spartans_in_darkness

EO 1.4. (c)
lep SEe~ElHeeMllnH}(l
GCI (ground-controlled intercept) and combat
flight training."
(8//81) The first Soviet pilot flew in North
Vietnam in July 1965. After that date, the Soviets
continued to conduct intensive GCI training of
their Vietnamese counterparts. This heavy training
may have been in response to the MiG losses
incurred in the previous weeks in dogfights with
American pilots. As part of the training regimen,
the Soviet pilots usually manned the target aircraft
and coached the Vietnamese through standard
stern intercept, the use of airborne intercept
(AI) radars, night flying, air-to-air gunnery, and
the use of afterburners. At the same time, the
Vietnamese trained with their ground controllers,
who themselves were being coached by Soviet
advisors. However, there was no direct combat
application of this training until February 1966. 8 0
(S//~I) For the most part, the relative handful
of Soviet pilots, controllers, and advisors, perhaps
totalling no more than thirty personnel at anyone
time, restricted their activities to training and
testing out the newly delivered, high-performance
MiG-21fighter aircraft that the Soviet Union
shipped to the DRV in late 1965. In fact, the
Soviet pilots were responsible for test flying each
MiG as it was reassembled at the Vietnamese
base at Phuc Yen. 8 ! Once the MiG-21s were ready,
the Vietnamese pilots began their familiarization
flights and tactical training in them. Usually, the
aircraft would operate in the Phuc Yen area under
close supervision of a Soviet controller. Initial
flights were solely familiarization flights; later,
GCI-supervised flights would range as far as
eighty kilometers from Phuc Yen. By early 1966,
the Vietnamese pilots were practicing special tactics
for attacking U.S. reconnaissance and ECM
aircraft, trying out "zoom" climbs and high-speed
attack runs. 8 2
(S//SI) For all this flight activity, the Soviet
pilots avoided actual combat operations. There is
a suggestion that Soviet pilots may have flown air
cover missions over Phuc Yen Airfield. In January
1966, for example, a Soviet pilot, along with his
controller, was engaged in a closely controlled
GCI activity against an unidentified target near
Phuc Yen. The identity of the target was
unknown.f"
(8//81) However, if the Chinese and Soviet
airmen remained in the background as instructors,
the third contingent of foreign pilots, the
North Koreans, did not. The North Korean pilots
who served in the DRV were a different. breed ­
they had come to fight.
(8//81) On 20 September 1966, a North
Korean Air Force (NKAF) IL-18 (CRATE) trans'­
port carrying North Korean fighter pilotsl
'--- ....[picked up the Korean pilots and flew
them to Hanoi. Eventually, this first contingent
would grow to thirty-four MiG-17-qualified pilots.
Most of the Korean pilots were from the NKAF's
1st Fighter Division, though at least fifteen were
recent graduates from Pyongyang's flight
schools/"
(8//81) For the first five months, the North
Koreans restricted their flight operations to the
area around Phuc Yen Airfield, essentially performing
a sector defensive patrol limited to the
areas north and east of their base. 85 In late April
of 1967, the North Koreans redeployed to Kep
Airfield, replacing the North Vietnamese MiG-17
unit there. The Koreans took over defensive
responsibility for the base, which had been
attacked repeatedly by American aircraft during
the month. In two engagements with the
Americans over the last week of April into May,
the Koreans lost at least three MiG-17s.
(8//81) In June, the Koreans returned to Phuc
Yen for rotation, and a new contingent of Korean
pilots arrived in Vietnam. The new pilots
refrained from any combat, performing mostly
familiarization flights and restricted defensive
patrols around Phuc Yen. Finally, in late July
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