On December 15 and 16, overflights of North Vietnam resumed. To limit exposure to the SA-2 risk, mission planners re-orientated the route, moving the track from an east/west direction to a less productive south/north route. The next two missions, BX6739 and 6740, both adhered to the amended route and no SA-2s were fired. However, when Jack Layton flew BX6842, reverting back to the earlier east/west route, on January 4, 1968, he was attacked by a single SA-2, again during the second pass. On this occasion, the missile was launched with its Fan Song missile control radar in low PRF — a highly significant event, being the first known instance of a Soviet SA-2 having been guided by information derived from the Fan Song operating in low PRF mode. The aircraft’s ECM equipment — Mad Moth and Blue Dog — was activated and the missile missed its intended target.
As 1967 drew to a close, a total of 41 Black Shield missions had been alerted by project headquarters, of which 22 were actually flown. Between January 1 and March 31, 1968, 17 missions were alerted, of which seven were flown: four over North Vietnam and three over North Korea. The main reason why scheduled flights were subsequently scrubbed was invariably poor weather conditions in the collection area.
North Korea
In a CIA document classified Top Secret, the rationale was outlined for Oxcart reconnaissance missions against North Korea. It stated that the belligerent pronouncements by North Korean civil and military leaders and an increase in the number and expanded scope of North Korean probes along the DMZ, coupled with their efforts to establish the structure for guerrilla operations in the Republic, had established a critical requirement for accurate intelligence. It further noted that satellite photo missions had not provided adequate imagery of North Korea to satisfy the requirement and that ground collection of this intelligence was becoming increasingly difficult. Taken together, this had made an accurate estimate of capabilities and intentions all but impossible. It continued that the operational concept could now be accomplished on a 24-hour alert basis, using Oxcart operational Black Shield assets in place at Kadena AB, without coverage degradation of targets in North Vietnam. Three passes traversing the target areas, east to west or west to east, could be accomplished utilizing two air refuelings, or two passes of similar orientation could be executed with a single air refueling. In a footnote at the bottom of an attached sample route map, it added that photographic resolution would be in the order of 1–3½ft and that two eastbound and one westbound pass over the north would take a total of just 17 minutes to complete. Despite this, the US State Department vetoed the plan — but this was about to change.
On January 5, 1968, US Navy Auxiliary General Environmental Research Ship number 2 (AGER-2), USS Pueblo, proceeded as ordered unprotected, on its maiden voyage to “sample the electronic environment off the east coast of North Korea.” On board were a crew of six officers, two civilians, and 75 enlisted men. Just 18 days later during the night of January 23, the ship’s radio operator managed to get off an emergency signal. “We Need Help! We Are Holding Emergency Destruction! We Need Support! SOS. SOS. SOS. Please Send Assistance! SOS. SOS. SOS. We Are Being Boarded!’ The last sentence clearly stated what was happening aboard the beleaguered vessel, and with one sailor dead and the rest of the crew captured, the year-long nightmare for Lt Cdr Lloyd M. Bucher and his crew was just beginning.
In response to this potentially explosive international incident, President Johnson summoned his top advisors to a meeting at the White House the very next day (January 24) to plan a response and agree a course of action. Later that same day, DCI Richard Helms dispatched a top-secret memo to Walt Rostow, Special Assistant to the President; Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara; Under Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach; Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze, and Chairman of the JCS, Gen Earle Wheeler, in which he referred to the earlier meeting and confirmed that he was “alerting an Oxcart mission for photo reconnaissance of North Korea.” It continued: “The Oxcart mission has been alerted to take off [deleted] on 25th January at 2100 EST (1100 / 26 January [delete]) and return four and a half hours later. The film will be off loaded immediately and airlifted to Eastman Kodak, Rochester, New York, to arrive at approximately 0430 EST on 27 January. The processed film will be delivered immediately to NPIC with an arrival time of 1440 EST on 28 January.” Point 3 in the memo noted, “The weather forecast for this mission indicates Category II (25 percent or less cloud cover) weather conditions for the target area.” Finally point 4 noted, “No additional resources or support over and above those normally used on Oxcart North Vietnam operational sorties will be required for this mission.”
The draft CIA plan to overfly North Korea was about to be implemented in full; in all, three A-12 sorties would be flown as a consequence of the capture of USS Pueblo. The first of the three sorties was BX6847, flown on January 26, 1968, by Jack Weeks in Article 131 — just 24 hours after the ship was captured. The Oxcart was equipped with Pin Peg, Mad Moth, Blue Dog II ECM defense suite, System IV ELINT recorder, and a Type I camera. USS Pueblo was located at anchor some distance from Wonsan Bay, and despite a right engine inlet unstart on the third pass, Jack’s four-hour sortie was a spectacular success — helped by the fact that 90 percent of North Korea was cloud-free. A declassified critique of the mission noted that 71 of 84 programed targets were imaged, together with one surface-to-surface missile target, 81 of the 126 Committee on Imagery Requirements and Exploitation (COMIREX) targets, plus 13 SAM sites — of which 12 were occupied — and 752 bonus targets. The report concluded that BX6847 “obtained good baseline coverage of most of North Korea’s armed forces, as well as large portions of the transportation system and industrial base” — testament indeed to the platform’s outstanding capabilities.