One Day in a Long War: The Greatest Battle of the Vietnam Air War (The Air Combat Trilogy Book 2) by Price Alfred & Ethell Jeffrey

Author:Price, Alfred & Ethell, Jeffrey [Price, Alfred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silvertail Books
Published: 2019-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

Constellation ’s Air Wing is closing on the rail yard at Hai Duong and its attack aircraft are about to begin their bomb runs. Coral Sea ’s Air Wing follows 60 miles behind, bound for the bridge over the Binh River near Hai Duong. The cruiser Chicago, Red Crown, lies about 85 miles southeast of the target. Already several MiGs are airborne and converging on Hai Duong; the most intensive air action fought over Vietnam will begin in less than a minute.

From his A-6, Lieutenant Ron Pearson began to realize that the formation leader had not seen the rail yard. “He flew exactly on course; he did everything he was supposed to, except he didn’t roll in when we got to the IP [Initial Point]. It was a nice day, good visibility. The problem was that the visibility was too good. Our briefed roll-in point was over a bridge to the east of Hai Duong. On our maps was just one highly visible bridge. But up there in the real world, visibility was so good we could see a bunch of bridges. He was looking at a bridge further north thinking he hadn’t reached the roll-in point yet. And he didn’t roll in.”

It was a potentially ticklish situation, but Eggert’s crews knew what was expected of them. “When I briefed a strike the order of attacking was not sacrosanct,” said the Air Wing commander later. “If the guy supposed to roll in first failed to see the target, the guy who did see it was to roll in and the others were to follow. They were not to wait around getting their fannies shot off—they were to roll in, bomb, and get out of there.”

Flying in the number two position, Randy Foltz also realized what was happening. He called the leader and asked if he had the target in sight.

“You tally on the target, Boomer?”

“Negative the target yet.”

“Roger, you’ll have to follow us, we’re gonna roll in!”

Foltz took charge of the A-6 force. He made a half barrel roll over his leader and slid into his attack dive. The other planes followed.

The delay in turning-in took the bombers farther north than planned, and instead of attacking from two separate directions they all ran in from nearly due north. The rest of the attack went according to plan, however, and the hiccup was soon forgotten.

From his flak suppression F-4 Randy Cunningham watched the A-6s and A-7s attack, “looking for all the world like a column of ants as they went down the chute. AAA puffs dotted the sky.” The shell bursts were obvious enough, but Cunningham could see no muzzle flashes to betray the guns he was supposed to attack. So he and his wingman, Lieutenant Brian Grant, deposited their cluster bombs on warehouses beside the main target.

DRIVING on Route 5 from Haiphong, Claude Julien’s jeep was nearing Hai Duong. Suddenly and without warning a geyser of smoke and dust erupted from the ground a few hundred yards ahead. Another air

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