The Hunter Killers

The Extraordinary Story of the First Wild Weasels, the Band of Maverick Aviators Who Flew the Most Dangerous Missions of the Vietnam War

Dan Hampton

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780062375124
• eBook ISBN: 9780062375148
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

At the height of the Cold War, America's most elite aviators bravely volunteered for a covert program aimed at eliminating an impossible new threat. Half never returned. All became legends. From New York Times bestselling author Dan Hampton comes one of the most extraordinary untold stories of aviation history.

Vietnam, 1965: On July 24 a USAF F-4 Phantom jet was suddenly blown from the sky by a mysterious and lethal weapon—a Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM), launched by Russian "advisors" to North Vietnam. Three days later, six F-105 Thunderchiefs were brought down trying to avenge the Phantom. More tragic losses followed, establishing the enemy's SAMs as the deadliest anti-aircraft threat in history and dramatically turning the tables of Cold War air superiority in favor of Soviet technology.

Stunned and desperately searching for answers, the Pentagon ordered a top secret program called Wild Weasel I to counter the SAM problem—fast. So it came to be that a small group of maverick fighter pilots and Electronic Warfare Officers volunteered to fly behind enemy lines and into the teeth of the threat. To most it seemed a suicide mission—but they beat the door down to join. Those who survived the 50 percent casualty rate would revolutionize warfare forever.

"You gotta be sh*#@ing me!" This immortal phrase was uttered by Captain Jack Donovan when the Wild Weasel concept was first explained to him. "You want me to fly in the back of a little tiny fighter aircraft with a crazy fighter pilot who thinks he's invincible, home in on a SAM site in North Vietnam, and shoot it before it shoots me?"

Based on unprecedented firsthand interviews with Wild Weasel veterans and previously unseen personal papers and declassified documents from both sides of the conflict, as well as Dan Hampton's own experience as a highly decorated F-16 Wild Weasel pilot, The Hunter Killers is a gripping, cockpit-level chronicle of the first-generation Weasels, the remarkable band of aviators who faced head-on the advanced Soviet missile technology that was decimating fellow American pilots over the skies of Vietnam.

PART ONE

THE END OF THE FIGHT IS A TOMBSTONE WHITE
WITH THE NAME OF THE LATE DECEASED.
AND THE EPITAPH DREAR, A FOOL LIES HERE
WHO TRIED TO HUSTLE THE EAST.

RUDYARD KIPLING

CHAPTER 1

SPRING HIGH

A LONG WHITE tongue.

That was it. The pilot shoved up the helmet visor, squinted, and shook his head. Well . . . that’s what it looked like, he thought, leaning forward to stare over the canopy rail. Sunlight sparkled on the water, edges feathering as it spat from the green cliffs, then tumbled onto rocks a thousand feet below. Amazing. The pilot risked another long look and saw a copper-colored pool wrapped in floating gray mist.

“Isn’t that beautiful?”

He flinched, startled. Not the normal type of radio call one heard on a combat mission. Especially this one. Captain Vic Vizcarra, flying as Rambler Two today, watched the magnificent sight disappear as the four F-105 fighters rumbled past, accelerating to 480 knots over northern Laos. Extra chatter on the way into Vietnam was never good, so he merely double-clicked the mike. Vic was certain the flight leader, Major Art Mearns, would have something to say about it later when they landed.

Powerful and big, the F-105 was built to fly fast and dangerously low. Nicknamed the “Thud,” it was designed to drop tactical nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union, though by necessity it was now being used in a different war for completely different reasons. Wriggling his shoulders against the seat harness, Vic stared out at the untamed highlands of the border provinces, struck, as always, by their untamed beauty. Hope I never go down here. The pilot shook his head.

Weathered gray rock formations poked up like old teeth through the startling green foliage. Far off to the right, layered in shimmering indigo shades, lay the Gulf of Tonkin. Left of the fighters, some sixty miles north between Vietnam and Laos, he could see the peanut-shaped valley of Dien Bien Phu. France’s colonial empire had met its fate there, and Vic had very nearly met his own three days ago on another strike mission. Another place I hope I never see again. He chuckled humorlessly. Today was different. This was revenge. Forty-eight F-105s out of Thailand were headed into North Vietnam to obliterate the SAM sites that killed Ross Fobair three days earlier.^* Rambler was part of six flights from Takhli air base, named for classic automobiles, while Korat’s six flights of four Thuds were named for trees.

As the distant valley passed away under his wing, the four fighters headed northeast and began dropping steadily. Vic’s eyes continuously measured distances, speeds, and the other jets around him. His left hand subtly slid the throttle forward and back, adding and taking away power while his right hand gently twitched the stick.

