Air to Air in an Oscar Duck
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
As usual Zorro and Nimrod were working NOSTAR (Blackout). While I was “Christmas Tree” with my Ice Cream Cone (Rotating Beacon) shielded and with my protected wing red and greens on so the strikers could see me from above! I was working with Alley Cat (night ABCCC) at the time.
Zorro bingoed out and was RTB, Nimrod was making his last bomb pass and was “Winchester” guns.
“Nimrod, You are cleared hot.”
Nimrod rolled in North to South while I held to the Northeast.
“Nimrod’s in.”
Prior to seeing his Funny Bomb ignite I saw 51 cal (12.7 mm) tracers zip diagonally across his flight path! (and mine!), and then saw them impact and explode on the ground. Where did it come from??
Nimrod finished his run and I called, “Nimrod confirm you are Winchester Guns?”
“That’s affirm Nail! And Nimrod’s RTB.”
At that moment movement caught my eye and I saw what I thought must have been a P- 40 tail (a WWII fighter aircraft) flash by. It was another aircraft...It had a radial engine, and square tipped wings. I wondered what other “Weird Shit” they were going to try out here over the trail!! I also wished they’d brief us on new programs they were trying out!
“Alley Cat, Nail 57.”
“Go ahead 57.”
“Who else do you have out here tonight besides Nimrod, Zorro, and me?”
“Only the three of you!!”
I hollered back...”Negative Alley Cat, we have company!!”
At that point I realized that I was the only one flying around with lights on...and that the tracers I had seen were exactly in line WITH ME... Was I being shot at?
I bent the mike switch as I yelled at Nimrod. “There’s someone else out here besides us. Don’t leave me...HELP!”
Nimrod (who had been RTB) reversed his course and came back to help me out.
Then I saw flashes from my port side. They were coming from above me IN THE AIR. As I kept the O-2 moving, Nimrod called and said he had seen them too and had gotten a glimpse of the mystery aircraft in the moonlight.
I broke left into the area where I had seen the flashes. He must have turned into me as the next thing I saw were short clipped square wings. He was also in a left turn and we were in a Lufberry (a turn in which both aircraft were on opposite sides of the circle trying to get to each others six o’clock position). He had more airspeed...and he could turn with me.
So...I extended out of the fight (I dove for airspeed) and that was the last time I saw him. It was then that I realized that my lights were still on!! So I turned them off!!
After gaining some speed I pulled around to where he had been last, pulled the nose up a bit and hosed off the rest of my Willie Petes in his general direction!
“Nimrod, Nail 57”
“Nimrod, Nail 57, cover my ass!! Someone up here is shooting at me!! I’m getting the hell out of here!!”
Nimrod covered my ass all the way home “essing” behind me!”
At the debriefing Intel was a bit skeptical of my claim to have been engaged by a P-40. Well... with retrospect I can’t blame them!
They separated me from the Nimrod crew and debriefed us so they could “compare stories”... and brought out the Aircraft Recognition manuals. We ALL picked the AN-2 Colt (a Russian All-Purpose Biplane transport) as the aircraft that had attacked me!
Needless to say the wires burned between NKP and 7th and 13th AF...this was a new facet of the war over the trail. The FAC community was split as to whether I was eating funny lasagna or merely a bit “spooked”. A friend, who was a F-4 pilot at Cam Ranh Bay (where I had been an F-4 backseater earlier in my tour), asked, “What the hell is Steph up to now?”
About two weeks later a chopper door gunner on a supply mission to a Lima Site in Laos observed a Bi-plane bombing the site by throwing small bombs out the cargo door. The chopper AC said to the gunner, “Shoot him down.” Which he did! A few days later another AN-2 crashed while trying to bomb another Lima Site (maybe Lima 95). I was vindicated...there really had been another airplane out there and it really had been trying to shoot me down!!
Upon return to CONUS after my tour I was interviewed by Project Red Baron from Nellis AFB. Their job was to interview all pilots who had been involved in an air-to-air engagement in SEA, with the goal being to glean every bit of information that would help the USAF Fighter Combat Training. I’m not sure they knew what to do with my information!!