by G. E. Nolly
Hamfist Over Hanoi
Wolfpack On The Prowl
by
G. E. Nolly
www.genolly.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.
Copyright © 2012 G. E. Nolly. All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.
Version 2015.10.20
This book is dedicated to American military veterans, past, present, and future.
Glossary of Terms at the end of the book.
Other books by G. E. Nolly:
Hamfist Over The Trail
Hamfist At DaNang
Hamfist Trilogy
Hamfist Down!
Hamfist Out
Frag Order
PROLOGUE
July 3, 1972
Another day, another Special. This was going to be my 29th mission over the North, and I was starting to feel comfortable over Route Pack Six. Okay, not really comfortable. Probably a bit less scared.
Every Special was an 0400 brief for a dawn launch, and I had developed a kind of ritual. I woke up at 0230 and went to the O'Club for breakfast. Then I walked the half mile to Wing Headquarters, to look at the shoot-down board and read any messages in the Flight Crew Information File.
The FCIF was a large book with current must-read information, such as changes to Rules of Engagement. Back at the squadron there was a vertical card file, kind of like the time-card files you see at factories where workers grab their time cards to punch in and out of work. We each had an FCIF card, and every time there was a new FCIF item, we would date and initial the FCIF item number on our cards. That way, the squadron could document that we had all had each seen important, timely information before we flew.
Besides the FCIF, one of the things we each looked at in Intel was the shoot-down board. The board was a large white chart, probably about two feet wide by three feet high, with about twenty horizontal lines and about six vertical columns. The columns were labeled: Date, Call Sign, Type Aircraft, Location, Cause, and Results. The board was covered with plexiglass.
Whenever a friendly aircraft went down, the information was filled in with grease pencil. It typically took several days for the board to fill up, and then the oldest information would be replaced by newer information. For example, if an F-4 was shot down a few days ago, we would all know his call sign in case he came up on Guard frequency on his survival radio. There was about two weeks' worth of shoot-down information on the board. About half of the entries had “Rescued” in the Results column. Good old Jolly Greens.
After spending some time at Intel, I went to the Wing Briefing Room and waited for the mass briefing that would be held before we would return to our squadrons for individual flight briefings. Typically, all of our flights would be highly choreographed enterprises. Each flight had a very specific TOT – Time Over Target – and run-in direction. With sixteen four-ship flights of attack aircraft, it was essential for everyone to religiously stick to the script.
Our target was Kep Airfield, north of Hanoi. Our call sign was Brushy Flight. I was, again, number four in the formation.
Our route to the target was going to be via right turns. North over Laos, refueling along Green anchor. Then a turn to the east over Thud Ridge, straight run-in to Kep, roll-in on the target in close fingertip formation, drop the bombs when lead pickled. Egress to the east over Haiphong, get feet wet and refuel over the South China Sea headed south. After refueling, we'd continue south until DaNang, then head west to Ubon.
It was going to be a pretty long mission, and I put three piddle packs in my helmet bag, since the F-4 had no relief tube. The piddle pack was a large plastic bag with a sponge inside, and was used as a portable urinal. The only way I wanted to be “feet wet” was when we egressed over the water.
We had a standard briefing, and again carried two Mark-84L bombs. Our flight was the fifth four-ship to depart Ubon during the mass launch. Takeoff and rejoin were normal.
When we reached Green anchor, we joined up with our tanker and each hooked up to refuel to tanks full. Then we flew in formation with the tanker as he headed north, and we periodically topped off the tanks, to be as full as possible at the drop-off point, just short of Thud Ridge. All of the refueling was accomplished in total radio silence.
It was quiet, but it was not uneventful. The boom operator in the tanker had the complex job of “threading the needle” to guide the refueling receptacle to our aircraft as we maneuvered the last several feet for the hookup. His duty station in the KC-135 tanker aircraft was in the tail of the aircraft, laying on his stomach and looking through a large window-like viewing port to guide the boom. It always impressed me that we could be executing this complex aerial ballet at over 300 knots, and it all worked flawlessly.
Our boomer on this flight wanted to give us a little comic relief and variety. Right as I hooked up for one of my final refueling hookups, I looked up at the boomer, about fifteen feet above me. In his window, he was holding up a centerfold from what was euphemistically called a “men's magazine”. Actually, it was not the typical Playboy centerfold. It was much more graphic. I suspect he had gotten it at one of the overseas bases. His stunt made it a bit more challenging to maintain refueling position. And it sure broke up the monotony.
We had very little enemy reaction on the way in to the target. There were a few strobes on my RHAW gear – the Radar Homing And Warning system – but no SAMs. As we rolled in for the delivery, a lot of triple-A opened up on us. A lot.
We were in close fingertip formation, and as we were in a 120-degree bank we were engulfed by 37 mike mike airbursts. They looked like instantaneous dandelions blossoming in the air around our aircraft. I kept the light on the star as we rolled in, and no one in the flight broke formation. We rolled out on final, and lead called the bomb release.
