Early Navy missions against the Thanh Hoa Bridge were conducted under the aegis of Task Force 77, the naval organization that owned all the ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Navy launched its first strike against the bridge on June 17, 1965.
Naval aviation tactical doctrine was partly dictated by the aerial assets available aboard the carriers as well as the physical problems of operating them from a ship. It also took the shape it did because of the Navy’s experience attacking heavily defended land and sea targets during World War II. One or more carriers would launch as powerful a strike force as they could assemble along with the fighters to protect the strikers, flak suppressors, tankers, and electronic warfare planes, all of which would assemble at their appointed places and head for the target. The objective was to overwhelm the defenders with lethal force, destroy the target with minimum exposure to defenders’ fire, and then “haul ass”—or egress. These maximum-effort strikes were called “Alpha” strikes, named for Annex Alpha, an early Joint Chiefs authorization for significant targets in North Vietnam. The term eventually became generic in carrier aviation, referring to as big an organized strike as could be assembled. Large-deck ships could launch as many as forty-five airplanes on Alphas, one-third of which would be bombers and as many as one-fourth of them fighters on combat air patrol (CAP) against Vietnamese MiGs.7
Air Wing Fifteen’s 1967–1968 Alpha strike mix from USS Coral Sea was representative of that stage of the war:
• Twelve to sixteen A-4 bombers
• Four F-4 Phantoms on MiG CAP at the target
• Four to six F-4s for flak suppression
• Two to four A-4s anti-SAM “Iron Hands”
• Four to eight F-4s on barrier and MiG CAP over the ship
• An RF-8 photo-recon plane with F-4 escort
• Three KA-3 Skywarrior airborne tankers
• Two E-2A Hawkeyes for early warning and strike control
• Two to four A-1 Skyraiders for Rescue CAP
An Alpha strike involved a diverse cast of professionals weaving three-dimensional arabesques perfected through dress rehearsals long before an air wing arrived on Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf. When attacking North Vietnam, the strikers would “coast in” from the gulf at fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand feet while making 300 knots (about 350 miles per hour), and they would then descend to twelve thousand feet at 350 to 400 knots upon entering the SAM threat envelope.
The bombers might split into two groups, attacking from different directions, with time over the target varying by no more than ninety seconds. The goal was to get the entire strike onto and off target in the minimum amount of time, usually defined as less than a minute for each strike group.
Each bombing group was made up of flights of four. Typically a flight leader would move his three wingmen into right or left echelon and approach the desired run-in heading at an angle of about forty-five degrees. The desired dive angle—that is, the vertical angle the bombers hoped to achieve as they dove at their targets—had already been briefed and the appropriate mil setting for the bombsights computed from ordnance delivery tables. Each pilot had dialed in the setting—now it was up to Lead to get as close as possible to the desired dive angle, which was usually 40 to 45 degrees. Once in the dive, the pilot would compare his dive angle to the briefed angle and place his bombsight aiming pipper accordingly—there was not enough time in the dive to diddle with the bombsight.
Lead took his echelon in toward the planned run-in heading, and when experience told him he was there, he would “kiss-off” his wingmen and roll his plane about 135 degrees, then pull the nose down below the target and roll upright. If he did the maneuver correctly, he was on the proper dive angle, on the preselected run-in heading, and the pipper was tracking toward the target as he accelerated downward toward his release altitude. The track of his pipper, a dot of light in the sight, would be affected by the wind, which would cause the airplane to drift right or left or make it steep or shallow. The attack pilot had to correct for the wind and watch his altitude, and if he did everything perfectly, he would arrive at his desired weapons-release altitude at the desired airspeed, usually about five hundred knots true airspeed, with the pipper offset just so for the perceived wind.
Upon weapons release, the pilot would now pull four or five Gs to raise the nose above the horizon, bottoming out above the maximum range of small-arms fire, and then he would keep the nose rising so he could turn excess airspeed into altitude while jinking wildly to throw off the aim of any enemy gunners tracking him. Behind him his wingmen had waited only one or two seconds before they rolled in, which gave them a slightly different run-in heading, and down they came, one after another, each offset slightly from Lead so someone shooting at Lead wouldn’t hit the guy behind him by mistake. If you were fated to get zapped, you prayed it wouldn’t be by mistake—you wanted the bad guys to have to work to do it.
