Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, From the Red Baron to the F-16 (62 page)

McNamara would later state that this conflict wasn’t about toppling the Communist government in Hanoi but about curbing its aggression toward the South. It was, he said, “a very, very limited political objective.” This raises the question, then, of why the United States should be fighting there at all. Washington was adamant, though, convinced that the North would back down once they experienced a taste of U.S. military force. In keeping with this strategy (a word used rather loosely), airfields were also not on the approved target list. If, McNamara reasoned, the North Vietnamese Air Force (NVAF) was destroyed, then mightn’t the Chinese assume the air defense role as they had done in Korea? Well, what if they did? the fighter pilots asked. The same thing that happened over the Yalu would happen over the Red River.

In any event, the restricted operation was to continue initially for eight weeks, and there were issues right from the beginning. Though PACAF was the coordinating authority for Rolling Thunder, this did not include operational control of naval air. The Navy had been forming “Alpha” strikes based on a package of about thirty aircraft. With limited assets, naval tactical employment was generally on a smaller, more efficient scale out of necessity. Early advocates of electronic combat, the Navy embedded their Alpha packages with SAM suppression aircraft and jammers. Using the A-6A variant of the Intruder, the Navy was more interested in the suppression of air defenses for a given strike rather than the destruction of a SAM. Steven Coonts, who wrote the novel
Flight of the Intruder
based on his experiences in Vietnam, agreed with this: “We’d arrive in the area a few minutes ahead of the package and just try to keep their heads down while the bombs were dropped . . . then we’d get the hell outa there. No point in hanging around.”

Geography had much to do with this. Navy packages generally had to transit about 25 miles of hostile territory, while packages inbound from Route Pack V had more than 100 miles of hostile territory with which to contend. It made sense to destroy SAMs whenever possible so they wouldn’t have to face them another day. The Navy was also steadfast in maintaining that their aircraft were an inseparable component of the Seventh Fleet and would not be placed under USAF control. However, with hundreds of aircraft involved in an area the size of Arizona or New Mexico, a deconfliction plan was needed.

This came in February 1966 with the division of Vietnam into route packages that started at the DMZ and moved north. Route Pack (RP) I went north to the 18th parallel and belonged to the Air Force, though most operations were conducted by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. RP II extended to the 19th parallel and was controlled by the Navy, as was RP III. This was the largest of the packages but contained the fewest targets. Thanh Hoa Bridge was in the Navy’s Route Pack IV, as was the Bai Thuong air base and the railyards at Nam Dinh. The biggest zone was Route Pack V, in the northwest part of the country. With China on the north and Laos to the south and west, it was controlled by the USAF. All the lines of communications and railroads leading into northern Laos ran through Pack V.

Route Pack VI held the prizes of Hanoi and Haiphong. A rail line running northeast divided it into an eastern USAF zone and a coastal Navy zone. This area contained the Paul Doumer Bridge, most of the main irrigation dikes, and a majority of the original targets designated by the Joint Chiefs.

Then in early April a pair of F-105s attacking the Thanh Hoa rail bridge were brought down by NVAF MiG-17 fighters. The USAF responded by deploying the F-4, its newest multirole fighter, into theater. Based out of Ubon, Thailand, the 45th Tactical Fighter Squadron was attached to the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing and immediately began trolling for MiGs. Against military objections, the first of several bombing “pauses” occurred on May 13, 1965, courtesy of Washington sensitivities, as that date corresponded with the Buddha’s birthday. The idea was to give Hanoi a chance to digest the effects of the air campaign and to realize the futility of opposing the United States.

All the pause accomplished was to give the North Vietnamese time to rebuild railroads and fill in craters along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Time also to strengthen the air defenses around Hanoi—including making the newly built SA-2 sites fully operational. Losing Gary Powers and Rudy Anderson in the early 1960s had made the SAM threat very real, but little had been done about it. Aware that the missiles had been deployed to North Vietnam, the 2nd Air Division commander, Major General Joe Moore, sought permission to attack the sites while they were under construction. The assistant secretary of defense, an academic with no military qualifications at all named John T. McNaughton, openly ridiculed the request.

“You don’t think the North Vietnamese are going to use them!” His scorn was obvious. “Putting them in is just a political ploy by the Russians to appease Hanoi.”

