☭ EASTERN BLOC ☭ MiG-21 Phantoms Over Vietnam

From the iron curtain of East Berlin to the monsoon-soaked jungles of Vietnam, from the parade grounds of Moscow to the revolutionary plazas of Havana, Maxwell Houdini takes us across the Eastern Bloc in this new column that blends period music and period military history. This is EASTERN BLOC.

MiG-21s Staged

Phantom by Chizh & Co (ЧиЖ & Co) is a song about an American F-4 Phantom made by McDonnell-Douglas. It is a strange thing to hear from a Russian band.

The specific Phantom callout directs us to the end of the Vietnam War, an air war fought by Phantoms and Mikoyan-Guerevich 21s, long past the point of true deniability of Soviet combatants in Vietnam.

While valiant Vietnamese aces exist, the song plays on an American pilot’s complete reluctance to believe he was shot down by a Vietnamese pilot, referred to as "Lee Tsit Syn," which is a Vietnamization of "fox" in Russian, alluding to the pilot actually being a Soviet ace.

The MiG he flies to take down the Phantom is one of the longest-serving combat jets, analogous to the Kalashnikov of the sky. Rugged and reliable, it can be put up and put down in environments not conducive to most jets.

The song speaks of being struck by a missile before the American bails out and is captured.

The K-13 was the standard IR missile handed to the Soviets after a dud AIM-9 wedged into the side of a VAF MiG-15 fighter during a failed shootdown earlier in the war. The Soviets came back to down the Americans with the very missile they had handed them on a silver platter, while trying to bully the Vietnamese into submission.

Pilots were not the only Soviet troops to serve in the Vietnam War. Advisors had many roles, including signals, and chief among keeping the skies clear from Operation Menu B-52 bombers were S-75 Dvina crews.

Advisors trained and commanded surface-to-air missile units to assist in keeping the carpet bombing off the countryside, or at least inflicting a toll on the imperialists every time they tried.

Some VPAF MiG-21 aces include Nguyễn Văn Cốc with 9 air victories, Mai Văn Cường, Nguyễn Hồng Nhị, and Phạm Thanh Ngânand with 8 confirmed kills against some very Caucasian troops.

The song details the experience of an American pilot in Vietnam, shot down and captured. The pilot is in disbelief because he had not faced a pilot of such strategic calibre in Vietnam; he must be a Soviet pilot, a communist pilot.

The song is very unique in that it is openly patriotic about Soviet covert and semi-covert advisor roles in the defense of Vietnam against the U.S. It has very Rock and Roll vibes, both in musical character and in the cavalier attitude of talking about the Soviet Ops.

AAA battery with Vietnamese crew, Soviet advisors, and S-75 Dvina