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00:00North Vietnam, the heart of enemy territory had evolved into a fortress
00:08ringed by the latest Soviet weaponry.
00:11SA-2s surface-to-air missiles lined common flying routes
00:15and protected air bases, supply lines, and city centers.
00:19All too often, the weapons proved to be deadly accurate.
00:25The only way to stop the SA-2s was to lure them out and hopefully escape before they claimed another life.
00:33It was a mission that took skill, instinct, and guts of steel.
00:40The planes and pilots who dared to carry out this cat-and-mouse tactic were called the Wild Weasels.
00:55American planes and pilots were engaged in a massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam called Rolling Thunder.
01:22The operation required F-105 fighter bombers to strike increasingly deeper into enemy territory.
01:35Carrying payloads of 500-pound iron bombs, the planes went after the communist war-making capability.
01:42Bridges, refineries, and rail yards were just a few of the strike fighters' targets.
01:48Initially, the U.S. air crews easily defeated the relatively primitive North Vietnamese air defense network.
02:13Other than a few radar-directed anti-aircraft guns, the most threatening air defenses came from the Viet Cong.
02:22They fired everything from Russian AK-47s to muskets to handguns.
02:29However, as rolling thunder progressed, the North Vietnamese realized the need for better air defenses.
02:36Soon, greater numbers of big anti-aircraft guns, ranging from 57 up to 120 millimeter, began to arrive from the Soviet Union.
02:54And finally, in the spring of 1965, the Soviet-built SA-2 surface-to-air missile showed up in the port of Haiphong.
03:12This two-stage, radar-controlled rocket could travel at three times the speed of sound.
03:20Weighing as much as an SUV and measuring up to 35 feet long, the missile aptly earned the nickname, the flying telephone pole.
03:30It was also controllable.
03:33The SAM could be rigged to explode at a specific altitude or within range of a certain aircraft.
03:39If a pilot was unaware that a SAM had launched, and if the radar trackers could keep the plane in their radar beam,
03:53the missile would strike with devastating accuracy.
03:59On July 21, 1965, an American jet came face-to-face with the SAM's capability.
04:07The first plane was lost, followed by eight more in less than four months.
04:13Something had to be done.
04:14Immediately, a top-secret program called Wild Weasel was launched.
04:24The plan called for F-100Fs to be outfitted with the latest radar homing and warning gear.
04:30To test the new weapon, five volunteer flight crews were handpicked from among the Air Force's best F-100 pilots and electronic warfare officers, or EWOs.
04:40Major Gary Willard was in charge of their training.
04:44It seemed rather funny to us at the time that the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force came down to talk to us,
04:51and as did Secretary of the Air Force Brown.
04:57We knew then that we had a pretty important mission, but we didn't know exactly what we were getting into.
05:04There was no time to lose. Within a month, the Weasels, as the new planes and crews were called, were bound for some real-world testing in Southeast Asia.
05:16The men were briefed that the strike forces were taking a beating.
05:20If U.S. planes weren't taken out by SAM's, then they were at least forced down into the range of some of the most deadly anti-aircraft barrages in history.
05:28The Weasels jumped into action. On November 21, 1965, Major Willard, leading a covert flight of four, met up with a squadron of F-105s heading to Korat Air Base in Thailand.
05:46We were all top secret. I mean, it was so secret that when we joined up with the 105s over the coast of California,
05:56we took 20 airplanes into Hawaii, and they never knew we were there until we landed. So what are you guys doing here?
06:08The overhauled planes were packed with a series of electronic sensors.
06:12With these, the electronic weapons officer, or BEAR, could find the type and direction of enemy radar.
06:19If he wasn't able to find the SAM from its radar signature, there was an experimental warning receiver built in to warn of a SAM launch.
06:28But the ultimate goal of this warning capability, to ride the radar beams to their source so that the Weasels could kill before being killed.
06:36I can remember Bill Cooper, who lost his life in Vietnam to a SAM. He said, Gary, you're going to do what? With what? To whom?
