To Fly and Fight: The Experience of American Airmen in Southeast Asia A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at George Mason University By William F. Andrews Master of Arts University of Alabama, 1994 Director: Christopher H. Hamner, Assistant Professor Department of History and Art History Spring Semester 2011 George Mason University Fairfax, VA Copyright: 2011 William F. Andrews All Rights Reserved ii DEDICATION This is dedicated to John C. Andrews and Barbara L. Andrews, loving parents and grandparents to two generations of American warriors, and to Stacey W. Andrews the world’s greatest fighter pilot wife. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to many energetic and helpful colleagues who played key and indispensible roles in helping make this work a reality. I would like to first thank Christopher Hamner, my dissertation advisor, for his patient and relentless encouragement of my thinking and my writing. I will long treasure our many wide- ranging discussions of war, warriors, and history. Likewise, through our readings and informal chats over coffee, Meredith Lair greatly expanded my thinking on Vietnam, war and society, and encouraged me to pursue precision in my writing. The thoughtful comments and suggestions from the other members of my dissertation committee, Mark Clodfelter and Zachary Schrag, greatly expanded my perspectives, and helped me sharpen the focus of this paper, and I am in their debt. I feel fortunate to have been mentored by Alison Landsberg and Rosemarie Zagarri through a pair of readings courses, which they carefully crafted, to greatly expand my perspectives on American history, and historiography. I would also like to thank the staff of the National Defense University Library, especially Kimberley Jordan, Crafton Hayes, Mary Bowser, Liz Harrison, and Carolyn Turner for their tireless and indispensible support. It seemed that no resource was beyond the library staff’s grasp. Many friends and colleagues, including Lani Kass, Brig Gen Kurt Neubauer, and Cols Bart Weed, Bob Colella, Carl Farquhar, and Tom Ehrhard, encouraged me and helped push my thinking on warriors and war in the air. Steve Randolph helped me brainstorm an idea that became the heart of this dissertation. I must also thank Alan Gropman, Tommy Towery, and Darrel Whitcomb, veterans of the war over Southeast Asia who provided me with refined observations from men who were there. I am fortunate to have learned from the generation of Air Force airmen who fought in the skies of Vietnam. They taught me about flying and fighting from my first days as a cadet in 1976, through 1991, when that generation, as general officers, directed an air war (that I flew in) without many of the flaws they suffered through as junior officers. I cannot express enough appreciation for my wife, Stacey, who painstakingly entered every airplane lost over Southeast Asia into a database that served as an indispensible analytical tool in this project. She then proofread the paper while cutting me a lot of slack around the house as I commandeered the dining room table over countless nights and weekends for two years. Without her unbounded love and unflagging support, this mission would never have gotten off the ground. iv . v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Figures……………………………………………………………………….....vii Abstract................................................................................................................….….viii Introduction Chapter 1: Air Force Aviators and the War over Southeast Asia .................................…1 Chapter 2: Forging a Generation of Airmen ...................................................................22 Case One: Rolling Thunder Chapter 3: Operation Rolling Thunder ...........................................................................61 Chapter 4: Risk and the Fight for Air Superiority ........................................................118 Chapter 5: Motivation in Rolling Thunder ...................................................................165 Case Two: The In Country Air War Chapter 6: Tactical Airlift and the In Country Air War ................................................200 Chapter 7: The Forward Air Controllers .......................................................................266 Chapter 8: Operation Arc Light ....................................................................................320 Case Three: Commando Hunt Chapter 9: Fighters in Operation Commando Hunt ....................................................394 Chapter 10: Gunships in Commando Hunt ...................................................................465 Chapter 11: Rescue in Southeast Asia ..........................................................................507 Conclusion Chapter 12: Conclusion: Technology, Motivation, and War in the Air..… ..................553 Appendices...................................................................................................................568 List of References.........................................................................................................570 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page Route Packages: North Vietnam ...................................................................................…100 vii ABSTRACT TO FLY AND FIGHT: THE EXPERIENCE OF AMERICAN AIRMEN IN SOUTHEAST ASIA William F. Andrews, PhD George Mason University, 2011 Dissertation Director: Dr. Christopher H. Hamner How did U.S. Air Force aviators, a well-trained cohort of volunteers, experience combat in Southeast Asia, and what motivated them to strap into high performance jet fighters, multiengine bombers and transports, or tiny spotter airplanes and fly into harm’s way? This dissertation argues that throughout the war, an affinity for the power, control, and freedom of military aviation provided a central core of internal motivation. These basic attractions of military aviation, and a set of closely-related corollaries including obligation, flying excellence, competition, and honor tied these aerial warriors to larger external groups, providing further motivation for combat flying. To operate powerful technology was intrinsically satisfying to these men, but controlling that power obligated them to help fellow combatants to fight, win, and live to fight another day. Changing American strategies, technologies, and domestic attitudes altered the motivational landscape throughout the war, but these major sources of combat motivation endured, although subtle shifts in their relative prominence and availability followed changes in the technological and strategic environment. Air Force Aviators and the War over Southeast Asia November 1967 was one of the toughest months of the war over Southeast Asia for American aviators. Operation Rolling Thunder, the United States air campaign against Hanoi was in its third year, and although Air Force and Naval aviators had employed America’s most advanced military technology against the North Vietnamese for thirty-two arduous months, they had not broken the will of its political leaders or Air Defense Command. Unknown to the American aviators, North Vietnamese radar operators discovered a method to lock onto American radar jamming, and over four grim November days, volleys of telephone pole-sized surface-to-air missiles knocked down ten American jets—the worst stretch of the war to date. North Vietnam’s fighter pilots, in their Soviet-built MiG fighters out-fought American fighter pilots and shot down six American fighters at the cost of two of their own through recently developed high-speed hit and run tactics. By the end of the month, Vietnamese air defenses and operational accidents claimed fifty-five American aircraft across the theater, including an F-105 piloted by Colonel Ed Burdette, the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing’s popular commander, shot down in flames over North Vietnam on November 18, 1967. Despite the loss of their commander, F-105 pilots from the Thailand-based 388th wing returned to the skies over Hanoi the following day, ran a gauntlet of ninety-three surface-to-air missiles, and struck their assigned targets. In recognition of extraordinary heroism displayed under such dangerous conditions, three 388th pilots earned the 1 Air Force Cross—the nation’s second highest decoration—for bravery in leading attacks and supporting comrades attempting to fly stricken aircraft to safety.1 Concurrently, about four hundred and fifty miles south of Hanoi, other American airmen engaged in forms of combat that appeared very different: they operated far more vulnerable aircraft in support of the war in South Vietnam, executed different types of missions, and faced different dangers. As F-105 pilots returned to the skies over Hanoi on November 19, two battalions of US paratroopers struggled to seize a hilltop near the South Vietnamese town of Dak To; the fighting was so bitter that the battalions suffered twenty percent casualties in just three days. Day and night, Air Force pilots, trained as forward air controllers, orbited over the battlefield for three or more hours at a time, directing relays of Air Force, Navy, and Marine fighters against battalions of entrenched North Vietnamese regulars.2 Emotions ran so high in the battles around Dak To, that one forward air controller (who would also earn the Air Force Cross that November) knocked out a North Vietnamese heavy machine gun position with his assault rifle from the open window of his tiny, unarmored spotter plane.3 As the fighters