by G. E. Nolly
I looked down, saw the distinctive triangular runway pattern of the Bac Mai Airfield, and rolled in, resetting my gun sight to the ballistic mill setting for my Mk-84s, instead of the centroid settings preferred when the bombs would be guided by a laser. They were now just going to be gigantic dumb bombs.
I pulled off target and breathed a sigh of relief. I'd gotten my bombs on target. Now it was time to get the hell out of town.
“Johnnie, give me steering to the egress point.”
He already had it programmed in the INS.
“It's on the number one needle, Hamfist.”
“Okay,” I said, “Let's get the fuck out of here.”
I really had to take a piss.
45
May 11, 1972
We headed west to the egress point, south of Thud Ridge. Our route was going to take us back over Laos, then south to the tanker and on to Ubon. The airstrike was over. All of the strike aircraft had exited the target area.
Except me. I was all alone over downtown Hanoi. And, just like in every World War Two movie where the German fighters would attack the stragglers, I was the lone target for every enemy gunner in the area. We had another SAM shot at us, this time from our left eight o'clock. It went wild, and didn't even come close. There was a lot of triple-A. Triple-A I could deal with. Big sky.
Then Johnnie was screaming again.
“Break right! It's a fucking Atoll!”
I broke hard right again, aural tone sounding continuously. Our airspeed was bleeding off at 50 knots per second from the heavy G-loading.
“Okay,” Johnnie announced, “It's past us. That fucking MiG just shot at us with a fucking Atoll missile!”
I was fast approaching the proverbial point where I was out of airspeed, altitude and ideas. I checked my fuel. My external wing tanks were empty, and I reached over to the left subpanel and jettisoned them. I unloaded to about a half-G, lit min burner and accelerated. We needed to get the fuck out of the target area.
Finally, we were at the egress point. I breathed a sigh of relief and switched over to post-strike frequency.
“Dingus Two is up.”
Lead sounded surprised.
“Dingus, Two,” he called, “say your pigeons to Udorn.”
I tuned up the Udorn TACAN and gave him my radial and DME.
“Take up a heading of 175, Dingus Two. We're eight miles ahead of you.”
I turned to 175 and looked out ahead of my aircraft. It was probably the first time I'd even paid attention to anything outside the aircraft since my first SAM break, other than on my bomb delivery. Off in the distance, ahead of me, I could see two aircraft. I assumed that one of the other Dingus aircraft was no longer in the formation.
“Dingus Lead, this is Two. I have your two aircraft in sight.”
“No, Two, there are three in our flight. Everyone except you managed to stay in formation. Get your ass back up here.”
He sounded pissed.
“Roger.”
I looked again. No, it was just two aircraft. Then I saw, well ahead of the two aircraft, a flight of three F-4s. There were two aircraft closing in on the six o'clock of Dingus Flight!
I pushed the power up to close on the two aircraft. I was able to discern the distinctive cruciform tails of two MiG-17s.
“Johnnie, those are two MiGs following our flight. Get a lock up and give me range information.”
Johnnie got a lock on the two targets and was reading distance and angle off to me.
This was the moment Fate had designed for me and me alone. I was single-ship in an F-4E, with an internal gun. I had recently qualified, okay, semi-qualified, on the dart. I was at the six o'clock of two MiGs. I may have fucked up royally up until now, being broken off from my formation, but this was my time to bag one, no, two, MiGs.
I didn't have to piss any more. I wanted to get my rocks off. As I closed, I saw one of the MiGs dip his left wing, then both started turning hard left.
I've never seen airplanes turn that quickly. One minute I was looking at their tails, a few seconds later I was looking at their planforms. I performed a high-speed yoyo and closed to firing range, chasing my LCOSS toward my target, the MiG wingman. As I got in range, I saw that they were, indeed, MiG-17s, with red stars on their tails. But, damn it, they were camouflaged!
I had about three milliseconds to make a decision. Instantly, I mentally heard a replay of Colonel West, telling us that flight discipline was the most important quality for a fighter pilot to have. And I heard our Wing Commander, telling us in no uncertain terms that camouflaged aircraft were off limits.
