A FIGHTER PILOT DREAM COME TRUE: “A KILL”

Mighty Thunder is proud to post the first person testimonial of Denny Wisely’s first shutdown of an enemy aircraft on 20 December 1966, 50 years ago today.  LT WISELY and LTJG DAVID JORDAN were flying F-4B NH 215 of the VF-114 “Aardvarks” embarked in USS Kittyhawk.  Denny’s take is “Chapter 17: My First Shootdown” from his book Green Ink: Memoirs of a Fighter Pilot... Denny got a second “kill”, a MiG-17, four months later in the same cruise on 24 April 1967… 

…OOOHRAH

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

FIRST Shoot Down

At almost 2 AM on 20 December 1966 in the Tonkin Gulf and a being fourteen hours ahead of California, it was still my birthday back in the states. It was a dark night, there was no moon and the sky was overcast. It was a quiet night, flight operations had secured several hours earlier and all but those on watch were asleep after a long day of combat operations. In fact, even some of those on duty were asleep, blue shirts lying along the catapult tracks, the steam keeping them warm from the breeze over the deck. Plane captains in brown shirts were asleep atop NC-5 jet starting units. These men had already worked a fifteen hour day and caught some sleep whenever they had an opportunity. Of course, some people could not be asleep. High above the flight deck the silhouettes of those on the bridge could be seen as they moved in front of the red-lit panels. There were also people awake down in Combat Information Center (CIC), the engine room and other important places on the ship. LTJG Dave Jordan, who was my radar intercept officer for this watch, and I were strapped into one of our squadron F-4’s located on one of the waist catapults. My regular RIO, Gary Anderson was not available.

This was the second cruise for both Dave and me in these waters off the coast of North Vietnam. I had flown 138 combat missions, and Dave had flown somewhat more. We had been on this watch we call Condition CAP countless times before. Condition CAP (Combat Air Patrol) is part of the fleet’s protection from unfriendly forces. During this war, since there had been no real threat to our forces, it was a very dull watch that interrupted your night’s sleep or kept you from watching a movie in the ready room.

While Dave and I were engrossed in World War II fighter pilot novels, the ship made a sharp turn into the wind. Over the IMC came “Standby to launch Condition 1 CAP.” The 1MC is the ship’s main communications system that has speakers throughout the ship. What had been a quiet flight deck became bustling with activity. The NC-5’s were started, pressure for the steam cats was increased, I started my aircraft. Excitement was in the air. The people on the flight deck did a great job. By the time the ship had finished its turn into the wind word came to “Launch Condition 1 Cap,” and we were on our way-0 to 160 knots in less than 2 seconds.

As soon as I raised my landing gear CIC gave me an initial Vector of three one zero and informed me that visual ID was not required. In fact the call was, “Your bogies bear 310 at 110 miles, cleared to arm cleared to fire!” The adrenalin in my body began to flow. This was no stray of ours. We were going to go after the real thing’. As soon as I could, I tuned and armed my missiles. We had climbed on top of the low overcast and were leveled off at about 3000 feet and indicating almost 600 knots. I wanted to get our bogie, which was almost 100 miles away, before he had a chance to get away. At the same time, it would not be wise to use after burner and go faster, then have no gas to loiter or whatever was necessary when we did get there. If I climbed to altitude, gas consumption would be better but their radar would see me sooner.

The whole time we were running in toward our targets, we had a commentary going between our carrier, us, and Red Crown. Red Crown was typically stationed a hundred miles north of Yankee Station and was responsible for positive identification of all aircraft in the area similar to picket ships in WW11. For a couple of minutes there was a disagreement over whether we needed an ID and if we were cleared to fire. Our Admiral onboard who was the Carrier Division Commander stepped in and we were given a cleared to fire. There was really no doubt about the identity since there were no friendly forces flying that night anywhere near that area.

“Your bogie bears 295 at 20 miles.” Rang the controller’s voice.

“Dave, tell that controller I want to know where the beach is!” I yelled.

I had mentally calculated that at about 100 miles in a northwest direction from the ship was Than Hoa a very hot area. By now we were painting the two bogies and could not really tell where the coast was because in the track mode the radar does not paint the surface. This information was vital to our security because here we were on top of a low overcast approaching Than Hoa getting ready to shoot down what looked too good to be true. The whole thing smelled of a rat. I kept feeling the North Vietnamese were setting a trap for us with their SAM-2’s, using the bogies for bait. They even had the overcast to keep us from seeing from where the SAM’s were launched.

By now the bogies had been warned of our presence and they started a turn to the right, heading for home. At this time we were at 8 miles and Dave locked up on the wingman. The poor wingman, he always gets it first. At 3 miles, we were in a tail chase position with a huge speed overtake, I fired the first missile. It left the aircraft in a loud, blinding “whooof” of fire and smoke and followed the bogie into the overcast at about 2500 feet. When it got to where the bogies were, the missile exploded as advertised, and a large fireball glowed through the clouds. I tried to fire a second missile, but it failed to leave the rails. I remember yelling in excitement to Dave, “We got the bastard, we got the bastard.”

I pulled the plane into a hard turn and we headed back out to sea. A short distance behind me was my friend LT “Barrel” McRae from VF-213 in the second Condition CAP launched. I made it quite clear to him who I was and what my heading was so there could be no mistaking us for the enemy. As we proceeded out to sea our second plane closed in for another kill. We heard him call for and watched his missile launch, track and explode as ours had done. After we fired there was only one bogie showing on the radar screens, and after Barrel fired, there were none. I rolled the airplane a couple of times in shear joy!

When we got back to the ship there were one heck of a lot more people up than when we left. Everyone was excited. Morale on the ship had been good. This incident boosted it even higher. The only one who was not too happy was my regular RIO Andy. Andy had a tooth filled that day and consequently had not been scheduled to stand Condition CAP with me. I felt bad about that. We had been through a lot together, including the mid-air collision off the coast of San Diego.

After landing we went to Strike OPS for a quick debrief. Our Skipper Hank Halleland, the CO of VF-213 were both there as well as the Commanding Officer of the ship, Captain Paul Pugh. The Captain had bagged a couple of MiGs in Korea. After both aircrews finished describing what happened, Captain Pugh, said, “Great work. Now, maybe more of you older guys will start taking the alert five watches”.

What a great feeling to have finally done what all fighter pilots train to do, shoot down an enemy airplane. Later that day I flew my second night flight some 18 hours after the first one. It was a dull BARCAP.