Another non-political B-52 tale:
PHUC YEN
By Wilton Strickland
By December 13, 1972, my B-52 (Big Ugly Fat Fellow - BUFF) crew from
Kincheloe AFB, MI, had completed our normal six-month temporary duty tour
flying Operation Arc Light bombing missions from Guam and U-Tapao, Thailand
to Vietnam. We had spent about half the time flying out of Guam, the other
half flying from Thailand. Because our gunner had already had several other
Arc Light tours and there was not a significant shortage of gunners in the
theater, he was allowed to return home. Officially, our crew was no longer
there, but the five officers on the crew were held for several more days to
fly extra missions as individual substitutes on other crews. Co-pilot, EW
(electronic warfare officer) and I chose to return to Thailand to fly the
extra missions.
The original plan for the trip home, 'til we were extended, had been for
us to fly a bomber from Guam to the Boeing Plant at Wichita, KS, about 14 or
15 Dec. After we were extended, though, the plan was for us to go home on a
Kincheloe KC-135 tanker about 23 or 24 Dec. The tanker would be flying from
U-Tapao to Guam the night of 23 Dec.
I wanted to fly the extra missions from Thailand, because the mission
length from Thailand was less than a third that from Guam, and I also had a
new microwave oven and a motorcycle in boxes in a storage room on Guam that
I wanted to take home. I had planned to take the items home in the BUFF,
but now that I was going to be a passenger on a tanker, and because a weight
limit had recently been placed on passenger luggage, I had to work out a way
to get my excess included with the tanker crew's stuff. I could do that
much more easily if I traveled from Thailand to Guam with them before going
on to Michigan.
After returning to U-Tapao, I temporarily joined a crew from Westover
AFB, MA. The captain I was replacing was back home being treated for high
blood pressure. (My blood pressure was about to get a significant boost!)
By Dec 18, I had flown three very routine and uneventful missions to targets
just south of the 20th parallel in North Vietnam with this crew.
Things began to change drastically, though, on Dec 18th. Because we had
not flown our normal daily schedule of a cell of three bombers taking off
every hour throughout the day on the 18th, we BUFF crewmen suspected
something bigger must have been coming. By noon, when schedules were posted
for nearly 50 crews to attend pre-mission briefings in late afternoon and
early evening, we knew something big was up. When the curtains were drawn
to reveal our targets at the beginning of our pre-mission briefing, we knew
we were finally going to fight the Vietnam War the way most of us thought it
should have been done years before. Forty two B-52D's from U-Tapao and
eighty nine B-52D's and G's from Guam were going to attack strategic targets
in and around Hanoi that night - we were finally going to take the war
"home" to the North Vietnamese government. We were going to destroy their
war-making capacity - petroleum production and storage facilities, assembly
plants, rail transshipment yards, power production and transmission systems,
communications and command and control systems, airfields, surface-to-air
missile (SAM) storage and launch sites, and much more. These facilities and
systems were vital to the enemy's war effort and had contributed directly to
the loss of many American and South Vietnamese lives throughout the war.
Many of these potential targets, however, had been off limits to attack by
American airmen for most of the war. This was the opening night of
Linebacker II, called by many "The Eleven-Day War," the no-holds-barred
bombing campaign which finally persuaded the North Vietnamese to negotiate a
settlement ending US involvement in the war. Immediately, during the
pre-mission briefing, though, several of us saw possible serious problems
with the tactics. All bombers were going in-trail (one behind the other) at
the same altitude (35,000 to 36,000 feet) northbound along the same route
about 150 nautical miles (NM) west of Hanoi to a point about 100 miles
northwest of the city before turning southeast and splitting off to go to
separate targets in and around Hanoi. Long before we could get to this
major turning point, the enemy air defense forces would know our spacing and
altitude - part of their gunnery/firing problem was already solved before we
turned inbound toward the targets.
My crew's target was Phuc Yen airfield about 10 miles north of Hanoi.
