Tail-End Charlie

All eyes were out of the cockpit looking toward the threat to catch sight of the thirty-two foot long missile leaving its launch pad seventeen miles away. And there it was, a tiny black speck rising out of a cloud of brown dust and smoke. As we continued to watch it grow, a second speck began to rise from the same site. Now there were two missiles in the air, both of them headed in our direction. A few seconds later the first missile jettisoned its booster rocket. Now it could receive tracking information and start guiding on our formation.

Inside the cockpit, the Missile Threat Display Panel light was now pulsating and the audio alarm in our headsets was sounding a frantic wake up call, telling us we were in imminent danger. As our hearts pounded faster and faster, our senses became acute. And we reacted automatically to years of training.

"Switches, let’s go down" our Flight Leader commanded.

We rolled over and dove for the deck. Steve pushed the throttles to full power. Hoping to break the radar lock we joined on the lead aircraft and leveled off at 200 feet above the rice paddies. We were literally burning the paint off the leading edge of our aircraft’s wings traveling at a speed of 750 miles per hour. But the missile kept coming. We tried evasive maneuvers to break the lock. But the missile kept coming and maintained its lock.

The only way to survive a Surface-to-Air Missile attack was to force it go off behind you. Since you could not out-run a missile, you had no choice but to run an intercept on it. Over the years Naval Aviators found that putting the incoming missile just off to their left at the aircraft’s ten o’clock position gave them the best intercept angle for playing this very deadly game of chicken. Then at the last possible second, a hard barrel roll around the missile’s flight path would force the missile to change its intercept course and explode harmlessly behind you. Or so the theory went.

The obvious risks of such a maneuver was turning too soon or too late. If you turned into the missile a few seconds early the missile adjusted its intercept course and completed its mission. And turning too late just made it easier for the missile to detonate its warhead when its proximity fuse signaled it was close enough to make a kill.

So timing was everything! We use to laugh nervously in the squadron’s Ready Room about the old childhood cliché ‘One potato, Two potato, Three potato, Pull’ whenever someone successfully evaded a Surface-to-Air Missile. Holding up their right hand while pointing their left index finger to simulate a missile, the pilot would say, "There I was! And when I could read the serial numbers on the missile, I said ‘One potato, Two potato, Three potato, Pull.’" But they were not joking. The pilot’s visual senses told him the missile was close enough and that he should commence his evasive maneuver. But the reality was that the missile was still too far away. So he waited. And waited. And finally, when he could not wait any longer, he still said ‘One potato, Two potato, Three potato, Pull.’ Then he pulled back on the stick as hard as he could.

So we waited, watching this dark green stick grow larger and larger. Whenever we turned, it turned. And it kept getting larger and larger, closer and closer. Now it started back down towards us in it’s final few seconds of life. And we were climbing to meet it. Finally the moment arrived. It was now do or die. The slightest mistake at this point would mean the destruction of one or both of our aircraft and the real possibility that we would either die or be seriously injured and prisoners of war in the Hanoi Hilton.

So, at the last possible second, our flight leader shouted over the radio ‘Stand By . . . One potato, Two potato, Three potato, Pull.’ And both aircraft turned into the missile as hard as the pilots could pull.