I peered over the right side of the cockpit of my F8-C Crusader to watch the ordinance man check the Focus missile with his flashlight. The growl in my headset told me the missile, located on the upper station of the “Y” pylon on the fuselage, was functioning normally. I gave the Ordie a thumbs-up and waited as he crossed under the nose to check the Sidewinder missile on the left upper station. It passed the flashlight check also. I knew the Ordie would also be taking a close look at the dual Zuni rocket packs on both lower “Y” stations. The yellow-shirted taxi director emerged from the red gloom of the darkened flight deck with his yellow wands. He gave me the crossed-wand signal and I held the brakes as the chocks were removed.
I heard other aircraft checking-in and recognized the calm voice of my flight leader, Bob Rasmussen. Bob was a former Blue Angel and now the Commanding Officer of our VF-111 Sundowners. I’d served with “Ras” in VF-33, an F11-F squadron aboard the USS Intrepid in the Mediterranean five years earlier. Besides being an incredible pilot, Ras was an inspiring combat flight leader. He was exactly the guy I wanted to fly with on this particular mission. As Operations Officer, I’d penciled us in on the flight schedule the preceding day, and Ras had signed off on it.
Before leaving San Diego three months earlier, our squadron had received nine experimental Focus missiles. They had contrast-seeking heads mounted on standard Sidewinder rocket motors. It was a predecessor for seekers that would later prove valuable on other Navy guided weapons. Our squadron had already fired five of the missiles on targets along roads leading south from Hanoi. Unfortunately, there were too many points of contrast between light and dark involved with roads through the jungle and across the Red River Delta of North Vietnam; and most of our launches had been unsuccessful. On this mission tonight, the target would be the mining area northwest of Hon-Gay. The area was normally active with trucks that occasionally used their headlights.
For this particular flight, our plan was to lock the Focus on a set of headlights, fire at a range of 6000 feet, continue in the run; and, if the Focus set off an explosion, fire our Zuni’s at the secondary.
The taxi director uncrossed his yellow wands and gave me the come-ahead signal. With my tailpipe pointed safely over the deck edge, I added considerable power to get the Crusader moving and to make the sharp right turn up the deck to the starboard catapult. In the dim red glow on the flight deck, I could see Rasmussen already aligning his Crusader on the port catapult. As I shifted my eyes to the starboard cat, I saw the lights of the A3 tanker come on and it was immediately launched. I shifted my eyes back to the taxi director as he passed me forward to the director for the starboard catapult. The blast deflector was coming down and I taxied forward. With the dim red flight deck lights now behind me, there was nothing but darkness in front of my Crusader. I carefully followed the director’s signals and soon felt the nose rise as my front wheel rolled over the catapult bridle attachment. Easing forward, I felt the gentle tug as I was stopped by the holdback fitting put in place by a 19-year-old hero, who made his living by crawling under the tailpipe of a moving Crusader on a steaming catapult track to precisely insert that T-shaped fitting into a narrow opening.
I put my hands on my helmet and the Ordinance men removed the safety pins from the missile launchers. When the taxi director pointed his wands at the catapult officer on my left, I knew my Crusader had passed its final check by the squadron maintenance crew. At that moment, I was blinded momentarily by Rasmussen’s afterburner as he was shot off the port cat. Then the catapult officer was giving me the signal to accelerate to full power. I pushed the throttle far forward, then into the afterburner detent and muttered under my breath my customary “Please, Dear God.” My eyes move quickly over the engine instruments and back to the catapult officer. Rasmussen’s faint lights were a half-mile ahead as my left hand moved carefully to the Crusader’s external light switch. Gripping the stick firmly with my right hand, I positioned my head strongly against the headrest and flicked my left index finger to turn on the lights.
