Supersonic Strafing
Author: Sam Morgan, F-105 Pilot
(I first heard of Sam Morgan from my father-in-law, Bobby Mead. He would mention Sam, then laugh. Sam had been a young lieutenant and captain in his F-105 squadron. A few years ago, I found Sam, and he began sharing these stories with me. They are just too good not to share.)
The date was November 6, 1967. The target was the An Bey Storage area located on the northwest side of Hanoi, and it was a morning strike. The Strike Force consisted of sixteen F-105 aircraft from Korat RTAFB assembled in four flights of four flying together in the POD formation.
The Strike Force refueled from KC-135 tankers over the Gulf of Tonkin. After dropping off, we flew north to an island east of Hanoi and then turned west toward the target. The ingress route passed just north of Gia Lam Airfield and well north of the city of Hanoi. To get to An Bey, we had to fly beyond Hanoi and farther west: it was a long run to the target.
As expected, we received heavy ground fire and saw many missiles directed at the formation. As Number 4 in the lead flight, I was about a thousand feet north of my lead aircraft and about a thousand feet above him. My job on ingress was to hold a position in the flight and look to the south for enemy threats. As we passed north of Gia Lam, I could see a radar-controlled gun site on the east side of the runway firing at us. It was a large site with a ring of guns. When the guns were fired, it looked like a ring of fire. A few seconds after the guns fired, we would have lots of flak explode around the formation. I decided I was going to get that site on the way out with the Gatling cannon.
Now, the airfield was off the target list; we were prohibited from hitting anything on it. The North Vietnamese knew these rules and figured they could protect the guns by locating them on an off-limits target. However, the Rules of Engagement (ROE) did allow us to strike a gun site that was firing at us, even if it was located on a prohibited target.
As we were passing Gia Lam, the missiles started coming up, and there were multiple missiles in the air until we rolled in for the bomb drop. I saw one missile launch at my ten o’clock, and I called it out. Right away, it looked like it was coming for me. I called the missile coming into our flight, selected afterburner, and pushed over into a dive. I went down maybe three to four thousand feet while watching the missile. It did not change course, so I pulled back into my assigned position; it was not coming after me. This same missile was going to pass about 500 feet below my nose. I rolled left to watch it and then rolled back right to see it heading away. I rolled back just in time to see it hit the man to my right, Number 2 in the second flight.
It was a huge fireball, larger than the F-105 it hit. To me, it looked like it hit the bottom nose from about the ten o’clock low direction. For what seemed a significant period of time, the entire aircraft was buried in the fireball, but it had to be only a split second or so. Then the F-105 emerged from the fireball, still looking like a complete aircraft. It seemed like I watched it for seconds, but it could not have been that long. Then the left wing dipped a bit, and it started sliding down toward me. I lifted the nose, and it seemed to slide under me.
The pilot in that airplane was Robert Warren Hagerman, and I will have more to say about him in another story. But in that one instant, I watched Robert Hagerman die. Other guys said the missile exploded before it hit him, but I was the guy next to and below him, and I have an image burned into my mind of that explosion on the nose of his aircraft and a fireball much larger than that sixty-seven-foot aircraft.
For most of the run in, Robert was much further away from me, as much as a half a mile. But we were getting close to roll in, so the second flight was moving in close to my flight to set up for roll in. If they had not closed it up, they would have likely been shallow on the bomb run. But it was still a surprise when I rolled right to watch the missile, and there he was right next to me and slightly above.
Shortly after Robert passed under me, we were at bomb roll in. The Strike Force leader did a great job of getting us to the roll-in. I went full afterburner and rolled over the top before pulling the nose down to the target. I wanted to be in a fifty to sixty degree dive accelerating to 650 knots, 1.0 Mach, at the 6,000 foot bomb release. I rolled out, set the throttle to minimum afterburner, and lined up the gunsight below the target. It was still a clean target when I released, as none of the bombs had yet reached the ground. I always noticed that at bomb release, the airspeed was 650 knots, and I was just slipping through the Mach, supersonic.
Once I felt the bombs leave the aircraft, I came out of afterburner and pulled back as hard as I could. The pull-out was at least seven g’s as I could see the wings arc up in a smooth curve. As soon as the nose approached the horizon, I selected full afterburner, unloaded the back stick for a hard left roll, and pulled around hard. I was just in time to see my bombs detonate on the target. It was a good run with bombs on the target. Now I had something else to do.
I came around to an easterly heading at about 4,000 feet, still in max power. The aircraft was now running between 740 and 760 knots, depending on how much turning and jinking I was doing. I set the weapon and gun sight switches to ‘Guns Ground.’ I was going to get the gun site at Gia Lam, and I was going to fire the entire load, 1.000 rounds in one pass.
This was not going to be a simple task. I would be running at 760 knots, almost 900 miles per hour, in a 30 to 40 degree dive. I would be traveling at about 14 miles per minute or almost 1,300 feet per second. The gun would fire for 10 seconds, so I would cover 13,000 feet during that time. I needed to start firing at least 3 miles from the target.
It was easy to find the target as it was on the east side of a large airfield. I was still in max power and running at 760 knots when I started a left roll into the target. The angle looked good, the speed was building, and I started firing. For all that was going on, things were smooth, and the noise was not remarkable. The big J-75 engine was at max power, the burner was at max power, the Gattling gun was heaving out 20-mm cannon shells at 100-rounds per second, and the F-105 was running at about Mach 1.2. Then things changed.
There was an enormous explosion, and the nose pitched violently up and to the left. The gun seized! The caution panel lit up with all the warning lights. The Air Turbine Motor failed, along with the loss of Utility Hydraulic Pressure and AC electrics. All of the primary instruments failed, and the main attitude indicator froze. I thought I had taken a mortal hit and, unfortunately, announced that on the radio.
I had planned to come off the target to the right, and in a few minutes, I would be over the water and safe. Now I was coming off to the west with what seemed to be a seriously damaged aircraft. I came out of afterburner and came the long way around to the east. Once heading east and running a lot slower than I wanted, I started assessing the situation.
First, I tried to restart the Air Turbine Motor, and it started up just fine. The ATM was a turbine engine located just forward of the instrument panel. It was driven by engine bleed air and turned at 48,000 RPM, so it was easy to tell when it was running; you could hear it running. Also, I could see the Utility Hydraulic Pressure come back up to 3,000 PSI.
Next, I reset the AC generator, and it worked just fine. The instruments started working, and all of the warning lights went out. Everything was working! I went back into full afterburner, accelerated through 700 knots, and headed home.
Out in the Gulf of Tonkin, I joined up on the assigned tanker and took a few jibes from the guys asking why I was there and how I got the aircraft fixed. I did not say much.
As best I could figure, the gun gases were going into the left intake and causing the engine compressor to stall. This caused the ATM to drop off line, leading to the failure of the AC generator and the Utility Hydraulic Pump. When the Utility Hydraulics failed, the gun stopped, and that instant stoppage caused the nose to pull up and left. Of course, there is the possibility that the shock (fright) of the compressor stall might have caused a little unplanned pull on the stick.
There I was on the tanker with all systems running fine. I took on plenty of fuel, so all I had left was to fly the 400 miles back to Korat. I needed that time as I had a few things to think about. First, the sight of the missile killing Robert Hagerman was an image and an event I would never forget. Then there was the excitement and drama that occurred on the strafing run on the gun site.
I did indeed have things to think about.