by Tom Clancy
Early on, when they were short of munitions, he and other pilots would be sent over North Vietnam with a single bomb and their gun, their mission supposedly being to intimidate the North Vietnamese. Meanwhile, splendid targets, such as piers full of supplies and warehouses, were off-limits. Likewise, the airfields north of Hanoi were off-limits (allowing the MiGs a safe haven from which to launch attacks on our own aircraft). The enemy was allowed the use of his own government buildings, even as he was blowing up South Vietnamese government buildings in Saigon. And he was given buffer zones along the China border, in order for us to avoid “frightening” the Chinese. The enemy used this protected space wisely.
Orders like these flowed out of the bizarre rules of engagement. When the Frag came in at night with the targets the pilots were scheduled to hit, included would be a long list of ROEs, primarily telling them what they could not do. They could not hit any target of opportunity. In the beginning, they could not engage enemy forces unless fired upon (this changed). Areas such as Hanoi and Haiphong were off-limits. They could not attack SAM sites. And they could not attack airfields, even if a MiG was taking off to intercept them.
Pilots are realists and craftsmen. They want to get the job done, and to do it well. It didn’t take them long to see that even their best efforts would not get the job done well.
What they didn’t know was that, besides the policy of Graduated Pressure, the President and his Secretary of Defense wanted to maintain absolute control of the war for political reasons. On the one hand, they wanted to look strong in the United States and perhaps slap the North Vietnamese around enough to persuade them to give in. On the other hand, they didn’t want the conflict to grow into a full-fledged war that would endanger the success of the President’s domestic efforts, such as the Great Society.
In addition, the Secretary of Defense arrogantly believed in his own intellectual and moral superiority over his immediate military subordinates, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Joint Chiefs passively accepted it. They were constitutionally responsible not only to the President but to the Congress, to tell the truth as they saw it, but they didn’t. They knew the Johnson-McNamara policy would not work, and they were silent.
Meanwhile, in the skies over Southeast Asia, the frustration over the rules of engagement increased. The pilots sensed that they were constructed by men who did not have a feel for what was going on in the cockpits over the North. Their sense of fighter-bomber tactics and of the vulnerabilities of the F-105 was dim to nonexistent. Much worse, they had not the slightest vision of what they wanted done, and therefore they could not pass it on to the pilots.
If a pilot who is laying his life on the line is told to do a half-baked job, to perform less than credibly, even though he might die doing it, then you will soon have a problem maintaining military discipline and loyalty up the chain. The ROE orders made pilots perform tasks that were not credible… and so in time the orders were disobeyed and the pilots lied about it. In this way began the erosion of discipline and respect for authority that followed from the Vietnam experience.
★ Route Packages (so called because the mission was to interdict the supply of support to the Vietcong in South Vietnam) caused the pilots a somewhat different — though related — problem. The Route Packages themselves were simple enough. They offered a reasonable, though arbitrary, way to lay out North Vietnam into geographical areas.
The country was divided into seven zones, starting at the DMZ (the line separating the two parts of Vietnam) and looking north. Thus, from south to north, the Route Packages went RP I to RP IV. The part of the country that was mostly west of the Red River was called RP V, while the rest — including Hanoi and Haiphong — was VI. Phuc Yen and Hanoi were in VI A, the western part of VI, while Haiphong was in VI B, the eastern part of VI.
In practical terms, defenses in RP I and II were relatively light. In III and IV, defenses were heavier but still moderate (but with one or two real hot spots, such as the Than Hoa Bridge, which resulted in more shoot-downs than any other single target). MiGs flew out of V, which was bad, but it also contained a lot of jungle where there were no SAMs or guns, which was good. VI was the worst, with the Red River Valley, MiG bases at Phuc Yen and Dong Ha, Hanoi and Haiphong, and the northeast railroad.
The reason for Route Packages was to allow the U.S. Navy and the USAF to operate over North Vietnam without coordinating with each other. Each service could operate over its own designated zones, and in that way, each service could keep control of its own aircraft without having to place them under the control of a single air commander. Thus, the USAF got RPs I, II, V (V was farthest from the sea), and VI A, while the Navy got RPs III, IV, and VI B (VI B and IV were near the sea). In other words, the Navy got the midsection and the USAF got the top and bottom.
