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U.S. Air Force F-4 Engages a North Vietnamese MiG-21

April 12, 1966

1966-04-26_Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-21PF_USAF
1966-04-26_Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-21PF_USAF
This example of a MiG-21 housed at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force is painted with the markings of North Vietnam’s elite 921st Fighter Regiment. (National Museum of the U.S. Air Force)

Major Paul J. Gilmore and 1st Lieutenant William T. Smith, flying a U.S. Air Force F-4 Phantom, shoot down a North Vietnamese MiG-21 fighter with an air-to-air missile. It is the first U.S. Air Force encounter with this advanced Soviet-built North Vietnamese jet aircraft, signaling a qualitative shift in the air war.1

1Jacob Van Staavern, Gradual Failure: The Air War Over North Vietnam 1965–1966 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, United States Air Force, 2002), 273–274; Walter J. Boyne, Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the United States Air Force (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 394.