The F-105 shot down protecting the Raid

My most memorable moment was reading about the mission the next day in the Stars & Stripes newspaper. That’s when I learned the objective of the mission that I had been supporting that night. Our F-105 had been shot down by a SAM from the Son Tay area during the Raid, flew as long as we could toward a safe area, ejected, and were rescued by Apple 4 and Apple 5.

Here’s the story of our shoot-down, ejection, and rescue.

Five F-105 Wild Weasel aircraft participated in the mission in an air defense suppression role intended to shield all other aircraft in the area from North Vietnamese surface to air missiles, which intelligence sources had indicated included five separate sites in the immediate target area. There was nothing different in this mission than the hundreds of missions the five Weasel aircrews had flown prior to 21 November other than the fact that we were not privy to the mission objective, and due to the 1968 cessation of bombing none of us had ever been to the Hanoi area. So, we were not accustomed to the heavy concentration of air defenses that we would encounter. Aside from that the Raid was a “perfectly normal” mission for all 10 Weasels.

On 19 November we were offered an opportunity to volunteer for a special mission so highly classified that none of us were permitted to discuss it even among ourselves. We were given no details except that we were not on the schedule to fly normal missions pending this one. About noon on 20 November our Squadron Commander informed us that we would be briefing at 1930 hours that evening in a location separate from our normal mission planning and briefing facility. The building was heavily guarded and when we entered the briefing room, we were all required to provide identification. When the briefing was set to begin the room was secured so no one could enter or leave.

Our Squadron Intelligence Officer handed us our SAR cards and told us to be sure we knew what they said, particularly the answers to questions we had provided when we arrived in theater; that we would “need them.” We also received completed mission planning packages complete with charts, routes and times for each leg and target area details. Only then did we learn that our mission was to support a ground operation near Hanoi, and that a lot of other American aircraft would be in the area with us. The briefing was extremely detailed and included the most recent intelligence information with regard to enemy air defenses. This was a very unusual amount of detail in that most missions we flew were preceded by pretty generalized information with respect to threats we might encounter. The briefing also included locations we could attempt to reach should we be forced to eject from our aircraft for any reason. Our instructions were to remain in the area until all friendly forces had safely left the area. That meant a very long time over target and the need to manage fuel consumption very carefully. As events played out there was a certain amount of irony in that requirement. We still did not know the objective.

We were given the callsigns Firebird 1 through Firebird 5, which I’m told was borrowed from the Navy.

Lt Colonel Bob Kronebusch and Major John Forrester were “Firebird 1” and were the two aircrew who planned the mission tactics and prepared our mission packages along with General Manor’s planning team and our squadron intelligence officer whose last name I can’t remember even though I remember her first name was Nina.

“Firebird 2” were Major Bob Reisenwitz and Major Ray MacAdoo, “Firebird 3” were Major Bill Starkey and Major Everett Fansler, “Firebird 4” were Major Murray Denton and Captain Russ Ober, and “Firebird 5” were Major Don Kilgus and me, Captain Ted Lowry.

From here this narrative will be predominately in first person because each of the ten of us would remember their own role independently and differently. Of the ten who flew to Son Tay, I’m aware of only two who remain.

From a personal standpoint, participation in the Raid was a watershed event in that it forever shaped my views and what I believe is worth worrying about.

As Firebird 5, Major Kilgus and I were the on-scene airborne spare whose task it was to “replace the first weasel who was shot down.” We took off from Korat Royal Thai AFB at ten minutes to 1:00 am and headed toward our first refueling stop in far Northeast Thailand. We were loaded with a full internal fuel load, 1500 gallons of fuel in our three external fuel tanks, and we carried two AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missiles for self-defense. Aside from those two missiles we had to rely on our ability to evade any missiles that were fired at us.

Coming off the tanker, we could see off our right wing a huge array of navigation lights going in the same general direction we were flying. We realized that was the strike force and commented on how many aircraft were involved.

We left them behind as we followed our planned flight path to the target area. We had an uneventful ingress, just doing our normal prestrike preparations, with the difference then that we programmed the preplanned emergency North Vietnam ejection point into our doppler navigation computer. It was a mountain southwest of the objective area that was about 3500 feet high and would afford some degree of protection due to its rough terrain and that it was pretty much devoid of people. In case we did have to leave the aircraft, we wanted to be in the most isolated area possible.

Read the second half of Ted Lowry’s story in Who Will Go.

Click Here:  The book.