Spies Helped the USAF Shoot Down a Third of North Vietnam's MiGs

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Zipper730

Chief Master Sergeant
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Nov 9, 2015


This is an interesting article, and it honestly leaves me wondering why our government was restricting the use of various surveillance assets for keeping the air-crews equipped with up-to-date data. Was it all about preventing the NSA's functionality from being impeded or some worry that the Russians would realize the capabilities we had?

I remember in Korea, that there were concerns about the use of ECM, in case the war escalate to World War III and we had to bomb the USSR into the stone-age, they would know our tricks. Of course, eventually restrictions were lifted. Vietnam was basically another Korea, but a lot more restrictions for a variety of reasons that honestly made little sense.

In WWII pilots were told where German fighters were forming up so they could go in and bust 'em up, and undermine their efforts, which would also allow bomber raids to work more effectively.
 
In Vietnam we had military weather satellites that provided target area data for our forces, and since those WX sats were not supposed to exist, the aircrew could not be told where the data came from.

On the other hand, in the Cuban Missile Crisis recon pilots used hand held receivers designed to detect SA-2 Guideline signals so they could know when they were being painted. The receivers had been developed by the CIA for use by spies on the ground to scout out the locations of SA-2 sites.

In the Korean War we had a site on an island off the North Korean coast that listened in on Mig communications and was able to count how many launched and how many actually got back to home base. The North Koreans did not like that site one little bit and launched a major daylight bombing attack, TU-2's escorted by both Mig-15's and LA-7's, that led to a major air battle.
 
If you read the whole article it explains only 7 Mig 21s were shot down, out of a total of 20-25 that NVAF had.
In other words, small potatoes.

The NSA didn't see it as a good ideal to expose a capability that would be very useful in a real war just for a few aircraft.
Too much to lose for so little gained.
 
MIflyer said:
In Vietnam we had military weather satellites that provided target area data for our forces, and since those WX sats were not supposed to exist, the aircrew could not be told where the data came from.
Click to expand...
When you say target area data, you mean like the position of missile sites and things?
Why didn't we use those in NVN?
 
Initially in Vietnam the USAF leadership was contemptuous of ECM equipment. They left the jamming pods needed to reduce kills by the SA-2 on the ground, outside. Such electronic gizmos simply used up a stores position better occupied by ordnance. Then they lost a number of F-105's to the SA-2's and all of a sudden ECM got very popular. They had to share the scarce jamming pods among multiple aircraft, take turns as to who got to use them. They got religion, the hard way, and ECM became a big deal.

But during the post-Cold War downsizing the USAF shrank by 40% and in some specialties by even more. They went back to wanting real combat aircraft, not that spooky stuff. The Air Force got rid of all of its dedicated electronic warfare aircraft.
 
In Vietnam several of our teams (SF) operated well behind enemy lines and in Cambodia and Laos. The information about supply and troop movements we obtained was invaluable to the regular front line troops and bombers. Yet the presence of our (SF) units operating in these areas was Top Secret even from upper-level commanders. Consequently any intelligence from our units had to, in effect, be disguised. Thus it was labeled as coming from "Unnamed but reliable Native Forces".
Large numbers of ARVN commanders and political figures had feet in both camps. They all knew that at some point the US was taking its ball and bat and quitting leaving them hanging. Consequently they worked a double agents feeding information to the NVA. US commanders had their ARVN counterparts and were supposed to work through them. The NVA often knew our movements/plans before we did.
 
A gentleman I worked with was crew chief on on some very specially equipped C-123's that dropped off and picked up teams for remote locations. Those airplanes had radar looking forward, doppler radar looking down, and enough ECM to shut down a whole Air Force Base if they had turned it on at home.

Arguments over who owns the airplanes are not that uncommon. After the space launch failures of 1985-86 they decided we needed much better surveillance around the launch sites and tasked AC-130's to do that. Within TAC some were very upset over that use of their airplanes.
 
MIflyer said:
In Vietnam we had military weather satellites that provided target area data for our forces, and since those WX sats were not supposed to exist, the aircrew could not be told where the data came from.
Click to expand...
I do remember some other cases where the origins of the data could not be revealed. In some cases, the air-crews were simply told that they couldn't reveal the sources, but they were given the data needed to the mission.

Frankly, in such a situation, I wouldn't be all that concerned where the data came from.
 
Zipper730 said:
Frankly, in such a situation, I wouldn't be all that concerned where the data came from.
Click to expand...
Read my post #8 again. Many SF operations were highly classified. At the time only 5 non-SF officers were aware of our existence and operations. Again read post #8 our info coming from Americans to Americans was considered highly reliable and actionable though at times getting past the military mindset was very difficult: "tank tracks? Impossible must be bulldozers!" "Elephants?? Impossible no one uses elephants in Vietnam" (Next debrief we dumped a big squishy bag of elephant dung on his desk).
VC/NVA deserters were constantly appearing out of the jungle, They had lots to tell BUT can you believe them? Could they be plants fed false information to lure our forces into an ambush. It took time to separate the wheat from the chaff
 
It does sound more than a little like the secrecy around the UK's ability to decode Enigma transmissions. Nothing absolutely nothing would be done to risk the Germans finding out, but a process was set up to ensure the information was available to the people who needed it
 
Well, the USN would not have agreed that everything was done to protect Enigma. The RN was utterly devoted to killing all of the "Milch Cow" supply U-boats as well as any false flagged surface ships used to supply the U-boats. It got so that every time those subs arranged a rendezvous, no matter how far out in the middle of nowhere, Allied ships and aircraft showed up to spoil the party. The USN was rather exasperated, figuring that the Germans just had to figure out what was going on. After the British repeatedly warned the Americans about security, they seemed to ignore it when it came to attacking those particular German assets.

In the Korean War the USAF had a station on a small island that monitored Mig communications and was able to count how many came out and how many got back home. The DPRK did not like that much, and staged of their very few daylight bombing raids to attack that station. The USAF responded with F-86's and a proper furball developed, with both DPRK bombers and LA-7 escorts as well as Mig-15's.
 
mikewint said:
"Elephants?? Impossible no one uses elephants in Vietnam" (Next debrief we dumped a big squishy bag of elephant dung on his desk).
Click to expand...
That must have been a fun thing to see!

I was largely talking about the air-war rather than the ground-war, but I see your point.

That's the important part -- you need the secrecy, but you also need a way to get it to the right people so it actually can be used if need be.
 
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