by Dan Pedersen
Another MiG-17 sped across Matt’s nose in a shallow right bank. He gave chase, and suddenly the North Vietnamese pilot started rolling left in a near duplication of their first kill.
Matt stayed in his blind spot and triggered another Sidewinder. This one lost lock briefly, then reacquired the target and blew its tail clean off. After a brush with another MiG that ended up almost flying wing on them at one point, Matt and Tom lit out for the Constellation, their weapon rails empty and two kills to their credit.
In the fight that day were other crews with Topgun experience, including Randy “Duke” Cunningham. While Randy had not graduated from the Navy Fighter Weapons School, he’d sat in on so many classes and flown so many aggressor missions with us in the backseat of a TA-4 that he might as well have been a grad. Everything he learned in our trailer he brought with him to Air Wing Nine’s VF-96, the Fighting Falcons. He even took my call sign. I had chosen “Duke” because so many people said my voice sounded like John Wayne. Some even said I looked like him. When Randy came along he said he wanted the moniker for himself. I had no problem with it, so I changed to “Yankee.” Shortened to “Yank,” it served me well.
That day over Hai Duong, Randy and his back-seater, William “Irish” Driscoll, knocked down three MiGs using our vertical tactics. As they tried to leave the area, a surface-to-air missile shot them down. Both men were picked up in the water not far from the coast. Duke and Willy had scored two kills earlier in the year, making them the first Navy aces of the Vietnam War.
Altogether, the first day of Operation Linebacker highlighted just how far we’d come since 1968. The Navy’s F-4 crews flamed eight MiGs without loss, while the Air Force got three for two Phantoms shot down. The death of Major Lodge came as an especially difficult blow to the Air Force units based in Thailand. He was one of the best pilots in the theater, the weapons guru for his F-4 wing, with three kills to his credit.
The Topgun training made a significant difference, as testified by most of the participants of the day’s action. Our Navy crews still faced some of the same deficiencies we had encountered four years before during Rolling Thunder—malfunctioning missiles and the lack of an internal gun being the two most significant—but with the right tactics and training, the F-4 became a true MiG killer.
Eight days later, Topgun grad Lieutenant Henry “Black Bart” Bartholomay and his RIO, Oran Brown, shot down a MiG-19 while flying with the Midway’s air wing. The MiG-19 was not an aircraft we had trained against at Dreamland, but many of the same rules applied to it as to the other MiGs.
The following month, Tooter Teague of VX-4 ended up in a wild fight. Though Tooter was not a Topgun instructor or graduate, he had worked closely with us as we stood up our graduate school. He had spent time at Area 51 while flying the MiGs, so he knew the enemy’s rides intimately.
On June 11 Tooter led his squadron, VF-51 off the Coral Sea, on an escort mission while the rest of the air wing pounded targets around Nam Dinh. The MiGs defending the area often used a ridgeline to mask their intercept approaches from radar. The intel guys on the Coral Sea figured this out, and radar control set up Teague to bounce the MiGs should they try.
Sure enough, they caught four MiGs as they hugged the far side of the ridge. Teague and his wingman surprised them and shot two of them down. The crews worked as an integrated team, one F-4 pressing an attack while the other covered him, then reversing roles to take down a second one.
By mid-June, the Navy’s kill ratio during Linebacker stood at almost twelve to one, a 600 percent increase over what we had managed during Rolling Thunder. The Navy’s high command was ecstatic; the North Vietnamese Air Force clearly was demoralized. That spring, a MiG-17 pilot encountered a Navy F-4 and ejected on the spot before he even came under fire. They had no answer for our new tactics and teamwork. By the summer of 1972, the MiGs focused on attacking the Air Force while avoiding U.S. flights originating from Yankee Station. Our MiG-hungry Topgun grads didn’t like it, but the tactical switch provided stark testimony as to which service they thought they could score against. Sadly, the Air Force fought the 1972 air campaign essentially as it had Rolling Thunder. Adherence to the Fluid Four formation cost them aircrews. Of the fifty-one aircraft the Air Force lost during Operation Linebacker, twenty-two went down to the guns and missiles of the North Vietnamese MiGs. During the same time, the Navy lost just four birds to MiGs. The Marines lost an F-4 to a MiG and scored one in return. From the start date of the Topgun program to the end of the war, the Navy’s overall kill ratio was twenty-four to one. Its ratio for the entire war, beginning to end, would stand at twelve to one.
