‍Blind Bat, Yellowbirds, Willy the Whale

‍"Night Intruders" on Uncle Ho's trail

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‍EF-10B Willy the Whale

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‍Let's shift gears now to the EF-10B, "Willy the Whale," a Marine Corps aircraft.

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‍Here again, we have an aircraft designed in the 1940s. It was named the Douglas F3D Skynight, and its purpose was to be a turbojet-powered, all-weather night fighter. It saw extensive service in the Korean War, where it made the first recorded jet vs. jet night kill.

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‍The Marines then converted several Skynights into electronic counter-measures (ECM) and Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) collection aircraft, calling it the F3D-2Q. In 1962, it was redesignated the EF-10B. It employed a Westinghouse AN/APQ-35 radar in the nose, a good-sized radar, which gave the nose a swollen appearance. Given its swollen nose and tubby looking fuselage, it earned the nickname "The Whale," and later "Willy the Whale." It was a two-seat aircraft, with a pilot and ECM/ELINT operator.

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‍Air Force veterans will be embarrassed to learn that by the time President Johnson ordered a significant buildup of air power in Vietnam, the USAF had no functional ECM capability. As a result, the Marine EF-10B was deployed to Da Nang AB to escort USAF and Navy flights, locate enemy radars for subsequent attack by other aircraft, or jam those radars to render them ineffective against incoming US aircraft.

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‍The Marine Composite Reconnaissance Squadron 1 (Fixed Wing), VMCJ-1, arrived in Vietnam in July 1965 and flew extensively for the next five years. It was one of the first Marine Corps squadrons to deploy to Vietnam. The squadron flew over 25,000 sorties in four diffent aircraft, omne of which was the EF-10B.

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‍Go to Blind Bat on Uncle Ho’s Trails

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