Chapter 28
Friendly Fire
03 March 1966
1630 local (Zulu +8)
9,000 feet above eastern Hanoi
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Operation Rolling Thunder, the sustained aerial bombing of North Vietnam, was now in its second year. Tom Boone and Harmon Rabb Sr., two F-8 Crusader pilots deployed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Bon Homme Richard, were playing a key role in the bombing campaign.
Todays mission saw Tom and Harm's providing fighter escort for flights of A-4 Skyraiders; light-attack aircraft known as "Scooters". The A-4s were striking targets inside Route Pack 6, area around Hanoi and Haiphong harbor which contained the majority of strategic targets in North Vietnam, as well as the main rail and road routes to China which intersected at the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.
American pilots called Hanoi "Downtown" where, as the 1964 Petula Clark hit put it, "Everything's waiting for you."
What was actually waiting Downtown were MiG fighters, SAM missile sites, and thousands of radar directed anti-aircraft guns firing a combined 25,000 tons of shells each month.
When Tom and Harm Sr. had made had their first combat deployment the North Vietnamese anti aircraft gunners were horribly inaccurate, often firing wildly. Those same gunners were now much more disciplined and wouldn't open fire until they got the ideal shot. Because of this new-found diligence, the airspace above Hanoi had become the most dangerous in the world.
In early 1966, Route Pack 6 was an area of overlapping responsibilities shared between the US Navy and the US Air Force.
Because the two services did not play well together, and in order to maintain proper separation of air assets, Navy jets from Task Force 77 operating from Yankee station in the Tonkin Gulf, entered Hanoi airspace from the southwest. Meanwhile, the "Zoomies" of the US Air Force based near Korat, Thailand, approached from the north at Tam Dao; a 5000ft high ridge which was 20 miles northwest of Hanoi and running parallel to the Red River.
While Yankee Station remained an obscure reference point on charts of the Tonkin Gulf and was not widely known outside of the US Navy, Tam Doa ridge would became famous as Thud Ridge. This nickname came from United States Air Force F-105D Thunderchief pilots whose aircraft, the largest single-engine jet used during the war, was called the "Thud".
A US Navy maximum effort Alpha Strike was an impressive sight to behold, but when the US Air Force arrived Downtown they were loaded for bear: 30 or 40 F-105 fighter bombers accompanied by Douglas EB-66 electronic countermeasures aircraft, scores of F-4C Phantoms to fight off MiGs, one or two flights of F-105 Wild Weasels, which were two-seat F-105's used to take out anti-aircraft defenses, as well as a herd of huge Boeing KC-135 tankers flying racetrack orbits over Thailand and Laos, and with their own fighter escorts.
Despite the best efforts of mission planners to separate US Navy and Air Force aircraft from one another, in crowded and stress filled sky above Hanoi, mistakes in recognition were inevitable.
LT Tom Boone never caught sight of the errant US Air Force F-4C which had launched an AIM-4 Falcon Missile against him.
When the threat alarm for an inbound missile sounded in his headset, Boone automatically jinked hard left and dived for the deck. Moments later, Boone felt his Crusader shudder as though it had been struck by a huge stick.
Boone radioed he'd been hit and requested a BDA (Battle Damage Assessment) from his element leader and best friend, Harmon Rabb Sr.
"My controls are sluggish," said Boone.
"It's because you're missing half of your vertical stabilizer and most of one elevator! Are you going to punch out?"
Every naval aviator wants to go to the boat, which meant the safety and security of Task Force 77.
"Not out here," said Boone. "I've got engine power and minimal control. I'm going to try to make it into the Gulf."
"You're starting to trail vapor. It could be hydraulic fluid. Keep an eye on the gauge, you may have to get out quick." The tone of Harm's voice showed his concern for his best friend remaining in the heavily damaged F-8.
Minutes later, Boone lost his primary hydraulic system. Then the backup system failed. Even so, Tom Boone struggled to stay on course.
"The engine is running rough. RPM is surging. I'm losing power," announced Boone, who had to get feet wet (eject over water), otherwise a bowl of pumpkin soup and much worse, awaited him at the Hanoi Hilton.
The master caution light illuminated on the Boone's instrument panel. When the fire light came on, the cockpit filled with smoke and damaged Crusader pitched up violently and then went out of control.
