421st Tactical Fighter Squadron "Fighting Cavaliers"
Korat RTAFB, Thailand, 28 November 1965 - 24 April 1967
While deployed at Kadena AB, Okinawa, April - August 1965, the 421st TFS
rotated crews to a sister squadron (the 354th TFS) located in Southeast Asia,
enabling personnel to gain combat experience. Moved to Korat RTAFB, Thailand
in late November 1965 where it commenced flying combat missions as of 28
November. The 421st TFS initially reported to the 6234th Tactical Fighter Wing
until in April 1966 the 388th TFW was activated at Korat.
On 29 June 1966, the 421st TFS Commander, Major Fred L. Tracy, became the
first F-105 pilot to shoot down a North Vietnamese MiG-17. In a 1988 letter to
your web author, Lt.Col. Tracy described the eventful mission:
Thunderchief pilots and maintainers of the Fighting Cavaliers Squadron were filmed for
the award winning documentary "There Is A Way". However, by that time its days as an
Today, the 421st FS is an F-16C squadron that operates out of
Hill AFB, Utah. It is
assigned to the 388th FW.
"The mission on 29 June 1966 was a very unusual experience
and attests to the ruggedness of the F-105. The 388th was just a part of the total
JCS effort against the Hanoi POL complex.
Bill Chairsell (then Colonel and Wing C.O.) asked me to check out the new weasel
pilot from the #2 position, call sign Crab. Our (Crab's) mission was SAM
suppression and consequently we preceeded the main strike force by ten minutes.
We had destroyed one SAM site about 12 miles SE of Thud Ridge and were
proceeding back up the west side of the ridge to join the main strike force when
we were engaged by four MiG-17s. Crab flight's focus was on locating the main
strike force and consequently were lax on our scanning. I took 9 rounds of 37- and
23mm before executing a high G barrel roll to the left which placed the MiG in my
12 o'clock position about 200 feet in the lead. Earlier, one of the MiG's 23mm
shells came through my cockpit just above the throttle and lodged in the AC power
pack behind the instument panel, fortunately it was a dud. This wiped out all my
instruments including the gunsight, but the engine and 20mm gatling gun operated
perfectly.
I maneuvered to surperimpose my pitot boom over the MiG and squeezed the
triggerand saw the 20mm sparkling along the left fuselage and wing root of the
MiG, his left wing folded over the tail and in an abrupt left turn he went into a
cloud at about 2500 feet AGL. That was mission number 33 over North
Vietnam."
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