The A-6 was a BN’s airplane. Without a skilled BN the A-6 was just a dumb bomber. With one, the A-6 was an all-weather, twenty-four-hour weapons system. As more than one BN remarked, “The pilot’s job is to get me to the target so I can destroy it, then get me back to the ship, where the food is.”
Once the target—in this case the Dragon’s Jaw Bridge—had been identified with the search radar, the BN stepped the computer into the attack mode. The computer began providing steering commands to the pilot, who manually flew the plane as the computer calculated where in space the bombs needed to be released to hit the target. If the plane was carrying unretarded weapons, by now the pilot had popped up to bombing altitude and was trying to hold the plane in level flight to smooth out velocity inputs to the computer. He flew directly toward the bridge as the system released the weapons—right through the barrage fire of all the antiaircraft guns surrounding the bridge, plus anything else the defenders had in order to put bullets into the air, including machine guns and rifles.
The necessity to go straight for the bridge on the bombing run gave the gunners the opportunity to concentrate their fire above it. This was the hellish climax for the bomber crew—they were skimming above a flak volcano.
Once the bombs were gone, the crew was on its own, free to jink if the pilot thought he could avoid flying directly over the bridge but, in any event, getting back down as low as possible as soon as possible as the bombs detonated behind the plane with trip-hammer flashes. With the weight and drag of the bombs gone, the Intruder was soon up to five hundred knots as the crew “got the hell out of Dodge.”
Sam Sayers flew four of those night missions against the Dragon’s Jaw and four bad-weather day missions. Other A-6 crews flew many more. No doubt night-flying Intruders and Intruders hidden by clouds hit the bridge a few times, perhaps more than a few, but when the BDA came in, the bridge still stood.3
* Survival rafts were always sunk when the survivor was rescued so that they would not attract other rescue aircraft.
CHAPTER 10
FOOLS, DRUNKS, AND LOST FIGHTER PILOTS
In 1966 the Rolling Thunder air campaign entered its second year, although it was never a consistent effort. As noted earlier, “bombing pauses” interrupted the campaign as Lyndon Johnson repeatedly tried to entice Hanoi to bargain by demonstrating “good faith.” The pauses were usually McNamara’s recommendations as he continued to search for a political settlement. Johnson, McNamara, and their civilian aides and advisers completely misread the North Vietnamese, both in terms of their steely resolve and their enormous patience.
During 1965 the Air Force had launched 26,100 sorties into North Vietnam airspace, including 11,600 fighter-bomber strike flights. The next year, 1966, the total sorties Up North tripled while strike sorties quadrupled, and that did not include 36,500 sorties by Navy and Marine squadrons into North Vietnam.1
At the same time Hanoi stepped up its air defenses. During 1966 some twenty-six hundred North Vietnamese went to the Soviet Union for pilot and technical training. It was an intense process because the candidates had to gain minimal Russian-language fluency to attend the courses.2
Besides weather, enemy defenses, and restrictive rules, US air operations suffered another problem: a bomb shortage. In late 1965 air planners anticipated that the growing sortie count might outstrip the ability of American industry to provide bombs and other ordnance. During the first quarter of 1966 that fear was realized. General Joseph H. Moore, the senior Air Force officer in theater, notified his childhood South Carolina friend, Army General William C. Westmoreland, that the shortfall represented an “emergency situation.” The shortages involved aerial rockets, cluster munitions, and 500- and 750-pound bombs. The latter were especially affected, as huge B-52 Stratofortresses consumed vast quantities of Mark 82s and M117s. A single Boeing could drop forty to eighty or more bombs, usually in dense jungle along the South Vietnam and Laos border where Communist forces often assembled. The “Arc Light” missions could be fearsomely effective—surviving enemy soldiers sometimes were captured in a state of shock—but usage was outstripping production.