“Three, two, one, pickle, pickle, pickle.”
We all pickled off our bombs, all of them, and they all guided to the target on the illumination from lead's laser. We put gigantic craters dead center in the runway.
As soon as we egressed the target area to the east, lead wagged his tail, signaling for us to go into spread tactical formation, 500 feet spacing between elements. Lead and two would be in fingertip formation, and number three and I would be in fingertip position 500 feet away, line abreast. This was determined to be the most effective formation for spotting MiGs and SAMs.
My head was on a swivel, looking for threats. Suddenly, number three, my element lead, spotted a SAM, a Surface to Air Missile.
“SAM, SAM, left seven o'clock!”
There was no indication on my RHAW gear, and it was clear this was no ordinary SAM. Typically, a normal SA-2 SAM launch is indicated by a RHAW gear warning, a green strobe appearing on the circular scope in the cockpit, indicating the direction of the threat and the intensity of the radar. It was possible, of course, for a SAM to be guided optically, without radar, so that it would not trigger our RHAW gear. Bu
t most SA-2s used radar and were flown in lead pursuit.
Lead pursuit was a flight path that pointed the SAM ahead of the target aircraft, intending for the supersonic SAM to meet up with the target aircraft at some point in front of the target's current position. It wasn't all that hard to defeat a lead pursuit SAM, if you saw it in time.
To defeat a lead pursuit SAM, you enter a shallow dive and pick up speed. The SAM will project your future position and head for a lower altitude, further out in front of your airplane. Then, when the SAM looks the size of a telephone pole, you pull up, hard, perhaps five or six G's. Immediately, your flight vector is in a totally different direction, and for the SAM to travel to a point now ahead of your airplane it would need to make a huge directional change, perhaps a 20-G pull. The SAM can't make that kind of turn, and it misses. It may detonate as a proximity burst, but it won't be a direct hit.
This SAM was different. It was flying lag pursuit, aiming directly at our aircraft. Much harder to defeat. It was holding steady at our left seven o'clock. It looked like it was attached to the rear of our airplanes by a long cable that was getting ever shorter.
During the target egress, my element was to the left of lead, and I was on the left side of my element lead. That put me closest to the incoming SAM. The first thing my element lead did was increase our spacing on lead's element. This way we could see which element was the target. We increased spacing to about 1500 feet, and all four aircraft started a shallow dive.
The SAM stayed with my element, pointing directly at us, closing rapidly. I stayed in fingertip formation, and kept watching the SAM in the rear-view mirror on the left side of the canopy bow. I had a really uncomfortable, familiar feeling. This SAM was going to get both of us.
As it disappeared from view in the mirror, blocked from view by my fuselage, I broke hard left. At least one of us was going to get hit. Maybe one of us wouldn't.
1
January 17, 1970
T-39 training was going well. I had received a quick local ground school, and was already well underway into my checkout.
The flight training had started two days earlier, with an extensive briefing and local landing practice mission each day, and today I flew from Yokota Air Base, in Japan, to Kunsan Air Base, in South Korea.
We had departed Yokota early, at 0500 local, and had arrived at Kunsan in time to get to the Officer's Club for breakfast. The mission was going flawlessly. I'd been studying T-39 systems and procedures on my own for the past couple weeks, and my preparation had paid off.
This was my cross-country training flight, from Yokota to Kunsan, with a return to Yokota planned for the same day. My IP, Lieutenant Colonel Byers, was an ex-fighter pilot, and we got along great. He briefed me on the particulars of our return trip while we ate, then we went to Base Ops to do our flight planning. With favorable winds, we'd be back at Yokota by early afternoon, and I'd have no problem meeting up with Samantha for dinner at the Yokota Officer's Club. A new band had just arrived from the States, and I was really looking forward to dancing with her again after we ate.
At the end of this trip, I'd be signed off to fly in a normal crew environment. I'd be a copilot for a while, but that was fine with me. I'd get to observe fully-qualified Aircraft Commanders during routine operations, and I would get a chance to hone my skills in the T-39. I would need at least 100 hours in the airplane before I could carry passengers, so the Ops Officer, Major Simmons, had scheduled me on the fast track to fly a lot of cross-country flights.
“You'll get experience flying into all the usual places we go,” he'd said. “Kadena Air Base, in Okinawa, Clark Air Base, in the Philippines, and all the bases in Korea. Once we get you passenger-qualified, we'll put you on some of our better missions, like Hong Kong. I think you're really going to like the variety of flying we have here, Hamilton.”
It was kind of funny being called by my actual name, Hamilton, instead of the nickname I'd picked up in Vietnam – Hamfist. I figured as long as nobody knew me as Hamfist, I'd just wait to see what developed, name-wise. Hamilton was just fine with me.
