Retired Col. Charles B. “Chuck” DeBellevue, an Air Force combat ace from the Vietnam War, has joined a new fight to see America’s highest decoration for valor awarded to Maj. Bob Lodge— whose ingenuity has been credited for helping to turn the tide in the air war against North Vietnam’s MiG fighters.
Lodge died on May 10, 1972, the first day of Operation LInebacker, refusing to bail out of his F-4D Phantom II after taking a devastating hit from enemy 30mm cannon fire. As the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron’s tactical planner, Lodge had been intimately involved in gathering the equipment and weapons and developing the tactics and training that ultimately helped the unit overcome North Vietnam’s nimble MiGs.
“A MiG 19 saddled up on him, took out the engine on one side and the hydraulics went on the other side,” DeBellevue said in a heritage talk last month at Joint Base Andrews.
Lodge’s’s pilot, 1st Lt. Roger Locher, bailed out of the doomed aircraft, but Lodge remained in the aircraft until it crashed.
“His intent was to stay in the airplane; he knew too much,” DeBellevue said. “He knew about what we were doing. He knew the war plans, and he knew that if the [enemy] wanted the information out of him, they would have gotten it out of him.”
Lodge had told family and squadronmates that he would make such a choice if surviving meant he would likely be captured.
Lodge was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his valor that day. But DeBellevue and others are pushing to upgrade the award to a Medal of Honor, he told an audience last week at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.
When DeBellevue arrived at the 555th’s home at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, in November 1971, he was trained in air-to-ground tactics for close-air support missions but had little preparation for the air-to-air combat the unit was regularly engaged in.
The only aircraft he had ever operated against were other F-4s. That first month flying missions over Vietnam were hard ones, he wrote in a recent article in Air & Space Forces Magazine: “Udorn lost four F-4s—two were shot down by MiGs and two because they ran out of gas chasing MiGs,” he wrote. “Both F-4s shot down were from the Nickel.”
When he faced off against North Vietnamese MiG 21 on a combat patrol near Hanoi on May 8, 1972, DeBellevue got a taste of what was to come. .
“I wasn’t smart enough to be scared,” DeBellevue recalled, saying he was lucky the engagement ended quickly with the two MiGs breaking contact. The MiG pilot “didn’t have the clearance to shoot our flight lead, who was flying in front of us chasing the MiG flight lead.”
Two days later, DeBellevue scored the first of his six MiG kills—the very same day Lodge was shot down.
This time, DeBellevue and pilot Capt. Stephen Ritchie were flying in one of the modified F-4Ds that Lodge had secured for the unit in early 1972. It was equipped with a highly-classified modification to the AN/APX-81 radar known only by its code name Combat Tree. The system empowered crews to identify and target MiGs beyond visual range, a new advantage for American pilots.
DeBellevue and Ritchie were among four F-4s operating over North Vietnam when they identified several MiGs about 17 miles away. Two of the other F-4s fired AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, hitting their targets. DeBellevue and Ritchie fired as well, but their first missile missed when the MiG managed to fly just out of range.
A few seconds later, the MiG flew past them. Ritchie maneuvered their F-4 behind him and DeBellevue fired two missiles, striking the MiG with one and forced its pilot to eject from his burning plane.
Lodge’s efforts to improve the 555th’s effectiveness in air combat were beginning to pay dividends.
Lodge had been instrumental in ensuring the F-4 crews of the 555th would have many advantages against their North Vietnamese opponents in the months to come. He laid the groundwork for improving the F-4’s kill capability and instituting new training for countering MiG tactics, Delbellevue said.
Lodge also coordinated with the Navy to get its F-8 Crusader fighters to fly MiG tactics against F-4 crews.
Lodge and other aviators worked with mechanics to make sure their engines were tuned fly faster so they could gain the upper hand in a dogfight
“We had the engines tuned on that airplane so they burned hot,” DeBellevue said. “They weren’t gonna last very long, but in combat we didn’t care. We just told the chief of maintenance, have another set waiting for me when I get home,” DeBellevue said.
The fighter crews of the 555th learned how to push the F-4’s tolerance of G-forces far beyond the training manual’s safety guidelines, in some cases bending the airframes. DeBellevue compared the F-4 to the more maneuverable F-16 Fighting Falcon.
“The F-16 is a 9-G airplane; its computer is limited to 9Gs. The F-4 is an 8.5-G airplane if you read the book. If you don’t read the book, it’s a 12-G airplane,” DeBellevue said.
DeBellevue saw the impact of the changes Lodge made on July 8, 1972, when he achieved his second and third MiG kills over North Vietnam. As with his first MiG kill on May 10, DeBellevue was flying with Ritchie to protect a large strike force.
DeBellevue and Ritchie’s F-4 did not have the Combat Tree radar that day, but they got early warning of approaching MiGs by a nearby EC-121 early warning and control radar surveillance aircraft. As the MiGs approached, the EC-121 notified them their aircraft and the MiGs had merged on their sensors.
“So in his scope, he can’t tell us from the MIGs,” DeBellevue said. Soon they spotted their first target, “blew the auxiliary fuel tanks off the aircraft and went full afterburner.”
“I flew with Steve all the time, so when Steve cleared his throat, I knew what he was doing,” DeBellevue said.
North Vietnamese MiG pilots used the Soviet tactic where the first MiG acts as a target, baiting his foe to follow him, DeBellevue said. The Americans learned soon enough that the “other guy is going to come in and shoot you.”
Knowing the trick, DeBellevue and Ritchie let the first pilot fly by in his “shiny new MiG 21.”
“We know there’s two; they never flew singles,” DeBellevue said. “We rolled up the airplane at 235 degrees of bank and waited, and here comes the shooter.”
As the second MiG flew by, Ritchie maneuvered behind him and DeBellevue readied two AIM-7 missiles.
“So when you got into a close fight and needed to fire a weapon, you had to know that there was a time delay in the radar having good data,” DeBellevue said. “Once the radar acquired the target, that was two seconds, and another two seconds for the missiles to get programmed. So as soon as we locked on to a target, you’d hear ‘1,001, 1,002, 1,003, and I’d scream ‘1,000-fire!.’”
The first missile hit the MiG right behind its cannon, and the aircraft broke in two, burning at both ends. The second missile went through the fireball.
As DeBellevue and Ritchie’s aircraft rolled out of the fight, the pilot in the number four aircraft yelled “Hey, Steve, they’re on me!” Their F-4 closed on the MiG and fired from a range of 4,000 feet, cutting the enemy plane in two.
“At that point, the North Vietnamese would not commit two MiGs coming down from the north to help out or the two MiGs coming up from the south,” Devellevue said. “The fight took one minute and 29 seconds. I take longer to tell the story.”
DeBellevue, now 80, is one of four living combat aces. He was the first weapon system operator to achieve six enemy kills and the last Air Force Ace on Active Duty.
He credited Lodge for preparing him and other aviators for what they would face over Hanoi and salutes Lodge for sacrificing his life to protect the air-to-air combat advantages he helped U.S. Airmen achieve.
“He did a great job of getting us ready,” DeBellevue said. “And a great job of keeping the secrets—by staying in the jet.”
