Dragon's Jaw

by Stephen Coonts

  We didn’t get down into the automatic weapons fire. There was always opposition, but we got in and out. I’ve seen the bridge completely obscured by smoke from the bombs, but it was always still there in the next photo.3

  That afternoon the Hawk launched another maximum-effort Alpha strike, its third of the day, composed of more than two dozen jets from the two A-4 squadrons, VA-112 and 114, plus A-6s from VA-85, with four VF-114 F-4s as flak suppressors. Again, the Phantoms were armed with Zuni pods because the high-speed rockets were extremely accurate against relatively small targets such as gun positions.

  The mission was carefully choreographed with a dual-axis attack to split the defenses. The fighters would dive from the north about twenty seconds ahead of the first bombers. The suppressors would pull off their targets as the Skyhawks and Intruders rolled in from the opposite direction. The carrier aviators prided themselves on their high degree of professionalism: with proper interval and exquisite timing, three dozen jets could get on and off a target in about one minute or so.

  Leading the flak suppressors was Lieutenant Commander Charles E. “Ev” Southwick flying Linfield 201. He was born in Alaska in 1931 and raised in Seattle. After graduating from the University of Washington, he entered the Naval Aviation Cadet program and received his wings of gold in 1955. A career fighter pilot, he flew FJ-3 Furies and F-8 Crusaders before attending the Air Force Fighter Weapons School. He endured a two-year “payback” tour in Washington before returning to flight status. In 1966 he completed transition to the F-4B Phantom, and in February 1967 he reported to the VF-114 Aardvarks, who chose the emblem of an anteater for their squadron based on Johnny Hart’s B.C. comic strip.4

  Ev Southwick was among the Navy’s MiG killers. On April 24 he shot down a MiG-17 with Ensign Jim Laing in his backseat. Almost immediately their Phantom fell victim to flak gunners or North Vietnam’s first ace, Nguyen Van Bay, but the crew ejected offshore and were rescued. In the same aerial combat Lieutenant Denny Wisely and Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Gareth Anderson splashed another “red bandit,” making Wisely the Navy’s most successful fighter pilot, with two kills to his credit. On a previous cruise he had downed an An-2 Cub biplane with a radar-guided Sparrow missile. Although a biplane wasn’t much of a trophy, fighter pilots have to take what they can get.

  Southwick’s RIO on the bridge mission was Lieutenant David John “Jack” Rollins, also born in 1931. He grew up in California and Nevada, enlisted directly after high school in 1948, and was commissioned in 1960. Trained as an F-4B RIO, he joined VF-114 for the first of two Aardvark tours. In September 1963 Rollins served as an instructor and projects officer at VF-121, the West Coast Phantom school at NAS Miramar, San Diego. Rollins returned to the ’varks in August 1966. Married since 1950, he had three children and a promising naval career.5

  Approaching the coast northeast of Thanh Hoa, the attack group split. The Skyhawk and Intruder bombers looped southwesterly, while Ev Southwick took his suppressors directly inland to attack from the north.

  The defenders were ready, as usual. Before the jets reached their roll-in points in the cube of airspace surrounding the bridge, flak bursts began erupting ahead of the Kitty Hawk fliers. They pushed onward through the barrage.

  The plan for the flak suppressors was to attack from eleven thousand feet, fire the Zunis in a 30-degree dive at 450 knots, and pull level by three thousand feet. With the sight reticle on the visible AAA positions, which were easy to see because they were covered with muzzle flashes, Southwick ripple-fired the rocket pods and saw the Zunis streak out ahead of Linfield 201.

  The Phantom twitched somewhere in its beefy airframe, accompanied by a bang. Rollins craned his head, looking past his pilot, and went wide-eyed. Flames were gushing from the starboard intake. The crew’s first thought was compressor stall.

  More likely, the jet ingested rocket fragments from a premature detonation of a Zuni warhead. The ordnance manual said that Zuni fuses were made to avoid “fratricide”—the same problem that downed Jerry Denton’s Intruder two years before. But whatever the cause, Linfield 201 was in deep trouble.