My left hand then quickly grasped both the throttle and the adjacent safety handle. In the next instant, I was rocketing down the catapult. The extreme G force narrowed my vision and I could see only the center of the panel, but that’s where the important flight instruments were located. As the catapult launch pressure released from my body, I focused on the artificial horizon, rotated the nose of the Crusader slightly upward, and reached forward with my left hand to raise the gear handle. Concentrating on the flight instruments, I positioned my left hand on the stick and moved my right hand back to the wing actuator. When the airspeed indicator reached 180 knots, I lowered the wing and came out of afterburner.
Climbing through 300 feet, I turned on my radar. I could no longer see Rasmussen’s lights, so I initiated a slight climbing left turn to proceed to our assigned rendezvous point overhead the ship at 15,000 feet. Switching to Oriskany’s “Childs Play Strike” frequency, I heard Ras checking-in. When Childs Play answered, I could hear the ship’s 1MC in the background. It brought a smile to my face. As was the Oriskany custom, at five minutes past ten every night, the Chaplain was saying the Lord’s Prayer. It seemed very appropriate on this dark night with most of the Tonkin Gulf covered by a high overcast.
Passing 5,000 feet at 300 knots, I spotted a set of lights at 10 o’clock high. “Old Nick One, this is Two. Believe I hold you, bearing 030 degrees, up 2,000.” Ras responded quickly, “Roger Two. I’ll go Christmas Tree. Turning left through 300 degrees.”
The set of dim lights I was seeing suddenly included a bright red rotating beacon. “Two has a tally ho.” Visualizing the differences between our headings, I continued: “I’m at your 8 o’clock low, about a mile.”
Moments later, I slid into a tight position on Rasmussen’s left wing. The Skipper called Oriskany: “Childs Play, Old Nick One. Requesting a vector.”
“Childs Play, wilco. Steer 360 degrees, 120 miles. Over.”
“Old Nick, wilco. Two, check your gadget.”
I loosened my tight wing position to adjust my radar; which apparently wasn’t working. My aircraft had only been received by the squadron last week. The previous owners were a Utility Squadron stationed at Atsugi, Japan; and they had little use for any of the F8-C’s weapons systems. The Sundowner maintainers had done their best to check the operation of all systems, but that was easier said than done aboard ship.
I couldn’t get the radar to shift out of the standby mode and responded regretfully, “Two’s gadget is bent.” That meant we wouldn’t be able to proceed as originally planned. I was to fly a one-mile radar-trail formation on Ras as we proceeded to the roll-in point for the hoped-for Focus headlight targets. Now we’d have to use Plan B, which was for me to stay on Rasmussen’s wing until the Skipper spotted a target and rolled-in. Then, I’d delay 4 seconds before rolling-in on my own target, if I saw one!
“Roger, Two. Stay on my wing. Go lights out. I’ll leave mine on as long as possible.” Ras knew the difficulties involved with two aircraft flying night formation without any lights, and he would delay that procedure as long as possible. However, he’d definitely have to darken ship at least 30 miles before we went feet dry approaching the well-defended target area.
There was no visible horizon or stars, only an occasional flash of lightning off to the northwest; where a thunderstorm was towering over Haiphong. That was a good thing. If the MiG’s were held down by bad weather at Kep Airfield, it would make our egress from the target much safer. A year earlier, Sundowner John Sandie and I had played tag with two MiG-17’s on a night mission into the Cac Ba islands off Haiphong. We were protecting an A-4 bombing mission against the NVN PT boat headquarters when Red Crown alerted us with “Heads up, Old Nicks. Two Red Bandits airborne, now 30 miles west.” We were then flying the newer versions of the F8, the E model, which was equipped with a respectable search radar. We had quickly acquired the bandits and promptly ended up with me locked onto the trailer of the two MiG-17’s, a mile back, with my Sidewinder missile giving a very nice tone. John was a half mile back, watching the whole thing on his radar. I’d begged Red Crown for permission to fire, but was denied by “Perfume,” the Yankee Station Commander, on the basis that I might be locked on one of the A-4’s instead of a MiG. The A-4’s had promptly chimed in that they had completed their mission and were already 20 miles south. Frustrated, and extremely agitated, I’d asked the A-4’s to go Christmas Tree. They reportedly did so, and there were no lights in the circle of my gunsight, which is where my radar indicated my target was positioned. The MiG’s ground controller apparently finally saw our Crusaders, and the -17’s dove for the deck. John and I chased them down to 300 feet at 400 knots, but were still denied permission to fire. Approaching the flak and SAM screen around Haiphong, we broke away from what would have been a sure kill. Three years later, Denny Wisely in an F-4 experienced a similar situation and scored what was likely the Navy’s only night kill of the war.