06:53SAM's suppression flights fell under the code name, Iron Hand. Generally, the Weasels preferred to fly ahead of the strike force to allow more time for identifying and hopefully destroying potential threats.
07:05Essentially, they were sent in to act as bodyguards to the strike force, a job that put them directly in a line of fire.
07:14On December 20th, the Weasels learned firsthand just how dangerous their job was.
07:20Two crews, led by John Pitchford and Bob Trier, were flying in typical formation ahead of a strike force of F-105s.
07:27Thirty miles northwest of Hanoi, they picked up several enemy radar signals simultaneously. There was no time to react.
07:38Pitchford and Trier's plane was hit.
07:44Almost immediately, the hydraulics began to fail and their F-100 nosed into an uncontrollable dive.
07:50While both men were able to bail out after considerable difficulty, they were immediately confronted by North Vietnamese militia upon landing.
08:05John and Bob didn't come back. John was a prisoner of war for over seven years.
08:17Bob Trier, unfortunately, what we have been able to piece together was killed, trying to escape capture.
08:26So that was really a bad day.
08:32From that day forward, the Weasels changed their tactics.
08:36To mask their movements, they decided to fly as low as possible, just above treetop level.
08:42Just two days later, during a strike against the rail yard located on the notorious Red River, this tactic was put to the test.
08:50As soon as the lead Weasel crew crossed into North Vietnam, they identified a SAM radar signal that was apparently searching for their flight.
09:01The crew immediately dove to mask their position.
09:06Periodically, the crew popped up from behind the hills to fix a new bearing on the enemy signal.
09:11Soon, a second SAM radar was identified, while the first had locked onto and was tracking their aircraft.
09:20The pilot approached a tiny village where he discovered a well-camouflaged radar control van and three missiles.
09:28The crew unleashed a barrage of 2.75-inch rockets and then strafed the village with 20-millimeter cannon fire.
09:35The pilot could see the North Vietnamese troops scattering from the site.
09:41The 20-millimeter walked right into one of the SAMs, causing a large explosion.
09:46With smoke billowing from the site, the rest of the flight struck with tremendous force, repeatedly unleashing barrages of rockets and cannon fire until the site had been destroyed and the radar signal was off the air.
09:59While the other SAM site furiously searched for the strike force, the Weasels led the 105s down behind a hill and sped from the area.
10:10The mission had worked exactly as intended.
10:14The following day, the 7th Air Force publicized destruction of the SAM site to the world.
10:21But there was no mention of the wild Weasels.
10:24Instead, the F-105s were credited with the kill.
10:27The project was still so secret that no one outside of the Pentagon and the men back at base knew about this new and unusual strike force.
10:39That was really the beginning of the wild weasel program.
10:44And it demonstrated that, yes, we could find them and destroy them.
10:48A secret program called the wild weasels intended to counter surface-to-air missiles has been deemed a success.
11:04But its fate is still uncertain.
11:06Two problems continued to plague the fledgling project.
11:11One was the speed of its aircraft, F-100.
11:15They were much slower than the F-105s they were supposed to protect.
11:19This forced the F-105s to fly at much slower speeds on approach to the target area, posing unnecessary risks to the strike pilots.
11:26This also meant that the slower weasels were often left to fend for themselves on the way in and out of the target area.
11:35As soon as we came off the target, I noticed that we were alone, of course, because the 105s, the only thing we could see was them disappearing in the distance heading south.
11:47So there about came that expression, first in, last out, had nothing to do with anything amounting to a great amount of courage.
11:58It just was that we didn't have enough ghost stuff in our airplane to keep up with the 105s.
12:05Another problem had to do with the weasels' ordnance load.
12:09They just couldn't carry as much as the F-105s.
12:12While both carried 20mm rounds and rockets, the 105s also carried conventional bombs.
12:22Also, to destroy the targets with their particular payload, the weasels had to head straight into the SAM site at an extremely low altitude.
12:31This put the airmen well within range of anti-aircraft and even small arms fire.
