66 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN Issue No 21
Intruder units. With no additional resources, the
8th TFW was forced to undertake a high number
of missions for several weeks, ultimately bringing
it to the verge of collapse. The pilots, living in
primitive conditions, alternated day and night
missions without proper recuperation time, their
mechanics working to the point of exhaustion
and sleeping when possible in the hangars.
The Seventh Air Force, which ran the air war
in South-east Asia, fired the Wing’s overzealous
CO, Col Joseph Wilson, as a scapegoat. He was
replaced on September 30, 1966, by Col Robin
Olds (RIGHT), a Second World War ace with 12
kills, well known for his independence of mind
and for leading his men by example. His previous
assignment had been as CO of the 81st TFW at
RAF Bentwaters in the UK, a unit equipped with
McDonnell F-101C Voodoos specialised for the
nuclear strike role beyond the Iron Curtain.
After converting on to the Phantom in the USA,
Olds arrived in Thailand to find a demoralised
Wing which had lost ten F-4Cs in less than two
months over North Vietnam. Characteristically,
Olds went into action immediately, flying as
many missions as possible, particularly the most
difficult, to evaluate the unit’s working conditions
and tactics and to assess his new team. During his
one-year tour, Olds flew some 152 sorties, many
over the dangerous Hanoi area, as against his
predecessor’s total of 12. The new CO suspended
all nocturnal sorties and placed MiG-hunting at
the heart of his Wing’s activities.
Olds quickly realised that most of his young
pilots had not yet accrued the fundamentals of air
combat or become versed in the art of dogfighting.
Citing great progress in the development of radar
and air-to-air missile technologies, the USAF had
reduced the close-combat element of its training
syllabus. The time dedicated to such training had
been reduced to around ten per cent of what it
had been a decade previously. The emphasis was
now on the interception of enemy aircraft beyond
visual range (BVR) with AIM-7D/E Sparrow
radar-guided missiles. However, like the short-
range infrared-guided Sidewinder, the Sparrow’s
reliability in combat proved disappointing.
Olds set about honing the skills of his men,
and arranged training sessions with the RAAF’s
resident No 77 Sqn, the latter’s CAC Sabre Mk 32s
playing the role of enemy MiG-17s. After several
weeks of practising, the Wolf Pack became one of
the few units in theatre, along with some US Navy
Vought F-8 Crusader squadrons, that could be
considered truly proficient in air combat. With his
pilots’ morale restored, Olds began a campaign to
obtain permission for a major MiG-hunt.Political considerations
Since the beginning of Operation Rolling Thunder,
the Americans had envisaged destroying the VPAF
at its bases. However, a reluctance to risk casual-Wearing the “FO” tailcodes of the 435th
TFS, a pair of F-4Ds heads out for a
bombing mission in North Vietnam. By
the end of 1966 most of the 8th TFW’s
Phantoms were engaged on ground-
attack missions.
JAMES WOOD VIA WARREN THOMPSON
USAF