March 2018 FLYPAST 29reacted by splitting up, with Duc
Soat ordering his wingman to keep
an eye on the F-4s on the right
whilst he himself feigned an attack
on the F-4s on the left. These
turned and dived lower. The other
F-4s turned to the left to support
their colleagues on the left.
In the blink of an eye, Duc Soat
reversed his turn and headed for
the fighter-bombers. Soon he could
see the black trails of the bomb-
carrying F-4s and by this time the
escorts were wrong-footed and too
far away to defend their charges.
The F-4s decided that discretion
was the better part of valour,
dropped their bomb load and, using
their superior speed, pitched into a
dive to escape. The MiG pilots were
then ordered to break away and
head for home.
Going in blind
After another nine days of similar
actions the North Vietnamese
MiGs broke their duck on
December 23, with an F-4 kill over
the Hoa Binh province, bringing
down an aircraft which was trying
to destroy a SAM site.
According to North Vietnamese
records, 18 B-52s had been shot
down by December 24. The fighter
pilots of any nation have pride in
their skill and the North Vietnamese
were no exception, as they still
desired to have a B-52 ‘kill’ which
they could categorically prove.
Dang Rang recalled: “We became
impatient as we had not shot down
any B-52 that we could prove.
Our MiGs took off every eveningand whenever we approached the
bombers, we had our radar jammed.
To make matters worse, the bombers
were even more heavily escorted
than on previous occasions.
“We viewed the escorts like many
layers of ‘fences’ that an interceptor
had to overcome and they became
like ‘flying mine sites’ that could
explode if you got too near.”
On Christmas Day 1972, the
Americans showed their festive spirit
by not bombing North Vietnam.
The VPAF used this kind gesture
to organise a high-level meeting of
the Air Command to plan how to
shoot down a B-52. All the most
experienced pilots were present,“Pham Tuan was ordered to take off in his MiG-21MF Fishbed. He took off
alone, flying by instruments in the dark and deadly sky, to play a game
of cat and mouse”
Left
A pair of MiG-21s taking
off from Yen Bai during
the Linebacker raids of
December 1972.Above
The SA-2 ‘Guideline’ had
a range of 19 miles and
could reach 85,000ft.Left
Because of ‘Wild
Weasel’ attacks aimed
at destroying radar and
missile defence systems,
SAMs had to constantly
relocate.Below left
Le Thanh Dao detailing his
latest ‘kill’ to a group of
pilots in front of a line of
MiG-21PFMs.