Dragon's Jaw

by Stephen Coonts

  Major Remers’ crew was debriefed at Pacific Air Forces Headquarters in Hawaii, where General Hunter Harris Jr. reigned. An experienced bomber pilot, Harris was reportedly vocal in his displeasure with the decision to launch the second Carolina Moon mission so soon after the first. His ire was certainly justified: if similar conditions of clear sky and moonlight were necessary, the next week was still available. And another weather delay would impose no serious problems. After all, thirteen months had passed since the first F-105 missions against the Dragon’s Jaw, and the bridge wasn’t going anywhere.15

  One hopes that General Harris sacked some officers in DaNang, but the historical record is silent. Even if he did, nothing could bring Major Case and his crew back from the dead.

  Of course, the North Vietnamese propaganda minions rewrote the Carolina Moon story to emphasize the patriotism of the Dragon’s Jaw defenders. Here is a 2013 account from the People’s Army Publishing House lauding the First Battery of the 231st Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment:

  With a burst of twenty-one 57mm rounds the soldiers of the First Battery shot down this aircraft when it snuck in under the cover of night…’ Battery Commander Nguyen Quoc Duyet told us (the editors):

  “Recently during a night battle, all of us officers and enlisted men, saw with our own eyes civilian residents of Thanh Hoa City who had been killed and wounded by American bombs because we had failed to fire accurately and had not shot down any American aircraft.”

  The battery had fired on suspected American aircraft flying night missions, but other than perhaps deterring some pilots, the efforts were futile. Barrage fire along the enemy’s expected flight path was literally a hit or miss proposition—far favoring the latter over the former.

  We determined that in order to be able to shoot down enemy aircraft at night, in addition to maintaining a high state of vigilance, coordinating together well, and making good preparations for battle, we also would have to be able to spot the enemy at long range and to aim our guns extremely accurately.

  On the night: “Recognizing the shape of a bandit aircraft, Do Van Sot, the commander of Gun Crew Three, shouted, ‘It’s not one of our aircraft!’ Following the plan exactly, when the aircraft was at the proper range Sot waved his flag* to give his gun the order to fire.

  “The rounds fired by Sot’s crew and the rest of the First Battery struck the iron crow, hitting it in its heart. Bright red flames trailed from the aircraft’s fuselage. It shuddered as it tried to keep flying, but then this massive chunk of steel slammed into a hillside planted with yams. There was a tremendous explosion, followed by many more. The flames continued to burn throughout the rest of the night.”16

  Another version of the C-130 shootdown was also published in a North Vietnamese news website in 2013:

  An observation post heard five “large and unusual sounding explosions.” A large object was seen at river’s edge two hundred meters from the bridge, apparently snagged on something.

  Engineers began disassembling the mine at 1300 on 30 May, and disarmed it by 1700. The other five [sic] had been detonated “by their internal self-destruct mechanisms.”

  All mines were flung from aircraft upon crash. Two self-detonated two hours later. One was hurled a long way from the crash site and was damaged. The other three remained intact. By June 4 engineers had defused and recovered four intact mines.17

  For whatever reason, the Vietnamese believed that each attack involved six mines when actually the C-130s each carried five.

  In the summer of 1966 America’s adventure in the Vietnam War had six and a half more years to go. On June 29, 1966, the secretary of defense held a press conference and announced that Navy and Air Force bombers had inflicted heavy damage on three of North Vietnam’s petroleum facilities and that an F-105 had been lost during the attacks. What McNamara didn’t say was that the Johnson administration had dithered over this decision to attack the petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) targets for over a year, and the Communists in Hanoi had used the time well. They had dug underground storage tanks, laid pipelines, and done everything in their power to ensure that when the bomb storm came it would do minimum damage to their ability to fuel trucks making the run down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Cambodian and Laotian sanctuaries. By wringing their hands and waiting, the Johnson administration had ensured that when it did give the green light to attack these targets, the results would be militarily and politically indecisive.

  In early August McNamara told Congress that his arbitrary date for the end of hostilities in Southeast Asia was June 30, 1967, a mere ten months away.

