I am sitting in the aircrew briefing room with other airman of the 355 Tactical Fighter Wing at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base, at 5 AM on August 7, 1966. Today’s target is a railroad marshaling yard on the Northeast Railroad, the major rail link between Hanoi and southern China. I haven’t been much of anywhere in this air war yet.

This is my 11th mission, and I don’t as yet know the Northeast railway from any other section of North Vietnam. But the older heads are quiet during the mission briefing. That’s about as much emotion as anyone shows, but it’s enough to let me know that the mission is going to be tough. The briefing is boring, but briefings have probably been boring since man began to fly. I sit smoking a cigarette and nursing a cup of black coffee while the weather man does his best to give a professional presentation regarding expected weather en route, during air refueling and in the target area. He knows from experience that his forecast information is hours old and probably only about 50 percent accurate. He says that visibility is likely to be poor in the target area.

A first-lieutenant intelligence officer, too arrogant to realize that his information is probably only around 10 percent accurate, gives a run down on expected anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) protecting the target area. He speaks with a slight quaver in his voice, as if he is the one who is going to fly the mission and face those defenses. He is not well liked.

He came into the Stag Bar the other night with his hat on. The Stag Bar is where most of us hang out between missions. Unlike the "proper" officer’s-club bar, the patrons here are rowdy, the attire is flight suits, the songs are profane, the juke box is loud and the colonels seldom show their faces. There is one simple rule: don’t wear your hat in the bar. If you come into the bar with your hat on and someone rings the bell before you get it off, you buy a round of drinks. When the lieutenant walked in with his hat on, one of the pilots rang the bell. The lieutenant pleaded ignorance and scurried out the side door, to the jeers of the crowd. The crews don’t understand anyone not complying with the rule, especially as drinks are only 25 cents each. Everyone thinks he’s a real jerk.

"OUR THING"

The Mission Commander today is the Operations Officer from the 354th Squadron. Like most old heads, he is cool and professional. He doesn’t try to pump smoke up anyone’s butt with a lot of Rah!Rah! stuff. It is a tough and well defended target that the fighters haven’t been allowed to hit with enough regularity to soften up. Some guys are not going to come back. He doesn’t have a lot to say.

Our wing, the 355th Tac Fighter Wing, is going in first, with the other F-105 wing from Korat Air Base going in about 30 min. later. He will be leading the flak-suppression flight and will try to have the anti-aircraft guns in the immediate target area out of commission by the time the strike aircraft start their dive-bomb attacks. He doesn’t have any special words for the Wild Weasels. We are just supposed to go in and "do our thing."

The Weasels have only been at Takhli for about five weeks, and none of the strike crews have figured out yet what we are supposed to add to their war-fighting effort.

The concept behind the Wild Weasel program seems to be a good one -- kill SAM sites. To do this, the two-seat version of the F-105 (the F-105F) has been modified with equipment to detect and home in on the radars associated with the SA-2 SAM system. Our aircraft is equipped with AN/APR-25 Vector scope, which gives a coded strobe indicating the bearings and relative strength of SAM, AAA or airborne-interceptor radars; the AN/APR-26, which alerts of activity of a SAM site’s missile-guidance radar; and the IR-133, a panoramic receiver of very high sensitivity, with which I can observe the activities of most early-warning, height-finder, GCI, AAA and SAM radars.

OUR EDUCATION

The pilot/electronic warfare officer teams have practiced this concept during six weeks of training at Nellis Air Force Base, north of Las Vegas, NV. It seems to work well when flying from Nellis to the training sites at St. George, UT, and at Walker Lake, NV. But the sites at those locations aren’t camouflaged, don’t move between missions and, more importantly, don’t shoot back.

We arrived at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base, on July 4, 1966. A few days later, two crews from Korat Air Base, our sister F-105 base 100 mi. to the south, came to give us a checkout in what they knew about flying the Wild Weasel mission when people shoot back. The weather had turned sour, however, and the only missions flown were easy ones in the southern part of North Vietnam. At that time there were no SAM sites in that area. It became immediately obvious that the guys from Korat, who were supposed to check us out, didn’t know much more about our mission than we did. They had only been in the theater for around a month longer than us. So, after 10 days of an abortive checkout program, the Korat crews declared to our wing commander that the checkout program was complete and that we were ready to go to war.