“Shit!” I exclaimed, “They're camo.”
I performed a quarter roll and zoom maneuver, headed south, and rejoined my formation. Dingus Flight had been oblivious to the entire engagement.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
After we landed, I reported the camouflaged MiG-17s to Intel, and everyone in Dingus Flight gave disapproving sighs. This FNG doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. Later that day, several of the MiG-Cap flights from Udorn reported seeing camouflaged MiG-17s, and the ROE was changed the next day. We would be able to, again, fire at camouflaged MiGs.
Following the Intel debrief, Lieutenant Colonel Wiley called me into his office and shut the door.
“What happened out there, Hamfist?”
“Just as our flight was rolling in on the target,” I replied, “we had a SAM from our four o'clock. Johnnie called it. It was tracking us, and I had to break right or we would have been hit.”
“Well,” he said, “in all honesty, I thought you had been shot down. I looked over to where you were supposed to be when I rolled in, and all I saw was a SAM detonation. I was really surprised when you came up on post-strike frequency.”
“I really don't want my wingmen breaking out of my formation,” he said, as he walked me to the door of his office, “but if you really have to, at least give a call on the radio.”
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
“And, Hamfist,” he said, “I'm really glad you're okay.”
46
June 23, 1972
This was the ninth anniversary of the day I entered the Air Force Academy. It seemed a lifetime ago. So much had transpired in the intervening time. I'd gotten my degree. I'd been trained as a pilot. I'd flown in combat. I'd lost friends. I'd been shot down, twice. I'd fallen in love. And I'd gotten married.
When I was in my first week at the Academy, my squadron's Air Officer Commanding, Major Swain, interviewed each new cadet and asked each of us what our career ambitions were.
“Sir, I want to be a fighter pilot,” I responded, without hesitation.
At the time, I was a an immature kid, a “doolie” with a shaved head, who didn't even know one fighter aircraft from another. And now, I was a fighter pilot. And I was a River Rat. The stars had aligned correctly.
I now had another ambition. Actually, two. I wanted to complete the magic 100 missions over North Vietnam. And I wanted to bag a MiG.
A few weeks after Operation Linebacker started, guys started showing up with 100-mission patches. These were guys on their second tours, who had already completed perhaps 80 or 90 missions over the north on their previous tours a few years earlier, before flying north of the DMZ had ended.
In the old days, when operations were still in effect over North Vietnam, during Operation Rolling Thunder, a pilot would be sent home after either completing 100 missions over the north or after being in theater for one year. With aggressive scheduling, a guy could DEROS home after six or seven months.
Now, all tours of duty were for one year, regardless of number of missions. I wasn't trying to get 100 missions over the north just to get sent home early, though that would have been nice. I wanted to get 100 missions because it was a milestone I had coveted ever since seeing the motivational movie, “There Is A Way” when I was in UPT. It was a merit badge for grown up boy scouts.
And I wanted a MiG, because shooting down enemy airpla
nes is what fighter pilots do. Truth be known, I wanted to be an ace, a fighter pilot with five aerial kills to his credit, like Colonel Ryan, my DO from pilot training. But getting one MiG would be a good start.
On this day, I stopped by Wing Intel for some pre-mission target study before our Special. As I was reviewing our mission briefing package, I was approached by Major Rover, the head of the Wolf FAC unit.
“Sorry to interrupt you, Hamfist. You have time for a short chat?”
“Sure thing, sir.”
“Hamfist, I know you had some FAC experience on your previous tour, and I wanted to see if you're interested in becoming a fast FAC. As you know, we lost Captain Sampson and Captain Garner last month, and two of our other Wolf FACs are going to DEROS in another month, so we have some openings, if you're interested.”
I was flattered, really flattered. The Wolf FAC operation was highly selective, and it was a real honor to be invited to apply. And the Area of Operations for the Wolf FACs was the southern portion of North Vietnam, so getting 100 missions over the north would be a slam-dunk.