Unfortunately, it was no political ploy that attacked Leopard Two on July 24, 1965.
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“
CEDAR ONE
. . . offload was 12,100 pounds.”

Major Ed Rock could see the boom operator through the plastic blister on the KC-135’s belly. The boomer had a mustache and headphones and was wearing glasses. Not taking his eyes off the tanker’s director lights, Rock lifted his left hand, waved, then dropped it back on the throttle. Disconnecting from the boom, he pulled the power back slightly, and the F-105F Thunderchief dropped back until the whole tanker was in sight. Closing the air refueling door, he glanced right, then slid beneath his wingman over to the tanker’s right wing. Rock was the last to top off and simply kept turning, with Number Two falling in behind him. He didn’t have to look to know the other element, Cedar Three and Four, would cross under the KC-135 and follow. There were four other tankers stacked up in the track, separated by 1,000 feet, so he stayed in his altitude block until they cleared to the west.

“Red One One . . . thanks for the gas . . . Cedar’s off to the north at fourteen K.”

“Cedar . . . Red One One copies. Good huntin’.”

Rock zippered the mike and continued turning. They’d been southbound in the Red Track and were now over the Plaine des Jarres, heading for the North Vietnamese border. He looked down at the desolate, cratered landscape, then eyeballed his tactical air navigation system, leaving it set to Udorn. It was the closest piece of friendly concrete to their target, way up in Route Pack 6. He took a deep breath, hoping it wouldn’t come to that. As a former F-86 pilot, Rock was certainly no stranger to danger, but some things never got easier. You just never knew . . .

Switching frequencies again, he checked in with Cricket and passed his flight’s call sign and mission number. Cricket was a converted C-130, a sort of airborne command post that kept up with every flight going in and out of Vietnam. The controller passed him a weather update for Hanoi and wished them good luck.

“Cedar, go strike prime.”

He switched the radio to a preset frequency that the whole striker package would monitor. Tactical changes, updates, and emergency information could all be passed if necessary. After waiting a few seconds, he keyed the mike.

“Cedars . . . clean it up, green it up, music on.”

The other three Thuds all acknowledged, checked their switches, armed their systems, and turned the ECM pods to transmit.

“Gotta few Fire Cans up,” his backseater, Capt. Curt Hartzell, the electronic warfare officer (EWO), finally chimed in over the intercom, and Rock glanced at the little round scope to the right of his glare shield. The APR-25 radar homing and warning (RHAW) system was a fairly new addition. It would see incoming radar signals, then display them along the detected azimuth. Stronger signals were displayed as a long line from the center of the scope. A Fire Can was a Triple-A radar, and that meant guns—but there were always guns. These only flickered at the center or were displayed as short solid lines. The signal was weak and likely not a threat, so Rock relaxed a bit, nothing to worry about.

Yet.

Dialing up the next turnpoint, he smoothly banked right and headed northeast toward Yen Bai on the Red River. Strike Prime was garbage, as usual. Teal, the EB-66 jammer flight, was talking to Cadillac and Buick, eight F-4s in a MiGCAP. Then there was the Navy yakking away on the guard frequency again. Cracking the power back to hold 480 knots, he kicked the rudder several times, fishtailing the jet, and his wingmen immediately spread out. The others were all in single-seat D models and would have no problem keeping up with his heavier, two-seat F-105F.

Ramping down, he leveled off at 11,000 feet and looked at the ground. Like gray warts, karst mounds poked up through the dark jungle, and fog crept through the valleys. Rock glanced at his watch as the strikers checked in five minutes behind him and right on time. Elm, Maple, Redwood, and Pine: sixteen F-105Ds, each with six 750-pound bombs. They’d make quite a mess if the SAMs and guns didn’t get them—but that was what he was here to deal with. It was December 2, 1966, and his flight of Wild Weasels was fragged to protect the strikers by fighting SAMs. Weasels had two mottos: “First in, last out” and “You gotta be shittin’ me.”

Both applied today.

Intelligence estimated twenty to thirty SAM batteries around Hanoi—the “Golden Circle,” as the fighter pilots called it. A safe haven for the North Vietnamese, mandated by American politicians. He snorted. What a crock of shit.

“Fan Song now,” Hartzell added, referring to the radar used for SA-2 fire control. “Multiple emitters.”

