Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
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Secret NOFORN
Chapter 6
306
During the next six weeks, there were alerts for 15 BLACK SHIELD missions, seven of which were actually flown. Only four detected hostile radar signals. By mid-July 1967, the BLACK SHIELD missions had provided sufficient evidence for analysts to conclude that no surface-to-surface missiles had been deployed in North Vietnam.⁶¹
Project Headquarters in Langley planned and directed all operational BLACK SHIELD missions. To ensure secure communications between Headquarters and Kadena.
A typical mission over North Vietnam required refueling south of Okinawa, shortly after takeoff. After the planned photographic passes, the aircraft withdrew for a second aerial refueling in the Thailand area before returning to Kadena. So great was the plane’s speed that it spent only 12.5 minutes over Vietnam during a “single-pass” mission, and 21.5 minutes during a “two-pass” mission. Because of its wide 86-mile turning radius, the plane occasionally crossed into Chinese airspace when getting into position for a second pass.
After the aircraft landed, the camera film was removed and sent by special plane to processing facilities in the United States. By late summer, however, an Air Force photo laboratory in Japan began doing the processing in order to place the photointelligence in the hands of US commanders in Vietnam within 24 hours of a mission’s completion.
BLACK SHIELD activity continued unabated during the second half of 1967. From 16 August to 31 December 1967, 26 missions were alerted and 15 were flown. On 17 September one SAM site tracked the vehicle with its acquisition radar but was unsuccessful with its FAN SONG guidance radar. It was not until 28 October that a North Vietnamese SAM site launched a missile at the OXCART. Mission photography documented the event with photographs of missile smoke above the SAM firing site and pictures of the missile and its contrail. Electronic countermeasures equipment aboard the OXCART performed well, and the missile did not endanger the aircraft.
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⁶¹ “OXCART Story,” pp. 25-28 (S); OSA History, chap. 20, pp. 119-124, annex 152 (TS Codeword).
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Secret
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25