Wednesday, May 31, 1972
Radarman Helps Slay MIGs
USS BIDDLE, Yankee Station --Although he works hunched over a radar screen in the darkened war room aboard this destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin, Radarman 1.C. Gerald Kronvall has played as important a role in downing MIGs over North Vietnam as the pilots who fly the missions.Only six days after the Biddle joined 7th Fleet operations in the gulf Kronvall, a native of Pasadena, Tex., directed Navy aircraft to score their third and fourth successful intercepts of Communist jets.On May 17 the Biddle's first full day on Yankee Station, the radarman guided two Navy fighters from the carrier USS Midway into an intercept position that resulted in the destruction of two MIG 19s approximately 30 miles northeast of Hanoi, when they threatened a bombing mission over the north.Last Wednesday, air patrol planes from the Midway, assisted by Kronvall, shot down two MIG17s after an aerial duel and pursuit by U.S. jets.When the American aircraft had gained visual contact with the enemy they reported four to six MIGs in the dogfight.Two of the Russian-made jets were downed, strengthening Kronvall's bid to become an "ace" intercept controller."Radarman Helps Slay MIGs", by S&S Vietnam Bureau, published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Wednesday, May 31, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.