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WINGS OF RUSSIA studio
TV Channel "Russia"
The impenetrable jungle of North Vietnam looks like a solid carpet from an altitude of 5000m.
A pilot simply isn't able to see a missile launcher from such a height.
- Dnepr 7, detect targets 34 and 38!
The operator of the guidance station saw a flight of 4 Phantoms as 4 glowing dots.
Launch! The missile took-off.
The Phantom pilot detected a white trail reaching up from the ground.
Missile flies to its target in no more time than one minute.
In this short time, a pilot must detect a missile and to manage to evade it.
It's not easy to evade death flying at speed twice of speed of sound.
There is just one way: snap the plane hard down and to the side.
The Americans called these maneuver as "the dance with death".
DANCE WITH DEATH
American pilots were feeling an absolute freedom in the early phase of war between the North and South Vietnam.
Rifles of 30s and anti-aircraft artillery of North Vietnamese couldn't reach aircrafts flying at high altitudes.
Among themselves, American pilots were calling combat missions without any counter action from the ground as "milk runs",
but the "easy milk" ended quickly.
S-75 Soviet Anti-Aircraft Missile (SAM) systems appeared in arsenal of North Vietnam.
- When we got those missile systems, the President Ho Chi Minh told us,
- that our Rocket Forces must achieve victory in their very first battle.
La Ding Ti: Second Lieutenant back in 1965. S-75 SAM guidance officer. He participated in the first combat of S-75 SAM against US aircrafts.
Other forces already had achieved victories in their first battles,
and that meant that missilemen had to win in their first combat.
JULY 24th, 1965. Ubon Airbase, Thailand.
That morning, the F-4 crews got their next mission: to cover a strike team flying to bomb a military plant in Lang Chi.
Two pairs of Phantoms took off one after another and laid on course to North Vietnam.
Three of them were not destined to return back to base.
"Target! Azimuth 290! Range 180! Altitude 5."
- Of course we had a strong impression. Well me and all the rest of us got into such situation for the first time.
- Thanks God we didn't lose our heads.
KONSTANTINOV Vladislav Mikhailovich: assigned to Vietnam in 1965, in rank of First Lieutenant for a duty of guidance officer of S-75 SAM system.
He took part in the first battle of S-75 SAM against US aircrafts.
- So, those Phantoms were flying in two pairs - four aircrafts.
- It was visible on our display.
- And they flew toward our Battalion... toward our one and another one next to us. Two Battalions were stationed there.
- Apparently we were a bit closer to their course, so we opened fire first.
- And we shot down two aircrafts with the first missile.
- Manual tracking of range - OK! - Manual tracking of angle - OK!
- Manual tracking of azimuth - OK! - Target is approaching the launch zone!
- Attention! Launch!
- The first launched.
- Keep tracking the target.
- Second, launch!
- Target destroyed! Consumption - two!
- We determined the exact co-ordinates of plane's crash and just after 45 minutes our people reached the downed plane on cars.
July 24th, 1965. Hashobin province. North Vietnam.
- We had a special department officer. He was the only one, whom Vietnamese let approach to crash site of the Phantoms.
- When he came back from there, he approached us and said: "Well, you made some mess." That's what he said to us.
- I don't know if it is proper to say it, but two pilots were still sitting in the plane and they had their backs burnt out.
- You see. They were still in their sits behind the sticks. They remained there.
July 24th, 1965, the Soviet missilemen shot down three Phantoms.
After that the 24th of July became the Day of Rocket Forces in Vietnam.
- We never expect that they had so many missiles. The first one came as a true surprise for us.
Richard ELLIS. Served in Vietnam in 1965, in rank of USAF Captain. F-105 Thunderchief pilot.
- We always thought that North Vietnam was a 3rd world country and that they couldn't handle that kind of technology,
- but we of course quickly realized that it wasn't so.
- We started respect more the capabilities of North Vietnamese.
- We found out that Russians were assisting them.
