How one pilot’s unblinking focus on technology, tactics, and preparation helped turn the tide in the air war over North Vietnam.
Operation Linebacker was conceived and promulgated from discussions at the bar at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, and at 7th Air Force and became the major battle plan for prosecuting the air war over North Vietnam in 1972.
The story begins nearly six years earlier, with the September 1966 arrival of Col. Robin Olds as commander of the 8th Fighter Wing at Ubon Royal Thai Air Base, in southeastern Thailand. Olds was a WWII ace with 13 kills against the best pilots the Germans could muster, and he didn’t take long to start making changes. Olds brought in Daniel Chappie James Jr. to be his vice wing commander, which allowed Olds to lead flights into North Vietnam and see and direct the fight first-hand.
He wasn’t pleased. Olds launched a training program to get the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing pilots thinking and flying more tactically, demanding his pilots think outside the restrictive rules that had constrained the 8th Wing. Then he and Weapons Officer J.B. Stone developed a new concept of operations to make the North Vietnamese MiG-21s and MiG-17s come up and fight.
Olds employed deception, having his F-4s use F-105 call signs, carry F-105 jamming pods, and fly familiar F-105 routes. The ploy tricked the MiG air defense commanders into anticipating a cake walk against bomb-laden foes.
It worked: By the time the MiG pilots realized the trap, it was too late.
That mission changed the tide of the air war. Olds flew 151 combat missions during his year at Ubon, during a time when most pilots completed just 100 missions. He scored a total of four MiG kills on three of those missions and, at least according to legend, passed subsequent kills to his wingmen rather claiming a tour-ending fifth kill.
Still, the war dragged on. By late 1971, with peace talks in Paris unproductive, the U.S. had spent six years at war in Vietnam and still had no clear strategy for winning. The Air Force was hog-tied by restrictions. The Navy, meanwhile, used the three-year hiatus after Rolling Thunder to implement its Top Gun training. The course focused specifically on dogfighting small, lightweight, highly maneuverable Russian-built fighters. They trained in Dissimilar Air Combat Tactics (DACT), anticipating that President Richard Nixon would reintroduce strikes into North Vietnam if peace talks failed.
The Air Force’s Fighter Weapons School was slower to adopt this approach. The Weapons School focused on training instructors who would return to their squadrons to train other aircrews. The focus was primarily air-to-ground weapons employment. Unlike the Navy, the Air Force did not fly DACT, practicing only against other F-4s. In training, USAF pilots never had to outfly their adversary; they had only to beat the adversary pilot. Air Force leadership was leery of the Navy approach, fearing that it would result in aircraft and crew losses in training.
So, when I arrived at Udorn on Nov 30, 1971, I had only fought other F-4s. I found myself—and my squadron mates—at a severe disadvantage.
The 13th and the 555th
All my buddies were in the 13th Tactical Fighter Squadron, and they believed the 13th was the better squadron. I wasn’t so sure. I thought the Triple Nickel (555th) had the better history as a result of Olds’ command’s 20 kills with the 8th Wing at Ubon.
Maj. Dean White from the 13th met my C-130 rotator when we landed at Udorn, and arrived prepared to capture my services. He wanted to make a trade that would put me in the 13th in exchange for another captain who was arriving on the same flight. Although the two of us had about the same qualifications, the deal did not go through. Master Sgt. Gerry Roy, the 555th’s first sergeant, refused.
Arriving in the Triple Nickel squadron building, I signed in and dropped off my gear with the personal equipment sergeant and began looking around. The building was mostly empty. I finally found the scheduling shop and walked in.
“What do you want?” asked Maj. Dick Stamm, gruffly looking up from his desk. I introduced myself. I told him I had 550 hours in the F-4 and was qualified to do anything the F-4 could do.
Major Stamm looked at his watch. “Damn, the afternoon goes have already stepped! You can’t fly today!”
Most of the new backseaters came directly from training squadrons, so he needed experienced weapons systems officers. He told me to go to Intel and get an E&E (Escape and Evasion) kit, and that I was already on tomorrow’s schedule. I asked what I’d need to do to get signed in to the base; he was unmoved.
