The MiGs had remained close to the ground as they approached Thai Binh. The North Vietnamese pilots were attempting to foil the U. S. early-warning radar, call sign Red Crown, stationed aboard a navy cruiser in the Gulf of Tonkin. The lower the MiGs flew, the less likely they would be discovered in the usual radar ground clutter.
Brad Austin could see that the MiG pilots, flying almost 430 knots, were rapidly overtaking the strike group. It was his responsibility to protect the attack pilots.
"Let's take it down," Brad radioed as he pushed the throttles forward. "Goin' burner."
"Two."
The F-4s rocketed toward the MiG-17s as Austin radioed the strike leader. "Seahorse Lead, you have bandits at your seven o'clock, closing rapidly."
"Roger that!" the A-4 pilot replied, looking over his left shoulder. "How close… how much time do we have?"
"Jokers out of burner," Brad ordered before he answered the frantic Skyhawk pilot. "They're about four miles. Suggest your flight do a hard in-place port turn; put 'em nose on and hose 'em down."
"Copy," Seahorse Lead radioed as he looked back to his three charges. "Seahorses, port one-eighty, NOW!"
Austin and Bailey continued to close on the MiGs while the A-4 pilots completed a knife-edge reversal to face the bogies. Russ Lunsford stowed his camera and hunched down in his seat when a line of reddish white tracers shot past his canopy. The bright rounds, seemingly close enough to touch, tracked over the top of the canopy and disappeared in the gray haze.
"Got a lock, Russ?" Brad asked while he watched the Skyhawks, going in the opposite direction, flash over the top of the withdrawing Spads. He could see that the attack pilots were firing their 20mm cannons in a head-on pass at the MiGs.
"I've got one," Lunsford answered, concentrating on their quarry, "but the A-4s are going right through the middle of my sco — "
"Missiles!" Brad interrupted, seeing two surface-to-air missiles rise in a plume of gray-white smoke. He thumbed the radio button. "Joker SAMs! Three o'clock low, comin' right up the pike."
"Joker Two!"
Brad shoved the nose over, trying to outmaneuver the weapons, but the missiles continued straight toward the Phantoms. Sensing an imminent collision, Brad squinted and prepared for the explosion. The first SAM flashed under the fuselage; the second missile screeched over the canopy without exploding. Shaken by the narrow escape, Brad felt the sweat on his brow.
"Holy shit!" Lunsford swore, breathing in gasps.
The radio frequency was chaotic with calls to break, jink, and dive. The antiaircraft fire seemed to intensify as two more SAMs accelerated toward the Phantoms, missing them by less than fifty yards.
Brad bottomed out near the ground at 630 knots and quickly selected HEAT. He cursed the lack of cannons on the navy and Marine Corps F-4s. Their Phantoms had been equipped to carry four radar-guided Sparrow missiles and four heat-seeking Sidewinder missiles.
Dan Bailey, flying 100 feet above the trees a quarter mile to the right of Austin, had also selected HEAT. He knew that the marine pilot was going to attempt to scatter the MiG formation.
The Communist pilots fired several missiles at point-blank range, narrowly missing the Skyhawks as the A-4s pulled into the vertical. Two MiGs broke away to pursue the A-1 Spads while the other three pilots snapped straight up to engage the A-4s. Heavy antiaircraft fire continued to rain across the sky, spewing flaming death through friend and foe alike.
Brad raised the nose of his Phantom and tracked the lead MiG chasing the Skyhawks. "Come on, lock on. Where's the tone? Gotta have a tone."
Lunsford, turning his head from side to side as he watched for other MiGs, saw the second pair of SAMs fly out of sight toward the Gulf of Tonkin. "Clear of SAMs!"
Recognizing that his closure rate to the first MiG was excessive, Brad pulled his throttles to idle. He heard the missile annunciator tone at the same instant.
"Got it!" Austin exclaimed over the intercom as he fired two Sidewinders. "Go… nail his ass."
The first missile shot out in front of the Phantom, completed a barrel-roll maneuver, and flew out of sight toward the horizon. Shoving his throttles into afterburner, Austin swore as the second Sidewinder left the rail. The heat-seeking missile guided straight for the MiG leader, exploding ten feet behind his tail pipe.
The black-orange explosion blew debris from the aft fuselage of the MiG-17, but the aircraft continued to fly as the pilot dove for the deck.
"Got him!" Brad shouted over the radio. He experienced a sudden surge of adrenaline. "Jokers go vertical!"
Bailey squeezed off a Sidewinder, selected afterburner, then pulled hard to bring the F-4's nose straight up. He saw the AIM-9 missile go ballistic, missing the third MiG by a wide margin.
Brad viciously rolled his Phantom, looking for their adversaries. He saw the telltale mist of leaking fuel from the MiG flight leader.
Russ Lunsford also spotted the lead MiG. "Brad, you got him! He's trailing smoke or fluid, but he's still flying that bucket."
Austin quickly glanced at the damaged Communist fighter. The MiG was nose low, accelerating to maximum speed.
"Yeah," Brad replied disgustedly, "running to Phuc Yen, their goddamn sanctuary."
"Joker lead," Dan Bailey calmly radioed, "you got a good hit. They've disengaged — all down in the weeds goin' for broke."
"I have 'em," Brad replied as his F-4 accelerated through 470 knots. He scanned the sky toward the coastline. "Let's get the others… the two on the Spads."
"Joker Two."
Listening over the open (hot mike) intercom system, Lunsford could hear his pilot breathing rapidly.
Brad swiveled his head, checking for SAMs and MiGs, then searched for the A-ls and their predators. He saw the MiGs fire missiles at the Skyraiders seconds before the A-4 Skyhawks cleared the beach.
"Seahorse is feet wet. We're winchester." The Skyhawk flight leader had radioed Red Crown, the radar surveillance ship, that his four-plane division was over water and out of ordnance.
Brad, watching the A-1 s jinking all over the sky, saw black smoke belch from the trailing Skyraider. The staggering Spad had narrowly escaped an air-to-air missile before flying through a concentrated burst of 23mm cannon fire from the first MiG.
Nine heavy projectiles had ripped through the Spad's engine cowling, shredding fuel and oil lines.
"Buckshot Four is hit!" the attack pilot radioed. "I'm hitgoin' down! I can't make the beach!"
Brad pulled hard to track the high MiG, released pressure on the stick to unload the g forces, heard the annunciator growl, then fired his third Sidewinder.
"Shit!" Austin swore as the missile left the rail and tumbled underneath the airplane. He instantly punched off his fourth heat seeker.
"Lifeguard One, Lifeguard One, Joker Lead," Brad radioed as the missile made a tentative wiggle, then guided directly to the MiG and exploded off the fighter's right wing. "We need RESCAP — repeat, we need RESCAP! Buckshot Four is down!"
Surprised that his target was still flying, Austin watched both MiGs turn hard into the F-4s. He executed a high yo-yo and flinched when Dan Bailey, in afterburner, flashed by a scant forty feet away.
"Wilco, Joker," the rescue combat air patrol leader replied. "Lifeguard up. We're buster with a Sea King in trail — have you in sight."
"Go with a Sparrow!" Brad said to Lunsford as he whipped the Phantom over and pulled 7 g's. The snug-fitting anti-g suit felt as though it was going to crush his legs and squeeze his abdomen in half. He had to work fast to set up a shot on the second MiG.