The last thing that Tom Boone remembered hearing over his headset was Harmon Rabb shouting, "You're on fire. Get out of there!"
Boone struggled mightily against inertia-lock; the G forces which pinned his arms at his sides and prevented him from reaching over his helmet to grab the ejection face curtain.
The crusader went into a flat spin, which Tom Boone knew was unrecoverable.
Boone understood that he had waited too long to initiate ejection and was resigned to the fact that he was going to die in the air above North Vietnam. His only regret was that his best friend, Harmon Rabb, would see it happen.
Please Harm, don't tell Trish and Little Harm how I died.
Boone suddenly regained focus, but not until the doomed Crusader now just 1,500 feet above Haiphong harbor, on fire, and plummeting in a flat spin.
Don't look outside of the cockpit. It means vertigo, and you are dead.
Through superhuman effort, Boone managed to reach down and pull the yellow-and-white secondary ejection handle between his legs.
A split second later, the ejection seat blasted Boone free of the cockpit at over 100 feet per second, causing him to momentarily black out.
When Boone regained consciousness he was under a good canopy, but less than 1,000 feet above the water, and with the enemy shooting at him while he was hanging helplessly from his chute.
Boone couldn't believe it. Something like this only happened in late night war movies. Nevertheless he could hear the sounds of the bullets as they whizzed past him with a distinctive CRACK!
After what seemed an eternity, Boone splashed down inside a secondary shipping channel of Haiphong Harbor between the mainland and Île de Dinh Vu. The ships moored in channel were ComBloc freighters; primarily from the Soviet Union.
Boone could see the icy stare of Russian crewmen standing on the decks.
Boone's left shoulder had been injured, making it difficult disconnect his chute- which had been pierced by over a dozen bullet holes. Once free of his harness, junks, sampans and fishing boats of all shapes and sizes set out from shore and into the channel.
The North Vietnamese government had placed a bounty on captured American pilots; the cash amount exceeding the average worker's annual salary by a factor of ten. The potential windfall provided local fishermen ample motivation to capture the downed "Yankee air pirate."
With no more than a few hundred yards separated him from shore, and realizing that it would only make him a bigger target, Boone chose not to inflate his life raft. In an effort to distance himself from the fishing boats, Boone began swimming further out into the channel, but the pain in his left shoulder made for slow going.
Soon, a bigger threat loomed in the form of a large Soviet merchant ship tied up at a nearby pier. The crew of the freighter Turkmenistan began to ready a motorized lifeboat to affect a "rescue".
Being a guest of the Soviet Merchant Navy was not the sort of hospitality that Tom Boone relished.
Suddenly, Harmon Rabb's F-8 raced in just above the waves. As Harm passed over the Soviet freighter he lit his afterburner; the noise startling the Russian crew who toppled the lifeboat off of its davit and into the water.
Directly behind Harm were Al Cherry and his wingman, Bill Ross who joined up with Harm to neutralized enemy anti aircraft batteries while Cherry took CAP and began directing the growing number of arriving US air assets.
As word had spread throughout Yankee Station that an American aviator was alive and trapped inside Haiphong harbor, Navy aircraft, without their having receiving official orders, rushed to the harbor to bomb or strafe.
Over the course of the next 30 minutes, LT Commander Allen Cherry III, USNA Class of 1953, appeared to be running the US Navy's entire air war over North Vietnam.
Low on fuel and nearly out of ammunition, American pilots pressed their attacks with dedication; each man knowing that one day he might be the one floating in the water. Those same pilots dropped down low and waved to Boone; not only to lift his spirits, but to encourage him to continue to fight on.
Inside the harbor, the tide began going out. The receding water was slowly pulling Boone towards the safety of the Gulf when three North Vietnamese patrol boats began moving towards him.
Harmon Rabb's four Colt Mk12 20mm cannons had run dry so he made a "cold" pass, drawing away the fire from boats deck guns while Bill Ross moved in for the kill.
Bill Ross had sunk a North Vietnamese patrol boat during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and could shoot a Zuni Rocket through a doughnut hole. Ross took out the first patrol boat in a single pass, then he engaged and destroyed the second boat, pausing just long enough to allow the third patrol boat to recover survivors from the water.
