DTG250428ZJUN81 They had been operating out of their forward dispersed airfield for 12 days now, ever since the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies had blitzed more than 75 armored and mechanized infantry divisions across the Fulda Gap with the intention of overrunning West Germany. The advance had stagnated as NATO woke up to meet the invasion, the U.S. lifting hundreds of tons of equipment and troops into Europe through the UK. Though stalled at this point, the Soviets seemed unwilling to go nuclear, though only time would tell if that would hold. Denmark, for its part, had mobilized all she could, including his squadron of quarter century old F-100D Super Sabres, supplied by the U.S. in 1959. Unfortunately for he and his fellow pilots, the ink was barely dry on the contract for their brand new F-16s, but not yet delivered and so they had to go to war with what they had.

The short (for them) 6,500 ft strip had been a civil airfield before this war, and, ironically enough, originally built as a bomber base during the previous World War. The Super Sabre was barely able to operate off the strip, peacetime rules suspended. They had already lost a Hun when its engine let go just after rotation, his fellow squadron pilot left without the time or altitude to safely eject, parachute streaming behind as he disappeared into mushrooming ball of fire and flame emerging from the forest at the end of the runway. They had lost three more jets during the preceding week and a half, two to ground fire and Soviet SAMs, one tragically to an overly jittery Bundeswehr Roland crew that had blasted the Hun out of the sky as it crossed the FEBA with a defective IFF, leaving 8 jets in the squadron.

Now he found himself 200 feet off the deck at 420 knots, number 4 of a 4 ship formation, trying his best to keep sight of #3, his element lead, about a mile abeam of him, who, in turn, was trying to keep sight of Lead and #2 as the tactical formation weaved its way around rain shafts joining the heavy, grey northern European skies above to the deep, dark, green forest below like a celestial merging. He concentrated on keeping 3’s jet in sight and at the proper size perspective, dark green against the speed-blurred forest background, barely able to break out the forward canopy bow which told him he was at the proper distance, using small 5-10 degree check turns into and away from the other jet, all the time simultaneously scanning the sky above and behind his fellow Hun in order to detect a surprise bounce by a Frontal Aviation Flogger before the enemy flyer could close to heater or gun range.

The UHF radio clicked twice, lead’s signal for a check turn. If he had time, he would have checked his low level chart to see that they were at the IP, starting their final run toward the pop up and roll into the target. But, at the moment, he was too busy trying not to fly into the ground as #3 rolled up into 60 degrees of bank for the check turn and he, in turn, rolled up and crossed his element lead’s 6 o’clock position, slightly high to avoid the jetwash, to reassume his proper place on the other side of 3 at 4,000 – 6,000’, pushing throttle full up to MIL in order to remain abeam.

So far so good, his RWR remained dark, no Soviet AA signals detected, but he still kept his eyes scanning the forest ahead and below for the telltale spiral smoke trail of an SA-14 IR-guided MANPAD, or worse yet, AAA tracers signaling the presence of the deadly ZSU-23-4 “Zeus” which accompanied Soviet armored formations. Either of these threats would necessitate a warning call to the formation, threat type and clock position, then a hard 5 – 6 G break turn at low altitude to defeat the threat…all without hitting the ground, greying out or losing sight of his element lead, which if he did, could well mean him hitting a fellow jet in the formation.

No wonder he was sweating, his palms clammy in the leather and Nomex flight gloves gripping the stick and throttle of his supersonic fighter-bomber, the sweat dripping off his brow, hot beneath the USAF standard flight helmet, then running, stinging, into his eyes, his visor threatening to fog up at any moment, the taste of rubber as he breathed in and out through the mask jammed up against his face. But he had no choice but to keep his head on a swivel, eyes open, scanning for these threats to both his aircraft and his life. As soon as he rolled out, he saw #3’s AB light up, its ten-foot-long purple-blue tongue of flame starkly illuminated in the early morning gloom. He matched his element lead’s power, pushing his throttle over the detent, feeling the muffled thud as his AB kicked in, the steady force pushing against his lower back as the Super Sabre accelerated towards 480 knots, 8 miles a minute, for the run into the target.

Out of the left corner of his eye, he saw the other two afterburner glints from Lead and #2 as they reached their pull up point to start their pop delivery of their Mk 82 500 pound “dumb” bombs. Seven and a half seconds later, over the pop up point, #3 started his pull up, signaling to him it was time to start his. He hauled back on the stick, the Hun’s horizontal stab biting quite effectively into the thick air at this low altitude, the downward pull building up to more than three G’s, his G-suit starting to inflate against his legs and lower torso in an attempt to keep his blood from pooling in his legs, reminding him to strain his lower body and resist the building force. He glanced right beyond #3, the horizon tilted at 30 degrees and dropping down as if on an incredibly fast elevator, the clearing that was their target revealing itself a couple of miles away as he gained altitude.

As he reached his pop up altitude of 2000’, trading airspeed for altitude, he rolled the aging jet to the right over into 135 degrees of bank towards the target, by now a hornet’s nest of activity, tracers and white smoke as the defending Soviets were opening up with everything they had at Lead and #2 ahead of them. The smoke abruptly merged with the fireballs and condensation vapor produced by the concussion of first two, then two more Mk 82s which found their mark. He continued hauling the nose of the Hun around, reaching the light buffet around 4 G’s and keeping it on the buffet as the jet gently shook, leading edge slats automatically popping out with the increase in AoA in order to keep turn going. The nose tracked up and around, then down towards the clearing, a massing of BMPs, command vehicles and T-72s. The Soviet headquarters had stayed put too long, but they were not going to make the attack easy for the Danes, spraying everything they had, including small arms fire, into the air. As he crested the apex of his climb, his RWR lit up, the accompanying warbling tone in his headset telling him a Soviet Gun Dish radar system and its associated “Zeus” had acquired his jet. Almost immediately afterwards, as he was rolling wings level, “hauling the mail,” nose buried, back down towards terra firma, tennis ball sized orbs of 23 mm AAA, in streams, almost as if they had been sprayed out of a garden hose, began snaking through the air around his jet. He was 30 degrees nose low now, the pipper in his A4 gunsight aimed directly at the center of the clearing right onto a BMP command vehicle, his altimeter furiously unwinding. The depression had already been set before the run in, so he knew all he had to do was pickle off the two 500 pound bombs and they would hit their target. Flying through the maelstrom of tracers, flying debris and smoke from the six preceding Mk 82s, he pressed his thumb down, and with a shudder, the bombs flew free from his jet. He hauled back on the stick, the G’s building again, tunnel vision closing in as he strained to maintain consciousness, then he leveled out the jet barely above the trees, and practically bending the throttle forward over the stop, he ran for home, mission accomplished.

Happy hunting and fly safe!