The Soviet specialists were superbly trained back in their homeland.
Missile Battalion Crew's actions were brought to the level of automation.
In the spirit of the Soviet times, competitions were set up among missilemen.
As a result, they managed to shorten the standard time of Missile Battalion's deployment, which was 4 hours, to just 30 minutes.
- The First is ready! Combat position!
That cost the soldiers bloody calluses.
However, a firing range in steppe is one thing, while Vietnamese tropics is another.
The S-75 packed for transportation means over 10 vehicles.
Deployment of the system in impenetrable jungles and connecting of all systems is a very difficult task.
Filling the missiles with fuel is even harder.
Those who have served in the Army know very well what a chemical protection suit is,
but not many can imagine how it is to work in that suit in +40C degree heat and 100% humidity.
The half-starved Vietnamese couldn't bear such loads and they were passing out.
Our boys turned out to be tougher and they handled their task.
Now they had to teach Vietnamese how to fight too.
- For the first time, of course, the Russian specialists were sitting behind the console and it was them launching the missiles.
- while we were sitting next to them and observing how they operate the system.
Dinh Tkhe VAN. Major in 1965. S-75 SAM Missile Battalion Commander.
- And only after the first battle we were allowed to sit independently behind the controls and we had launched missiles ourselves.
Vietnamese lacked combat experience.
Right from a wooden plow, a peasant, who hadn't ever even seen a radio, had to learn to operate a very complex military hardware.
Just two and half months were assigned for training in wartime conditions.
That proved to be very little. Missiles launched by Vietnamese were often missing their targets.
The Americans nicknamed the Russian missiles as "telephone poles".
- Yes, that was correct. In fact in the very early days they were totally ineffective.
George AKRY - Served in Vietnam in 1965-1966, 1968, 1973-1974 as USAF Captain. F-105 Thunderchief pilot.
- When we saw them coming up from Haiphong and Hanoi areas, it looked like they were not even being guided.
- The rockets were going straight up - like that.
- No threat. And since they were going straight up and they were big, we called them "telephone poles".
Training of Vietnamese had to be continued in battle following "do like I do" method.
Fortunately, Vietnamese proved themselves as competent students.
They started achieving their own first victories to the end of 1965.
The small country became an arena of big political war between two superpowers.
The US President Lyndon Johnson was a supporter of so called "domino theory".
If Communists will win in Vietnam, the rest of South-East Asia's countries will also turn to path of Communism one after another.
Johnson was saying: "If I will lose Vietnam, my voters will say then that I am a coward, weak and spineless."
He decided that Communists could be stopped only by force.
- We felt that we had a very specific mission. We were trying to help Vietnam to become a free country.
- And I guess we dropped bombs in order to help forces of South Vietnamese to win their freedom.
The Soviet Union started helping North Vietnam. The Socialist Empire needed a new bridgehead in South-East Asia,
and therefore Brezhnev considered it as his obligation to defend the fraternal nation from the Americans.
February 6th, 1965, a Soviet delegation, headed by the Chairman of Council of Ministers Kasygin, visited the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Massive deliveries of Soviet arms to North Vietnam were the result of that visit,
including the S-75 Dvina Anti-Aircraft Missile systems.
The first group of the Soviet specialists, about a thousand men, arrived to Vietnam in April 1965.
Two S-75 SAM Regiments were deployed already by summer.
- I was angry at the Russians, for coming in there and helping Vietnamese to put these things.
- And I am still angry at you, because I couldn't go out and get the site before it was built.
David BROG - served in Vietnam in 1968-1969 in rank of USAF Major. F-105 Thunderchief pilot.
- So my attitude toward Russians at that time was... they were the enemy. They were trying to kill me.
- If I was to meet same people under different circumstances and in different place,
- they wouldn't be my enemies, but they were my enemy there.
The Americans couldn't accept that they lost superiority in the air.
The missile systems, which became a threat for Aviation, had to be destroyed, but finding of S-75 wasn't that simple.