There were both benefits and drawbacks to Route Packages. The chief benefit was that the Navy and the Air Force kept out of each other’s way and they could plan their operations apart from each other, so there was never a coordination problem. In those days, it was also likely that U.S. forces did not have the command and control that would have allowed Navy and Air Force aircraft to operate with each other in the same airspace. It was likely, too, that Air Force and Navy planes would have been intercepting one another and perhaps even taking shots at one another. The chief drawback, of course, was that U.S. forces were not mutually supportive, which meant that the enemy could easily take advantage of the split in U.S. forces, and contend with two weaker divided air efforts rather than one unified and coordinated force.
It also gave pilots another reason to act contrary to what they saw as stupid, wrong, and lacking in credibility.
For example, when the weather was bad in an Air Force Route Package, Air Force pilots were not allowed to hit an alternative target in the Navy’s Route Packages.
Let’s say that Horner was flying in RP VI A, going after a bridge on the northwest rail line to China, and the weather turned bad — thunderstorms. Logic would say he ought to fly over to the northeast rail line to China and drop on a bridge over there; but since that was in RP VI B, he was expected to weather-abort the mission and bring his bombs home.
Did he do that? No.
What he did was fly to wherever there looked to be a suitable target, drop on it, and then report 100 percent of ordnance in the original target area. He would not report any BDA (Battle Damage Assessment), since he knew that the original target had not been hit, while there was a smoking hole a hundred miles away that they could not correlate with any Frag, so they did not report it, even if photos showed it.
Meanwhile, Chuck Horner came to understand that both he and the enemy ultimately worked for people whose interests did not include either of them; they did not really care if he or they died. Their agenda involved some geopolitical goal, while his was to stay alive.
★ None of these realizations came in a flash. For Horner, some didn’t hit him until after he returned to the United States. If, however, there was a Road to Damascus moment for Chuck Horner, it had to be on the July day in 1965 when the Thuds from Korat and Ta Khli made history. On that July 24, sixteen F-105s were sent to destroy a radar-guided SA-2 surface-to-air missile site located at the junction of the Red and Black Rivers in North Vietnam. This was the first-ever attack on a SAM site, and it turned into a ghastly fiasco.
Before that date, the Air Force and civilian authorities responsible for determining the course of the war had further determined that U.S. aircraft should not attack the SA-2 sites then being set up in North Vietnam. In that way, they reasoned, the United States wouldn’t annoy the North Vietnamese enough to provoke them into using the SAMs… “Annoy the North Vietnamese?” Chuck Horner observes. “Why would the North Vietnamese go to all the trouble of setting the SA-2s up if not to shoot at U.S. aircraft? And keep in mind that U.S. aircraft were already bombing their country, so they had plenty of reason to be annoyed. What we should have done is sink the boats bringing the SAMs from the USSR. We shoul
d have bombed the trains that brought them from China. If we missed them there, we should have bombed them the first time we saw them being taken out of the craft. And failing that, we should have bombed the very first sites they set up. Instead we put the sites off-limits in the ‘hopes’ that the North Vietnamese would not use this weapon against us, if we did not shoot at them. How dumb can you get?”
One day in July, the North Vietnamese shot down an RF-4C, an unarmed reconnaissance version of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom jet, with a SAM-2. In other words, the North Vietnamese had missed the subtle reasoning that would have had them install SAMs without actually using them, and now the United States had to teach them a lesson.
