1/2/1967: Operation Bolo
In March of 1965, the United States Air Force began conducting bombing operations in North Vietnam under the title of "Operation Rolling Thunder". The objectives were to boost the morale of the southern Vietnamese government in Saigon, to deter North Vietnam from sending any more troops and war materiel into the south, and to destroy NVA bases, transportation and anti-air defenses. The response from NVA forces was quick and severe, due to the Vietnam People's Air Force being backed by its allies in the Soviet Union, China and North Korea, sending them aid in the form of MiG-21s and Surface-to-Air Missiles, creating some of the most intense air combat the USAF had seen since the daylight bombing missions over Germany during WWII. Because of North Vietnam's response, the operation ended in failure and was cancelled in November of 1968.
In 1966, Vietnamese MiG-21 fighter-interceptors became increasingly active in the air over North Vietnam at the height of Operation Rolling Thunder. They were exceptionally good at striking the rather sluggish, bomb-laden F-105 Thunderchiefs, or "Thuds" as they were referred to by pilots and crew. The People's Air Force would detect the F-105 formations on RADAR; the Mig-21s would take off, then shoot many of the bombers out of the sky, and then get back to base as quickly as possible. This would usually result in the remaining F-105s being rendered ineffective or aborting the mission entirely. This happened in late-1966, with nine F-105s being downed in December of that year alone. This jeopardized any future operations over North Vietnam, so something had to be done about the fighters. This is where Col. Robin C. Olds comes into the story.
A North Vietnamese MiG-21F
North American F-105Bs flying in formation
Robin C. Olds joined the Air Force in 1943, after the United States had entered the Second World War. He trained to be a fighter pilot and first flew the Lockheed P-38J Lightning, named Scat II, achieving five aerial victories before changing to the newer North American P-51D, dubbed "Scat IV" , adding eight more kills becoming the only pilot to become an ace in both the P-38 and P-51, proving himself to be an exceptionally gifted fighter pilot. He would learn the skills needed to be a combat leader in this time, being promoted to the rank of Major and put in command of the 434th Fighter Squadron at the age of just twenty-two, skills that would prove valuable in the years to come.
Robin Olds poses on his P-51D Mustang, Scat VI
In the late days of 1966, Colonel Robin Olds enlisted the help of his junior officers to plan the mission. The finished plan was presented to General William W. Momyer on the 22nd of December. General Momyer's office named it "Bolo" after the Filipino utility and martial arts machete. The knife was used primarily as a farming tool to clear brush and cut crops, but also for combat, and had been since the 1500s. During WWI, the knife was famously used by Henry Johnson of the Harlem Hellfighters to fend off a German attack and rescue another soldier while sustaining twenty-one wounds. The bolo often did not appear to be a weapon until it was too late for the intended target, and this was the exact idea behind the operation: Appear to be a flight of sluggish and defenseless fighter-bombers to lure the MiG-21s into the air, and when it was too late the trap would be sprung and the MiGs shot down by the more maneuverable and better-armed F-4 Phantoms. Pilots that would fly the missions were briefed on the 30th of December, to maintain secrecy. The mission was intended to be carried out on New Year's Day, but was delayed by one day due to bad weather. The mission they came up with was put to work on the second day of 1967.
On the evening of January 2nd, 1967, 14 flights of McDonnell Douglas F-4C Phantom IIs departed from Ubon Airbase in Thailand, each flight consisting of four airplanes each, 56 in total. Col. Olds led the first flight into battle. For callsigns they used names of American-made automobiles of the period, named Ford, Rambler and (of course) Olds. They flew at the same altitudes, speeds and directions as flights of F-105s did, and used the same radio jargon as F-105 crews. They flew to the attack zone with surprisingly no resistance from anti-aircraft batteries or SAMs, due to a thick layer of low-altitude clouds.
