Moving out one wing length from Durham's F-4, Brad keyed his intercom. "Russ, watch the MiGs that are turning behind us. They're setting up a shot."
"I've got 'em."
Austin increased power to maintain his position as the Phantom rushed toward the ground at 510 knots. He watched the last two A-4s fire Zuni rockets into three parked aircraft. Two of the MiG17 fighters blew apart, burning furiously as the Skyhawks clawed for altitude.
The Phantoms were diving through 6,000 feet when the sky lighted with antiaircraft fire. Four SAMs lifted off from emplacements surrounding the airfield. The Skyhawk pilots were hugging the ground and jinking all over the sky as they headed for the coastline.
Watching the altimeter unwind in a thirty-degree dive, Brad made a last-second wind correction, then released his bomb load passing 3,000 feet. Brad and Russ felt the Phantom wobble as the twelve Mark-81 bombs were kicked off the ejector racks.
The 250-pound explosives walked the length of the flight line, destroying one MiG-17 and damaging two other fighters, along with a lone transport aircraft.
Brad pulled 5 1/2 g's as he raced for the security of altitude. Lunsford remained quiet, straining to breathe during the punishing maneuver. He was trying to locate the camouflaged MiGs chasing them.
Three more surface-to-air missiles rocketed aloft as Nick Palmer pulled off the target. "SAMs! Break, Rocky!"
Rockwood slapped his Phantom into a ninety-degree turn, bending the F-4 around in a grueling 8-g attempt to evade the missiles. Bull Durham followed his flight leader as Brad rolled inverted and pulled toward the ground. Palmer chased Austin in an effort to get below the SAMs. The radio chatter became unintelligible during the evasive maneuvers.
Diving through 1,500 feet, Brad whipped the Phantom right side up and slammed the throttles into afterburner. He yanked his head from side to side in an attempt to locate his flight leader.
The sky was full of twisting, turning aircraft when Austin saw Rockwood and Durham trying to escape from the four MiG-17s. Brad turned into the engagement and raised the Phantom's nose.
"Let's get out of here — take it down!" Austin heard over the radio as he and Palmer closed on the MiGs. He next heard the voice of Dan Bailey order Joker Flight to join up and head for the beach.
"Spade Four," Austin radioed Palmer as he selected HEAT on his armament panel, "let's drag 'em off."
Palmer clicked his mike twice.
A SAM flashed by Austin's left wing as he banked inside the four MiGs. The last aircraft in the North Vietnamese formation, seeing the rapidly closing Phantoms, broke away and dove for the deck. The pilot headed straight for the security of Phuc Yen.
The MiG flight leader and his two remaining wingmen opened fire with their 23mm cannons at the same instant that Austin heard his Sidewinder annunciator growl.
Brad, who could not shoot with two F-4s in the missile zone, watched in horror as the red tracer rounds slashed by Durham's aircraft and impacted Frank Rockwood's Phantom. The stricken F-4, spewing a white vapor trail, continued to fly straight and level for a few seconds, then burst into bright orange flames.
"Frank!" Durham shouted, casting a glance at the diving MiGs. "You're on fire! Get out!"
"Negative," Rockwood replied as he turned the flaming Phantom toward the coast. "Where are the MiGs?"
Durham rolled his F-4 and glimpsed the MiGs unloading and disengaging. "Running out to Phuc Yen."
"Spades," Rockwood said in a tight voice, "get out of here and form up over the water."
Sliding into a loose formation on Bull Durham, Austin checked the area for MiGs and SAMs. He heard Jon O'Meara, five miles to the south, announce that Diamond Flight was engaging two new adversaries. The radio calls were clipped and frantic.
Keying his mike, Brad was about to suggest that he and Palmer go to the aid of O'Meara and his wingman. Before Austin could speak, Rockwood's Phantom was enveloped in a brilliant ball of fire. A nanosecond later, the F-4 blew apart in a powerful blast that severed the tail and part of the wings from the fuselage.
The remains of the Phantom yawed to the right and went into an inverted flat spin, streaming flaming jet fuel as it fell toward the earth.
"Get out, Frank!" Durham shouted while he pulled up in a high wingover. "Get out!"
Austin and Palmer pulled up to follow Durham. They watched the spinning fighter rotate through three complete turns, then saw a parachute pop open. The first parachute was followed by the opening of Rockwood's chute seconds before the F-4 plunged into a wooded hillside.
Bull Durham called the search-and-rescue coordinator at the north SAR station, giving him the exact location of the downed crewmen. The coordinator quickly radioed the information to the on-scene SAR commander orbiting over the gulf in his A-1 Skyraider.
"Spade Lead," Austin radioed during a sudden pause, "Spade Three and Four need to help Diamond Flight."
"Roger," Durham shot back, then briefed the SAR personnel about the terrain below him.
Brad and Nick banked sharply to the left and lighted their afterburners. The two aircraft quickly accelerated beyond the speed of sound. Brad could see that the two Diamond Phantoms, both holding maximum sustained turn rates, were surrounded by four fighters. Two additional MiG-17s were diving at the cornered F-4s.
Austin, with his radar in boresight mode, told Lunsford to go boresight and lock up the lead MiG that was about to open fire on the hapless Phantoms.
"Got him locked," Lunsford shouted. "Shoot! Shoot him!"
"Diamonds," Austin radioed, pulling the throttles back, "Spade Three. Reverse, unload, and go for separation. NOW!"
Feeling the F-4 go through Mach tuck, Austin finessed the stick as the aircraft came back through the sonic barrier. He watched O'Meara and his wingman snap their fighters hard-over and dive for speed. Austin popped the speed brakes, pulled a few degrees of lead on the first MiG fighter, then squeezed off two AIM-7 Sparrow missiles.
The big weapons dropped out of the wells, trailing thick plumes of smoke, and shot toward the Communist aircraft at Mach 3.
The MiG flight leader, unaware that Austin had fired missiles at him, rolled to follow the accelerating Phantoms. The enemy fighter stabilized a split second before it was blown apart in a violent explosion.
You did it!" Lunsford exclaimed, listening to Palmer congratulate them. "You knocked the shit out of him! You got a MiG!"
The blazing fighter detonated again, raining debris across the sky. The cockpit spun crazily until it plunged into the hills below. Incapacitated by the first explosion, the North Vietnamese pilot had been unable to pull his ejection handle.
"Diamonds are reengaging," Jon O'Meara radioed breathlessly as he and his wingman began pulling into a supersonic, gut-wrenching, vertical climb.
Mario Russo, O'Meara's RIO, was on the radio providing a constant update on the MiGs.
Retracting his speed brakes and adding power, Austin watched the remaining five MiGs go into steep dives and turn toward Phuc Yen. "Diamonds, the gomers are running out to Phuc Yen."
"Copy, copy," O'Meara replied. "What's your posit?"
Brad watched Diamond Flight top out and roll wings level. "We're at your twelve o'clock, low."
"Gotcha," O'Meara radioed. "Good kill… thanks. We'll form on you to cover Rocky and Ed."
Ed was Lt. (j g) Edgardo Zapata, a nugget RIO who had been with the squadron less than two months. Frank Rockwood had assumed the responsibility of bringing the young officer up to operational qualification as quickly as possible. The fighter squadron, like many other front-line units, had suffered a chronic shortage of aviators and RIOs since the beginning of the deployment.
"Roger, Diamond," Brad responded, glancing around the sky. The MiGs, low to the ground, had distanced themselves from the American fighters. "Come starboard three five zero, and join on our right wing."