Friendly Fire Notebook

My challenge has never been that historical compilation is inaccurate.
I've been contending that as long as we have first person accounts
available, we can integrate the "official" record with the live
on-scene experiences to get a considerably more accurate account.

Not in all cases however. If I were to interview the two B-52D tail gunners
credited for the two MiG kills, I would conclude that they actually shot down
the two jets. If I expand my research and interview you and other F-4 MiGCAP
guys, I would get a completely different version. If I then go to the the
Vietnamese themselves, ask them to show me their records and discover that not
only were no MiGs reported lost in the area in question, but that there were no
MiGs airborn in that area during the time in question, I can reasonably
conclude that no MiGs were shot down by B-52s.

In
many instances, availability of first-person recollections will result
in correction of the historic records.


As you can see above, as many times as it can set the facts straight, it can
distort them.

The real issue here is that on the one hand you are eager to discount
first person US recollections on intensity of the fighting and
simultaneously accept the NVN statements.

Because the U.S. Marine is not really in a poistion to make an accurate
statement regading NVN supplies, the NVN officer, and the NVN documented record
is. Conversly, I would disregard NVN speculation about U.S. force issues and
rely on the U.S. accounts and records.

And, do you really mean to
say that the NVA operating from the tunnels and jungle caves deep into
SVN, short of "munition, food and POL" were devoting their time to
meticulous record keeping?

Not only did they keep good and accurate records, but nearly every solider kept
a personal diary. If you've ever read Hal Moore's "We Were Soliders Once and
Young", he can attest to the fact that nearly every enemy body recovered in LZ
X-Ray had a personal diary on it.

This while the massive US bureaucracy of
MAC-V was simply doodling away on French cuisine and Eurasian whores?

Maybe if the VC and NVA units had French food and whores their records would
not be as meticulous as they are

Long bomb trains walking up to and over discrete targets
with one, two or three bombs out of the string possibly hitting the
target---or in some instances ending before the target, starting after
the target or paralleling the target but missing cleanly.

I didn't mean to infer it was as easy in 1972 as it was in 1999, many
improvements had been made to the BUFF release system that allowed us to drop
very tight trains today, but it also wasn't so difficult that an airfield
needed to be attacked by over 25 jets of all types. The runway at Bac Mai was
unuseable after night #4 but BUFFs went back there the next night and the
runway also received attention during the day. Perhaps it was "maintenance"
bombing Ed, but that excuse doesn't hold true for the non-airfield targets.
Khin No Railyard and vehicle repair complex was a total loss after night #2,
but BUFFs went back there at least 4 more times. Khin No received over 4,000
weapons from B-52s alone and IIRC A-7s also visited there...and this was after
LB I when it had also been hit...several times!

Ahhh, Checkmate..."John Warden? I knew John Warden. John Warden was a
friend of mine. And, frankly, Senator, you're no John Warden...."

Nothing personal to your friend Ed, but I take that as a compliment.

Read about Chuck Horner's dismissal of John Warden when setting up the
offensive team for Desert Storm in Clancy's collaboration, "Every Man
a Tiger."

I have, great stuff, go Chuck!

"blue-on-blue kill in 1971"? Sounds like some of that great
history---no ops going in in MiG country in '71.

Than it must have been '72, I'm reciting this from memory.

The
positions in the illustrations are wrong. The sequence of events is
wrong. The ranges between aircraft are wrong. Even the location
relative to the target and other flights is wrong.

Now define; "wrong"...is it possible Ed, that you recalled it incorrectly. I'm
not choosing sides in this one, just pointing out, as in the case of our
fameous B-52 tail gunners, sometimes the participant is wrong.

The only interview
conducted to establish the definitive historic account was done eight
months after the event with the flight lead in Wichita KS.

Than I would conclude that unless one of you wrote it down immediately after
the fact and verified it with other potential witnesses, that there is no way
of knowing for sure what happened. You may be right...or he may be right, but
as someone who was 4 years old at the time I can not accept either account as
fact.

No other
participants were interviewed and the flight lead was not in a
position to witness the entire engagement. Yet, that becomes the
historic record.

I believe much of the Air Force historical record is like that. A few months
after ALLIED FORCE ended I got to read in the "Lessons Learned" about how B-52s
required air refueling in order to provide a 2-hour XINT presence. Interesting
since only one crew ever even saw a tanker during the entire operation, and
that was so he could extend his *3-hour* XINT orbit to 5 hours. Whoever wrote
that section confused B-1s and B-52s, but now that is documented Air Force
history. By the way, the participants at the Lessons Learned conferance were
all OAF participants as well....

For several years after LB II, Carl Jeffcoat who I mentioned earlier
as being downed by a MiG 21 near Kep, believed that he was shot down
by a member of the Hunter/Killer flight rather than an enemy aircraft.

Maybe this was the case Checkmate looked at in the 80s? I know that the
official Air Force history held it as fratricide until Checkmate concluded
their study. Another F-4 driver, "Lucky" Anderreg led the study, but I don't
think he was in LBII.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"