The only pilots to get a clear view of the target were the strike leader and perhaps his wingman—everyone who rolled in after them was going to put the pipper in their bombsight in the boiling smoke where the target ought to be, pickle their ordnance, and pull out, trying not to have a midair collision with their fellow strikers or someone who screwed up the run-in heading or a flak suppressor who did it backward. Meanwhile the bad guys were shooting everything they had while someone was shouting into his lip mike about SAMs, as if a dive bomber had some spare time to look for them.
It was common for the number-four man in a flight to see two planes diving ahead of him slightly to the left or right in the bombsight, with Lead’s bombs exploding on the target. If he did, everyone in the flight was going in expeditiously and not wasting seconds, which gave the gomers more time to shoot. Yet while this flight was diving, other flights were also, so that everyone was diving in the minimum amount of time and reducing each plane’s time of exposure to enemy AAA fire.
The choreography rarely worked out perfectly, of course, and clouds in the target area could affect the strikers profoundly, but the goal remained the same: maximum ordnance on the target in the minimum amount of time.
Alpha strikes were the orgiastic climax of naval aviation, the supreme moment when the billions spent on ships and planes, the years of training, the excruciating family separations, and the long months at sea for everyone from seaman to admiral finally bore fruit. At that critical instant the trigger was pulled and bombs fell. Ships died under strikes like these during World War II. During that war, the Korean War, and in North Vietnam shipyards were flattened, railyards obliterated, supply dumps pulverized, power plants smashed, and bridges felled.
Except the Dragon’s Jaw Bridge at Thanh Hoa. That sucker just wouldn’t fall.
CHAPTER 7
“UNLIMITED LOSSES IN PURSUIT OF LIMITED GOALS”
Early Navy missions against the Dragon’s Jaw were much smaller, more informal affairs than the Air Force strikes. The Navy launched its first strike against the bridge on June 17, 1965, from the USS Midway and the USS Bon Homme Richard. The bombers were A-4s from the Bonnie Dick, and the MiG CAP was composed of six F-4 Phantoms belonging to VF-21 aboard the Midway. The six fighters flew in two-plane sections.
One of the CAP sections was led by Fighter Squadron 21’s (VF-21) executive officer, Commander Lou Page. With some four thousand hours in tailhook aircraft, including Korean combat, Page was highly regarded in the fighter community at NAS Miramar in San Diego. One of his troops said, “Those silver-gray eyes, they burn right through you.”1
Page’s radar intercept officer (RIO) was the vastly experienced Lieutenant John C. Smith. A former A-4 pilot, “J. C.” lost his wings after a youthful aerial indiscretion but refused to stay grounded. He applied for the new RIO program and graduated near the top of its first class. A master of the F-4’s systems, he helped write the first RIO instructor’s manual while he served for two years as an instructor at VF-121, the West Coast F-4 training squadron. He considered Page “the best in the business.”2
/> Page’s wingman was Lieutenant J. E. D. Batson Jr., with Lieutenant Commander Robert Doremus in the backseat. Batson and Doremus were a tight team, having flown together through much of the training syllabus at VF-121, the West Coast F-4 Replacement Air Group (RAG).
Today the six VF-21 Phantoms carried four missiles each: two AIM-9B heat-seeking Sidewinders and two AIM-7E Sparrows, the latest version of this radar-guided missile. Aircrews dubbed the Sparrow “the great white hope” because of its color and the optimistic pronouncements of the Bureau of Naval Weapons for it.
The manual on the Sparrow said it could hit an aircraft target head-on from twenty nautical miles away—yet only if the target was illuminated by the shooter’s radar from launch to impact. Lacking an emitting radar of its own, the missile merely homed in on the energy reflecting from the target by the shooting aircraft’s radar. If the shooter’s radar lost the target for any reason, Sparrow ceased to guide. This limitation had a profound effect on the tactics that the launching aircraft could use, since it had to keep the target in front of it for the missile’s entire flight, which, fortunately, wasn’t long, yet enemy fighters rarely flew straight and level while waiting to get zapped. Dogfights are often swirling hairballs, but the Sparrow was designed for shooting down bombers on the way to attack a carrier battle group, not shoot down maneuvering fighters.
Conversely, Sidewinder was a “fire and forget” missile that would track the enemy’s heat signature once it was locked on, regardless of what the shooter did. However, due to the speeds involved, a highly maneuverable fighter like the MiG-17 could avoid the missile if it were properly flown by a pilot who had the oncoming Sidewinder in sight and was willing and able to pull lots of Gs.
To get a lock-on with Vietnam-era Sidewinders, the shooter had to be in the enemy’s rear quarter. The missile was very fond of the sun: if given a chance, it would zip off after our star until it ran out of fuel. Finally, there was no way for the pilot shooting a Sidewinder to know exactly which heat source the missile had locked onto—one had to be careful to not shoot down one’s friends. Later versions of Sidewinder had better, more sensitive seeker-heads and were more maneuverable, so eventually, in future wars, the missile became an excellent dogfighting weapon that could be fired head-on or from an amazing angle once the seeker locked on its target’s heat signature.
Additionally, as we previously stated, F-4 Phantoms were designed without guns, the weapon of choice for a Vietnam War dogfighter.
While VF-21 had trained for set-piece interceptions on relatively slow, nonmaneuvering targets, Lou Page was unconvinced. He and a few other aggressive aviators had explored the Phantom’s exceptional vertical performance, using the tremendous climb rate to pull up and over the top of a lighter, more agile opponent. Thus, the VF-21 Freelancers entered combat confident of their ability to handle either long-range or “knife fight” encounters.
Page and Batson established their CAP station northwest of the bridge, circling at eleven thousand feet. Monitoring the strike frequency, they heard the Bonnie Dick’s A-4s hit the bridge—without much effect—and an affiliated barracks nearby. While the attackers exited and headed for the safety of the ocean, Page in Sundown 101 called for one more sweep. Upon turning north, Smith saw a telltale blip on his scope: bogeys at thirty miles.
Seconds later Doremus in Sundown 102 also had the contact. His pilot, Ed Batson, shifted from an abeam search position to a three-mile trail behind Page, his lead. It was standard procedure: in a head-on intercept the lead fighter would identify the two bogeys and, if necessary, call for the trailer to shoot.
As the Freelancers climbed at full power, J. C. Smith ran the intercept, well aware that almost every aircraft over North Vietnam had white stars on its wings. The iron-clad rules of engagement (ROE) required that American fighters obtain a positive visual ID before firing. Still, both RIOs armed their Sparrows in anticipation of a long-range engagement, checking their “ready lights.” Smith controlled the “sort,” taking the trailing bogey and assigning Doremus the leader. With good radar locks, the RIOs exchanged confirming calls.
The Phantoms maneuvered for more horizontal separation, forcing the bogeys to show their type and intent. If the bogeys turned in toward the Phantoms, the fight would be on.
Smith kept calling distances as the range closed—twelve miles, ten.… Finally, the targets became visible. The location was about thirty-five miles north of Thanh Hoa.
At five miles the lead bogey rolled into a banked turn toward the Americans, revealing the distinctive bat-winged shape of a MiG-17. Lou Page yelled, “MiGs, MiGs, MiGs! Shoot, shoot, shoot!”3
With his eyes still in the radar hood, Smith pushed the launch button. So did Doremus in Sundown 102. On each plane a four-hundred-pound missile was ejected from the recesses beneath the fuselages and the solid-fuel rockets ignited.
When Smith looked up from his scope, he got the surprise of his life—he realized that his target was not one MiG but two. They had been flying so close together in “parade formation” that the two planes had merged into one blip on his screen. The North Vietnamese had launched a flight of four led by Lieutenant Lam Van Lic, who turned in toward the Americans when he acquired them visually.
Both Sparrows rode their invisible rails to their destinations. The sixty-pound warheads blasted the MiGs apart. Batson and Doremus’ victim disintegrated almost directly over Sundown 101, while Page and Smith’s lost its tail to the Sparrow’s continuous-rod warhead.
Comrades Cao Thanh Tinh and Nguyen Nhat Chieu ejected and parachuted safely to earth.
Unknown to the Americans, another of the MiGs also went down. Perhaps wounded by shrapnel from the warhead that shredded his wingman or trying to avoid being a target for another missile, Lieutenant Le Trong Long piled into a hillside and died on impact—instantly. All things considered, it was a good, pain-free way to go.4
The last MiG, piloted by Lam Van Lic, nearly collided with Sundown 101. Smith looked down and clearly saw the pilot straining in the cockpit, “pulling for all he was worth.”
Page pulled nose-high to avoid the surviving MiG and entered a solid overcast. When he dropped back below the cloud deck he saw a square parachute and drifting smoke from the two explosions that resulted from planes striking the earth. But the last surviving Communist fighter was gone, having successfully escaped.
VF-21 had made history. For the first time in aerial warfare air-to-air missiles had destroyed enemy aircraft nose to nose. It had been a classic NAS Miramar Phantom intercept, with aircrews, radars, and missiles performing flawlessly.
And it hardly ever happened again. In this war a head-to-head shot was going to be a rarity. The Air Force managed a few, but most Sparrow kills were only obtained when American fighters got behind fleeing MiGs. Experience would also prove that Sparrows were delicate instruments easily put out of commission by the inevitable rough handling of repeated loadings onto aircraft, numerous flights, carrier arrestments, and down-loadings before they were eventually fired in combat. Sparrows’ “failure to guide” would leave many fighter pilots cursing. The reliability rate fell so low that in any Sparrow engagement the shooting pilot launched multiple missiles in the hope one would guide and get a hit.
That June day the victors came aboard Midway amid a raucous celebration already underway. On the flight deck Commander Bill Franke, the squadron skipper, was waving his arms while the maintenance chief petty officer jumped for joy. Even the steely-eyed F-8 Crusader gunfighters of VF-111 hollered and hooted.
Anticipating more action to come, as the crew of Sundown 102 deplaned, Bob Doremus quipped to his pilot, “Four more to go!” As it developed, the Navy had to wait seven more years to crown its first Vietnam ace, Lieutenant Randy Cunningham, and his RIO, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Willy Driscoll. Meanwhile, aboard Midway, the social amenities were observed. When Batson hefted a coffee cup, he found it filled with Scotch.5
Much later the Americans learned that the North Vietnamese claimed that
two F-4s were shot down in that encounter. Because none of the MiGs had managed to obtain a firing position, the claim was obviously bogus—obvious to the Americans, that is, who recovered all their fighters back aboard ship. No doubt the propaganda claim bucked up the morale of the North Vietnamese home folks, and that is probably what it was intended to do.
The Thanh Hoa Bridge was one of many targets in North Vietnam that Pentagon planners routinely designated for attention. The target list for the next day’s strikes arrived at various commands as a classified message, encrypted as all messages were.
In the Tonkin Gulf Task Force 77 staff “fragmented” the target list by assigning various targets to the air wings aboard the ships on Yankee Station, and aboard each ship CAG staff divided the targets further into missions assigned to individual squadrons, which assigned pilots and crews to each mission on a document called the Air Plan. The missions might be anything from an Alpha strike using every plane that could be launched to a single-plane night mission. Road recce, two or four planes against a supply dump, aerial tanker duty, barrier combat air patrol (BarCAP), reconnaissance, Iron Hand—all appeared on the Air Plan and had flight crews and planes assigned. Meanwhile the various maintenance departments were working around the clock to provide airplanes ready to fly. As the time for a launch approached, the ordnance required by the Air Plan was raised from the ships’ magazines below the water line, and the go planes and perhaps some spares were spotted on the flight deck, fueled, and loaded with ordnance.
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