“Yeah, we called it off. We went in with a couple and came back out. We called it off. Abort.”
“OK, ah, Kingpin, ah, what’s your position now?”
“Ah, I’m headed back out now. The first three flights are pretty well spread out.”
“OK, we’ll come up there in case you need our help, and we’re almost up there now.”
I appreciated it, but I sure hoped we didn’t need any more help today. Part of my job was to give him any ideas I had on where he might be able to do some good. “Rog, there’s a little open area between the rivers, and it’s stretching out toward the west and the northwest—there’s an open area and you might find something in there, but it’s down low and pretty solid over the target itself.”
“OK, no chance of getting in.”
“Nah, I wouldn’t even mess with it.”
“OK, is this Bob?”
“No, this is Jack.” At least the Avis wing knew who the leaders were in our wing.
“Rog.”
“Kingpin—this is four back on. No contact with three.” “Rog.”
4. People
If Don could have lasted a couple more weeks he could have been there when we started getting through on those targets that we had been sweating for so long. It was not that the weather turned good, it just got a little less horrible and allowed us to sneak in and do the job. We played the same old game and fought our way down Thud Ridge and found just enough room to work, and we did good work. We did good work under some grim conditions and we worked right on the edges of the sanctuaries that gave our adversaries all the breaks possible in working against us. We knew we were doing good work, not only from pur own assessment of the raids but from the fact that Hanoi screamed like a bunch of wounded eagles every time we got a good lick in. The teamwork and dedication displayed by the pilots on that particular series of raids was truly marvelous. I had the privilege of being the big leader on a majority of these and I could not have dragged a lesser bunch of men through some of the things I dragged them through.
One of the first times we got through must have been one of the most challenging rides down Thud Ridge anyone has ever had. As we turned the northern corner we knew that the Migs were up and nipping at our heels. There was a solid layer of cloud underneath us but something of the Irish intuition my mother, Elizabeth McGinley Broughton, passed on to me from her ancestors led me to believe that it was not too thick and that there might be enough of a hole down by the river to let us work. I was hungry for the larger military and commercial transshipment targets on the edges of Hanoi and if there was a chance I was determined to get my guys in after we had come this far.
As I headed south, the Migs moved into view and it appeared that the time was ripe both to confuse the Migs and to see what it looked like under the cloud. I started us all down through the murk with the target only minutes ahead. As I broke out underneath the clouds, I found Thud Ridge on my left covered with rain clouds that boiled under the main cloud blanket and went right down to the valley floor. The cloud deck and the rain sloped downhill away from me toward the river where it looked downright ominous. Maybe that hole wouldn’t be there after all, but I had committed the forces and we were going to give it a try. I also found what an excellent job the gunners had done in estimating the height of the clouds as everything north and west of Phuc Yen let fly at once. It was obvious that I could not hold the troops down at this level, so I eased my twenty charges back up into the rain. We were bouncing along close to 600 in the slop when my trusty Doppler navigational gear, as usual, decided that things were too rough and it went ape. I knew pretty well how I had to steer from here for the next few minutes, but I obviously had nothing in the aircraft to check my progress and I could not see the ground to look for landmarks. My buddy Geeno had the element and I gave him a quick call, “Lost my Doppler. Steer me, Geeno.”
The Migs, already in the air, had elected to stay on top of the cloud layer when I descended and were pacing us and waiting for us to reemerge. They climbed on board immediately and the show was now in a precarious spot. Because of the Migs, I couldn’t stay up here either, and at the speeds we were moving, I hoped that we had passed the heavy area of ground fire that I had encountered several seconds ago, so I took us back down. This time I broke out in heavy rain just north of the Mig sanctuary at Phuc Yen and the traffic pattern was full of Migs taking off to go after my trailing flights and after the next wing due to follow me into the area. I flew almost down the runway itself and made what amounted to a head-on pass at several pairs of Migs turning out of traffic and preparing to attack. If I had not had that bombload on board and had not been herding my troops into the target I could have had a couple of them about the time they reached for the handle to pull their landing gear up. I could also have glide-bombed their airfield and torn it all to hell, but that was forbidden as were the Migs unless their wheels were off the ground.
I knew that the Migs I was now passing would only have to turn on their armament switches and make another 180-degree turn to be on the attack but there was not too much I could do about it except wonder why we had not cleaned their clock about a year ago. I ducked down another couple of hundred feet to avoid a heavy rainstorm, but this one held some of the promise I was looking for. The entire valley was a nasty shade of gray approaching black in spots, but this storm was a dirty brown color and as I sped toward it the brown got lighter and blended into an almost amber tone. That meant that there was good light on the other side and perhaps sunshine and the clearing we needed. It had to be, or we were out of business because the seconds were ticking away and the target had to be right there. Geeno called a few quick steers and we broke through the wall of rain and the river was under us. I had broken out on the right side of the target rather than the left as we had planned, but the hole was there and the target was there and we worked it. As I arched up into the long pull and turn to get in bombing position, one of the Migs we thought we had left in the murk behind us arched right along with me and the heat-seeking rocket he fired at me went streaking underneath my nose to detonate in my face and convince me of two things. First, that particular Mig-21 driver was either determined or stupid to press right into the mass of flak that now nipped at us from the target itself; and second, that I had better pull a little harder if I intended to complete this run. I completed the run and the egress across the delta was exceptionally noisy that day and involved a series of vertical gyrations, as every time I dropped down, the ground gunners reached up, and every time I went up a SAM burst at or close to my altitude and course, but I got out.