12:36In March of 66, the danger became a reality.
12:39A second weasel crew was downed and both men killed when their plane was struck from below.
12:46The loss served as a lesson to test new ordnance configurations.
12:58Cluster bomb units proved to be among the most promising for suppressing anti-aircraft fire and triggering explosions in the missiles.
13:05Each bomblet detonated just above the ground, sending thousands of steel pellets throughout the site.
13:13In addition to conventional bombs carried by the 105s, the weasels also tried dropping napalm canisters.
13:21However, the large tanks also required a low release altitude and created considerable drag on the already slow F-100s.
13:29In March of 1966, the Air Force found a solution.
13:34They replaced the plane.
13:36A new version of the F-105F would take over the weasel mission and it would carry a new missile.
13:42The radar-seeking AGM-45 Shrike.
13:44The arrival of these specially configured two-seat 105s finally provided the weasels with the speed needed to keep pace with strike aircraft and to evade enemy threats when necessary.
13:57However, it was the Shrike that had the biggest impact on the weasels' ability to suppress SAMs.
14:02We saw a big change in the way the radar operators on the ground, the North Vietnamese and their Russian advisors.
14:12When we would launch that Shrike, the radars would go down.
14:17When the radars went down, of course, that's when they'd lose their ability to launch the missile accurately.
14:23The Shrike was being developed as early as 1958 to counter the emerging threat posed by Soviet SAMs.
14:32The missile was rushed into service after a U-2 reconnaissance plane became the first confirmed victim by an SA-2 during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
14:42During a typical mission, the weasels and all other strike aircraft joined up with a KC-135 tanker almost immediately after takeoff.
14:58The 105s were notorious fuel guzzlers, especially during combat operations when pilots frequently employed their afterburners.
15:05As a result, it was critical for crews to take on the maximum amount of fuel possible before heading north.
15:13Once refueled, the weasels moved out ahead of the flight, usually in a Y formation with the strike aircraft trailing in the middle and some distance behind.
15:23For the duration of the mission, the safety of the entire flight rested in the hands of the electronic warfare officers, or BEARS.
15:31The real key to the weasel mission is the guy in the back seat, or the BEAR.
15:37The BEAR has been trained to understand and to operate in an electronic environment.
15:42He knows the signals, he knows how to identify and to react to the signals, which ones are good and which ones are bad, which ones are going to hurt us.
15:54He's very proficient in the use of the weapons, even though he didn't actually fire the weapons themselves, but that's irrelevant, he could say shoot.
16:05In addition to monitoring radar threats on various scopes, the BEAR listened intently to hundreds of strange signals emitted by North Vietnamese radars.
16:13To his trained ear, each sound was quite distinct and contributed to a mental image of how radar operators on the ground were responding to the incoming strike force.
16:24It would have been impossible for the pilot alone to effectively digest the dense signal patterns over North Vietnam.
16:30But the BEAR could focus solely on pinpointing the location of enemy threats, instantly assign a priority to them, and recommend a course of action.
16:40We had essentially a receiver that picked up the frequency of the SAM radar, we turned in the direction, we had needles that told us that we were going straight into it.
16:51And at that time we didn't have missiles that could go around the corner to hit the site, we had the Shrikes, which had to go straight in.
17:00And once we lined up, we thought we had to kill, we fired the Shrike.
17:09The Shrike had a range of 5 to 10 miles, and was designed to destroy the radar control antennae by riding the signal beam back to its source.
17:17When the missile struck, its warhead scattered 23,000 steel fragments throughout the target.
17:24There was one hitch, though, with this anti-radiation missile.
17:28If the enemy radar signal shut down before impact, the Shrike's guidance system was rendered useless, and the weapon would miss its target.
17:37In addition, the missile had a relatively small warhead.
17:40As a result, Weasel crews and the 105s that accompanied them frequently struck sites with conventional bomb loads after a Shrike hit, just to make sure that the site was destroyed.
17:55Among the conventional weapons favored by Weasel crews were cluster bombs.
