This is a war story from my service in Vietnam. Although the incident happened 40 years ago, the details are still fresh in my mind. It was June 1972. My fighter squadron, the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron, had just transferred from flying combat at DaNang to Korat Air Base in Thailand. On this day, I was assigned to fly in the rear cockpit of the third aircraft in Gator Flight piloted by my flight commander, Captain Charlie Cox. Our Linebacker target for the day was significant – the Thai Nguyen steel factory located about 30 miles north of Hanoi.
Gator Flight’s responsibility was to bomb the rail marshal yards adjacent to the factory. Each of our four F-4D Phantoms were armed with twelve 500-pound bombs carried on MERs (multiple ejector racks) located on the outboard stations.
Our Phantoms were grossed out at the maximum takeoff weight of 58,000. That meant that our takeoff roll would be longer than usual and because our center of gravity was shifted forward by the bombs on stations 1 and 9, our nose wheel liftoff speed and takeoff speed would be nearly identical and quite fast.
Everything was fairly uneventful through preflight, engine start and taxi. When tower gave us our clearance, we wheeled four aircraft on the runway, checked engines, and released brakes. With combat loads, we took 20 second spacing between aircraft so 40 seconds after our leader released brakes, Gator 3 began to rumble down Korat’s 10,000 foot runway. Even with 34,000 pounds of thrust from our two J-79 engines, it took a while for our speed to build.
As advertised at 185 knots, the nose wheel lifted off the runway. A few seconds later the aircraft began to fly and the main landing gear struts extended. What happened next was not as advertised – stray voltage was sent to the jettison circuits on stations 1 and 9 and both loaded MERs departed the aircraft.
Fighter aircraft have jettison circuits to release external stores in case of an emergency; however these circuits are disabled when the aircraft is on the ground. A squat switch runs through the main landing gear; when the struts extend the jettison circuit is armed.
In the cockpit, we had no idea what was happening behind and underneath the aircraft because the underside of the wing is not visible. But since we had just jettisoned about 15 percent of our gross weight, the aircraft accelerated like a banshee!
There were a lot of puffy cumulous clouds that day, and when we joined formation on our leader’s left wing, no one gave us a look as they navigated around the clouds. A minute or so later, we heard from the fourth aircraft as he joined the flight: “Gator 3, this is 4; you lost all your bombs on takeoff.”
Well, to say that came as a shock would be an understatement. Our leader was squadron commander Lyle “Sky King” Beckers and he immediately snapped his head in our direction and confirmed that we were missing both MERs and their bombs.
About a minute later when Cox and I had sorted out all that we knew and our pulse was under control, we called back to lead, “Boss, there’s not much point in us going with you.” Now that was an understatement – there’s little to be gained by taking a bomber to the target if he can’t do anything more than sight-see.
We got a chuckle out of that logic and Beckers cleared us to leave the formation. I dialed-in the frequency for Fort Apache (Korat’s command post) and we heard quite a commotion in the background. At this point, the incident caused by our takeoff was only about 5 minutes old.
When the noise died down, we called in and requested permission to RTB – return to base. An excited controller called back, “Negative, negative Gator 3, we’ve been bombed. The runway is closed. Divert to another base!”
We patiently explained that we had more than an hour of fuel remaining, that our aircraft would be impounded upon landing and it would be a much better plan to land the jet at our home base rather than another airfield. After some consultation, Korat agreed and about an hour later, they announced that the runway was reopened. We received clearance to land and did so uneventfully.
Of our 12 bombs, three exploded in a low-order detonation which damaged a couple of aircraft on the field but fortunately, no one was hurt. Poor old Gator 4 had been lumbering down the runway at about 60 knots when this entire conflagration occurred in front of his aircraft. He swore that when he took off with his right wheel in the dirt, but we later determined that his tire, although off the runway, was still on asphalt.
Initially, maintenance could not duplicate the stray voltage problem which energized the outboard jettison circuits, and the wing commander ordered the jet sent back to our home base in Korea. About two months after our little incident, the same aircraft jettisoned two 370-gallon wing fuel tanks from stations 1 and 9. Because stray voltage is here one moment and gone the next, it is very difficult to trace.
In retrospect, our saving grace was that the two bomb racks released simultaneously. Had they come off asymmetrically, we would not have been able to stop the roll into the heavy wing at barely 200 knots and … well I wouldn’t be writing this column right now.
So ends the saga of Gator 3 and the day I bombed my own airfield.
Not sure of the exact date, but late in the DaNang AB (366th TFW “Gunfighters”) part of the TDY by the 35th TFS (F-4Ds) from Kunsan AB, South Korea. (DaNang became a “turn” base in July of 1972; 35th moved to Korat RTAFB (388th TFW.))
The approximate date would be May 22nd or 23rd 1972. The mission was what we called a “Bien Hoa double turn”.
Launch from DaNang, work with assigned airborne FAC (O-2/OV-10) for Close Air Support (CAS) mission (usually helping US or SVN Army units engaged with enemy ground forces) or a fixed target identified by the FAC (usually a Viet Cong truck park, troop formation, small AAA activity, etc.). Land at Bien Hoa for gas and rearm; launch again and recover at Bien Hoa; then launch and recover at DaNang. Armament load was normally 10 MK 82 HiDrag 500# bombs (called Snake Eye, Snake or Shake) and 6 Napalm canisters (called Napalm or Bake). (Usually called ‘Shake and Bake’.)
This mission was the first mission of the day for our 4 ship, call sign “Bullet”, I believe. Capt Will Mincey was the scheduled flight lead. We were briefed a “standard” FAC mission with a couple of other options depending on where we were sent after takeoff. The procedures applied for all 3 scheduled sorties. As you might imagine, some in-flight procedure revisions (audibles) were often required. Normal items covered: bingo fuel to Bien Hoa by drop region (Corp area); bomb pattern (altitude, dive angles, right hand wagon wheel, FAC called roll-in headings, only 2 passes with any ground fire, bombs ripple, then napalm ripple, etc.); visual overhead pattern recovery, weather permitting; weather drop options, diverts, airborne emergencies, etc.
An unknown (unremembered) Lt was #2. Jim Beatty was #3 and I was #4 (As a SEFE, I may have been giving a tactical or instrument check to someone in the flight.)
After 0730 takeoff, contact was made with Hillsboro (?) control who passed the flight off to a Covey (?) FAC in II (two) Corps. Covey briefed a TIC (troops in contact) situation; mixed USA and ARVN forces under fire from Viet Cong holding a line of 10 to 15 huts/hutches along a north-south segment of road WSW of Qui Nhon. Covey is in contact with ground FAC, who states they are in trouble and are receiving heavy automatic gunfire from 50 to 100 Viet Cong. Due to location of friendly forces, our run-in is restricted from the east to west (good, since sun will be behind us; but, bad because the road and line of low buildings run north/south) and between 260 to 300° release heading. As we arrive in the target area, Covey marks (2.75” FFAR white smoke rocket) the northern most hut.
Lead calls ‘tally smoke’; echoed by 2, 3, 4. Given the friendlies’ situation and the perpendicular attack heading to the line of huts, Will, the flight lead, calls “pairs”.
The Lt missed the “pairs” call, apparently, and holds high and dry after his pre-briefed 2 passes. His strings of 10 Snake and 6 Nape ran a ‘little’ long to the west of the road and made the friendlies hunker down.
The 3 remaining of us (all target arms) give a text book demonstration of FWS Grad accuracy low angle weapon employment. The Covey FAC would occasionally move our aim point up and down the road based on the ground FAC’s info on where the automatic gunfire was coming from. Our 15 MK82 High Drag releases decimate the huts along the road with some surprisingly large secondary explosions. The Covey FAC is pretty cool, telling us the ground guys are jumping up and down in glee as we wipe out the enemy. A couple of times we could hear the ground FAC’s excited voice over Covey’s radio.
(On about our 3rd bomb pass, I was a little too close behind Beatty on his pass, so I moved my aim point to a remaining hutch toward the north end of the line. As I am lining up for my run-in, I check #3 to see if he’s taking any ground fire. What I do see is one of Beatty’s 2 MK82s come off in “slick” configuration, i.e., the fins on one bomb did not open up and cause it to decelerate – it was sailing along pretty close to Jim’s F-4. I called “Beatty, pull up, bomb went slick.” He snatches the jet up and away from the frag pattern (I don’t think there was any damage to the jet). Whew!
Not sure now if Will called singles for the napalm, but we all dropped singles, burning what was left of the structures along the road. Covey’s feedback to us during and after our drops was really heartwarming. He and the ground FAC made us feel like superheroes for ‘saving’ our US and ARVN troops from serious casualties. The BDA report (as I remember) from the ground was ~ 5 buildings, 11 structures destroyed and 79 KIAs.
This was the most personally gratifying combat mission I ever flew. I was proud to have helped out our Army brothers. (And eternally grateful to be an Air Force jock instead of an Army platoon leader on the jungle floor.)
From Jim Beatty:
I clearly remember the call to pull up as it scared the living s–t out of me. Thank God you called or I would probably have been a mort. If there had been a bitchin’ Betty in the jet she would have been a-squawkin’. I think the LT’s name was” Larry Taylor” but wouldn’t swear to it… I do know we all jumped in his chili for not paying attention to lead as to what he wanted and when, plus putting the friendlies at undue risk. It was surely a gratifying mission as we accomplished what CAS is all about and did so in a very accurate and professional manner. Considering the experience level of at least three of us, one would expect nothing less. God, it is so great to remember the good things we accomplished. It made it all worth while and I am sure we would all gladly do it all over again “no questions asked”.
Jim
The author is Joe Lee Burns, USAF Fighter Pilot & Colonel, USAF retired
Compilation of 35th TFS Stories – Kunsan / DaNang / Korat – Circa ’72
This is in response to Emails from Doyle Glass (author) and Rick Keyt (Webmaster 35th TFS F-4 site). I plan to share this document with my kids and grandkids.
Joe Lee writes: 4/30/07 in response to an Email on several subjects
Doyle,
Do you have a framework for question topics or is it free-flowing experience?? I am a Texan and proud of it. I’d fly on Lyle Becker’s wing anywhere, anytime. (Big fighter pilot compliment.) Come to think of it, I guess I already have flown on his wing everywhere. (81st at Hahn AB, Germany and 35th Kunsan/DaNang/Korat, SEA)
Joe Lee writes: 5/3/07 in response to interview – clarifications
If you can, let me know how Lyle sounds next week. He’s been under the weather. I thoroughly enjoyed being in the same squadron with him at Hahn (81st TFS) and then the 35th. If he sounds too “tight” tell him I told you what his middle name is . . . . . He always used to say his name was Lyle “f-ing” Beckers. I have to hook you up with another 35th Panther – Jim Beatty. He shot down a MiG-21 with the F-4E 20 mm gun. Break, Break.
Some names of Air Force people who had a direct, strong influence on my growth as a fighter pilot in roughly chronological order:
Capt Jim LaChance (ex-F-100 pilot) – Emergency Procedure Officer in my T-37 pilot training squadron at Reese. ‘64
Capt Dave Connett – my AC at George and Ubon. Taught me lots about flying. ‘65-‘66
Capts Bob Hutton and Bob Ashcraft at George and Ubon. Represented what a fighter pilot should be. Smart and fun-loving. ’65-‘66
Majs Mike Kidder, Bob Foster, Wally Aunan, Gary Retterbush and Lyle Beckers at Davis-Monthan and Hahn. The tricks (and hard work) of being a good fighter pilot. Living through flunked ORIs. I wanted to do good, so these guys would be proud of me. ’67-‘70
DID NOT want to be like 49th Wing CC at Holloman Col “Black” Jack Bellamy. He “led” by using fear and intimidation on his troops – not very effective. Aunan & Beckers were at Holloman, too. ’70-‘71
35th TFS – Lt Col Lyle Beckers, Maj Retterbush; and contemporaries: Capts Jim Beatty, Joe Moran, Will Mincey, George Lippemeier – I was in the company of fighter pilot heroes. And my hope for the future AF, Lt Jack Overstreet who I took under my ‘wing’ at Kunsan/DaNang/Korat. ‘72. LtCol Boots Boothby, Ted Laudise, Jerry Nabors, Maj Randy O’Neill – great leaders at Nellis 64th FWS Aggressor Squadron. ’72-‘74
Joe Lee writes: 6/27/07 Recap of Telephonic Interview
Doyle,
Sep 1971 – Oct 1972. Personnel “toads” wanted to send me to SAC flying Bombers! after FWS graduation. I fought it very hard. I won, BUT got sent “remote” to Korea as retribution. Kunsan AB, Korea – 35th TFS, “Panthers” – F-4D (close to Chonju and Iksan ) Weapons Flight Commander. We sat nuke alert for a few months, then it was cancelled. (Yea!) 3rd Tac Ftr Wing Stan Eval / Flight Examiner (Standardization Evaluator/Flight Examiner). Lyle Beckers was a friend and a damn good SQ/CC.
1 April 1972 APRIL FOOL’S DAY – recall was a disaster!!
The 35th was alerted and deployed to DaNang AB, South Viet Nam. Later moved to Korat RTAFB, Thailand. I didn’t join the squadron in-theater until about 15 April. I flew:
37 missions over North Viet Nam
19 of which were ‘Linebacker’ Route Package Six
CAP/escort/strike/CAS missions
48 combat missions South Viet Nam / Laos
20 July 1972, my trusty F-4 was shot down by AAA and we were (finally) rescued by Navy chopper.
Note: Counting both combat tours (assignments), I ended up with 137 total missions over North Viet Nam (18½ missions in Route Package 6) and a total of 257 combat missions.
Apr 1, 1972 – Jun 5, 1972. Deploy to DaNang AB, South Viet Nam
The 35th was one of the most experienced F-4 squadrons in South East Asia (SEA. Although we had about 8 1Lt aircraft commanders, we had been training them for 6 months prior to deployment. The rest of the squadron averaged over 1800 hours of F-4 time and included 8 Fighter Weapons School graduates. Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Lyle Beckers, Major Walt Bohan, and Captains Charlie Cox, Jim Beatty, Joe Moran, George Lippemeier, Will Mincey, and me. Gary Retterbush was another very experienced fighter pilot with over 1000 hours of F-105 time.)
The 35th TFS was ‘scrambled’ to deploy to DaNang because of the North Vietnam Army’s Tet offensive. Recall was the early morning of Saturday, 1 April, 1972. It was ‘slow’ at first because of hangovers from Friday Happy Hour(s), AND it WAS April Fool’s Day! I was home on mid-tour leave at the time, but joined the squadron mid-April.
Capt Jim Beatty gave me my ‘local checkout’ ride (~16 April ’72, I think) – supposed to be a milk-run close air support mission – but, we were diverted into NVN across the DMZ to Route Pack 1 to attack two (2) SAM sites!!!! Jim always says he snuffed out his Benson and Hedges cigarette in his palm when Hillsboro Control said “the fingers lake area” – it was a known hot spot to avoid if you weren’t going to attack it!! They shot lots of AAA and an SA-2 at us!!! Jim (who was in my back seat) said I passed the ‘check-out’ “because we didn’t die”.
We flew 2 sometimes 3 times a day, mostly close air support missions – low threat and high satisfaction (the Forward Air Controllers passed on the kind words from the ground commanders).
These pictures are from Joe Lee Burns collection. Click on the first photo to enlarge it. See Joe Lee Burn’s bigger version of the Da Nang AB picture of the 35th TFS guys with arrows going from the names to the people in the picture plus a list of guys in the squadron the day the picture was taken who missed the photo op.
You many then click on the >> or << symbols to move forward or backwards in picture viewer.
The following is the text of an email message I received from Dennis VanLiere, the backseater in Veins 2, a two ship flight of 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron F-4s flying a close air support mission in Military Region 1, the northern most sector of South Vietnam:
I was TDY to the 35th TFS from late April 1972 into October 1972, from the 36th TFS. I was a WSO and flew a replacement F-4 in shortly after the squadron arrived in DaNang, and then joined them a couple of weeks later. Along with Gene Doyle, we left a previously perfectly good F-4 in a rice paddy near and around the Qua Viet River on May 25, 1972 as part of Veins flight two ship.
We landed around 8:30 a.m. near some South Vietnamese Marines who were not supposed to be there, walked, then rode out on an APC after talking to the US Marine Captain advisor who had been coordinating with the FAC. He told us he thought he saw a trail of smoke away from the aircraft when he heard the explosion which blew part of a stabilator off. The airplane stopped flying soon after that and we punched out immediately.
The APC took us to a rear area where we talked to a USMC Lt Col, Major and CMSGT who were manning bunker with the first TOW ground missiles being used in the war. They showed us a North Vietnamese Army tank trying to hide under a palm tree while they worked other F-4s on it. We flew out of there with a USMC chopper to Hue. Met the Air Force command team at Big Control and gave them a short debrief. The Colonel there took us on a jeep tour of the city and saw an Army Colonel friend of his warming a chopper up on a pad and asked him to take us to Phu Bai, a few minutes away. He did and took us up to their ready room and showed us some trophies they had gotten from tanks and armored vehicles they had taken out with helicopter missiles.
While there someone came and asked if the Air Force guys wanted a ride back to DaNang, and if so, they needed to get down to the flight line where a USAF chopper was warming up. We made that flight and landed in front of Gun Fighter Village on the flight line at about 4:30 p.m. . . . out of touch with home the whole day. After debriefing, we made a quick stop in the squadron where someone had written on the beer refrigerator Doyle/VanLiere – $16,000,000 at $.25 apiece for beers. If you forgot to sign out to fly, you had to buy throw in $4.00 for 16 beers for the squadron beer supply. I guess losing an F-4 (Unit price of an F-4D was $4Million) was more serious than not signing out.
As I was going back to the quarters, the night crews were just getting ready to go to the squadron. My roommate, Joe Boyle was just coming out as I was coming in. I was muddy and more than a little bedraggled. He said “What happened to you? You look like you got shot down!” As I passed him to go to bed I replied “I did.”
The 35th was a special group, a good bunch of flyers with great leaders who did more than their share of damage to the enemy cause. I was also the squadron intel guy, combing through the daily intel reports for results of our missions.
FYI: I have an audio tape made by John Huwe who was in the back seat of Veins 1 when Veins 2 was shot down. The crew of Veins 2 is heard trying to get a visual on Veins 1 when one of them says something like “Nice secondary.” He saw a big fire ball on the ground and at first thought it was an ammunition supply exploding after being hit by a Mark 82 500 pound bomb. The fireball, however, was the F-4 exploding when it hit the ground. One of the crewmen then sees the two parachutes and then realizes that Veins 2 was shot down.
One morning during the winter of 1973 I left the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron building located adjacent to the center of the Kunsan AB, Korea, runway. Four of us were on our way to the south end of the runway to sit on air defense alert. During my time at the Kune the wing always had two F-4s on air defense alert to intercept any unidentified airplanes that approached the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). We had to be airborne within ten minutes from the time the bell rang – literally there was a very loud bell sound that when activated caused us to run to the airplane, do a cartridge start and blast off into the sky and follow the instructions from the air traffic controller who vectored our two F-4Ds to the target.
I will never forget this particular morning because the four of us watched as one of our F-4D models crashed and burned trying to make a heavy weight take off. The D model had three external tanks with full fuel plus a simulated B-43 nuke bomb (2,060 or 2,120 lbs). I don’t have the D model weight stats handy, but a block 50 E model with this configuration would have been 57,120 lbs. That is a heavy takeoff weight!
The airplane didn’t crash entirely because of its weight. The Phantom crashed primarily because it had an engine fire right after max abort speed and never got enough airspeed to stay in the air. The Phantom was on fire as it got airborne. I could see the flames coming out of the airplane as it passed me a few hundred feet off of the ground. We watched as the airplane disappeared behind a small island at the south end of the Kunsan runway. The airplane descended behind the small hill on the little island. We then saw a big orange and black fire ball, but no chutes. I remember the awful feeling I had at the time watching two of my friends die. Fortunately both guys ejected safely behind the small hill on the little island, but we could not see their chutes.
Chuck Banks, the pilot, told us later that he realized he was on fire immediately after getting airborne plus the tower told him on the radio. As Chuck was reaching for the panic button to blow everything off the airplane he was distracted when the Phantom lost all electrical power while just a few hundred feet above the runway. The loss of power got the crew’s attention. Instead of pushing the panic button anyway (it had a battery backup) Chuck put the RAT (ram air turbine) out to get electrical power. He then became distracted by the stalling airplane and never did hit the panic button. The heavy weight of the airplane and the loss of power caused by the engine fire meant that the airplane did not have much airspeed and was unable to climb. As the airplane slowed and started to descend because of no power the frontseater gave the eject order. I recall the backseater telling us later he said “I’m out of here” as he pulled the ejection handle.
The reason the airplane was configured with the tanks and two nuke bombs is because that is how it was configured when the Operational Readiness Inspection team landed at Kunsan. The airplane and crew were on nuclear alert when the ORI team arrived so during the ORI they were going to be tested by flying a low level mission in the same configuration and dropping their bombs on target +/- two minutes of their TOT.
Joe Boyles says Chuck Banks was the pilot. Ron Price was the GIB. I recall us laughing in the squadron building when the crew returned because Ron Price said they busted their ORI check ride because Chuck attempted a GIB Ladd that was 100+ (or however many miles Kunsan was from the bombing range) miles short of the target and he was not within 2 minutes of the TOT. The low angle drogue delivery (LADD) was one of two bombing profiles USAF F-4s used to drop nuclear bombs.
Click on the title above to see Chuck Banks’ comment to this story.
These pictures were taken by members of the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron while TYD from Kunsan Air Base, Korea, to DaNang Air Base, South Vietnam, and Korat Air Base, Thailand in 1972.
Click on the first photo to enlarge it. You many then click on the >> or << symbols to move forward or backwards in picture viewer.
On January 3, 2012, Nadine S. Pearish wrote the following to friends of her father, James M. Beatty, Jr:
It is with a sadden heart that I am sending you this e-mail. I am writing to inform you of James M. Beatty’s Jr passing today, January 3, 2012. I found your addresses among my father’s belongings and felt that the closeness that was shared in life would be continued in his death. As the tears stream down my face there are many names that I remember from my childhood days and other names that I have heard my father speak fondly of. I know he will be missed by many.”
Joe Lee Burns wrote the following about his good friend and comrade in arms:
’66 - Ubon – Jim Beatty story - Does anybody remember when the Base Commander brought Robert Mitchum into the O’Club bright and early one morning and how we greeted him and what occurred after that? I do. As Mitchum entered the club one of our fearless leaders (I believe it was Bob Ashcraft) shouted out “lets say hello to Robert Mitchum“; to which we all replied (as taught to do by our elders) “hello Arz-hole,” then came the call to say hello to the ‘Arz- hole’ to which we all replied “hello Mitchum“. WE then asked him to please join us at our table which he did, excusing himself from the Base Commander by saying he wanted to get to know us a little better. This occurred at about 0830. From that point on until about 1100, we tried and successfully accomplished getting him thoroughly shiffassedon his favorite drink of gin and tonic. After several unsuccessful attempts by the Base Commander to rescue him, whichhe declined, we all ended up in front of the club having pictures taken with him. By that time his eyes, which are normally squinted, were barely slits. I remember being amazed as to how well-informed he was and his sincerity in talking to us. . He was a pretty much down to earth guy. Just another day in an otherwise dull combat tour for us!!
’72 DaNang - Capt Jim Beatty gave me my ‘local checkout’ ride (~16 April ’72, I think) – supposed to be a milk-run close air support mission -but, we were diverted into NVN across the DMZ to Route Pack 1 to attack two (2) SAM sites well guarded with AAA!!!! Jim always says he snuffed out his Benson and Hedges cigarette in his palm when they said “the fingers lake area” – it was a known hot spot to avoid if you weren’t going to attack it!! They shot lots of AAA and an SA-2 at us!!! Jim (who was in my back seat) said I passed the ‘check-out’ “because we didn’t die”.
’72 DaNang May – Close Air Support – Troops in Contact with the enemy – (On about our 3rd bomb pass, I was a little too close behind Beatty on his pass, so I moved my aim point to a remaining hutch toward the north end of the line. As I am lining up for my run-in, I check #3 to see if he’s taking any ground fire. What I do see is one of Beatty’s 2 MK82s come off in “slick” configuration, i.e., the fins on one bomb did not open up and cause it to decelerate – it was sailing along pretty close to Jim’s F-4. I called “Beatty, pull up, bomb went slick.” He snatches the jet up and away from the frag pattern (I don’t think there was any damage to the jet).
’72 Korat 20 July - Jim was also my wingman when I ‘accidentally’ got shot down departing North Vietnam.”
