Every veteran has a good story to tell, you do too.
Phuc Yen - Episode 5
The war in Vietnam lasted ten years, from 1965 to1975. During that time 58,000 Americans lost their lives fighting. That is an average of 5,800 lives per year. In 1970 there were 52,627 automobile fatalities in the United States, almost as many as were killed in the ten year war.
During the worst of the war in Vietnam, there were 543,000 military personnel in that country, that year was 1969. According to the 1970 United States census, the population of the nation was 203,302,031. Do the math: point two six (.26) per cent of the population was actually involved in the war, .000028 per cent were killed in the war that year. Just numbers marginalizing death.
But, when you know 25 or 30 of those men who left their wives and children to serve their country and did not come back, .000028 becomes a much larger number. On the twenty-first day of August, 1967, one of my friends became just one of those marginalized numbers. His name was J.F.Trembly, his friends called him Jay.
Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Trembly was flying in a flight of two A-6 Grumman Intruders. The Intruder is a two seat, two engine all weather attack bomber. It could carry a much heavier load of bombs than my A-4, and deliver them with greater accuracy. Jay and his wingman were flying to a target north of Hanoi. Rather than have to fly in the heavily defended area near Hanoi, Jay’s flight was planned to fly east and north of Hanoi, up by the northern border of Vietnam. Vietnam borders on China. Apparently the flight inadvertently entered Chinese air space. We were not at war with China, but then, we weren’t at war with Vietnam. Nevertheless, the Chinese fired surface to air missiles at the intruding aircraft, knocking them both out of the air. The Chinese did not register a diplomatic protest, they simply shot them down. Nothing appeared in any newspaper about this.
All four pilots ejected safely, were captured by the Chinese Army and imprisoned. There is some irony here because Jay volunteered to go to war so that he would have a combat record. Jay and I were peers and I wanted a combat record as well, but I wanted to become an Admiral. Jay did not have a Naval career in mind, he wanted to be in politics and run for office back home in Pennsylvania. Jay might be a Senator now, running for President of the United States, but instead he died unceremoniously in a Chinese prison along with two of the three remaining pilots. One of the four survived the prison ordeal and was repatriated.
In the National Football League, there is an expression for when a wide receiver runs by a defensive back, then catches the ball. The defensive player “got burned.” In pilot jargon, when a pilot gets shot down or killed, we say “He got smoked.” A defensive back can be “burned” several times in a game. You can only get “smoked” once. Ensign Tom Wrigley got smoked. He was the junior officer in our squadron. He was flying on the wing of the Commanding Officer at 18,000 feet. The flight of two A-4s had not yet crossed the beach, they were out over the Tonkin Golf, when a 100 millimeter, radar tracking AAA site fired four rounds from approximately 14 miles away. One of the rounds hit Tom Wrigley sending his plane out of control and crashing in the ocean. There was no ejection, no parachute and no warning. The skipper circled as the plane was falling. “Eject, eject!” he yelled. “The seat won’t fire” said the young pilot. He had lost all control of the jet and couldn’t bailout. He got smoked.
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You know now that our best defense from a Surface-to-Air Missile was to see it coming, then dodge it. And you know that the skies must be clear to see the missile launch. When it was time for weather briefing the pilots wanted to hear that it was CAVU, clear and visibility unlimited. Just like we have a Hurricane season in the United States, in Asia they have a Monsoon season which coincides with our storm season. In September of 1967 there was only one operating Mig airfield. It was just to the northwest of Hanoi and it was called Phuc Yen airfield. President Johnson decided it was time to put Phuc Yen out of commission.
As you can imagine, Phuc Yen was very heavily defended, the most heavily defended target in all of North Vietnam. Arriving enemy aircraft (American Air Pirates) could expect to see the entire panoply of Soviet made weapons. Everything would be used to defend Phuc Yen. All of the Mig aircraft were in individual fortified concrete revetments. It would require surgical precision to destroy these protected airplanes. This was a mission of a lifetime.
The strike would be what we called an Alpha Strike. That meant it was to be a major, coordinated air strike involving different military agencies and lots of airplanes. According to the briefing, the Air Force would fly the first strike of the day, coming in at sunrise, flying low behind a ridge of mountains west of Hanoi. Thirty minutes later the Navy would roll in, followed by another Air Force strike 30 minutes later and continue throughout the day. The Air Force would fly out of Udorn Airbase in Thailand.
I was to be in the first Navy strike. My squadron would need twelve planes. Eight of the planes would be in the bomber group configured with a centerline 300 gallon fuel tank, and eight Mark II 500 pound bombs on the wings with concrete busting fuses. For this strike we needed four planes to perform the Shrike mission. Shrikes are the missiles that home in on enemy radar, tracking the signal to its source. These pilots would go out in front of the strike group to try to drum up some business. Normally, we would only have two Shrike aircraft, but we were expecting heavy SAM activity. Altogether there would be 42 airplanes in the strike group, and that represents almost half of the airplanes on the ship.