Vietnamese were real masters of camouflage.
They were planting bamboo sprouts next to SAM system.
They were growing up in matter of hours turning the site to a dense grove.
It was possible to detect a launcher, only after missile's launch. The raised cloud of smoke was a perfect reference point.
Pilots were detecting location of Missile Battalion and they were calling a strike team in.
- And then we would come in. Generally we carried cluster bombs.
- Those are not simple high-explosive bombs. You drop the bomb. It opens up and there are smaller bomblets in it.
- And it gives you a good area coverage.
- Our guys, who were there, managed to leave the position just in time.
- They lay down alongside the road and the tent where they were sitting ended up to pieces in size of nose-rags.
- Everything was torn to pieces. The trees standing there were like they were cut down by a saw.
SHELOMYTOV Gennadiy Yakovlevich - sent to Vietnam in 1966 in rank of First Lieutenant.
Assigned as a senior officer of S-75 SAM Launch Battery.
- So, when those little balls fell on our position, they fell on our missiles. Our missile blown up.
- The other missile located on the launcher also blew up because of detonation. And this way the equipment was turned to scrap metals.
- In other words, the sight was frightening.
Fortunately, S-75 was a mobile system. This property was allowing moving away from a danger zone without waiting for bombardment.
- Fired, packed, drove away. In that perspective our life was nomadic. Fired - drove away. It wasn't possible to sit there.
At the place of Battalion's location, Vietnamese were leaving mock-ups of missile systems, skillfully made of rice straw.
Fortunately Vietnam had plenty of straw.
- In Vietnamese a straw is "rakot". And it turned out that Americans were not bombing our rockets, but our "rakots"!
Fam Chung WE - Captain in 1965, guidance officer of S-75 SAM system.
- We placed many anti-aircraft guns around those two fake SAMs. That was a real trap for American aircrafts.
American airplanes were flying close to the ground in order to not come under missile fire.
They were invisible to radars at altitudes less than 300m, but in this case airplanes were coming under fire of anti-aircraft guns.
- When our anti-aircraft guns started firing, we didn't launch a single missile.
- Together with the Soviet specialists we were standing and watching how American planes were shot down.
- We ran in... started dropping the bombs and we got to dense ground fire and then I was hit.
- That happened at altitude about 2400 feet of the ground. And then the aircraft got to 1200 feet of the ground.
- I knew that the airplane wasn’t to come up, so I ejected out of the airplane.
- I walked for 5 days, evading the enemy. Several times the Vietnamese came very close. I was hiding in the bushes.
- My food ran out. I was eating only berries and plants roots.
- Probably, the most interesting moment was when I saw a helicopter coming across.
- I jumped out of my cover in the jungle and started waving my arms.
- The helicopter turned sideways and the machine gunner turned his machine gun at me.
- The only thing I thought at that moment was that I've spent all that time to get away from North Vietnamese,
- and now I was to get shot by one of our own men.
- Well, obviously he didn't pull the trigger, but that was a moment, that stood at my mind.
The military aid of the Soviet Union was generous.
Vietnamese were flying our MiGs, firing our Kalashnikov rifles, shooting down American planes by Soviet missiles.
The cost of one missile at those times was 22 thousands of rubles. That was equal to 4 Volga family cars.
7.658 missiles and 95 S-75 missile systems were delivered to Vietnam from 1965 to 1972.
- That was a political struggle. Actually Communism versus Democracy.
- What are you, Yankees, doing here, far away from your home? - You must know that partisans shoot sharply in hearts of the enemies.
- "NO" to pirates of the 20th century. - You won't take the sky from Vietnam.
- You won't take the Sun of Vietnam. - And you will never take the freedom.
- Day and night, day and night. - The World stubbornly repeats
- TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF VIETNAM!
Without taking into account the loss of working time, the Soviet plants were organizing protest meetings.
At enterprises, universities and schools, political informators were holding up the American militarism to the shame.