“Are you getting paid?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then you have a year to do that,” he said. “If you live!”
When Roy took me over to billeting for a room, I found out why the squadron was empty. Afternoon sorties had already stepped, and the rest of the squadron was night flying.
The next morning, Dec. 1, 1971, I went to breakfast at the Officers’ Club, entering through the stag bar, where night flyers from the Triple Nickel were pounding bloody marys from water glasses, 10 glasses for $1. They had been there for a while.
Lt. Col. Mike Cooper, the operations officer, stopped me, looked at my patches and name tag: DeBellevue. “You’re the new guy! You’re French! You’re a f_____ frog!”
You never want to be named by a bunch of guys who have been drinking for a while.
As it turned out, I did not fly that day, gaining time instead to settle into the squadron and check out my home for the next year. It was quickly apparent that besides 1st Lt. Roger Locher, I was one of the most experienced weapons systems officers in the squadron. New guys had to complete a mission check on their 10th flight to ensure they could handle combat. But my experience enabled the squadron to waive that requirement for a while, and my “10th mission check ride” didn’t come until my 25th mission.
That December was not a good month for the 432nd. Udorn lost four F-4s—two were shot down by MiGs and two because they ran out of gas chasing MiGs. Both F-4s shot down were from the Nickel.
Bob Lodge, Weapons Officer
Capt. Bob Lodge was the Nickel’s weapons officer, the driving force in developing the counter MiG mission at Udorn. Lodge was focused and deliberate, and always devising new tactics, keeping Nickel crews thinking about air-to-air combat. He was on the latest major’s promotion list—three years early—and was going to move up to the wing weapons officer’s position, working for then-Col. Charlie Gabriel, the 432nd Wing Commander, as soon as Bob pinned on major. (Gabriel would go on to become the Air Force’s 11th Chief of Staff, holding that job from 1982 to 1986.) Lodge’s job was to determine how the 432nd planned and flew air-to-air missions, which gave him access to all-source intelligence.
In late December, Locher’s roommate finished his tour and returned to the United States, and I moved into Locher’s hooch. There we spent hours comparing our flights—hours, sorties, and bombs dropped. Locher was the one WSO who flew regularly with Lodge.
Lodge was intense, always planning his next step, both in the air and in training the squadron. Locher could meet Lodge’s demands in the air and keep up with his thinking as missions evolved. On occasions when he was not available, either I or a couple of other senior WSOs would fill in. Once, I was scheduled to fly with Lodge on two bombing missions on the same day. Afterward, at 5 p.m. we arrived at the Papa alert pad, where we would sit air-to-air alert for the next 24 hours. You started the 24-hour alert tour in crew rest. Regardless of how many times you flew during that 24-hour period, you came off alert at 1700, also in crew rest. So, after flying two sorties during the day, then flying three sorties off the alert pad, Bob and I came off alert and immediately flew two sorties at night. We were beat. On the second night sortie, we were running on fumes. While refueling, Bob asked me if we were upside down.
“No,” I told him. “Why did you ask?”
There was no moon up and the stars in the sky blended into the cooking fires on the ground, erasing the visible horizon. Lodge had vertigo. Officially, WSOs were not allowed to refuel the F-4, but I was able to refuel and asked him if he wanted me to take over. He declined. After refueling, I talked our attitude to him to let him know we were upright, wings level.
Bob coordinated closely with Red Crown, the radar controllers on the Navy cruiser USS Chicago, which was operating in the Gulf of Tonkin, and with Disco, the EC-121 radar aircraft operating from Korat RTAFB. Senior Chief Petty Officer Larry Newell worked hard to keep both Air Force and Navy combat air patrol flights informed about the movements and locations of the MiGs, their tactics, and other critical information. Enabled by Col. Gabriel, Bob was starting to formulate a plan to increase Air Force MIG kills.