  Having made that bald prediction, he now backpedaled, adding, “At the moment I would not recommend a supplemental [appropriation], although I think some time during 1967 is very likely. The reason I would not recommend it today… is that there are still many uncertainties not only as to the duration of the conflict, but also with respect to the level of operations that need to be financed.”18 Apparently the secretary of defense’s crystal ball, just so clear a moment ago, had clouded up quickly. The truth was that he was lying to Congress.

  For the rest of 1966 carrier aviators launched eleven missions against the Dragon’s Jaw, including one with twenty-two bombers on September 23 that dropped fifty-seven tons of bombs. The strike destroyed an estimated eighty railcars and more than sixteen hundred tons of fuel. Although the bridge was temporarily impassible, as always the damage was quickly repaired.19

  Some senior officers realized that the fuel and ordnance expended on Thanh Hoa missions and the losses incurred were wasted effort. One was Rear Admiral David C. Richardson, who commanded Task Force 77 in 1966–1967. As such, he was responsible for conducting offensive operations over North Vietnam and other parts of Indochina. Like his predecessors, he was well aware of the Thanh Hoa Bridge’s reputation.

  Richardson recalled, “The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral David MacDonald, had changed my orders twice to make me CTF-77. Something prompted that, so I went to see him to find out why. What he told me was, ‘Take care of the lads.’ Only recently did I learn of the chewing out he and the other chiefs had to endure from Lyndon Johnson that prompted that dictum to me. But after a month in theater and the political lies and nonsense I was then witness to, I fully understood.”

  Despite the tense political atmosphere, Richardson proved an innovator. A Guadalcanal fighter pilot from 1942, he possessed a rare combination of fleet, aviation, and intelligence experience. That background led him to approach Seventh Fleet challenges head-on.

  “In about November 1966 Captain Jig Ramage, my chief of staff, and I took the Thanh Hoa Bridge off the target list, thus forbidding further targeting of that bridge. We did it despite our belief that if the bridge fell, South Vietnam would drift away from the NVN, as we professed to believe that only that bridge kept the north and south physically connected.

  “However, Captain Bill Houser, my flag captain of Constellation (and the finest skipper I have ever served with and one of the three finest men I have ever known), pleaded with us to allow one more attack. We relented.”20

  A night Intruder mission was approved, but just before launch the go A-6 was scrubbed for system failure. The on-deck spare was manned by Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Ronald J. “Zap” Zlatoper, the junior pilot in VA-65. When the go bird went down on deck, Zlatoper was taxied to the catapult and fired off into the night. At the age of twenty-three he had been among the first five “nugget” aviators to fly Intruders without previous fleet experience. He would have an enviable naval career and, as a four-star admiral, would command the Pacific Fleet. But all that was in the future.

  Zap recalled, “Teamed with then Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Dick Schram as my BN, we probably flew a half-dozen strikes against the Thanh Hoa Bridge during our 1966 deployment on the Connie.

  I best remember the night when we went from a two-point strike to a Navy Cross and back to a two-point strike in an hour or so. We launched on the night strike against the bridge with five
Mark 84 two-thousand-pound bombs. Dick had a good, solid radar lock-on, and we made a good level bomb run, breaking away with fairly heavy flak and escaping back to sea.

  After a night carrier landing we debriefed and then went to our stateroom for a libation. Fifteen minutes later the intelligence officer called and asked us to come to IOIC [the Integrated Operations Intelligence Center]. An RA-5C Vigilante had made a side-looking radar run on the bridge ten minutes after our strike, and the picture they brought back showed the bridge was down!

  My commanding officer, Bob Mandeville, said, “Zap, that’ll be a Distinguished Flying Cross.”

  Then CAG, Commander J. D. Ward, came in and thought it looked like the bridge was down. He said, “Zap, that’ll be a Silver Star.” Everyone in IOIC was getting very excited and screaming Navy Cross!

  And then the carrier commanding officer, Captain Bill Houser, came in and said, “That looks like a shadow to me.” Suddenly everyone agreed with him, and we had two points toward the twenty-point strike-flight Air Medal.