With the third boat decks crowded with wounded survivors, Ross attacked it with the last of his Zuni's, the explosions from his rockets lifting the boat out of the water and then capsized it.
No quarter would be given.
As the patrol boat broke up and sank, Ross rolled in and opened fire on the helpless survivors with his four 20mm cannons.
It was slaughter. Even so, Ross made a second pass, and then a third, ensuring that there were no survivors.
Harm Senior was shocked by the carnage. "Looks like you got them all," he announced over the radio.
"Fuck 'em, if they can't take a joke!" declared the normally mild mannered Ross, who now flew low over Tom Boone, who waved up in appreciation.
In early 1966, Navy search and rescue procedures for its downed pilots were in their infant stages. Despite the near continuous air support, Al Cherry knew that the CAP above Haiphong harbor could not be sustained much longer. The Navy aircraft of the early 1960's did not operate effectively at night, and the sun was setting.
Cherry knew that Tom Boone would never survive a night in Haiphong Harbor.
Word came that the cavalry was on the way. A Navy Sikorsky SH-3A Sea King, call sign "Big Dog 62," from the anti-submarine carrier USS Kearsarge, had answered the call for help.
LT Gary "Badger" Burns, a US Naval Academy graduate who had chosen rotary wing over fast movers, kept the buffalo-shaped helicopter barreling toward Haiphong at 140 knots, while enlisted crewmen readied the chopper's recovery hoist, along with having their door-mounted M60 machine guns ready for immediate action.
As Big Dog neared the mouth of Haiphong Harbor an 85mm shell from a Soviet made 52-K anti aircraft gun exploded off of the chopper's port side. Shell fragments peppered the chopper and seriously damaged one of its the two General Electric T58 turboshafts. Warning lights indicating metal chips in the oil system had illuminated leaving the second engine in danger of failing.
The damage to the Sea King was serious. Badger Burns knew that if he broke off the rescue there would not be a word of criticism, but darkness was fast approaching and the recovery of the downed aviator would become impossible.
"Big Dog, you've got to get him out of the water now or we've lost him," Al Cherry implored.
Al Cherry and Tom Boone had locked horn's many times, but Boone was in Cherry's squadron and he was not going to give him up.
"I'll get him," said Burns, who continued on, diving the chopper toward the deck while swerving and weaving in an effort to keep enemy gunners guessing, all the while remaining as low as possible—sometimes just a few feet above the water.
The Vietnamese anti aircraft gunners, fearing they might hit the various merchant vessels from neutral countries that were in port, checked their fire, but shore-based automatic weapons began tearing up the water around the helicopter.
In the water, Tom Boone understood that his rescue was now or never, so he lit a series of orange smoke flares to mark his location for the rescue chopper.
Those same flares also served as a beacon to a group of fast approaching sampans.
Boone was not about to be captured and taken to prison by a group of fishermen! Vowing not to be taken alive, Boone pulled his .45 Government from his shoulder holster and prepared to make a last stand.
After spotting the downed pilot's flares in the approaching darkness, Badger Burns banked the helicopter sharply while his right door gunner opened up on the sampans with his M60, shredding the boats, much to Tom Boone's delight.
Despite the fishermen's efforts to get away from their foundering sampans, the fire from Big Dog's machineguns didn't let up.
The fishermen were cut to pieces.
"Fuck you, assholes!" Boone screamed at the panicking fishermen who were now swimming for their lives while Burns banked the chopper in a tight, high-angle turn, then pulled the nose toward vertical to bleed off airspeed.
Even before Burns transitioned to a hover, the chopper's crew chief was already lowering the steel hoist cable.
Big Dog came to a halt 30 feet above the water and directly over Boone. Due to the remarkable skill of helicopter's crew, the horseshoe collar at the end of the cable landed practically in Boone's arms.
Despite his injured shoulder, Boone was able to scramble into the sling on his first try.
Without waiting for the new passenger to be reeled in, and with his door gunners still blazing away at the few remaining sampans, Badger Burns wasted no time in seeking open water.
After being winched inside of the chopper, a soaking wet Tom Boone- irate at having been shot at while defenseless in his parachute, wanted to take over an M60 machinegun and continue fighting.
The crew of the Sea King, whose days were normally spent dropping sound buoys in a pointless search for Soviet submarines, weren't about to press their luck.