Our sister squadron would provide ten bombers and two tankers. The two F-4 fighter squadrons would provide eight airplanes each, four fighters and four Anti-Aircraft-Artillery suppression planes (called “flak suppression.”) These airplanes bombed the shooters while they were shooting at the bombers! There would be two Electronic Warfare airplanes, E-2 aircraft, with a large radar dome attached above the planes. They would stay off shore and try to jam the Vietnamese radars, while using their radars to tell us what direction the Migs would be coming from.
The North Vietnam Air Defense Forces procured the Surface to Air missiles from the Soviet Union. For reasons that are unclear to me, the United States never put an embargo on North Vietnam, keeping all supplies from arriving by ship. Third party ships were allowed to go past the aircraft carriers and destroyers on Yankee Station. I know from personal observation that Canadian ships carried Surface to Air missiles to Haiphong. While coming back from a flight I saw a ship loaded with missiles stacked on it’s deck, so I flew low and slow by the side of the ship. It had a Canadian flag on it.
The North Vietnam Air Defense Forces had difficulty getting the missiles resupplied to the SAM sites. If the SAM sites used up all of their missiles, it may be weeks before more missiles would arrive. If a pilot was lucky, the SAM site might not have any missiles to shoot at him. We always hoped for luck. The commanders of the SAM sites learned to use their missiles sparingly. On a normal strike (why is it I don’t think there is such a thing as a “normal” strike?). Anyway, normally the SAM site commanders would shoot one, or sometimes two, missiles at a strike group, but even one missile is terrifying. Ah Ha, I just thought of what a “normal” strike is. It is a strike that does Not go to Hanoi, Haidoung, or Haiphong. If you go to those cities you can expect more than one or two missiles; and you get “the whole nine yards.” .
The day had arrived. We were going to Phuc Yen. We were not going to Disneyland. The tension in the ready room was palpable. The Air Wing Commander was going to lead the group. The Big Wigs like to go on the most difficult strikes because the notoriety is greater, and, for some reason, the medals given out are seldom awarded otherwise. Two of the squadron commanders also were going. In my squadron we would send two 4 plane divisions. I would be in the second division with the motion picture camera.
At the group brief, the Air Intelligence Officers had big charts showing the locations of all known SAM sites, and all the big AAA sites, 100 millimeter and 85 millimeter guns. The Commander of the Air Group (CAG), a.k.a. the Air Wing Commander, then superimposed on the big chart our route of flight to give us some idea where the SAM sites would be relative to our ingress. The ship’s Meteorology Officer (weatherman) told us that we were in the monsoon season and the weather could be bad. If we went on time, it would be up to the weather reconnaissance flight pilot to give us a last minute up or down on the weather.
The weather recon flight was done in a single Vigilante that was cleaned up to easily go over 1000 miles per hour, but not quite fast enough to outrun a SAM! The Vigilante would go out first and fast to take a look at the weather. He did not have to actually go to the target, just close enough to know what the sky condition was over the target area and our route of flight to the target... He would then report to the flight leader. He would use code words that changed each day. Today he would say either “Mickey Mouse” or “Donald Duck” If he said “Mickey Mouse” the weather was good, proceed to target. If he said “Donald Duck” we got to duck out of there and go over to Laos, work with a Forward Air Controller (FAC) and bomb some jungle.
On this day, it was “Donald Duck” and the strike group broke up into prearranged divisions, and sections, and turned south to head to Laos. The next day we briefed the airfield again, and the weather was bad again. After three aborts in three days, they decided other pilots from the ship would go instead of us. They had the same luck we had. Divert to alternate target. No Go. But, alas, fortune smiled on us. The Constellation was scheduled to leave Yankee Station and proceed to Cubi Point, in the Philippines for 8 days of R&R. The Ranger would take our place. We were all secretly happy that we didn’t have to go to Phuc Yen! We said, “Ah, shucks. We don’t get to go.” We thought, “Let the Ranger pilots get all the medals, we’ll be at the Officer’s Club bar. Call us if you need us!”
It’s kind of an approach/avoidance thing. I knew it was going to be a challenging flight to Phuc Yen, it certainly was going to be exciting, yet there was much more danger. When you are that age, twenty-five years old, you think you are bullet-proof, yet you know that you are not. The element of danger both attracts you and frightens you. As a bachelor, I was more attracted to the flight than the married guys. Some guys, out and out, did not want to go. But we needn’t think of that now. We’re going to the bar!