18:00The dispersion pattern of the bomblets and the steel pellets that they emitted allowed the Weasels to saturate a relatively large site.
18:07These cluster bombs would go out and hopefully hit some of the missiles and cause explosions in the missiles and cause explosions in the fuel vans and the other kinds of things so you can blow the site up.
18:20That was the reliable way of tearing down a site, is go in there with the bombs and blow the site up.
18:25The Shrike's function was to hit the radar antenna and shut the radar down.
18:32Maybe the Shrike would get into the radar van, but you wouldn't do damage to the rest of the site.
18:38By mid-1966, they had figured out an effective way to destroy the SAM sites before they launched.
18:56In the meantime, the threats had multiplied.
18:59There were far too many for the Weasels to take on individually.
19:01As a result, they simply tried to position themselves far enough out in front of the flight to act as a decoy for the missiles that were launched.
19:10To many strike pilots, this seemed like an admirable but somewhat suicidal goal.
19:14I felt the Weasels had the advantages because we knew where they were coming from and we were expecting them. We were the decoys.
19:27So it was our job to invite them up to shoot at us and then get the hell out of the way.
19:32Weasel crews learned early on that they could evade oncoming SAMs in a high-stakes game of chicken, provided that they could actually see the missile.
19:42The bear immediately knew when a missile had launched.
19:46He and the pilot would then frantically search below for signs of a large dust cloud or for a smoke trail left in the rocket's supersonic wake.
19:55Once the missile was in sight, the pilot began evasive procedures.
19:59As the missile was coming up, you start down and then as the missile got closer, you would then start up again and start like what we call the yo-yo, up and down, up and down.
20:14And the missile would then get out of sequence with you and pretty soon they couldn't track you anymore.
20:20It just didn't have that capability because it was going so fast, it was so heavy and had a limited guidance capability.
20:26Debris from SAMs that missed their targets, and even those that struck, often landed among civilian populations.
20:35This led to cries of American bombing atrocities by the North Vietnamese government.
20:41Teamwork was critical to the success and survival of Wild Weasel crews.
20:52The slightest bit of strife between the pilot and his backseater could ultimately pose a threat to an entire strike force.
20:59This guy and this pilot had to live in harmony. You know, they could not afford for these two guys to be bickering at each other.
21:12We tried to find out which guys really gravitated toward each other. We normally found out about that at the bar.
21:17The pilots and their backseaters were allowed to pair up into teams based on their own preferences.
21:27From that point forward, the crews lived, ate, socialized, slept and trained together in order to develop close bonds.
21:36Trust between the bear and the pilot was the single most important element of their relationship.
21:41Many backseaters had never set foot in a high performance jet fighter, let alone one that was threatened in combat.
21:49And many of the pilots had never flown with or wanted to fly with a backseater.
21:54In fact, many opposed the idea at first. But there was simply no choice in the matter.
22:00Weasel missions required the skill and attention of both men.
22:04We had a hot mic so we could hear each other breathing.
22:09And whenever one of us had something to say, we talked.
22:12And there were crews, some crews that were talking constantly.
22:17So much so that when I flew with some of the guys that were big talkers, I asked them to just cut it.
22:23But my pilot and I, for whatever the reasons were, we were good friends. We understood each other.
22:28We were able to speak to each other. The reactions between the two of us, the interaction between the two of us was perfect.
22:36I mean, we survived. And I think that was the reason for having guys team up so they could learn to understand and know each other.
22:45And that was one of the keys to survival in the Weasel business is that you and the pilot kind of worked as one guy rather than as two separate individuals.
22:51The crews' ability to anticipate each other's thoughts became critical when entering high-threat areas.
22:59The radios were often jammed with excited calls from other members of the flight.
23:04This, coupled with the endless array of audio signals emanating from enemy radars and other electronics, meant that communication had to be precise.
23:13We're getting flat without the target one. Watch it.
23:15As a result, Weasel crews often communicated with grunts and one-liners. Even in dead silence, some crews felt that they could still communicate.