Since the checkout crews left Takhli, the Weasels had gone up north into the heavily defended areas several times. Most of those missions had been ineffective. Missiles and flak had claimed one of the planes and its crew. One other Weasel bird with a wounded pilot managed to recover, but had severe battle damage and was sent to the repair facility on Taiwan to be rebuilt. Of the five planes we arrived with on the fourth of July, only three are left. Two are scheduled on today’s mission. Ed Larson and I will be in the first airplane. Bob Sandvick and Tom Pyle are in the second, 15 min. behind us. Each of us has an F-105D single seater as our wing man, whose job is to help destroy the SAM sites after we locate them with our equipment and mark them with our ordnance. It’s time to see how the concept works in the real world.

We go from the wing briefing room to the squadron, to conduct our individual flight briefings. The flight briefing is pretty innocuous. Our wingman is Pete Pitman, a buddy of Ed Larson’s from Nellis, and a "good stick." Ed does his thing during the briefing, spelling out tactics learned at Nellis. Pete listens attentively as a good wingmen should, but is probably thinking, "How in hell did I get myself scheduled into hunting for SAM sites with these turkeys, when they have never seen one and have never even been shot at before?"

KICKING THE TIRES

It’s close to take-off time and we suit up with G-suit, survival vest and .38 Combat Masterpiece. Everything but dog tags, ID card and Geneva-convention card is left behind. We grab our helmets and parachutes, pile into the squadron van and are taken to our airplanes. The sun hasn’t risen yet, but there is enough light to allow us to preflight the aircraft without resorting to flashlights or the noisy, powerful portable lights the maintenance people use getting our planes ready.

The walk-around inspection reveals no problems with the bird. Ordnance load consists of two AGM-45 Shrike antiradiation missiles, two pods of 2.75 inch rockets and 1028 rounds of 20mm ammunition for our Gatling gun. We also have a 650-gallon centerline fuel tank. The Shrikes are to damage and mark the site from a distance of 7-10 mi.; then the rockets, our wingman’s six 500-lb bombs and our Gatling guns are to put the SAM site out of business. The fuel tank is to give us the extra range we need, as well as to absorb some of the flak that might come our way.

Time to climb in and start the engines and warm up the Weasel gear to see if it is operating properly. Everything looks good, and, shortly thereafter, the crew chief waves us out of our parking slot and gives us a sharp salute.

LIGHTING THE FIRES

The flight line is a roar of activity now as the 20 F-105s and four spare aircraft start up and taxi toward the end of the runway where they will receive a final maintenance check and where the safety pins will be pulled from the ordnance. As we pull into the arming area, the Catholic chaplain walks past each aircraft giving his blessing to the crews. Not too many of the guys are deeply religious or Catholic, but most are superstitious enough not to want to piss off anyone’s God. So, we all smile and wave politely at the chaplain as he walks by.

The armorers step out to the front of our aircraft showing the red streamers and safety pins they have removed from our airplane. This indicates that the mechanical links preventing landing-gear retraction, bomb release and missile firing have been removed. We wait until our wingman’s check is complete, close our canopies and taxi into position for take off.

We take the near side of the runway and Pete pulls into position on our left and slightly behind. Ed sets the brakes and twirls his finger in the air. Both aircraft are run up to full power and all engine gauges are checked. Pete gives us a thumbs up. Ed calls the tower: "Kingfish flight ready for takeoff." As clearance is received, Ed nods to signal brake release, afterburner light-off and water-injection activation. 26,500 lb. of thrust push the world’s fastest tricycle down the runway. At 140 Knots, we are airborne and climbing, on our way to rendezvous with our refueling tanker, 500 mi. away.

We are at cruising altitude with our wingman comfortably around 10 ft. off our right wing tip. I fly and Ed snoozes. Life is good! The tanker track today is out over the water, paralleling the coast of Vietnam. The plan is for the strike force to enter North Vietnam from north of Haiphong Harbor, attack the target from northeast to southwest, pull off the target to the left and exit toward the safety of the water. The Weasels are to place themselves between the strike force and the SAM sites, and keep the missiles away from the strike force long enough for them to bomb their targets.

Ed bitches to me over the intercom. We are sharing our tanker with two EB-66 electronic warfare aircraft, which means that our KC-135 tanker aircraft is equipped for "probe and drogue" air-to-air refueling. Usually they are equipped with a flying boom -- a solid pipe extending from the rear of the tanker. Booms are stable and easy to hook up to. But EB-66s are only equipped for the "probe and drogue." The probe and drogue is a basket on the end of a flexible hose into which the pilot must insert a probe. It is anything but stable, and F-105s have been known to tear the drogues off tankers and return home with the basket and a length of hose dangling ignominiously from the aircraft. Ed manages the refueling with no problem, as I knew he would.

FIRST ENGAGEMENT

We drop off the tanker with full fuel tanks, and switch our radios over to the strike frequency all aircraft will use in the target area. As we will be the first into the target area, all is quiet for a few minutes. I pick up a AAA radar on my equipment and tell Ed "Guns at ten o’clock," indicating a radar that provides tracking information to 37 mm, 57 mm, 85 mm, 100 mm or 130 mm anti-aircraft guns off our left side. Ed relays that information over the radio, and says to me, "Let’s go get him," and turns toward the radar. Ed flies directly toward the gun-controlling radar by following the heading corrections I give him. The azimuth information which the equipment gives us is pretty good, but range information is at best an educated guess on my part.

Ed and I continue to home in on our AAA site. The weather is pretty crappy -- about 50 percent of the area obscured by towering cumulus clouds whose tops are around 30,000 ft. I think to myself that this is not great weather for hunting SAM sites or for visually acquiring missiles launched at you.

The Weasel gear is indicating more activity in our area, and I tell Ed that we now have a SAM site dead ahead, apparently in the same vicinity as the AAA radar we have been chasing. A bit more trouble than the AAA radar, whose guns only have a range of a few miles. The SAM has a firing range of around 19 mi. to our Shrike missile’s 10 mi. Ed arms one of the Shrike missiles and gets ready to launch it. "Do you think we are close enough?" he asks. I really don’t have a clue, but tell him, "Yeah, I think so."

Ed pulls up the nose of the airplane to pitch the Shrike missile at our SAM site. The Shrike roars off our wing. I watch the signal on the scope to see if the Shrike finds its target. Fifteen seconds elapse. The Shrike should be impacting about now. The signal abruptly goes off the air. Bingo! "It looks like we got him," I yell to Ed. An emergency beeper shatters the relative calm. Someone has been hit and bailed out. It’s not any of the guys from our air base, as they are not over land yet. The beeper is distracting, but we’ve got our own war to fight and, our own problems.

SECOND SHOT

Since we launched our Shrike, another Sam site has started tracking us. "SAM at two o’clock," I yell to Ed, "really strong." "Roger that," he answers and brings the plane right 20 degrees to line us up with this new threat. "I’m going to throw a Shrike at him," Ed calls. The second Shrike roars off the wing as the yellow and red lights on my equipment light up, accompanied by the shrill howl over the intercom that indicates the SAM site has launched at us.

Ed relays my "Launch!" call out over the air, followed by "Kingfish flight, take it down." We light the afterburner to get more airspeed, put the SAM radar signal off our left wing and start a descent, hoping to see the missiles and dodge them before they get us. "I’ve got the missile in sight!" Ed says in a tight voice. He pulls the nose of the airplane up sharply and turns into the missile. The missile roars underneath us and explodes harmlessly behind us. The maneuver has bled off a lot of airspeed. I hear Ed shout "Christ!" as a second missile roars out of the clouds, and explodes just in front of the airplane.

The aircraft is rocked, hard. Seconds later, the cockpit fills with black smoke and the bitter smell and taste of burned cordite. The gun drum, which holds the ammunition for our 20 mm Gatling gun, has blown up. I can see nothing but flames and the red fire-warning light glaring at me through the smoke. The plane is rocking from side to side, but at least it hasn’t exploded or gone completely out of control. I’m having serious trouble breathing. My oxygen mask is not sealed tight and I’m choking on the smoke. There is a handle on my left-hand side panel that will blow the canopy off and get me some air. I try to reach it before I black out completely. I can’t find it and am about to loose consciousness. The only other way to get the canopy off is to initiate the firing sequence for the ejection seat. No decision. Better to march in their damn prisoner-of-war parade than to asphyxiate sitting in the seat. I reach for the ejection-seat levers and rotate the handles. I’ve got to get out of this damn airplane before I die of oxygen starvation or it blows up.

The canopy blows off with a roar, and I stop the ejection sequence and fill my lungs with beautiful clean air. Incongruously, I think what a beautiful day it is. The towering cumulus clouds are as pretty and white as any I have ever seen in the States, and I see a few patches of clear blue sky. The weasel equipment is quiet. The antennas have probably been blown away, and the radios are out, so we aren’t hearing the radar signals, the emergency beepers or the frantic radio calls any more. I hope the old saying is true: "What you don’t know won’t hurt you."

Ed calls from the front seat, "Mike, are you still there ?" "Yes, Ed." I answer, "How about you ?" He chuckles. "I couldn’t find the auxiliary canopy jettison handle and had to raise the ejection handles to get rid of my canopy," he says. Well that makes me feel a little bit better. "Me too," I answer. "We’ll head out over the coast. How bad is the damage back there?"

I strain around in my seat trying to check the damage to the wings and vertical stabilizer, staying out of the wind stream. The left wing has a big hole in the leading edge -- around 3 ft. in diameter. The top of the vertical stabilizer is gone. The nose of the aircraft is gone. Other than that we’re in great shape in our 500-mph, open-cockpit airplane.

The fire-warning and master-caution lights have gone out and the plane seems controllable, so maybe we got lucky and the fires have blown themselves out. No sign of our wingman, since we started the SAM evasive maneuver. Without our radios, we don’t know if he has just gotten separated, or if he has been hit too. Ed says, "I’ve got the coast in sight. Just a little farther."

I keep a look out below and behind us. MiGs haven’t been much of a threat during the war, but there’s no point in getting careless and letting one hammer us now. Unknown to either Ed or me, we are exiting right over the Cam Pha iron mines, the home of one of the North Vietnamese gunnery schools and several batteries of 57mm and 85 mm anti-aircraft guns.

THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM

As I’m looking back over my left shoulder, I see the first evidence that the defenses haven’t forgotten us -- a circular ring of black puffs bursting around 1000 ft. to the left and behind us. I call to Ed, "They’re shooting at us." "Rog!" he says, and then adds, "Here comes our wingman." More flak is coming our way. The second ring of bursts is about 500 ft. behind us. About 10 sec. later, the third burst goes off right under the aircraft and jolts us hard. Pete, our wingman, overshoots us and slides underneath our aircraft and out to the right. For some reason, the North Vietnamese gunners start shooting at him, giving us some time to get out of range.

ABANDON SHIP

We’re over the beach and soon cross over the small rocky islands just off the coast. The hit from the flak seems to have severed our hydraulic lines. Ed calls, "The controls are going, Mike. We’d better get out of here." Just then the plane starts into a 20 degree left bank heading north. There’s nothing up there but Red China -- no place to spend a vacation. "Okay, Ed. Good luck. See you in the water."

I check the tightness of my seat belt and shoulder harness for the tenth time and finish the ejection sequence I started 15 min. earlier. The jolt in the butt from the ejection seat is pretty hairy. An instantaneous 18 Gs, I’m told later. Quite a ride -- better than you can get at any amusement park. The seat separates cleanly from the aircraft, and, a few seconds later, I separate cleanly from the seat and find myself swinging under my parachute. I can see Ed’s chute about a half mi. north of me. Our plane is in a shallow dive and explodes seconds later. There must have been a fire going on in there after all.

It looks like I am about 6,000 ft. in the air and have a good bit of time before hitting the water. I follow the routine I had learned in Survival School. Check the parachute for any line overs or torn panels. I don’t really remember what I’m supposed to do if I have either. All I know is that something would have to be pretty bad before I’d screw with an open parachute. I release the survival kit and life raft from the seat kit so that it dangles at the end of its 15-ft. cord. I save the survival kit handle, putting it into the pocket of my G-suit. It’ll make a good souvenir, if I get out of this. I pull one of the two survival radios from my survival vest and switch it on. This is the first time in twenty min. that I can hear what is going on with the war. I hear my own parachute beeper wailing away and reach up on the parachute riser for the switch that turns it off. Our wingman is calling geographic coordinates to Crown Alfa, the rescue coordinator. They tell him help is on the way and ask how much fuel he has and can he stay in the area performing rescue combat air patrol (rescap) duty for a while. Pete responds that he is good for another 15 min. or so, anyway. Two other aircraft call in that they are in the area and can help. The sound of circling fighters is reassuring, and there is no doubt in my mind that this is going to turn out all right.

Crown Alfa asks Pete if he has been able to contact either of the pilots. I try to answer, but am less than eloquent and am sort of glad when my transmission doesn’t seem to be picked up. The water is getting pretty close, now. It’s time to put the survival radio away, and get ready for the next phase. I try to remember the drill.

Pull the protective covers off the parachute-canopy releases.

Let the life raft touch the water, then turn your body to face the wind.

Release your risers as your feet hit the water. That way the canopy will blow clear of you, and you won’t drown under it.

Seems simple enough, except that all this must happen within a few seconds. I manage to pull it all off, but something isn’t right. I’m under water, sinking fast. I’ve forgotten to inflate my life vest! Holding my breath, I try to find the inflation pull tabs that dangle under each armpit. I can’t find the damn things, and for the second time today, I’m about to die from lack of air. I feel for the nylon cord that has me attached to the life raft, and in desperation, pull myself hand over hand up to the surface. With a good strong kick, I land on my back in the raft. A lot of things not done by the book, but, what the hell, I’m alive!

BE PREPARED

Time to take stock of things. I look around for Ed but there are slight sea swells that limit line of sight to a pretty short distance. The nearest island look to be about 1,000 yards away. I sure hope it’s unoccupied. I open the survival kit to see what’ there. There should be concentrated food bars, water, fishing stuff, shark repellent, sea dye marker, emergency flares and all sorts of stuff necessary to make this a pleasant stay. To my chagrin, the kit contains nothing but two pairs of wool socks. Not a good start. Like most of the guys who fly out of Takhli, however, I’ve brought my own stuff. Our personal equipment NCO, Tech Sergeant Joe Perry, has rigged our survival vests with most of the necessities. I’ve got two blue plastic baby bottles full of water, two survival radios, a packet of sea-dye marker, a day/night signaling flare, my .38 Combat Masterpiece, extra ammunition and my trusty Buck General knife. I drink one of the baby bottles of water, reflecting that two of the best things in the world are good fresh air to breathe and cool water to drink.

In the back of my mind, I remember hearing that the South China Sea is one of the worst places in the world for poisonous sea snakes and sharks. I don’t know whether sharks like yellow rubber life rafts. "Yummy Yellow" is probably their favorite color. I quickly put that thought out of my mind. Maybe if I don’t go looking for them, they won’t come looking for me.

I get the radio out again, to see how the rescue operation is coming along. Everything seems to be going OK. Crown Alfa, one of the rescue planes, is asking our wingman if he has us spotted in the water. Ed is obviously listening too, as, a few seconds later, Pete says "I see one sea-dye marker, but don’t have the other pilot in sight." I consider putting out my own sea dye marker, or popping my flare, but decide against it. As long as they can see Ed, the rescue forces will come and then it’ll be time enough to let everyone know where I am. No telling how long we’ll have to wait.

COMPLICATIONS

"There’s a ship coming out of the harbor," Pete calls. Another of the circling fighters calls, "I’m going to jettison my bombs -- armed. Maybe that will make them turn back." Minutes later, a string of six 750-lb. bombs explodes in the water about a mile from us and about a half mile from the ship. It appears to do the trick. "They’ve turned back," I hear Pete say. We’ve got nine airplanes flying cover for us now. Crown Alfa calls now for a direction-finding (DF) steer to the rescue area and says that they are about 10 min. out. Pete reports that all is well , but that he still has only one pilot in sight. I have spotted Ed’s raft in the meantime, about 300 yards to the north of me, and pass that message over the survival radio to the general public. No answer. Well, no sweat, there’s still time enough to sort it out.

I hear the wail of another parachute beeper on the radio, followed seconds later by a second beeper. I wonder if somehow our beepers have started transmitting again. Beepers are probably the most pathetic sounds on earth. A few minutes later, I hear Duke 2 relay on Guard channel that "Duke lead has been shot down in the target area. There were two good parachutes." Duke 2 is Bob Sandvick and my good friend, Tom Pyle, the other Weasel crew that was flying today.