Read Joe Lee Burns detailed description of the mission in which he was shot down, ejected and rescued by the Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin called “A Ridge to Far.”
Joe Moran wrote:
“We were in the 35 TFS TDY to Danang from Kunsan. Jim was #3. Rolled up and found 2 MiG 21s 4,000′ directly below him same direction. Barrel rolled back, stoked the AB’s and started across the circle. Claims he did not go supersonic. Unable to get AIM 9Js to growl. Closing fast went to guns. He was in an old E model (no pinkie switch). MiGs broke. He pulled pipper in front for high angle shot. KILL. Over g when he pulled up. Egressed at speed of stink. No truth to the rumor that airplane never flew again. Jim claims low altitude butter fly dart sorties in the FWIC syllabus prepared him for that shot. He always went down and away to get there the quickest (with the greatest angles). This was end of April 1972. First gun kill in an F-4E. Handley’s book claimed he was the first in May. I talked to Phil ’bout that and he concedes Jim was the first but his book was already out and ‘you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube’.“
Here is the obituary of Major James M. Beatty, Jr.
Maj. James M. Beatty Jr. was one of America’s unsung heroes. He flew 229 combat mission, 147 in North Vietnam, and during one of those missions got a confirmed gun kill on a MIG 21. Maj. Beatty earned the Silver Star, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, and 14 Air Medals among many other awards and decorations during his combat flying. He had 3,250 hours in the F-4 and F-15 aircraft. Maj. Beatty was a recognized expert in aerial combat, and culminated his Air Force career as the Air-To-Air Test Project Manager in the Fighter Weapons test Group, Nellis AFB, Nevada.
After leaving the active Air Force, he continued to serve his country as an F-15 academic and simulator instructor for more than 22 years at Tyndall AFB, Panama City, Fla. His service in the U.S. Air Force and his vast experience was essential in developing future Air Force warriors. As an instructor pilot and simulator instructor, he trained more than 1,000 F-15 pilots and air Battle Managers for the combat air forces during his time at Tyndall. His superior instructional skills enabled the 325th Fighter Wing to meet pilot and air battle manager production goals.
Maj. Beatty was born in Eau Claire, Pa., and had lived in Panama City since 1988. He was a graduate of Grove City College, and served in the USAF from 1963 to 1976.
He is survived by his wife, Mary C. Beatty of Panama City; his children, Natalie L. Hauck and husband, Raymond, of Panama City, Nadie S. Pearish of Panama City, Lisa M. Campbell of Butler, Pa., and John W. Fecich III and wife, Patty, of South Hampton, N.J.; his grandchildren, Alecia N. Mills and husband, Jeremy, Thomas E. Hager III and wife, Julia, Samuel J. Hauck, Jacey L. Hauck, Jolene L. Eiler, Joseph M. Eiler, Troy S. Pearish, Kristopher R. Pearish, Christopher J. Campbell, Jacob F. Campbell and John W. Fecich IV; his great-grandchildren, Serenity A. Murphy, James J. Murphy, Lena M. Mills and Ayden C. Hager; his brother, Dean G. Beatty and wife, Carol, of Eau Claire, Pa.; his sisters, Gail Buzard and husband, Jack, of Eau Claire, Pa., and Faye Herman and husband, Ken, of Pittsburgh, Pa.; and numerous nieces and nephews.
No services will be held locally. Funeral arrangements in Pennsylvania will be handled by H. Jack Buzard Funeral Home, 201 S. Washington St., Eau Claire, PA 16030,
Thirty-eight years ago, I stood on the tarmac of DaNang Air Base, the northern-most fighter base in South Vietnam. DaNang had the unenviable reputation of absorbing frequent rocket attacks, hence the nick-name “rocket city.”
My base of assignment was in South Korea, but the North Vietnamese changed that when they began their Easter 1972 offensive by attacking the South with more than 200 thousand troops. Since the American ground presence had been drastically reduced since 1969 and the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) was quickly overwhelmed, the only way to stop the onslaught was with airpower. My squadron, the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS) “Panthers,” was the first (of what turned out to be many) to deploy to augment the fighter units already operating from South Vietnam and Thailand.
Initially I was assigned to the 421st TFS “Black Widows” to help replace their combat losses. I quickly learned that the “widows” were appropriately named – their losses resulted in frequent funerals. They were poorly led – the squadron commander was a glory-seeker. I vowed to get out of that unit as quickly as I could. Three weeks after I arrived, the Panthers were reunited as an integral unit. I had survived my short stint with the Black Widows.
As opposed to the home-based units, my squadron was very well led. For one thing, we had far more experience – eight of our pilots were graduates of the Air Force Fighter Weapons School, the graduate school for fighter pilots. Our commander Lyle “Sky King” Beckers was one of those graduates and very professional. Our operations officer Bill Mickelson was extremely good with people. Together, they made a good team.
The fellow I flew most often with was North Carolina State graduate Charlie Cox. Charlie was my flight commander, had 2,000 hours in the Phantom, and a previous war tour. Charlie was a very demanding pilot who pushed me quite hard. I would follow him into a fiery furnace.
I turned 24 shortly after arriving at DaNang. With my 65 hours of Phantom experience, I was pretty typical of the young lieutenants in my squadron. We had to grow up fast.
Our squadron was assigned to the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing “Gunfighters” and we lived in Gunfighter Village. It was pretty crowded – my room was built for two, but I had three other roommates, two of whom were subsequently shot down (but fortunately rescued). The food was rotten. Our dining options were limited and none of them were good. I got food poisoning more than once.
I said that DaNang was often called rocket city. There was a North Vietnamese artillery battalion within a dozen miles of the base and they would launch an attack at least weekly and always at night. A minor attack would be five 122mm Kutyusha rockets and a heavy attack would be 15, all in the span of five minutes. The Kutyusha was an unguided rocket with a five inch warhead – if it ever hit anything, it would cause significant damage. I only recall one ever hitting Gunfighter Village, exploding just outside the building next to mine. It hurt a couple of fellows pretty bad.
I spent 11 weeks at DaNang before our squadron was sent to another base in Thailand. In that time, DaNang lost 13 Phantoms and many other aircraft as well. We flew a lot – in May, I flew 41 missions. In some cases, we were attacking targets within 15 miles of the base; the enemy was that close. All of my missions were flown against targets in either South or North Vietnam; I never flew a single mission into either Cambodia or Laos.
In mid-June, the 35th packed its bags and headed for Korat Air Base in Thailand. It was a huge change. Korat was a paradise – the food was much better; we didn’t have to worry about getting rocketed at night; our living conditions were improved; and the nearby city of the same name was a mecca of exotic sights and sounds. The missions were quite long (some as long as 5+ hours which is a long time to be strapped into an ejection seat) and frequently hazardous, but coming home made it worthwhile.
I spent four more months flying combat until mid-October when the Panthers returned to our home base of Kunsan, South Korea. By that time I had flown 121 combat missions, 43 of which were over North Vietnam. We had helped to blunt the Easter attack and bring the enemy to the negotiating table. A few months later, an armistice was signed and our POWs began to return home. It was a hard job well done.
These are Richard Keyt’s pictures taken while he was a member of the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron while TYD from Kunsan Air Base, Korea, to Korat Air Base, Thailand in 1972.
Click on the first photo to enlarge it. You many then click on the >> or << symbols to move forward or backwards in picture viewer.
On April 1, 1972, while members of the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Kunsan Air Base, Korea, slept, an early morning phone call summoned USAF Colonel Tyler G. Goodman to the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing command post. After communicating with 5th Air Force headquarters in Japan via the secure “walk-talk” teletype system, Colonel Goodman instituted the squadron’s silent recall procedure, which was designed to reduce the chances that nonessential personnel would know of the recall.
Thus began the April Fool’s day deployment of the 35th TFS to Vietnam and Thailand to participate in the “Southeast Asia War Games” and Operation Linebacker I. Later that day, 14 F-Ds departed Kunsan Air Base for Clark Air Base, Philippines. On April 5, 1972, 35th TFS crews began flying combat missions from Ubon Air Base, Thailand. The following day, other 35th TFS crews began flying combat missions from DaNang Air Base, South Vietnam.
Some of the 35th TFS Guys Pose for a Group Photo in front of the Squadron Building Just Prior to Departing Kunsan AB, Korea, for Southeast Asia.
The 35th TFS soon consolidated the squadron and moved all of its men and F-4Ds to Korat Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand, where I joined it. During the summer and fall of 1972 as part of Operation Linebacker I, the 35th TFS conducted strike escort missions into Route Pack VI, the most heavily defended area in the history of aerial warfare. Each strike escort mission consisted of four 35th TFS F-4s flying in “fluid four” formation on the perimeter of the strike force (the F-4s carrying bombs) as the strike force ingressed and egressed the target in Route Pack VI. The strike escorts usually flew the F-4E armed with four AIM-9 Sidewinder heat seeking missiles, 3 or 4 AIM-7 Sparrow radar guided missiles and one six barreled 20MM gatling gun. When a strike escort carried only three Sparrows, it was because a single AIM-7 missile was replaced by an ALQ-119 jamming pod that jammed enemy SA-2 Guideline surface to air missile (“SAM”) radars.
The SA-2 SAM was a 32 foot long flying supersonic telephone pole. The radar guided missile could fly Mach 3.5 (three and one half times the speed of sound) and had a range of 25 miles and a maximum altitude of 60,000 feet. It was a formidable weapon and responsible for the loss of many U.S. aircraft over North Vietnam. The missile had a warhead that weighed 195 kg (130 kg of which is high explosive) and could detonate via proximity (when it got as close as it was going to get), contact and command fusing. At the altitudes F-4s flew over North Vietnam, the missile had a kill radius of approximately 65 meters, but anything within 100-120 meters of the detonation would be severely damaged.
The strike escort F-4s were the second line of defense if enemy MiGs got past the MiG CAP (combat air patrol) F-4s. The job of the strike escorts was to engage and destroy MiGs that threatened the strike force. If the MiGs got too close to the F-4 bombers, the bombers would be forced to jettison their bombs and take evasive action to avoid being shot down.
In the hierarchy of flying, the jet fighter is the pinnacle, but aerial combat is the fighter pilot’s ultimate experience. Tom Wolfe said that fighter pilots “have the right stuff” in his best selling book of the same name. Tom also wrote a short story called “Jousting with Sam and Charlie, the Truest Sport.” It is about a Navy F-4 crew that took off from a US aircraft carrier and got shot down by a surface to air missile (a “SAM”). The crew was rescued from the Gulf of Tonkin by a Navy helicopter and ate dinner that night in the officer’s mess / ward room or whatever the Navy guys called it. I believe the short story is in Wolfe’s book called “Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine.” It was first published in a magazine, but I cannot remember which one.
In 1980 I was working on a masters degree in tax law at New York University School of Law. Tom Wolfe gave a talk to the students about his book “The Right Stuff.” I attended and found it very interesting. Tom spoke about a chapter he wrote for the book, but his editor didn’t let him put in the final version because it didn’t have anything to do with the rest of the book. Wolfe spent a lot of time researching “The Right Stuff” by hanging out with fighter pilots on Air Force and Navy bases. The deleted chapter was all about fighter pilots and what it was like to fly fighters in the US military. Tom said that his research showed that most fighter pilots were white Anglo Saxon protestants who were first born sons.
After Tom finished the speech he came into the audience and talked to people and signed autographs. I approached him from behind and waited for a chance to get his attention. I finally called out “Mr. Wolfe,” but he did not turn around. I then said “I am a white Anglo Saxon protestant first born son who flew F-4s in Vietnam.” That got his attention. Tom turned around and we had a lively discussion for an extended period of time about flying fighters. Tom told me that I should read “Jousting with Sam and Charlie, the Truest Sport.”
A few weeks later, I was wasting time in the library. I grabbed a volume of bound magazines off the shelf and thumbed through it. By chance I came across “Jousting with Sam and Charlie, the Truest Sport.” Excellent story. What are the odds of randomly finding the story? I searched for the story on the net tonight, but only found references to it.
But, I digress. This is about the men of the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron who achieved the ultimate fighter pilot dream, to engage and destroy an enemy MiG in aerial combat. The vast majority of military pilots who flew in the Vietnam war were not fighter pilots so they never had a chance to engage a MiG. Most fighter pilots who flew in the Vietnam war never flew into North Vietnam where the MiGs were. Most of the fighter pilots who flew into North Vietnam never engaged a MiG. The fraternity of Vietnam era fighter pilots who actually engaged a MiG in life or death aerial combat is very small and very elite.