23:29We're in the flight. A lot of flag guns. That's the middle sight.
23:36Roger. Let's go get in.
23:45Roger. I'm right over the target right now. I've got a 17 right before I'm in.
23:49The weasel's motto. First in, last out.
24:11The weasel's motto. First in, last out.
24:17First in, last out.
24:19Did originate from the mismatch in airspeed between the slower F-100s and the F-105s that they escorted.
24:26However, the motto took on a whole new significance after 1966, when the weasels received their own 105s.
24:35Rather than changing their tactics, the crews continued to practice this strategy out of necessity
24:41and out of a sincere desire to provide strike crews with adequate protection.
24:51As the first in, last out says, we're in there looking for the threats.
24:54Hopefully we can kill them or get them, get them to put their heads down or do whatever, while the strike force comes in behind us.
25:01So we did lead the force in. And then when they left, yeah, we were hanging around to make sure nobody got them on the way out.
25:11Okay, this is Banjo, got a contact down in the target area.
25:16Put up about 10 degrees inside of Punt.
25:19Well, let me see, give me a line up.
25:20Okay, keep turning left.
25:22Okay.
25:23A little out now, he's strong.
25:25All right, Punt, he's gonna get strong in a minute.
25:27Okay, I got him there.
25:29As he's gonna have a line, he's going to drop the line.
25:31He's coming there, right?
25:32He's strong.
25:33And one, take it down, take it down, one, one, one, one.
25:37Sam's and Flack were not the only threat that the Weasels had to contend with.
26:02There was also the ever present threat of Soviet built MiGs.
26:06Three at one, we got a bogey low at two.
26:11Okay, Detroit, there's a MiG going, turning south here.
26:15Roger, I'm going in, break off right.
26:17I see you loud and clear.
26:27The Weasels were forced to tangle with MiGs periodically.
26:31On April 19th, 1967, Major Leo Thorsness and his bear, Captain Harold Johnson, became the first to down one of the Soviet planes.
26:41More victories would follow, along with several losses.
26:44The mission usually ended much as it began, with the strike force and then the Weasels returning to the tankers.
26:57Refueling was so routine that time spent gassing up became a much-needed quiet moment for the crews to reflect.
27:05And it was about that time, that when we hit the tanker, that I would think about the mission.
27:12Because during the mission, everything is instinctive.
27:15You know, it's all calculated. You know what you're going to do. You know what you have to do.
27:18Wild Weasels hunted down and killed 89 SAM sites and prevented hundreds more from launching during the Rolling Thunder campaign over North Vietnam.
27:38Their success came with a high cost. 42 American airmen missing, killed, or captured. And more than a couple of dozen aircraft downed.
27:49Among them were five of the first F-105s within a few months of their introduction.
27:55The mission was so dangerous, it was nearly impossible for Weasel crews to complete the 100 flights necessary to fulfill their tour and return home.
28:04The likelihood that they would be killed, captured, or wounded was so real that filling out dream sheets for their next tour was considered pointless.
28:13Still, there were men willing to carry out the Weasel mission.
28:17I don't feel that you can go into a job like this under pressures of feeling you're not going to survive.
28:25Because if you go into combat feeling you're not going to survive, you're going to die.
28:30You've got to go in basically feeling invincible. You've got to do it calculated. You don't take stupid risks.
28:37But you go in and know that you know what the hell you're doing, you're the best in your business, and you're going to survive.
28:43In an effort to control the number of losses, the Air Force ordered all 105s to carry at least one defensive missile and one electronic countermeasure pod that could jam enemy radars.
28:57The orders were not well received by the Weasels.
29:00They complained that this would limit the number of Shrikes they could carry.
29:04While the Weasels were eventually exempted from the order, they did have to comply with a different set of restrictions
29:11that were more of a political nature.
29:17It was very frustrating in some respects. For example, we couldn't go after sites that were under construction,
29:23because politically we weren't allowed to kill Soviets who may have been down there putting, helping putting these sites together.
29:30This was very frustrating.