People were coming even to Communists Subbotnik days under slogan "Help for Fraternal Vietnam".
As usual, agitation was on high level in the Soviet Union.
America didn't care about that. They had enough of their own problems there.
More and more people were dissatisfied with the war.
Draftees were burning their draft cards. No one was willing to go to Vietnam and die there.
However, in spite of the protests, the war in Vietnam was still going on.
However the Vietnamese thankful to Russians on battlefields were frequently sly in their official declarations.
During one joint meetings on the results of battles of that week, one of representatives of Vietnamese Army's General Staff said:
"The missilemen didn't fight badly. They shot down two American planes with 20 missiles."
Those words caused bewilderment on faces of the Soviet specialists, because according their sources those missiles shot down 12 airplanes.
"But a genuinely outstanding success was achieved by Women Self-Defence Teams,
who shot down 10 American planes with their carbines, spending only 20 rounds."
One of the advisors couldn't restrain himself: "They why do we send you echelons of missiles?"
"We will send you a train-cart with rifle cartridges. It would be enough for the entire American Air Force!"
The Vietnamese pretended that he didn't understand the reply, but after the meeting he approached Russian advisers and apologized:
"Sorry, but we have a people's war here. And we have to raise people's enthusiasm by such examples."
Our comrades understood and while smiling they nodded their heads in approval.
The only road connecting South and North Vietnam was the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Weapons and food supplies have been delivered by this road day and night.
Raids and bombardments couldn't cut this vitally important artery.
Right after a bombing raid, peasant were coming from surrounding villages
and like ants they were bringing bricks, logs, branches and quickly filling the explosion craters.
If there wasn't enough material, they tore down their own shacks.
Within few hours, loaded trucks were continuing their way.
It seemed like Vietnamese didn't know what fatigue is. They couldn't be broken by hunger, thirst or hard labor.
- Of course I think that it was very hard for Russians too. During summers we always had temperature over 36C degrees.
- It was very hot for them, but I never heard of them complaining even once.
- Although, the living conditions were very primitive there.
FILIPPOV Victor Ivanovich - sent to Vietnam in 1972 in rank of Major for position of adviser assigned to SAM Regiment Commander.
- The quality of cooking left something to be desired, to put it mildly.
- Rice had worms inside sometimes. Bread was made of rice flour. Loaves of bread.
- Often when you would break such a loaf, you would think that it has poppy seeds in it.
- But in reality those were not poppy seeds, but tiny insects.
- I didn't see a cold water for a year, and I was ready to pay any amount of money for a glass of cold tap water... our Russian water.
Uncle Sam was taking care of his fosterlings much better.
American pilots had comfortable houses, pool tables, a swimming pool.
South Vietnamese women were also trying to add colors to gray military working days as they could.
- There was one case when I was there. Our soldier fell in love with a girl.
POZDEEV Anatoliy Fillipovich - sent to Vietnam in 1970 in rank of Major for position of Deputy of Head of Team of Soviet Military specialists.
- He came to me and said: "What can I do? I love her and that's all.
- Not because I want just to sleep with her. I really love her."
- Well, I had to help them, and both of them left Vietnam. Love each other in Russia, because it's impossible in current conditions here.
Bitter battles continued.
Vietnamese missilemen mastered complex equipment and they were shooting down American planes no worse than the Russians.
American pilots developed a tactic for dodging missiles in order to survive.
- If a missile was coming this way, the first tactic was going down, in order to force the missile to come down and pursuit you.
- Then we were going up. If the missile had some energy left it may come up after you.
- If it did come up, you go down again, and to that moment the missile looses its energy.
- But you also may have a problem, because maybe more than one missile being shot at your plane.
- Target! Manual Tracking!
- Manual Tracking by range - OK! - Manual Tracking by angle - OK! - Manual Tracking by azimuth - OK!
- Target data entered!
- The First ready! Combat position!
- The First launched!
- Attention! Second! Launch! - The Second launched!
