Operation Bolo's 55th Anniversary (one day late)

 On January 2nd 1967, the greatest air-to-air victory of the Vietnam war was planned and executed by the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing commanded by the famous Colonel Robin Olds. He was recently put in command of the fighter wing in September of '66 after some recent losses in the squadron and was given the assignment to turn the fortunes around in their favor. 

Olds was the perfect choice, as he was a very experienced officer, a double ace from WWII, and was very popular with those serving under his command. He was also the only one (that I know of) to have scored kills in an aircraft that was gliding to the ground with his engines shut off (done in a P-38 Lightning in WWII). He also grew a mustache that was completely out of regulation as a way to motivate his men by "giving the middle finger" to the authorities that had hamstrung units from success in Vietnam with pointless regulations. I mean, if the guy's mustache has it's own Wikipedia entry, he's gotta be pretty freaking awesome.  

Total Legend. You can tell by the epic mustache.

Basically, the situation was the North Vietnamese had been listening in on American radios and had been getting assistance from the Russians in disseminating the US signals and electronic signatures, to give their fighters the utmost advantage. 

The North Vietnamese Air Force was very small, it's estimated they only had roughly 16 or so MiG-21 fighters at the time (their most advanced and modern fighter aircraft) which was cutting edge for the era. They had many other aircraft, but they were considered to already be outdated at the time. 

They struck as often as they could in hit and run tactics, targeting American bombers specifically to be successful. They would wait to identify bombers by not only radar, but by their electronic signatures and radio call signs before attacking swiftly with MiGs, then retreating after only one or two passes to maximize their chances to kill, all while escaping/evading American fighters before they could respond. 

A Hungarian MiG-21 taking off. Pic sourced from Wikipedia.

Olds knew in order to turn things around they had to cheat, steal, and lie their way back to the top. He had planned for a month with squadron leadership to come up with a plan to strike back. The idea was to disguise their fighters and pass them off as bombers to the North Vietnamese radio, radar, and SIGNIT (signals intelligence) to lure the MiGs directly into a trap with the American fighters, so they couldn't escape.

This sounds easier in theory than in practice, as they had to do a number of things exactly right to pull it off. First, they would use the same ECM jamming pods that the local F-105 bombers use. However, there weren't enough pods to simply attach to the fighters as the only ones available were still being used by the F-105 bombers, so they had to borrow them from the bomber squadron to make the mission work. However, it wasn't just plug and play either; the pods had not been used on the F-4C Phantom II fighters before, and had to be jury rigged by the maintenance teams to work on the fighters at all.

A pic of the GE AN/ALQ-71 Electronic Countermeasures Pod, which is a more advanced version of the QRC-160 used on the operation (they are very similar visually). This one is on display at Hill Aerospace Museum.

Even the smallest details had to be adhered to, as they had to alter the flight plans for the Phantom fighters to fly at the same airspeeds, altitudes, routes, and mimic the turning characteristics of bomb-laden F-105 bombers during the mission. Even changing their radio call-signs to those used by the bombers would be needed if their communications were being listened in on by the enemy. 

After delays due to bad weather, the operation finally went off to a rousing success. 28 F-4Cs took off, separated into three flights heading into North Vietnam and directly to the enemy airbases. The North Vietnamese MiG 21s were scrambled into the air after a short delay due to heavy cloud cover, but were taken by complete surprise by the American F-4 Phantoms. Roughly 14 MiG-21s took to the air, and in the space of twelve minutes the battle was over. At the end of the day, the Americans claimed 7 kills, and two probable (unconfirmed), with no US losses at all. 

The F-4C Phantom on display at Hill Aerospace Museum is the exact same type used on the operation (note the lack of any gun on this model).

The kills were great, not only for the pilots and squadron morale, but also for ensuring the safety of future F-105, and other bomber flights over North Vietnam. It was found out later that the entire MiG-21 fleet in North Vietnam was grounded for the space of four months as they devised new tactics to deal with the threat of the new deception tactic. The North Vietnamese Air Force even admitted Jan 2nd's Operation Bolo was blatantly the worst day in their history.