29:33Within a year and a half, the North Vietnamese had quadrupled the number of SAM sites.
29:39In each of those sites, there were several hundred missiles ready to fire at any moment.
29:44Soon, Weasel crews came to recognize the tactics of certain enemy radar operators at particular sites.
29:51Some airmen even jousted with individual operators who repeatedly turned their radar on and off,
29:57as if teasing the Weasels who were trying to pinpoint the well-camouflaged site.
30:02The sites definitely had personalities. They were mobile. You'd go up there one day and there was nobody home.
30:12The next day, there they were. They were very disciplined. And they were pretty effective as they learned.
30:20And you've got to remember, they were learning the weapons just as well as we were, learning our own weapons.
30:25We were in a whole new era of warfare.
30:30As time went on, they would learn, one, not to keep the radars up so long, to give us alert time.
30:36They would try to get blasts and pick us up and then pass information to other sites.
30:43Their tactic got better, and therefore we had to develop newer tactics.
30:49Perhaps the most deadly tactic employed by North Vietnamese SAM operators was a scenario known as Popcorn or Dr. Pepper.
31:01Under this scheme, a Weasel crew would identify a valid radar threat and begin their approach to strike,
31:08but would find that the radar had gone offline and that another site had come online nearby.
31:14The pilot would quickly adjust his azimuth to head for the new site,
31:18but as soon as he did, the second site would go down and a third site would immediately come up and then go down.
31:25Suddenly, all three sites would come up simultaneously and launch from different directions at the baffled crew.
31:32This vastly complicated the pilot's evasive maneuvers and often resulted in deadly consequences for the Weasels.
31:41The Weasels developed a number of their own strategies for countering North Vietnamese radar tactics.
31:47One of the most effective was a modified version of an old bombing technique known as toss bombing.
31:54During this maneuver, Weasel crews picked up as much speed as possible, pulled the nose up hard, and fired a Shrike or two out in front of the strike force.
32:04We had to fire at them within 10 miles, otherwise the Shrike would never reach there.
32:07So you'd dip the airplane's nose until you get the Shrike needles that are in the front seat lined up.
32:14And then from that, you estimate the range and how far you have to get nose up to launch it so that you could kind of lob the Shrike to hit the site.
32:27The Shrikes often arched over and homed in on an unsuspecting operator at one of the many radar sites that were searching for the incoming strike force.
32:36Timing and a little luck were critical in this maneuver.
32:39If the radar operator suspected that a Shrike had been fired, they would immediately go off the air and the missile would just fall to the ground.
32:48This particular strategy had an unintended but beneficial side effect that became a favorite tactic for many Weasel crews.
32:56Every time we dipped our nose, the Sams went off the air because they knew they were going to get hit by the Shrikes.
33:02So that was one of the tactics we developed, that we would periodically go in there if we thought a Sam was, as soon as the Sam came on,
33:11dipped the nose and he would shut off and the strike force would get in.
33:15I mean, the ultimate purpose was not to kill Sams.
33:18The purpose was to get the strike force in there, drop their bombs, go after their targets and get out safely.
33:26If we killed Sams, that was fine. It was great. But if we got the strike force in and out, that was more important.
33:33While the Shrike was an advanced weapon for its day, its limited speed and turning capability had a negative impact on the Weasel's ability to combat the Sam threat.
33:44The crew could try to destroy the Sam's ability to maintain a lock on its target by destroying the radar site from which it was launched.
33:52But this would almost surely be a losing battle.
33:56There was one big rule that you had to remember, that the Sam SA-2 was faster and had a lot longer range than a Shrike.
34:09So you couldn't try to out-shoot them.
34:12The Weasel's capabilities were further hampered by the limited range of the Shrike.
34:29North Vietnamese radar operators were keenly aware of this shortcoming and learned to capitalize on it by shutting down just before the Weasels were in firing range.
34:39Once the radars were down, Weasel crews had to resort to the difficult and dangerous job of searching for potential Sam threats visually.