Approaching the Cac Ba islands, Ras cautioned that he was going lights out. We were descending through 15,000 feet and the humid night air was extremely black. My only indication of Old Nick One’s location was the dim red glow of Rasmussen’s cockpit lights on his canopy. It was not a comfortable run in to a heavily defended target! As predicted, we were picked up by Haiphong radars as we passed the islands. Thankfully, the pinging in our headsets was not accompanied by the warbling warning of a SAM launch, which was un-nerving enough in the daylight, let alone a dark night.
“Old Nick’s, go switches hot!” I risked a quick look down in front of the stick, to flip on my master arm switch and verify the wafer switch for selecting weapons’ stations was set for the Focus. As we’d discussed in the brief, it was not a very good set-up for the mission. After firing the Focus with the “pickle” on the side of the stick handle, we’d have to reach down to the wafer switch and move it to one of two Zuni stations. Since one of the Zuni stations was the last on the dial, we agreed it would be least distracting to fire the Focus, then grab the wafer switch and turn it quickly to the last position, rather than looking down to stop on the other Zuni station, which was before the Sidewinder station. I’d practiced the maneuver during my preflight inspection and knew I could do it without looking down.
Then we were over the coast, and the Firecan radars associated with NVN 57MM aircraft guns were searching for us. They’d obviously been alerted by the NVN early warning radar system. The warning sound in our earphones was a bone-chilling chirping squeal, no matter how many times we’d heard it!
Ras began maneuvering for a better look at the area and I hung on for dear life! As briefed, I’d moved to Rasmussen’s right side in preparation for his expected sharp roll in to the left to attack the target.
I tried a quick look down for some lights. In that moment, Ras called “Old Nick One, rolling in,” and he was gone. I checked my flight instruments, stood the F8 on its left wing, and stared down into the darkness. Yeah, man! There were two faint lights, maybe a hundred yards apart. I rolled inverted, pulled the ladder of my gunsight down to one of the lights, centered it in my gunsight and was rewarded with a clear tone from the Focus. A quick check of the instruments told me I was in a 40 degree dive, at 450 knots, going through 8,000 feet. A perfect run! I could not see any trace of Ras. I was hoping to see him fire his Focus, but I did not.
At 6,000 feet, with a loud Focus growl, I pressed the pickle. The Focus streaked off the fuselage, its white flame completely destroying my night vision. I found the wafer switch and turned it smoothly all the way to the last Zuni station.
All hell broke loose in front of my Crusader! There was a brilliant, unavoidable, explosion directly ahead of me. My engine apparently “swallowed” part of that explosion, which immediately induced a compressor stall. The compressor stall interrupted the compressor-air driven electrical generator. I was half-blinded and rocketing toward the ground at 450 knots, in a steep dive, with no lights for flight instruments, and no radio!
Reflexes developed from hundreds of wild maneuvers over 10 years as a Navy fighter pilot kicked in. I kept the stick centered laterally while pulling back into what I felt was a 4-G recovery. With my left hand, I struggled to grasp the flashlight which was always the last thing I hung around my neck before I went night flying.
I counted to ten, eased off the G and tilted my head up hoping to see a star. I hadn’t been able to see any before, and there were none there now. I looked over both cockpit rails, and there was a small glowing fire that had to be on the ground. I rolled the aircraft to position that light below the belly of my aircraft. My left hand found the flashlight and I pressed it against my chest while searching for the on button.
“And then there was light!” I moved the beam to focus on the artificial horizon indicator. As advertised, its electrical driven gyro was still spinning fast enough to give reliable information. I was 30 degrees nose high, and in a 20 degree left bank. Shifting the beam to the airspeed indicator, I noted 250 knots and dropping.
