It was just as the two F-4s came out of their bomb runs that Driscoll, looking back over his shoulder to observe the impacts, noticed “black dots on the horizon...really coming up fast.”
MiGs, as many as 20 of them. The radio was a jumble of confused calls: “Bandits! Bandits!” and, “MiG-17! MiG-17!...He’s on my tail!” Grant, coming up about 1,000 feet behind Cunningham and Driscoll, called, “Duke, you have MiG-17s at your seven o’clock, shooting!”
For once Cunningham had been caught off guard. He turned hard to port—normally a mistake against the 17, but these were coming so fast that they couldn’t match the turn. The leader overshot. He was inside the AIM-9 minimum range when Cunningham fired, but in the time it took the missile to accelerate the Fresco opened the distance and the Sidewinder tracked right up the its tailpipe. The 17 came apart in a fireball. Three.
Going to afterburner, Cunningham and Grant zoom-climbed to 15,000 feet for a look around. As Cunningham later recalled, “The scene below was straight out of The Dawn Patrol.” While a Fresco plunged earthward in a flaming death dive, eight more were circling with a trio of F-4s, everyone trying to watch his tail, cover his friends’ and get a shot at the enemy’s.
Still packing plenty of fuel, Cunningham and Grant winged over to rejoin the fight, nearly colliding with another Phantom as it broke from the circle—Showtime 112, piloted by Commander Dwight Timm, VF-96’s second in command, who had no less than three MiGs after him. And he only saw two of them. The nearest, a 17, was right in his blind spot, below and to the outside of the Phantom’s port turn.
Cunningham had a Sidewinder tone, but on whom? Of three hot jet pipes ahead two belonged to Timm’s Phantom. “Reverse starboard!” he called.
But Timm, still unaware of the MiG under his tail, only knew that a starboard turn would allow the two he had in view to close. He held his course, and the Fresco slowly hauled its nose up toward him.
“Duke, we have four MiG-17s at our seven o’clock,” reported Driscoll. “Look at two o’clock high!”
Cunningham looked up to see the glint of sunlight off canopies—two more MiGs rolling in to the attack. “There can’t be any more 17s in the world!” he thought—rightly, it turned out. These last were newer MiG-19s (17s with twin engines), a type which downed two U.S. aircraft on that day alone.
With six MiGs now trying to achieve firing solutions on him, Cunningham had to forget Timm for the moment. He turned into the 19s’ attack; they slashed harmlessly past. Now at 550 knots, Cunningham could simply outrun the Frescos behind him. Unless he turned back toward Timm, who was still tracking around to port. In a few more seconds the 17 would have him dead in its sights.
Telling Driscoll to keep an eye out astern, Cunningham rolled back to port. He had an intermittent Sidewinder tone—on the MiG? The X.O.? He still couldn’t be sure....
Driscoll, head craned to the rear, shouted that the nearest 17 was pulling enough lead for a shot. With tracer flying past Cunningham straightened out, blasting beyond the MiG’s reach. But now there were four 21s closing from nine o’clock high.
For the last time Cunningham turned toward Timm. “Showtime, reverse starboard! Reverse starboard, goddamnit!”
Finally Timm, having outdistanced the two MiGs he could see, broke hard to the right. The pursuing Fresco, doing 400 knots, couldn’t roll fast enough to follow and Cunningham hit the trigger. “Fox Two!”
The Fresco exploded on impact; Cunningham narrowly avoided hitting its pilot as he ejected. Four!
But the ones behind him had cut the turn and were closing in again. And the four Fishbeds, having given up on Timm, were now bearing down on Cunningham as well.
“Break! Break!” yelled Driscoll. “Give me all you’ve got!”
Cunningham, with the Frescos right behind him, turned into the 21s; for an instant eight or nine aircraft occupied the same air space and then suddenly, as air battles do, the sky cleared. Showtime 100 was alone. Timm, far below, was streaking for the coast; somewhere in the tangle Cunningham had gotten separated from Grant. “Everywhere I looked there were MiGs and no F-4s.... It was time to get out.”
Coast-bound at 10,000 feet, Cunningham and Driscoll had little time to reflect on their triumph. (For disregarding his own safety in saving his superior Cunningham won the Navy Cross, was nominated for the Medal of Honor, and got “a big kiss” from Mrs. Timm.) Driscoll, his head swiveling to clear their tail, wasn’t watching his radar scope, but about 30 miles from the coast Cunningham spotted one more MiG, a 17 coming up from twelve o’clock low—a head-on intercept, just as Cunningham had practiced at the Navy’s Fighter Weapons School, the famous “Top Gun.”