[bearoutwest]

Stig,
Some background scene setting in response to your question of how crowded the skies over Vietnam may have gotten.

10 May 1972 was an exceptionally busy day, try the book by Jeff Ethell & Alfred Price "One Day in a Long War". The USN and USAF in loosely co-ordinated attacks, set out to locally overwhelm the NVAF defences by hitting separate targets with large numbers of assets spread out over the country. The attacks were part of a range of strikes carried out over a number of days. A large number of MiG kills were claimed during that period of time. The following claims are set out in Lou Drendel's "...And Kill MiGs" bookazine.
- 6 MAY 1972 USN[4]
- 8 May 1972 USAF[2] USN[1]
-10 May 1972 USAF[3] USN[8]
-11 May 1972 USAF[1]
-12 May 1972 USAF[1]
- additional attacks occurred the following week.

On 10 May, Cunningham was part of an Alpha Strike. A carrier Alpha Strike is where every aircraft that can be integrated into a single raid is sent off against a single target - in this case the Haiphong Rail Yards. In the same piece of sky would have been MiGCAP (F-4s) missle-armed and prowling the edges to kill MiGs; strike force (A-6s, F-4s and A-7s) bomb-ladened; Iron-Hand AAA-supression (Cunningham's flight, drop-tanks on centre and outer pylons, Sparrows semi-recessed on fuselage; Sidewinders on inner pylons; Rock-eye Cluster bombs on inner pylon under Sidewinders); probably F-4s as escorts and possibly A-7s carrying Shrike or Standard anti-radar missiles. Cunningham's own recollection included missile attacks by NVAF MiG-21s and gun attacks by MiG-17s. (USAF pilot recollections elsewhere on 10 May, note mainly MiG-21 missile-run sorties, together with a few MiG-19 close-in gun attacks.) So yes, a very crowded sky with the NVAF sending up most of it's assets to intercept the numerous USN/USAF raids..

In Drendel's book, Cunningham notes the attack commencing with the A-6s and two groups of A-7s. In a previous engagement, Cunningham noted the aggressiveness of some of the A-7 pilots who tried to mix it with MiG-17s. It would be probably that on 10 May, some of the Corsair pilots were involved in the dogfight. So USN 20mm cannon shells would have been sprayed around at some stage.


...geoff