Ed Haerter
The Last Operation Rolling Thunder Mission into North Vietnam, November 1, 1968
President Johnson ended any air strikes on North Vietnam after November 1, 1968.
Our Air National Guard (ANG) unit was based at Phu Cat, and on that last day, I was scheduled to fly a late afternoon mission using the 37th Wing call sign, “Sun Valley,” instead of our 174th ANG “Bats” call sign. My flight Lead was Col. Clayton, 37th TFW DO. He normally flew late missions after his day at the desk and liked to fly our C- models because the feel was tighter, and, fully loaded and armed, the Cs weighed only as much as the Ds with fuel tanks and no weapons.That day, we were fragged to fly flak support for two F-4s, call sign “Shark Bait 01,” who would be dropping mines into the river at Vinh, at the north end of Route Pack 2 in North Vietnam. We had been pre-briefed that defenses in the area were 85mm, 57mm, 37mm, 23mm and 12.7mm quads, plus the SA2s. I suppose there were kids with slingshots, too!
This was a preplanned mission so we had no FAC. The Misty guys were down near Mu Gia Pass that day to get their last licks in at the truck parks. We were armed with two MK 82HD bombs on the inboard stations, and two canisters of CBU-2A [cluster bomb units]. We arrived at the holding point and were told by the C-130 controlling us that the F-4s would be late, so we were vectored to the tanker at Tiger Island, where we refueled and joined up with two F-105 Wild Weasels. The Weasels were there because there were active SAM sites in the Vinh area, and they hoped to able to take care of suppressing them.
The four of us flew back down to the area near Vinh, and about the time we got there the F-4s came up on frequency. The Thuds recommended we do one pass each, from opposite directions. We all flight-briefed on the air, after which I went about 20 miles inland with one F-4; Col. Clayton and his F-4 went about 20 miles out to sea. The F-105s lingered up high.
Someone decided it was time to go in, so I dropped down and led my F-4 toward the north bank of the river and thence to the ocean. The other spur-of-the-moment-flight-of-two turned inbound from the other direction, toward the south side of the river. The plan was to fly simultaneous head-on attacks with lateral separation, with the Huns dropping our ordinance a couple hundred yards inland, while the F-4s dropped their mines in the river.
About five miles from the town, all hell broke loose, with tracers flying everywhere. We got right down on the deck, and, although the CBUs were supposed to be dropped at 350K, I got a lot faster than that. I leveled out at 100 feet, with tracers coming at me from every direction right over the canopy, pickled the proper number of times to disperse the CBUs, pickled off the bombs, then dropped down on the deck and lit the burner. I was over 600K and accelerating when I went feet wet. The F-4 was right with me. The flight coming the other direction was a bit late and got feet dry when we were already safely out of range. Just then, the Thuds yelled “Missiles in the air,” and we went down to a few feet over the water, still in burner. The other ad hoc flight dropped their ordinance, turned a quick 180, and got the hell out of there back to sea. The SAMs had been fired at the Thuds, and after they evaded them, our Thud guys attacked the site that had fired at them. The Thuds had fired some Shrikes at the SAM radars right as the SAMs were fired, but the NVA was good at boresighting the SAMs visually, turning the radars on when they fired for guidance, and then turning them off as soon as all the missiles either hit or missed their target. The NVA had brought a bunch of SAMs south, some right into the DMZ, before the bombing halt.
Never, ever, did I think we’d fly anything like this mission, and I still wonder what the people who dreamed it up were thinking. Luckily, even though all four of us attackers had felt hits, none of them seemed to be serious. So we all landed at Da Nang to refuel and get our aircraft checked out. As we had surmised, none of the battle damage was serious enough to ground our aircraft, and so, with our 0-6 also telling the inspectors we wanted to leave, we got gassed up and flew home.It was an interesting mission. The F-4 crews wrote it up for their Awards and Decs guy, and later we were all awarded DFCs from 7th AF.
I always enjoyed flying with Col. Clayton, and that mission was sort of typical in some ways. Coming back from Laos, he’d get into some valley, including the very dangerous A Shau Valley several times, and troll for guns. Our plan was that if anyone shot at him, the rest of the flight was supposed to go after the guns. And we actually did just that a few times. During my tour, we flew in Laos around Tchepone, Ban Phanop, etc. In the North, we mostly flew rescaps or truck parks. Misty found plenty near Muy Ghia pass, and truck parks seemed to be everywhere in Route Packs 1 and 2 in the North.