I quickly lowered the nose and leveled the wings. There was a distant flash of lightning in front of me, and I began a left turn away from what I knew would be the horrific air defenses around Haiphong. The flashlight beam showed my directional instrument was useless, so I focused on the old magnetic standby compass on the windscreen rail, and steadied up on a heading of 180 degrees. Remembering Childs Play Strike’s last vector instructions, the Oriskany would be out there some 120 miles ahead. I noted the time and set my airspeed at 300 knots. I’d be traveling about five miles a minute and made a mental note that I’d be home by 2315.
With the adrenalin rush over, I reverted to a mental review of emergency procedures. All the Crusader models that I’d flown had a back-up emergency electrical source. It was a ram air turbine, RAT for short. I pulled the handle to deploy it out the right side of the fuselage and was immediately rewarded by a faint glow around the center of the instrument panel. I was also able to relieve some of the pressure required to hold the stick as the trim system was re-energized.
There was some welcome static in my earphones and I could faintly hear Rasmussen talking with Red Crown: “There was an explosion around angels six over the target. He must have been hit. Launch the SAR helo as soon as possible.”
“Red Crown, roger that! We’ll have him in the air shortly, but we aren’t allowed to send him in unless you have contact with the downed pilot.”
“Old Nick, roger. I’m standing by over the target area.”
I frantically keyed the mike and broadcast repeatedly: “Old Nick One, Old Nick Two. Do you read? Over.” Unfortunately, there was none of the feedback in my headset that would normally accompany a successful transmission.
I tried again and again. I was safely enroute to Oriskany and had to abort the rescue attempt somehow. I fastened the goose-necked flashlight to my shoulder harness so I could see the necessary instruments and struggled to remove the emergency radio from my survival vest. Then I remembered! The first thing that early version of our survival radios would do when I turned it on was broadcast an emergency beeper that I couldn’t turn off. Such a transmission could result in some very brave souls in a slow-moving helicopter flying into a blazing hell of flak.
I prayed silently they’d follow the rules and not go feet dry without someone being in contact with the downed pilot. The only solution to the problem was to get back to Oriskany as soon as possible. But what chance did I really have of finding her? How much cross wind was there to my current flight path? I’d started from a position reasonably close to the target, which had originally been about 360 degrees from Oriskany. How far would Oriskany have moved from its original launch position? It was a quiet, hot, and dark night on Yankee, and the ship had to move at max speed to generate enough wind over the deck to launch and recover aircraft. They could be as much as 30 miles from that original launch position.
I pushed my speed up to 450 knots. The RAT was not supplying power to the fuel gauges. While landing weight for the Crusader was always a vital issue for the arresting gear, it was now a non-issue. Even if the gauges started working, I couldn’t tell the ship. I was confident they’d set the gear for max weight landing, but how could they even know I was there? The external light system was not powered by the RAT. I’d have to fit into a landing pattern somehow, and hope for the best.
“Our Father, who art in heaven . . .” I suddenly recalled I’d done something like this before. Almost exactly a year earlier, the Oriskany had been tasked with furnishing a section of F8-E’s to cover an SR-71 over-flight of Hanoi that would occur at 0200 hours. Severe thunderstorms had moved into Yankee Station, and flight ops had been cancelled at midnight. The SR-71 was reportedly coming out of Guam, and Oriskany had no word that the mission had been scrubbed. Communications, or the lack thereof, resulted in squadron-mate Tooter Teague (of Texas A&M-Bear Bryant football fame), and I being launched into the face of a vicious thunderstorm at 0130 hours. I was about a minute behind Tooter; we were hoping to break out of the top of the storm, but that was not to be. The weather was so severe; Childs Play was unable to hold us on radar. Using the Oriskany’s TACAN navigation system, we were able to remain oriented. Somewhere over the middle of North Vietnam, being buffeted with severe turbulence at over 40,000 feet, the call finally came: “Old Nicks, this is Childs Play. The mission has been cancelled. I say again, the mission has been cancelled. Your signal is RTB (return to base).”
