chapter 144 H
11/22/2014
F4 Phantom Jet
destroyed by VC 140 mm rocket
Combat Photographer Robert Witowski photographed this (and next two photos) McDonnell F4C-23-MC Phantom jet SN 4-0762 dropping a cluster bomb dispenser on June 23, 1967 in A Shau Valley Vietnam. It has 17 tubes of 70mm which shoot off hundreds of bomblets as an anti-personnel weapon. While this weapon is no longer in the U.S. inventory we have not joined the international cluster bomb ban. Thousands of South East Asians have lost their lives as a result of contact with unexploded ordinance from the 350 million bomblets dropped. It's like a mine field for the civilians after the war.
The fighter was assigned to the USAF 390th Tactical Fighter Squad in the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing which used the BK tail marking.
The jet in the top picture was subsequently destroyed about a month later during a VC rocket attack while housed at this "Rocket City", the Da Nang Air Base 15 Jul 67. Ten aircraft were destroyed 8 soldiers killed, couple hundred wounded, and other mucho carnage resulted from the 10 minute precision nightime attack from the hillside. Da Nang was the headquarters for all Marine operations in Vietnam.
This appears to be all that's left of a twin engine jet completely destroyed (guessing an F4 at Da Nang). The financial cost of war is high is your 10 million dollar jet is destroyed by a 10 dollar rocket. When the enemy outnumbers you there needs to be a way to keep your kill ratio high. Remember when we threw 50 million dollars of Tomahawks at the Khorasan guy and missed, way back three weeks ago? A guy sitting in a cave somewhere can on occasion inflict enormous damage to us. We attack. But how many caves, how many years?
I took this shot of a Russian design MiG 19 at Bush Field in Georgia in May 1970 while stationed there. Very rare, I thought at the time, but I guess not top secret. The link says our pilots in 1969 were testing one Chinese made MiG 19 given to us from Pakistan. This MiG and it's later brothers were the planes the F4 was famous for as the MiG killer, although the North Vietnamese claimed several kills themselves.
Anti personnel fragmentation weapons are a curious lot. There is just no end to the ways mankind has thought up ways to kill his brothers. I bought these cute little military surplus flechettes on EBay a while back. I hadn't realized the dart like fragmentation devices were used in 12 gage shotgun loads as an anti personnel weapon when the enemy had broken through defensive lines on the ground and was up close. Some of the projectiles were dipped in poison like the jungle tribes do. Hope not true for this batch. They were also put in aerial bombs and artillery shells.
The CIA Director testified before Congress explaining their needle gun and variations. An interesting umbrella gun variation was considered in the JFK assignation. Far fetched? Not really when you consider the Bulgarian agent was killed by poisonous ricin delivered by a tiny ball from an umbrella in 1978 and radioactive polonium was employed jsust a few years back.
These 12 ga shotgun shells are reloads that either Dad or I did decades ago back home. The Mk 2 fragmentation grenade I picked up at the Army and Navy store. Love it. I believe it's the type we threw in advanced training in MP school. It's WW2 vintage but also used in WW1 by Grandpa and in Vietnam until the smooth sided lemon grenades were produced.
Sometimes we frag our own. Fragging and arson were a couple of charges facing the menacing gold toothed Black Panther prisoner I had to deal with. During my MP duty at Fort Gordon he was transferred to my max security cell block from Long Binh jail before going on to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
I'm ready for the SISL jihadis when they arrive in Albany, or will it be the commies again?
A Shau Valley campaigns campaign chronology
cluster munitions one quarter billion bomblets dropped on Vietnam, collateral damage-7000 civilians killed since the war
SUU -7B/A cluster munitions dispenser
U.S. not party to cluster bomb ban
numerous rocket attacks at Da Nang
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