There are, generally, three or four aircraft carriers in the area of Yankee Station. One would rotate back to the Philippines or go to Hong Kong. Typically, an aircraft carrier air wing could expect to be “on station” for about six or seven weeks and then go off of the line, leave Yankee Station for R & R and be gone for ten days. During our seven week stay on Yankee Station I had lost a room-mate, and a replacement arrived. He, too, was shot down. I had lost two room-mates in one period on the line. I was anxious to go ashore. During the day at sea that it takes to go from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Philippines, the Commanding Officer learned that four pilots from each squadron would catch a flight from Cubi Point Air Station and fly to Bangkok, Thailand for liberty. Because of my room-mate situation, the skipper picked me as one of four to go.
My memories of Bangkok are a blur. I remember going to a kick-boxing event. I remember going shopping for a star sapphire ring, but mostly I remember drinking Thai beer in big bottles. Thai beer, like many Asian beers, is made with formaldehyde, and from personal experience I can tell you it causes awful hang-overs that can only be cured by drinking more beer. When you have a career that involves getting shot at every day, you develop a “live for today” attitude. Three days in Bangkok was just what was needed. We returned to Cubi Point Naval Air Station in the Philippines and rejoined our squadron-mates for a few more days of R & R.
On the morning of October 23, 1967, the Coral Sea left Subic Bay bound for Yankee Station. We would arrive there early in the morning and commence air operations over North Vietnam. About 3:00 in the afternoon, we learned that weather over Hanoi had been bad the entire time we were gone. Phuc Yen had not yet been attacked. At about five o’clock that afternoon the Air Wing Commander informed us that our air strikes to Phuc Yen were on again for tomorrow morning, furthermore, the weather was clearing. We had the rest of the evening to think about it. Our skipper told us that the same pilots who briefed for the first strike would be scheduled again for tomorrow’s first strike. There had been no air strikes around Hanoi for almost a month. The Army of North Vietnam had plenty of ammunition and a full complement of Surface to Air Missiles. The mood in the ready room could not have been more somber.
The briefing for the first flight the next morning was held at 5:00 AM. There was not the usual joking around and banter. The grim reality of danger had encompassed us all. The briefing was almost identical to the three earlier briefs we had two weeks earlier. Frequencies were all the same, but the code words for go or no go had changed. Someone in Strike Operations had a sick sense of humor. The code words for our first strike were prophetic, Weather good, go to primary target was Siberia; Weather no good, go to alternate target was Honolulu
We returned to the ready room and the skipper went over our roles again. We had now heard this briefing four times. We should know what to do. We were all wearing Marine green fatigues. We were supposed to wear fire retardant Nomex flight suits, but if we had to survive in the jungle, the green fatigues were better. With the briefing over, we put on our flight gear.
First thing to put on was our anti-gravity suits, The G-suits were worn around the legs and waist. The G-suit inflated when doing high G maneuvers squeezing the stomach and legs to prevent blood from rushing into the legs and stomach. The weight of the blood would increase, draining the brain and causing the pilot to blackout without a G-suit. It was made of nylon and had long zippers up each leg and one on the waist. The next item to put on was the torso harness. This was made of heavy canvas straps with snaps and Koch fittings to hitch onto the parachute which was attached to the ejection seat. Over the torso harness the pilot put on a heavy survival vest with attached flotation device. Over all of this the pilot would put on an ammunition bandolier along with a pistol and holster. The last item of dress was the helmet. An oxygen mask dangled from one side of the helmet until it was hooked up to the oxygen supply on the aircraft.
The pilots left the ready room and made their way up three decks to the flight deck. During air operations the flight deck is a very busy place. All of the plane directors, who aid you in taxiing up to the catapult, wear bright yellow long sleeve shirts. The ordinance men, who hook the bombs up on the wings of our planes, wear bright red shirts. The plane captains wear brown shirts. The men who maintain the planes wear green shirts. This was the first launch of the day, it was still dark. The plane directors would use flashlights to give us direction. All of the aircraft were on the back of the aircraft carrier. When told to taxi by the Air Operations Officer in the tower, the super structure, the pilot would let the plane captain know. He would then give the “set Brakes” signal and then start taking off the chains and chocks around the tires. He would salute the pilot. The pilot then would expect to see a yellow shirt in front of the plane giving him the “Come forward” signal. Then he would pass the pilot off to another yellow shirt near the catapult. A third yellow shirt would direct the pilot onto the catapult.
Once on the catapult, a green shirted sailor would come up to the plane and show the pilot a chalk board with a number on it. If it matches the weight of his aircraft, the pilot would signal thumbs up. The catapult crew would set the appropriate amount of power to insure that after the 120 foot ride the airplane would have take-off speed. The Catapult Officer would insure that the Jet Blast Deflector (JBD), a large metal plate to deflect the engine jet blast upward, was in the up position, and then give the pilot the signal to go to full power, push the throttle all the way forward. Once the engine stabilized at full power, the pilot would check all his instruments, insuring everything was ready to go, if everything looked good, the pilot would salute the Catapult Officer. The Catapult Officer would then point forward with arm and bend down on one knee. That would signal the catapult crew to push a button and fire the catapult. The airplane would go from standing still to over 150 miles per hour in less than five seconds.
