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Smith: “The day of my 13th mission over
North Vietnam, our flight would take us over to Vinh and then follow the
coast
northward and return. When we flew over Vinh
the first time, I heard what I thought was a FAN SONG radar —
guidance radar for SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile — on the APS-54
and told the Chief Raven, Captain Causey. He went to the SA-2 band and
discovered the FAN SONG, but the signal slowly receded.”
Smith sat in Raven Two position
searching for SPOON REST (SA-2 search radar) and TALL KING radars. He
noticed
that when flying over Vinh, a SPOON REST
radar focused continually on the aircraft, i.e., not sweeping. In other
words,
it was ‘locked-on’ which he had never
heard of before. The Chief Raven notified the pilot they had detected a
radar signal and requested he fly back over Vinh. The aircraft banked and turned over the gulf, then flew
towards Vinh.
Walker: “We flew a racetrack pattern
back above the site at 28,000 feet to harass the SAM radar crews, ‘asking’
them to
launch a missile against us. Acting as a
decoy target, we would then verify the sites existence and pass this
warning to all
concerned. We possessed the
capability to jam a guidance radar when it became activated and believed
we could ‘blind’ any SAMs launched against us. Probably because of help
from the Soviets or Chinese, the enemy had learned a new method of
launching their SAMs — ‘in the blind’ before activating the guidance
radar.”
On returning to Vinh, Smith again heard
the FAN SONG radar on the APS-54 and warned the Chief Raven to view the
E-Band on his receiver.
Thomson: “At this point both Causey and
I examined the FAN SONG signal. He attempted to obtain direction-finding
cuts and ordered the pilot to break left. I
expended every effort to locate the exact signal so, if required, we could
jam it. This was kind of remote because we carried ALT6B jammers which
lacked sufficient power to be effective, and flying in a left bank,
radiated the ECM signals into space.”
Smith: “Then Raven One reported he
intercepted a strong BG06 missile guidance signal. I looked over at his
receiver
and was shocked at the strength of it. It
was, as we Ravens say very strong... ‘off the scope’.”
Thomson: “At this point it became
obvious from the guidance signals, they were going to fire an SA-2
missile, or had fired. We were in a left break. Both Causey and myself
simultaneously yelled into the intercom, ‘Go hard, hard left’ which the
pilot did. We unleashed all available ECM jammers and chaff to shield the
aircraft behind this defensive wall. When the missile hit there was a
violent vibration that heavily shook the aircraft. The EWOs automatically
knew what had happen.”
Smith: “After the missile struck we
briefly had intercom communication with the cockpit. However, as the
airplane
started to break apart, we lost all
communication with the pilot.”
Thomson: “At that point, the interphone
became erratic. It obtained power from a battery located near the
aircraft’s
forward section. And the exploding SAM
may have damaged this area of our aircraft.
“The pilot announced that "if the
intercom fails and you hear the front hatches blow, then eject." The
intercom went
dead with no further contact with
the front section.”
Walker: “The explosion had been very
loud and the plane thrown out of control. Fortunately for us, Captain John
Causey, the Chief EWO, detected the guidance radar
and immediately alerted me. His warning surely saved our lives
because it provided time to take immediate and violent
evasive action, which probably prevented complete destruction of both
plane and crew. I instantly initiated a very steep left bank, diving turn,
then back to the opposite direction.
“The
first SAM exploded next to the plane causing severe structural damage and
knocked the radios out of commission.
I could hear
a second missile explode, but it caused no further damage. During the
evasive maneuver, I glimpsed out the left side window and observed two
yellow-orange trails. I remember thinking the sun’s reflection created
that color —
they should have been white.
“The plane’s battery power lasted long
enough to warn the crew over the intercom that a bailout appeared
immanent. I did not know if they received this message. My attempted May
Day call was, of course, unanswered.”
Kodlick: “In the cockpit we heard and
felt the explosion. No one said a word. We each knew instinctively what
had happened. The aircraft shuddered. I looked over my right shoulder and
observed a grayish-yellow puff of smoke behind to the right rear of the
aircraft. We continued to remain in the steep diving turn.”
Walker: “Both engines were still
operating, but every red light in the cockpit glared ominously at me. We
were still over
land, which was no place to eject
the crew. Landing there would have meant becoming POWs or worse. I heard
terrible
stories about the treatment captured
airmen received at the hands of civilians and in the prison camps. I did
not want us to endure that fate.