Just as we were releasing, I heard a call on the radio from Red Crown (US
Navy ship in the Gulf of Tonkin monitoring all air activity in the area),
"Bandit on final at Phuc Yen." (Don't you know he got a surprise on that
landing - a MIG-21 trying to land at the same time as 324 500-pound bombs
were impacting on the same runway and vicinity!)
Immediately after release, we made a hard right turn over downtown
Hanoi, withdrawing to the west and doing evasive maneuvers (zigzagging) at
450 knots. My view was of nearly a carpet-like layer of anti-aircraft
artillery (AAA) bursts (flak) below us interspersed by many streaks of light
marking the paths of surface-to-air missiles (SAM's) which reached our
altitude and higher, but none came very close to my aircraft. It seemed to
take forever to withdraw against a head wind of nearly 120 knots - ground
speed of about 330 knots but much less straight-line ground speed because of
the zigzagging to evade missiles. Our gunner, in the tail of the aircraft,
reported several more SAM's fired at us from the rear.
As we passed over and near Hanoi on this and subsequent missions, I
could not help but think of the Americans who had been held as prisoners of
war (POW's) for several years and were now within only a few miles of me in
their dungeon cells on the ground below. I hoped that the sounds of the
B-52's overhead and the many bombs exploding near them would lift their
spirits and reassure them that they had not been forgotten - that the
"cavalry" had finally arrived.
Throughout the entire bomb run and withdrawal, as on most other nights
during this campaign, we could hear in our radio headsets multiple emergency
locator beacons of BUFF crewmen already downed. These signals are
transmitted by a small radio on each parachute harness and are initiated
when the chute deploys. The volume of the beacons increased as we
approached Hanoi, rising to a crescendo over Hanoi, and slowly decreasing
'til we could no longer hear them as we departed the target area. It was an
upsetting reminder that we were leaving some of our comrades-in-arms behind,
a few likely already dead. I learned later that three BUFFs were lost this
night.
After we had finally cleared the Hanoi area and turned southbound to
U-Tapao over western North Vietnam and Laos, we heard the pilot of another
B-52 calling for assistance, saying they had been hit by a missile, they
were at 10,000 feet southbound, had lost all instruments and lighting, were
losing fuel, did not know where they were and were asking for vectors to a
suitable base. An American air traffic control facility at a base in NE
Thailand came on the radio and began giving assistance.
Because the pilot of the stricken bomber knew the approach at U-Tapao
very well, and because the aircraft was flying reasonably well, he decided
to proceed to U-Tapao. (The officer in charge of U-Tapao air traffic
control, LtCol Prentiss Ollis, later confirmed my memory of the following,
most of which I overheard.) When the wounded bomber got within radio range
of U-Tapao, approaching from the north, the pilot informed air traffic
control that he would be landing on runway 18 (heading of 180°). The DO
(Deputy Commander for Operations, a colonel) relayed messages via the
controller that he wanted the stricken bomber to land on runway 36 (heading
of 360°). The DO and the pilot argued back and forth several times, with
the pilot insisting that he was going to land on 18, "I have minimum
instruments, I have the runway in sight, I'm losing fuel; I don't know how
much fuel is left; I don't think I can make it to 36!"
The controller replied, "The DO doesn't want you on 18 in case something
else happens. The DO ORDERS you to land on 36."
The pilot of the stricken bomber retorted, "You tell the DO to stick
that order up his ass! I'm landing on 18!"
I quickly chimed in with a resounding, "ATTABOY!"
(Col. Ollis told me that he cleaned up the pilot's response to the order
slightly when he relayed it to the DO.) Lucky for all of us, the bomber
proceeded to a safe landing.
Later, in the hallway of the operations building, waiting for our
post-strike debriefing, the DO approached me and said, while shaking his
head in disbelief, "That boy was determined to land on 18."
My reply was, "Indeed, he was, and we all ought to give him another
ATTABOY for it."
I never knew why he approached me with such a comment. A few seconds
later, my crew went in to our debriefing, and I never saw the DO again. I
understand that, by the time he spoke to me, he had already been relieved of
his duties.
_______________________________________
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