After flight planning at Kunsan Base Ops, I zapped through the preflight and got down to engine start. But when I pressed the starter button on the first engine, nothing happened. We rechecked the switches and tried again. Nothing. Maintenance Staff Sergeant Adams, from Transient Alert, checked under the cowling and determined that the starter was bad on that engine. Naturally, there were no parts at Kunsan. It looked like we would be stuck there for the night. So much for dancing.
Then I got a brilliant idea. I knew my IP would be impressed with my knowledge of aircraft systems, as well as my resourcefulness.
"Why don't we start the other engine, then fast taxi down the runway?” I asked. “When we get enough windmilling airspeed, we go to AIRSTART on the bad engine and get it lit. Then we can take off and fly back to Yokota and get it fixed."
Lieutenant Colonel Byers took a long draw on his cigarette, looked up at the sky and then leveled his gaze at me.
“What do you see when you look up?” he asked.
I looked around.
"Nothing," I replied, "just blue sky."
“That's right. The sky is blue, it's a beautiful day, and we're in perfect health. We don't have a mission that requires us to trade that for an uncertain future and needless risks. The base isn't under attack. We're not taking a critically ill patient to emergency surgery. We're not even carrying passengers. We're on a training mission, and we're stuck at a place that really doesn't have a lot to offer, but that's the breaks - no pun intended. It's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were back on the ground.”
He gave me a lot to think about. All of my operational flying, up until now, had been in combat. Lives, literally, depended on my getting the mission accomplished. And now it was different. Dinner and dancing with Sam would have to wait.
We got two rooms at the BOQ. It was a lucky break that my IP was a Field Grade officer. As a Company Grade officer, a First Lieutenant, I would normally be put in a two-man room with my IP. But since he was Field Grade, he got his own individual room, and I did also by default.
Lieutenant Colonel Byers managed to get an autovon call through to the Yokota Command Post, to tell them of our maintenance situation. The autovon was the military telephone system for international calls. The Command Post needed to know that our airplane would be out until the next day, and they would pass on our itinerary information to our families. Although Sam and I weren't married yet, she was listed as my emergency contact, so I knew they would call her.
We spent the night at Kunsan, and by morning the airplane was fixed.
2
January 18, 1970
The T-39 mission at Yokota Air Base was totally different from the flying I'd done in Vietnam. It was like a mini-airline operation for congressmen, Generals and other VIPs.
The T-39 Sabreliner was a small business jet, carrying seven passengers in real style. The T-39 jocks liked to point out that the airplane had the same wing as the vaunted F-86 fighter, and it handled somewhat like a fighter. And with its J60 turbojet engines, it had great acceleration. A real step up from the O-2A.
Our organization was not a real squadron, it was a part of Base Operations. We had four Sabreliner airplanes and ten assigned pilots. Then we had about 25 “attached” pilots who worked staff jobs at Fifth Air Force Headquarters and each flew a few days each month, frequently on weekends.
When we weren't flying, each of us assigned pilots had additional duties. Basically, we had to perform all the collateral duties that were performed by the hundred or so pilots in a normal squadron, so we stayed pretty busy with, well, busy-work.
Typically, we wore our blue uniforms when we flew. The uniform consisted of dark blue pants and a light blue short-sleeve shirt with no tie. We also had dark blue athletic jackets, similar to what the pilots of Air Force One had, to wear during cold weather. When it was extremely cold, we were
authorized to wear the standard olive drab Air Force winter flying jacket, but it was pretty much frowned upon.
There was another facet of our mission that I found out about after I got into the unit, but it wouldn't apply to me until I was fully checked out. It turned out the Scatback T-39 operation in Vietnam was under-manned, and our unit provided pilots TDY – Temporary Duty – to Saigon for three months at a time. I had envisioned Yokota T-39 flying as being basically out-and-back one-day or two-day missions, and had thought I'd be home, with Sam, virtually every night. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement.
After my overnight at Kunsan, Sam and I had a long talk. I explained what I'd learned about the T-39 mission, and told her about the Scatback tasking. I wasn't sure what her response would be.
I shouldn't have been worried.
“Ham, you're doing your job. It's what you do. I know you volunteered for Yokota to be near me, and that means the world to me.”
Damn, I had really struck gold!
3
January 18, 1970
My car finally arrived. One of the first things I had done when I got my assignment changed to Yokota was call Morris's Motor Storage, where I had stored my Datsun while I was in Vietnam. I placed the call through the autovon. Mr. Morris had sounded really relieved to hear I had made it through my tour unscathed. No need to tell him about my injury.
I had arranged the shipment of my car through the Traffic Management Office, and they had scheduled the port-call. Mr. Morris had personally driven my Datsun to Oakland Port, and then sent me a telegram with the shipment information. He was really a good guy.
Sam went with me to pick up my car at Yokohama Port. It was a strange feeling sitting behind the wheel after my experiences of the last year. I finally understood the expressions, “You can't go home again” and “You can't bathe twice in the same river”. I had changed. I was a different person, and many of the things that had been important to me before I'd left for Vietnam now seemed trivial.