He and the commander made numerous trips down to 7th Air Force at Than Son Nhut to plan how the Air Force would protect its strike flights from the MIGs. Early in 1972, he had 10 F-4Ds transferred from South Korea to Udorn. These aircraft had a special radar modification called AN/APX-81, a highly classified system that used the MIG-21’s (only) SOD 57 Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system to identify them beyond visual range. By electronically eavesdropping on the very system the North Vietnamese used to control the MiG-21s, the 432nd aircrews suddenly gained a tremendous advantage. This system was so secret even its code name, Combat Tree, was classified. Documentation was nil. The only information available was in the head of the flight test WSO who came to Udorn with the aircraft; he sat on the left intake with the right engine running and told me how to test the system and what its returns looked like. That was our training.
With this new combat edge, our MiG combat air patrol F-4s, which led the chaff flights into North Vietnam, now had the ability to identify and shoot the 21s beyond visual range. So long as the lead MiGCAP F-4 had a positive Enemy IFF return, he could shoot at an unseen target.
Bob continued to develop tactics with Capt. Steve Ritchie, the 555th’s Weapons Officer who replaced him, and Lt. Col. Griff Bailey and Captain Fred Olmsted of the 13th. I was Ritchie’s assistant in the Nickel’s weapons shop.
On the night of Feb. 21, 1972, Lodge and Locher were flying a MiGCAP mission when Senior Chief Newell directed them against a MiG-21 coming out of North Vietnam. Bob sent his wingman home, then used the Combat Tree system to maneuver to intercept the MiG-21 as he headed into Laos. Closing in, Bob and Roger set up to fire AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, locking on to the 21 at maximum range. Soon after, Bob fired three missiles, but the AIM-7s had not been well-maintained. The first AIM-7 simply fell off the F-4. The second missile exploded out in front shortly after the warhead armed. Finally, the third AIM-7 headed to the target. Soon they observed a small explosion followed by a larger one—the Nickel’s 21st kill.
Bob slice-turned to head out of the target area at the minimum safe altitude for the mountainous terrain and accelerated in military power. He did not use afterburner to avoid highlighting his position. A clean F-4D at 100 percent power is a fast jet.
We continued to prepare for a return to bombing missions into North Vietnam. The Older AIM-7s were a problem. We had flown with them—but had not fired any—for four years since Rolling Thunder ended in March 1968. Bob ensured we got the latest AIM-7E2 (dogfight) missiles with improved fusing and a maneuvering mode, and made sure they were taken back to the test bench every 10 flights to ensure they’d work when needed.
The short-range heat-seeker missiles standard armament on the F-4D were the AIM-4D Falcons, which had a small warhead and a seeker head that had to be cooled to work. It lacked a proximity fuse, so it had to hit the target to detonate, and the seeker’s field of view was so wide we could not launch it at a MiG that was in the same piece of sky with a friendly aircraft. The logic tree for cooling the seeker was long and detailed, and once cooled the missile had to be launched within a two-minute window.
If the missiles weren’t already cooled when you engaged MiGs, you would not have time to go through the switchology in a turning fight. Robin Olds had rejected them five years earlier, in 1967, when he got his new F-4Ds. He replaced them with the AIM-9s the Navy was using. We were to follow suit, but not before the AIM-4’s limitations prevented his wingman from aiding Bob on May 10. We later received AIM-9Es, and then in the late summer received AIM-9Js, which gave the F-4s a dogfight advantage.
When he was not flying and fine-tuning tactics, Bob was guiding counterair tactics at 7th AF in Saigon and tweaking the systems we used. No one knew more, and he was acutely aware of his extraordinary knowledge. To protect his technical, tactical, and intelligence knowledge, he had long ago decided that if he were shot down in a place where rescue could not be attempted, he would not eject. The risk of capture was too great, and he feared divulging under tortured interrogation secrets that would remove the F-4’s advantages. He had announced to his fellow 432nd crew members and even to his family back in the States that if he was shot down deep in North Vietnam, he would not eject, and would instead ride the aircraft into its crash.
Bob Lodge’s Final Flight
On May 10, 1972, the first day of Linebacker, Bob Lodge came face-to-face with his decision and commitment not to risk capture. On that day, as in early 1972, the Navy’s Top Gun program gave their F-4 crews the edge they needed to win against the predominantly MiG-17 adversaries they faced in Route Package 6B on the east side of the Red River Valley. Navy crews killed more MiGs than the Air Force killed MiG-21s and MiG-19s on their west side, Route Package 6A. Navy Lts. Randy Cunningham and Willy Driscoll both became aces, together shooting down three MiG-17s. Their Jet was hit, either by an SA-2 or, as the North Vietnamese would later say, by an Atoll missile fired from a MiG-21. Either way, it shows the lethality of the threats our U.S. aircrews faced. They still got their crippled Phantom out to the Gulf of Tonkin before ejecting for their rescue. The Air Force needed aces, and its top contenders had just been shot down.
The 432nd crews were struggling against the most capable North Vietnamese MiGs. It was only through Bob Lodge’s tenacity and vision that the Air Force success rate increased.
The strikes on May 10, 1972, were a major attack against North Vietnamese transportation infrastructure, and the greatest single-day clash between the North Vietnamese and U.S. fighters. Bob Lodge had devised the overall attack plan. A total of 11 MiGs were destroyed that day, three by the Air Force and eight by the Navy. Bob Lodge and Roger Locher were the flight leads of Oyster flight, a four-ship of F-4s loaded for air-to-air combat. I was in Oyster 3 crewed with Captain Steve Ritchie. Our mission was the Ingress CAP for the Air Force strikes into North Vietnam that day. We preceded the strike flights into the target area and patrolled between Phuc Yen and Yen Bai, the two largest MiG airfields, to ensure that the MiGs did not interfere with the bomb-laden flights attacking targets in the heart of the Red River Valley.
After dropping off the KC-135 tanker at the northern end of its track, Oyster flight headed into North Vietnam. As we crossed south of Yen Bai, northwest of Hanoi on a northeast heading, Disco’s EC-121 and Red Crown’s USS Chicago were starting to broadcast bandit calls, alerting us to enemy aircraft. Oyster 1 and Oyster 3 were flying two of the 10 Combat Tree-equipped aircraft that Bob had brought down from South Korea.
We were in a spread formation heading northeast at low altitude when we started to get enemy IFF returns in front of us. We figured that the two enemy returns meant that there were four MiG-21s headed our way. As the returns closed with us at 1,000 knots, they soon came into our radar contact range, about 17 miles for a head-on MiG-21. Oyster 1 and 2 locked onto the two MiGs leading the enemy formation. As soon as the 21s came into missile range, both fired AIM-7 missiles, and both hit their targets.
Steve and I, in Oyster 3, locked onto our target who was trailing the first element of 21s. The MiG we were targeting was high enough to be pulling a contrail. The AIM-7 leaves a smoke trail when it is fired, and when the MiG came in range and we fired an AIM-7, the missile’s smoke trail climbed to meet the MiG. Its pilot must have been looking out of his cockpit, because his contrail made an omega in the sky, putting the missile out of range since we had fired it at max range. The number four MiG flew by us a few seconds later and we turned in behind him. We locked on to him at 6,000 feet and fired two AIM-7s; one struck home. The Mig pilot ejected from his burning aircraft and as we passed him, he was already hanging in a dirty yellow parachute.
We turned back to the north to rejoin with Oyster 1 and 2. Oyster 1, after getting his third MiG kill, was engaged with another MiG-21. They were too close to the MiG to fire an AIM-7 and were focused, “padlocked,” on increasing their distance and then guiding their AIM-7 to the target when two unobserved MiG-19s converged on them, high to low, sandwiching our leader. They began firing their 30 mm cannons.
Oyster 2 yelled for Bob to break right, but it was too late. Oyster 2’s AIM-4 missiles were useless because the MiGs were too close to the F-4, and the AIM-4’s wide field of view could not discriminate between friend and foe. The cannon fire from the MiG-19 destroyed Oyster 1’s right engine and the strike also took out the left engine hydraulics. The burning aircraft was ballistic and headed into its crash. Roger’s back canopy turned brown from the fire and Roger said, “I think I am going to have to eject!”
Bob looked over his shoulder and said, “Why don’t you then?!” Roger ejected over a ridge and landed on the opposite side from where the F-4 crashed.
Bob stayed with the airplane, protecting to his death the vital information only he held.
Steve Ritchie and I both saw Bob’s F-4 before it crashed. We saw no chutes.
About this time a MiG-21 came up behind us as we turned southwest. We had our engines tuned hotter for more speed, and as we accelerated above the supersonic limiting airspeed for the F-4 at low altitude, the MiG-21 stayed with us. Since the older 21s couldn’t keep up with us, we realized this was a new MiG-21MF that we’d been briefed on by intel.
Roger spent 23 days evading capture, and a few days after his rescue, he and I discussed how many MiGs we had seen during that mission. Besides the four that we initially engaged, there were two Bob and Roger engaged at the end, the 21 that chased us out and the two MiG-19s, one of which shot Oyster Lead. We figured we had fought at least 10 MiGs.
In August, a message went to the USS Hancock requesting two F-8s deploy to Udorn to teach us dogfighting, since Top Gun had left the Navy in so much better shape. Cmdr. John Nichols brought his three F-8s up initial at Udorn at 600 knots, irritating the Air Force leadership there. But Nichols was not there to make people happy. He was teaching our crews the Navy’s fighting formations and tactics, and he set up a training program to teach us how to use the vertical and mutual support in a four-ship fight. He assessed our tactics as setting us up to be killed. Even after a few weeks, they were still beating us.
In mid-August, I was flying with Capt. John Madden on a MiGCAP. We briefed that if we did not engage MiGs, we would hit a tanker on the way home and launch the F-8s to meet us in the hills west of Udorn for training. As we came over the hills at about 500 feet, I picked up the F-8s on radar at about 13 miles. The lead F-8 called tallyho, and the “fight” was on. We had jettisoned our tanks in North Vietnam so as to fight the F-8s in the same configuration as against the MIGs. When we merged with the F-8s, we were able to maintain our formation and gain the advantage in a very fluid fight. We had finally graduated.
A short time later, on Aug. 28, Steve and I were on a MiGCAP leading the strike force against the Thai Nguyen steel mills. The weather was very cloudy and we ended up having to overfly the target to ensure the weather was workable for the strike force. The weather was good, but we had burned more fuel than planned and had to egress early. As we headed out on a westerly heading, I picked up an EIFF return on the Combat Tree about 70 miles in front. I interrogated him a few minutes later and the return was now closing, head-to-head. Things were getting interesting. Not only were we beak-to-beak with the 21, but there was also a flight of F-4s trailing them, and another F-4 flight converging from the north. We were in the best position to get him.
The MiG was at 25,000 feet, and we were at 10,000 feet. To ensure that our radar did not transfer lock to one of the converging F-4 flights, we had to do a snap up attack to reach his altitude at the same time as we converted to his 6 o’clock. Steve fired two AIM-7s during the conversion to get the MiG pilot to turn into us, but he did not see the missiles. We converted to his tail supersonic, and the radar maintained its lock the entire time. We ended up 4 miles behind the MiG with 100 knots of overtake. After a few minutes, the in-range light came on and Steve fired the two remaining AIM-7s. The first missile missed, but when the MiG turned away from that missile, the second missile struck, scoring Steve’s fifth kill and my fourth. Steve was the first Air Force Ace of the war. When we landed at Udorn, Ritchie was done with combat. John Madden moved up to mission lead for the 555th.
Five days later, John and I intercepted two 21s and I set up a head-on snap-up attack. As we pulled up under the MiGs, John fired two AIM-7s which guided perfectly, but failed to detonate; the MiGs escaped. A week later, on Sept. 9, John and I were leading Olds flight on a MiGCAP when we received a call from TeaBall that they had a Black (low on fuel) bandit returning to Phuc Yen. We were ordered to orbit the MiG base. That seemed high risk, but we headed into the Valley. We were just north of Phuc Yen when Lt. Bud Hargrove, the backseater in Olds 3, called out a SAM at our right 3 o’clock. We did not see it, but we did see a MiG trying to land. I locked on to the MiG, and John fired two radar missiles. Since we were above the MiG the radar transferred lock to the ground return and both missiles hit the ground. We turned behind the MiG on final and tried to bleed off airspeed so we would not overshoot him and become his target. John cross-controlled the jet and bled off our airspeed from 600 to 225 knots, and we ended up beside the MiG, who pulled up his gear and flaps and turned into us. After a few turns, the MiG climbed up out of the fight. Capt. Brian Tibbets in a gun-equipped F-4E had been hawking the fight, and we cleared him to engage. He closed to about 600 feet behind the MiG and destroyed it with 20 mm cannon fire. The MiG pilot ejected and the MiG rolled into the ground.