But the Wolf FAC AO was primarily in Route Pack One. And, I know this sounds stupid, there weren't many MiGs in Pack One. The MiGs were in Pack Six, Hanoi. If I became a Wolf FAC, I'd have less chance of bagging a MiG.
“I'm very honored that you've asked me, sir. If it's okay with you, I'd like to think it over for a few days.”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I already knew what my answer would be, but I wanted to think of a gracious way to bow out without sounding like an ungrateful jerk.
Our mission on this day was a strike on Kep airfield, northeast of Hanoi. Our route took us east over DaNang, then north over the water for refueling on Purple anchor.
While we were flying alongside the tanker, between top-off hookups, I loosened the leg straps of my parachute harness so I could unzip my flight suit from the bottom to use my piddle pack.
That was pretty much my standard operating procedure on the way to the target. While we were in formation with the tanker I would give the airplane to the WSO to let him get some stick time, and I'd chew an entire pack of Rolaids, drink most of the water in my canteen, and take a leak. Giving stick time to the back-seater was like having a great insurance policy. In the past, there had been more than one occasion when a back-seater had needed to land the airplane when the front-seat pilot had been incapacitated.
We ingressed the target area and set up a wheel pattern around Kep. Lead illuminated the target while we each rolled in separately and dropped our LGBs. We set up for 45-degree dive deliveries.
I rolled in from the north, dropped my bombs and transmitted, “Pickle, pickle, pickle”. Then I executed a brisk 4-G pull-up.
Suddenly, I had an excruciating pain in my testicles. My first reaction was, “I've been shot in the balls!”. Then I realized, I hadn't been hit. I had forgotten to tighten the leg straps of my parachute harness, and my body had shifted to the point that my testicles were caught between the my body and the harness.
And now my balls were being squeezed by four times my body weight. Six hundred-plus pounds of pressure on your nuts will get your attention real quick. As soon as I realized what the problem was, I pushed forward on the stick to ease off the Gs, and saw Mother Vietnam rushing toward me at 500 knots. I had no choice but to pull again, crushed nuts be damned.
I was in agony the whole flight back, and immediately went to see Dr. Myers, the Flight Surgeon, as soon as I landed.
“Drop your shorts and let me take a look,” he said.
I gingerly lowered my shorts and looked down. I wasn't sure which one of us was more surprised. My testicles were swollen to the size of oranges.
“I've always heard that you fighter pilots had big ones, but this is a first for me.”
“I guess I'll be DNIF for a while.”
Duty Not Involving Flying meant I wouldn't be able to fly for a while, but could perform other squadron duties.
“No way, Hamfist. You're totally grounded for five days. I want you to stay in your room, no duty, total bed rest. Off your feet completely.”
“Since this happened on a combat mission,” he said, “I'll be putting you in for a Purple Heart.”
“If it's all the same to you, Doc, I'll pass on the Purple Heart. I already have one anyway.”
“Okay, your call.”
I'd already stood in front of large groups of people and received awards. The last thing I wanted was to be paraded in front of dozens of my peers while someone read a citation, “On that day, Captain Hancock had his balls crushed through mismanagement of his life support equipment”. No thanks!
47
Jun 29, 1972
I was back flying, off grounded status. We were scheduled for another Pack 6 mission to one of the Vu Chua railroad bridges. As we sat in the briefing room, a groan went up from the 130 or so pilots when we saw the intel photo of the bridge.
“Your target today is the Vu Chua South railroad bridge,” the Intel Officer intoned.
We had been on this miniscule bridge perhaps a dozen times already. We called it the “nitnoy bridge”. Nitnoy was the Thai word for small. Interestingly, no one would own up to how he had learned the translation of that word, but we all picked up the term pretty quickly.
Every time we attacked the bridge, we knocked it down. And the gomers managed to rebuild it in a day or so. One of the pilots in another squadron, in frustration, wrote to his congressman, complaining that we were attacking small, insignificant bridges, like the Vu Chua bridge, “seven meters wide by 40 meters long, wood and steel construction”. It just didn't make sense.