“Both rudder and elevator controls were
gone, but I still had aileron control and managed to level the wings. The
aircraft then began going nose up, as though about
to start a loop. By chopping off the power, the plane began to freefall,
nose down. Then as it fell through the horizon,
keeping the wings level, I applied power again to bring the nose upward.
Throttles ‘on’, throttles ‘off’, keeping the wings
level, up-and-down like a ‘roller coaster’ — it was the only way I could
fly the plane.
“The forces on the control column were
so strong, I lacked the strength to push it forward. Therefore, I pressed
both knees hard against the control wheel to prevent it coming back into
my lap. I motioned by hand signal to my navigator and pointed toward the
Gulf of Tonkin. I pointed to my watch and flashed my right hand
open-and-close twice to indicate 10
minutes. I
prayed the plane would not explode within this period. We desperately
needed to reach open water, not only to save the crew, but to deny the
enemy access to our highly classified electronic equipment
“John knew what that meant. We had been
briefed that in an emergency, every attempt should be made to reach and
eject
over the Gulf of Tonkin. A U.S. Navy task
force was located there called ‘Yankee Station One’. The Navy had an
aircraft with supporting ships for strikes against North Vietnam targets
and the rescue of downed air crew in those waters.”
Kodlick: “The aircraft became extremely
shaky. I told the pilot, ‘Get over the gulf and if everything is all
right, head
south to Da Nang.’ I gave him a
heading of 90 degrees. At this time we were inland about 30 miles. Walker
headed on the new course. The N-1 compass became totally unreliable, so I
instructed him to turn further left, based on the Whiskey
Compass. I estimated we traveled 30 miles out to sea
but were a lot further south than we had anticipated, in fact, in a
direction heading south.”
Walker: “We had been flying in-and-out,
and above several layers of clouds with a solid undercast below. Kodlick
signaled an ‘OK’, meaning we were probably off the
coast over the gulf. Hoping it still functioned, I flipped a switch that
turned on the red emergency light in the rear compartment, signaling the
EWOs to eject. I jettisoned both our cockpit
escape hatches.6 A bulkhead separated the forward
cockpit from the EWO’s compartment. Since the intercom system was
inoperative, the EWOs automatically knew when they heard our hatches had
blown, it was time to go.”
Kodlick: “The pilot gave the appropriate
signal to the backseaters, but it is my understanding they never received
it.
He then provided me with hand signals to
eject. When he blew the top hatches, I immediately ejected.”
The cockpit section not only lost
intercom with the EWOs, it also lost the emergency signal light/bell to
the rear compartment. Both systems shared common communication linkages.
Damage inflicted by the missile disabled these systems.
Kodlick: “After release from the seat, I
plummeted earthward in the spread-eagle position. Unexpectedly, my oxygen
mask came loose and continued flapping against my
face. I reached to reattach it and immediately went into a violent
tumble. I considered manually pulling my chute but
told myself to wait, and then it automatically opened.”
“During decent, I observed our aircraft
in the far distance, almost in a nose dive downward through the various
cloud
layers.” “After entering a solid cloud deck,
I emerged from the undercast with a vast expanse of sea below. Upon
hitting the water, I pulled the snaps up on the parachute harness (canopy
release) and crawled into the one-man dinghy. My body
shivered so badly I hesitated to cut the chute right
away. Instead, I pulled the canopy from the sea and piled it over me
for warmth. Weighing over 225 pounds, plus the chute,
kept me deep in water even in the fully-inflated dinghy.”
“Constant motion from the large swells
caused me to become seasick. Placing my head downward created nausea, so
I kept my head up at all times. I switched on the
emergency radio and must have heard three- or four-signal beepers. So I
turned it off to conserve the batteries.”
Meanwhile, the EWOs in the rear section
nervously waited in silence for further instructions.
Thomson: “We heard the hatches go, and
the aft compartment experienced a rapid decompression, which Capt. Causey
assumed indicated an ejection from the cockpit
area. Using hand signals, he immediately ordered us to initiate a
controlled ejection sequence, i.e., Raven one, two, three, and four.”
At the last moment, Raven One delayed
initiating his ejection procedure to remove a wire-recorder cassette from
his
equipment. Beaty wanted to return proof of the
radar signal they intercepted. He became preoccupied with extracting and
shoving the cassette into his lower leg pocket.
