The OV-1 Mohawk achieved the only US Army air-to-air victory during the Vietnam War
In 1957, the U.S. Army determined that it needed a light yet rugged front-line observation aircraft that could use rough airstrips and perform short takeoffs and landings (STOL). Grumman’s design was chosen, and development of the YAO-1A got underway.
The aircraft flew for the first time on Apr. 14, 1959. It was a mid-wing monoplane powered by two turboprop engines and had a tail with three vertical stabilizers. The pilot and observer sat side by side in a cockpit with bulged side windows, which gave them excellent downward visibility.
More than 375 OV-1 Mohawk aircraft were built over nearly 10 years, and they saw extensive service in the Vietnam War. Although the aircraft was not originally designed to carry weapons, many were modified in the field to carry rockets, mortars, rotating-barrel machine guns, and iron bombs.
What the Mohawk was not meant to do was shoot down a MiG — yet it actually accomplished that during the Vietnam conflict.
In mid-February 1968, two OV-1As from the 131st Aviation Company were flying at 2,000 feet over the Ashau Valley, one of two major North Vietnamese Army strongholds in South Vietnam, the other being the U Minh Forest north of Saigon. The mission was led by Capt. Ken Lee, one of the unit’s most experienced Mohawk pilots. Knowing that the jungle below held more than 6,000 permanent troops and one of the world’s most advanced anti-aircraft battery networks, they stayed at altitude to use the OV-1’s side-looking radar and infrared sensors to monitor enemy activity in the valley.
Suddenly, as Wayne Mutza explains in U.S. Army Aviation in Vietnam, Lee felt his aircraft taking hits and immediately turned right when his wingman, half a mile behind him, shouted: “You got a MiG behind you!”. Lee leveled his wings as a MiG-17 passed on his left at 275 knots, pulling out of its dive two hundred feet below him before turning back to attack the two Mohawks again. Lee realized that his only chance to avoid being shot down by the MiG was to attack it. In fact, the OV-1A could carry a 2.75-inch rocket pod and a podded .50-caliber machine gun under each wing — a load Lee was carrying that morning.
The MiG pilot made a serious mistake by slowing down for the attack, and Lee fired 38 rockets in two bursts, with four striking the MiG. He also hit the enemy fighter with machine-gun fire: “I put about 100 rounds of .50-caliber into him – I could see the tracers going into the fuselage. Hitting his engine killed his power.” Because the MiG was climbing when Lee opened fire, both aircraft entered a cloud bank. Lee emerged from the clouds to the right and saw the MiG come out three to five seconds later, with its right wing low, its nose pitched down, and orange flames visible. The MiG then circled one of the mountains around the Ashau and turned into what Lee knew was a blind valley, but it was so low that Lee would have had to hit the hillside to follow it, and he did not see the MiG crash.
When they returned to Phu Bai air base, Lee found numerous bullet holes in the tail and aft fuselage of his aircraft, but he and his wingman were ordered not to discuss Lee’s probable MiG kill with anyone. The Army feared that the U.S. Air Force (USAF) might force it to disarm the Mohawks or even hand them over, since the Air Force considered shooting down MiGs its own exclusive role.
A few weeks later, Lee flew from Phu Bai to Ubon, where he met Col. Robin Olds, the commanding officer of the 8th TFW. Olds told Lee that he had heard rumors about a Mohawk shooting down a MiG and was pleased to learn that Lee was the pilot involved in that unusual dogfight. In May, Lee flew another mission that stopped at Ubon, and after he landed, Robin Olds and Chappie James ordered him to join them at the Officer’s Club, where they told him that a MiG had indeed been shot down under the circumstances he had described. When Lee asked how they knew, Olds replied, “We know things you guys don’t and will never find out.”
Photo by U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, J. S. (Steve) Bond and Atsushi Tsubota via Wikipedia