The Air Force crews voiced their opinions on the formations and tactics, wanting to make changes, but their chain of command proved inflexible. It cost them dearly in June, when the MiGs shot down three Air Force F-4s without a loss, the single worst air-to-air engagement of the war for the United States. The MiGs scored two more kills against the Air Force before the end of June. The Air Force failed to score in return. At the start of July, the Air Force F-4s had claimed seventeen MiGs in 1972 for the loss of ten aircraft in those dogfights. It was a valiant performance by some very brave men. Sadly the poor loss ratio, 1.7 to 1, could be traced to inadequate training and inflexible tactics.
While the Air Force struggled, I was in Washington overhearing a lot of buzz about Topgun and its success. Our little trailer with its stolen furniture truly became the nexus of a revolution that, once started with that first class back in ’69, spread through our entire fighter force. Before Linebacker ended in October, 60 percent of the MiGs flamed by our men on Yankee Station went down at the hands of Topgun grads, or fleet F-4 air crews trained by the initial cadre of graduates of NFWS. The results blew all the bureaucratic opposition to Topgun right off the map. Of course, there always remained some latent animosity or jealousy by other factions of the Navy, including the attack aviators. (It only got worse when the first Top Gun movie became so popular a decade later.) For a few years, the naval aviation fraternity wasn’t as strong as I had thought. Individual careers seemed to be more important than the satisfaction of building a winning team.
That June, I called Miramar and talked to Jerry Kane, who was running the show then. I told him that eyes had been fully opened in D.C. They saw the value of Topgun at last. Even better, there was talk of making Topgun an independent command.
On July 7, 1972, it finally happened. I missed the ceremony at Miramar, as did most of the Original Bros, but we were there in spirit. Our bond was formed back in 1968 and ’69, at Miramar. What we did in those two years was the most important thing we would ever do for our country. One look at the Air Force’s experience in ’72 convinced me that Topgun saved a lot of lives. I thought of the families, the “cruise widows,” and the kids at North Island missing their dads, and I felt like I’d played a role in making sure they would have a homecoming.
Our successes over North Vietnam were tempered by those losses. Don Hall, an A-7 Corsair squadron commander on Kitty Hawk, was among them. My old buddy from VF(AW)-3 suffered engine failure during a night landing and was killed in the ensuing crash out in WestPac. Suzy, his widow, raised their two boys and never remarried. That beautiful lady passed not long after her sons graduated from college. How many more would have suffered like her if we had adhered to failing ways?
Meanwhile, the situation in South Vietnam stabilized as a result of the success of Operation Linebacker. The strikes up north choked off between 60 and 70 percent of the supplies the enemy needed to sustain their offensive against our forces. Hanoi agreed to begin peace negotiations in Paris in October, and Nixon suspended the air campaign while those talks proceeded. You have to wonder how many lives could have been saved had Rolling Thunder been carried out the same way from the beginning. The war would have taken a very different course had we done things in 1964 the way we learned to do them in 1972.
As Linebacker unfolded, I was stuck stateside, wanting only to get into the fight and bag my
own MiG. After years of training to do it, seeing friends go off and succeed or die trying, I went to bed some nights thinking about Yankee Station. Our signals intelligence guys—the ones who listened in on North Vietnamese radio chatter—believed they had identified a MiG pilot with over ten American planes to his credit. Known as “Colonel Tomb,” he was said to fly like the Red Baron had in World War I—above the fray, lurking to pick off American stragglers as they sought refuge back over the sea. Years after the war, we discovered that Colonel Tomb didn’t actually exist. The top North Vietnamese MiG ace of the war was Nguyen Van Coc with nine kills.
In the moment, though, as the war raged, I wanted to meet this Colonel Tomb in the air and make him test his ejection seat. It became a personal goal. I wanted revenge for all my friends he had killed or forced into the torture camps. But mostly I was looking to prove I was better than their best.
