Since this originally started as post about Vietnam Mig stories....
This article can be found in the MAR '04 issue of the USNI Proceedings.
Randall "Duke" Cunningham
On 19 January 1972, an F-4 Phantom II piloted by Lieutenant Randall "Duke" Cunningham took off from the USS Constellation (CV-64) on a mission over North Vietnam. Operating just north of the Demilitarized Zone, his radar intercept officer, Lieutenant (junior grade) William "Irish" Driscoll picked up two MiG-21 Fishbeds. Cunningham immediately gave chase. Flying at treetop level, Cunningham and Driscoll engaged one MiG with Sidewinder missiles, and scored a kill. This engagement marked the end of a two-year lull in air-to-air combat over North Vietnam, but it was just the beginning for Cunningham and Driscoll.
A few months later, Operation Linebacker had begun, and Cunningham and Driscoll were flying escort for a group of A-6 Intruders, when three MiG-17s appeared. In a brief but harrowing engagement, Cunningham and Driscoll downed one of the enemy aircraft, which was on the tail of his wingman, while the other two were firing on them.
Two days later, Cunningham's section was on a flak-suppression mission in the Hanoi/Haiphong corridor when 22 enemy fighters attacked them. In an intense engagement, Cunningham shot down one MiG-17 with a Sidewinder, then saved the squadron's executive officer by shooting down another.
But the toughest fight had just begun. Cunningham found himself in a close-run battle with another aircraft, reputedly piloted by a North Vietnamese ace. First passing the MiG in a head-on encounter, Cunningham attempted a series of rolling scissor maneuvers, dodging cannon fire from his skilled adversary. With afterburners flaming brightly, Cunningham then tried to outclimb the MiG as the two of them streaked upward to nearly 20,000 feet. But the determined Communist pilot stayed with him. Cunningham suddenly pulled hard toward the MiG, yanked his throttles to idle, and extended his speed brakes. His enemy shot past him, and as they "pitched over the top," Cunningham fired a Sidewinder. The missile slammed into the aircraft, and both man and machine plummeted earthward, slamming into the North Vietnamese countryside.
But having survived the arduous air battle, Cunningham's luck ran out when a surface-to-air missile struck his F-4, causing Cunningham and Driscoll to eject into the Gulf of Tonkin. They were rescued, but only after rescue forces fought a running battle with two enemy PT boats.
Duke Cunningham and Irish Driscoll had become the first aces of the Vietnam War and the first to achieve ace status exclusively with air-to-air missiles. Cunningham retired from the Navy in 1987, and today is a congressman.
—Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Since this originally started as post about Vietnam Mig stories....
