Issue No 21 THE AVIATION HISTORIAN 69
Olds authorised a small party to celebrate the
New Year although Stone, the operation’s main
planner, was tense and nervous and slept poorly.
The mission was launched during the afternoon
of January 2, despite the latest weather forecast
indicating a solid overcast over the Hanoi area.
The North Vietnamese radars detected the
incoming aircraft as they were being refuelled
over Laos to the west and the Gulf of Tonkin to
the east. Flying low over the latter were the two
C-130B-IIs of the NSA, carrying Vietnamese,
Chinese, Russian and Korean translators,
who monitored the North Vietnamese radio
frequencies. The North Vietnamese air-defence
system was on full alert.
Leading a flight that bore his name, Olds was
the first to arrive over Noi Bai airbase at 1500hr
local time. Flying south-east along the ingress
route used by the F-105s at 480kt, with its ECM
pods turned on, the flight drew no defensive
reaction and turned northwards to clear the area.
Usually, the VPAF maintained a CAP over the
airbase, with another further north and another
west of Phuc Yen, over the Red River, during
Thud attacks along that penetration route. If the
engagement developed favourably for the North
Vietnamese, additional MiGs would be launched.
This time the air-defence commanders seemed
confused, probably owing to the strikes taking
place against radar and SAM sites by EF-105Fs.
The commanders thus delayed the launching of
their interceptors and awaited a clearer situation.
A frustrated Olds and his flight continued
northwards, wondering if the enemy had taken
the bait and seriously considering whether to
cancel the mission. After about 15min a VPAF
order was given for a force of MiG-21s to take
off. The NSA operators immediately sent a
warning to Olds on a pre-selected radio channel,
but the message failed to get through owing to
defective radio equipment in Olds’s Phantom.
Fortunately, the commander of the East Force,
then arriving from the Gulf of Tonkin, received
the NSA message and forwarded it to Olds, who
immediately dropped his external tanks and
turned back towards Hanoi with full afterburner,
forbidding any BVR missile engagements, as per
the plan, to avoid hitting friendly aircraft coming
the other way.
Captain Ralph Wetterhahn, callsign Olds 2, was
the first to obtain fleeting radar contact ahead.
Suddenly, a MiG-21 popped up from the thick
overcast at 7,000ft (2,100m) just behind the Olds
flight and was seen by the arriving Ford flight,
which sounded the alarm. Breaking hard, the
Olds flight evaded this first enemy pass, after
which Olds spotted another MiG-21 emerging
from the cloud at his 11 o’clock, at which he fired
two Sparrows, neither of which hit its target.
Closing in, he fired an AIM-9B which also did notFishbed-Ds are pushed out at Noi Bai in the spring of 1966
in preparation for another air-defence mission against the
USAF. The VPAF took the bait during Bolo and scrambled the
equivalent of an entire squadron, the MiGs suffering accordingly.
Note “4228”, lost during Bolo, in the forgeround.McDonnell Douglas F-4C 63-7680 was the Phantom flown by Col Robin Olds during
Operation Bolo, armed with AIM-7E Sparrows mounted in underfuselage troughs (two
forward and two aft) plus a pair of AIM-9B Sidewinders on each wing. The AN/ALQ-72
ECM pod fitted for Bolo is shown beneath the tail. Olds’s Phantom was yet to be marked
with the “FP” tailcode of the 497th TFS, 8th TFW. Artwork by TOM COOPER © 2017
ALBERT GRANDOLINI COLLECTION