The number three man in the last of our flights was not quite so fortunate, since the Migs I had been forced to pass up as they took off from Phuc Yen had now settled on my last flight as their prime target. They waited for them until they came up off their run in the clear air to the south. They picked their target wisely, they maneuvered properly, they tracked and fired properly and they hit.
The first time Spade knew he had been hit was when he wound up crammed up against what was left of the front windscreen, with nothing left but the throttle grip, which he clutched in his left hand, and the seat on which he was sitting. His flight had been fighting the Migs off all the way down the Ridge but had made it to the target, bombed and were on the way out, but still in trouble. His wingman, number four, had been fragged to carry a cumbersome camera pod that takes nice color pictures for the documentary program but increases the drag on the machine considerably and thus slows you down. The number four man just could not keep up as the bombs came off and the Thuds headed out of the area. As a result of this incident, we were finally able to convince our headquarters that while the documentary program was nice, we could not afford to lug external camera pods to Hanoi. The fact that number four was dragging did not go unnoticed by one of the previously thwarted Migs, and he pushed in between and under the two separated Thuds and let fly with his air-to-air missiles, which had Spade’s name all over them. Spade never sa
w them coming and when he found nothing under him or around him but air, he dropped the 6-inch-long throttle which represented all that was left of his multimillion-dollar steed and pulled the handles. His chute worked, though unknown to him at that instant his back was already broken, and he hit the ground 30 miles south of Hanoi.
We carry a parachute in the tail of the aircraft which we deploy on the runway when we land to slow up our landing roll. His number four man saw the drag chute billow as the tail of Spade’s aircraft disintegrated, and shortly after saw Spade’s chute and promptly assumed and announced, on the radio, that there were two pilots on the way down. It was not until we were back on the ground that we were able to count noses and figure the basis for this call.
Considering the area that he had jumped into, we figured that we had lost Spade. The condition of his aircraft when he jumped had been bad enough, but he had jumped almost into the outskirts of town and we had never recovered anyone that far up. But the Spads and the choppers were to write a new chapter in rescue history that day. Spade’s beeper and the calls from the other flight members triggered the rescue effort and the rescue troops were more than ready when he landed on the crest of a little knoll with a few rock piles on it. In that he had landed in the immediate target area when the strike was only half completed, the noise of the guns and bombs was loud in his ears, and the bad guys of the local guard unit were already on their way up the sides of the hill to pick him up. To his amazement, he was able to establish contact with the rescue forces and they were on him in no time. The Spad flight leader instructed him to crawl into the rock pile and sit tight, which he managed to do despite his broken back and other injuries suffered in the shootdown and the ejection.
The rescue pilots fly the slower Spads and they can get right down in the bushes and look for people on the ground. They can also take quite a beating and with their less sophisticated systems they have a better chance of keeping the mill going. They get some rotten jobs because of their unique capabilities and one of their assignments is working with the choppers on rescue cover missions, or Rescaps in our terminology. Not only can they find a downed crew, they can turn and maneuver tightly enough to keep the rescue scene in view and suppress ground movement with their rockets and guns. Their birds are so much older than ours are that the moniker Spad, borrowed from World War I, is a natural.
The Spad leader called the choppers in from nameless places to the back door of Hanoi, and Spade viewed the most effective close-support demonstration he had ever seen. The Spads set up a gunnery pattern around his rocky hilltop fortress and proceeded to hold the North Vietnamese ground forces at bay while the choppers lumbered onto the scene for the pickup. The Spads strafed and rocketed in every direction from treetop level, and forced back every advance of the ground troops. Their firing passes were so low that as they went past Spade they would go below him and down into the valleys surrounding his knoll. Needless to say, both he and the Spads were targets for all the gunfire the locals could bring to bear on this quintet of invaders in their backyard. One small squad of North Vietnamese almost did him in when they escaped initial observation by the Spads. They were within 50 feet of his rock pile when they lost the cover of the brush and as Spade frantically called out their position on his emergency radio, it looked for a minute like the valiant game was about over. One of the Spads spotted them at the last possible instant, but how to stop them was the problem. He called Spade on the rescue radio and said, “Now just sit tight, this will be a little close, but I’ve got them clearly in sight.” He roared in and fired a full pod of rockets at them, some scant eight body lengths away from Spade in his hastily acquired rock fort. The earth trembled and the fire, noise, and smoke were severe, but when it cleared and the Spad dipped into the valley and back up, the pursuers were done in, and Spade was still secure.
The choppers made it into this inferno and, I am sure to the consternation of the local guard commander, hauled Spade out of Hanoi and back to safety.
