This story was told to me by one of the “Talos” radar men on the Oklahoma City, CG-5. Other facts I looked up.
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| USS Sterett, CG-31, Cruising at Sea. |
On April 19th, 1972, during a major North Vietnam offensive, a task force of four US ships were sailing in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of Vietnam . They were the 7th Fleet flagship, USS Oklahoma City, CG-5, the USS Higbee DD-806, the USS Sterett DLG-31, and the Lloyd Thomas DD-764. They were attacked by three North Vietnamese MiGs.
The day before, and the day of, various US Ships were in the area doing Naval Gunfire Support, shelling North Vietnamese artillery positions. The environment was heavily congested with fishing boats, some of which were acting as spotters. The
hills also were strewn with reflectors in an attempt to deceive radars.
Late in the morning of the 19th, an alert of MiGs was sounded. But the MiGs were flying low, described as “getting their feet wet”, then turning around the hills causing the radars to lose them, and possibly even landing on their air base often. The official story released at the time was the MiGs did a surprise attack. But that simply was not true. When the MiGs started their actual bombing run, they were spotted and the ships were at Condition 1, aka battle stations. Two ships, the Oklahoma City and the Sterett, had anti-aircraft missiles, while the Higbee and the Lloyd Thomas were armed with dual purpose 5" guns.
What was inexplicable were the orders for the Oklahoma City’s Firecontrol radars to “break track” on the MiGs. “Track” or “Lock” means the fire control radar is automatically following a target and continuously updating the fire control computer. My version of this battle differs from the official story as I heard it from one of the men in the Talos tracking radar, the 49A control room. For reasons unknown, the missile cruisers were ordered not to fire at the incoming aircraft, but the two gun destroyers were given “weapons free” orders.*
hills also were strewn with reflectors in an attempt to deceive radars.
Late in the morning of the 19th, an alert of MiGs was sounded. But the MiGs were flying low, described as “getting their feet wet”, then turning around the hills causing the radars to lose them, and possibly even landing on their air base often. The official story released at the time was the MiGs did a surprise attack. But that simply was not true. When the MiGs started their actual bombing run, they were spotted and the ships were at Condition 1, aka battle stations. Two ships, the Oklahoma City and the Sterett, had anti-aircraft missiles, while the Higbee and the Lloyd Thomas were armed with dual purpose 5" guns.
What was inexplicable were the orders for the Oklahoma City’s Firecontrol radars to “break track” on the MiGs. “Track” or “Lock” means the fire control radar is automatically following a target and continuously updating the fire control computer. My version of this battle differs from the official story as I heard it from one of the men in the Talos tracking radar, the 49A control room. For reasons unknown, the missile cruisers were ordered not to fire at the incoming aircraft, but the two gun destroyers were given “weapons free” orders.*
The radar men on the Oklahoma City obeyed orders and broke track, but they locked back on immediately. When this was discovered, they were ordered to break track again and stay that way. Once again, the radar men obeyed the letter of the order but not the spirit, and using their manual skills with the knobs and wheels, followed the planes without the automatic tracking circuits. This was also discovered, and they were then ordered to place their radars in a center line position and not to move them until ordered.
The Sterrit’s, Terrier 55 radars did continue to track the incoming targets, and had missiles loaded on the rails. But weapons were held “tight”. Without error, the radars tracked at least two, possibly three; incoming MiG’s when the fire control operators reported “separation”. This means one signal was now two, and is presumed that they have either dropped bombs, or fired missiles. Director 1 continued to track the MiG, while Director 2 tracked the separation, and watched for about 5 seconds as the bomb fell onto the Higbee’s rear twin 5”/38 turret.
Luckily the Higbee’s gun turret was unmanned as earlier that day, it had a round jammed in the barrel while doing shore bombardment, and her Twenty-two man gun crew had been ordered out while it was being hosed down to keep it from exploding. Four men were wounded, some critically so. The other MiG lined up on the Oklahoma City, but the bombs missed, and she only took splinter fragment damage.
On the Sterett, someone had enough of this nonsense. The outgoing MiG was still being tracked, and the missile launcher aligned for a shot. The order to fire was given, and within a few seconds the MiG** was destroyed. Later that day the Sterett would target another unidentified inbound aircraft and down it as well.***
The official story is unchanged, that the four ships were surprised but responded well. I have not found one “conspiracy” page on this event, so this may be the first.
The official story is unchanged, that the four ships were surprised but responded well. I have not found one “conspiracy” page on this event, so this may be the first.
*One possibility I had heard was an inherent distrust of missile systems among the admiralty, not unlike the initial distrust of radar systems in WWII.
**This claim is in dispute. Apparently we now have the names of the attacking pilots, Le Xuan Di and Nguyen Van Bay, of the 923rd Fighter Regiment. Both pilots returned to base and are available for commentary on this incident. That something was shot down by the Sterett's terriers is not in dispute. As the downing was visually witnessed. There is a conjecture that this was a Styx missile or a variant, but they were not sold to the Vietnamese for a couple more years. My thought is that there was a third MiG.
***The Sterett was having an eventful cruise, as she also shot down two MiGs on March 30th - possibly a post WWII record.
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