Directly behind him sat Thomson who recalls Beaty took ‘a minute or so’ to
accomplish this task, or so it seemed. Thomson then made hand-motions,
anxiously signaling Beaty to ‘either eject now’ or ‘let me eject’. Away
went Beaty.
Thomson: “During descent Beaty prepared
for seat release. The lapbelt employed a pyrotechnic devise that released
him to freefall. The brief detonation caused a severe burn to his inner
thigh. After splashdown, he experienced no problems crawling into the
raft.
Smith: “After Raven One left, I then
attempted to eject. Previously, I had flown in B-52s with the upward
ejection seat.
Now I became confused and
experienced great difficulty accomplishing the downward ejection, possibly
from being in
shock.8 I rotated the levers but
nothing happened. In the B-52, once the levers are rotated, the top
hatchcover jettisons.
This arms the seat and
allows you to eject.
“When the bottom hatchcover failed to
release, I thought a malfunction occurred. I loosened my shoulder harness
to bend
down and manually release the cover. From
here on everything is vague and fuzzy. I recall gripping the ejection
handle
protruding between my legs, which is
activated when the levers are rotated. When I pulled the handle to eject,
everything
blacked- or reddened-out.
“The next thing I remember is dangling
from my parachute, thousands of feet later. Both the lapbelt release and
parachute deployment worked automatically. Upon regaining consciousness, I
found my body entangled in several shroud
lines,
and it required considerable effort to untangle myself. In fact, one line
draped over the top canopy, and it remains a
mystery how I finally released it. During descent, two
other parachutes were observed in the air. These were two different men,
not Capt. Causey.
“Unfortunately, I inflated the Mae West
too soon. When attempting to release the seat-kit/dinghy, the inflated Mae
West
hindered these efforts, but it finally
deployed.”
“I broke from the undercast with large
foamy waves below. The Navy later reported they were the roughest seas
experienced in the gulf with plus 20-foot swells. Upon
ditching, the strong winds pulled the inflated canopy, dragging
me behind on my back through the waves. I surely would
have drowned if turned opposite with my face down. It seemed
forever before my fingers managed to reach the
parachute-release snaps and set the canopy free.
“I pulled the inflated dinghy towards me
and climbed on board. Previously, the survival kit was released prior to
my
entering the water. I tried forever to pull and
retrieve the kit, but to no avail. Either I lacked sufficient strength or
the
lanyard had become entangled. Despondently, I
questioned surviving my current circumstances. The Gulf of Tonkin can
be frigid in February, because I never felt so chilled
in my life.”
Thomson: “As soon as Beaty and Smith
started to eject, both Causey and myself pulled our helmet visors down and
reached for our little ‘green apple’ on the
emergency oxygen bottle. The aircraft continued rising and falling, much
like a
roller coaster and generating variable
G-forces on us. Due to this wildness, I sensed we had precious little time
before the aircraft broke apart. I recall pulling the green apple,
rotating the hand levers, and looking at Causey, who appeared in the
process of performing the identical procedure. My floor hatch blew, so I
pulled the trigger and was gone.
“After falling
in space for a period of time, the lapbelt automatically released. I
separated from the seat and went into
freefall.
Eventually, the parachute automatically deployed and opened with a
beautiful canopy, but I still continued
descending
rapidly! Looking down, I found the lapbelt with part of the ejection seat
attached, wrapped around my leg.
Fortunately, I
reached for my knife and cut the belt, and the metal piece fell away. Then
it became a rather peaceful ride
down.
“I attempted to release the life raft
from my seat pack but could not pull the lanyard far enough to make it
deploy.
Unknown to me, I fractured the radial head
on my right elbow which limited its range of motion. Even when using both
hands to pull the lanyard, I still failed to
muster sufficient strength to pop the seat pack open. I then decided to
inflate the
Mae West and felt for my emergency
radio. It appeared intact and firmly secured in its proper location, and
this knowledge provided me great relief.”
“Finally I splashed down in the rough
sea and again tried to open the seat pack, but to no avail. Thankfully, I
still
retained the Mae West and emergency radio. I
immediately jammed the radio over the wristwatch on my left hand, then
took the left hand and literally clamped it to my
flying suit. I had no intentions of losing that radio — it was my only
means of survival. When I released the parachute harness, the gusty winds
pulled the canopy in one direction along with the seat pack, while the
enormous waves took me in the opposite direction.”