“Where?”

A dry chuckle came out of the pit. “Anywhere in front of us.”

Well, that’s the whole idea.
Rock shook his head slightly.
We’re the targets, not the bomb droppers.
Eyes flickering over the cockpit, the pilot was glad to be in a Thud. The initial Wild Weasel aircraft had been the F-100F Super Sabre, and it just wasn’t made for the job. The 105 was bigger, heavier, and it carried much more ordnance. Designed for low-altitude nuclear strikes against a Communist threat, the Thud could
move
. The big Pratt & Whitney J-75 would put out an astounding 24,500 pounds of thrust in full afterburner and would keep the 105 supersonic on the deck.

“Pushin’ it up,” he replied, nudging the throttle forward. Off to his left, the Hoang Lien range twisted its way north past the Fansipan massif into the Himalayas. Up ahead the mountains suddenly opened onto a wide valley in Phu Tho Province. Through the middle of it snaked the Red River, all the way to the dark blue waters of the Tonkin Gulf. About halfway down to the sea, on the river’s western bank, lay Hanoi. Rock looked left and right. The other jets were right where they should be, so he dropped to 10,000 feet and held 540 knots.

As he headed for the little town, which was just south of a lake that was off his nose, the hills broke apart in a deep pass called the Western Gates. That made him smile, since the Weasels were here to kick the gates in. Racing down over the valley, the four 105s crossed the Red River just south of Yen Bai. A green, slug-shaped hill rose up past the river and pointed southeast like a long, knobby finger. At the end of it, on the plain, was the MiG base at Phuc Yen. To the locals the hill was Tam Dao. The Americans called it Thud Ridge.

Rock pushed the throttle up to mil power and saw the airspeed Mach indicator tape on his console jump to 580 knots. Second rule of combat . . . speed is life! Switches, fuel, engine . . . he ran his eyes over them all, flipping the oxygen to 100 percent and keeping the stick steady against his leg. It always thrilled him to hold such power in his right hand, and the combat rush welled up in his chest. Sitting in a solid hunk of metal thundering his way across the valley, he could see everything,
feel
everything, and he grinned, despite the situation. First rule of combat . . . keep your head out of your ass. The sheer power of the F-105 was amazing, quivering to be let loose, to turn and burn. To fight and kill. Dialing up the RHAW volume, he looked out at the smaller hills at the tip of the ridge. It was time.

“Comin’ right,” he said, giving the EWO a warning. He paused, then rolled the big fighter up on its wingtip and pulled hard. Through the top of the canopy he watched Cedar Two float overhead and disappear behind his left wing. Three and Four would play the turn to end up about three miles behind him in an offset box formation. Rock heard Hartzell grunt against the g’s, then he popped the jet upright, staring far off the node at the Gulf with Thud Ridge on his left. The Red River was off his right wing as they roared down the valley toward Phuc Yen and Hanoi. Visibility off the nose wasn’t the best, so he bunted forward slightly and rolled a little left. Sometimes the gomers put guns on the hilltops, and—

“Shee-it!”

The sky was suddenly alive with expanding little puffy clouds . . . like someone threw a thousand pieces of popcorn in his face. Rock slammed the stick forward and Hartzell’s head thunked against the canopy. The pilot instantly reversed, pulling back hard right.

“Cedars, Triple-A over the ridge . . . ten K, heads up!”

Bunting again, the streams of fire curved away behind him and then the sky was clear.

“What the
fuck
. . . ?”

“Not over yet.” The EWO was breathing hard. “Multiple Fan Songs . . . nose, close!”

No shit. Hanoi was right there. There were at least a hundred radars in this part of the country, so it was a wonder the RHAW worked at all. Rock swallowed and craned his neck to see out the front. Banking left, back toward the ridge, he booted the left rudder and skidded the jet sideways. Fan Songs could be at Phuc Yen or Hanoi.

“BEEP . . . BEEP . . . BEEP . . .”

“Missile launch!” Hartzell really was breathing hard now. “Twelve o’clock . . .”

“I got it.” Rock rolled up, then pulled back to the right. A big white cloud was boiling up south of the Red River near Son Tay. Then another. Keying the strike freq, he broke in over the chatter. “Missiles off the ground . . . twenty northwest of Bull!”
^*