It was still dark as the strike group left the carrier to their assigned rendezvous area. Little did they know what was happening at that moment in Hanoi. The Air Force strike group had taken off from Thailand, flew in low behind a range of mountains. The enemy had not been hit in almost a month. When the Air Force F-4s and F-105s attacked, the enemy was asleep!

The Air Force first strike was virtually unopposed. But it did wake everybody up, and they were angry, and their radars picked up the big Navy strike force coming in from the Gulf of Tonkin. Their Migs all took off to get in position for the attack. The anti aircraft gunners had manned their stations. The radars were all active and SAM site commanders wanted blood.

The Vigilante weather reconnaissance pilot was the first plane launched and headed off for Hanoi alone. He could tell from a long distance away that the weather over the target was clear. He called the Air Wing Commander who was now leading the strike group over the beach. He identified himself to the leader and said two words, “Siberia, Siberia!” The Commander acknowledged with a simple, “Roger, Siberia.” I remember breathing heavily into my oxygen mask.

We were now up to speed, 360 knots, and the Shrike aircraft, which the Air Force calls “Wild Weasels”, pulled out ahead of us to draw the enemy’s attention. Almost immediately they were scanned by Fan Song radars. “Shrikes away!”, they called to let us know. All four Shrike aircraft fired all of their missiles within minutes because there were so many radars turned on.

Before we were even in range the anti-aircraft guns started firing clouding up the sky with puffs of white or black smoke. We were going to have to fly through a sky full of lead. I think we were about twenty-five miles out when the first two SAMs were fired. Our airplanes were jinking wildly now. The formation became more scattered with less than two minutes to the target. One, two, three, four more SAMs came up. “I’m hit” I heard one pilot call out. Then another.

The formation was now in chaos. The two planes that were hit tried turning out to sea. Their wingman went with them. “You’re on Fire, Eject” I heard. More planes were getting hit, but most by anti-aircraft fire. More “missiles in the air”, pilots were crying out. More wild jinking left and right. Now there was no strike formation.

I lost track of my leaders, and I was over Phuc Yen. I rolled in on the target. There were no bombs going off on the runway. I was the first plane in. I pickled my bombs and pulled out and away. I was looking everywhere, trying to avoid a mid-air collision, trying to avoid SAMs, I didn’t care about protocol. I wanted to get out of that area as quickly as possible.

I later learned that only six airplanes dropped bombs on the target. There were still missiles being fired as I was leaving. Agreement was reached later that over 30 missiles were fired at our 42 airplanes. A lot of airplanes were hit, but only one by a SAM.

Migs were sighted by our fighters, but rather than engage, the Migs fled to China. There was no longer any semblance of a military formation of any kind. It was literally every man for himself.