We would usually have these at the start of our stand-up briefings and would try to get all of our people who had received awards through this exercise at one time or another. In order to present the awards properly, the citation was read from the platform and the senior officer present then pinned the specific award or decoration on the. recipient’s chest. At these ceremonies, we presented such things as Air Medals, sometimes Distinguished Flying Crosses, Commendation Medals, certificates for outstanding performance and the like. DFCs and up were usually saved for one of our many visiting general officers and we asked them to hang them on the chests of the guys who had earned them. We had a particular award called the 13th Air Force Weil-Done Award. It was awarded to pilots who had been recommended by their commanders and whose recommendations had been approved by the 13th Air Force. They were for handling an aircraft emergency in an outstanding manner, usually highlighting the fact that they got the machine back where it belonged rather than parking it in the jungle, or parking themselves in the jungle. It was the closest the 13th Air Force ever got to combat aircraft or jungles. We presented these at the stand-up and a little plaque went along with the award. On one such evening, we presented this award to a very sharp and shiny young man whom I’ll call Bob.
His citation said that Bob was number four in a four-ship strike flight that encountered very heavy flak and numerous Migs while attacking its target, and that during his run, he lost his utility hydraulic pressure that runs all sorts of equipment on the aircraft including the afterburner and the cannon. These are both quite essential elements in Mig country, and the loss of these systems makes you a poor match for a Mig. He was dramatically alerted to the lack of burner when he tried to engage it coming off the target in order to close up the flight spacing from his number four position. No burner light simply meant that he could not keep up with his faster-moving companions and that he was number one Mig bait. The Migs have an uncanny sense of knowing when you have a flight member in trouble and, as they so often did, they rose from their sanctuary and struck at this separated flight. While they somehow failed to position themselves properly for an easy attack on Bob’s partially operative bird, they did wind up in good position for an attack on the rest of the flight and a workable, if less than optimum, pass on Bob.
Knowing that his buddies would sacrifice their own speed to attempt to get him back in the envelope of mutual coverage, and that this action would make them pigeons for the Migs that he could now see clearly and that the other flight members could not see too well, Bob determined that the course of action to save the flight lay directly in his lap. He coaxed the maximum speed out of his machine as he got rid of the tanks and all other external garbage that further slowed him down and, with a sick bird, he turned into and pressed an attack on the entire Mig flight. Since his cannon was nothing but excess ballast, he had no hope of shooting them down and he knew that his only hope was to scare them off. Scare them off he did, as he flew directly into the middle of them, scattering them all over the sky. All airplane drivers abhor the thought of a midair collision and the Mig pilots saw Bob as another one of those crazy Thud drivers trying to ram them. The ruse worked perfectly and the scattered Migs regrouped and went off to seek less aggressive playmates. The flight was able to recover their limping protector and they herded him back to the nearest airstrip where he accomplished a faultless recovery and landing with the systems he had left. Quite a combination of guts and skill.
Bob was certainly an impressive young fellow. He was a big guy and he flew with the same squadron I flew with. Here was a youngster in his early twenties, extremely clean-cut and healthy, a big strapping example of American manhood. He looked like the All-American Boy, and he flew extremely well. He was eager and most anxious to please, and on the several missions I had flown with him, I was most impressed by his professional manner and his approach to his job of flying combat. He acted far more mature than his years and had all the prospects of being a great combat leader.
He was particularly impressive on the evening when he received his Weil-Done award, as he was the kind of guy who matched the citation. All present were taken by his appearance and we knew we had ourselves a good boy. The next morning, Bob was flying number two in Crab flight and, with the rest of the troops, he loaded up with two 3,000-pounders and a center-line fuel tank and proceeded with his assigned task for the day, going to downtown Hanoi.
In the month that we had started moving closer toward downtown Hanoi, the defenses had become more intense, almost frantic. The flak was spread out all over the area, but there was plenty of it, and the Russians were providing the North Vietnamese with all the SAMs they could launch. By now, with the Migs, SAMs and guns well coordinated, the defense was probably as intense as the Northern forces could muster and the Migs were particularly active. They would orbit in a specific area and you would have to fight first through them and then through the SAMs. The Migs would stay pretty well dispersed so as not to soak up the SAMs, but there have been occasions when the Migs have not done their homework too well and have wound up right in the middle of their own ground fire.
Generally, however, you could see steady improvement in their defense coordination and as you moved down the Ridge you would go through a definite Mig area where the SAMs, although they might be actively operating their radar, would not be firing. Once you broke through that quadrant, the SAMs would start filling the air. The ground fire was always present during this phase and in the area of the target itself. As soon as you came back up off the target, you would usually find the Migs shunted in against you, and you would have to fight your way back out. The Migs found out that once we dropped our bombs, with the speed we had and the power that we had available, we were not too attractive playmates. The Migs were not too pleased when they found that by then we were really carrying a head of steam and that their aircraft could not compete with us down low. They found, to their sorrow I’m sure, that the unloaded Thud was more than a match for them at low altitude as long as we didn’t try to turn with them, and our buddies in the F-4C Phantoms gave them fits at higher altitudes. They got a few, but although we got a lot more of them than they ever got of us, it is important to remember that there is a significant difference in Mig drivers and in Mig models. I can recall one go, coming up off a target along the Red River when I had the lead flak-suppression flight, that turned out quite well. We dropped our bombs and came racing back up to altitude, remembering the Migs we had experienced in the area all the way down the Ridge. The Avis wing was working over on the other side of the Ridge at the same time, and the Migs were pretty well mixed up with them also. The Migs had been orbiting out to the west of us as we bombed and, as I came zooming up off the target heading back to the north, my first view was a head-on pass from a Mig who did not appear to be too well coordinated or satisfied with his attack. He had failed to take my speed into consideration, and by the time he actually tried to line up on me, he had already lost the battle and was all for getting out of the pass. I didn’t get an opportunity to shoot at him and the resultant head-on pass turned into nothing more than a near-collision that scared me and, if he had any sense, should have scared him. We went zipping past each other canopy to canopy with a closing speed well up in the 1200-knot range.