Bangkok--1 Sep--Image Impact
Program Title: The Bloodiest Day
Channel: The History Channel on TrueVisions (A23) and (D44)
Telecast date: Tuesday, September 2, 2008 Telecast Time: 9.00 p.m.
May 10, 1972 — a day that would go down in history as the bloodiest day of the Vietnam air war.
In the early morning hours of May 10th, Navy F-4 Phantom pilot Curt Dose and his backseater Jim McDevitt streak towards North Vietnam with a powerful Alpha strike formation. Their target is the port city of Haiphong. Suddenly, Dose and Hawkins get a radio call…bandits. Dose quickly engages a MiG-21. He gets good tone on his Sidewinder missile and fires. Dose watches as the missile makes a final quick adjustment, then buries itself in the MiGs tail pipe. They go full afterburner, screaming out of the area at Mach 1.2. They streak over Kep airfield towards the coast.
Meanwhile, a massive strike force of US Air Force fighters and bombers move into North Vietnam. They’re lead by Oyster Flight. Pilots Bob Lodge, John Markle, and Steve Ritchie enter a swirling dogfight with enemy MiGs. They each claim an enemy fighter, but flight lead Lodge is lost to a marauding MiG-19.
Later that day, another US Navy strike force enters the fray. F-4 Phantom pilot Matt Connelly and his radar intercept officer Tom Blonski streak in to rescue an A-7 from the MiG-17 on its tail. Another Phantom crew, pilot Steve Shoemaker and his backseater, Keith Crenshaw, arrive on scene. Just in time to rescue a fellow Phantom crew from a lethal MiG-17.
The dogfight over the Hai Duong rail yard is one of the most costly engagements for the North Vietnamese of the entire war. Matt Connelly kills two MiGs, Steve Shoemaker gets one, and Randy Cunningham claims three -- a total of 6 Communist fighters. With this fight, Cunningham becomes the first ace of the Vietnam War.