How It Happened

The U.S. Air Force chief of staff, General John P. McConnell, was hopping mad. He had just heard that two U.S. F-105 Thunderchiefs had been shot down by MIGs of the tiny (36 jets) North Vietnamese air force. What McConnell wanted to know was how the Thunderchief, a big brute of a plane with speeds up to 1,400 m.p.h., had been bested in combat by the snail-paced (730 m.p.h.) MIG-17, a relic of the Korean War.

The answers seemed to be 1) faulty tactics, and 2) inadequate radar.

Out of the Mist. Forty-eight Thunderchiefs had been assigned to bomb the Thanhhoa bridge, a key rail-highway span across the Song Ma River, 76 miles south of Hanoi. The jets flew in groups of four; while one flight attacked, the others circled the area, their speed cut by the weight of their armament--eight 750-lb. bombs and 2,000 lbs. of cannon shells in each aircraft. High above and to the north, F-100 Super Sabre jets flew combat air patrol. Their mission: to forewarn of the approach of enemy aircraft and if possible to intercept. The Super Sabres' radar attention was directed mostly toward the north, where Hanoi's jet airfields are located (the Donghoi airfield, to the south, had been knocked out by U.S. bombing).

But the MIG attack did come from the south--seven jets barreling out of a heavy mist bank overhanging the area. Five angled off toward the west, apparently as decoys. The other two headed straight for one of the orbiting four-plane flights.

In that flight, two pilots saw the attackers coming, frantically radioed the other two: "Break off, break off!" But transmission apparently was garbled and the two remaining F-105s flew on unaware--as close to sitting ducks as Thunderchiefs can get. The MIGs made a fast firing pass, then swooshed off to the north and escaped in the mist. One Thunderchief took 20-mm. cannon hits in its hydraulic system, the other in its engine. Both limped some 20 miles until they got over the Gulf of Tonkin, where the pilots bailed out. Major Frank E. Bennett drowned, and, after a 48-hour search, Captain James A. Magnusson was listed as missing.

Encounter No. 2. The MIGs obviously had been directed by ground-control radar, probably from three stations that had the U.S. flights perfectly triangulated. The airborne radar in the F-100 patrol planes plainly did not offer equivalent, skywide coverage--but the U.S. has plenty of radar planes that do, and they presumably will be brought into use in the very near future.

Moreover, the U.S. tactical formations were made to order for just the sort of Communist hit-and-run attack that occurred, and Air Force Boss McConnell is determined that the Thunderchiefs' misfortune will not be repeated.

Toward week's end, U.S. jets again clashed with MIGs, and again suffered a loss. Four Navy F-4 Phantoms from the carriers Coral Sea and Ranger were flying patrol about 35 miles from the Communist Chinese island of Hainan.

They were attacked by four MIGs. Although the ensuing dogfight was too fast and furious for the U.S. pilots to make positive identification, the MIGs almost certainly belonged to the Chinese Communists rather than the North Vietnamese. When the battle was over, one Phantom jet was missing, though the Pentagon refused to confirm the loss officially. As for the MIGs, they beat a hasty retreat in the direction of Hainan.

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