Admiral Sharp’s Pacific Command headquarters crunched the numbers. Mission strengths could be reduced and allocation of available ordnance equalized among Air Force, Navy, and Marines. Eventually domestic production picked up the slack, but in the meantime Robert McNamara’s Department of Defense had to explain why it was purchasing bombs previously sold to NATO countries, most notably Germany.3
Canceled missions were significant that spring. In April one-sixth of Air Force sorties were scrubbed due to weather or ordnance shortages, although Tonkin Gulf carriers enjoyed better operating conditions, with only 7 percent of the sorties canceled. May was terrible, however. The Air Force scrubbed 40 percent of the planned sorties, the Navy 25 percent. In real numbers the May figure meant that more than a thousand scheduled Thunderchief flights and nearly 750 Phantom missions remained in the chocks.
Commenting upon the bomb scandal in an article entitled “Any Old Bombs to Sell?” the conservative Chicago Tribune sniped, “Defending himself at his press conference against charges of planning failures and shortages in the Vietnam buildup, McNamara insisted that the military had sufficient ‘war reserve stocks’ on hand to tide it over until new production can fill the gap. This lofty concept fails to jibe with the picture of McNamara scraping up every bit of old war surplus ever unloaded upon Europe to meet the present demands of the battle in Vietnam.”4
As part of the overall US strategy, attacks on the Thanh Hoa Bridge were drastically diminished during 1966. The Navy continued its occasional small-scale efforts, while the Air Force, stymied at conventional efforts, was thinking far outside the bombing box.
Despite ordnance shortages, some units found ways to expand their bombing capability. To optimize their air wing’s offensive capability, some Crusader squadrons trained in dive bombing as well as air-to-air and flak-suppression missions. One of those was Oriskany’s Air Wing 16, which in predeployment training sent F-8 pilots to the Chocolate Mountains bombing range on the California-Arizona border. Many Navy F-8 pilots cordially detested “Air to mud,” although their Marine counterparts regarded close air support of Marine riflemen as their most important responsibility.
Among the O-Boat fighter pilots was Lieutenant Commander Richard Schaffert, who flew several strikes against the Dragon’s Jaw. He recalled, “The first time I saw it was August 18, 1966. My wingie Bill McWilliams, and I had two thousand-pound Mark 83s apiece and were headed for a smaller bridge in that general area. Couldn’t find it—surprise, surprise! But we saw that big one and gave it a try. Luckily we rolled in together and dropped on my mark, looked back to see two great explosions in the general area and an incredible wall of flak. God was still taking care of drunks, fools, and lost fighter pilots.”5
Although Thanh Hoa received little Air Force attention that spring, other bridges were on the target menu, including Ha Gia and Bac Giang near Hanoi. One pilot recalled, “The North Vietnamese defended them like they were the last two bridges standing in Southeast Asia.”6
Some Thud drivers said of Bac Giang, “It will be as infamous as the Thanh Hoa Bridge.” The bridge was certainly notorious in its own right: a four-span structure twenty-five miles from Hanoi on the key Northeast Railway to China. The combination rail and road bridge had been targeted four times in late April and early May before the Thunderchiefs dropped it in the Thuong River on May 7.
The Northeast Railway extended eighty miles from Hanoi to the Chinese border and was defended as befitted a strategic asset. Aircrews were told that at least a thousand active flak sites of all calibers defended this JCS target. When the Bac Giang Bridge fell, Thunderchief pilots breathed a sigh of relief—the bombers seemed to be making progress.
The Ha Gia Bridge linked Hanoi with the Thai Nguyen industrial area fifteen miles directly north of Hanoi. The bridge lay east of the village, where a dozen or more large gun positions existed. A
merican bombers dropped the southern span on June 12, but the tireless Vietnamese had it repaired in about ten days.
During 1966 two of the least-known players in Asian skies were valuable Douglas products: the EF-10B Skyknight and the EB-66 Destroyer. Although their contributions are seldom acknowledged, they were among the combat-support aircraft combat aircrews appreciated most.
The F3D Skyknight was a blunt-nosed, straight-winged, twin-jet design that began life in the late 1940s as the world’s first dedicated jet night fighter. In the 1950s a Marine Corps squadron of Skyknights frequently escorted Air Force bombers on night missions over North Korea and claimed half a dozen kills. However, the subsonic F3D lacked the performance for daytime aerial combat and therefore acquired another mission. When the Department of Defense changed aircraft designation systems in 1962, the F3D became the EF-10, for “electronic warfare fighter.” The right-seat crewman, previously an RIO, became a “zapper,” operating electronic systems to jam enemy communications and radars, including the Fansong radars that guided SA-2 SAMs.