34:49You look for different signs. You look for roads going into some place that doesn't make sense for a road to go in.
34:55You look for a build-up. You look for trucks or other kinds of buildings that don't look like they belong in a village.
35:03Or the hardest ones, of course, were the ones that were buried in those trees.
35:07We had trees down there, if I remember, about 300 feet high. These were huge.
35:13And sometimes you wouldn't really see what you were looking for until you got down low enough to get hurt.
35:20The Weasel's ability to actually destroy Sam installations took a gigantic leap forward in May of 1968,
35:27with the introduction of the AGM-78 standard anti-radiation missile.
35:32The standard was enormous for an air-launched missile. It was 15 feet long and weighed nearly 1,400 pounds.
35:40But it provided Weasel crews with previously unheard of long-range capability.
35:45Working in conjunction with one of the 105's radar receivers, the standard could lock onto and strike enemy radars at a range of up to 60 miles.
35:55For the Weasel crews, learning to use the new weapon was easy.
36:00There wasn't any tactic involved other than being there. You had to tote those things up.
36:06We were carriers. We were trucks.
36:10We carried them up, got a lock on, fired it, and then got a lock on the next one, fired it, and turned around and went home.
36:20We were done. The missile did all the work.
36:22As a matter of fact, if we had overshot the target and they were still transmitting, it could turn around underneath of us and go back and hit them behind us.
36:34So the strike required you to get very close to the target, relatively close.
36:40And the standard, we were miles away.
36:45I mean, they couldn't hear us. We couldn't hear them.
36:48All we knew was that they were operating.
36:51The standard's incredible range virtually negated the North Vietnamese tactic of shutting down radar sites to prevent missiles from homing in on the signal.
37:07Also, the large warhead would decimate the radar and the entire missile site.
37:17Once again, the Americans had a tool to destroy the latest Soviet technology.
37:23The air war over Vietnam had gone quiet by late 1968.
37:33A shift in the weasel mission was on the horizon.
37:36Slowly, weasel units were pulled back and deactivated as President Richard Nixon handed over more and more of the war effort to U.S. trained South Vietnamese crews.
37:47By the end of April 1971, only one weasel squadron remained in Thailand.
37:59During the bombing halt, the weasels provided escort to reconnaissance flights to monitor North Vietnamese troop activities.
38:15Frequently, weasels were sent out to support and protect RF-4 Phantoms on these missions.
38:26What the U.S. planes observed was an increase in the flow of traffic on the notorious Ho Chi Minh Trail.
38:33It seemed that the North Vietnamese were using the bombing halt to stock up.
38:38An endless convoy of trucks bearing food, weapons and ammunition streamed southward.
38:44The supplies were stockpiled in Laos and South Vietnam to support future offensives.
38:49As the flow of men and supplies increased, so too did the number of anti-aircraft threats.
38:56Within 18 months, enemy anti-aircraft defenses on the trail alone more than quadrupled.
39:03And further south, numerous SAM and radar controlled anti-aircraft installations were put in place.
39:11The reconnaissance missions proved to be extremely difficult.
39:14The weasel crews could see firsthand what was transpiring below.
39:18But the bombing halt prevented them from doing anything more than observe.
39:25From our perspective, it was frustrating because we knew the guys sitting on the ground in South Vietnam were going to get hammered
39:31because our government was allowing these guys to bring the supplies down.
39:36So in that respect, all these bombing halts and all the political machinations that went on were very frustrating.
39:42Had they turned us loose, and this has been said many times before, to go after the targets as we were able to go after them,
39:51without the constraints, political or otherwise, we could have shortened the war by years.
39:57Once the bombing halt was lifted, weasels were sent in with AC-130 Spectre gunships to stop the flow of supplies down the trail.
40:09Anti-aircraft and SAM sites posed the greatest threat to the large, slow-flying AC-130s.
40:14The threat was particularly heavy along the northern reaches of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, near the Laotian border with North Vietnam.
40:21By the end of 1971, North Vietnamese defenses threatened Spectre crews at every turn.