  By my rough calculations I personally dropped about sixty thousand pounds of ordnance on that bridge, to no effect.21

  Admiral Richardson provided perspective: “Bill Houser joyously presented us with the poststrike photos showing the north side of the bridge down. Jig Ramage and I both asserted that the photo showed only a shadow over that end of the bridge that made it look that way. Sure enough, photos taken under morning light showed the bridge still stood.”22

  The Dragon was still standing—as the war was about to enter a new phase.

  * One wonders how the gunners saw Sot waving his flag.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE THANH WHORE BRIDGE

  Raw numbers of the escalating war told the story of airmen trying to achieve Johnson’s military goal: “Don’t lose.” In 1965 the Air Force launched some 26,000 sorties into North Vietnam, including 11,600 fighter-bombers. In 1967 the total quadrupled to over 100,000 sorties, with almost 55,000 by fighter-bombers. The Navy contributed to the American effort; carrier aircraft pounded North Vietnam around the clock.

  Lyndon B. Johnson kept agreeing to bombing halts, usually advocated by Robert McNamara. He had ordered two in 1965, the second one extending until the end of January 1966. In 1967 he was ready to try it again. This time the halt would be in February, coinciding with Tet, Vietnam’s lunar New Year. Washington hoped that Hanoi might be willing to negotiate over their holiday since they had ignored the Christian one. Instead, the ever-pragmatic North Vietnamese enjoyed a bomb-free six days to move war materiel to South Vietnam, an amount that one source estimated at twenty-five thousand tons, which is undoubtedly an overestimate. Regardless of the exact amount, a lot of it went south under empty skies. South Vietnam and America’s worst enemy wasn’t in Hanoi: he resided in the White House and was advised by Robert McNamara, the self-anointed house expert on the application of military power for political purposes.

  A week after the Tet ceasefire, on February 20, two Enterprise A-4 Skyhawks launched an impromptu assault on the Dragon’s Jaw with visually guided ordnance. Lieutenant Commander (later Rear Admiral) Jeremy “Bear” Taylor and Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Jay Greene were diverted from bridge targets in the Vinh area to cover a downed Enterprise Phantom about eight miles south of Thanh Hoa.

  By the time the two VA-113 Stingers arrived, the ResCAP (Rescue Combat Air Patrol) had been canceled. Later Air Wing Nine aboard Enterprise learned that the F-4 pilot had been killed and the RIO captured.

  As Taylor recalled,

  So there I was at fifteen thousand feet with Jay, no mission, no target, with four Bullpup missiles and not much gas (we were flying A-4Cs with a heavy load) and not much time since the sun had set as we approached the area. We were at roll-in distance to a North Vietnamese bridge of high and strategic value to Ho Chi Minh, one with a magnetic attraction for every Navy bridge destruction specialist of brave heart and fighting spirit and his equally valiant, highly qualified wingie.

  We attacked the Dragon’s Jaw in the tradition of Wade McClusky at Midway. Two guys, four runs amid a really impressive, but fruitless, exhibition by the vaunted 37-, 57-, 85-millimeter air defenses of Thanh Hoa.

  I got two hits on the bridge, one dead center on the center pillar of concrete, and one on the northeast approach at the end of the bridge (“into the mouth of the dragon,” as I explained it to the ensign intel officer back on the big gray boat). Jay got one hit that barely missed the bridge but clobbered the southwest approach.

  There was no chance for a fourth missile on target because I waved Jay off due to the increasingly intense and accurate fire of the frustrated NVN gunners that I duly noted (i.e., indelibly imprinted forever) on the pullout from my second run at three thousand feet.

  Nevertheless, Jay rolled in, fired, and tracked the missile, but wisely broke off his second run at five thousand feet to let the missile fly itself a little short of the bridge. Who knows where that one went? We hightailed it to feet wet, calling “Winchester” (out of ammo). Duty done. Feeling great… adrenaline flowing. What a high!!!… NOTHING LIKE IT!

  We were out of there.… Back to the ship in dwindling twilight for a “pinkie” landing. Two OK-3s from the LSO.