Based at DaNang, Marine Composite Squadron One (VMCJ-1) frequently supported Navy and sometimes Air Force missions Up North. The squadron began operations in 1965, sometimes flying from Takhli, Thailand, to augment Air Force EB-66 Destroyers. With two three-hundred-gallon drop tanks, the Skyknight could stay airborne more than three hours.
Colonel Wayne “Flash” Whitten recalled, “With the two drops, we were left with two internal noise jammers that were typically employed against Fansongs and the Firecan fire-control radar associated with 57 and 85mm antiaircraft guns. Unlike the multi-position EB-66C with nine internal jammers, the EF-10B could not receive or jam the long range Spoon Rest target acquisition radar employed by SAM battalions. Our intent was to temporarily degrade Fansong’s ability to acquire and track inbound bomb-laden strike aircraft and hopefully preclude a successful missile engagement.… We did not have steerable antennas, which required us to point the nose of the aircraft toward the targeted radar, a tactic that must have been well known by the North Vietnamese Air Defense Command by 1966.”7
On March 18, 1966, Captain Bill Bergman, with First Lieutenant Whitten (Riverboat One), led First Lieutenants Everett McPherson and Brent Davis (Riverboat Two) on a two-plane mission supporting an F-105 strike against a target ten miles west of Thanh Hoa. It was a high-threat profile, flown inside the “missile ring” defending the bridge, and because of recent MiG-21 activity, two Marine Corps Phantoms escorted Riverboat One and Two.
Bergman and Whitten had flown about sixty missions over North Vietnam and formed a strong team. Whitten recalled, “Bill Bergman was a second-tour aviator and an experienced EF-10B pilot. ‘Mac’ McPherson had only joined the squadron about a month earlier but quickly fit into our unit. Brent Davis, my hooch mate, was a highly disciplined officer and a well-respected ECMO [Electronic Counter-Measures Officer].”8
Nearing the initial point that day, the Skyknights entered an oblong-shaped pattern at about twenty thousand feet, with one jet always pointed at the target area. The tactic was not foolproof, as the powerful Fansong radar could “burn through” the jamming to track an aircraft.
A SAM site near Vinh on the coast south of Thanh Hoa was active during the ingress, repeatedly coming “up” for a look, then shutting down to prevent countermeasures, such as some Yankee air pirate launching a Shrike.
As the F-105s began their attack, Whitten began jamming a Firecan AAA radar, but he could not simultaneously counter the SAM’s Fansong. “Things got real busy in the cockpits over the next few minutes.… As I remember, we had just made our outbound turn to the west when Bill called my attention to a large fireball to our front in the vicinity of where we expected our wingman to be. They would have likely just rolled out on a heading inbound to the target.”9
One of the escorting F-4 backseaters was big, enthusiastic First Lieutenant Eugene “Basic Mule” Holmberg, who also saw the explosion. Holmberg’s F-4 was now being targeted by SAMs, one of which detonated in the vicinity of the plane.
While the Thuds pulled off target, Bill Bergman called Riverboat Two and got no reply. Riverboat One exited the area westward into Laos before looping back toward DaNang.
The resident SAM unit, the 61st Battalion under the 236th Missile Regiment, had launched several SA-2 Guideline missiles with a valid firing solution. One SAM detonated close enough to McPherson’s Skynight to inflict fatal damage. Riverboat Two crashed about twenty miles south of the target area, with Vietnamese villagers later reporting a stricken aircraft descending erratically, trailing smoke. They reported that the Americans had ejected, when in fact the EF-10 had no ejection seats; crews had to exit the plane via a chute that took them out the bottom of the fuselage.
In 1991 a US MIA team found Vietnamese documents related to the missing Skyknight. Davis’ remains were returned in 1997, but McPherson’s body, although buried at the time, was not recovered. Riverboat Two was only the third Marine aircraft lost over North Vietnam. The first two were an F-4B in December 1965 and a KC-130F in February 1966.
