Shortly before his final flight over North Vietnam, Air Force Maj. Robert Lodge told his fellow airmen that if his plane ever went down, he would rather die than risk being captured and possibly divulging information that would endanger American aircrews.

Lodge had detailed knowledge of a highly classified system that allowed American fighters to detect enemy MiGs from beyond visual range, said retired Col. Chuck DeBellevue, who flew with Lodge with the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron during the Vietnam War.

“His thought process was: If he gets shot down and rescue is not possible, he wasn’t going to get out of the airplane, because he knew that they knew who he was, and that they would beat the shit out of him to get him to talk, and he would talk,” DeBellevue told Task & Purpose. “You can’t not talk.”

On May 10, 1972, Lodge stayed true to his word when his F-4D Phantom II was struck by 30mm cannon fire from a North Vietnamese J-6 fighter during a dogfight near Hanoi. Capt. Roger Locher, the weapons systems officer aboard the aircraft, later told DeBellevue what happened next after their plane caught fire.

“The back canopy was turning brown,” DeBellevue said. “Roger Locher, his back-seater, said: ‘It’s getting pretty hot back here. I think I may have to get out.’ And Bob said, ‘Ok, why don’t you?’”

Locher ejected at the “last nanosecond,” said DeBellevue, who flew one of the other planes taking part in the mission. Lodge stayed with the aircraft until it crashed.

More than 50 years later, DeBellevue is taking part in a campaign to have one Lodge’s five Silver Star Medals upgraded to the Medal of Honor. He is working with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has introduced a bill that would eliminate the requirement that service members receive the military’s highest military award for valor within five years of their acts.

“It would recognize a guy who gave his life for his country and died protecting the information that he had in his brain,” DeBellevue said.

Air & Space Forces Magazine first reported on DeBellevue’s efforts to have Lodge awarded the Medal of Honor.

Lodge is one of only two airmen to receive a total of five Silver Stars, said Doug Sterner, a renowned military awards expert and curator of the Military Times Hall of Valor. Lodge’s other awards include seven Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Purple Heart, and 37 Air Medals.

During the Vietnam War, Lodge played a key role in upgrading the squadron’s missiles and improving the unit’s tactics, DeBellevue said.

One of Lodge’s most important actions was having 10 F-4Ds from South Korea that were equipped with the highly classified APX-80 Combat Tree system transferred to the squadron, which was based at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, DeBellevue said. The system detected the “Friend or Foe” transponders on North Vietnamese MiG-21s that were meant to keep the enemy from accidentally shooting down their own planes, giving American F-4 crews a crucial advantage in combat.

Combat Tree was so secret that even its code name was classified, DeBellevue said. Lodge, who went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had a deep understanding of how the system worked.

The missions that the squadron flew were highly risky.

“You didn’t know if you were coming home until after you got home,” DeBellevue said. “And if you did come home, you were on tomorrow’s mission.”

On May 10, 1972, Lodge flew one of a group of four F-4s over North Vietnam. Three of the American fighters were equipped with Combat Tree.

The Americans got into a dogfight with four MiG-21s and shot down three enemy fighters, according to a chapter written by Scott Baron for the 2024 book “Beyond Belief: True Stories of Great Escapes that Defy Comprehension.”

Lodge and Locher nearly downed a fourth MiG, but then four North Vietnamese Shenyang J-6s joined the battle, according to the book, which was compiled by Doug and Pamela Sterner.

As they fired a missile at one of the J-6s, another enemy aircraft dropped behind them and hit their F-4 with its 30mm cannon.

“We immediately went out of control, flopping from side to side,” Locher recalled in the book. “Then fire started coming in the back of the cockpit. It seared my canopy with bubbles, and I couldn’t see out anymore. The airplane slowed down and we went into a flat spin.”

Locher successfully ejected and was rescued from behind enemy lines 23 days later and retired from the Air Force in 1998 as a colonel. The Vietnamese government repatriated Lodge’s remains in September 1977.

Before Locher ejected, Lodge made sure that he would stay with the stricken plane to the end, DeBellevue said.

“In the backseat of an F-4, there’s a handle,” DeBellevue said. “If you don’t rotate the handle, the back-seater, when he ejects, goes by himself. Lodge did not want that handle turned, and that was his decision.”

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