Thud Ridge (7 page)

The squadron was down in the dumps, there was no doubt about that, and one of my first challenges as a commander was to get to know them and try to strike the chord that would get them up again, but without the loss rate that they had suffered before. Strangely, the boss never told me that I had that for my first job. Nobody even mentioned it. It was just something you knew if you had the touch.

The new squadron commander had taken the reins shortly before my arrival, and I was amazed to find a rapidly balding, rather slight Ph.D. at the helm. I have a master's degree myself and I sometimes wonder if that was really necessary, but this guy was a doctor. A forty-plus doctor driving the Thud and leading his people up North and, like the rest of us, receiving a $2.16-a-day combat bonus. I confess .to a bit of wonderment as to whether or not he was the desired solution, but that was short-lived. Don made one of the best and nicest —which to me is strangely important—fighter commanders I have ever met. There was no doubt that he had been exposed to the higher education routine and he looked the part, but like me he had had enough of the school kick and wanted only to be the best possible leader and airman. Much later when he received an assignment forecast that pointed him back into the Ph.D. area, he was most disturbed. You could tell upon occasion that he had been away from the business for a while and that the challenge of running his maintenance complex was new to him. You could tell that he had been at school during that portion of his career when many of his rank were learning the intricacies of administration and control of airmen, but you could also tell that he was very smart and it seldom took more than a casual suggestion to steer him. It is fun to be able to command that way; I despise the cumbersome rule by sheer dictate and fear so popular in portions of the Air Force.

Once I got started, I flew with Don a goodly portion of the time as he and I, perhaps subconsciously, picked each other's brains. We each wanted to see how the other operated and flying combat will show you that in a hurry. He wanted to satisfy himself that this new colonel in the wing really knew how to handle the squadron troops in the air; he also wanted to be sure that nobody allowed said colonel to fracture his rear end while getting started in this war. I flew behind him on at least one of every type mission before I would assume the lead for that particular type. I think we spent the most time together when "they" finally released the stranglehold enough to let us nip at the outskirts of Hanoi itself. Nobody kidded himself that it would be an easy series of targets, but everybody wanted to be on the schedule, and our theme song for the months of December and January was "Downtown, Tonight, I'm Gonna Go Downtown."

One thing that Don did have to put up with was the fact that I liked to fly and I was in a position to outrank him on the hot missions. I tried to be fair about that, and I even let him lead his own squadron once in a while. Actually, we got along great on that score, and when I would bump him on a particular go that I wanted to be in on, he would simply move down to number three in our lead flight and become deputy lead for the wing force. That way we had two qualified wing leaders up front and either could take over should the other be unable to continue. When this particular batch of targets came out, we went even further and tried to keep the same four-ship flight scheduled daily for the specific big targets. That had a good side effect and it was no small badge of honor to be selected as the colonel's wingman or the squadron commander's wingman for the hottest targets yet uncovered in this war, and admittedly the most fiercely defended targets ever faced by any pilot in history. The adrenaline count was high throughout the wing. We were primed and ready to go. We got visits from generals telling us the import of our tasks —as if we needed any extra pumping up—and we got lousy weather.

Don and I were on the morning kick for this particular series. A two o'clock wakeup makes for short nights and, coupled with the other duties that kept us going until about eight in the evening, everything sort of all ran together and we just kept charging. Our little breakfast club was made up of the same group every day and after a while it got sort of tough to work up a hearty smile or a strong appetite for greased eggs at two thirty. Normally, you were not on the same schedule for too many days in a row and you could make up, to an extent, for lost sleep. But on this one, the weather in the target area would not break and the schedule would not change. We sat on this package for almost forty days before we got the job done properly. Some mornings you would get all the way through briefing before the words would come in. One day the words would be to divert to a lesser target, the next, to slip the schedule two hours—and everybody fall down someplace and catch some extra sleep. Some days we would let the newer troops go if we got a lesser target, other times we would go to keep in practice. Many time,s we would get the frustration of a long weather reconnaissance. If just maybe there was some slight chance that we could get to the target, we would launch and go all the way, through all the buildup, only to have to break off at the base of Thud River when we knew for sure that we were over the top and the target was blanketed with low clouds and rain.

The decision on a mission like that lies with the mission commander, the guy up front. It is a tough one to make and each one excites different sensations. Basically, you don't want to take your people into an area where you cannot see the target well enough to bomb the way you should. You do not want to limit your attack by committing them with a cloud ceiling above them that will either cut down their available dive-bomb run or throw all your flights into the murk at those speeds. But most of all, you want to get the job done and strike a telling blow at those who have hurt you and your people with relative impunity for so long.

Laredo flight was doing our dirty work on the Sams for us that day and according to our plan for this one, they had swung off in an arc from the main force and were probing the sites we anticipated trouble from. "Hello, Pintail—Laredo," indicated he probably had some news for us on something other than Sams, as he seldom bothered with the introductory formalities when the telephone poles were flying.

"Laredo—Pintail. Go ahead."

"Ah, Roger, we crossed the Red and I'm almost to the Ridge, and I'm on the tops of it, and I'm about five thousand, and it's solid as far as I can see." Laredo was doing good work, but he was not in a very healthy position at that time, and he was quite on his own. That would put him about in the backyard of the Mig-21's at Phuc Yen. I wondered how thick the clouds were and if the 21's had enough room to get off the ground underneath the overcast. Maybe they would try, and crash on takeoff. That was a comforting thought.