Years later Whitten examined the list of American aircraft lost in Southeast Asia. He identified four—perhaps six—planes known or likely to have been downed by SAMs or AAA south of Thanh Hoa in February and March 1966, probably by the 61st and 63rd Battalions.
The Vietnamese missileers claimed two kills on March 18, apparently believing that a detonation near Holmberg’s Phantom was successful. But it was not. Nonetheless, Whitten cites a Hanoi document attributing much of the SAM success to a Nguyen Xuan Dai, a twenty-six-year-old radar tracker of the 61st Battalion. He had been among the first Vietnamese trained in Russia, but his class was hastily recalled due to increasing US air activity in mid-1965. His battery claimed two Voodoos destroyed with one missile on March 7, 1966. (Two F-101s actually were lost on that date.) With these repeated successes, Dai was promoted to missile control officer, and his unit was recalled to Hanoi. There he claimed the A-4 Skyhawk of Lieutenant Commander John McCain in October 1967. Declared a Hero of the People’s Armed Forces in 1970, he remained on active duty after the war.10
The EB-66 Destroyer’s capabilities varied according to the model. EB-66Bs were “ground tunable” with electronics that were not adjustable in the air, while C models with fewer jammers could be adjusted in flight based on what the ECMO saw. An electronic warfare officer explained, “The basic issue with the EB-66 was that all of its jammers were omni-directional—they transmitted in 360 degrees, which greatly reduced power over distance. In Glory Days author Wolfgang Samuel reported that EB-66 crews envied the Navy’s EKA-3Bs, which had directional jammers that broadcast in about a 30-degree cone, greatly increasing effective power. (Think of a garden hose nozzle with a variable stream.)”11
Better electronic warfare aircraft were in development back in the States, as well as guided ordnance and some weapons that had promise but might or might not make the first team. The air war against the North was vigorously stimulating American industrial innovation and invention. Wars have always been technological hothouses in America—this one was no different. And, of course, the Americans really wanted that bridge at Thanh Hoa.
CHAPTER 11
CAROLINA MOON
Since World War II Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle has seen a wide variety of innovative weapons programs, but probably none more so than Carolina Moon. In 1963 Eglin became home to the Air Force Special Air Warfare (SAW) Center specializing in weapons and systems testing. That year a combat crew-training group was established at nearby Hurlburt Field to teach fliers how to use new weapons and equipment. SAW units went to Vietnam in 1963, cycling in and out for the next decade.1
Eglin and Hurlburt were hotbeds of cutting-edge ideas and activity. The staff studied electronic countermeasures, how to defeat SAMs, improving conventional munitions, night and all-weather flying—even how parachutists could lower themselves to the ground when snagged atop a jungle canopy.
In the summer of 1965,
when it became obvious that conventional ordnance could not topple the Thanh Hoa Bridge, Eglin began work on one of the most innovative concepts of the Vietnam War. Project Carolina Moon took a reverse approach to slaying the Dragon. Instead of bombing it from above, weapons engineers studied how to blow it up from below—from the Ma River. The weapons they settled on were air-dropped mines.
Carolina Moon was conceived and executed in extreme secrecy. The project was so sensitive that it was not included in a classified 1969 report on Air Force Research and Development for Southeast Asia 1965–1967.2
Although the Air Force had institutional experience with mines dating from World War II, the challenge of toppling the Dragon’s Jaw required a new weapon. Developed by the Eglin armament laboratory, the new mine looked promising… and impressive. Each mine was massive: eight feet wide and thirty inches high, weighing almost two tons. Their steel bodies were so large that the Air Force sought assistance from the Atomic Energy Commission to build them. At the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the weapon bodies were built on machinery designed to produce nuclear weapons parts.3
Apparently the explosive was a devil’s brew of chemicals designed to enhance the power of the warhead. Ordnance engineers reckoned that the mine’s eruptive force could be “mass focused” upward, producing a detonation equivalent of one thousand tons of TNT within twenty to thirty feet of the mine. That number was an eye-watering figure: a non-nuclear kiloton detonation. Although the floor of the Dragon’s Jaw was fifty feet above the river at normal flow, the engineers thought that a focused explosion of this magnitude directly under the bridge should lift the structure off its foundations and bring it down.4
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