Sitting in two F-4 Phantoms, the four American airmen awaited their takeoff orders. It was March 10, 1967, and their mission to bomb a strategic target in Thai Nguyen, 30 miles north of Hanoi, was now a reality. It was also more dangerous than any mission they had yet flown in Vietnam. The target was the enemy’s only steel mill for the production of essential war materiel, and was therefore well protected.

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The attack order included two tasks for the airmen. First, with their missiles, they were to screen the main strike force of F-4s and F-105s against North Vietnamese MiGs. Second, if the enemy MiGs did not try to intercept the main strike force, the two escort aircraft were also to attack the steel mill. The airmen were assigned to the 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand. Each escort F-4 carried six 750-pound bombs and four missiles, as well as an electronic countermeasures (ECM) pod on the right outboard station.

For nine days the mission had been postponed because of heavy monsoons and low clouds over the clustered hills that surrounded the target. On the previous two days, bad weather had forced the entire strike force to turn back from the main target and attack secondary targets–transportation facilities and supply points in Laos and North Vietnam. Today, however, the skies were clear; this time, there would be no turning back.

First Lieutenant Robert Houghton and Captain Earl Aman in one aircraft, and 1st Lt. Steve Wayne and Captain Robert Pardo in the other, had carefully preflighted their planes. While waiting to take off, Aman thought about the intelligence estimate that Thai Nguyen would be defended by both MiGs and extra anti-aircraft guns. He adjusted his helmet with one hand, reached to Houghton’s shoulder with the other, and quietly said, ‘Hey, Bob, this job is going to be tougher than any we’ve yet faced.

Houghton nodded, and confessed that this was the first mission in which he was worried about getting shot down even before they took off. But the steel mill would be the most important target of any they had attacked so far.

The takeoff order finally came, and the strike force was airborne. Before they even got close to the main target, anti-aircraft fire blackened the sky, filling it with deadly flak. When Aman and Houghton were still 75 miles from Thai Nguyen, a close burst from a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft shell sent flak smashing into their plane, shaking it violently. Aman immediately called over the intercom to see if Houghton had been wounded. Fortunately, they both had escaped injury. They then hurriedly checked their gauges and discussed whether or not to return to Thailand or proceed on to the target.

On the initial check, the Phantom appeared flyable. Rather than jettison their payload and turn back, they decided to try to complete their mission, and held their damaged plane on course toward the Thai Nguyen steel mill. No enemy MiGs appeared, but the anti-aircraft fire remained heavy.

Aman and Houghton nosed their plane down through the enemy fire and dropped their bombs on the target, as did the other F-4s and the F-105s. Several American aircraft were shot down near the steel mill. Aman and Houghton felt their plane take two more hits and saw Pardo and Wayne’s F-4 under heavy fire directly over the steel mill. The first hit had badly damaged Aman and Houghton’s plane, and it was now losing fuel fast. They radioed their situation to their element leader, who then set a course for them south of Hanoi, back toward the in-flight refueling point where they were supposed to rendezvous with the tanker aircraft. The wounded F-4 was losing fuel so fast, however, that it could not possibly reach the tanker or even make it back to the Laotian border. Aman and Houghton saw they had no alternative–they had to eject. Still over enemy territory north of Hanoi, they prepared to bail out.

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