- They have fired three missiles. First two. One low and one high.
THOMAS COUDY: served in Vietnam in 1967-68, 72-73 in rank of USAF Captain. F-105 Thunderchief pilot.
- And when I was turning away from the missile going high and I started coming down, they launched another one, in the middle.
- I couldn't get away from the third one. It was coming across and flew right behind the tail of the aircraft and it exploded.
- There were 18 holes in the aircraft. I still have little shrapnel, which hit me, but I was able to recover to other base.
- When I was talking with somebody older pilots, those who were flying in World War II over Germany,
- and they said that Surface-to-Air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery of North Vietnam...
- it was the worst thing they have ever seen.
S-75 became the first anti-aircraft missile system in the World used in actual combat.
Soviet missiles overthrown the entire American ideas about tactics of aerial warfare.
- Each side was trying to destroy the other side.
- And it was almost beautiful to watch airplanes dropping their bombs and firing their missiles, while the ground was responding back.
- It was a sort of perverse, sick beauty.
Darrel WHITCOMB: served in Vietnam in 1972 in rank of USAF Captain. OV-10 Bronco pilot.
- Fighters came in to attack this site and you could see that the site was preparing to defend itself.
- Those were two forces engaged in a very delicate dance with death.
- Azimuth 290. Range 198. Altitude 10.
People quickly used to bombardments and strafe runs. The tropical exotics wasn't surprising any more.
They wanted to see our birch trees instead of banana palms and bamboo thickets.
Family and beloved people were coming to memory more and more often.
A letter from home was the greatest joy.
- Well, imagine how it is to receive a letter being far away from home.
- These letters were read over and over again, dozens of times, till the next letter.
- We were reading them to each other. That's the oddity of the matter.
- It's so personal, but no... "Come on, Vanya, sit down and listen what my wife wrote to me."
- We had so friendly relations that when Russian specialists were receiving letters from home,
- they were telling us the news, messages from those families,
- what was happening back at their homeland where they lived.
- So, when we were getting letters, we also were telling them what was going on in our village, in our family,
- and we were happy to share our joint joy with each other.
Vietnamese soldiers were proudly describing their combat achievements in their returning letters back to home.
Shooting down an American plane was a matter of pride for a Vietnamese missilemen.
Meanwhile it was most of all a piece of metal for a Vietnamese villager.
The newest fighter - the pride of American Aviation - was turning into a simple kitchenware.
Just one of Phantom's wings could be turned to 7 kettles, 10 frying pans and a dinner set for 12 Vietnamese.
It was an impermissible luxury for practical Americans to supply Vietnamese with so expensive kitchenware.
Americans created a special Unit to deal with Russian missiles. It received a name "Wild Weasels".
The main targets for "Wild Weasels" are the Soviet S-75 SAMs.
- First of all, the Wild Weasels were supposed to recon the positions.
- We were flying to search for Air Defense systems. We were baits and decoys. We wanted missiles to be fired at us.
- Because we had special equipment to detect missile launches.
The "Wild Weasels" planes were armed with Shrike missiles.
They knock out the radar antenna, thus "blinding" the missile system, which then becomes an ideal target for bombs.
- Target splat! Shrike missile launch!
There was only one way to save themselves.
Within 30 seconds from the moment of Shrike's launch, the missilemen must to turn radar's antenna to opposite direction and turn it off.
Then Shrike would lose the target and miss.
Men had to act swiftly and precisely. One man's mistake can kill everyone. And in war, the price for a mistake is death.
- Our operator saw it and reported "Comrade Major, incoming Shrike."
- Well, while the interpreter was translating, while this and that takes place,
- while they were still thinking about it... it became too late.
- So, the Shrike flew right to the radar station.
- So, there was one Vietnamese standing behind the door and looking through door's window.
- The missile knocked out that door and that Vietnamese died.
- So, there were human casualties, and we have seen all that.
- The Vietnamese were hiding casualties from us.