Well designed and relatively roomy, the Thud cockpit was set up around a T-shaped center console. Every few seconds Vic glanced inside the cockpit and cross-checked a gauge or switch. He didn’t bother with the big attitude indicator or horizontal situation indicator in the middle console just forward of the stick. Neither did the side consoles, by his knees, concern him, as they mostly contained the UHF radio, navigation control panels, lighting, and other miscellaneous systems he’d set up on the ground. The combining glass, a transparent rectangle mounted directly above the glare shield, did get a look and Vic could plainly see its multi-ringed, bright orange circle glowing against the afternoon sun. Normally he would use it for aiming, and it could be set for the airspeed, altitude, and weapons required on an attack. Not that it would matter today, since they would be dropping on their leader’s command. Revenge. His dark eyes blazed briefly at the thought of Leopard Two.

Passing through 10,000 feet, Vic looked around at Laos. The Plain of Jars was well behind them; just to the right of his nose lay the Barthelemy Pass, a narrow gap through the border mountains. In the steep valley along the foothills he caught the metallic gleam of the Ma River, and he frowned. They’d have to get down quicker since the ingress plan was to cross into North Vietnam at 100 feet and 480 knots. Hidden in rough terrain the Thuds should be invisible to any watching radars, and at that speed they’d cover sixty miles to the next turn point in eight minutes. Too quick, hopefully, for any sort of detection or counterattack from the North Vietnamese Air Force and its MiG fighters.

“Green ’em up.”

Major Mearns sounded tense. Passing 5,000 feet, the dive steepened as the mountains loomed ahead, and Vic cracked the throttle back a bit. Eyeballing the armament selector switches at the bottom left of the center console, he knew there’d be no time to check again in a few minutes. The WPN SEL knob was set for CONV BOMBS, meaning no nukes, and the MODE selected was for a manual delivery. It was really the only way to use the four big BLU-27 canisters, two under the wings and two more on a belly-mounted multiple-ejector rack. Glancing left again, he caught Rambler One rocking his wings. Taking another quick glimpse inside, he squinted as he scanned the smaller engine and fuel gauges on the bottom right of the center console.

Tachometer, oil pressure, and all three hydraulic systems were “in the green,” reading just what they should.

Nudging the stick left and inching the throttle up, Vic smoothly slid in closer. All four fighters were now within several hundred feet of each other as the earth rose up to meet them. Shallowing the dive at about a thousand feet, Rambler One then carefully dropped lower. Vic swallowed again, flexing his shoulders against the straps. This is what Thuds did—fly low and fast. Its system accuracy, however, was problematic and would be an ongoing issue for the F-105. It began the war with a circular error average in excess of 1,000 feet,^* because accuracy wasn’t really important for its original mission of delivering a combination of nuclear weapons with a two-megaton yield. They weren’t engineered for formation mass attacks against a forewarned, alert enemy—and this target had been printed in the New York Times!

Up ahead, just left of where the Ma River bent back to the south, a string of valleys wound their way north into Vietnam. Mearns veered off to fly along the western side of the foothills rather than going straight up the valley. Not as much fun, Vic thought, but easier on the wingmen, and they could all remain concealed a bit longer. On the far right side of the formation Vic lagged back, flying more aft of the leader so he could keep the hills in the corner of his eye. For the last eight miles through the passes, Vic felt the familiar pure joy of flying. The jet he loved throbbed in his hands, stick and throttle moving in time with his eyes, instantly making countless little adjustments. Terrain blurred past, but his mind took snapshots: a hut perched on a terraced hillside; strange red-brown hills that were bald at the bottom but forested along the top, just the opposite of anywhere else in the world.

Lit up by the sun, the startling, jade-colored valley floor stretched away south and west, but it was gloomier up ahead, where they were going. Maybe it was the mountains or the shadowy ravines, but Vic felt like he was flying from light to darkness. For a minute he was totally occupied with the jet: weaving through the higher terrain, pulling hard when Rambler One angled away, then snapping upright, his eyes catching the bobbing shapes of Rambler Three and Four on the other side of the narrow gorges. Hamlets flashed past, ramshackle wooden shacks clustered in tiny clearings, the thin smoke trails from cooking fires very gray against the green trees.

Suddenly the fighters crested a ridge, and he blinked.

A wide, flat valley stretched out before them, running west to east as far as he could see. Rambler One dropped into the last, funnel-shaped gorge and Vic followed, bumping the stick forward and grunting as cockpit dust floated up in his face. Shoving the throttle forward, he nudged the fighter right and spread out slightly. As the terrain flattened, the Thuds leveled off at 100 feet, so low he could plainly see details on the ground: a wooden sign, a man on a bicycle, farms.

Feeling exposed as the fighter shot into the open, Vic’s skin tingled with adrenaline, his chin slippery against the rubber oxygen mask. He held the Thud steady. Letting go of the throttle, he slid the dark helmet visor down just as the other fighters emerged out of the gorge into North Vietnam’s sunlit Son La valley. Rain-swollen and churning, the Da River flashed beneath his wings. Up ahead, the emerald and tan valley floor fell away against the mottled dark green mountains jutting up before him. Beneath a brilliant powder blue sky it was a striking picture—then voices crackled loudly in his helmet.