Robin Olds' F-4C Phantom, Scat XXVII
As Olds flight arrived, led by Col. Olds, they immediately started looking for enemy MiGs. Unknown to the pilots, the VPAF delayed the MiGs departure by fifteen minutes due to the weather. As Ford flight arrived, the North Vietnamese pilots showed their faces and initiated the attack on what they presumed was more helpless F-105s. Olds 02, flown by 1st Lt. Ralph F. Wetterhahn was the first to make a kill, firing an AIM-7 Sparrow that struck one of the MiG-21s. At that time, Col. Olds (Olds 01) fired three missiles that failed to lock. Olds recalled:
"The battle started when the MiGs began to get out of the cloud cover. Unfortunately for me, the first one appeared in my 'six o'clock'. I think it was more an accident than a planned tactic. As a matter of fact, in the next few minutes many other MiGs started to exit from the clouds from different positions.
I was lucky. The flight behind me saw the MiGs and tried to divert its attention. I broke to the left, sharply enough to get away of his line of fire, hoping that my wingman would take care of him. Meanwhile another MiG came out of the clouds, turning widely about my '11 o'clock' at a distance of 2,000 yards. He went into the clouds again and I tried to follow.
A third enemy plane appeared in my '10 o'clock', from the right to the left: in simple words, almost in the opposite direction. The first MiG zoomed away and I engaged the afterburner to get in an attack position against this new enemy. I reared up my aircraft in a 45 degree angle, inside his turn. He was turning to the left, so I pulled the stick and barrel-rolled to the right. Thanks to this maneuver, I found myself above him, half upside down. I held it until the MiG finished his turn, calculating the time so that, if I could keep on turning behind him, I would get on his tail, with a deflection angle of 20 degrees, at a distance of 1,500 yards. That was exactly what happened. He never saw me. Behind and lower than him, I could clearly see his silhouette against the sun when I launched two Sidewinders. One of them impacted and tore apart his right wing."
At about the same time, Capt. Walter S. Radeker III (Olds 04) fired an AIM-7 Sidewinder, striking a MiG in the tail and sending it into a fatal spin. Olds flight destroyed 3 enemy fighters without a scratch, and returned to base.
Ford flight was also attacked, and Capt. Everett T. Raspberry (Ford 02) was able to take one MiG down. Flight leader Col. Daniel "Chappie" James, Jr. (Ford 01) wrote his account of the kill:
“At 15:04 my flight was attacked by three MiGs, two from the ‘10 o'clock’ and one from the ´6 o’clock´. Initially I didn’t see this last one because I had been concentrating on those approaching head-on. My RIO excitedly warned me about this rapidly approaching MiG, which was within firing range of my #3 and #4. I hesitated a while before interrupting my attack against the two MiGs in front, because I had seen the ‘Olds’ flight passing below us a few seconds before. I thought that the plane seen by my RIO could be one of them. Despite that, I suddenly turned left and then right, and caught sight of the third MiG. I ordered to my numbers 3 and 4 to break right. As they did so, the MiG broke left for some mysterious reason and for a split second we were side by side. We were so close that, besides the red stars in his wings, I could clearly see the pilot’s face. I began an horizontal barrel roll to get away from him and into an attack position, Once in position, I launched a Sidewinder. The missile missed because the evading MiG broke left at full throttle. But when he did it, he put himself in the line of fire of my number 2, Captain Everett T. Raspberry. I ordered him to follow the prey, because the two aircraft that I initially saw had been placed in my forward sector. I was in an advantageous position, so I fired two AIM-9s against them in a quick sequence, and I turned to place myself as wingman of my #2, Captain Raspberry.
[…] I kept on descending besides Captain Raspberry and I remember that I thought that he was still out of the optimal launching envelope. But he performed a barrel roll that placed himself(sic) in a perfect position again and he launched an AIM-9 which hit against the tail section of the MiG-21. It was shaken violently and later fell in a slow, almost plane spin.”