- But when you visit a destroyed site and you open a locker and see chunks of flesh or blood marks, then you can guess that people died here.
- When we were asking for example "Where is Comrade Tam?", our Vietnamese friends were usually answering "he went on vacation".
It became much harder to fight the US Aviation in 1967.
Except of Shrike missiles, Americans started actively applying radioelectronic warfare measures.
Strike aircrafts were flying their missions with escort of radioelectronic jamming aircrafts.
Radar screens got completely filled with light.
Guidance of a missile to its target under jamming conditions was practically impossible.
- The missile went right by the cockpit. I didn't see it coming. I didn't hear it.
- Nothing was going on until it flew about 100 meters away from me.
- That was a scary feeling. Even though the missile wasn't aimed at me, it seemed like it passed through the airplane like an arrow.
Effectiveness of S-75's usage dropped sharply.
An average of 9-10 missiles were used for every shot down aircraft toward the end of 1967.
The situation was becoming critical. The Soviet specialists understood that and they took some measures.
- They interrogated 4 pilots, who were shot down in last few days.
- The very next day I was invited to the General Staff and they gave me results of interrogations.
VOROBYEV Mark Ivanovich - sent to Vietnam in 1967 in rank of Major-General to make a study for further development of S-75 SAM.
- I have to say that they were not preserving any military secrets.
- Absolutely openly they showed to us
- "we've got new devices installed on our planes, against detection and against the missile when it gets launched".
- It was all clear for us.
S-75 was upgraded in the shortest possible time.
Soviet engineers expanded its destruction zone, reduced time needed for deployment to battle ready condition,
and improved its jamming resistance.
- Well, one of Vietnamese... I even don't remember who was it exactly... approached and said to me
- "the upgraded system shot down the 2500th aircraft in honor of anniversary of the October Revolution."
The anti-aircraft missiles became a real threat for American Aviation once again.
- When you are up in the air and flying fine and everything is calm.
- It's great day, nice weather, and all of a sudden this can be changed in an instant.
- I've seen two airplanes in one mission being shot down. I was feeling angry than anything else.
It's hard to accept people's death even if it happens in wartime.
Death doesn't discriminate people by rank or by title. It doesn't watch on age or nationality.
- Americans delivered an air strike and one of their bombs landed on a school.
- People were carrying little children past our car... without a little leg or a little arm.
- I wont' say names, but one of our specialists suffered such a moral and psychological breakdown
- that when aerial attacks were happening, even if they were far off to a side from us,
- he was freezing, all his muscles were tensed, his face was loosing its shape, because of the nodules and all that.
- Unfortunately there is another kind of fear, that's very hard to handle.
- That's kind of fear that doesn't grab you in combat. It grabs you late at night or at 4 o'clock in the morning.
- When you are in bed, all by yourself and suddenly you wake up and you are shaking.
- Maybe it's a fear of your yesterday mission, where you almost died.
- Or that can be thoughts about tomorrow mission, flying to the same dangerous zone.
- You can't control that fear. You can only cry it all the way through.
Many American soldiers are on the edge of nervous breakdown.
In the sky death comes from missiles. In jungles it comes from partisans.
In hysterical condition, Americans destroy everything which seems dangerous.
Vietnamese villages were burning. The elderly and children die, crops are destroyed.
Any Western society would be horrified if it had a fate to deal such trials.
But Vietnamese people disregard their losses and they are not afraid of death. They need victory and only victory.
- When we were fighting, we were remembering words of the President Ho Chi Minh.
- He said "Americans thought that we were fighting them the way a locust fights an elephant.
- But one day the elephant will die... belly up."
America got tired of the war.
Too many soldiers were getting back home from Vietnam in coffins covered with stars and stripes flag.
Many of those who survived come to the Congress Hall building
and they throw their medals on the steps of the Capitol in protest against this mindless war.
Richard Nixon, who succeeded Johnson as President, promises to end the war, but negotiations with North Vietnam lead nowhere.