Lt. Colonel Ferguson’s F-4D that he flew back to Kunsan AB, Korea, in October 1972 when the 35 TFS RTBd.
Ask Joe Lee Burns or Gary Rettebush Why 8 Air to Air MiG Kills are Listed
Official USAF Records Credit the 35 TFS with 6 MiG Kills
My squadron had a lot of members of the aerial combat fraternity because it was tasked with the strike escort mission in Route Pack VI. The following table lists the members of the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron who were credited with MiG kills during the time we were TDY to Korat Air Base, Thailand, in the summer and fall of 1972. When they made their kills, all of the aircrews were flying the F-4E with the internal 20MM six-barrel gatling gun.
Lt. Col. Lyle Beckers & Capt. John Huwe
Call sign: Balter 01 MiG-19 with an AIM-7 Sparrow
Capt. James Beatty Jr. & Lt. James Sumner
Call sign: Balter 03 MiG-21 with the 20MM cannon
Major Jon Lucas* & Lt. Douglas Malloy
Call sign: Eagle 3 MiG-19 with an AIM-7 Sparrow
Lt. Col. Lyle Beckers & Lt. Thomas Griffin
Call sign: Finch 01 MiG-21 with an AIM-9 Sidewinder
Major Gary Retterbush & Lt. Daniel Autrey
Call sign: Finch 03 MiG-21 with the 20MM cannon
Major Gary Retterbush & Capt. Robert Jasperson
Call sign: Lark 01 MiG-21 with the 20MM cannon
*Major Lucas was a 34th Tactical Fighter Squadron pilot.
Dan Autrey was my roommate. Dan and Gary Retterbush were awarded the Silver Star for their kill. Dan made a great tape recording of a mission north of Hanoi during which he and Gary Retterbush had a spoofed SAM launched at them while they were attacked by two MiG-21s from low and behind that each fired two Atoll heat seeking missiles at them. Dan told me after the mission what it felt like when he heard Lt. Col. Beckers in Lark 01 call “Lark 3 break left.” Dan looked to his F-4′s seven o’clock position, saw four supersonic missiles coming at him and said “oh shit, left, left, left.” I have the tape and will soon write a story about that close encounter of the frightening kind.
Finch flight was part of a large strike package of aircraft flying in the general area of Hanoi, in Route Pack VI, North Vietnam. The strike force consisted of:
F-4 fighter bombers carrying bombs
F-4 strike escorts whose job was to prevent the MiGs from attacking the strike force
F-4 chaff bombers whose job was to drop small pieces of tin foil along the route to the target to degrade the enemy’s radar
F-105 wild weasels whose job was to troll for SA-2 Guideline surface to air missiles (SAMs, which were 32 foot long flying telephone polls with a speed 3 times the speed of sound) and destroy the SAM sites, and
While we were heading to the target, several North Vietnamese MiG-21s jumped the strike force. The MiG’s came from high and behind my flight and dove down through us firing their missiles as they came. It was a rather chaotic time!
During the maneuvering that followed, our flight broke apart and we ended up as two elements of two F-4s. I maneuvered to the six o’clock position behind a MiG-21 and Dan Autrey, my backseater, got a good radar lock on the MiG. Conditions were excellent; almost text book. I fired two AIM-7 Sparrow radar guided missiles, which did not guide. They simply went ballistic and did nothing except alert the MiG pilot to his impending peril.
I had a lot of overtake and continued to close on the MiG. I changed my armament switches from the AIM-7 to the AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking infrared missile. As soon as I was within AIM-9 range (approximately 9,000 feet), I got a good audio tone for the AIM-9′s. I fired three Sidewinders at the MiG, but they either did not guide or their proximity fuses did not work.
The last missile went close by the cockpit and got the MiG pilot’s attention! He broke hard and I followed and continued to close on him. I got in position to use my 20mm canon (a six barreled Gatling gun in the nose that was capable of firing 6,000 rounds/minute) so I fired a couple of short bursts at the MiG. Some of the bullets hit the MiG’s left wing near where it joined the fuselage. The MiG started burning immediately. I was now closing way too fast. I did a high speed yo-yo. The maneuver once again put me in position to fire another burst from my gun. These bullets hit in and around the cockpit and the aircraft pitched up. I saw the pilot slumped forward in the cockpit. The aircraft then stalled and snapped down as I flew past it. I watched the burning MiG until it hit the ground and exploded in a cloud of smoke and fire.
Ground Crew Paints a Red Star on the Side of this F-4 that Killed a MiG
My Second MiG-21, 8 Oct 72
On October 8, 1972, I was the leader of Lark flight, a flight of four F-4E Phantoms flying cover for a flight of four F-4Ds on a bombing mission near Yen Bai Airfield in North Vietnam. I was also the mission leader of this very small strike package.
My backseater, Captain Bob Jasperson, had a problem getting his canopy to lock just prior to takeoff. Bob cycled his canopy several times. He finally pulled it down on the rails and got it to lock. Bob told me later that he knew this would be his last Southeast Asia flight and he didn’t want to abort on the ground. Thanks, Bob!
After we refueled from the KC-135 tankers on the ingress route, one of my F-4s in my flight had a mechanical problem. I sent that airplane and a wingman home. Under the rules of engagement at that time, I should have aborted the mission since I only had two fighters in my flight, but I chose to continue the mission.
As we approached the border of North Vietnam, “Disco” (the USAF airborne EC-121 warning aircraft orbiting in Laos) warned us that a MiG was scrambling and that we were probably its target. As we continued inbound, Disco gave us frequent warnings of the MiG’s progress and location. It was indeed coming our way.
The engagement was almost like a GCI (ground controlled intercept) in reverse. Disco announced the MiG was at our 10:30 high. Sure enough, my backseater, Bob Jasperson, pointed out a silver glint in the sun as the MiG turned down on us. I called a “hijack” and had the fighters jettison their external fuel tanks and light afterburners as we turned into the MiG. A few seconds later I had the F-4 bomber flight break as the MiG came closer to the bombers.
The MiG dove down trying to attack the breaking bombers. I was on his tail, but at a very high angle off. Angle off is the angle between the attacking airplane and the target if you extended a line straight back from the target’s tail and then measured the angle between the attacker and the extended line. The book said that the AIM-9 Sidewinder would not guide to the target if the angle off at the time of firing was greater than 45 degrees.
I fired two AIM-9 heat seeking missiles at the diving MiG. I did not expect either of them to guide because the angle off was far beyond the limits. Both missiles went ballistic as I anticipated. I then tried to jettison the rest of my missiles including the three AIM-7 Sparrow radar guided missiles. I was yelling for Bob to give me a caged gun sight because the reticle was completely off of the windscreen due to the high angle off and the high Gs we were pulling. Bob got the gun sight locked. I very quickly did a little Kentucky windage estimate, pulled the pipper way out in front of the MiG and high and fired a short burst from my 20mm Gatling gun.
To my pleasant surprise the bullets hit the MiG in the fuselage near the left wing and it immediately burst into flames. The pilot did not hesitate and ejected immediately. Then came an even bigger surprise; he had a beautiful pastel pink parachute! I circled him one time and then regrouped the flight for our trip home.
The entire engagement was visible from the Yen Bai, North Vietnam airfield tower, if anyone was in it at that time. The engagement lasted only a minute or two from start to finish. When I landed, I checked the gun and found that I had fired only 96 rounds, including the exciter burst that was probably about the half bullets fired.
I was extremely pleased that I had a gun camera for this mission (not all birds had them) and it had checked out good going in. When I removed the film pack it looked like it had functioned correctly. I gave the film to the gun camera guys and told then to really take care in developing it. About an hour later they came to me with the results and a great film, but all of it was flying straight and level after the refueling. I tested the gun after leaving the tanker and the camera apparently continued to run after the test firing. All of the film was used long before the dogfight began. So, unfortunately, I did not have the great MiG kill camera film that I had hoped for!
Check six, Busch.
Simulated Video of Busch’s first MiG Kill
This vidoe is pretty cool. The text under the video on Youtube says: “In game video of a YAP2 mission loosely based on an actual gun kill by an F-4E Phantom piloted by Gary Retterbush over N. Vietnam on September 12 1972. He later went on to earned a second gun kill just a month later.”
What can I say? Happy Hour had been long and exuberant, and now 07:00 hours Saturday April 1, 1972 my squadron, the Black Panthers (35th Tactical Fighter Squadron), and its F-4Ds were on the move from Kunsan airbase Korea to South East Asia (SEA). TDY to Vietnam. (YES! Recall was on APRIL FOOL’S DAY! It was NOT pretty. But, that’s a whole ‘nuther’ story!). It was just the beginning. May 1972, hardly unpacked, we left the 366th TFWing at DaNang to join the 388th TFW at the Royal Thai Air Force base at Korat, Thailand.
The 35th was one of the most experienced F-4 squadrons in South East Asia (SEA). Although we had about 8 1Lt aircraft commanders, we had been training them for 6 months prior to deployment. The rest of the squadron averaged over 1800 hours of F-4 time and included 8 Fighter Weapons School graduates (Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Lyle Beckers, Major Walt Bohan, and Captains Charlie Cox, Jim Beatty, Joe Moran, George Lippemeier, Will Mincey, and me).
0600 Hours, 20 July 1972
We are being briefed on a mission to Route Package 6; bombing the underground fuel storage area located about 12 nautical miles southeast of Hanoi. Our mission is a mini- strike package with 16 of our F-4Ds acting as “iron haulers”. That is, eight ships ((call signs “Caddy”(1st Striker) and “Buick” (3rd Striker)) each carrying 12 iron bombs (500 pound Mark 82) with delay fuzzes. An additional eight ships ((2nd Striker (“Dodge”) and 4th Striker (“Chevy”)) would be each be carrying 9 incendiary mix CBU 58s.
The ‘plan’ calls for Caddy and Buick flights to break open the earthen revetments with their 500 pounders and Dodge and Chevy flights to ignite the exposed fuel. Our MIG cover would be provided by eight F-4Es (“Pistol” and “Saber” flights) armed with Sparrow (radar guided) and Sidewinder (heat seeking) missiles, plus the internal 20mm Gatling gun. Each of the F-4s carried a radar jamming pod. All the aircraft and spares would be flying out of Korat. Support missions would include the mix of Wild Weasels, tankers and Command and Control aircraft.
Weather is reported to be scattered clouds in the target area, with a scattered to broken cloud deck to the east along our exit route toward the North Vietnam coast “feet wet”. Intelligence warns us about a potential ‘new’ Surface-to-Air (SAM) missile site just north of Thud/Phantom ridge, roughly half way between Hanoi and the coast line to the east.
After ‘wheels-up’ the 24 ship strike force and spares are to join up and proceed to `Purple’ Tanker orbit abeam of the city of Vinh out over the Gulf of Tonkin. After mid-air refueling we would cross the North Vietnam coast (`feet dry’) North East of Thanh Hoa. Our Initiation Point would be Minh Binh and from there to the target. After the strike we would egress NE then east just North of Thud/Phantom Ridge to feet wet, then South to Purple tankers and RTB (Return To Base – for us, back to Korat).
The Mission Commander, Caddy 1, is Major Walt Bohan and I, Caddy 3, am the Deputy Mission Commander.
The rest of the mission briefing is ‘normal – normal’. Well, except for this. Sometime during the mission brief, out of the corner of my eye, I notice that “Roscoe”, the Korat fighter pilot dog-warrior-mascot gets up and leaves the briefing room. “Aw, heck”, says me. That’s just a superstition, isn’t it? It probably doesn’t really mean this will be a “tough” mission (i.e., lose an aircraft). Heck, sometimes a dog just has to take a whiz!
All 24 aircrews and spares ‘step’ at 9:15 for a 10:30 takeoff.
(Now here’s where the hair on the back of your neck should start bristling – as in: “oh oh”, things aren’t going “as briefed”!! I know MINE did!)
Shortly after engine start Caddy 4 ground aborts Air Refueling Door Failure), dashes to a ground spare, but it ground aborts also. A ground spare replaces Caddy 4. (Capt. Jim Beatty in F-4D with 500 pounders, who had attended the Caddy flight briefing.) Taxi as 4 ship. At EOR (End Of Runway checkpoint) Caddy 2 ground aborts for a massive hydraulic leak. Caddy Flight takes off on time as a flight of three with the rest of the strike force in tow.