Don did not have to deliberate on his reply and came back with "Roger, we'll press on down the Ridge anyway." The reply took no thought as he had no freedom at this point. The normal fighter-pilot determination would take him to the point where he could see his target area and be sure that there was not some freak hole that would allow him to sneak the force in and get the job done. His good sense and good eyes could tell him that from several miles out, but under the current rules this was not good enough. We were under direct order to fly over the target itself before making the determination. Aside from being a tactical blunder, this was more than somewhat of an insult to those of us who were leading. The thought that the bosses would take a highly experienced senior officer who had volunteered to come over here and fight this mess, would put him in charge of two fighter wings and all the supporting effort, and then would insist that he drag the entire force through exposure that was unnecessary, just to be able to report that the leader had flown over a specific point, always galled me no end. I never hit a target that I would otherwise have aborted by flying my troops through worthless exposure periods, nor did I ever abort a target run where I had not made up my mind in advance of entering the susceptible circle. Oh well, as I said, the pressure was on.

Everyone knew we were going for a ride over the defenses, but just hearing the lead announce the fact again was calculated to raise the breathing rate and make the eyeballs a bit more efficient. "Five degrees right, Pintail," lined us up quite nicely.

Immediately, a curt call announced, "I've got four bogies, ten o'clock low." Another impetus to the eyeballs.

As Don rolled out from his correction, he seemed to track nicely down the desired path and for the moment at least we had solved the drift problem and were on course. I figured this knowledge would please him and verified our track with "Steady on, Pintail." A quick "zip, zip" acknowledged that things were progressing satisfactorily. That zip was accomplished by a quick repeated depression of the mike button and it saved a transmission and kept the air clear for other calls. It shows how simply and efficiently you can communicate with those who understand a common mission. It is a sharp and brittle little sound that to me reeks of confidence and competence.

"Saturn check."

"Two."

"Three."

"Four."

We were no longer the only effort in the area; we could expect the radio chatter to get more intense. "Otter, we've got another Sam, three, four miles out at eleven o'clock." Whoever they were, they were getting a rousing welcome. Nice guys, I was sure, but you couldn't help but hope they soaked up all the Sam activity. Fat chance of that happening, as this was the time period when the Russian general accused the North Vietnamese of shooting their zillion-ruple missiles "like they were firecrackers." The Thud drivers shared his concern if not his intent.

"Rog, Otter, check your gear for interference."

"You're OK. We're going to climb a little higher here." As busy as you may be, it is impossible to keep the mind's artist from painting a picture of the game of hide-and-seek you know so well is going on in some other quadrant.

Our hunters were doing the same thing, and while they were not Sam-saturated, it was apparent that they had plenty of action. "Laredo, you got any guns>at twelve o'clock?"

"Rog, ah, four's got guns. Four o'clock along the Ridge."

"Three same."

"Laredo's got guns at nine, Phu Tho area." That pretty well sealed the area from both sides and dispelled any doubt that they were looking at us from both sides of our ingress route.

Anybody's problem becomes everybody's problem about this time and the announcement "Three, it's siphoning again" alerted us to the fact that a balky tank or a set of fuel control valves was giving one of our troops a problem. No sweat on that for right now. It was not the kind of problem that would break up a flight and leave us out of balance. Even one set of eyes or one unprotected flank of a flight would have been bad news at this point, to say nothing of the problems to be faced by the stragglers who might have to drop from the mutual protection of the force in the event of mechanical abort.

"OK, let me know when it stops." Good comment. Worrying won't fix it anyway.

"Wonder—this is Stewart. Clear down and behind." Amazing how it all fits into the puzzle and how the calls tell you of actions you don't see. The escorts and the support guys were together and were clearing each other from Migs and Sams as they patrolled on the fringes of the action.

The. mind was brought quickly from the fringe to the center with "And—Laredo has a contact—well be staying low. Sams up."

"Pintail two has a three-ringer at about two o'clock," brought it about as close to home as it could get. They were looking right down our horn, but Don wasn't sure he had heard correctly.

"Say again."

"Pintail two has a three-ringer at two o'clock." He heard right the first time.

"Roger. Pintail—Laredo. You under the stuff or on top?"

"Roger, we're on top."

The Sam activity caused all the leaders to recheck their charges and their position and the support boss called to his escort, "Stewart—this is Nash. How many chickens you got?" He couldn't afford to get those sweptwing escorts mixed up with any Soviet-built types who might have wandered into the sky he was covering.

"I got four."

"OK, we're going to try and stay nice and close today."

What a beautiful way to say, Get up here where you belong and sharpen up that formation, without being nasty to the escort you must depend upon.

"Pintail, lead steer eight degrees left." I had to keep Don on course. "Steady on, the readout is three zero." He was headed for the spot we wanted, and now had only 30 miles to go. You could already tell that the target weather was stinking.

"OK, Elmo one has negative Doppler."

At least Don's gear had quit far enough out so that I had plenty of time to recheck all the indications and establish a smooth entry, but Elmo, coming up behind us, found himself without the proper steering gear and had to switch responsibility in a hurry. It would be sheer ecstasy to have a navigational support manager who resists progress riding along in a two-seater at a time like that so he could bite holes in the seat and see how important the little things that make a fighter go can become.

"Rog, Elmo three here, thirty right." Good thing he had recognized the failure and called when he did as the size of the correction indicated that he had already passed his turn point.

As we thundered down the Ridge, we accelerated even with that big ugly bombload under us, moving and looking, and the support guy announced, "Stewart is at thirty-six thousand." I thought that must be a comfortable place to be, especially with another flight covering your rear end.

Then Laredo updated the Sam picture with "Laredo's got a high indication," and I changed my mind and decided I would not care to be sitting up there waiting to see if Sam could accelerate all the way out to the point that I could not see him as he reached for me. Those guys earned their money.

"Four o'clock" pointed to the Sam's location and then the friendly supporters got the talking disease and began to garbage up the air just when we needed it clear.