It was still dark as the strike group left the carrier to their assigned rendezvous area. Little did they know what was happening at that moment in Hanoi. The Air Force strike group had taken off from Thailand, flew in low behind a range of mountains. The enemy had not been hit in almost a month. When the Air Force F-4s and F-105s attacked, the enemy was asleep! The Air Force first strike was virtually unopposed. But it did wake everybody up, and they were angry, and their radars picked up the big Navy strike force coming in from the Gulf of Tonkin. Their Migs all took off to get in position for the attack. The anti aircraft gunners had manned their stations. The radars were all active and SAM site commanders wanted blood.
The Vigilante weather reconnaissance pilot was the first plane launched and headed off for Hanoi alone. He could tell from a long distance away that the weather over the target was clear. He called the Air Wing Commander who was now leading the strike group over the beach. He identified himself to the leader and said two words, “Siberia, Siberia!” The Commander acknowledged with a simple, “Roger, Siberia.” I remember breathing heavily into my oxygen mask. We were now up to speed, 360 knots, and the Shrike aircraft, which the Air Force calls “Wild Weasels”, pulled out ahead of us to draw the enemy’s attention. Almost immediately they were scanned by Fan Song radars. “Shrikes away!”, they called to let us know. All four Shrike aircraft fired all of their missiles within minutes because there were so many radars turned on.
Before we were even in range the anti-aircraft guns started firing clouding up the sky with puffs of white or black smoke. We were going to have to fly through a sky full of lead. I think we were about twenty-five miles out when the first two SAMs were fired. Our airplanes were jinking wildly now. The formation became more scattered with less than two minutes to the target. One, two, three, four more SAMs came up. “I’m hit” I heard one pilot call out. Then another. The formation was now in chaos. The two planes that were hit tried turning out to sea. Their wingman went with them. “You’re on Fire, Eject” I heard. More planes were getting hit, but most by anti-aircraft fire. More “missiles in the air”, pilots were crying out. More wild jinking left and right. Now there was no strike formation. I lost track of my leaders, and I was over Phuc Yen. I rolled in on the target. There were no bombs going off on the runway. I was the first plane in. I pickled my bombs and pulled out and away. I was looking everywhere, trying to avoid a mid-air collision, trying to avoid SAMs, I didn’t care about protocol. I wanted to get out of that area as quickly as possible. I later learned that only six airplanes dropped bombs on the target. There were still missiles being fired as I was leaving. Agreement was reached later that over 30 missiles were fired at our 42 airplanes. A lot of airplanes were hit, but only one by a SAM. Migs were sighted by our fighters, but rather than engage, the Migs fled to China. There was no longer any semblance of a military formation of any kind. It was literally every man for himself. Let’s talk about this back on the ship.
The debriefing room was deafening. Everybody talking at once. Every pilot with a story to tell, hands gesturing to show pilot dodging SAM. Pilots were drunk with happiness, euphoria. Everyone agreed it was the most highly defended target they had ever seen. The North Vietnamese Air Defense Forces gave us their best shot, using everything they had to defend their last airfield. The next day, the ship’s newspaper, the Pegasus had a two page story on the flight. Several pilots were quoted. Lieutenant Commander Paul Moore, my division leader on his third tour of duty in Viet Nam, said, “We had more SAMS than I’ve ever seen in my life!” At the end of the article, “That’s a flight to say you’ve been on,” quipped Lt.(jg) Michael J. (Sheriff) Foley. “If you gotta say you been on one, that’s the one, Phuc Yen.”
The motion picture film revealed that I was the first to roll in on the target. I led the strike group in on the target. The powers that write up citations for medals wrote an exaggerated account of the flight and nominated me for the Navy Cross, a very high award. I was astounded! But as fate would have it, when the Citation was sent up to higher powers, they changed the name on the citation to a Senior Officer, and gave me the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) instead of the Navy Cross. I didn’t care, by that time I knew I was not going to stay in the Navy, and the Commander was making the Navy a career. Simply military politics.
Two days later, October 26, 1967, I went back to Hanoi on an attack on a thermal power plant. After the Coral Sea strike group left the area, a twenty plane strike from the Oriskany came in to further damage the thermal power plant. On that strike, my first jet pilot instructor, Lieutenant Commander John McCain was shot down by a SAM and parachuted into Truc Bach Lake in downtown Hanoi. He was taken to Hoa Loa Prison, the Hanoi Hilton. He was repatriated five and a half years later.
Post Script
While there is no question that a Navy pilot’s main focus and fear was the Surface to Air Missile, many more A-4 aircraft were lost to AAA fire than to SAMs. 271 A-4 aircraft were shot down during the war, but only 32 were hit by SAMs. Phuc Yen is a perfect example of that. We only lost one plane to a SAM, yet many of our planes were hit by AAA, but they all made it back to the ship.
