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...pilots must master. They landed back at the base after the one-hour flight. "Freedom 138" was the call sign of one of the planes and, for its student pilot, the flight was anything but routine. It was the "Champagne Flight" of former POW Col. Robert W. "Bob" Barnett who last flew an Air Force jet seven years and nine months earlier when he was shot down in his F-105D over North Vietnam. (2) This flight, with instructor pilot Lt. Col. Rocco DeFelice of the 560th Flying Training Squadron, was the beginning of Bob's return to flying status after five and a half years of torture and isolation in North Vietnamese prisons and two years of recuperation following his "Freedom Flight" on the C-141 that flew him and his fellow POWs out of North Vietnam on March 14, 1973. (3) Of his T-38 flight after years out of the cockpit, Bob Barnett remarked, "I felt that I hadn't missed a beat. We made a formation take off and I was right there." (4)

This article tells the story of how he got there. It describes his being shot down in his F-105 and his three days on the ground before being captured and taken to Hanoi. It is one of many combat stories about F-105 pilots and their valiant efforts during the failed bombing campaign called "Rolling Thunder." Bob's ordeal began with his mission on October 3, 1967.

Tuesday, Oct 3, 1967: SAMs and MiGs

Continuing their almost daily attacks against targets along the Northeast Rail Line in North Vietnam, the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) from Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, launched an afternoon strike of F-105 Thunderchiefs against the Dap Cau railroad and highway bridge 20 nautical miles northeast of Hanoi. The bridge was number 16 on the Top Secret target list compiled by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Part of the strike force was targeted against the Dap Cau bypass bridge, a pontoon bridge about one mile south of the main bridge. (5) Both bridges had been bombed many times before but were to be hit again in a persistent effort to block trains and trucks carrying goods from China to Hanoi. (6)

It was the height of the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign that had started in March 1965, and other strike forces were taking advantage of this afternoon's unusually clear weather. Takhli's 355th TFW was sending four flights of F-105s against the Lang Gia railroad yard further north on the Northeast Rail Line, and Navy A-4 Skyhawks from the carrier Intrepid were attacking the railroad and highway bridge just north of Haiphong. (7) The Northeast Rail Line separated the section of North Vietnam assigned to the Air Force, Route Pack 6A, from the Navy's Route Pack 6B. Korat's route to their target crossed Navy territory. The F-105s were to be covered by a MiG-CAP flight of F 4C Phantoms, and supported by the electronic equipment operators in an EB-66B orbiting off the coast to jam the North Vietnamese radars that guided their surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and aimed their anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) flak guns. (8)

Korat's F-105 strike force consisted of a Wild Weasel flight with radio call sign "Warhawk," followed by four strike flights with call signs "Pistol," "Hatchet," "Ozark," and "Crossbow" that were to attack the target in one-minute intervals. (9) The two-seat F-105F Wild Weasels, with their specialized electronics and radar-seeking missiles, were to find and kill SAM sites and to call out SAMs heading their way so that strike pilots could spot and avoid them. Each strike flight had four single-seat F-105Ds that carried 750-pound bombs or cluster-bomb units (CBUs) for attacking the bridge or nearby flak sites.

The F-105s from Korat flew from their base in Thailand, then across Laos to the Gulf of Tonkin where they refueled from KC-135 tankers in the "Tan" refueling track, an established tanker orbit area off the southern coast of North Vietnam. They then flew north until they reached their turn point, an island landmark off the northern coast of North Vietnam that the pilots called "The Wart on the Elephant's Ear." From this point they headed west, passing above Haiphong, toward Dap Cau. (10) It was dangerous territory where planes on the morning missions in the same region had met up with ten SAMs. This afternoon's pilots expected the same reception. They were carrying QRC-160-1 electronic countermeasure (ECM) jamming pods and flying at an altitude of 16,000 feet in pod formation--l,500 feet horizontal and 500 feet vertical separation of the four planes in each flight--that masked their individual aircraft from North Vietnam's radar. (11)

Maj. Robert W. Barnett, from the 469th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS), flying F-105D 59-1727, led "Ozark" flight, the third of the four strike flights from Korat. He had arrived at Korat in July 1967, and, nine days before his thirty-ninth birthday, was flying his 43d mission over North Vietnam. Others in his flight were "Ozark 2," Capt. Russell E. Temperley, thirty-two years old, assigned to Korat since late May, who was flying F-105D 60-0435; "Ozark 3," Capt. Roger P. Scheer in F-105D 600434; and "Ozark 4," twenty-six-year-old 1st Lt. Earl J. Henderson flying F-105D 60-0461, who had only 150 hours flying F-105s and was on his seventeenth combat mission. He carried an audio tape recorder wired into his interphone and UHF (Ultra-High Frequency) radio that recorded his comments and radio calls during most of the mission. (12)

Before the flight took off, Captain Scheer's plane developed problems and he aborted. His place as "Ozark 3" was taken by the flight's spare, Maj. Wintford L. Bazzell, a forty-three-year-old staff officer from the 388th TFW headquarters with fifty-two missions over North Vietnam. He flew F-105D 62-4359. Years later, Wintford Bazzell recalled, "There were many aborts on this mission. My aircraft was still being worked on when the mission took off." He caught up with his flight after he refueled from the tanker that was making its last orbit in its refueling track over the Gulf of Tonkin. (13)

Bob Barnett had not previously flown with any of the pilots in his flight. "I had just been moved over to the 469th from the 44th TFS so I didn't really know any of these guys." (14)

Maj. Morris L. McDaniel from the 13th TFS, with his Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO) Capt. William A. Lillund, led "Warhawk," the Wild Weasel flight. This crew had been at Korat since July 18, 1967, and normally flew single-ship "Ryan's Raider" missions at night in their F-105F. (15) Maj. McDaniel had been one of his student pilots when Maj. Barnett was an F-86D flight instructor at Perrin AFB, Texas, in the late 1950s. (16)

As the strike force reached its turn point, the Wild Weasel flight, already over the target, began alerting the strike force to SAMs in the area, calling specific SAM sites by their lead designation and using the day's SAM code word, "Football." "Warhawk, Warhawk Lead, Lead 30 506. Football, out."

The mission commander in "Pistol," the first of the strike flights, announced his progress to the target. "Pistol Force is at the Wart. Pistol Force, I say again, the Wart is at 12 o'clock." (17)

"Warhawk" alerted the strike force that the weather over the target was clear. The radar from a second SAM site came up. "Warhawk, Warhawk Lead. Lead 48 508. Football, out."

The strike flights also adjusted their positions using their afterburners (AB) to hold pod formation on their run-in to the bridge and to get into position to dive bomb their target.

Suddenly, the Wild Weasel flight detected SAMs launched at them. "Take it down! Take it down, take it down, Warhawk!"

While the Weasels were dodging the SAMs, an airborne controller alerted the force to MiGs in the area. "Bandits, Bandits. NE 80. Time 14. Ethan Alpha, out."

By 3:10 p.m., Barnett's "Ozark" flight was a mile from their target. The four F-105Ds, each carrying six 750-pound bombs on a rack under their fuselage, along with two 450-gallon fuel tanks and two ECM jamming pods on the wing stations, were lining up to...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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