Flak bait

Flight Journal, Apr 2003 by Purvis, Pete

Navy F-4s battle North Vietnamese AAA

Navy F-4s battle North Vietnamese AAA

Since the beginning of WW II, air warriors have known a "downtown." It's usually the last place they want to go: it's the enemy's capital, and it's jealously defended. WW II had two downtowns: Tokyo and Berlin. Since then, hot spots in Bosnia and Afghanistan have been "fun cities"; Baghdad has been and may be again. For my compatriots and me, downtown was Hanoi.

YANKEE STATION

During October 1967, I was flying the F-4B Phantom II on my first combat tour as a lieutenant commander with 10 years of service and 3,000 hours in the air.

Hanoi was a nasty place. First, it had a hefty concentration of every arrow in the North Vietnamese quiver: small arms-rifles and machine guns; rapid-firing 37mm antiaircraft cannon fired visually; 57-, 85- and 100-millimeter radar-guided triple-A (antiaircraft artillery) and, everyone's delight, lots of SA-2 surface-toair missiles. Second, it was 60 well-defended miles inland from the safety of the Gulf of Tonkin from which the Navy operated.

Between 1965 and 1973, the Navy always had three carriers and a variety of other ships stationed in Southeast Asia. Two of the carriers manned Yankee Station in the northern Gulf of Tonkin. In October 1967, we-Carrier Air Wing 15-were there aboard the USS Coral Sea. Carrier Air Wing 16 was on USS Oriskany. The third carrier, USS Intrepid, was in port.

In good weather, both carriers typically launched two large daily strikes called "Alpha" strikes. The Alpha (usually 24 aircraft) used five types of airplane: eight A-4E bombers, four F-4B flak suppressors, a pair of A-4 "Iron Hand" SAM suppressors and two KA-3B tankers to pump fuel into planes flying to and from the target. An electronic-warfare-equipped Douglas EA-3B based at Da Nang stayed with the tankers offshore and sprayed highpowered electrons and electronic noise at the North Vietnamese to disrupt their radar and communications. A Grumman E-2A sporting a large, pancake-shape radar antenna atop its fuselage flew offshore and controlled the strike airplanes coming from and going to the carriers.

Air Wing 16 covered the same missions, but because their carrier deck was smaller, they used Chance Vought F-8Cs instead of F-4Bs.

The 7th Air Force in Saigon assigned targets, other than targets of opportunity, such as trucks or waterborne logistics craft. They were given orders by experts from afar in the basements of the White House or Pentagon. Never in the annals of air warfare had so many in combat been given so much detailed direction from so many so far from the action. This situation often had puzzling, if not lethal, consequences.

Glaring examples of this ignorant micromanagement were the raids ori the major seaport of Haiphong, which after Hanoi, was the foremost hotbed of flak and SAMs up North. Its wealth of bridges supported the flow of war materiel coming from its docks and those of Cam Pha, several miles to the east, where Ho Chi Minh and company traded locally mined coal for ammunition brought in by ships flying-among othersChinese and British flags.

In good weather, the Navy sent repeated, devastating strikes to Haiphong. After a few days of those, the triple-A and SAM activity eased as the defenders ran out of ammunition. Lots of bridges fell. We also had a first-class effect on the pontoon bridges that appeared soon after we had splashed the concrete bridges.

Clear weather held, so we could have heaped even more damage on Haiphong. But guess what? Over morning coffee, some expert from afar thought it more effective to take out the Hu Phlung Dung truck park that was nestled among the karst miles inland. And, as we sprayed trucks, railroad cars, implements of war and limestone chunks about the landscape, the clear weather in Haiphong changed. During this convenient hiatus, the industrious citizens of Haiphong reloaded and rearmed. Now, you've guessed the very next target on our list: it was Haiphong, where, as you might imagine, we were given a fireworks welcome that rivaled a Fourth of July celebration at the Washington Monument.

PLANNING THE TRIP

We were given a day's target tasking on the previous night; then the air wing commander (CAG), his staff operations and weapons officer, squadron commanders and operations officers met in Coral Sea's strike operations room-about the size of a motel room-to lay out the plans for the next day's raids.

Four squadrons aboard Coral Sea delivered ordnance: two A-4 squadrons-VA-153 and VA-155, and two F-4 units-VF-151 and VF-161. A fifth squadron-VA-25, flying the last of the venerable propeller-driven Douglas ADs-acted as rescue combat air patrol (RESCAP) in case of a downed Navy or USAF crew, or bombed selected targets, usually away from high-threat areas. The A-4 and F-4 squadron commanding officers, executive officers and CAG headed the major strikes. Experienced squadron operations officers-usually the third senior officer-led smaller groups. The strike leader was the producer/director of and lead actor in each strike. It was his show.