The letter to the congressman worked. Within a few days, the Rules of Engagement changed. “Effective immediately,” the notice read, “no bridges shorter than 50 meters will be targeted during Operation Linebacker.” We all reveled in the knowledge that the system worked. We would no longer be risking our lives to knock down an easily-repaired target.
And now, we once again saw the Vu Chua railroad bridge as our primary target.
“Your target today,” declared the Intel Officer, “is the Vu Chua South railroad bridge, ten meters by seventy meters, wood and steel construction.”
It was the same fucking bridge! The Seventh Air Force planners had simply designated the approaches to the bridge as part of the overall length, and fudged the width. The bridge hadn't gotten any longer, they just called it longer to keep it on the target list.
We were all in a sour mood as we returned from Wing Headquarters to our squadron briefing room. To make matters worse, one of the eight crewmembers in our flight, Maple Flight, was Major Waller. He was going to be Maple two.
Major Waller had arrived at Ubon the day Linebacker started, May 10th. He was a highly experienced F-4 pilot. In fact, he had been flying the F-4 almost since its introduction into the Air Force inventory. He had over 3000 hours of F-4 time, all of it in Europe and the States. That was an incredible amount of experience. There were probably less than a dozen pilots in the Air Force with that much F-4 time. We all had really high hopes for him.
Unfortunately, he let us down. Although Major Waller was an incredibly experienced pilot, he was either very unlucky or had a fear of combat. Here we were, two months into Operation Linebacker, and he had not yet been to Hanoi.
He had been scheduled dozens of times, but something always seemed to happen to his aircraft that prevented him from making it to the target. There were at least ten times he ground aborted and didn't take off with the strike formation, and an equal number of times he air aborted. Every one of those times, one of our other squadron pilots had to fill in for him.
Major Waller quickly earned the nickname King. He thought it was an homage to his high fighter time. In actuality, it was a short form for “hangar king”, the masculine form of “hangar queen”, a term for an airplane that never flies due to excessive maintenance issues.
On this mission, Lieutenant Colo
nel Wiley, our Squadron Commander and flight lead, gave a very short preflight briefing. Instead of the normal 45-minute mission briefing, Lieutenant Colonel Wiley kept it short.
“You all have the line-up cards, with takeoff times, tail numbers and frequencies. You already know the target. We will check in on Ground Control frequency at the scheduled time and taxi together to the arming area. Now Major Waller and I will go out and preflight his airplane. Any questions?”
We were all shocked. And elated. Finally King was going to go into combat!
My back-seater and I went out to the airplane at the usual time, did a thorough preflight, and carefully checked our bombs, two Mark-84Ls. The Mark-84 was a 2000-pound bomb, and the suffix L designated it as a laser-guided munition. As long as we had a laser to light up the target, these babies were going to hit it.
We cranked up at the appointed time, and I listened up on Ground frequency.
“Maple flight, check.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Four.” I was in the number four position.
So far so good. King's airplane hadn't broken yet. We taxied out in formation and pulled into the Arming Area, just short of the runway. A Maintenance Sergeant did a quick walk-around of each aircraft, to look for any obvious problems, such as hydraulic leaks. Then the Arming Crew pulled the pins on our bombs and we were armed.
We taxied onto the runway and took off, 15-second spacing. Join-up was uneventful, and we headed out to the refueling track. We hadn't been airborne twenty minutes when King tried to air abort.
“Maple Lead, this is Two. Let's go blankets.”
Blankets was the name of our squadron common frequency, UHF 234.5.
“Negative, Two,” lead responded. “We're staying on this frequency.”
“Maple Lead, this is Two. My abba-jabba seven has tumbled.”
The AJB-3/AJB-7 attitude reference on the F-4 was called the “abba-jabba seven”. It was an essential instrument for aircraft flight in instrument conditions. Today the weather was clear, and all of our bombs would be dropped in formation with the lead aircraft.