Father and Son Stand Alone in Military Aviation’s Most Exclusive Club By David Koontz He and his flight lead went supersonic in a high-g dive and pulled in behind two enemy MiGs as they lifted off from the runway at Kép Air Base 40 miles northeast of Hanoi. The MiGs broke hard left on takeoff, but the Navy F-4 Phantoms remained in close pursuit flying at tree-top level at more than 700 miles per hour. He fired a Sidewinder at the right-hand wingman, but it malfunctioned. He launched a second sidewinder. This one exploded in the MiG’s tailpipe. The plane destroyed. Its pilot killed.
Retired Navy Capt. Bob Dosé became a naval aviator 35 years earlier in 1937, and flew combat missions in the South Pacific from 1943 to 1944. From Rabaul to Bougainville and Tarawa to the Gilbert Islands, Bob was no stranger at dueling with enemy fighters as allied forces move westward towards Japan. During one of his many combat flights, he shot down a Japanese Zero.
Lt. Curt Dosé had just shot down a MiG-21 flow by Nguyen VanNgai. His aerial kill turned out to be the start of the bloodiest day of air combat during the Vietnam War. On May 10, 1972, U.S. Navy and Air Force pilots shot down 11 MiGs in the skies over North Vietnam. Low on fuel and out of missiles, Dosé and his flight lead headed home to their aircraft carrier on Dixie Station in the South China Sea. “We went back and did the traditional victory roll entering the break on the USS Constellation and came around and landed,” said Dosé, a Phantom pilot with Fighter Squadron 92 (VF-92). “The ship was pretty excited.” The shoot-down of an enemy aircraft in combat is the highest achievement for any military fighter pilot, but for Dosé, his MiG kill put him into the most exclusive club he shares with no others. “A friend of my dad, who was watching the Navy message traffic, saw my MiG kill announced and immediately called him at home in the middle of the night,” said Dosé, a 1967 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. “Such a phone call with a son in combat would have scared me to death. Instead the caller said, ‘Your son Curt just bagged a MiG-21!’” On that day in May 1972, Dosé and his dad became the only father and son to both record aerial enemy kills in combat as fighter pilots. 8
WWW.HomelandMagazine.com / MAY 2022
Lt. Cmdr. Bob Dose
For Bob, being a Navy pilot was the best job he ever had, but like so many World War II veterans, he rarely spoke of his combat experiences. “Dad was very proud of his fighter squadron, Fighter Squadron 12 (VF-12), never losing a plane to enemy fighters,” said Dosé, reflecting on his father’s career. “Interestingly enough, my Vietnam squadron, VF-92, also didn’t lose any attack planes to the MiGs. But we actually never talked much about his Zero kill. He was quiet about World War II.” Bob Dosé served another 23 years following the end of the Second World War. One of his career highlights was becoming the 20th commanding officer of the USS Midway in 1961.
