Rolling Thunder

by Mark Berent

  F-105s REFUELING

  Court relinquished the controls to Frederick and felt the plane grow sluggish from the added weight. The pilot had to ease back on the stick which tilted the airplane to an even higher angle to keep flying as the already heavy F-105 filled up with thousands of pounds of fuel. As he did, he added more power to overcome the increased drag caused by the high angle of attack. The four tanker engines could not propel the Boeing KC-135 through the air at a speed much higher than the stall speed of a fully loaded Thud resulting in some very delicate flying. Behind Pintail flight were four other tankers refueling their fighters.

  After they topped off, Pintail led his force to Channel 97, known as North Station. Passing the North Station, he signaled the 16 ships to form into the giant box pattern, and headed them 045 degrees toward North Vietnam.

  The glow to the east grew brighter. Below, karst mountains punctuated the green velvet like torn gray boxes. Their shadows pointed west as jagged sharp spears of black.

  0620 Hours Local, 29 September 1966

  F-105s en route to the Thai Nguyen Steel Mill

  Democratic Republic of Vietnam

  "Music on," Pintail Lead said as they crossed the fence from Laos into North Vietnam. All 16 F-105 pilots flipped the switch that activated electronic counter­measure (ECM) devices that radiated energy from the pods (the pilots called them "whizzies") that hung from their wings. They spread out in formation to maximize the combined ECM to confuse gun-laying and SAM search radars.

  The radiated energy blossomed and bloomed on enemy gun-laying and SAM radar scopes like liquid phosphorous poured down a TV screen. Some of the enemy sites would try to burn through the energy glow by increasing the strength of their own pulses. Others would fire their guns barrage-style into what they judged to be the core of the electronic emanations.

  Then they were over North Vietnam. "Green 'em up," Pintail Lead transmitted. Sixteen gloved hands reached to the left side of the instrument panel to flip up the red plastic guard and move the Master Arm switch on. Now the pickle button on the control stick was electrically hot to drop the bombs in whatever order the pilot had set on his armament panel; single, pairs, or ripple. The Weasels went on ahead to blast the defenses in the target area. On their way in they called the launch of a SAM heading up to Pintail's place in the sky.

  "SAM, One o'clock, Pintail," Lead huffed. "Hold it in, let the pods work." He pushed over slightly to vary the altitude from 15,000 down to 12,000, then back up again in undulations that would never give radar trackers a permanent altitude fix. It wasn't much of a defensive move, but it was better than holding steady at an altitude that maybe a trailing MiG could radio back to the Hanoi Air Defense Sector.

  "Another one right behind it," Frederick transmitted in a ho-hum manner. Court felt his pulse race as SAMs arced up to them, then seemed to push over. He looked at the airspeed. It registered 540 knots as each pilot had slowly inched his throttle up to stay with the force commander. It was daylight now.

  They flew straight into the fierce glow of the morning sun rising from the South China Sea. At eleven o'clock low, Court saw Thud Ridge rise up in razorback menace perfectly oriented northwest and southeast. He saw two more SAMs, shining in the morning sun, rise up like smoking javelins thrown by twin hurlers, then three more. They picked up speed as they aligned themselves into a spread pattern. Pintail Lead steadily arced the flight up a few thousand feet. They were close to the rail yards, and he needed the altitude to perform a successful butterfly attack.

  Below, the rail lines shone in the early sun to the left of the formation. The Weasels had dashed about attacking the gun sites like giant angry hornets. It was a game of diminishing returns; too many sites, too few Weasels.

  Pintail Lead held the flight steady for a few seconds. The giant box he controlled was a half mile on a side. He had positioned his own flight of four in the left front corner. He turned northerly, toward the yard, causing the giant box to rotate on the same flat plane as his wings. He rolled them out. The target was starting to disappear under the nose of his airplane. He put his thumb on the mike button and pressed.

  "Ready, reaaaady, SPLIT," Pintail Lead shouted into his transmitter.

  The eastern eight ships broke right as the western eight broke left splitting the box down the middle with each half racing away from the other at a separation speed of 1200 miles per hour. At the sixty degree point in each section's turn, they reversed, pulled up, and rolled in to the rail yards from 14,000 feet on headings exactly opposite from each other.

  Two explosions, so loud and close Court felt the concussion in his stomach, blew his feet up from the rudder pedals. Then flak began to bang and boom around their airplane like popcorn. On each side of them, Court saw the big black and brown puffs with fiery red and orange centers of the 37s and 57s and 85s as they made multiple layers of steel fragments at staggered altitudes among and below the diving airplanes. Muzzle flashes made the target area look like New York at night.

  "I'm hit. Waco Two is hit," a voice shouted over the radio. Court looked back at seven o'clock to see a 105 going down trailing a long plume of black smoke and bright red flame.

  "Waco, SAM, SAM. SAM at seven o'clock. SAM coming up," someone shrieked. There was a sudden pause on the radio.

  "Naw, that's Two going down," Waco Lead said in a laconic voice.

  After some initial fast stick pumps and rolls, Frederick held the F-105 steady as Court watched the altimeter tape unwind. To improve his bombing accuracy, Frederick had slowed the big craft to 450 knots. Court knew Frederick had his eyes swiftly cross-checking his gunsight pipper drifting up to the target, his airspeed, and his dive angle, which Court saw was pinned at a perfect 60 degrees.

  He had set his command marker at 4500 feet, the absolute minimum pickle altitude for a Thud in a 60 degree dive over downtown Hanoi. The white altitude tape numbers slid down the dial in a blur. The command marker came and went as the ships on each side released their bombs and pulled sharply up and away from Frederick's airplane to start their hard jinking climb back up to altitude. As they shot through 4000 feet, Court began to wonder if Ted Frederick was alive and if he was, did he have in mind a suicide dive right into the heart of the Thai Nguyen rail yards. Then he realized Frederick was humming the same tune and repeating the same word, `Downtown,' over and over like a broken record.

  At 3500 feet, Court felt the ejector cartridges go off then almost blacked out as Frederick over-stressed Republic's best airplane since the P-47 by pulling 8 1/2 g's to escape Russia's best air defense system outside of the Moscow ring.

  Then he felt the plane leap as Frederick engaged the afterburner for a few seconds to accelerate his jinking maneuvers back up to altitude. Suddenly the radio came alive with calls.

  "Four's hit."

  "Migs! Migs!"

  "Four WHO is hit?"

  "Christ, look at them."

  "Damn it, where are the Migs? Who called 'em?" a voice that sounded like Pintail Lead's called out in a testy rasp.

  Fighting the G-load and the rapidly rotating cockpit as Frederick jinked left and right, Court looked back over each shoulder for their wingman, Pintail Four. Suddenly, on his left at seven o'clock, he saw an F-105 trailing a long sheet of flame. In the same instant it disappeared in a ball of fire and black smoke from which the cockpit section somersaulted and small parts arced in all directions then fell rapidly back. There was no chute.