My buddy Geeno had the flight right behind me and the Migs broke through the cloud in just about perfect position on him.
“Magnum, Migs. Drop your tanks, Magnum.”
Time was of the essence to Magnum flight. The Migs were well within air-to-air missile range and they had a perfect angle on him. He had to clean up his aircraft and use everything he had working for him to the utmost. It was also vital that everyone in the flight got their birds cleaned up together and that the mutual support of the four men and machines not be compromised even for an instant.
“Magnum, drop tanks.”
“Kingpin, two Migs at seven—correction—five o’clock.” Bing in the number four position on my far left had spotted the second element as they popped up in almost identical position on me. Those guys were getting pretty sharp, but why not? After all, they had no shortage of practice and had probably dry-run this attack on any one of the many dry runs we were making into the target area. They just waited for the ideal setup and implemented plan alpha. I couldn’t see them right away and the two different clock calls were a bit confusing as they forced me to try and look backwards on both sides. “That five o’clock for Kingpin?” Before he could answer, I found out for myself. They were indeed at five o’clock and closing nicely on a well-chartered intercept. “OK, let’s get rid of the tanks. Kingpin, tanks.” Now I was the one who had to move in a hurry or lose somebody, but I was not about to get rid of the bombs. Not yet. I had lugged those damn things all the way up there and still had hopes of putting them on something better than the open rice paddies. A quick glance showed my guys to be in good shape and tanks were tumbling earthward, but the Migs were still in excellent position, and I didn’t want anyone loosening up the formation or surrendering that mutual support capability we had.
“Watch it, Kingpin, they’re behind us, right behind us.” Rod flew such a beautiful wing position, I could almost feel him out there.
“Magnum four, Mig Twenty-one about six thousand out.” Magnum four was in trouble. We were right over the target now and there was no hope of attacking it. It was solid. I needed to get out of there, and I needed to do it without letting those Migs on my tail get enough turning advantage to do us in.
“OK, move it around, Kingpins, keep it moving.” I had enough of a head of steam that I could afford to wiggle even if I couldn’t afford to turn. No sense in making yourself a steady target. “This is Kingpin. The target’s no good. I’m. starting a one eighty turn to the right. Keep your eyes open and let’s see if we can work these guys back up the Ridge.” That might be tricky, but we had to turn, as straight ahead there was nothing but Hanoi and more of the same problems we were already facing.
I was working my Migs pretty well and they had not closed on me quite as well as they had on Magnum. His were in so close that he could not turn until he managed to get some spacing on them or they would have cut him off in the turn and gained the ideal position to shoot him down. As I worked around in my turn, he flew straight through and passed to the south of me.
“Let’s push it up, Magnum. He’s closing.” As the Mig closed inside that 6,000-foot range, he was really getting in there and Geeno would be needing some help pretty soon. By flying past me and on to the south, he had actually put me behind his pursuers and if I could just dump these little tormentors on my tail, I would be in a good spot to move in and assist Geeno.
“Roger, Magnum here. Light the burner.”
“Kingpin, you coming out?”
“Rog, Kingpin is coming out now. The target stinks and we’ve got lots of company up here.”
“Which way you breaking, Kingpin?”
“To the right.”
As my own transmission faded from the headset, I knew that .Bob, who had the flight bringing up the rear, had found himself a piece of that action and also that he had his usual favorite, seeing-eye lieutenant, Baby Huey, on his wing. “Where’s he at, Huey?”
Bob and I had played football together back at West Point some twenty-four years ago. Funny how you always recognize certain voices. That football had been fun, good clean fun. But this was fun in a way also, real dirty fun, with your life or your buddy’s life as the price for losing.
Geeno was going to have to make a move pretty soon, and it sounded like he was about ready. “Kingpin, you turn left?”
“Kingpin’s turning RIGHT.”
“Roger, Magnum’s turning left with two Mig Twenty-ones—ah—” Sometimes it gets a bit difficult to talk while you are trying to look out of the back of your head, and you could hear Geeno straining to see what his antagonists were up to.
I had worked my attackers about halfway around the turn and had my plan pretty well formulated on how I was going to support Magnum, but I wanted to be sure I knew what he was up to, since we could ill afford crossed signals at this point. “Say again, Magnum.”
“Rog, Magnum’s turning left and I’ve got Migs straight and level with me.”
“You’re clear, Bass four.” That was one of those irritating little calls that always seem to clutter up the air at the wrong time. I had no idea who Bass four was except that I knew he was not one of mine, and while I was glad that he was clear of whatever he was concerned about, I wished that his radio would quit.
Geeno had started to work back to his left while I continued my turn to bring me around on his tail and thus on the tail of those tailgating him.
“OK, Kingpins, he’s moving past our nine o’clock.”
Bing still had the best angle on our Migs from his perch on the far left and announced, “OK, Kingpin, they’re still at four o’clock level, but they’re starting to break away.” They either realized that they were gaining nothing on us while we worked them back toward the outbound course we were looking for, or they had frustrated themselves on fuel, or most probably, they assumed that I was trying to move to a spot where I could close in on Magnum. Perhaps they felt they could double up on Magnum since he was in the worst shape and, by strength of numbers, do him in. They slowly slid further right and when I figured I had them beat, I moved toward Magnum. That pair would never recover a position to bother me now. They started off strong, but they just couldn’t hack the course and for the first and only time that day, things started going right for a few minutes, except you suddenly couldn’t hear yourself think. The flights had separated so far that they had become a series of units operating separately and everybody had something important to say, so important that they all cut each other out and nobody could say anything.