The Thunder Rolls On

As American warplanes continued to pound its oil installations last week, North Viet Nam responded with a mixture of fear, rage and frantic determination. Hanoi decided to evacuate all of the capital city's residents "nonessential to fighting and production," and began dispersing fuel dumps into the middle of villages--where, in order to hit them, the U.S. would also have to hit civilians.

In an ugly parade through downtown Hanoi, captured U.S. prisoners of war, handcuffed in pairs, were subjected to the insults of howling mobs. And the Communists tried to stem "the Rolling Thunder," as U.S. strikes over the North are code-named, by unleashing all the tricks of its air-defense system: SAM missiles, curtains of conventional flak, and forays by MIG-21 fighters.

Iron Handle. The 36-ft. radar-guided Russian SAMs carried Ho Chi Minh's main thrust--and fizzled. Twenty-three SAMs were fired at U.S. planes last week, including a record 16 on a single day. All missed, thanks to a highly sophisticated defense--part electronic trickery, part "jinking" (violent evasive maneuvers)--used by U.S. pilots. When a mission goes in, radar-rigged C121 Constellations, called "the Big Eyes," orbit off the Tonkin coast, able to pick up a missile launch at the moment of ignition. The Big Eyes flash an instantaneous radio warning to the fighter-bomber pilots, who wrench into tight turns and deep dives that the SAMs cannot follow.

With each sortie, too, goes an "Iron Handle" of four suppressor planes--one a pathfinder able to finger SAM radar signals, the three others armed with rockets, notably the 10-ft. Shrike, which homes in on radar radiations. Last week Iron Handle flights hit ten SAM installations out of the total estimated 100 sites in North Viet Nam. Though the SAMs have had little direct success--bringing down 14 U.S. planes out of 296 launchings in the year since the first was fired --they do aid the enemy in another respect. Because SAMs are most effective at high altitudes, they force U.S. pilots to come in low--and thus within range of North Viet Nam's withering barrage of antiaircraft guns. Flak brought down five U.S. planes last week, raising the total since the air war began to 283.

Back Again. Hanoi sent two of its hottest planes, MIG-21s, after an Iron Handle flight of F-105 Thunderchiefs last week, and for only the second time in the air war, the MIGs cut loose with air-to-air missiles--two Russian ATOLLs, rockets similar to the U.S. heat-seeking Sidewinder. They fared no better than the SAMs: both missed, and the MIGs fled, despite their tactical superiority over the heavier F-105 in air combat.

Last week Navy jets from the carrier Hancock went back to hit again Haiphong's major oil depot, a repeat of the raid that fortnight ago signaled significant new pressures on the enemy. At the time, reconnaissance indicated that 80% of the targets had been destroyed. When the roiling smoke cleared, the damage turned out to be closer to 30% . So the Navy went back, and for good measure, Navy and Air Force planes at week's end hit fuel dumps 35 miles north of Hanoi and 43 miles south east of Vinh. En route, Skyhawks and Intruders picked off five North Vietnamese PT boats that were imprudent enough to open fire from their camouflaged moorings as the Navy planes passed over.

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