40:27Their anti-aircraft guns and missile batteries were located along the gunship's most commonly flown routes.
40:40When the weasels escorted the gunships, Spectre crews were able to focus more on their delicate sensors and less on the threat of SAMs from below.
40:49Without weasel protection, it's hard to say how successful the gunships would have been in destroying the supplies pouring down the trail.
41:05The next big role for the wild weasels came after December 13, 1972, when the North Vietnamese government broke off all negotiations to end the war.
41:15During the war, President Nixon ordered an all-out bombing campaign against the North that came to be known as Linebacker II.
41:23During the campaign, weasel crews were assigned perhaps the most high-stakes mission of the war.
41:29They escorted the military's largest bomber, the slow-moving B-52, to the most heavily defended targets in North Vietnam, Hanoi and the Port of Haiphong.
41:39Once there, the number of SAM sites proved to be too dense for even the weasels to penetrate.
41:46On December 20, North Vietnamese air defense operators fired at least 220 SAMs at a flight of B-52s.
41:56Six were struck and went down in flames. Within two days, five more were down, killing some 120 crewmen.
42:04During subsequent raids, both the B-52s and their weasel escorts changed tactics.
42:16The B-52s began employing electronic countermeasures to jam SAM radars, while the weasels paired up with F-4s in hunter-killer team formations.
42:26Twice as many SAM sites were destroyed or suppressed, and no more B-52s were lost through the Christmas bombing halt.
42:34On December 26, President Nixon ordered the largest bombing raid of the entire war.
42:45The change in tactics seemed to work. The missiles that launched tended to miss their targets,
42:51apparently because fearful SAM operators immediately turned off their radars to avoid attracting wild weasels.
43:01Colonel David Brogg escorted flights of B-52s during raids against the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
43:08They would go in flights of three, and our real concern, our primary concern,
43:14was to make sure that the SAMs wouldn't fire at the B-52s.
43:18But from a personal point of view, we were more concerned that we were out of the track of those B-52s,
43:27just in case they might have been off of their own track and drop area.
43:33Because we figured anything worse than being hit by SAM coming up from the ground
43:39would be being hit by 104, 500-pound bombs coming down from the top.
43:45The weasels and B-52s continued their new tactics during three smaller raids on Hanoi.
43:54Two more bombers were lost.
43:56But SAM operators were reportedly still firing salvos at the force without the aid of radar.
44:02On December 29th, President Nixon ordered a bombing halt above the 20th parallel.
44:13Four days later, the North Vietnamese government returned to the Paris peace talks
44:18and resumed negotiations in earnest.
44:21In the end, the weasels' suppression of the SAM sites played a role in the bombing campaign's success.
44:32As the war in Southeast Asia drew to a close, the next generation of weasel aircraft, the F-4C, was making its debut.
44:40By then, the probability that a weasel crew could survive until their 100th mission,
44:45and thus the end of their tour, had improved considerably.
44:49Nonetheless, 48 weasel crews were down throughout the war.
44:54This was the price paid for the hundreds of SAM sites that were destroyed
44:58and the thousands more that were forced off the air.
45:01But more importantly, it was the price paid for the hundreds of Strike Force pilots that were potentially saved.
45:08Ultimately, this relationship generated a strong sense of pride and camaraderie within the various weasel squadrons
45:16and with the men and planes of other units they protected.
45:23We, as the 44th Attack Fighter Squadron at Karat Air Base, Thailand, was the weasel squadron for that wing.
45:30We felt very strongly that we were protecting the guys in the 34th and the 469th on the missions that they were flying.
45:39And I think they felt the same way about us.
45:40They said, hey, these guys are in there protecting us and doing the job.
45:45So there was strong morale, esprit de corps.
45:50We had a lot of confidence in each other.
45:53The Wild Weasel mission remains an important component of U.S. air operations
45:58and will likely continue well into the future.
46:01For as long as there are manned aircraft flying offensive missions over ground-based defenses,
46:07there will always be a need for those daring enough to be first in, last out.
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