Operation Bolo | |||||||
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Part of Vietnam War | |||||||
![]() 8th TFW F-4C Phantom II, c. 1967 | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Robin Olds Daniel James, Jr. | Tran Manh | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
56 F-4C Phantom IIs (28 participated) |
16 MiG-21 'Fishbeds' (8 or 9 engaged) | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
None |
US claim: 5 MiG-21PFL lost (c/n 1812, 1908, 1909, 2106, 2206) |
Operation Bolo was a United States Air Force mission during the Vietnam War, considered to be a successful combat ruse.[1]
The mission was a response to the heavy losses sustained during the Operation Rolling Thunder aerial-bombardment campaign of 1966, during which Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF) fighter jets had evaded U.S. escort fighters and attacked U.S. bombers flying predictable routes. On 2 January 1967, U.S. Air Force F-4 Phantom II multirole fighters flew a mission along flight paths typically used by the bombers during Rolling Thunder. The ruse drew an attack by Vietnamese Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 interceptors, whose pilots expected to find heavily loaded fighter-bombers. Instead, they came up against the Phantoms, which claimed seven Vietnamese MiG-21s, although Vietnamese records show five being lost.
The battle prompted VPAF pilots and strategists, as well as Soviet tacticians, to re-evaluate the tactics and deployment of the MiG-21.