Flying low overhead the Navy Phantom jets looked like space planes in an old science fiction movie dispatched by Ming the Merciless to intercept Flash Gordon, their engines spewing trails of growling noise and black smoke. They were even more eerie at night as they circled low to cover us inshore, dropping flares to illuminate the darkness while we hunted the North Vietnamese. May 10, 1972 our jets swept in to bomb the Haiphong railroad yards and MIG-17s rose up to meet them. The Duke in his F-4J Phantom jumped the MIGs and shot down three. Maybe they should have called him Ming the Merciless instead of Duke. But before he could get away The Duke was hit by a surface to air anti-aircraft missile. There was no rescue for pilots shot down over Haiphong. It was suicide for our helicopters to try. Randy "The Duke" Cunningham and his radar operator had a long few moments trying to glide to the water in a burning Phantom and bail out over the Gulf of Tonkin.
We were listening to the fight and heard the pilot's distress signal as he went down. The helicopters were already airborne to support the raid. But where to send them. It's a big sea. We picked up a signal on our radar, a small green flash. It was Cunningham's wingman. Like Star Wars and its Siths, when there were Phantoms, there were always two. We were in contact with the wingman. He could see Cunningham in the water. He was over Cunningham. But he was very low on fuel and said he had to leave. I told him: "Hold your position. We are vectoring on you." Then I leaned on the radar man controlling the helicopters and pointed to a small green speck of light on the radar scope in front of him and said: "There."