In December 1972, the peace talks broke down. The Hanoi contingent walked away from Paris and refused to set a date to return. Furious, Nixon ordered a renewed bombing campaign, throwing the full weight of Strategic Air Command’s massive B-52 bombers against the North. As the fighting flared again in what would be called Linebacker II, or the Christmas Bombings, I was mere days from getting a new assignment that would send me out to Yankee Station with one of the best fighter squadrons in the Navy. Perhaps I would have a chance at personally extending the Topgun winning streak.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE LAST MISSING MAN
Yankee Station
January 1973
Home with my family for a rare Friday night together, I was barbecuing steaks, thinking about taking an after-dinner swim with the kids, when the phone rang. I went to pick it up, sensing something was wrong. As it turned out, I was right. The executive officer of Fighter Squadron 143, the Pukin’ Dogs, was missing in action in South Vietnam. That pilot, Harley Hall, was a friend of mine.
The squadron was in a state of shock. It also needed a new XO. Which accounted for my emergency orders to pack up within twenty hours and begin the long journey out to the Enterprise.
Harley’s fateful mission, I couldn’t help but think, might well have been the last of the entire war. With the Paris peace talks showing progress, it figured to be over soon. Harley made sure he led what he knew could have been naval aviation’s swan song over North Vietnam. He never came home.
I first met Harley in 1966, when we were going through the Phantom RAG at Miramar. He became one of the most gifted pilots of his generation, and had commanded the Blue Angels. He’d just gotten married to his girlfriend, Mary Lou Marino, in a little church in Santa Barbara. Crossed swords. Dress whites. Gloves. The works. They were a great-looking couple, so devoted to each other. They had a five-year-old daughter and were expecting their second child. I never really got to know Mary Lou, but Harley—I would have followed him anywhere. Most everyone who flew with him felt he would become chief of naval operations someday.
His junior officers flat-out worshipped Harley H. Hall. A charismatic leader, he always took the toughest missions. He mentored the younger guys and looked out for their well-being. He was scheduled to take command of the squadron when it returned to Miramar, and I was to become his exec. The only change now was an acceleration in the schedule.
Eventually I learned the whole story behind his disappearance. That strike from the Big E launched on the afternoon of January 27. Ernie Christensen was one of the last men to speak to Harley. Ernie saw him on the flight deck and offering a quick greeting, then climbed into his plane. The Dogs were going to hit a river harbor about fifteen miles off Quang Tri.
Guided by a forward air control aircraft, Harley rolled in to hit some barges, then made two runs on a cluster of trucks. As he pulled up after his second run, his F-4J shuddered from repeated shrapnel strikes. Calmly he reported to his wingman, “Mayday, Mayday. I’m hit. Heading ‘feet wet.’” Turning for the coast, he hoped to reach the water before he and Al would have to eject. The closer to the coast they bailed out, the better their chance to survive.
His Phantom flew sluggishly and Harley reportedly struggled to keep the aircraft under control. His wingman, Terry Heath, spotted him a few miles from the target area, staggering along at about four thousand feet.
“I’ve got you,” his wingman said. “But you’re on fire.” Flames streamed from the port wing, spreading toward the fuselage. Still, Harley stayed with it, fighting for every second. Then the fire reached his hydraulic system. When he lost control of the plane, Harley and his back-seater, Phillip A. “Al” Kientzler, were out of time. They ejected. Harley’s wingman saw them swinging in their chutes, descending about a half mile apart onto an island at the confluence of two rivers.
The area was crawling with enemy troops. As the two naval aviators swung in their chutes, ground fire erupted below them. Al was wounded in the leg as he descended. Harley was seen to reach the ground and start running for cover.
Harley’s wingman swept over the area, trying to establish contact. An enemy soldier fired an SA-7 that barely missed. A moment later, a second missile streaked out of the jungle. Only hard maneuvering saved that F-4, and the brave pilot refused to leave his exec.
Racing to the scene to coordinate the search and rescue operation was the Air Force forward air controller. Flying an OV-10 Bronco, he and his back-seater were not so lucky. An SA-7 leapt up out of the tree line and struck their aircraft. As it went down, the two men ejected. Their chutes opened, and though enemy ground fire reached up at them, they too hit the ground safely. At length the pilot was heard on the radio saying, “Looks like I’m going to be captured.” His radio circuit clicked back again as the North Vietnamese troops shot at him. “Oh my God! I’m getting hit. Oh my God!” Then silence. The enemy finally tied them to a couple of trees and decapitated them. A South Vietnamese special operations team found their bodies a few days later.
Harley Hall became a POW, but unlike Al Kientzler he was never released. And so in the last hours of the war, the men of Fighting 143 had their hearts torn out one final time.
The first night of peace since 1964 was no time for celebration. I struggled to make sense of the loss of one more friend as I told my kids that Dad had to go away again. As I pulled my gear together, I found my little mouse still in his nest in my flight bag. Through fifteen years and countless stations, he had seen me through. Hey, little fella. We’re heading back to the Big E. I’m gonna need all your mojo for this ride. I found my old Ray-Bans, carefully tucked away in their case. As I packed them with the rest of my gear, it struck me that they’d been with me through my entire career. Who keeps a fifteen-year-old set of sunglasses? Maybe it’s time for a new pair. The distractions were welcome, because they kept me from dwelling on my larger concerns. I had tried to be a good husband and father, but these constant separations took a toll.
The next morning, I shared yet another goodbye with my family. My wife and I knew the chance of combat was probably pretty low, given that the peace accords were signed and our prisoners of war were soon to be returned. If all went according to schedule, it would be only a few weeks instead of months this time. We were pros at this by now.
My oldest, Dana, was in her first year of high school that winter. Through all the other goodbyes, she had learned to be tough and stoic. After recovering from the shock of my impending emergency deployment, she handled it like a superstar. My little guy, Chris, was a different story. Almost five now, he looked up at me with tear-streaked cheeks, letting it all out. I gave him an especially long hug as we waited for my friend Jack Bewley to take me to the airport in his antique Bentley sedan.
At Lindbergh Field, I caught a flight to SFO, then Seattle, where I secured a seat on a mostly empty Pan Am 747 bound for Manila. I curled up across three seats and slept for most of the trip.
Twenty-four hours later, a Navy C-2 took me aboard at Cubi Point and flew me out to the carrier. The squadron’s CO, Gordon Cornell, met me on the flight deck. Gordo was a warrior’
s warrior, a man who’d flown everything from F9F Panthers to F-8 Crusaders and F-4 Phantoms. Wounded in action over North Vietnam in 1966, he went on to earn two Distinguished Flying Crosses and seventeen Air Medals.
“Really glad to see you, Yank. Sorry it had to be under such terrible circumstances.”
I shook his hand and asked how the Dogs were doing.
“They’re Dogs, Dan. They’ll always be okay. They’re a tough bunch. Bonded, as Harley would have wanted.”
Still clutching my hand, he seemed to reconsider this. He added, “They’re hurting, badly. Some of the guys can’t wait to get home and help out Mary Lou and the kids.”
There was sadness in his eyes. The shooting war was over, but we all had wounds to heal.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE PEACE THAT NEVER WAS
Yankee Station
February 1973
The Dogs were a quiet lot when I joined them in the ready room. Their anguish was palpable as they discussed how they might intercept Harley as the North Vietnamese moved him north to Hanoi. If we could pinpoint his location, maybe we could combine a strike package with a combat search and rescue mission and get him and Al out of there. With the war theoretically over, of course, neither Washington nor our admiral would have ever authorized such a mission.
Was the war really over? It didn’t feel like it. Sure enough, the fragile cease-fire broke down. Both sides were at fault, and at times the flare-ups were serious enough to endanger the peace accord. Of course, the North Vietnamese supply influx into South Vietnam continued through Laos, where the fighting became intense. The Communist rebels stood a good chance of overrunning the pro-American government there, and they sensed the time was ripe now that we were, as our ambassador to Laos put it, “cutting and running.”