"Fuck that noise," said the choppers crew chief. "Just relax, sir. We'll get you back to the Tico."
Pushing the wounded helicopter as hard as he dared, Badger Burns, now escorted by three US Navy F-8 Crusaders, slowly rumbled toward USS Ticonderoga, and the safety of Yankee Station.
Knowing that the recovery of a downed naval aviator rated the gift of 5 gallons of ice cream from the rescued aviator's carrier, Burns had already decided on strawberry.
Saturday, 17 October 1998
0750 EDT
Paradise Diner
US Hwy 17 near Stafford Regional Airport
Stafford, Virginia
"That was a remarkable story," Tony Taylor told Tom Boone, who was sitting across from him and finishing his coffee. "Was the Air Force pilot who fired the air to air missile at you ever identified?"
Boone shook his head. "No, but it wouldn't have made a bit of difference. One month later, Route Pack 6 was split in half, and that was the last time we got close to the Air Force when we went Downtown."
"Even so, you're lucky you weren't blown out of the sky," said Taylor.
"Fortunately, the Falcon was a godawful missile. The Air Force fired the damned things by the hundreds, but Falcons accounted for only 5 kills during the entire war: 4 MiGs…and me. I imagine there's an Air Force F4C on display at Zoomie U (The United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs) painted with an American flag representing me as one of its kills."
"Seriously, Tom. You were damned lucky that the chopper arrived in the nick of time."
"Gary Burns flew that shot up Sea King through some of the heaviest ground fire that I have ever seen. He was recommended for the Navy Cross, but received the Silver Star instead." Boone slowly shook his head. "Gary Burn's died in a crash while on a routine training flight off of Pearl Harbor in 1976. He had a wife and four kids."
"That's rough," said Taylor, despite his knowing that such events happened far too in naval aviation. "What about the others?"
"Bill Ross received an Air Medal for taking out the three patrol boats, I got a Purple Heart for a torn rotator cuff in my shoulder, and Al Cherry received the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal for coordinating the recovery."
"And Hammer?" Taylor asked.
"The master of the Soviet freighter screamed bloody murder claiming that Harm had attacked his ship, but Al Cherry had his own gun camera rolling and caught it all on film. When Captain Morrison [George Stephen Morrison- father of singer Jim Morrison], the skipper of the Bon Homme Richard viewed Al's film he said that the Russians could pound sand."
"What ended up happening?"
"The Soviets maintained that they were following the Law Of The Sea and were attempting to rescue me. I felt otherwise, and I said so. The incident got kicked up stairs to the Department of State. It was finally resolved when the Navy offered to pay for the loss of the lifeboat, which the Soviets refused. Even though it came to nothing, the incident meant giving Harm any sort of award was impossible."
"Speaking of Hammer. Have you called Harm Junior to find out his current status?" Taylor asked.
Boone was certain that any news about Harm Sr. would not only be bad, it would be definitive. Boone wasn't sure that he was ready to hear it.
"I'm going to call Harm this afternoon. He's is in La Jolla with Sarah MacKenzie, so I don't want to take up too much of his time."
"I've never met Major MacKenzie. What does she look like?" asked Taylor.
"Did you get a chance to met Diane Schonke?"
Tony Taylor had been Harm Jr's squadron commander aboard the Midway. Being a hands on leader, Taylor had made a point of meeting the wives and girlfriend's of all of his pilots, along with those of other key squadron personnel.
"Of course I met Diane. That is to say that I met her before she was murdered."
"Well, if you've seen Diane Schonke, you've seen Sarah MacKenzie."
Taylor was trying to sort through Boone's comment when their waitress came to the booth and asked if the two men would like more coffee? When they declined, she left the check, which Taylor snatched from Boone's grasp.
"Ready to go flying?" Taylor asked.
"I'm always ready to go flying."
Tom Boone had flown combat missions in three different global conflicts. He had been shot at, shot up, and shot down. Despite those risks, if Boone could turn back the clock to become the same eager young ensign he was when he entered flight school at Pensacola, he would gladly go through it all over again.
[A/N] I cannot express sufficient thanks to Paul X.R., a US Naval Academy graduate and former aviator, who provided invaluable material for this chapter.