During the worst of the war in Vietnam, there were 543,000 military personnel in that country, that year was 1969. According to the 1970 United States census, the population of the nation was 203,302,031. Do the math: point two six (.26) per cent of the population was actually involved in the war, .000028 per cent were killed in the war that year. Just numbers marginalizing death.
But, when you know 25 or 30 of those men who left their wives and children to serve their country and did not come back, .000028 becomes a much larger number. On the twenty-first day of August, 1967, one of my friends became just one of those marginalized numbers. His name was J.F.Trembly, his friends called him Jay.
Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Trembly was flying in a flight of two A-6 Grumman Intruders. The Intruder is a two seat, two engine all weather attack bomber. It could carry a much heavier load of bombs than my A-4, and deliver them with greater accuracy. Jay and his wingman were flying to a target north of Hanoi. Rather than have to fly in the heavily defended area near Hanoi, Jay’s flight was planned to fly east and north of Hanoi, up by the northern border of Vietnam. Vietnam borders on China. Apparently the flight inadvertently entered Chinese air space. We were not at war with China, but then, we weren’t at war with Vietnam. Nevertheless, the Chinese fired surface to air missiles at the intruding aircraft, knocking them both out of the air. The Chinese did not register a diplomatic protest, they simply shot them down. Nothing appeared in any newspaper about this.
All four pilots ejected safely, were captured by the Chinese Army and imprisoned. There is some irony here because Jay volunteered to go to war so that he would have a combat record. Jay and I were peers and I wanted a combat record as well, but I wanted to become an Admiral. Jay did not have a Naval career in mind, he wanted to be in politics and run for office back home in Pennsylvania. Jay might be a Senator now, running for President of the United States, but instead he died unceremoniously in a Chinese prison along with two of the three remaining pilots. One of the four survived the prison ordeal and was repatriated.
In the National Football League, there is an expression for when a wide receiver runs by a defensive back, then catches the ball. The defensive player “got burned.” In pilot jargon, when a pilot gets shot down or killed, we say “He got smoked.” A defensive back can be “burned” several times in a game. You can only get “smoked” once. Ensign Tom Wrigley got smoked. He was the junior officer in our squadron. He was flying on the wing of the Commanding Officer at 18,000 feet. The flight of two A-4s had not yet crossed the beach, they were out over the Tonkin Golf, when a 100 millimeter, radar tracking AAA site fired four rounds from approximately 14 miles away. One of the rounds hit Tom Wrigley sending his plane out of control and crashing in the ocean. There was no ejection, no parachute and no warning. The skipper circled as the plane was falling. “Eject, eject!” he yelled. “The seat won’t fire” said the young pilot. He had lost all control of the jet and couldn’t bailout. He got smoked.
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You know now that our best defense from a Surface-to-Air Missile was to see it coming, then dodge it. And you know that the skies must be clear to see the missile launch. When it was time for weather briefing the pilots wanted to hear that it was CAVU, clear and visibility unlimited. Just like we have a Hurricane season in the United States, in Asia they have a Monsoon season which coincides with our storm season. In September of 1967 there was only one operating Mig airfield. It was just to the northwest of Hanoi and it was called Phuc Yen airfield. President Johnson decided it was time to put Phuc Yen out of commission.
As you can imagine, Phuc Yen was very heavily defended, the most heavily defended target in all of North Vietnam. Arriving enemy aircraft (American Air Pirates) could expect to see the entire panoply of Soviet made weapons. Everything would be used to defend Phuc Yen. All of the Mig aircraft were in individual fortified concrete revetments. It would require surgical precision to destroy these protected airplanes. This was a mission of a lifetime.
The strike would be what we called an Alpha Strike. That meant it was to be a major, coordinated air strike involving different military agencies and lots of airplanes. According to the briefing, the Air Force would fly the first strike of the day, coming in at sunrise, flying low behind a ridge of mountains west of Hanoi. Thirty minutes later the Navy would roll in, followed by another Air Force strike 30 minutes later and continue throughout the day. The Air Force would fly out of Udorn Airbase in Thailand.
I was to be in the first Navy strike. My squadron would need twelve planes. Eight of the planes would be in the bomber group configured with a centerline 300 gallon fuel tank, and eight Mark II 500 pound bombs on the wings with concrete busting fuses. For this strike we needed four planes to perform the Shrike mission. Shrikes are the missiles that home in on enemy radar, tracking the signal to its source. These pilots would go out in front of the strike group to try to drum up some business. Normally, we would only have two Shrike aircraft, but we were expecting heavy SAM activity. Altogether there would be 42 airplanes in the strike group, and that represents almost half of the airplanes on the ship.
