Talk:Thanh Hóa Bridge

Location
I think the bridge is North of the town, rather than South. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.117.209.73 (talk) 07:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

MiG-17
This should be woven in, lots more details in the MiG-17 article

Although US jet fighter-bombers (the F-100 Super Sabre and F-101 Voodoo) had been engaged in combat since 1961, the North Vietnamese Air Force MiGs had not. On 4 April 1965, the USAF conducted a "re-strike" on the Hàm Rồng/Thanh Hoa bridge with 48 F-105 Thunderchiefs loaded with 384, 750lb bombs. The Thunderchiefs were escorted by a MiGCAP flight of F-100 Super Sabres from the 416th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS). Coming from above, four MiG-17s from the 921st Fighter Regiment (FR) tore through the escorts and dove onto the Thunderchiefs, shooting two of them down. The Super Sabres engaged with one firing a "Sidewinder" air-to-air missile which apparently missed (or malfunctioned), and another F-100 fired 20mm cannons, which also apparently missed. The North Vietnamese MiG-17s had scored their first confirmed aerial victories in jet-to-jet combat (North Vietnamese MiG-17s and US jets had fought their first jet air battle on 3 April 1965 which involved US Navy F-8 Crusaders, with only probable kills).

The USAF confirmed the two F-105 losses during that engagement, and an F-100 piloted by CPT Donald W. Kilgus reported a probable aerial victory over one of the MiG-17s, but no other US airmen reported any confirmed aerial kills during the air battle. However, MiG-17 pilot Tran Hanh, who was credited with one confirmed F-105 victory during that engagement, stated that three of his accompanying MiG-17s had been shot down by the opposing USAF fighters.

During the 4 April 1965 engagement, four MiG-17s from the 921st FR had tangled with over 50 US jet fighter-bombers, consisting of F-105s and F-100s. Three F-100s from the MiGCAP, piloted by LTC Emmett L. Hays, CPT Keith B. Connolly, and CPT Donald W. Kilgus, all from the 416th TFS, engaged the MiG-17s. One Super Sabre fired an air-to-air missile and Connolly and Kilgus engaged with 20mm cannon, with only Kilgus claiming a probable kill. The four attacking MiGs from the 921st FR were flown by Flight Leader Tran Hanh, Wingman Pham Giay, Le Minh Huan and Tran Nguyen Nam. Flight Leader Tran Hanh was the only survivor from the air battle and reportedly stated that his three MiG-17s were "... shot down by the F-105s." Based upon the report, the USAF F-100s very well could have been mistaken for F-105s, and the reported loss of three MiG-17s to those mistaken jet fighters would indicate that the USAF F-100 Super Sabres had obtained the first US aerial combat victories during the Vietnam War.

US Aircraft Losses
The article says 104 US aircraft were downed in a 75 sq-mile area around the bridge, which may or may not be true. But I have personally gone through the Center for Naval Analysis list of all US in-flight losses in SE Asia--a tedious chore on an unsearchable data base--and found 11 planes downed that were targeted against the bridge. Put in context, 104 aircraft targeted on the bridge would have been done in about 4 years of operations over North Vietnam (1965-68 and 1972), which does not account for interim bombing halts sometimes lasting months, and reduced scale of operations every year due to monsoon weather.

B Tillman, 7-24-10

Factoid and how to credit?
My father, a Navy attack pilot during the war, told me it became a tradition among carrier air wings at the end of a deployment to run another raid on Thanh Hoa as a sort of 'farewell mission' before rotating out. Notable? And if so, how to source? --Solicitr (talk)

The bridge
The opening lines talk about the bridge in the present tense. The article ends with it being destroyed three times over by the US air force in 1972. Was it rebuilt? 46.208.54.175 (talk) 12:50, 29 March 2013 (UTC)