  Southwick scanned his instruments: starboard tailpipe temperature fluctuating and no throttle control; the port engine was also unspooling. Without engines the F-4 would lose electrical power, so the pilot reached behind and pulled the handle to deploy the ram-air turbine. The housing door in the fuselage popped open, extending the air-driven propeller to provide minimum electric power to essential instruments.

  Southwick overflew the bridge and banked into a 90-degree left turn, descending toward the ground on the west side of the river. What he desperately needed was altitude, at least fifteen thousand feet of it to get far enough off shore for a possible rescue. Yet altitude was precisely what he didn’t have.

  Heading southeast in a dying Phantom, Ev Southwick opted for the river. Perhaps the crew could get downstream to the mouth of the Song Ma where a helo might reach them.

  When the treetops began passing by at canopy level, the crew was out of options.

  It was time to get out.

  At perhaps fifty feet Southwick pulled the face curtain over his head, initiating command ejection of both seats and leaving Linfield 201 to its fate.

  The Phantom lit mostly level in the mud flats just off the north tip of a small island, about four miles downstream from the bridge. The port wing tip dug in, spinning the aircraft almost 180 degrees and leaving it pointed back toward the bridge.

  After a short parachute ride, the crew landed on either side of a creek paralleling the river, out of sight of each other. Ev Southwick got a full ejection sequence. His chute snapped open, and he swung once and landed on his feet about one hundred yards from the creek bank. He was near a banana grove, but the foliage offered no cover.

  Jack Rollins had barely separated from his seat when he slammed into a rice paddy, knocking the wind out of him. Worse, his head lay under water with mud clogging his oxygen mask. Barely able to use his hands, he raised himself up, wrestled his helmet off, and took stock. Then he pulled his emergency radio from his survival vest and tried to contact one of the jets still overhead. It was no use—he was stranded in North Vietnam.

  Only later did the RIO learn that his back and pelvis were broken.

  The crew was quickly surrounded by villagers who followed the now-familiar routine. Unfamiliar with zippers on torso harnesses and G-suits, the Vietnamese began cutting off the flier’s outer garments. Somebody cut Rollins’ boot laces rather than untie them. As the RIO’s hands were bound behind him, another Vietnamese pulled off his wristwatch.

  Then an enraged villager dashed at Jack Rollins, raising an apparently homemade knife. Rollins tried dodging the blow but the assailant rammed the blade into his right shoulder, leaving the knife stuck there. Some uniformed personnel quickly arrived—apparently militia—and took charge of the prisoner.

  Out of sight of Rollins’ view to the west, Southwick also faced a hostile mob. As the Vietnamese closed, the fighter pilot thought he was about to be murdered on the ground.

  “Come with me!”

  The voice was loud, firm, and unaccented. Southwick looked around to see a man with Eurasian features. The locals deferred to him, and shortly the pilot was immensely relieved to see Rollins.6

  Tied and blindfolded, they were loaded into a military vehicle that headed north. The fliers entered the Hanoi Hilton late that night.

  The airborne search-and-rescue (SAR) effort lasted well past dark. Other pilots reported two good chutes but heard none of the electronic whip-whip-whip of an emergency beacon. Nonetheless, A-4s remained on station while VA-115 Skyraiders, VA-144 Skyhawks, and an SH-2 helicopter were summoned. The chopper lifted off from Clementine, the generic name for the northern SAR ship, but by then it was far too late, and the rescue effort was canceled around 6:30 P.M.

  Meanwhile the Aardvark F-4 drew unusual attention. Visible in the estuary, not even the rising tide fully covered the Phantom, which was photographed by a
Swedish reporter, Sven Oste. In Hong Kong two days later he mentioned the jet to American authorities, who at first seemed skeptical. But when Oste described the markings, all doubt was removed.7

  Reconnaissance the morning of May 15 revealed the naked hulk lying on the mud flat. Because Linfield 201 had pancaked in, largely intact, it became a potential intelligence coup for Hanoi—and Moscow. Task Force 77 was especially concerned about the enemy obtaining intact AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, so on the morning of May 16 Enterprise launched four Skyhawks of the VA-113 Stinger squadron to destroy the Phantom.