Our sister squadron would provide ten bombers and two tankers. The two F-4 fighter squadrons would provide eight airplanes each, four fighters and four Anti-Aircraft-Artillery suppression planes (called “flak suppression.”) These airplanes bombed the shooters while they were shooting at the bombers! There would be two Electronic Warfare airplanes, E-2 aircraft, with a large radar dome attached above the planes. They would stay off shore and try to jam the Vietnamese radars, while using their radars to tell us what direction the Migs would be coming from.
The North Vietnam Air Defense Forces procured the Surface to Air missiles from the Soviet Union. For reasons that are unclear to me, the United States never put an embargo on North Vietnam, keeping all supplies from arriving by ship. Third party ships were allowed to go past the aircraft carriers and destroyers on Yankee Station. I know from personal observation that Canadian ships carried Surface to Air missiles to Haiphong. While coming back from a flight I saw a ship loaded with missiles stacked on it’s deck, so I flew low and slow by the side of the ship. It had a Canadian flag on it.
The North Vietnam Air Defense Forces had difficulty getting the missiles resupplied to the SAM sites. If the SAM sites used up all of their missiles, it may be weeks before more missiles would arrive. If a pilot was lucky, the SAM site might not have any missiles to shoot at him. We always hoped for luck. The commanders of the SAM sites learned to use their missiles sparingly. On a normal strike (why is it I don’t think there is such a thing as a “normal” strike?). Anyway, normally the SAM site commanders would shoot one, or sometimes two, missiles at a strike group, but even one missile is terrifying. Ah Ha, I just thought of what a “normal” strike is. It is a strike that does Not go to Hanoi, Haidoung, or Haiphong. If you go to those cities you can expect more than one or two missiles; and you get “the whole nine yards.” .
The day had arrived. We were going to Phuc Yen. We were not going to Disneyland. The tension in the ready room was palpable. The Air Wing Commander was going to lead the group. The Big Wigs like to go on the most difficult strikes because the notoriety is greater, and, for some reason, the medals given out are seldom awarded otherwise. Two of the squadron commanders also were going. In my squadron we would send two 4 plane divisions. I would be in the second division with the motion picture camera.
At the group brief, the Air Intelligence Officers had big charts showing the locations of all known SAM sites, and all the big AAA sites, 100 millimeter and 85 millimeter guns. The Commander of the Air Group (CAG), a.k.a. the Air Wing Commander, then superimposed on the big chart our route of flight to give us some idea where the SAM sites would be relative to our ingress. The ship’s Meteorology Officer (weatherman) told us that we were in the monsoon season and the weather could be bad. If we went on time, it would be up to the weather reconnaissance flight pilot to give us a last minute up or down on the weather.
The weather recon flight was done in a single Vigilante that was cleaned up to easily go over 1000 miles per hour, but not quite fast enough to outrun a SAM! The Vigilante would go out first and fast to take a look at the weather. He did not have to actually go to the target, just close enough to know what the sky condition was over the target area and our route of flight to the target... He would then report to the flight leader. He would use code words that changed each day. Today he would say either “Mickey Mouse” or “Donald Duck” If he said “Mickey Mouse” the weather was good, proceed to target. If he said “Donald Duck” we got to duck out of there and go over to Laos, work with a Forward Air Controller (FAC) and bomb some jungle.
On this day, it was “Donald Duck” and the strike group broke up into prearranged divisions, and sections, and turned south to head to Laos. The next day we briefed the airfield again, and the weather was bad again. After three aborts in three days, they decided other pilots from the ship would go instead of us. They had the same luck we had. Divert to alternate target. No Go. But, alas, fortune smiled on us. The Constellation was scheduled to leave Yankee Station and proceed to Cubi Point, in the Philippines for 8 days of R&R. The Ranger would take our place. We were all secretly happy that we didn’t have to go to Phuc Yen! We said, “Ah, shucks. We don’t get to go.” We thought, “Let the Ranger pilots get all the medals, we’ll be at the Officer’s Club bar. Call us if you need us!”
It’s kind of an approach/avoidance thing. I knew it was going to be a challenging flight to Phuc Yen, it certainly was going to be exciting, yet there was much more danger. When you are that age, twenty-five years old, you think you are bullet-proof, yet you know that you are not. The element of danger both attracts you and frightens you. As a bachelor, I was more attracted to the flight than the married guys. Some guys, out and out, did not want to go. But we needn’t think of that now. We’re going to the bar!
There are, generally, three or four aircraft carriers in the area of Yankee Station. One would rotate back to the Philippines or go to Hong Kong. Typically, an aircraft carrier air wing could expect to be “on station” for about six or seven weeks and then go off of the line, leave Yankee Station for R & R and be gone for ten days. During our seven week stay on Yankee Station I had lost a room-mate, and a replacement arrived. He, too, was shot down. I had lost two room-mates in one period on the line. I was anxious to go ashore. During the day at sea that it takes to go from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Philippines, the Commanding Officer learned that four pilots from each squadron would catch a flight from Cubi Point Air Station and fly to Bangkok, Thailand for liberty. Because of my room-mate situation, the skipper picked me as one of four to go.