A new complication arises. "I see what looks like mortar fire coming from one of the islands. It looks like they’re trying to hit them in their rafts," one of the orbiting pilots calls out. I neither see nor hear the mortar fire, but the bursts would have to be pretty close for me to see them. Anyway , I’d just as soon not see them. Pitman rolls in and strafes the island. Minutes later comes the announcement --"That appears to have quieted them down."

This latest bit of news has gotten Crown Alfa’s attention. "Is the rescue area hot?" a tense, high-pitched voice asks. I think to myself, "What the hell! Are you going to call off the rescue just because someone is shooting? It’s war, they’re supposed to shoot." It must have been some staff weenie on the radio, for, a second later, a calmer voice, probably the pilot’s, calls for another DF steer, asks for the location of the downed pilots in relation to some landmark and announces they’re on their way in. Ed lets loose with his orange smoke, which Crown Alfa spots almost immediately. Minutes later, a beautiful sight passes overhead. A Grumman HU-16 Albatross sea plane, probably built 25 years ago, is looking the situation over. It banks around and settles down on the water and I see them taxiing toward Ed. Crown Alfa announces, "The pilot seems to be all right, he’s waving at us."

I give them a few minutes to get Ed into the airplane, and then hear the rescue pilot asking "Where is the other pilot in relation to our position?" Time to pop my smoke. I pull the tab that ignites the flare, and it spews out its bright orange smoke. A few seconds later, I hear the call I’ve been waiting for: "I’ve got smoke in sight." Simultaneously comes the call from the rescue aircraft and one of the rescap planes. The HU-16 taxies over and positions itself between my raft and the nearest island. No markings on the aircraft at all. A young oriental in a black wet suit, appears in the door of the aircraft, and shouts, "Don’t shoot. I’m Hawaiian," and dives into the water. I feel that I need to do something to help. "Just stay still, I’ll take care of everything," he says calmly, as if this was just routine business for him. I gladly do what I’ve been told and minutes later I’m being lifted into the side door of the Albatross.

MORE COMPLICATIONS

The HU-16 crew seem elated that they’ve got us, but not nearly as elated as Ed and I feel -- although we’re in a bit of shock right now. I’ll save my celebrating until I get onto dry land. "The other pilot has hurt his back," the pararescueman tells me. Then, "You didn’t inflate your Mae West, did you ?" "Thanks," I say sarcastically. That’s all I need, is to get my chain pulled by some rescue puke. I go up to check on Ed. He is wrapped up in a blanket, his back messed up from the ejection. The plane taxies forward, as I shake the hand of everyones I can get to. I give a big thanks to the pilot -- "Red" Angstadt, from San Antonio. "Better take a seat," he says, while we see if we can get the hell out of here." That’s when I find out that the HU-16 has a sick engine, apparently bad enough that they had considered aborting the mission and leaving the rescue to another plane. I’m sure glad that they didn’t.

The guys on the island are shooting at the plane, and mortar shells hit the water, about 100 ft. off our right wing. Red taxies out of range of the mortars but must make his takeoff run into the wind, which takes him back toward the islands. He uses the good engine to get up as much speed as possible, then brings the sick engine up to full power, hoping to get us airborne before the sick engine blows up. Twice we can’t get up enough airspeed and turn around within firing range of the islands.

The third time is the charm, and we get off the water, seemingly by hitting the tops of the swells until we are bounced high enough to remain airborne. The old aircraft has taken a lot of punishment, but everything seems OK as we get some altitude beneath us. "Where are we going?" I ask. "We’re out of Da Nang," says the navigator. "We’ll take you back there, and then your unit will send a plane to pick you up."

AFTERMATH

Ed and I are quiet. His back is hurting -- a compression fracture from the ejection seat that will keep him out of jet fighters for the rest of his Air Force career. Seven planes altogether have been shot down today, ensuring that Ed and I make the front pages of The Washington Post and The New York Times.

I’m depressed. My first mission of any consequence, and the score is North Vietnamese 1, Mike Gilroy 0. Not a great start to my career as a warrior. But then, there’s no way for things to go but up.

Borrowed from the October 1999, Journal of Electronic Defense