Nixon has a trump card up his sleeve: the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong.
In order to force Vietnamese to capitulate,
Nixon issues an order to wipe out the country's industrial center and the main port city from the face of the Earth.
- During Linebacker 2 operation, from December 18th to 31st, 1972,
- we flew a press-on mission on B-52s over targets in Hanoi and Haiphong.
Andrew VITTORIA - served in Vietnam in 1972-73 in rank of USAF Captain. B-52D Electronic Warfare Officer.
- We had never struck before very hard, but we were asked by the President to go and bomb Hanoi and Haiphong,
- hopefully to bring quicker conclusion to the war.
December 30th, 1972. Anderson AFB. Guam. Thailand.
Linebacker 2 became the most large scale aerial operation since the end of the WW II.
188 B-52 bombers took off in the air from Utapao and Anderson Air Force Bases.
The first strike against Hanoi was delivered on the December 19th at 4 o'clock in the morning.
- We heard it. We didn't get any information, but we heard the ground shaking.
- We jumped up and ran to the shelters.
25 tons of bombs being dropped by every B-52 were leaving nothing alive in area equal to 30 football fields.
The area subjected to the bombardments was resembling a moonscape.
- Only because of a fortunate coincidence we didn't get buried in there.
- We all were like frozen, while being in the shelter.
- Nobody here was in a position to evaluate the situation correctly, because the ground was shaking, going literally back and forth.
However, Air Defense Forces of North Vietnam put up a serious resistance.
Vietnamese were defending their cities by gathering around Hanoi and Haiphong almost all existing SAM systems.
Up to 20 missiles could be seen simultaneously in sky over Hanoi.
- Dnepr 7! Detect Targets! Targets under jamming cover!
- Azimuth 315. Range 80.
- Battalion! To battle!
- Prepare 6.
- The worst thing, I believe, that we saw, was in December of 1972, when B-52s were up to fly in North Vietnam.
- When they were shot down, that was spectacular. There were huge explosions in dark night.
- You could see airplanes actually spiraling down. That was terrifying to see.
- Well you knew that someone fell out of formation. We all understood that well listening to radio transmissions with the ground.
- At that time I was turning the radio off.
- Now, if you was to turn it on and listen for a bit,
- you could hear a ground controller calling "Rose 1, Rose 1. Are you in frequency? Please, answer."
- And we got no answer.
Aerial Operation "Linebacker 2" intended to finish the war in Vietnam, ended up as a failure.
31 B-52 strategic bombers didn't return back to base from their combat missions in 12 days of the operation.
All of them were shot down by the Soviet missiles of S-75 system.
This loss cost $248 millions to American taxpayers.
America, used to win, got a humiliating slap in Vietnam.
- We Vietnamese have a proverb: "Gold must be tested in fire."
- Russian missiles in battles also passed their test in fire, like gold.
- The missiles passed the test. Russian and Vietnamese missilemen also showed their best sides.
There is a memorial in the center of Washington, which was built for soldiers, who died in Vietnam.
There were 55.000 of them.
Each one of them, who didn't violate his oath and gave his lives to this cruel and mindless war, is named here.
- Combat changes everyone. You know, there is no doubt about that.
- One of the big thing was, I think, that it changed my priorities.
- My priorities are not in making millions of dollars.
- My priorities now are my family and my friends. There are some things, which you can't express with words.
- Somehow the value of life became much higher for me than it was before.
- When you see deaths... and we have seen them there, then you start appreciating life.
- We didn't want war. We wanted peace, but Americans forced us to fight.
- To fight against them, to shoot down their planes, to sit in SAM systems.
- And we knew, that their losses and our losses will be great, but we wanted to win and we won. We knew it in advance.
The last destroyed airplane of that war was shot down over Hanoi on December 27th, 1972.
The B-52 bomber fell down in Chung Bath Lake, not far away from the center of Hanoi.
Its wreckage lies there up to this day, as a monument for the victory.