The fractured elbow and inflated Mae
West limited arm movements to depress both shoulder harness, quick-release
snaps. Thomson unbuckled the harness to more
easily access the snaps for canopy release, then attempt opening the seat
pack to extricate and inflate the dinghy.
Unexpectedly, the strong force winds blew the canopy with harness away.
Thomson: “The rolling swells were huge.
Maintained by my Mae West, I continued riding them almost like a surfer,
going down one wave and up the other. I didn’t
become sea sick.”
Meanwhile, Walker strived to maintain
aircraft control. Having undergone some unruly maneuvers there was
increasing doubt the jet would remain in one piece. At
this time, the aircraft remained in almost level flight, slightly left
wing down. All controls then became inoperative and
the plane felt as though it was breaking up. Its attitude changed to
a spiraling turn in a rather violent nose high, pitch
up. It was time to go.
Walker: “I lowered the visor down over
my oxygen mask and pulled the green ball of the high-pressure emergency
oxygen bottle.
“When I attempted to eject, my system
malfunctioned — the seat would not fire. By pulling up both arm handles,
which
controlled the firing sequence, the control
column should have thrust forward and locked against the instrument panel.
At the same time, the seat would slam to the full-aft position. This
provided the pilot sufficient ejection clearance through the top hatch
without striking the control column. He could then squeeze the trigger
grip on the right armrest to fire the M-3 initiator, which in turn, fires
the ejection seat catapult - up, up and away.
“My seat failed to slam back and the
control column did not stow — it continued to remain over my lap. I did
not have
the strength to push it forward. I
released the seat lock and manually slid the seat to the full-aft
position. Three- or four-
hard squeezes of the
trigger in the right armrest also failed to cause seat ejection.
“By now the plane went completely out of
control. I tried to manually pull the seat forward in an attempt to regain
command if possible. I couldn’t. I then decided to
standup on the seat and endeavor to climb out on my own. No doubt, I
would have struck the aircraft structure, but this
seemed my only option.
“I then decided to give the pistol grip
one last squeeze before attempting this maneuver, and it suddenly fired
the seat!
This came totally unexpected because the
trigger had been squeezed very hard, several times previously with no
result. I
was totally unprepared for the sudden
ejection during which both knees and right ankle were fractured by
striking the
control wheel. It happened so fast
that I felt no pain. “After clearing the plane, I began spinning backwards
in
the seat at a very high rate of rotation. Then
the automatic lapbelt unlocked, releasing me into open space. I observed
the
seat falling away, still spinning. And so was
I.
“I spread eagle to stop the spin, but
found myself facing upwards with my back and parachute toward the earth. I
should have been the other way around. By pulling
in one arm, my body slowly rotated to the correct position, facing
downward. I then stretched the arm out again to
stabilize. There is a barometric parachute release set to deploy at 12,000
feet. I had plenty of altitude so enjoyed the
quiet freefall while plummeting earthward. I then realized how a bird must
feel soaring around in the sky. It was a nice ride down in clouds and duff
weather all this time. Finally, the chute opened with a fairly gentle tug,
a lot easier than expected. Then there was 12,000 feet left.”
“I continued descending in clouds and
couldn’t observe anything below. The visor remained pulled down and the
oxygen mask still attached. I felt in good shape,
no pain, although I knew that I struck the plane on the way out. No
blood was present and I felt very lucky. I hoped the
rest of the crew was also this lucky.”
“To prepare for landing, I released the
dinghy from its seat pack. It inflated as it dropped 10 feet, the length
of the nylon
cord attached to the harness. It
appeared intact and would provide me with a last second warning before
hitting the water.
I also inflated both sides of
my Mae West and checked that they remained expanded. Then it was just a
matter of riding on down.”
“I broke out from the undercast around
200 feet. What a surprise! Below me appeared huge white caps of roughest
seas that I’d ever seen, even on my three
crossings of the Atlantic Ocean by ship. The first occurred in the winter
of
1942, sailing out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, as a
Sergeant Pilot in the RCAF on board the Queen Elizabeth with 18,000
other Canadian troops. The North Atlantic proved
extremely rough on that crossing, but nothing like what waited
below.”