Daniel "Chappie" James stands in front of his F-4C Phantom
As with Olds flight, Ford also took no losses, shot down one MiG, and returned to base having reached their fuel limits.
Led by Capt. John B. Stone, Rambler flight splashed three MiGs, first by Capt. Stone himself, when he fired an AIM-7 Sparrow that tracked into a MiG, exploding into a fireball. Capt. Stone then lured another MiG onto his tail and into the line of fire of Maj. Philip P. Combies.
Maj. Combies recounted his engagement with the MiG
“We flew at 13,440 feet (4,800 meters) above sea level and our speed was 540 knots [1,000 km/h]. A little bit after completing a turn to the northwest, we identified a patrol of four MiG-21s in spread formation at a distance of 5 miles –about 8 km- at '2 o'clock' and below us. Two more MiGs appeared 2 miles –about 3 km - behind. . . . When the MiGs crossed in front of Stone, he started to follow, breaking left and losing height. Due to that, the flight spread wide to the right, and I found myself higher and somewhat to the right of the others. I kept the throttle to the minimum during the first phase of the combat. So, when the MiGs broke to the left, and the engagement began. I chose one of the MiGs and followed him with my radar. I don't think that we ever exceeded 4G's during the whole engagement. I decided to follow the Navy pilots' tactics - at close range foregoing the radar tracking, but looking through the reticle instead. When I realized that I was in the right position, I pushed the fire button, released it, pushed it again, and waited. I did not even see the first Sparrow. However, I followed the entire trajectory of the second one, from launch to impact. I fired the missiles at less than 2,000 yards from the MiG's tail, at a height of 9,800 feet (3,500 meters) while turning to the left. The second one hit the tail section of the enemy aircraft. A second later, I saw a huge, orange ball of fire.”
Almost immediately after Maj. Combie’s kill, a MiG-21 flew in front of Rambler 02, piloted by 1 Lt. Lawrence J. Glynn Jr, to whom he responded by firing another AIM-7 Sparrow, which promptly flew straight into the MiG’s tail, resulting in a spectacular fireball. This was the seventh and final kill of the mission. At that point, Surface-to-Air Missiles began to target Rambler flight, and they turned back to base. Robin Olds’ Wolfpack had decidedly won, shooting down seven MiG-21s and suffering no losses.
As they returned to base, the F-4s lifted their canopies and their pilots victoriously held up fingers showing how many kills they made.
A total of 56 F-4 Phantoms left Ubon Airbase in Thailand on that day, and out of those 56, 28 reached the target area, the rest being turned back due to adverse weather conditions. Of those 28, only twelve engaged the enemy. North Vietnam had sixteen MiG-21s in total, and eleven to fourteen intercepted the F-4s that day. The Phantoms took seven to nine of them, depending on the source, crippling the North Vietnamese interceptors and forcing VPAF and Soviet tacticians to completely reevaluate their deployment strategies regarding the MiG-21. Later, Vietnam noted that it was one of the worst days for the VPAF, admitting five losses. The battle had only lasted twelve minutes, but it had completely turned the VPAF defenses on their heads. In response to the loss, the VPAF grounded their remaining MiG-21s for over four months to retrain pilots and develop new tactics for the MiG-21. In spite of the heavy aircraft losses, Vietnam confirmed that all pilots safely ejected and survived the fight.
Robin Olds in front of his F-4C Phantom with his signature moustache
Thanks for reading! I encourage you to read the sources I used for this article, and to read more about Robin Olds. His daughter, Christine Olds, published a book about her father using his memoirs and friends’ stories which can be found here (not affiliated): https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/fighter-pilot-the-memoirs-of-legendary-ace-robin-olds_ed-rasimus_robin-olds/312182/#edition=5679855&idiq=5114867
I have also started a Substack, if you want to go and subscribe there:
I would most appreciate a subscription!
Sources:
https://acepilots.com/vietnam/olds_bolo.html
Other resources:
