The Wild Weasels: Capt. Tom “Bear” Wilson

Ken Harbaugh:

I’m Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors In Their Own Words. In partnership with the Honor Project, we’ve brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever.

Warriors in Their Own Words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation. Thank you for listening, and by doing so, honoring those who have served.

Today, we’ll hear from Lieutenant Belton Cooper. Cooper served in World War II as an ordnance officer. He and his team were tasked with recovering damaged allied tanks, often from behind enemy lines, and repairing them.

Today, we’ll hear from Captain Tom “Bear” Wilson. Wilson served in Vietnam as an Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO). He sat in the backseat of aircraft, and was responsible for monitoring radar in order to warn his pilot, Colonel Jerry Hoblit, of threats, like surface to air missiles (SAMs), anti-aircraft artillery, and enemy aircraft. He also protected his aircraft by jamming enemy radar.

Capt. Tom Wilson:

In every war since World War I, primary losses have been on the head of the dive-bombing fighter pilot. Our job was to protect him. When Jerry and I got to Takhli, Thailand, their loss rate was 63% that they would not complete their 100 missions. And it's pretty spectacular and good mission to try to stop that. And we did that two different ways. The first was on a temporary basis and immediate basis for that mission. In other words, we would fire our Shrike anti-radiation missiles, try to keep them off the air and have immediate results.

The second and more lasting mission was for tomorrow's air cruise. And for that one, you actually had to dive bomb and destroy the surface to air missile site. And doing that, we shared the same probable losses that the strike crews did, but I think the specialness was that our job was there to protect probably the bravest men in the world.

It's called Hunter Killer. Where we used an electronically equipped airplane with an electronic warfare officer, such as myself in the backseat. And we went in to locate the serviced air missile site. And then on our wing we had dive airplanes F105s, and they would do the actual destruction.

Actually, at a point not far down the road, we carried destructive capability too. We carried CBUs Cluster Bomber Units, and the wingmen carried this hard bombs. And between us, we'd did a number on the site when we'd catch it, but finding them was just very difficult.

To find the site, you had to see it. The North Vietnamese were masters of camouflage, and the world was green over there. They hid their sites very well, and they also had dummies set up openly so you could attack the wrong site. So we had to know where it was and to find it. The only way you could find it was to have him launch missiles. You could very successfully get him to launch his missiles at you if he flew up high, throttled back a little and presented a great target, which is what we did. Once he launched missiles at you, launched missiles at us, we may have another site launch at you. But all this while Jerry had to keep his eyes on the site. And all the while he was dodging the missile and everything, he had to keep his eyes on the smoke from the site, keep it in view, and then we would do our bomb maneuver. And it was extremely difficult to do all the executions phases and then to successfully hit the site. But we did that.

In the back seat we had all the standard equipment, but we also had a panoramic scope. Now this panoramic scope, I could see the entire spectrum on a frequency scale. In other words, every signal that's out there. And I had another function, I could actually stop and time my signal with the surface-to-air missile operators signal. I could see where he was looking in the airspace. I could see if he's looking over here, over here or whatever. And I could also, by looking at the level, see his interest in us. I could say, isolate just that one and say, this guy's serious. He's about to shoot at us. And so our equipment was very special and we didn't have that many of these airplanes, these especially equipped airplanes. So when we lost them, it was a great panic. We couldn't perform the Wild Weasel mission, which was, as I said, those two immediate mission and the strategic mission. And so we had to replace them. And that's what Jerry and I did. In October of 1960, we were one of the seven crews that ferried new airplanes over because they'd run out completely.

We had an incredibly sophisticated enemy, much more sophisticated than we thought in North Vietnam. We went to a place called Yên Bái, which was a crossing point for the Red River. And we didn't know that you should avoid Yên Bái. But as we approached, we had these three other airplanes out here relying on us and all our astuteness, and there was an undercast, very heavy, and they launched missiles. I picked it all up and everything fine. They launched. And the other thing is we'd been told that these looked like great big telephone poles. Well, this missile is going Mach 3.5. If you can imagine three and a half times the speed of sound. We're going about three-quarters of the speed of SAM or around the speed of sound. So closure is well over Mach four. That gives you an idea how fast this thing, it's a blur. It's just a blur. And we can't see the ground. Jerry couldn't see it to dodge it.

So the first thing we're looking in or yammering, the rest of the force, very astutely, turned around and said, "Heck with you guys." And went back across the red and waited for us knowing what would happen. I assumed they'd been there a while. The sound came, darting out of the clouds, blew up just beneath us. And by the way, all the sound effects you hear on television and movies, this boom, there's no boom, high explosives, go crack, just like that. And it's a great huge orange explosion with black shooting out the top and the bottom, and that's all shrapnel and deadly stuff. And it just knocked our airplane upside down. We're sort of feeling ourselves and everything and saying, "Are we still alive? Are we still here?" We were alive. And I said, "I'm okay finally." Or something like that, probably on a very high pitch voice. And Jerry said, "I'm okay." We went back across the river, picked up all those guys, and went on to the target.

