The jets of the Cold War are some of our favorite subjects,
and when researching we use the amazing documentaries on CuriosityStream,
who are sponsoring today's video.
CuriosityStream is a subscription streaming service
that offers thousands of documentaries and non-fiction titles
from some of the world's best filmmakers
including exclusive originals.
Using the code yarnhub you can get 1 month absolutely free.
CuriosityStream spans science, nature, history, technology, society and lifestyle,
with new exciting titles being added all the time.
We loved "Cold War, Hot Jets"
which as well as talking about some of our favorite planes
it contains unbelievable stories
such as how Rolls-Royce sold their engine to the Soviets,
which inspired us to make a video of this in the future.
Another great documentary is Vietnam Hidden Traces
about artifacts of the Vietnam conflict that still exist today,
including secret tunnels and ordinance.
CuriosityStream is available worldwide,
so you don't need a VPN to view it wherever you are.
Sign up and get unlimited access for just $2.99 a month or $19.99 a year.
And for our audience the first 30 days are completely free,
if you sign up at curiositystream.com/yarnhub or use the promo code yarnhub.
Please support our channel
and sign up to CuriosityStream today using the link in the description.
It's the afternoon of January the 2nd, 1967
and in the skies over North Vietnam,
American F-4 Phantom IIs from the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing in Ubon, Thailand
roar towards a Vietnamese Air Base
in what will become one of the conflict’s most epic air engagements.
Sporting an old-fashioned handlebar mustache and leading the 28-jet charge
is 44-year-old ace Col. Robin Olds.
Following the same route at identical speed and altitude
as the lumbering F-105 Thunderchiefs that regularly bomb the North;
they're on a deceptive fishing expedition.
Olds’ cockpit view of the enemy airstrip below is obscured by clouds,
and he’s unsure if the Vietnam People's Air Force will take the bait.
Still reeling from multiple losses to MiGs in the previous weeks,
morale is at a low,
but Operation Bolo is about to change that.
It’s cunningly simple –
by mimicking F-105s, the Phantom’s ruse should trick the Vietnamese Air Force brass
into sending their coveted warbirds into a dogfight
but this time on the Americans' terms.
On the ground, North Vietnamese radar operators are tracking what they think are Thunderchiefs
with high-tech Soviet hardware.
With the skies clearing,
ground controllers scramble more than a dozen Russian-built MiG-21s
to intercept the decoys
in what they think is going to be yet another turkey shoot…
Lining up on the tarmac,
the pilots shove their throttles forward
and hurtle into the air toward the foreign invaders.
Emerging from the clouds just as Olds and his team arrive over the target,
the first MiG is followed by a second and then a third.
But instead of Thunderchiefs, the sky’s crawling with deadly Phantom IIs
armed for aerial combat.
Commander Col. Daniel "Chappie" James in a flight behind
radios a warning to Olds.
Olds later said,
“The battle started when the MiGs began to get out of the cloud cover.
Unfortunately for me, the first one appeared in my 'six o'clock'.
I think it was more an accident than a planned tactic.
As a matter of fact,
in the next few minutes many other MiGs started to exit from the clouds from different positions.
I was lucky.
The flight behind me saw the MiGs and tried to divert its attention.
I broke to the left, sharply enough to get away of his line of fire,
hoping that my wingman would take care of him.
Meanwhile another MiG came out of the clouds,
turning widely about my '11 o'clock' at a distance of 2,000 yards.
He went into the clouds again and I tried to follow.
A third enemy plane appeared in my '10 o'clock', from the right to the left:
in simple words, almost in the opposite direction.
The first MiG zoomed away and I engaged the afterburner
to get in an attack position against this new enemy.
I reared up my aircraft in a 45 degree angle, inside his turn.
He was turning to the left, so I pulled the stick and barrel-rolled to the right.
Thanks to this maneuver, I found myself above him, half upside down.
I held it until the MiG finished his turn,
calculating the time so that, if I could keep on turning behind him,
I would get on his tail,
with a deflection angle of 20 degrees, at a distance of 1,500 yards.
That was exactly what happened.
He never saw me.
Behind and lower than him,
I could clearly see his silhouette against the sun
when I launched two Sidewinders.
One of them impacted and tore apart his right wing.
Meanwhile, Captain Walter S. Radeker III spots a circling MiG and takes action…
Straining to see through his sight but unable to get a missile lock,
he fires anyway.
Now in-flight and streaking toward its elusive target,
the Sidewinder locks onto the superheated engine exhaust
and plows into the MiG’s tail, sending it into an unrecoverable spin.
At this point three MiG-21s are down without a single Phantom lost.
In the flight behind Olds, Col. James was also seeing some action.
At 15:04 his flight was attacked by three MiGs, two from the '10 o'clock'
and one from the ´6 o'clock´.
Concentrating on the approaching MiGs head on,
he didn’t see the one behind.
Suddenly the weapon systems officer behind him
warned that they had a bandit on their 6.
James suddenly turned left, then right,
and caught sight of the third MiG.
In his own words, “I ordered to my numbers 3 and 4 to break right.
As they did so, the MiG broke left for some mysterious reason
and for a split second we were side by side.
We were so close that, besides the red stars in his wings,
I could clearly see the pilot's face.
I began a horizontal barrel roll to get away from him
and into an attack position.
Once in position, I launched a Sidewinder.
The missile missed because the evading MiG broke left at full throttle.
James orders Raspberry to take the shot and slides in behind him.
But the agile single-engine fighter is outturning the F-4,
until Raspberry’s had enough and he performs another barrel roll
that places him in a perfect position for mere fractions of a second,
which he takes advantage of by firing an AIM-9 that slams into the MiG’s tail.
According to Air Force records,
without a loss the Phantoms score seven confirmed MiG-21 kills,
although officially Vietnam claims it’s five.
Later back at Ubon jubilant ground crews line the taxiways.
As each Phantom passes the pilots open their canopies
and hold up fingers indicating how many kills they scored.
Please support this channel by liking this video, subscribing
and watching more videos of ours.
Thank you.