“Stay with it, Two!” The voice crackled through his helmet and Vic flinched.

“. . . smo . . . got smoke in . . . the cockpit.”

“Stay with it . . . try to get over the next ridge!”

Weaving through the hills, Rambler had been unable to hear what was happening to the front end of the strike package, but now, in the flats, everything suddenly came through. Someone was hit. Vic swallowed. Who was up ahead now? His eyes flickered to the clock. Based on the timing it was most likely one of the Korat flights. Vic swallowed. Or maybe Healy flight, the first fighters over the target from Takhli.

“BEE-EAR BEE-EAR BEE-EAR BEE-EAR.”

The chilling wail from an emergency beacon made him wince. Beacons activated automatically when a pilot ejected—somebody was down. With one quick movement Vic flipped up the visor, wiped his forehead, turned the radio volume down a notch, and dropped his hand back onto the throttle.

“. . . in the river! Saw a chute . . . over the river.”

“Blue Bells are singing.” This came from an orbiting RB-66 aircraft and meant that Fansong radars were on air.

“BEE-EAR BEE-EAR BEE-EAR BEE-EAR.”

The first twelve Takhli jets were all from the Ace of Spades, the 563rd Tactical Fighter Squadron, and he didn’t know any of them well.^* Maybe, he thought, maybe it was a Korat guy. I knew it. He thumped his knee, anger boiling up from his gut. What the hell did Washington know about killing SAMs in Vietnam? Somebody sure thought they did. It was a stupid plan, but there was nothing any of them could do about it.

Takhli was putting twenty-four Thuds against Site 7, supposedly one of the SAMs that shot down Leopard Two, the F-4C from Ubon, three days earlier. Coming in from the north, flying down along the Red River, were Healy, Austin, Hudson, Valiant, Rambler, and Corvette. Each four ship of fighters would plaster the SAM site or support facilities with a mix of cluster bombs and napalm. Korat’s flights of Pepper, Willow, Redwood, Cedar, Hickory, and Dogwood would come up from the south to simultaneously hit Site 6.^*

“Redwood and Cedars . . . Healy One is west of the river at two K. Capping.”

“Roger that . . . two minutes out for Redwood.”

“Triple A . . . Yen Bai . . . both sides of the river.”

Triple A. Anti-Aircraft Artillery fire and apparently lots of it. Like all fighter pilots Vic was well aware that the rapid firing guns were a deadly threat. He listened and tried to build the picture in his head. Healy One was capping west of the Black River at 2,000 feet. Only reason for that was to look for a wingman. So it had to be Healy Two who’d gone down. This got the leader out of the way of the incoming flights, but in the heart of the envelope for anti-aircraft fire or any waiting SAMs. Nodding slightly, he figured the timing and decided it had to be Hudson calling out anti-aircraft fire over Yen Bai. Two other flights would be over each target right now and behind Hudson came Valiant . . . then Rambler.

Vic stared ahead at the rocky karst terrain and tree-topped, jagged hills. The Thuds were skirting the southern edge of the Hoang Lien mountain range, which ought to keep them shielded from prying radars. The other jets were gradually moving closer together as the valley narrowed, hills rising steeply up on both sides. What got Healy Two? Vic wondered. Triple A or a SAM? The “blue bells” call came from an orbiting RB-66 electronic warfare aircraft and meant that enemy radars were operating. But he’d never heard anyone call out SAMs.

“Two went in! Just south of the target!”

Which Number Two?

Vic’s mouth dried up. Had to be one of the Korat guys. He took a deep breath. Everyone shot down so far was a Number Two, just like him. Shit. The radios sucked, too; that was the problem with forcing forty-six jets to use the same frequency. Confusion. He sighed and concentrated on flying.

“Blue bells are silent.”

“Pickle . . . pickle . . .”

“. . . on fire . . . didn’t see a chute from Two.”

Which Number Two, dammit!

“Valiant Two is now Valiant Five.”

Bursting from the dark valley, the four Thuds suddenly shot out into the sunlight and everyone wobbled a bit in the glare. Instinctively, the pilots moved out and Vic’s eyes darted back inside the cockpit. Yen Bai, the last turn point before the target, was two minutes ahead. Rambler One was staying a bit north but the terrain was flatter and this would keep the fighters lower for longer. It also kept another line of low, bumpy hills between them and the Red River valley, where all the SAMs were su...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Contents
• Author’s Note
• Maps
• Prologue
• PART ONE
• PART TWO
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Excerpt from Chasing the Demon
• Glossary of Terms and Acronyms
• Appendix A: Wild Weasel Combat Losses, Vietnam: 1965–1973
• Appendix B: Aircraft Loss Tables
• Appendix C: The Bamboo Dragon: Background Notes on Ho Chi Minh, France, and the Origins of the Vietnam War
• Notes and Sources
• Index
• Photo Section
• About the Author
• Also by Dan Hampton
• Credits
• Copyright
• About the Publisher