(Did I ever tell you about Jim Beatty’s ‘world renown’ May ’72 supersonic Mig-21 gun kill while flying an F-4E out of DaNang. Supersonic? Yep! He and his pitter had pretty sore necks as their F-4E went through ‘mach tuck’ and hit jet wash just as the Mig burst into flames!! Pegged the G meter!! The jet was down for a few days, too! )
Rendezvous with tankers in Purple orbit uneventful – gas passed in reverse order (i.e. – 4, then 3, then 1) per briefing – except for Caddy 1 who keeps getting disconnected. He backs out so Caddy 3 and 4 can top off and then tries again. At about this time, an air spare joins Caddy flight. It’s an F-4E with CBUs from the 421st TFS, flown by Captain Sammy Small. He tops off after Caddy 4. Caddy 1 can’t get his Flight Control Augmentation System (CAS) to stay on line, is VERY sensitive in the pitch axis and can’t take any more gas. He aborts, making Caddy 3 the mission commander.
(I’ve never been on a mission with this much ‘trouble’ BEFORE we even get to the target!!)
Due to armament, flight call signs are rearranged. Caddy check in is “Caddy 3 check”, “2″ (Jim Beatty F-4D with bombs), 4″ (Capt. Sammy Small F-4E with CBUs).
(I am often questioned about proceeding with the mission as a 3 ship. Best I can remember there was a Wing policy that covered going on a mission with less than the fragged number of aircraft, armament different from fragged, etc. However, comma, the original Caddy 1 seemed to have been going to target with 3 jets; we had 12 ‘bombers’ and 8 ‘escorts’ right behind us; AND the target dictated delayed fused bombs to expose the POL followed by CBUs to assure the POL caught fire. “That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!”)
After drop-off from tankers, ingress proceeds as briefed: feet dry NE of Thanh Hoa, IP (Initial Point) at Ninh Binh to target. Slight weaving along route at an altitude of 18,000 to 22,000 feet.
(Another bad sign! When the flight switches ‘Master Arm On’, one of Caddy 2′s bombs just sorta falls off its rail! Cripes! Hope it doesn’t hit those Navy ships!!)
In bound route is eerily quiet. My ‘pitter’ Lieutenant Mike Nelson and I discuss target area responsibilities again. There is very little activity on the Radar Homing and Warning System (RHAW); only occasional, short beeps from various enemy radars (Ground Control Intercept (GCI), Fansong SAM (Surface-to Air Missile), and the larger Anti – Aircraft Artillery (AAA) tracking radars).
The ‘new’ Caddy 4, rightfully, since he was not in Caddy’s briefing, asks from which direction was roll in and moves to right combat echelon as we approach the target area.
I can see the target area is almost free of clouds – some scattered ones at 8 to 10,000 feet – a heavier, layered deck appears to cover the egress route.
For an underground fuel storage site, this one is fairly easy to identify from altitude due to good intelligence target photos of the dirt roads. As Caddy flight approaches the roll in point, a single 85-mm AAA gun starts shooting in the vicinity of the target area – dense black flak balls widely scattered at 15 to 18,000 feet. It’s 1145 hours.
“Caddy, check switches hot – Caddy has target in sight – Lead’s in.”
Ground level winds in the target area were forecast from the NE and it looks about right to me from the movement of low clouds and smoke from ground fire. Briefed aim point for Caddy’s bombs and Dodge’s CBUs was the SW half of the target area, so that Buick and Chevy flights could target the NE half of the target area without being hindered by smoke from Caddy and Dodge’s ordinance (and, hopefully, secondary explosions).
Caddy 1 is thundering ‘down the chute’ at 500+ miles per hour in a 60-degree dive. I stop the wind drift with the ‘pipper’ (aiming device) directly on the target and ‘pickle’ off my deadly weapons at 14,000 feet. (Funny how the ‘light, sporadic 85 mm flak seems MUCH heavier during the pass!!) All bombs off, I start a hard 6 ‘G’ pull, jink left, and then jink hard right as we bottom out about 7000 feet. I continue in a hard right turn climbing toward 10,000 feet and heading for the north side of Thud/Phantom Ridge.
Coming off target, Mike and I crane our necks against the G forces scanning the ground and skies for SAMs, AAA and Migs. I notice several 37 or 57 mm AAA guns joining in the defense of the target area – but still only at the ‘moderate’ level. As I look back over my right shoulder, I see my two wingmen below and inside my turn – no immediate threat to them or us, says my fearless pitter, 1/Lt Mike Nelson. As the join up to combat spread formation ensues, I get a look at the target area some 10 – 15 miles away. Black, heavy smoke, with fires visible at the ground, rising to some 18,000 feet as the second wave’s ordinance starts to impact. (Sierra Hotel!! We won’t have to come back to bomb THIS fuel dump for a while!!)
(That feeling of knowing that the bombs are on target is wonderful. The fact is our bombs didn’t always hit the target, or that if they hit the target, the ‘target’ really wasn’t there anymore – i.e., no secondary explosions. So far on THIS mission, it appeared the mission objective is accomplished and things look pretty good!)
As Caddy 2 and 4 join to combat spread (I’d been turning enough in a high-speed climb to give them cutoff), we see the thickening cloud deck to the East from 5 to 12,000 feet. This observation, plus the intelligence briefing on a possible new SAM (Surface-to Air Missile) site, makes me decide to drop down and egress at 500 feet Above Ground Level (AGL).
(YES, the thought also crosses my mind that a few MIGs might be lurking at low altitude to snipe at us along our egress route. Specially since I had just been on our Wing DCO’s wing the day before when he went out north of Thud/Phantom Ridge at low altitude!! Mike was busy fine tuning the radar in search of low altitude ‘bogies’.)
I hear a little UHF radio chatter as the following flights come off target, rejoin and start their egress. It sounds like we got lots of bombs on target with good secondary explosions and big fires. Not much activity on the RHAW scopes, but there is a SAM (Surface-to Air Missile) radar warning call from one of the flights exiting the area above 20,000 feet. I am maintaining my easterly heading at 500 to 1,000 feet AGL, in a slight weave with my wingmen in Vee formation. Mike splits his time between the radar scope, visually searching the skies for threats, and checking our geographical egress route. We are cross checking our location by counting the smaller north – south oriented ridges coming off the main East – West ridge. I radio the flight for a fuel check. All 3 of us have good fuel status.
I was in the 34th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Korat Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand, in 1972. We were the “Men in Black.” I was a very junior Captain then, but had come directly from a previous assignment at DaNang Air Base, South Vietnam. All USAF squadrons in Southeast Asia seemed to be manned by junior officers. There was usually only one or two patch wearers per base, plus a handful of second tour fighter types, plus a handful of heavy drivers and (old . . . it seemed at the time) Lt. Cols who had avoided a combat tour to that point. Eighty percent were Lieutenants it seemed.
So, by virtue of having been in theatre longer, I was one of the more experienced pilots in my squadron. Fairly soon after Linebacker I commenced in 1972, I found myself leading four ship flights on the North Vietnam air raids. I always brought my flight home intact, did the job to and from the target, and never did anything operationally to embarrass my commander. So, I remained in that role throughout the summer of 1972.
I well remember the arrival of the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Korat. They had a more seasoned mix of pilots and had been training operationally in Korea for things they were about to do in combat. The 34th and 469th TFS were mostly comprised of eager, but young talent that only had the benefit of a six month RTU (replacement training unit, i.e., F-4 basic flight training school) before being sent to their war theatre assignment.
Leadership of the 35th was strong. So it was the 469th, by the way. I remain loyal to my leadership in the 34th, but some have said it was a cut below the others. Future Lt. General Chuck Cunningham was one of my Ops Officers, then. He was a top notch combat leader and USAF leader. Anyway, I freely admitted while engaged in all this, that the performance of the 35th turned out to be a cut above the other squadrons. On a per-combat-day basis, they got more positive results than the other two squadrons.
Lt. Col. Lyle Beckers, squadron commander of the 35th TFS, after the war headed the Nellis Air Force Base survey of what the USAF needed to change post Vietnam. The answers turned out to be almost everything, including training, tactics, weapons, human-factor fighter design, visibility and switchology among other things. Because I had exchanged hostile missile fire over the North, I was asked for my input in that survey process. We got Fluid Four ash canned and got a decent air-to-air training doctrine out of it. There are some real Nellis heroes from that time . . . those who fought city hall. The rest is history.
The USAF and the Tactical Air Command under General Momyer at that time, did a good job of preparing RTU students for air to ground operations, but a hellatiously bad job of preparing young fighter pilots for air-to-air combat. I thought many times that the powers that be were legally negligent in failing to adequately train fighter pilots for one of their primary missions. “If I see a MiG, what do I do?” was a common refrain among those who suddenly found missiles on their aircraft instead of bombs. On paper, the USAF thought its fighter pilots were trained for aerial combat, but in reality, we were not.
Strike Escort
As Linebacker I quickly came to be organized, Korat Air Base assumed the “strike escort” role, whereby our flights of F-4Es configured with missiles instead of bombs escorted strike flights. The purpose of strike escorts was to ward off MiG attacks and protect the F-4 bombers going to and from the target area and generally help sound the alarm for threats of all kinds. So, typically, three or more flights of four F-4s of bombers and the same number of strike escorts would travel to and from the target of the day. There were some exceptions, but that role is what most of the missions up North were for the F-4 squadrons based at Korat.
On July 20, 1972, the route of the day to the target in Route Pack VI North Vietnam was over water, with all participants rendezvousing over the South China Sea northeast of Da Nang. We then proceeded north to the drop-off point with ingress from southeast of Hanoi and egress eastbound to the north of Banana Ridge, north of the Red River as it meanders toward Haiphong. A feet-wet post strike refueling gave us enough fuel to make our way back to our respective bases in Thailand.
The Long Delay
On that day, the mission briefer at Korat made a very specific point for me to wait until the preceding flight had taken off before doing so with my four ship flight. The ground choreography on that day was as precise and dramatic as any of the other Linebacker launches. We were toward the back of the parade to the runway. There was a relatively inexperienced Lt. Col. leading the flight ahead of me. The Korat arming area was large enough for two flights to arm, with spares. My flight was in position on time, next to the other flight. We armed up and were ready, but the flight ahead of me had a problem and was delayed for a long time. As more and more time passed it become apparent that making our tanker rendezvous at the designated time was going to be very difficult or impossible. The order for me to take off after the preceding flight was so public and so clear that I did not request permission to take off ahead of the preceding flight. Radio equipped supervisors were all over the place, but none of them told me to take off before the other flight. I followed orders, an old and important military tradition. We waited for the flight ahead of us to depart.
Finally, they launched. We followed immediately. I knew then that we would be lucky to even reach the tankers before they departed the track north bound. We pushed it up while we flew the 1.2 hour trek to the refueling track. We did all the normal in-flight systems checks and kept checking watches.
We were the last to arrive and got the tanker cell in sight just as they rolled out north. We cut them off and joined our assigned tanker, but with minimal time for refueling. I called my flight over to squadron common radio frequency and said, “Here’s the plan. One and two will refuel and escort our strike flight on in. Three and four, refuel after we depart. Then, take your two-ship up the coast to the egress point, perhaps you’ll be able to do some good as we’re coming out. Be sure to let the Navy know who and where you are so they don’t start calling you out as MiGs.”
Caddy 3 Goes Down
July 20, 1972, was the day Caddy 3 (Joe Lee Burns in the front and Mike Nelson in the back) got shot down. See “A Ridge Too Far,” for Joe Lee Burns’ first person account of getting shot down. Most of us egressed north of the ridge after the mission as planned, but my memory is that Joe Lee egressed south of the ridge, where he could see (and be seen) by the major line of communication east from Hanoi and its defenses. Joe would remember better, but I think it was a 57mm shell that put a big hole in his aircraft. I remember hearing the emergency beeper on guard frequency after Joe and Mike ejected and some of the radio traffic as it became clear that somebody got hit and went down. Caddy 3 managed to make it feet wet just off the mouth of the Red River in the vicinity of Haiphong. They were among the Karst islands. The rest of us were overflying them in the water on the way out of North Vietnam, but we worried about making it to our post-strike tankers to refuel.
Soon after I heard the beepers on the radio there were two rafts in the water. A fairly large unpowered water craft manned with multiple North Vietnamese from a nearby island was paddling toward our downed airmen. Meanwhile, overhead, my number 3 and 4 were taking control of the SAR (search and rescue) and trying to get the Navy to scramble its rescue resources. My second element saw the incoming sampan and went guns hot. They strafed across the bow of the gomer boat, one pass each. The gomers executed an immediate 180 degree turn and paddled even more furiously back toward their village.