My memories of Bangkok are a blur. I remember going to a kick-boxing event. I remember going shopping for a star sapphire ring, but mostly I remember drinking Thai beer in big bottles. Thai beer, like many Asian beers, is made with formaldehyde, and from personal experience I can tell you it causes awful hang-overs that can only be cured by drinking more beer. When you have a career that involves getting shot at every day, you develop a “live for today” attitude. Three days in Bangkok was just what was needed. We returned to Cubi Point Naval Air Station in the Philippines and rejoined our squadron-mates for a few more days of R & R.
On the morning of October 23, 1967, the Coral Sea left Subic Bay bound for Yankee Station. We would arrive there early in the morning and commence air operations over North Vietnam. About 3:00 in the afternoon, we learned that weather over Hanoi had been bad the entire time we were gone. Phuc Yen had not yet been attacked. At about five o’clock that afternoon the Air Wing Commander informed us that our air strikes to Phuc Yen were on again for tomorrow morning, furthermore, the weather was clearing. We had the rest of the evening to think about it. Our skipper told us that the same pilots who briefed for the first strike would be scheduled again for tomorrow’s first strike. There had been no air strikes around Hanoi for almost a month. The Army of North Vietnam had plenty of ammunition and a full complement of Surface to Air Missiles. The mood in the ready room could not have been more somber.
The briefing for the first flight the next morning was held at 5:00 AM. There was not the usual joking around and banter. The grim reality of danger had encompassed us all. The briefing was almost identical to the three earlier briefs we had two weeks earlier. Frequencies were all the same, but the code words for go or no go had changed. Someone in Strike Operations had a sick sense of humor. The code words for our first strike were prophetic, Weather good, go to primary target was Siberia; Weather no good, go to alternate target was Honolulu
We returned to the ready room and the skipper went over our roles again. We had now heard this briefing four times. We should know what to do. We were all wearing Marine green fatigues. We were supposed to wear fire retardant Nomex flight suits, but if we had to survive in the jungle, the green fatigues were better. With the briefing over, we put on our flight gear.
First thing to put on was our anti-gravity suits, The G-suits were worn around the legs and waist. The G-suit inflated when doing high G maneuvers squeezing the stomach and legs to prevent blood from rushing into the legs and stomach. The weight of the blood would increase, draining the brain and causing the pilot to blackout without a G-suit. It was made of nylon and had long zippers up each leg and one on the waist. The next item to put on was the torso harness. This was made of heavy canvas straps with snaps and Koch fittings to hitch onto the parachute which was attached to the ejection seat. Over the torso harness the pilot put on a heavy survival vest with attached flotation device. Over all of this the pilot would put on an ammunition bandolier along with a pistol and holster. The last item of dress was the helmet. An oxygen mask dangled from one side of the helmet until it was hooked up to the oxygen supply on the aircraft.
The pilots left the ready room and made their way up three decks to the flight deck. During air operations the flight deck is a very busy place. All of the plane directors, who aid you in taxiing up to the catapult, wear bright yellow long sleeve shirts. The ordinance men, who hook the bombs up on the wings of our planes, wear bright red shirts. The plane captains wear brown shirts. The men who maintain the planes wear green shirts. This was the first launch of the day, it was still dark. The plane directors would use flashlights to give us direction. All of the aircraft were on the back of the aircraft carrier. When told to taxi by the Air Operations Officer in the tower, the super structure, the pilot would let the plane captain know. He would then give the “set Brakes” signal and then start taking off the chains and chocks around the tires. He would salute the pilot. The pilot then would expect to see a yellow shirt in front of the plane giving him the “Come forward” signal. Then he would pass the pilot off to another yellow shirt near the catapult. A third yellow shirt would direct the pilot onto the catapult.
Once on the catapult, a green shirted sailor would come up to the plane and show the pilot a chalk board with a number on it. If it matches the weight of his aircraft, the pilot would signal thumbs up. The catapult crew would set the appropriate amount of power to insure that after the 120 foot ride the airplane would have take-off speed. The Catapult Officer would insure that the Jet Blast Deflector (JBD), a large metal plate to deflect the engine jet blast upward, was in the up position, and then give the pilot the signal to go to full power, push the throttle all the way forward. Once the engine stabilized at full power, the pilot would check all his instruments, insuring everything was ready to go, if everything looked good, the pilot would salute the Catapult Officer. The Catapult Officer would then point forward with arm and bend down on one knee. That would signal the catapult crew to push a button and fire the catapult. The airplane would go from standing still to over 150 miles per hour in less than five seconds.
