ROLLING THUNDER

Description

“..I led that mission as I wanted to, ignoring all details of altitude, airspeed, and heading given to me by some administrator who knew nothing of Hanoi… it made good flying sense. We flew a smooth mission, everybody did good work..” Col Jack Broughton

The date: March 12, 1967.  The target: The large thermal power plant at Viet Tri, on the Red River, a short distance to the northwest of Hanoi.  Heavily defended by 100- and 85-mm gun positions, missile sites and the usual barrage of ground-fire encountered on any mission “downtown,” the task of the leading flight was to hammer the guns and clear the way for the closely following strike force to lay their bombs squarely on the power plant.  They would all have to contend with the ever-present likelihood of MiG interception on the way out.

Leading the 355th TFW F-105 Thunderchiefs out of Takhli Thai Air Base, Colonel Jack Broughton took the familiar route, approaching the target area flying down Thud Ridge.  As the high ground fell away he pushed his flight of four ships down to the deck and, “going like hell,” Broughton swung the leading Thuds southwest, just enough to give those on the ground the impression they were headed somewhere south of Viet Tri.

Not quite abreast of the target, Broughton called the “pop,” and as the Thuds passed vertical they rolled to inverted going over the top, completing a giant wifferdill, attacking the guns from the opposite direction.  Beneath them the big gun pits were lined up, their gunners confused by the maneuver, and before they could work out what was happening the F-105 pilots emptied their loads of CBUs into the middle of them.

Behind the Thuds came the strike force and, with the air cleared of the usual flak barrage, unloaded their bombs right onto the thermal power plan.  The facility was destroyed in one of the best-planned and executed raids of the war.

Robert’s carefully researched painting shows Jack Broughton leading his four-ship flight down Thud Ridge at very low level.  Scorching along in afterburner at just below the speed of sound, the heavily armed Thuds are just a few minutes short of the target.  This superbly realistic image, by the world’s leading aviation artist, dramatically brings to life a specific and highly successful mission, while conveying the electrifying danger each F-105 pilot faced when flying the perilous missions to the heavily defended targets in the region of Hanoi.

THE SIGNATURES