  Leading the mission was Lieutenant Commander Jeremy “Bear” Taylor, who selected his own weapons load-out. He recalled,

  I was to strike the hulk at dawn on the 16th. I chose as the weapon for this assignment the Mark 4 gun pod lightly loaded with 400 rounds of 20 mm for one long pass. I planned to shoot from about 3,000 feet down to a thousand. Four hundred rounds of 20 mm high-explosive incendiary will do a lot of damage.

  Strafing also remained the most accurate weapons delivery in the A-4 Skyhawk’s inventory of weapon choices. A little more hairy, but time was running out to destroy that F-4 and her Sparrows. I led a division of A-4s with Wild Bill Ellis on my wing loaded with Mark 82s [five-hundred-pounders] and my section lead was George Wales, also armed with a Mark 4 gun pod. His wingie was armed with Mark 82s.

  Tactics counted on an element of surprise—one division of A-4s popping up from the sea at dawn, hours before the usual Doctor Pepper schedule “10-2-4” the Thanh Hoa gunners counted on. Climb to 10,000 feet and roll-in headed southwest for one long strafing pass with Wild Bill dropping five Mark 82s on my hits. George and his wingman rolling in from the north for a north-to-south pass with about a twenty-second interval. One run, four aircraft. And outta there.

  The strike on Linfield 201 went exactly as briefed, except… I popped up, climbed to roll-in, eyeballed the F-4 right where it was on the pre-strike photos from the day before, roared down the chute passing 3,000 feet with the F-4 centered in my gunsight, squeezed the trigger—and blap! One round of 20 mm spit out and a jam [gun jammed]. My two bombers moved a lot of mud and it looked like George’s 20 mm were all over the hulk.8

  Despite the bombing and strafing, the Vietnamese gutted the airframe while making arrangements to transport it to Hanoi. Floated on a bamboo raft, the battered carcass was moved upriver and eventually became a prized exhibit in the capitol’s war memorial. Of course, all the damage to the plane was implicitly attributed to the valiant North Vietnamese gunners who shot it down.

  The perennial nature of the campaign against the Dragon’s Jaw—and the Vietnam War—was well illustrated by one pilot in one squadron in one air wing. On September 1, 1966, Lieutenant Commander Richard Schaffert of VF-111, a three-war squadron, had bombed the Thanh Hoa Bridge with his wingman. One year and two days later, still flying from Oriskany, the Sundowners and other Air Wing 16 squadrons returned to the Dragon’s Jaw. Follow-on attacks were launched on September 11 and 12, all large Alpha strikes. Schaffert said, “On the third strike Old Salt (VA-163) Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Hunter got a huge hole in his A-4’s wing but made it back.”9

  On September 23 Task Force 77 launched twenty-two aircraft with fifty-seven tons of ordnance and again inflicted temporary damage: “Some 80 units of rolling stock and 1,678 tons of POL [petroleum, oil, and lubricants] were destroyed in four days, unable to vacate the area.”10

  But the bridge still stood.

  Astute readers will ask: Despite all the strikes against the Dragon’s Jaw in 1967, why did only one attacking aircraft fall—Linfield 201, perhaps a victim of flak, perhaps a victim of its own ordnance? The answer is that the Navy and Air Force were winning their battle with the flak crews. Flak suppressors were decimating the gunners.

  The authors have found no North Vietnamese publications describing the casualties the gun crews took from flak suppressors and stray bombs, although the carnage must have been horrific. Zuni rockets, five-hundred-pound bombs, antipersonnel cluster bombs—the suppressors were highly trained professional airmen who knew how to use their weapons. Men serving the AAA guns must have died on nearly every strike. By the dozens or hundreds. When a crew was slaughtered in a gun pit and the weapon destroyed, another gun was rushed into position and another crew manned it. The new crew likely had only rudimentary instruction, didn’t have any experience, didn’t know how to lead a diving attacker, and died on the next strike or the one after.

  Few airmen gave any thought to the human toll they were inflicting. The flak suppressors were trying to “keep the gunners’ heads down.” If the suppressors did their job, they would save American lives. Their loyalty was to their fellow fliers, their shipmates, their comrades, their fellow Americans. Those few pilots who did reflect on the slaughter thought, They’re trying to kill us, and we’re trying to kill them.

  Like the Soviets facing the Wehrmacht, the Vietnamese Communists shoved men forward to die in turn. In the States, television announcer Walter Cronkite was telling the American people every night how many Americans had died the previous day in South Vietnam. In North Vietnam no one was counting bodies.

  In the terrible math of war every North Vietnamese gunner who died defending the Thanh Hoa Bridge was one less to go south to fight Americans. Yet American airmen didn’t think that way. The shattered bridge that wouldn’t fall was an affront to their dedication, professionalism, and war-fighting abilities. They wanted that bridge.

  The Communist rulers in Hanoi saw the bridge in much the same light. Although that tortured structure was no longer a transportation asset, they must have realized, as did Rear Admiral David C. Richardson, that every American bomb dropped on it or on the gun crews was one less on other targets, such as truck parks, fuel farms, ammo dumps, and troop concentrations. Yet that fact really didn’t matter to the politburo. The bridge was the symbol of American impotence and North Vietnamese resistance. It was the flag waving over Fort McHenry in the dawn’s early light.

  In human affairs symbols matter. The battle was all about the bridge.

  CHAPTER 14

  “WE ARE MIRED IN A STALEMATE”

  The year 1968 was the midpoint of America’s tragic Vietnam experience, four years after the Tonkin Gulf incident. Critics pointed out that during World War II America had defeated Hitler and crushed the Japanese Empire in just forty-five months. The Johnson administration had been waging war in a rice-paddy shithole against a third-world dictatorship without a Navy, one that had to beg the Soviets and China for military equipment, for roughly the same period of time and didn’t seem to be making any progress. Still, McNamara and other administration spokesmen always had a cautiously optimistic message. The press called it “the credibility gap.”

  In 1968 the draft peaked with 296,000 inductees. Military spending reached a “peacetime” high of $198 billion, 10 percent of the gross domestic product, a figure not matched in the five decades since.1

  In April civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Immediately riots broke out in cities across America. In June a Palestinian assassinated presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, JFK’s brother and the heir to Camelot, as he campaigned in Los Angeles. Crime in US cities increased significantly, leading to a “law and order” movement that Republican candidate Richard Nixon tried to make his own.

  That year was also when the most Americans died in Vietnam. In one week alone in May 730 Americans were killed in Vietnam, the bloodiest week of the war. During 1967 American troop strength in Southeast Asia topped 500,000. There were 11,363 men killed in action, raising the butcher’s list to 20,000 since 1964. Both figures were exceeded in 1968: more than 563,000 American military personnel served in theater, and 16,899 of them were killed. Many more were maimed for life. Men who would have died of their wounds in World War II or Korea came home missing limbs and eyes and faces. What’s more, they came home to an angry America that somehow, illogically, blamed them.2

  Part of the pr
oblem was the draft, which swept up all those young men who didn’t go to college, which was almost all of the black youth, while somehow missing the scions of wealth and privilege who have always found a way to avoid combat in all of America’s wars. Almost every young man from the upper-middle class who could find a way to avoid Vietnam combat was assiduously busy at it. Al Gore, son of a US senator, did join the Army but wound up in an engineering battalion in Vietnam and so avoided the mud and blood of combat. Bill Clinton evaded the draft and went off to England to do a Rhodes Scholar gig, smoke pot, and bed English girls. While students publicly burned draft cards and rioted on college campuses, one future Democratic senator, Gary W. Hart, rode out his draft eligibility in divinity school. Antiwar college professors inflated the grades of poor students who might get drafted if they flunked out—the great late-1960s grade inflation. Some young men went to Canada and never returned, although others returned to the United States when President Jimmy Carter offered them a pardon in 1977 if they would apply for it; two hundred thousand of them did.

  The black youth of America found the civil rights movement. The Nation of Islam said they were getting a raw deal, fighting the white man’s war, although the numbers belie that. Of the men who went to Vietnam 88.4 percent were white, 10.6 percent were black. Of the men who died in Vietnam 86.3 percent were white, 12.5 percent were black. And of the men who were killed in battle 86.8 percent were white, 12.1 percent were black, even though blacks of military age in America were 13.5 percent of the military-age population.3 Perception is everything in politics, and America’s young black men were sure they were getting screwed.