  Glory gained? Nope. It was scored two points toward our next strike/flight air medal. My skipper put me in hack and announced in the Stinger ready room that the unsupported attack that had failed to drop the bridge was a “vainglorious exhibition of stupidity.” So you say, Skipper. But for Jay and me, we wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

  And no PTSD either.1

  In March 1967 the Bon Homme Richard joined four other carriers in the Western Pacific: her Essex-class sisters Ticonderoga and Hancock, plus the nuclear-powered Enterprise and the upgraded Forrestal-class Kitty Hawk. They maintained Task Force 77 strength at the desired five flight decks, serving both Yankee Station off North Vietnam and Dixie Station off South Vietnam.

  The failure of the Tet bombing pause forced Lyndon Johnson and his inner circle to face the fact that unless they escalated the war, there was no way to force the Communists in Hanoi to the bargaining table. They decided to put North Vietnam’s electrical power–generating facilities on the targeting lists.

  Skeptics in uniform noted that North Vietnam had essentially an agrarian economy, with only a miniscule industrial base that used electricity. Nevertheless, the power plants had to go… for political reasons.

  As it happened, Thanh Hoa had one located between the bridge and the city on the south side of the river. Close to the coast, it was one of the first power plants targeted. The Bonnie Dick put up an Alpha composed of six A-4 bombers from VA-212. VA-76 and the two fighter squadrons, VF-211 and VF-24, would provide flak suppressors, and VA-212 and VA-76 would provide two aircraft from each squadron for Iron Hand duty. The fighter squadrons provided two sections for combat air patrol (CAP). One KA-3 tanker would be over the ship, and the A-4 squadrons would have a tanker each airborne. This was a typical Alpha from an Essex-class carrier.

  Stephen R. Gray, in his terrific memoir Rampant Raider, tells us how it was. At the time he was the junior pilot in VA-212. He was the strike leader’s wingman. It was his first Alpha strike:

  The launch went smoothly, with Commander Marvin Quaid (the XO of VA-212) leading the Alpha strike formation on a large circle above the ship until everyone had joined. I was excited to be part of this great armada. We held the air wing formation for about fifteen minutes, until it was time for the various components to break off and start their runs. Elements continued to split off until our six bombers were alone. We could see the mouth of the Song Ma on the coast as Commander Quaid dropped us low for our pop-up to the bombing roll-in.

  We crossed the coast at thirty-five hundred feet over the river mouth and began jinking in formation. Quaid called, “Eagles, arm switches,” as we crossed the coast, and I flipped the master arm and station switches on. So far, so good, I thought as we reached the pop-up point without seeing any flak. I watche
d Quaid’s airplane turn belly-up as he began his run. As I continued to wheel and climb to reach my own roll-in point, I was alone for a few seconds with an eagle’s-eye view of the target area. Flashes of exploding weapons dotted the ground as the flak suppressors completed their runs, and smoke was rising from distant fires as I pulled the nose down and shifted my scan to the gun sight.

  Picking up the outline of the power plant main building, I noted that the rising smoke indicated nearly calm wind, so no wind correction would be necessary. I put the pipper on the south half of the building and scanned the instruments for bomb release altitude, thirty-degree dive angle, and 450 knots air speed. At four thousand feet I punched the bomb pickle switch three times and felt the little plane buck and jump as the bombs came off the wings. As I pulled out of the dive, the rising Gs started the familiar restriction of vision as gravity pulled the blood supply away from my head. I had about a fourth of my normal field of view left as blackness surrounded by peripheral vision. I moved my head to keep the XO’s airplane in my remaining field of view. My vision cleared immediately when I relaxed the G forces and pulled inside the XO’s turn to join on him. I looked back at the target and saw that the power plant building was completely obscured by smoke and the last section’s bombs were exploding in the transformer field. A few black puffs of flak burst to our right but were too far away to pose a hazard. I joined the XO’s airplane and slid under him for the look-over. He was clean. He passed me the lead and gave me the look-over. I was elated! Either we had caught the North Viets napping or the flak suppressors had been really effective, because the few puffs of flak had been the only visible signs of resistance.