Vietnamese, including most of the remaining educated professionals, relocated into what was now the Republic of South Vietnam. To the rest of the world it seemed that the conflict was over, or had at least abated somewhat. After all, partitioning had worked on the Korean peninsula, so why not in Vietnam?

The real tragedy wasn’t that France lost another war, but rather that Washington didn’t learn from it—even with the recent Korean experience. American politicians didn’t understand that, with or without Communist assistance, the Viet Minh were determined to finish their civil war and forcibly unite their new country. Even if that meant fighting the United States.

THERE IS NO
one answer, nor any easy answers, for the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Like Korea, the initial response was represented as ideological. Simply a struggle between communism and capitalism, freedom and oppression—a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union or China. Trying to explain it in these terms, the politicians believed, put the impending conflict on the same moral level as World War II. Not understanding Korea was one thing, but failing to grasp the causes and significance of involving America in Vietnam
after
fighting in Korea was something else. This decision is especially baffling following the French experience at Dien Bien Phu.

It must be said up front that none of America’s experience in Vietnam reflects poorly on the military. As always, fighting men are instruments of policy, not the creators of it and this is best. Yet it is also hoped that those in Washington use good sense and are responsible with the priceless resources they possess, but if not, there isn’t much the military can do about it.

Though training and advisory groups had been present in Saigon since the 1950s, the first ground deployment of any consequence took place in 1961 with the insertion of Army Green Berets. This was augmented in 1962 by air commandos from the USAF flying a strange collection of low-tech World War II leftovers like the B-26. These units were part of Operation Farm Gate, a training mission that very rapidly involved Americans conducting combat missions against the Viet Cong. Ranch Hand, the official defoliation project, came next.
^*

Various others followed, including Water Glass and Candy Machine, both created as part of Washington’s strategy of “gradual response.” This grew, in part, from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s statement that Vietnam was to be “a laboratory for the development of organizations and procedures for the conduct of sub-limited war.” With statements like that becoming foreign policy, it was inevitable that the military situation would become confused.

At this point the conflict in Vietnam was almost exclusively fought south of the 17th parallel. In 1959 the North Vietnamese Communist Central Committee passed Resolution 15, essentially justifying war. Hanoi condemned the United States as an imperialistic replacement for France and denounced the South Vietnamese Republic as lackeys. Disputing the 17th parallel and the Republic of Vietnam as irrelevant, Ho Chi Minh and Giap saw nothing wrong in invading what they regarded as their own country. They never viewed the conflict as anything other than a civil war, and this also was never understood in Washington until it was much too late.

Since the mid-1950s Hanoi had recruited southerners and brought them north. They were formed into three divisions for weapons training, then split up into small units and sent back south. These native southerners became the National Liberation Front—better known as the Viet Cong (VC). The VC conducted a fairly disruptive guerilla war in response to the growing American presence. On May 2, 1964, the former escort carrier USS
Card
was sunk alongside the Saigon docks by a Communist frogman.
^*

Two months later the Navy lost an RF-8 and an F-8 Crusader to anti-aircraft fire over the Plaine des Jarres in Laos. The RF-8 was flown by Lt. Charles Klusmann of VFP-63, from the USS
Kitty Hawk
in the Gulf of Tonkin.
^*
The problem was that the time over target was specified by the secretary of defense himself, and the missions were mandated to occur every other day at 1300 Laotian time.
Any
type of pattern in combat is dangerous, but McNamara was adamant in his belief that he knew best. The result was an ambush.

When Klusmann went down Cmdr. Glenn Tierney was on the air operations staff for Adm. Harry Felt, commander in chief, Pacific (CinCPac). Word filtered down that no rescue attempt was to be made, so Tierney, appalled, confirmed this with the Joint Chiefs of Staff duty officer. Bypassing his entire chain of command, Tierney then called Admiral Felt directly and they talked face-to-face. CinCPac heard the brief, then had the commander pick up a second secure telephone and listen as Felt called McNamara directly. Tierney wrote down the conversation.

“Mr. Secretary, I have been told that you are aware that we just had a Navy photo pilot shot down in the Plain of Jars and that an order had been issued by your office that there was to be no ‘round-eye’ [American] effort to rescue the pilot. Is that correct?”

“That is correct, Admiral,” McNamara replied.

“May I ask by whose authority this order was issued?”

“The recommendation came from State and the Secretary of State and I discussed it and agreed that this is the best course of action.”
^*

Admiral Felt concealed his disgust, looked at Commander Tierney, then said, “Mr. Secretary, that is not a decision that can be made by the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense. This decision to rescue this pilot or not to rescue him can be made only by the commander in chief of the United States Armed Forces, and I am asking you to put me through to the commander in chief—now.”