On the night of July 23, a warning order went out to Korat and Ta Khli to stand by, a retaliation mission against the North Vietnamese SA-2 site was being planned; Frag to follow. At 11:00 P.M. the Frag arrived. It called for low-level tactics to defeat the SAMs, without thought of the many AAA guns that were defending the sites. To fool the North Vietnamese, the Thuds from Korat would let down in Laos just across the border, fly east down a deep valley in northern Laos that the Communist Pathet Lao used as their stronghold — without thought that the Pathet Lao might see them, or perhaps choose to take some target practice themselves — then turn north at the Black River and hit the target in the delta at the Black and Red Rivers junction. The Thuds from Ta Khli, meanwhile, would let down to the north and fly east until hitting the Red River, then come south — without thought to the midair-collision potential resulting from Korat flying up from the south and Ta Khli coming down from the north. They also Fragged the munitions. Since it was a low-level attack, the F-105s were given napalm and CBU-2s. These last were new munitions — tiny bomblets containing ball bearings carried in tubes under the wing. When you reached the target, you blew the ends of the tubes and the bomblets dropped out and fell to earth. When they exploded, the ball bearings inside were like bullets, scattering in all directions, punching holes in whatever they struck. (The bomblets also had the bad habit of colliding in midair behind the wing, detonating, and punching holes in the dispensing fighter aircraft, setting it on fire or destroying its fuel cells and hydraulic flight control lines.)
In all fairness to those who planned the mission, no one had experience against SAMs (other than the U-2 pilots who’d been shot down by SAMs over Russia and Cuba). There was, in fact, a general feeling that it was hopeless to fly against SAMs; they never missed. Finally, planning for the first-ever raid against SAMs was heady stuff — it was hard to step back and just look at the best way to do it — and so anybody in Saigon or Washington who had an opportunity to add a tweak to the plan did.
Was there a better way? In fact, yes. Higher command could have called down to the Wing and said, “If you can kill those SAM sites at such and such a location, please do so, and let me know what you learn.” In other words, the Wing might well have had a more practical way to accomplish higher command’s goal than higher command did. But that was not likely under the centralized system then in place.
Meanwhile, Horner and Myhrum, who were on duty handling the Frags, noted that the Dash-One pilot’s handbook contained restrictions on using napalm. Specifically, the maximum speed for release of these weapons was 375 knots indicated airspeed. Not smart, they thought, to go in against AAA that slow. They passed that thought on to Saigon, and Saigon agreed. Another message came back at 2:00 A.M. that morning, saying, “OK, load up iron bombs and have at it.” By that time, the munitions troops had already loaded the jets with napalm.
“Hey, wait a minute.” Horner and Myhrum came running up. “Change in plans. Drop the napalm and CBUs and load up bombs.”
“Okay, can do.”
Then, around 5:00 A.M. the general in Saigon must have arrived at headquarters, because a new message quickly came in: “Load the napalm and the CBUs and go as ordered.” So they went back to the hapless maintenance troops: “Hey, guys, there’s been a change. Reload the napalm and CBUs. Sorry.” It’s because such things happen that maintenance troops have a low opinion of operations.
While all this was going on, the pilots who were about to fly the mission were doing what they could to sleep; but sleep wasn’t likely, because this mission was a major operation. When the sun rose, the pilots assembled; and Horner and Myhrum delivered the mission data for the first-ever attack on a surface-to-air radar-guided-missile site, then prepared to grab breakfast and hit their beds.
As it happened, maintenance had a pair of extra aircraft loaded, in case someone aborted a primary jet. “Would you and Roger give those jets a hot preflight and start them up?” they asked. “If someone has to abort their primary aircraft, they can run over to yours, jump in, and take off on the mission.”
“No problem,” they answered.
“And would you please taxi them out to the arming area,” they added, “in the event that one of the primary jets breaks out there?”
“Sure, no sweat,” they answered. But because they had been up all night and they were tired, Horner was also thinking, Let’s get the show on the road so I can get some breakfast and sleep.
Then the takeoff time was moved up, forcing Horner and Myhrum to go to the jets early (somebody brought them sandwiches from the club, but the meat was cold liver, which Horner hates, and he went hungry), climb in the jet, start check-in, and then taxi to the landing area. All went well there, until Horner and Myhrum, who were sitting off to the side, heard two pilots in the first flight abort their takeoffs. Next the flight leader called to order them to take off and join him as numbers three and four. Okay, no sweat, Horner thought, I can fly wing anywhere. All I have to do is put the light on the star[11] and stay in formation, refuel, and drop some napalm on whatever the flight leader puts in front of me. His flight plan will determine mine, since I am in formation with him.
That was overhopeful.