We turned and regrouped back over the other side and the friendly side of the Red River, went back in toward the target. Again, the strike force commander, who was leading the 24th ship die bombing flight, sort of ignored protocol and said, "Damn, the torpedoes full speed ahead and the SAMs full speed ahead." Went into a pop. He'd been pre-briefed. He went directly in on his target, and a SAM caught him right in the cockpit. The airplane continued to fly out of it, but of course the pilot was dead. And we learned a great lesson there. We learned that success takes a lot of work.

Jerry and I went back to Takhli. He doesn't like to talk about it and I don't like to talk about it. But we considered that first mission an utter failure. We had done everything wrong. We started studying day and night. That's all we did was study. Jerry, who was a weapons school instructor, top gun school instructor, started coming up with tactics, and he studied the weapons we carried just incessantly. He memorized all these tables and everything. I memorized our equipment and the enemy saying, I can today tell you about the length and the burn time and everything of every one of those weapon systems, and it never happened again.

From that point on, we knew where to go and we got better and better. To the point that we used to say we would drop leaflets on Moscow. The airplane was magical, told us everything that was happening in the air, and we were capable after a while. But you've got to remember, our job was protecting the bravest and most honorable men that we had ever known, and that made the mission a lot easier. But the F5 and the F105 fighter pilots were tremendously brave.

We felt pretty invulnerable. As long as the equipment operated well, we felt we could face anything. Because the equipment made it like you could walk into a room and there is a wild animal in there, and if the lights are off and he can see and you can't see, you've got a problem. But suddenly this equipment turns on the light. You can see the predators in there. And once you can see them, you can deal with them. And that's the way we felt. And we were pretty tough. After 30 missions, I never felt very vulnerable. That's the truth.

They had the SA-II guideline missile and the Fansong track while scan radar. Very capable. It’s the most capable system, by the way, even today, it's Mach 3.5 missile, which is fast. It's extremely accurate. It's 35 feet long. This is the rocket. It's fired with the booster pushing it out to five miles. The booster drops off at five miles exposing the antennas in the back, and then you have data link that you use. Okay, there's the airplane. Use your data link to maneuver your missile. His best tracking mode, it's called a half-rectified lead.

He looks at the airplane. Of course, that would be a pursuit curve. He looks where the airplane's going to be. That's his computer. Saying, okay, he's going to be out here. Half-rectified says, okay, let's fire that missile somewhere right in the middle. And that's got to shoot down that airplane. Now this guy is going at 3.5 mach. You're going at almost one mach. That's a lot of mach. That's over mach four that you're closer at. It's just zipping along through the sky. It's got a great big... I think it's 700 pound warhead. And when it goes off at that speed, it is tremendous. It sprays this deadly steel shrapnel out and great huge orange core and black on either end and then white beyond it. It's spectacular. Very accurate. Our job as an EWO was to tell the pilot how to dodge it, first of all. And we talked to North American engineers who were very intelligent on this stuff, and they said, "Okay, if you dodge it like it's an airplane, it'll do the same job." But not really. What you're dodging is the computer. This thing has to say, okay, this is where he is. This is where I project that he will be, and I'm going to guide in the middle. If I'm up here and close and he breaks into this thing, it cannot project a point of impact. Therefore, that's computer noise. And that computer takes a second now for him to say, okay, his point of impact is moving like crazy. I can't tell exactly where it is. So he reverts then to a trail. In other words, he goes just right at the airplane. And a second, he reverts like that he's going to miss. So he'll go behind you or above you. And if you dodge it like it's an airplane, you can dodge the missile. Problem being, this missile can pull 10Gs and come at you at Mach 3.5. And there's nothing in the world could evade that. But we did. By evading the computer.

In the airplane when you were going into the target, you felt no fear because you didn't have time for that sort of thing. You had to get yourself up like a football game, get yourself all mentally prepared and up for it. And therefore, when you're in combat situation and people might get killed or whatever, you don't stop and ponder on that situation. You can't. You don't have the luxury. When you land, you still don't have the luxury. Now later on, I'm sure other people kind of fell apart like I did, like I said much later.

But the crew chiefs of these airplanes, when they would see their pilot not coming back and all the other pilots around them coming back and theirs didn't come back, that was touching. Very, very touching. We lost our close friends. They lost a little part of their life. Probably felt it more at the time. Later, when the POWs were released and you started thinking about all those dead, fine people, each one was the top of his high school class. Each one. They were a students. They were Eagle Scouts. And we lost that. We lost that.

Jerry and I got along well before we started flying. He was a pompous ass, and I was a nice guy. He did his job. I did my job. He didn't know that much about my job. I didn't know that much about his job. But we worked together so smoothly that we could communicate without words. I could make a couple little songs. He'd know what I was thinking. Every kill that we had, every time we killed a SAM site, and we went on a few, Jerry made sure that he shared that responsibility. In other words, "Are you ready?" And if I had said no, I don't know if I did, I may have, if I had said not this time or something, we wouldn't have gone in. But we did everything together. And if I said, "The signal is just a little bit left." Or he knew exactly what I meant. I didn't have to say four degrees or 10 degrees or whatever. It was a communication without words.