“Upon hitting the sea, the dinghy
provided a last second warning to prepare for the shock of landing.
Luckily, touchdown
proved rather smooth, almost
like settling down into an overstuffed chair. I landed on the downslope of
a mighty wave
and rode it into the trough at the
bottom. I immediately jettisoned the parachute canopy and shroud lines
from the
harness by depressing the canopy
quick-release snaps at each shoulder. By doing so, the canopy and nylon
shroud lines
would blow away and not pile on top
of me.”
“Unfortunately, the parachute canopy
blew into the same huge wave that I landed in. The swell crashed over,
forcing me
deep underwater. The Mae West floated
me to the surface underneath the canopy where I became entangled in the
nylon
lines. The ‘chute’ had been dumped over me
like a collapsing circus tent. I struggled to get my head out from beneath
the
canopy, pulled the dinghy to me by its line
and hung on with my free left arm.”
“Was I going to drown? The parachute
shroud lines encircled my body, arms, and legs like dozens of live octopus
tentacles, trying to drag me under. I struggled to
keep my head above water as the huge waves crashed over me in steady
rhythm. One after the other they came. The wild wave
movements entangled the nylon lines around my body further
and dragged me under. Time after time, I choked on the
salty water.”
“After gaining some freedom of my right
arm, I slashed away at the ‘octopus-like tentacles’ of the shroud lines
with a
knife—it was as if they were alive and on
the attack. I needed to get free enough to pull myself into the dinghy. My
life
depended on climbing into it. Even though
both sides of the Mae West were inflated and helped keep me afloat, I was
still forced underwater a great deal of the time. The huge waves continued
to crash over and sink me like clockwork.”
“The knife, or ‘shroud-cutter’ as it was
called, proved to be a life saver. Without it, I would have become
hopelessly
entangled and probably have drowned. It
was a vital tool in our emergency equipment, located in a special pocket
on the left leg of the flying suit with its fishhook-shaped, razor sharp,
inner-curved blade kept open at all times. This insured it
would always be ready in an emergency. A yard-long
nylon cord secured it to the metal eyelet of the leg pocket.
“Finally, I managed to lift my left arm
over the side of the raft. Each attempt to crawl in resulted in the dinghy
flipping
over on top of me. At last I freed myself
enough to reach the narrow end and finally pulled myself in. I managed to
turn
around and sat in the larger section with
both legs stretched out in front of me. They just touched the tapered end
of the raft. A larger man would have felt cramped in such a small space,
requiring him to bend his knees to keep both feet inside.”
“I continued cutting the remaining lines
that still clung to me and finally freed myself from the chute completely.
I tossed
out the small sea anchor over the tapered
end to stabilize the direction of the raft in the huge swells.”
“These were the biggest waves I had ever
seen, later described by the Navy in the plus 30-foot range. The only
comparison I could make is the introduction to the TV program ‘Hawaii
Five-O’. My waves crashed just like those and turned the raft over and
washed me out many times. A nylon lanyard secured the dinghy to my
harness, and I pulled it back to climb in again. This became the routine
time-after-time. I finally became fairly well accomplished at this task,
crawling back in each time this happened.”
“Hours passed. Now what? Here I was
sitting out in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam along
with the
other men, scattered over miles of stormy
seas. No one knew we were down. We wouldn’t be missed until after our
estimated time of arrival became overdue. Even then
Takhli would have to contact other stations to determine whether we landed
elsewhere in the south. By then it would be too late to initiate a search
mission until the next morning. I foresaw the prospect of spending a
rough, dark night in the gulf.”
“A small emergency radio remained
attached to my harness. It would send out an emergency homing signal and
also had voice communications. The emergency
procedure was to broadcast a signal only about every 15 minutes. This
would conserve the battery life as long as possible.
If found, then voice contact was possible on the emergency frequency.”
“Gradually the low-misty clouds seemed
to disperse and the ceiling slowly lifted several hundred feet. To my
surprise,
near dusk a C-54-type aircraft flew
nearby and spotted me. I had been broadcasting my emergency signal
on-and-off for the entire time while floating in the dinghy. As the
aircraft circled around and returned, the copilot tossed a smoke bomb out
his side window. A smoke plume emitted when it hit the water, marking my
location. I knew then that help was on the way, but it was getting late in
the day.”
Goto to The Rescue
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