After they refueled, but before they let down in Laos, numbers one and two decided they had to go home with aircraft problems. That left Roger Myhrum — who hadn’t been briefed — to lead the whole show from Korat. On his wing was Chuck Horner. Other than what he could remember from the night before when he broke out the Frag, Horner was just as much in the dark about the mission as his friend. Not to worry, he thought. We’ve faked it before, and anyway we know the area like the back of our hands from previous missions.
When they let down in the valley in Laos, the Pathet Lao must have been caught unaware, because they scarcely shot at them. Soon they hit the river and turned north.
Suddenly the radio came alive: “Buick Leader is down in the river!”… “I’m hit and on fire!”… “Two, where are you?” All these messages came with automobile call signs, meaning Ta Khli was early in their attack. They were coming south down the river and getting shot at and hit.
Since it was not pleasant to have the enemy shooting at you at slow speeds, the Thuds from Korat pushed it up. Horner noticed Myhrum was doing a nice 550 knots and accelerating. Good man, he thought. Hope the generals don’t find out we’re exceeding the 375-knot limit on the napalm. He looked up then and saw Bobby Tastett’s Thud rise up out of an area of dust and flames, with the whole underside of his jet on fire. He kept staring as Tastett’s jet sank back into the dust and exploded against the ground.[12] Horner’s next glance was over to the side, where he noticed the gun barrels of the AAA all lined up and shooting down the valley. They were flying so low the North Vietnamese couldn’t depress their barrels enough to hit them. That meant the projectiles burst overhead, and most of the hits were on the topside of their jets. They were so low that some of them came back with leaves stuck in underside doors and panels.
In a moment, Horner saw what looked like a SAM site, then dropped his munitions about the same time Myhrum did. Later they both admitted they weren’t sure what they actually dropped them on, but since Saigon didn’t want to hear that, they reported that 100 percent of the munitions were in the target area, and that made Saigon happy. Turning left a
nd crossing the Red River, he heard Frank Tullo call to report he was punching out (ejecting). He was later recovered.
Then it was finished. When the guns stopped shooting at them, they checked each other over. Myhrum had a hung can of napalm, so they slowed down while he jettisoned it, then headed south across Laos back to Thailand.
En route, they listened in on the ops officer talking on the radio with a friend of Horner’s, Bill Barthelmous. Bill had holes in his jet behind the canopy and asked the ops officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jack Farr, to check him over for fire, leaking fluid, or anything else. Sure enough, fluid was leaking. Suddenly Barthelmous’ flight controls locked up from loss of hydraulic fluid, and he pitched up, smashing into Farr’s jet, killing him. Barthelmous jumped out, but his chute streamered, and he was later found dead in a rice paddy with multiple broken bones and water in his lungs.
In the attack, Korat lost, in all, four jets and three pilots, one of whom turned up several years later as a POW, while Ta Khli lost two jets and two pilots. Bill Barthelmous and Jack Farr died; Bob Tastett and others checked into the Hanoi Hilton; and only Frank Tullo came back to fly north again from the hell of that day.
Afterward, poststrike reconnaissance film showed an untouched SAM site. But it turned out not really to matter that they missed it, since the site was fake. Its SA-2 Guideline missiles had been built out of telephone poles, with a dummy radar in the middle. They’d fallen for a very skillfully handled trap — a clever sting. That night, all the surviving pilots got roaring drunk and made a lot of noise celebrating being alive. In their hearts, though, they felt terrible, because they hadn’t got the job done.
The next day, the PACAF Commander, General Hunter Harris, paid a visit in his 707. As the door opened, the local SAC base commander was standing there, dressed up in his blue uniform, waiting at the bottom of the stairs; the honor guard, with chrome helmets, was lined up on either side of the red carpet. Instead of General Hunter Harris standing in the door, however, there was Frank Tullo, his flight suit covered with blood, mud, and vomit. He had cut his head when he ejected, then he’d crawled around in the jungle mud trying to avoid detection by the North Vietnamese. After a few hours of this, Air America had picked him up and flown him to a forward site in Laos, where he got drunk on local Mekong whiskey, got sick, and vomited all over himself as he slept. When the pilots saw him, they all cheered, much to the annoyance of the SAC base commander, realizing as they did that General Harris had a sense of humor and knew what was important (even if he couldn’t do anything about what they were being asked to do).[13]