We depended upon one another. And by the way, we formed a friendship that will last until I die. Several things that happened there, you remember vividly because it's such an impact upon your life, and you're young and you're brave and all. But the thing I remember most was the camaraderie. Jerry and I developed a very close friendship between two humans that he's closer than any brother.

I have not much regard for the North Vietnamese so-called technician. I've got great regard for the North Vietnamese soldiers, by the way, and their top brass who move these guys around. But the guys in the SAM sites, I could see, like I said, I could turn my scope into his scope and I could see when we would get in hot and we would be about to deliver bombs, his signal would just sit static. He was running, those folks were running, and when we dropped and we completely destroyed a site, that was the reason they were running.

You felt like you were protecting people. Before we had 30 missions, we didn't know what we were doing. It was a very dangerous mission. Some of the guys let off at about 80 missions, I assume, looking to go home. I don't remember us doing that. I do know our last five missions were very easy. '96, '7, '8, '9 were very easy. They gave them to us in the less threat areas. I don't think we asked for them. In fact, we enjoyed being the ones picked for the real Harry missions. We were young. And if you think you're going to get shut down, you're going to get shut down. I've known people that approached us in the bar and said, would you tell my wife this sort of thing? My gosh, that's heavy. That guy knows he's going to get shot down. And he did. Every time. You could forecast it. When a guy started acting like he was going to be shot down, I'm like, "Oh boy. You have the deadly environment to do it." You can't do that. You can't back off. So I don't think we did. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think we backed off.

I was in Maxwell Air Force Base in Command Staff College. I was a major at the time. And watching on television, you would watch as each POW was released, if you remember, each night for several nights. And I had a drink for every one of them. And when there's 75 drinks, it's kind of heavy, but it's just all of your emotions are just kind of dangling out there. And then all of these friends coming back after seven years of being a POW, wasn't a short time. It was seven years. And then later I met a lot of them. As they'd come in, I'd bring them to my house when I lived in Las Vegas. And I hate to say this, but a great number of them wanted to go down to the Palomino Club, which is a strip joint, and they hadn't really seen the female form in a few years, and they enjoyed that. Of course, I'll never give names on it.

Well, as I've written in my books, I sincerely feel we could have won the war in any two weeks. We could have forced the North Vietnamese out of the south. And it was proven, of course, during the 12 days of Christmas in 1972. When after 12 days, the North Vietnamese came to the table, gave us anything and wanted, released a POW or whatever. And I've always felt that any two weeks we could have won it. And if we had done the same thing in 1966 or '65, the first time out, there wouldn't have been a long seven-year war. There would've been a short police action. I think that's frustrating. But then you got to the point where they said you could not turn right over some targets because that would take you near Hanoi. And we didn't want a bomb hang on an airplane that might fall off an airplane over Hanoi.

Some of these silly restrictions were just so prohibitively dangerous for us as if no one cared about our lives. But they wanted to make sure they didn't give any kind of a show that we were bad guys. Here's how silly it really was. On Christmas Day, 1966, folks in Washington said, we will not fly on Christmas day. We'll give them a day. And so when it was Christmas in Washington, we did not bomb them. But when it was Christmas where we were, we bombed the hell out of them. I mean, that sort of mean restrictions kill people. I hated it. All the guys hated it. You need to change it for the next war.

Do I think it was right? Who knows? I can't answer that. I really can't. Yeah, I did. Inside my heart I said, yeah, it's worth it to go up and protect these guys. And I would do it today. If they said, Wilson, you're old and crotchy, but you can go out and fly an airplane and protect probably the bravest people that have ever faced combat. Army guys are very brave folks too. I don't mean any slight there, but I've never seen people go out and face death like these fighter pilots did. And to protect them. Yeah, I’d do it today. So yeah, it was worth it. I just came to that conclusion.

When you look at it as our job was trying to protect these guys. We didn't always do it, but we were trying to do that. When you lived with them and knew, and you saw the heroic things they did, the way they died. I had a friend that got killed over a stupid truck, an F105. He was going down, got all shot up, so he hit the truck with his airplane. Now that is not a good trade. But he was probably shot up and wounded badly. Who knows? I don't know. I do know this. I had my little spot in the bar every night and I looked down, I said, "I'm becoming an alcoholic. I got to stop this stuff." So I stopped drinking. And the next night I went over and just ate dinner at the club and ignored that bar. The next night I went over and ignored it. Next night I went over and I saw the same guy, Ralph Karloch, walking out of the club saying, "Hi, bear." I saluted him, went straight to the bar and had a drink because he's the guy that'd been dead three days.

Ken Harbaugh:

That was Captain Tom Wilson.

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Warriors In Their Own Words is a production of Evergreen Podcasts, in partnership with The Honor Project.

Our producer is Declan Rohrs. Brigid Coyne is our production director, and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our Audio Engineer.

Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers, Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia, and David Moss.