McNamara hemmed a bit about the hour and that it had been such a long day in Washington, but Felt was unimpressed. The downed pilot, all alone on the Plain of Jars, had had a much longer day. His bluff called, the secretary had no choice but to call Lyndon Johnson. Felt explained the situation to the president, including the complicity of McNamara and Rusk. To his credit, Johnson immediately replied, “I’ll be damned. Of course, go in and get him—and let me know how it comes out.”

Two helicopters from Air America (an airline covertly owned and run by the Central Intelligence Agency) tried to pick up the pilot but were badly damaged. Klusmann was captured by the Pathet Lao but managed to escape in August, eventually making it to safety on his own. In response to the shoot-down, the USAF deployed eight F-100Ds from the 615th Tactical Fighter Squadron out of Clark AB, Philippines, to Da Nang AB, South Vietnam. On June 9, 1964, with no maps, coordinates, or photo reconnaissance, the Super Sabres were sent to the Plain of Jars in Laos after the Triple-A (anti-aircraft artillery) site that got Klusmann. One flight bombed the wrong site, the other damaged the primary target, and one of the pilots, Capt. Lloyd Houchin, later said, “The first F-100 combat mission was a disaster—what we used to call a ‘group grope.’ ”

It didn’t matter. For all intents, America was once again at war.

On August 2, 1964, three North Vietnamese P-4 motor torpedo boats attacked the USS
Maddox
in the Tonkin Gulf
.
The destroyer was carrying out a DESOTO signals intelligence mission gathering information from radar and shore installations.
^*
Four F-8 Crusaders from the USS
Ticonderoga
were called in and they attacked the boats, damaging two and leaving one dead in the water.
^*
Three days later President Johnson authorized
Constellation
and
Ticonderoga
to launch retaliatory airstrikes against the oil facilities at Vinh, which they did. This chain of events led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (formally the Southeast Asia Resolution) granting the president authority to use conventional military force without congressional approval.
^‡

The Navy supplied most of the early muscle, and by Christmas eight carriers had been deployed to the Pacific. About half were 36,000-ton
Essex
-class carriers left over from World War II and Korea. The USS
Coral Sea
was a 60,000-ton
Midway
-class carrier, but three of the new “supercarriers” were also deployed. The USS
Ranger
,
Constellation
, and
Kitty Hawk
were 80,000-ton, 1,000-foot-long warships capable of 30 knot speeds and carrying eighty aircraft. Carriers patrolled the Tonkin Gulf on Yankee Station, or off the South Vietnamese coast on Dixie Station in the South China Sea.
^*

During the fall of 1964 the USAF was also building up its presence. Pacific Air Force (PACAF) had the regional responsibility for Southeast Asia, but then as now, air assets were transferred in from around the world if needed. These included F-105 Thunderchiefs from the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing and 18th Tactical Fighter Wing to Korat, Royal Thai Air Force Base (RTAB), Thailand; and the 6441st Tactical Fighter Wing to Takhli, RTAB. F-100 Super Sabres from the 405th Tactical Fighter Wing and 35th Tactical Fighter Wing also went into Takhli. Of course, there were also the essential KC-135 air tankers, reconnaissance planes, and assorted command-control aircraft.

Armed reconnaissance flights of Laos began in December, but early in 1965 the war changed. A VC mortar attack in February against Pleiku destroyed twenty-five aircraft and a Special Forces team was overrun at Camp Holloway in the Central Highlands. The Air Force was now in theater, in strength and ready to attack anything in Vietnam with heavy-hitting force. Gen. Curtis LeMay, the USAF chief of staff, and Adm. Harry Felt both believed that the war was in the north. Anything less than an all-out air campaign against Hanoi’s industry, harbors, and infrastructure would be ineffective. Unfortunately, that was exactly what the president, through McNamara, had in mind.

Operation Rolling Thunder began on March 2, 1965, with a hundred-plus aircraft assault on Quang Khe naval base and the Xom Bang ammunition depot, losing four strikers to anti-aircraft fire. Lt. Hayden Lockhart of the 613th Tactical Fighter Squadron was flying an F-100D (#55-2857) when he was shot down by Triple-A near the ammo dump. He was the first recognized, official USAF combat loss of the Vietnam War and would spend the next seven and a half years as a POW. Later that month 3,500 Marines came ashore at Da Nang, marking the first employment of regular U.S. combat troops and an unmistakable escalation of the war.

The fledgling air campaign was only permitted targets near the demilitarized zone close to the 19th parallel, and these were selected in Washington, not by the field commanders. Of primary concern was the Truong Son strategic supply route—which the Americans called the Trail. Far from primitive, the Trail was highly organized, containing its own engineers to repair damage, anti-aircraft units, and thousands of porters to move equipment. It was also not one trail but hundreds of narrow pathways cut through the jungle with no chokepoints or open terrain. Unpaved, it was impossible to destroy with bombs, as the craters were simply refilled with dirt. So the notion of interdiction, especially in the south, where the Trail spread out, was like fighting a jellyfish tentacle by tentacle, rather than just stomping on its head.