It was still dark as the strike group left the carrier to their assigned rendezvous area. Little did they know what was happening at that moment in Hanoi. The Air Force strike group had taken off from Thailand, flew in low behind a range of mountains. The enemy had not been hit in almost a month. When the Air Force F-4s and F-105s attacked, the enemy was asleep! The Air Force first strike was virtually unopposed. But it did wake everybody up, and they were angry, and their radars picked up the big Navy strike force coming in from the Gulf of Tonkin. Their Migs all took off to get in position for the attack. The anti aircraft gunners had manned their stations. The radars were all active and SAM site commanders wanted blood.
The Vigilante weather reconnaissance pilot was the first plane launched and headed off for Hanoi alone. He could tell from a long distance away that the weather over the target was clear. He called the Air Wing Commander who was now leading the strike group over the beach. He identified himself to the leader and said two words, “Siberia, Siberia!” The Commander acknowledged with a simple, “Roger, Siberia.” I remember breathing heavily into my oxygen mask. We were now up to speed, 360 knots, and the Shrike aircraft, which the Air Force calls “Wild Weasels”, pulled out ahead of us to draw the enemy’s attention. Almost immediately they were scanned by Fan Song radars. “Shrikes away!”, they called to let us know. All four Shrike aircraft fired all of their missiles within minutes because there were so many radars turned on.
Before we were even in range the anti-aircraft guns started firing clouding up the sky with puffs of white or black smoke. We were going to have to fly through a sky full of lead. I think we were about twenty-five miles out when the first two SAMs were fired. Our airplanes were jinking wildly now. The formation became more scattered with less than two minutes to the target. One, two, three, four more SAMs came up. “I’m hit” I heard one pilot call out. Then another. The formation was now in chaos. The two planes that were hit tried turning out to sea. Their wingman went with them. “You’re on Fire, Eject” I heard. More planes were getting hit, but most by anti-aircraft fire. More “missiles in the air”, pilots were crying out. More wild jinking left and right. Now there was no strike formation. I lost track of my leaders, and I was over Phuc Yen. I rolled in on the target. There were no bombs going off on the runway. I was the first plane in. I pickled my bombs and pulled out and away. I was looking everywhere, trying to avoid a mid-air collision, trying to avoid SAMs, I didn’t care about protocol. I wanted to get out of that area as quickly as possible. I later learned that only six airplanes dropped bombs on the target. There were still missiles being fired as I was leaving. Agreement was reached later that over 30 missiles were fired at our 42 airplanes. A lot of airplanes were hit, but only one by a SAM. Migs were sighted by our fighters, but rather than engage, the Migs fled to China. There was no longer any semblance of a military formation of any kind. It was literally every man for himself. Let’s talk about this back on the ship.
The debriefing room was deafening. Everybody talking at once. Every pilot with a story to tell, hands gesturing to show pilot dodging SAM. Pilots were drunk with happiness, euphoria. Everyone agreed it was the most highly defended target they had ever seen. The North Vietnamese Air Defense Forces gave us their best shot, using everything they had to defend their last airfield. The next day, the ship’s newspaper, the Pegasus had a two page story on the flight. Several pilots were quoted. Lieutenant Commander Paul Moore, my division leader on his third tour of duty in Viet Nam, said, “We had more SAMS than I’ve ever seen in my life!” At the end of the article, “That’s a flight to say you’ve been on,” quipped Lt.(jg) Michael J. (Sheriff) Foley. “If you gotta say you been on one, that’s the one, Phuc Yen.”
The motion picture film revealed that I was the first to roll in on the target. I led the strike group in on the target. The powers that write up citations for medals wrote an exaggerated account of the flight and nominated me for the Navy Cross, a very high award. I was astounded! But as fate would have it, when the Citation was sent up to higher powers, they changed the name on the citation to a Senior Officer, and gave me the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) instead of the Navy Cross. I didn’t care, by that time I knew I was not going to stay in the Navy, and the Commander was making the Navy a career. Simply military politics.
Two days later, October 26, 1967, I went back to Hanoi on an attack on a thermal power plant. After the Coral Sea strike group left the area, a twenty plane strike from the Oriskany came in to further damage the thermal power plant. On that strike, my first jet pilot instructor, Lieutenant Commander John McCain was shot down by a SAM and parachuted into Truc Bach Lake in downtown Hanoi. He was taken to Hoa Loa Prison, the Hanoi Hilton. He was repatriated five and a half years later.
Post Script
While there is no question that a Navy pilot’s main focus and fear was the Surface to Air Missile, many more A-4 aircraft were lost to AAA fire than to SAMs. 271 A-4 aircraft were shot down during the war, but only 32 were hit by SAMs. Phuc Yen is a perfect example of that. We only lost one plane to a SAM, yet many of our planes were hit by AAA, but they all made it back to the ship.
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