We had him back at Takhli a day later and, although he didn’t look or feel too great, it was wonderful to see him all propped up in that hospital bed. It was just a temporary stop on the way back to the States and the full-time medical care he would need to get back into shape. I managed to make the right contacts and we got him to the Stateside hospital he wanted, and we also got him the assignment he wanted while he waited for his back to recover fully. I got a kick out of him as he lay there apologizing for not being able to get back in the cockpit and fly some more. He was also concerned about me. “Colonel, why do you fly all those rough ones up there? We have lots of guys like me that can find the target and take the knocks. We need you running the show.” I couldn’t agree with his analysis of the duties of a combat leader but the thought that my guys were devoted to the point that they considered their behinds less valuable than mine made me try even harder. The last I heard, he was still righting to get back to Southeast Asia and into the fray again. He has to go high on my list of people with spunk.
A few days later and a few miles further north, Joe didn’t make out as well as Spade, but he has to go way up at the top of the list as one who probably displayed the utmost calm and presence of mind that I have seen. This particular strike had been an uncomfortable mission for him from the start, as it had been for all concerned. The target was one that had never failed to cause us problems and this day was no exception, as it cost us three birds and three pilots on this mission alone. The weather was stinking en route and the flights had trouble on the tankers. That weather over there is the thickest I have ever seen and when you get inside of one of those big thunder-bumpers you are in for a good ride. Most clouds you fly through have their share of bumps but the visibility inside is usually good enough so that you can sit on the wing of another aircraft and fly formation off him. You just maintain the position you want and when he turns or rolls his aircraft, you roll right along with him. You have no idea where you are if you are on the wing, but that is up to the leader. The only time you get into trouble on the wing is when you try to fly position and also try to outguess the leader. This usually winds up in a case of spatial disorientation called vertigo. If this happens you can be sitting straight and level and swear that you are cocked up in a 60-degree bank going sideways. It is a most distressing sensation and sometimes almost impossible to get rid of. You can shake your head and holler at yourself and sometimes it won’t go away, and it can be fatal. In most clouds if all aircraft have their external lights on, you can at least see the wing-tip light of the aircraft next to you and when things get rough you can just fly off that light. The clouds we flew in over there were different and, I am sure, the most dense in the world. You could sit in perfect position and watch the leader’s machine just fade away until you could not even see his tip light or your own nose. This is bad enough when you are on the gauges yourself, but quite desperate when you are on the wing. There were always lots of bumps along with the visibility problems and with the speed and weight of our machines, it all made for some real precision work. For a real thrill, I recommend you try this type of flying on a black night.
Joe had bounced through the refueling sessions and managed to stick with his leader, but his wingman, who was number four, was not so fortunate. He got bounced off the tanker boom by a particularly rough piece of air and was never able to find the flight again in the murk, so number three had come all the way into the target without the benefit of that wingman for mutual support. The Migs were there, but they made it in and number three beat the big guns over the target. Coming off the target at about 7,000 feet, SAM got him. Nobody saw a SAM and nobody called one, but we already had two guys down at the time and the beepers were squealing and things were moving fast. The first sign of trouble was a large rust-colored ball that enveloped his aircraft. Coming out of the ball, his aircraft appeared intact but he started a stable descent with his left wing dipped slightly low. His only transmission was “I gotta get out. I’ll see you guys.” With that, he pul
led the handles and we saw a chute and heard the beeper as he headed for Hanoi via nylon.
The SAM site that got him didn’t have to be there. We let it be there. Why? As fighter pilots, none of us could understand or accept the decision to allow the SAMs to move in and construct at will, but then fighter pilots must be different.
Yes, fighter pilots are a different breed of cat. The true fighter must have that balls-out attitude that immediately makes him somewhat suspect to his superiors. You can’t push for the maximum from your troops, yourself and your equipment and win any popularity contests. You are bound to tangle with nonfighter supervisors and with the support people up the line who wouldn’t have a job if it were not for the airplane drivers. This they don’t understand in many cases, and fighter pilots don’t know why they don’t understand it. Good fighter pilots move fast, and they do what looks like the thing to do to get the job done. They are prone to ignore the printed word when it conflicts with something real and human and physical. This does not always make them the darlings of all those involved in the defense business, but take a look at the history of aerial warfare and see who is always in there slugging—the fighter guys. War is our profession.
I’ll give you a “for instance” of how they get into trouble.
This fine gent was one of our strongest and he could handle the full spectrum of jobs within the fighter field. He had gone the staff route when appropriate and had the well-balanced background needed to get to the spot where he could run a squadron in combat. He was a fierce competitor and a fearless airman who always put himself where flying leaders belong—right up in the number one spot, flying combat. Restrictions and regulations have been heavy upon us for many years and you learn to live with or around them. Only a small portion of the total force physically puts the instruments to test in a shooting situation, and those who do, attempt to comply with the rules as best they can. The rule book tends to fade a bit at times but we are all aware of the basic constrictions under which we live.
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