Jacksel Broughton: Thud Ridge

After the Jug came the Republic F-84 series of jet fighter aircraft, some of which were good, some not so good. Some of them earned names like Super Hog and Lieutenant Eater and none of the pilots felt at all bad when one series of the F-84 was hauled away on flat-bed railroad cars and used as targets for fire-power demonstrations. Other models were superb, such as the ones I used in Korea to test a new air-to-ground rocket after I had finished my Korean tour in F-80’s and the ones we used as our first aircraft in the acrobatic demonstration team.

The Thud did not do too well at the start as the birds were plagued with problems in both the airframe and the engine. It is a complicated machine and in many supply and maintenance areas we were not prepared to handle this degree of sophistication. The constant struggle to keep the early models in the air did not go without notice and the unromantic Ultra Hog was a natural name which stuck for some time. One of the saddest days in the Thud’s history followed the Air Force’s efforts to modernize the aerial demonstration team— the Thunderbirds—and enhance the sagging reputation of the Thud at the same time. Unfortunately, there was a lack of proper homework in the selection and assignment of specific aircraft to the demonstration team and the venture was unknowingly doomed from the start. My old command, the Thunderbirds—with my old acrobatic wingman and dearest friend, Lucky Palmgren, at the helm—worked their hearts out getting the show and the people ready. The stripped-down bird performed beautifully and the tremendous engine power and the skill of the pilots resulted in a demonstration that amazed almost everybody. The Thud turned, looped and rolled with the utmost grace, and everything looked rosy. On the first trip, Gene Devlin, one of the team members, streaked in over the runway at Hamilton Air Force Base. As he pitched out of formation to land, the aircraft suffered a major structural failure that should have been detected beforehand. One of our best men was killed, shocking many spectators and fellow pilots throughout the world. That was the end of the Thud as far as the Thunderbirds were concerned and the Ultra Hog was a tough item to defend.

But for the challenge of the air war in the North, I guess the Thud would show in most people’s books as a loser. Struggling under a bombload that was huge for a fighter, the Thud waded into the thick of the fray and those not in the know coined the name Thud—with all its derogatory connotations. But gradually a startling fact became apparent—the Thud was getting to North Vietnam as nothing else could. Nobody could keep up with the Thud as it flew at high speed on the deck, at treetop level. Nobody could carry that load and penetrate those defenses except the Thud. Sure we lost a bundle of them and lost oh so many superior people along with the machines, but we were the only people doing the job, and we had been doing it from the start. There were other aircraft carrying other loads and performing other functions, pushing a lesser portion of explosives to the North, but it was the old Thud that day after day, every day, lunged into that mess, outdueled the opposition, put the bombs on the target and dashed back to strike again. Any other vehicle in anybody’s Air Force today simply could not have done the job.

The record of the Thud versus the Mig bears additional comment. It can be a bit difficult to knock down a clear-weather, air-to-air fighter, such as the Mig, with a heavy, complex fighter-bomber, and that’s not the primary job of a fighter-bomber anyway. Thuds have knocked down more Migs than any other aircraft in Southeast Asia but only a few Thuds have fallen before Mig attack. The Thud has made an impression on even those flying for North Vietnam—whoever they may be. Yes, the Thud has justified herself, and the name that was originally spoken with a sneer has become one of utmost respect throughout the air fraternity.

I want to tell you about the Thud drivers. I want you to feel and see some of what they felt and saw. I want you to see some of the things this highly experienced group of combat pilots, whose average age was thirty-five, fought for and fought against. I want to give you a feel for the way those of us who devoted our careers to fighter aircraft and their tactical employment wanted to do the job and I want to expose you to the oversupervision and the costly, restrictive attitudes imposed by our strategically or administratively oriented supervisors.

How do the Thud drivers and their charges fit in with what’s going on in Southeast Asia? To begin with, there were at least four separate and completely different air wars (if you disregard the spooky stuff, which we will not talk about). There was a war in the South; a support war; a war in the easy part of the North; and the tough air war of the far North. First of all, there was the war down South, the bitter and ill-defined struggle that made all the magazines and papers day after day, the war in support of the crunchies slogging back and forth in the practice of the second oldest profession. It was the war of air strikes against specific positions in conjunction with ground force attacks. It was an all-day and all-night air war conducted close to the home airport of the fighter and in a quite permissive atmosphere—permissive in the sense that you could make mistakes and talk about them later. For instance, if you got zingoed on your ninth strafing pass on the same target by some guy with a pistol, you had a good chance of riding home in a chopper—in one piece. Your air discipline could bend and you could still get the job done with only a slight chance of really grim results. Altitude restrictions to avoid gunfire from the ground went somewhere way in the back of the pilot’s head, and the names SAM and Mig were heard only in bull sessions. Yet the short round on an improper target hurt, and the intense supervision and less than understandable interplay between services and nations made a demanding job for the pilot. This air war I will not discuss. They lived sort of dirty—but they didn’t have to fight too dirty. Their aircraft and pilot loss rate was less than the loss rate in the training program in the States.

Another war in the air of Southeast Asia that you should be exposed to is what I refer to as the support war. This was a vast operation, and the tonnages hauled and the sick and healthy people shuttled back and forth were quite impressive. The formal military airlift program expanded to monstrous proportions and seemed to be getting the job done. The heavy reliance on civilian carriers must have made lots of people happy, but many of the military people got just as unhappy with this government-sponsored civilian airlift scheme, especially when they stood on one foot and then the other, wanting to get somewhere and then saw a civilian super jet going to their desired destination devoid of anything but crew and stewards; they couldn’t get on board because they were not on “funded” orders.

In other words, the U.S. paid for the aircraft and the crew, and the military airlift people controlled the booking, but the same military people would not fill an empty seat with a military man from Thailand who had a few days off unless he was on official (“funded”) business. Seems sort of silly to hire a vehicle and run it at less than the maximum capacity. The crew couldn’t have cared less, but the rules were the rules. It was definitely half a war in many commonsense areas like this. The people in Thailand had none of the goodies such as Rest and Recreation—R and R, that is—so the combat crews who fought the air war over Hanoi were personae non grate with the Military Airlift Command people.

Local unit support fits into this picture and a great mass of people not assigned to the formal military airlift effort were involved in flying the original C-47 gooney bird or some more sophisticated model thereof. Each unit and headquarters had many runs that just had to be made, rather like running the family car to the drugstore, the post office, and so on. We needed them, and there were many highly dedicated people in this endeavor, but there were some there who never seemed to make the combat team and who adhered closely to the business-as-usual approach, no matter what the operation— and even they managed an air medal now and then. I don’t envy them and I think that support flying is not so pretty good. I wouldn’t change places for anything.