Shortly later, by 1962 the first North Vietnamese pilots had finished their pilot courses in the USSR and PRC, and returned to their units. To mark that occasion, the USSR sent an additional "gift" of 36 MiG-17 fighters and MiG-15UTI trainers to Hanoi in February 1964 creating North Vietnam's first fighter regiment, the 921st. The next year, in 1965, another group of pilots returned to North Vietnam from Krasnodar, in the USSR as well as from the PRC, forming the second fighter unit, the 923rd Fighter Regiment. The newly created 923rd FR operated only MiG-17Fs and initially were the only ones which could face the American supersonic jets before the arrival of MiG-19s and MiG-21s in North Vietnam.
American fighter-bombers had been in the theatre flying combat sorties since 1961 and the US had many experienced pilots from the Korean War and even the World War II. Untried MiGs and rookie pilots of the VPAF (Vietnam People's Air Force) were sent in combat against some of the most combat experienced pilots of the USAF and the US Navy. On 3rd April 1965 six MiG-17Fs took off from Noi Bai Airbase in two groups of two and four, with the first group acting as a bait and the second one acting as shooters. Their target were US Navy aircraft which were supporting an USAF 80-aircraft strike group trying to knock out the Thanh Hóa Bridge. The MiG-17 leader, Lt. Pham Ngoc Lan, attacked a group of Vought F-8 Crusaders belonging to the VF-211 squadron operating from USS Hancock (CV-19) and damaged an F-8E flown by Lt. Cdr. Spence Thomas, who managed to land the aircraft at Da Nang airbase, then in control of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force). A second F-8 was claimed by his wingman Phan Van Tuc.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-17#Vietnam_War
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
3. Osprey Publishing- Aircraft of the Aces 130 - MiG-17-19 Aces of the Vietnam War
No comments:
Post a Comment