Having probably never strafed over water before, our land-lubber USAF F-4 pilots both said that they almost killed themselves with the overwater strafe. It was hard to judge altitude and distance over water without any good references. As it turned out, it was fortuitous that my second element was too late to the tanker and not able to ingress into North Vietnam because they were waiting at the egress point in case they were needed. On that day, Joe Lee Burns and Mike Nelson needed their help.
Anyway, the Rescue CAP (combat air patrol) was successful. The Navy came through for the endgame and Joe Lee Burns and Mike Nelson lived to fight another day. I mentioned the happenings of the day to my Ops Officer / Squadron Commander from the perspective of my flight, in case “they” inquired about the anomaly, but nobody seemed to care. We all resumed the war the next day – business as usual.
In 1972 at Korat, there was a tactical rebellion among some of the younger F-4 pilots against the fluid four formation and its tactics. Whenever we could, we used a self-invented form of two ship formation and tactics while over North Vietnam. On July 20, 1972, my wingman was somewhat practiced and certainly willing when I told him to “assume the #3 role and position.” The strike leader uttered a negative epithet when I told him that he would be escorted by a flight of two F-4s rather than four on that day. I think we did it better. Fewer aircraft to keep track of, better proportion of resources assigned to the necessary roles, and a better fighting unit should it have been required.
“I loved flying like a mistress. Flying was first priority in my life after family, just below my love for America. I wasn’t ever the “best fighter pilot” in the world, but I was somewhere in the top ten for a while. What I really wanted to be was the best WINGMAN in the AF. I got to be pretty good. I wanted to be trusted, to be counted upon by my fellow pilots in the air.
I mentioned camaraderie. I cannot overstate the bond (facing danger, sharing views of mother earth from above, and sharing the excitement of challenge and success in the air) that is formed between fellow pilots who fly together regularly in training. Multiply by ten when you fly together in combat. And, no, it is seldom verbalized at the time. But you can see it in each other’s eyes every time you meet thereafter.”
The purpose of this page is to assist in finding old friends and squadron mates. The following people are former members of the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron or the 80th Tactical Fighter Squadron based at Kunsan Air Base, Korea, or the 36th Tactical Fighter Squadron based at Osan Air Base, Korea, who were sent TDY to Da Nang Air Base, Vietnam, and/or Korat Royal Air Base, Thailand in 1972, and whose address and contact information are known to Rick Keyt:
Ed Askins, 35th TFS
Dan Autrey, 35th TFS
Chuck Banks, 35th TFS
Lyle Beckers, 35th TFS
Joe Boyles, 35th TFS
Joe Lee Burns, 35th TFS
Tim “CC” Claiborne, 35th TFS
Gary Corbett, 35th TFS
Charlie Cox, 35th TFS
Dave Eastis, 35th TFS
Hap Ertlschweiger, 35th TFS
Chuck Jaglinski, 35th TFS
Bob Jasperson, 35th TFS
Rick Keyt, 35th TFS
Jim “Killer” Killoran, 35th TFS
George Lippemeier, 80th TFS
Dave Lowder, 35th TFS
Doug Malloy, 35th TFS
Joe Moran, 36th TFS
Mike Nelson, 35th TFS
Jack Overstreet, 35th TFS
Ron Price, 35th TFS
Jeff O. ‘Pitts’ Pritchard, 35th TFS
Gary Retterbush, 35th TFS
Carl Scheidegg, 35th TFS
Raymond Seymour, 35th TFS
Biff Strom, 35th TFS
Charlie Sullivan, 35th TFS
Jim Sumner, 35th TFS
Ron Thomas, 35th TFS
Cliff Young, 35th TFS
Dennis VanLiere, 36th TFS
Mickey Wilbur, 35th TFS
If you are a former member of the 35th TFS, 36th TFS or the 80th TFS and want to add your name to the list, or if you want to contact somebody on the list, send an email message to Rick Keyt at rickkeyt@keytlaw.com with your name and contact information. I’ll add you to the list if you are a former member. If you are trying to reach somebody on the list, I will forward your email to the person you seek and that person can decide whether to respond to your inquiry.
80th Tactical Fighter Squadron
The 80th TFS Juvats have the Headhunters Association for former and current members of the squadron. The squadron has regular reunions and is looking for lost Vietnam era Juvats to come to reunions. See the Headhunter’s website.
Kunsan SEA 1972 TDYers MIA
If you know how to reach any of our guys that are MIA (missing in America) or if you know of names that should be added to the list below, drop me a line at rickkeyt@keytlaw.com.
35th Tactical Fighter Squadron in front of squadron building Kunsan Air Base, Korea, 1 Apr 72
1st row: Mickey Wilbur, Charlie Sullivan, Ray Seymour, Ed Askins
2nd row standing: Bill Mikkelson, Jack Caputo,
2nd row sitting: Don Vogt, Mike Nelson, Jim Pinckley, Jim Sumner
Back row from the left: Sol Ratner, Gary Retterbush, Charlie Cox, Jeff Pritchard, Dan Silvas, Biff Strom, Ray “Howie” Howington, Jeff Musfeldt, Phil Lehman, Dave Lowder, Phil Winkler, Carl Scheidegg, Jack Storck, Cliff Young
35th TFS at Da Nang AB, South Vietnam, Spring 1972
See Joe Lee Burn’s bigger version of the below picture with arrows going from the names to the people in the picture plus a list of guys in the squadron the day the picture was taken who missed the photo op.
35th Tactical Fighter Squadron, DaNang Air Base, South Vietnam, May 1972
First Row from the left excluding Lt. Biff Strom in the intake: Capt.. John Huwe, Lt. Carl Scheidegg (2nd), Lt. Ray Seymour (3rd), Major Bill Kyle (4th), Capt. Chuck Jablinski (5th), Capt. Bill Tuttle (6th), Capt. Charlie Cox (7th), Major Ernie Leuders (8th), Lt. Boyle( 9th) and Lt. Ray Vogel (far right on the MK 82 bomb)
Front Seat: Lt. Col. Lyle Beckers, Squadron Commander
On the wing from the left: Lt. Ron Price, Lt. Phil Winkler (5th)
First row on the top of the airplane from the left: Lt. Mike Nelson, Lt. Larry Culler (2nd), Lt. Hap Ertlschweiger (3rd, but first guy standing on the wing), Lt. Jay Gaspar (4th standing up), ? (5th and far right standing up)
Back row on the top of the airplane from the left: Lt. Jeff Pritchard, Capt. Bob Jasperson (2nd), Lt. Ed Askins (3rd), Lt. Phil Lehman (4th), Lt. Jim Sumner (5th), Capt. Joe Lee Burns (6th – but digitally added by a certain high tech fighter pilot),
I was fortunate to have been able to fly the F-4 Phantom II supersonic (mach 2+) fighter bomber for five years from 1971 – 1976. Although I joined to United States Air Force to avoid being drafted into the U.S. Army and going to Vietnam, fate ultimately sent me to Vietnam.
During the summer and fall of 1972, I was a member of the 35th Tactical Fighter Squadronflying combat missions over South Vietnam, North Vietnam and Laos. The 35th TFS was based at Korat Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand, but was on temporary duty (TDY) from Kunsan Air Base, Korea. We brought our F-4D models from Korea, but we also flew the F-4E models based at Korat. The primary difference between the D and E models was that the D model did not have a 20mm canon and the E model had a 20mm canon built into the nose.
During the summer and fall of 1972, the 35th TFS had two primary missions:
Strike escort missions as part of operation Linebacker I into Route Pack VI, the most heavily defended area in the history of aerial warfare. Each strike escort mission consisted of four 35th TFS F-4s flying in “fluid four” formation on the perimeter of the strike force (the Phantoms carrying bombs) as the strike force ingressed and egressed the target in the Route Pack VI area of North Vietnam. The strike escort F-4s were the second line of defense if enemy MiGs got past the MiG CAP (combat air patrol) F-4s. The job of the strike escort was to engage and destroy MiGs that threatened the strike force. If the MiGs got too close to the F-4 bombers, the bombers would be forced to jettison their bombs and take evasive action to avoid being shot down.
Close air support missions primarily in the northern part (Military Region 1) of South Vietnam. These missions consisted of dropping bombs (usually Mark 82 500 pound general purpose bombs – slick, with fuse extenders and snake eye, but sometimes cluster bomb units “CBUs”) under the direction and control of a forward air controller. These missions were in defense of the good guys who were being attacked by Viet Cong or North Vietnamese army men.
When I arrived at Korat in the summer of 1972, the 35th TFS was divided into two groups. One group, the older and more experienced guys, flew daily Operation Linebacker I missions into Route Pack VI and the other group flew close air support missions. Because I was a young, inexperienced and very green 1st Lt., I was assigned to the close air support missions. I did not mind too much because the Route Pack VI missions were much more dangerous.
Although I did get to fly combat missions into Route Pack VI, most of the combat missions I flew were close air support missions at night in the northern part of South Vietnam or Laos. I usually flew two missions a night. After dropping all my bombs on the first target, my flight of two F-4s landed at DaNang Air Base, South Vietnam, to rearm and refuel. I then rendezvoused with another Forward Air Controller and dropped another load of bombs on the bad guys and returned to Korat.
My typical bomb load was twelve Mark 82 500 pound general purpose bombs. It was common for six of the bombs to have fuse extenders. Every bomb had at least one fuse, which was the device that caused the bomb to detonate. A fuse extender was a three foot metal tube that screwed into the nose of the bomb with the fuse on the tip of the tube. The purpose of a fuse extender was to cause the bomb to detonate three feet above the ground for maximum blast effect against troops in the open. Each bomb had a nose and a tail fuse that was selected by the pilot before dropping the bomb. If a building or a structure was the target, the tail fuse was preferred because it would cause the bomb to detonate after the bomb first penetrated the structure so that the full force of the blast would occur inside the structure.
A Normal Day at the Aerial Office
My normal work day consisted of waking in the late afternoon then showering, shaving and getting dressed in my nomex green fire retardant flight suit. I then rode the shuttle bus or hitched a ride to the Korat Air Base Officer’s Club for breakfast just before dark. After eating, I went to Fort Apache (scroll to the bottom of the page for two pictures of Fort Apache taken by Col. Grady Morris), the intelligence building on the flight line, to plan and brief my mission for the night.
Mission briefings usually started two hours before take off. First, an intelligence officer briefed all the crews on recent events in the ground and air war and specific information about my target area. We also got a weather briefing. Next, the flight leader of each flight of two or four F-4s conducted individual briefings for his flight. Most of the night missions involved flights of two F-4s.
During the briefing, we talked about the types of weapons delivery to be used to drop our ordnance, emergency air fields, search and rescue procedures, missing wingman procedures, rendezvousing with the forward air controller, and return to base (“RTB”) procedures. I usually had 10 – 30 minutes after the briefing to prepare to go to the airplane.
This 10 – 30 minutes of inactive time was when I was most afraid because the idleness allowed me to think about what I was preparing to do — use a multi-million dollar supersonic flying machine to drop bombs on fellow human beings who were trying to kill me at the same time I was trying to kill them. It was during this time I always went to the bathroom at the insistence of my nervous bowels.
My Flying Gear
About fifteen minutes before station time (the time designated to depart Fort Apache for the flight line and my airplane) I dressed for aerial combat. I put my wallet, money and all personal affects in my locker. The only identification I carried when I flew combat missions was my Geneva convention card and my US Department of Defense military ID card.
The G Suit
While flying the F-4, I wore a G suit or technically I suppose it was an “anti-G suit” because its purpose was to allow me to withstand Gs when turning hard in the F-4. The normal force of gravity we all experience is called “one G” or one gravity force. When a fighter turns hard, it can cause the airplane and its occupants to experience multiple gravity forces. During normal combat maneuvers, the F-4 frequently “pulled” 4 or 5 positive Gs. Five Gs means that the pilot’s body weights five times its weight. Moving while pulling 4 or 5 Gs is difficult, especially turning the head around to check the five or seven o’clock positions. While pulling Gs, I sometimes had to use my arm to push my head backwards so I could look behind the airplane.
The purpose of the G suit is to help fighter pilots pull more Gs before they gray out (lose peripheral vision) or black out (become unconscious). The G suit looks like an ugly weird set of pants and is worn over the flight suit. It zips on around each leg and the abdomen. The G suit has air bladders over the stomach, around the thighs and the calves of each leg. It also has a hose that plugs into an outlet in the cockpit. When the G forces increase, the airplane pumps air into the bladders in the G suit. More Gs means more air pumped into the suit. When the Gs decrease the air pressure in the G suit decreases until there is no air pressure in the G suit when the G force equals one. The G suit increases a pilot’s ability to withstand G forces because it constricts the lower half of the body and makes it more difficult for blood to flow from the upper body to the lower body. The result is that it takes more G forces to push blood from the brain thus giving the pilot the ability to withstand greater G forces before graying or blacking out.
My G suit was also a place to store items that otherwise could not be carried in the cramped cockpit of the F-4. My G suit had a pocket on the inner thigh in which I carried a USAF issued switchblade knife tied to a lanyard that was secured to the G suit. One end of the knife was always open because it was a special hook shaped blade the sole purpose of which was to cut four parachute lines to make the parachute more maneuverable. I also had a large jungle knife in a sheath with a sharpening stone attached to my G suit. I made sure I had several strips of gray USAF tape on the thigh area of my G suit. I used the tape to cover instrument lights that were too bright when I flew at night.
The Survival Vest
Next I donned my survival vest made of light-weight nylon material. It contained the following survival gear: two two-way radios, 50 rounds of .38 caliber ammunition, compass, tourniquet, first aid kit, two smoke flares (to make a lot of colored smoke) and several pen gun flares (to be fired into the sky). When I flew, I also wore a parachute harness into which the parachute straps contained in the ejection seat connected. The parachute harness had two under arm life preserver units (lpus) to be inflated if I ejected over water and three hundred feet of nylon line in a pack on the back of the harness. Because much of Southeast Asia was covered by thick jungles with trees over 200 feet high, the nylon line in the parachute harness would allow me to slowly lower myself to the ground if I ejected and my parachute got stick in the trees.
I took special care to check the two radios I carried in my survival vest. I made sure each radio worked properly and that the batteries were fully charged. I also put two extra radio batteries in my anti-G suit pocket along with two plastic bottles of ice. If I were shot down, the only way I would be rescued would have been to make contact with US forces on one of the three radios I carried (two in my survival vest and one in the survival kit in my ejection seat).
The last thing I did after putting on my survival vest, anti-G suit and parachute harness was to check out my Smith & Wesson .38 caliber Combat Masterpiece revolver from the survival gear people. I then grabbed six .38 caliber bullets from the big tin of bullets and loaded my little pea shooter and inserted it into the holster strapped to my leg. Although I had an additional 50 rounds of bullets in two bandoliers on my survival vest, the weapon was no match for an enemy soldier with an AK-47, but it might be useful for self defense against tigers and cobra snakes than inhabited the jungles of Southeast Asia.
Arriving at the Airplane
An hour before take off a USAF step van took us to the airplanes. The first thing I did was put my gear in the cockpit and do the Preflight Checks that consisted of:
Before Exterior Inspection Check
Exterior Inspection Check
Before Entering Cockpit Check
Cockpit Interior Check
Before Electrical Power Check
After Electrical Power Check
Checking the Ordnance
During the Exterior Inspection Check, I inspected each ordnance item. I made sure the ordnance was securely fastened to the airplane and that each fuse had a safety wire in it. The fuses had little propellers on their tips. The bombs were not armed (ready to explode) unless they had a fuse and the fuse was active. Before a fuse could become active, the propeller on the fuse had to spin in the wind fast enough to cause the fuse to become active. The purpose for the fuse, the propellers and the arming of the fuse was to prevent a bomb from colliding with another bomb when released and detonating under the airplane or from simply detonating spontaneously when released.
Before bomb release, the propellers on the fuses could not spin in the wind because they had a safety wire inserted in the propeller that prevented the propeller from spinning. When the bomb was released, the safety wire remained attached to the airplane and pulled free from the propeller. With the safety wire removed, the little propeller spun in the wind and armed the fuse. Once armed, the bomb would detonate when the fuse was “jostled.”
My airplane usually carried three AIM-7 Sparrow radar guided missiles and one ALQ-119 jamming pod in the four missile bays on the bottom of the fuselage. There were no MiGs in the South Vietnam airspace so the AIM-7s were not needed. Although there were a few SA-2 Guideline surface to air missiles (“SAMs”) in the northern part of South Vietnam during the NVA’s Easter 1972 offensive, I do not recall one being fired at me outside of North Vietnam.
Most Americans do not realize that the men and women who serve in the U.S. military frequently risk their lives as a day to day part of their jobs. Many military jobs are no more dangerous than the jobs of most other Americans. Some military jobs, however, are inherently dangerous and sometimes can be deadly.
For example, when I was flying the F-4 Phantom supersonic fighter (1971 – 1976) I could not purchase commercial life insurance because my job was too risky. I actually saw three fighters (two F-4s and one T-38) crash in peace time during the five years I flew fighters in the United States Air Force. I knew many people who ejected from crippled fighters. When you throw your body at the ground in a 45 degree dive bomb at 450 knots or engage in mock aerial combat with other airplanes at supersonic speeds, things can happen.
Most of us have heard the term “freedom is not free.” When we hear that phrase, we usually think of U.S. military personnel dying for our country in war, but it also applies in peace time and to accidents that occur in war time.
American military personnel die all too frequently so that the American people can enjoy the fruits of freedom. We should always remember our fallen heroes and the words of President Abraham Lincoln in his letter to Mrs. Lydia Bixby who lost five sons in the Civil War. President Lincoln wrote “I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”
Lt. Phil Clark (father) & Lt. Terry Clark (son)
Phil Clark was a 1968 Annapolis graduate and Navy fighter pilot whose A-7 fighter bomber was shot down over North Vietnam on December 24, 1972. Phil was first declared missing in action and later reclassified to killed in action. When Phil was shot down, he was married and had a very young son, Terry, and a daughter.
A few years after Phil’s death, Phil’s young wife died and his two young children were raised in Phoenix, Arizona, by their grandparents, Phil and Freda Clark. The elder Phil is a retired USAF Colonel and former bomber pilot. Phil and Freda were best friends for years with my parents. My dad is a retired USAF Major.
Terry Clark graduated from Brophy College Preparatory high school in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1986, and the US Naval Academy in 1990, twenty-two years after his father’s graduation from the academy. Terry followed in his father’s footsteps and became a Navy fighter pilot. I remember Terry and his sister visited my office one day for a legal matter shortly after Terry had received his wings of gold.
On February 18, 1996, Lt. Terry Clark was killed in an F-14 training accident off the coast of San Diego. I’ll never forget Colonel Phil Clark, Sr., telling me how difficult it was for he and Freda to go to Arlington National Cemetery twice, once to bury Phil and again to bury Terry. As a father, I cannot begin to imagine the pain and anguish Phil and Freda must have felt to have raised a son and a grandson to go to the Naval Academy, Navy pilot training and then be killed while flying fighters in defense of the United States. The three generations of Clarks are true American heroes of the highest order. They served our country quietly with dignity, honor and pride.
Captain Thomas A. Amos and Captain Mason I. Burnham
Tom Amos (35th Tactical Fighter Squadron) and Mason Burnham (421st Tactical Fighter Squadron) were killed in action during an F-4D combat mission over Laos on April 20, 1972. They were escorting an AC-130 gunship as it struck targets on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The AC-130s (known as “Spectres”) carried a 20mm six barreled gatling gun and a 105mm Howitzer canon. The Spectres were extremely effective at destroying military targets on the trail.
The job of the F-4 was to drop bombs on any troops that fired anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) at the gunship. The F-4 rolled in to attack a gun on the ground. The crew of the AC-130 saw a fireball on the ground and were not able to contact Tom or his backseater on the radio. The term used by the intelligence personnel to describe the incident was “no chutes, no beepers.”
I will never forget hearing those words from time to time when I was attending intelligence briefings before flying combat missions over Vietnam. The phrase meant there was no word on the fate of a downed aircrewman because when the airplane went down, nobody saw any parachutes or heard any beepers from the emergency radios that all aircrewmen carried. When I flew combat missions over South Vietnam, North Vietnam and Laos in 1972, I actually carried two radios on my person plus a third radio in the survival kit contained in the ejection seat. USAF F-4s had an emergency radio in the survival kit that could be set to automatically transmit the emergency beeper sound on UHF frequency 343.0 (the emergency frequency monitored by USAF airplanes) when the ejection seat fired.
Tom was the only member of the 35th TFS (my squadron) from Kunsan, Air Base, Korea, killed in action when the 35th TFS deployed to DaNang Air Base, South Vietnam, and Korat Air Base, Thailand, in 1972.
Tom Ballard and Ron Goodwin were killed flying an F-4 during a nuclear bomb delivery training mission over Korea on February 16, 1973. They were on a typical F-4 training mission. Tom and Ron were tasked to fly a low level route in their F-4D and deliver their first practice simulated nuclear bomb within 1,500 feet of the target plus or minus two minutes of a designated time over the target (TOT). One of the missions of the F-4 was nuclear bombing so F-4 crews frequently practiced the skills necessary to put a nuclear bomb on target within the designated TOT. In Korea, we usually flew a low level route 500 feet above the ground at 420 knots for about 30 minutes before reaching the target on the bombing range.
The F-4 had two ways to deliver a nuke bomb, the lay down method and the low angle drogue delivery (LADD) method. The lay down method is the simplest method. It involves merely flying straight and level over the target and releasing the nuke bomb at the proper time and place. The bomb falls away from the airplane, the nose of the bomb falls off to reveal a spike and the bomb floats to the ground in a parachute.
The LADD delivery method involves flying towards the target and at a predetermined distance the pilot pulls back on the stick and begins a steep climb approximating 45 degrees. At some point in the climb, the F-4′s Weapons Release Computer System releases the bomb. The nuke bomb then continues in an upward trajectory for a while before falling back to earth. The parachute on the bomb opens and the bomb then begins to float toward the ground.
The purpose of the LADD is to cause an air burst, i.e., a bomb that explodes above the ground, as opposed to a bomb that explodes on the ground. The nuke bomb contained a radar altimeter that detonates the bomb at a designated altitude above the ground. An air burst creates substantially more radioactivity than a ground burst of the same magnitude.
Tom and Ron flew a good low level mission to the Kuni bombing range on the west coast of Korea. When they flew over the target at 1,000 feet, their bomb did not release. The most common reason a bomb did not release was because the pilot failed to properly configure all of the switches necessary for the delivery. We called this a “switchology error,” which meant an error caused by improper setting of weapons switches. In the F-4 it was actually possible to select the switches in such a way that pressing the bomb release button caused the 20mm gatling gun on the centerline of the airplane to be released like a bomb. The powers that be were not happy when a pilot accidentally bombed off a gun that cost several hundred thousand dollars.
Tom began a 360 degree turn to make another bombing run so that he could release his bomb within two minutes of the designated TOT. The accident report speculated that while in the turn at low level (500 – 1,000 feet) the F-4 flew into the water. Tom was probably checking the switches in the cockpit trying to figure out why the bomb did not release and was momentarily distracted, which allowed the airplane hit the water. When you fly at high speeds (500 knots is 845 feet per second), there is not much room for error.
Duty, Honor, Country
Each of the above men exemplifies the concepts of Duty, Honor and Country, the foundations on which the U.S. military is built. I believe that the finest speech ever given is General Douglas MacArthur’s “Duty, Honor, Country” speech that he gave without notes to the West Point corps of cadets on May 12, 1962. In honor and remembrance of the six men named above and all of our fallen heroes of the U.S. military, I will close with excerpts from General MacArthur’s famous speech.
“Duty, Honor, Country — those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you want to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. . . . I regard [the U.S. soldier] now, as one of the world’s noblest figures; not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless. His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. . . . They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory. Always for them: Duty, Honor, Country. Always their blood, and sweat, and tears, as they saw the way and the light.”
Joe Lee Burns started this collection of memories to capture for his kids and grandkids events of the “REAL” reunion after our POWs came home from captivity in North Vietnam. If you attended the first convention, please tell us what you remember by making a comment at the end of this post.
Joe Lee Burns
The First “Official” Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association Reunion (our POWs were home!!). Anybody else with better memory than mine????
I remember the fancy (for back then) 4 screen slide show with fade in/out sequenced pictures of America (“America the Beautiful” background music??).
Who opened the party?
About 3,000 seated for dinner????
Who was the Master of Ceremonies from the strip downtown?
What was the program flow???
Didn’t the MC (told jokes?) come on as dessert was served??????
Guys kept taking notes up to the MC, welcoming POWs home from the different units.
Was this when deceased insect was declared???? All the guys in Mess Dress and 75% of the ladies in formal dresses went supine in a flash!!!
The MC said “It was the most amazing thing he had seen in 25 years of show business.”
Wayne Newton and Patti Page (?) were very gracious in their comments. Was there a third singer??
Yellow/gold table napkins tied together and hung from the rafters as Patti sang “Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree”?????
Was ringing the Rat Freedom Bell the last event of the formal part of the evening????
The First “Official” Red River Valley Association Reunion (our POWs were home!!) 24/25 Aug ’73 at the Las Vegas, NV Convention Center.
Before the activities started for the evening, I had the opportunity to introduce myself as a 8th Wing GIB then and then my wife De Ann to General Robin Olds. He was more impressive than ever – at least, my wife thought so!!!!!
3,000 attendees for the Dining Out in the massive hall room.
Toward the end of the meal service, a 4 screen slide show began with hundreds of scenic pictures of Americana slowly flashed in sequence. Various patriotic songs were played in the background – America the Beautiful was one. Breathtaking.
Different units sent notes to be read by the Master of Ceremonies mostly welcoming their wing/squadron POWs back home from captivity. One Wing had the MC announce “Deceased Insect” and 2500 folks in formal dress go supine immediately!! (For civilians: “A favorite fighter-jock game was called D___ B__. In a bar, when anyone shouted ‘D*e*a*d B*u*g!’ everyone, including generals, had to drop to the floor with hands and feet extended into the air, like a “deceased insect”. Last man down had to buy drinks.”)
One of the entertainers (Patti Page) sang “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree”. Before the song was ended, a couple thousand yellow dinner napkins are spontaneously tied together in about a 100 yard strings and handed from row of tables to row of tables, and eventually the strings are draped from the rafters of the huge hall. (It was the central theme of the popular song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ole Oak Tree”, Written by Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown and recorded by Tony Orlando and Dawn among many others, as the sign a released convict (POW) requested from his wife or lover (country), to indicate that she (his family and brothers-in-arms) still wanted him and that he would therefore be welcome to return home (US of A). He would be able to see it from the bus driving by their house, and would stay on the bus in the absence of the ribbon. He (they) turned out to be very welcome: there were a hundred yellow ribbons.)
What a beautifully inspiring night to welcome home our freed brothers.
Neither of these events was scripted – but the emotion of the event, the spontaneous ingenuity of fighter pilots, and the love for our long lost POWs made for an absolutely magical night of revelry.
Joe Moran
Ross Truesdale yelled out, “RING THE F_______ BELL!
Jack Overstreet
What I remember from the first “Real Reunion” about the bell was that, when they rang it (for the first time)…..it was underwhelming. No clear-pitched tone….sounded more like…. “bonk!” Guess an ops check before the event would have detracted from the claim of ringing it for the first time at the event.
A bunch of us flew in from Holloman with our wives on a C-118…..had to be at least 60 people. They brought coolers on board and we drank beer and bloody marys enroute to Nellis. The cockpit door was open and if you leaned out in the aisle you could see out the front of the plane. When the pilot turned base to final at Nellis, he badly overshot the runway and the plane erupted into catcalls and general declarations of derision for his half-assed performance. When we shut down on the ramp and opened the door, we were met by some Nellis O-6 who yelled up: “Where are you all from?” and some obviously inebriated passenger yelled back: “From? We’re from the IG and this is a no-notice ORI!” Funny, but this O-6 failed to see the humor and withheld the placement of the stairs at the plane to allow us to reassess our behavior before being allowed to deplane onto his ramp.
One post-reunion vignette I heard about probably needs to be verified, because I was not a witness. As you know, when the dining-out broke up….everyone headed for the strip. They probably had never seen so many people in mess-dress in so many bars and casinos. After the fact, I heard that some unnamed captain had given Robin Olds a ration of sh** in a bar and the two of them distinguished themselves by getting into it with each other and rolling around on the floor of the bar in their mess dress!
Carole Thompson
The guest speaker who rang the bell for the first time was General Alexander Haig. He didn’t do a very good job and had to have help. Have other stuff if you are interested.
DeAnn Mitchell (Burns)
Besides the lifting of the tied together yellow napkins, I remember most….the vast hallway outside banquet hall where I say men (long lost friends) see each other from afar and rush to meet & hug & cry. Couldn’t watch for long – it felt intrusive.
Joe Lee Burns responds
Me, too. I remember seeing Larry Chesley (POW 433rd ‘66) from my station in the Welcome/Information Booth. I didn’t quite get to him for a hug before I started crying. And seeing Larry made me remember losing Frank Ralston (Lt 433rd MIA/KIA May ’66 – godfather to my son, Patrick) all over again.
Carole Thompson responds
I certainly remember the deceased insect routine. Had on a beautiful blue gown with lots of cleavage. Went to the floor with the rest of the gang. But I didn’t show dress off to the “fullest” until we left that night and I was carrying a large plastic bag filled with ‘POWs Never Have a Nice Day’ buttons which broke while we were crossing Convention Blvd. Bob (Carole’s husband) went to the sidewalk and watched as I picked up buttons and put them in my gathered skirt and shoved in boobs, picked up buttons, pushed in boobs, picked up buttons and shoved in boobs. He thought it was real funny when the cab drivers stopped, not to help, but just to stare. Needless to say I had better boobs back in those days.
The bell ringing and the tying of the Son Tay tennis shoes was done during the business meeting if I remember correctly. Damn, it has been so long ago.
A couple of good guys to get info from would be JD Allen, now our treasurer, Dale Leatham and Don Harten. Think they were all involved in the First Real One.
Patti Page was wonderful. She didn’t even bat an eyelash while the guys covered her in napkins.
Think your numbers of about 3,000 is correct.
We chartered a Braniff airplane from here (San Antonio) and took the former POWs, their wives, all the MIA wives and the local Rats in SA. Plane sat at the airport in Vegas for the weekend waiting to bring us home and still managed to lose Swede Larson’s luggage!
Don Harten
I don’t think Dale worked on the first reunion with us but JD, Sparkie, Jim Stieber, Sam Bakke, Pete Gamage, Boots Boothby, Bob Anderson and myself, among others, DID work on that first reunion.
I was closest to Patti Page when the napkins started coming forward. The look on her face for about 15 milliseconds was sheer terror but she didn’t miss a beat.
Also, I was Decorations Chairman, among other things, on that first reunion. I ORDERED Red, White and Blue napkins and they were laid out (I think) but when Leslie and I walked into the Convention Center and saw those “puke” yellow, standard hotel napkins sitting there, I threw a fit. Too late. I was sitting front row, far right helping Charley Vanda direct the stars onto the stage in the proper order (sat in front of the 57th Wing CC) and it was only when the napkins began their “sea wave” toward us that I began to understand why the yellow napkins instead of my Red, White and Blue. Some POW beat me to the hotel staff!!!
What a reunion. It will be thoroughly covered in one of my books. . . . . .
Carole Thompson responds
Another fun thing that happened on the way to the reunion was the Braniff pilot knew he was flying a bunch of AF/Navy pilots so he got on the mike and told everyone he was going to fly the plane himself for awhile. Have no clue why he told us all that, but he shouldn’t have. As soon as he got the plane level, we all took off like charging bulls to the back of the plane and she nosed up. He neatly trimmed her back level and – you got it – everyone ran to the front of the plane. He got back on the mike and told us he gave up and was putting it on autopilot.
The poor hostesses tried to serve those little bottles of booze from the cart, but couldn’t do it fast enough to suit all of us; so a few of the guys helped by standing up by the cart, looking at the bottles and yelling, “Who wants scotch?”, (or rum or vodka or bourbon, depending on whatever bottle they had in their hand). They then tossed the bottle in the direction of the first “Here!” and proceeded to the next bottle until the cart was empty.
We kept all the empty bottles in the pillow cases and brought them back to Joyce Perrine’s home. (She is a KIA wife now, but was a MIA wife then, who went with us to the reunion.) We refilled the bottles, not always with the right booze, and had an Easter egg hunt in her backyard a few weeks later.
Loved reading what you have compiled. That all brings back great memories.
Would you like me to put something in the “Sweep” about you looking for people’s memories?
Mary Ellen Nabors
I had never heard of Foster Brooks before and was completely taken in by his pretending to be an Admiral (and a very drunk one). I was horrified that his aide and staff and all the officers there would let an admiral embarrass himself and the US Navy. I kept praying for someone to get him off the stage, and finally was so thankful and relieved to realize it was all an act; and then it was very funny.
I was honored to sit beside Lee Ellis, not only because he was one of the POW returning heroes that night, but because our daughter had worn his POW bracelet throughout his captivity.
The first bracelets were made by a Carol Bates, who worked for the Defense POW-Missing Persons Office. The bracelets came in various finishes, and on each bracelet was engraved, at a minimum, the name, rank, service, loss date, and country of loss of a missing man / POW from the Vietnam War. bracelets.)
Jerry Nabors
I remember very clearly an incident while standing in the registration line. I believe Sam Bakke was registering people at the time. A 3 star general in front of me was bitching about the cost (something like $30). A young Captain in line beside him with a few drinks in his belly told the guy registering him “just tell me how many zeros to put after the 3″.
It was a great night. It was topped off by Patti Page and the yellow napkins. We’ll never forget!
Joe Kittinger
The event was held at the Hilton. The first morning at the opening ceremonies everyone was assembled in the main auditorium. Alexander Haig, the ex Army general, Secretary of State, was the distinguished guest. He had the task of ringing the “Freedom Bell” for the first time, signaling that the POW’s were home. He just gave a light tap with the bell. A Captain in the first row, jumped up and shouted “Ring the God Dam Bell.” It shocked Haig, he wasn’t used to fighter pilots shouting at him. But fortunately, he quickly reacted and rang the bell, several times with vigor, much to the delight of the assembly.
At the banquet, that evening Pat Boone was the master of ceremonies. He started singing a song and a Captain in the first row, stood up and signaled Boone to come to him for a message. At first Boone ignored the Captain but finally he stopped singing and moved over to the edge of the stage where the Captain was waiting. The Captain whispered the message to Boone and Boone told the audience he did not know just what the message meant but he was asked to say “anybody that can’t tap dance is a queer.” With that 3,000 people stood up and tap danced; much to the delight of the entire audience.
Then the laughter died down and everyone was again seated. Boone again started to sing. With that the Captain again stood up and immediately Boone stopped singing and immediately walked up to the Captain at the edge of the stage. There was no delay this time. It was quite apparent that Boone was eagerly awaiting his next message. He leaned over and the Captain again gave him a message. Boone once again said that he didn’t know what the message meant but he said “Dead Bug” and with that 3,000 people pushed their chairs back and tumbled to the floor. The laughter lasted for several minutes. Finally, Boone started signing his song again, looking expectantly in the direction of the Captain for another show stopping message to the gaggle. It was a magic night that lasted until the sun came up. We were all very delighted to be there to celebrate the occasion.
Every fighter pilot in the Air Force, Navy, Marines and Army was there, including several Buff crews. It was a hell’va reunion. There were several fighter pilots widows in attendance that reminder all of us how lucky we were to be there to honor our fallen comrades, that were not as lucky as we were . S.H.
The first morning my good friend Robin Olds walked up to me and said “Kittinger, you let your fangs hang out too far.” He was referring to me getting shot down on my 483rd combat mission chasing a MiG over Hanoi. I shot down a MiG on 1 March 1972 and was looking to increase my score. Robin and I had several adult beverages during the two day event. My book ‘Come Up and Get me‘ will be released in May 2010 which has several exciting stories about flying and fighting in the F-4, my career in the Air Force and other assorted adventures. Check 6!
A 35th Tactical Fighter Squadron F-4D killed a MiG. F-4D 65-0608 was the spare on 12 September 72 and filled in as Robin 2 with a flight of 3 F-4Es from the 469th TFS, 388th TFW. It was flown by a crew from the 469th on a strike escort mission defending smart bombers attacking a railroad bridge near Yen Bai Air Base, North Vietnam, 60 miles northwest of Hanoi. The aircraft was credited with a Mig-21 kill. F-4D 65-0608 is now on permanent static display at Duluth, MN, with its Mig-21 kill star on the engine intake.