As we headed back to Thud Ridge to reform the flight, I picked up a huge radar return, 8 miles in front of us. We were higher than they and did not have fuel to disengage. We had to fight. As we turned to meet them, Olds 2 identified them as MIG-19s and they both jettisoned their fuel tanks. The fight was on, a high-G close-in turning dogfight. We fired two AIM-9Js at the wingman, but did not see the missiles hit. The lead MiG was turning hard and moving quickly to our 6 o’clock. I figured he would fire in about 15 seconds. Time was short. The third AIM-9J was growling loudly, meaning it had a heat source, so we fired. At first, the missile appeared attracted to the sun, but soon enough it veered back to hit the 19 in its afterburner. The pilot rolled wings level, then inverted, and flew into the ground.
Once the MiGs were no longer a factor, the AAA around Yen Bai opened up. Olds 4 took a hit and started losing fuel. They left with 1,800 pounds of fuel, not enough to get back to Udorn, over 250 miles away. Olds 3 stayed with them until they ejected. Olds 5, our airborne spare, got the rescue forces moving, and our crew was on the ground only briefly before the helicopter picked them up. We had Olds 2 with us, and we flew a weaving path to cover the straight-line egress of Olds 3 and 4. Clear of North Vietnam, we climbed for the heavens to squeeze the last bit of range out of our remaining fuel. As we touched down at Udorn with fuel near zero, my combat flying days were over. One of the AIM-9Js we fired at the wing MiG-19 actually hit him, and he crashed before he could land at Yen Bai Airfield, giving me a sixth kill.
Lodge’s Legacies
From Feb. 21 to the end of Linebacker II in December, the Nickel was credited with 19 MiG kills, the most of any fighter squadron in Southeast Asia. Our sister air-to-air squadron at Udorn, the 13th, was credited with eight additional kills. They had one Ace, Capt. Jeff Feinstein.
Those successes were due to Bob Lodge’s tenacity, focus, and unwillingness to risk compromising the secrets he held at his moment of truth on May 10, 1972. Enabled by Col. Gabriel, Bob guided the planning for Linebacker. By bringing Combat Tree and improved AIM-7s and AIM-9s to Udorn, hard-forming crews and flights always to fly together, Lodge made us as ready for the coming fight as we could have been.
Bob’s position as the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron weapons Officer and later at the 432nd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing weapons officer and his MIT engineering education gave him unique knowledge of the Combat Tree system. He was the only person flying combat into North Vietnam who was briefed on, had access to, and knew the Combat Tree system down to an engineering level. Combined with the All-Source Intelligence information he had assess to, he was uniquely equipped as an informed individual whose insights, if exposed to the enemy, could have a devastating effect on the U.S. Air Force and its air war. He knew that he had to protect that knowledge. He chose to do so even at the cost of his own life.
Bob left us lessons that increased our lethality: We abandoned the dogfight-useless AIM-4s for AIM-9s, and mixed internally gunned F-4Es into our counter MIG flights. TeaBall was established in July under Col. Bill Kirk to institutionalize the flow of derivative tactical information to aircrews. Bob’s out-of-the-box approach empowered us to not be too proud to seek dogfight help from the Navy’s F-8 experts.
If Bob had not laser-focused the air-to-air crews at Udorn on the coming task before the war resumed with Linebacker—and had he not laid down his life to protect our secrets—we would not have been so successful.
Col. Charles B. DeBellevue, USAF (Ret.), was an Air Force Weapons Systems Officer and one of only five American flying aces during the Vietnam War. He was the first WSO to become an ace and was credited with a total of six MiG kills, the most earned by any U.S. aviator during that war.