In March 1967, two F-4s raided North Vietnam, both maimed by air defense units of extraordinary origin, and the U.S. military did the first thing to do by connecting damaged fighters to fly, which was dangerous for a time

In March 1967, two F-4s raided North Vietnam, both maimed by air defense units of extraordinary origin, and the US military connected the damaged fighters to fly for the first time.

On March 10, 1967, the U.S. military sent a large number of bombers to the north Vietnamese city of Taiyuan, ready to completely destroy a vital steel plant, in order to prevent being intercepted by North Vietnamese fighters, they also specially arranged two F-4s for escort, of course, in order to achieve the best possible attack effect, the two F-4s also had to take time to drop 360 kilograms of bombs, and the U.S. military did not use anything.

The Vietnamese army expected that the American army would come to sneak attack sooner or later, so it was not easy to destroy the steel plant by laying out intensive anti-aircraft artillery fire on various strategic points. When the US military flying formation passed through Hanoi, it was inevitably attacked violently, only to see countless shells like beautiful fireworks, blooming in the air, and the US pilots were forced to dodge everywhere.

Because these ground air defense units have undergone special training and their combat effectiveness is extraordinary, they quickly hit an F-4, and the two crew members were frightened and scattered, and hurriedly checked the damage of the fighter, only to find that they were only slightly injured, and they should be able to rush to the steel plant smoothly.

They flew to The city of Taiyuan, but they found helplessly that the intensity of anti-aircraft artillery fire here was no less fierce than that of Hanoi. In order to more accurately throw heavy bombs into steel mills, U.S. bombers need to reduce their altitude as much as possible, but anti-aircraft guns on the ground do not give them the opportunity to "get over the hook", and several daring U.S. bombers bore the brunt of it, and were quickly shot down by dense locust shells.

Only to see them dragging a thick black smoke, powerlessly sliding into the distance, with the sound of earth-shattering explosions, these expensive bombers, under the heroic struggle of the air defense forces, in the blink of an eye, became a pile of scrap iron. The two F-4s in charge of escorting them were terrified, and they suddenly remembered that their job was to intercept the fighters, and they really regretted that they had taken such a heavy bomb with them.

At the critical moment when the bomb was being dropped, the wingman pilot suddenly felt the F-4 shake violently, yes, the fighter was hit by anti-aircraft artillery again, he hurriedly checked the various instruments, and for a moment was shocked to find that the fuel was leaking rapidly, and it was completely impossible to return to the military base.

For safety reasons, they were prepared to manage to glide into the open area far from the battlefield and then take the opportunity to escape, and even then they would probably not make it to land. The long plane did not hesitate to refuse their request to parachute, or hoped that everyone could retreat south, and there would be a long-awaited tanker to help on the way. However, the rate of fuel loss has far exceeded expectations, and the F-4 cannot go that far.

At the same time, the long plane was inevitably hit by shells in the fuel tank, and the two injured F-4s had to leave the battlefield as soon as possible. After a brief weighing, they decided to evacuate in the direction of neighboring Laos. The oil spill rate of the long plane is relatively slow, and it is fully capable of flying to Laos, but what about the wingman? You can't leave them alone.

The pilot felt his duty to bring them back safely, and on a whim he said to the wingman pilot, "Let's push your fighter back from the rear." ”

Everyone knows that this is very dangerous, after all, it is flying at a high altitude, and the slightest carelessness will destroy the aircraft and kill people, not to mention that in addition to aerial refueling, no one has the experience of flying two fighters together. But at this point, they could not manage so much, and after adjusting the speed of the long plane, they cautiously approached the wingman, trying to insert the nose into its deceleration parachute cabin, but they were disturbed by the strong air currents and tried and failed repeatedly.

Just when the pilot of the long plane had nothing to do, he suddenly saw the steel hook at the tail of the F-4, which was designed for the carrier-based aircraft to take off and land on the aircraft carrier, as the F-4 common to the four armies, naturally retained this component, he suddenly had a clever move, let the wingman put down the steel hook, and firmly resisted it with the metal frame of the windshield of the long cockpit, and pushed it all the way forward.

In order to prevent being disturbed by the air currents again, the pilot of the long plane ordered the wingman to immediately turn off the two engines, and the amount of fuel they had left could not drive for a few kilometers anyway. Even so, every 20 seconds or so, the steel hook used to connect the two machines will slide down from the metal frame of the windshield, and the long machine will have to adjust its posture immediately to continue docking.

In this way, they flew forward at a speed of 500 kilometers per hour, but the wingman was still slowly descending, leaving them little time. At the critical moment, the left engine of the long plane suddenly caught fire, and if it was not careful, it could explode and crash, and the pilot had to turn off the left side of the engine immediately, leaving only a single engine of the long plane, which needed to push two F-4s to fly together for the first time, and its pressure could be imagined.

More importantly, the unilateral engine made the flight posture of the long plane more and more difficult to control, the pilot was nervous and sweaty, and the other crew members were equally nervous, but at this point, he had no way to retreat, only to continue to push forward with all his might. After the long plane's right engine held out incredibly for more than a decade, the F-4's fuel was finally completely depleted.

By this time, the height of the two fighters had dropped to less than 2,000 meters and separated after the engines were turned off. Fortunately, they had just crossed the border in Laos, and the four crew members parachuted to escape before the two F-4 crashes, and the U.S. helicopter that had received the distress message quickly took them all away and finally successfully returned to the base camp.

If it were not for the purpose of helping the wingman pilot escape, the long plane could have flown back to the US military base alone. The price of "both returning home" was the loss of a valuable F-4, and the pilot of the long plane was reprimanded for it. However, more than 20 years later, the US military re-examined the matter, finally approved his imminent disposal, and specially awarded him a silver star medal, which is also a flying miracle.