Shortly after that transmission, a direct lightning strike blew the radar dome off the nose of my Crusader. It also fried my radio. I was left with only that great old TACAN nav system to find my way back to the Oriskany through one of the toughest storms in years. With more than a few “Heavenly Fathers”, I’d lined up 35 miles out from the ship and began the rough ride down through heavy rain and brilliant, blinding lightning. At ten miles, I was still in it at 1,500 feet. I gingerly descended to 1,000, then 500, at 2 miles I was edging down to 300 feet, when suddenly I was in the clear. Oriskany was exactly in the middle of about a ten-mile-diameter circle of clear air. A deep sigh of relief, a sharp turn to line up, and the beautiful sight of those center line lights and the “meat-ball” landing aid as a ready Oriskany welcomed me home. When I taxied forward out of the gear, I saw Tooter getting out of his aircraft.
What I wouldn’t give for a TACAN now! My plan was to continue on heading 180 degrees until the time I’d calculated had expired; then I’d begin an expanding square search that I recalled from my old days in the F6F Hellcat out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. We’d been searching for downed pilots from a mid-air collision. It was simply to fly a straight line for a certain amount of time, then turn 90 degrees port and continue for twice that amount of time, then turn 90 degrees port again and fly for 3 times that amount of time, etc. Hence the expanding square of coverage.
How could it be so damned dark anywhere in this world? Somewhere out there in the black hole in front of me, there were three aircraft carriers flying the flag of Uncle Sam. Unfortunately, only one of them would be operating at this time of night. That was my Oriskany, and I had to find her. The ship’s lights would be purposely dimmed, to make it difficult for the enemy. However, I knew that I’d be arriving somewhere on Yankee at about the same time Oriskany would be conducting the 2330 launch. That would mean 12 departing aircraft would hopefully have their wing lights on for at least a short amount of time. It also meant a line of 12 – no make that 11 – would be lined up one mile apart, coming down the “chute” to land.
My watch read 2310 when I saw what could have been a blinking red light about 30 degrees left of my Crusader’s nose. Remembering my night vision training, I didn’t stare at that spot, but kept moving my eyes around that general area. There it was again! I turned slightly to position the light just off my nose, and started descending. My radio was completely dead, the fuel gauges were stuck; and, unfortunately, the gyro in my artificial horizon instrument was clearly winding down and no longer reliable. With no visible horizon of any sort in the black hole, my only indication of wing and nose position were now rate-of-climb and turn-and-bank needles; instruments that were air pressure and inertia operated and which dated back to WWII and prior. They were not new to me. I’d taken night catapult shots in the original version of the F11-F, whose attitude gyro indicator often failed, and those instruments had saved me. However, climbing out after a cat shot was one thing; coming down to land on a carrier deck on a black night was another!
The aircraft with the rotating red beacon I’d spotted was apparently orbiting at about 10,000 feet. I guessed (hoped) it would be the A-4 emergency tanker waiting to refuel recovering aircraft that might have trouble landing on such a dark night. I could not see the carrier, but suddenly realized there was a widely spaced stream of faint lights approaching from the south. I changed my heading so I’d be looking straight up that stream, and there was the faint mast-head light of a carrier at the north end of the stream!
I flew over the carrier at 3,000 feet, did a descending tear drop turn to fall in position between the last two aircraft in the stream. In the midst of that turn, the faint lights in my flight instruments went out. I immediately struggled to focus the flashlight’s beam on the airspeed, turn-and-bank, and rate-of-climb instruments. It was exceedingly difficult to hold the flashlight steady. I ended up holding it in my left arm pit, while moving my left arm gingerly to control engine power.
I had to make a low pass to alert the Air Boss in the tower before I attempted a landing. If they didn’t know what kind of aircraft I was in, they wouldn’t have any idea how to set the arresting gear. Nothing good could come of that!
I flew a normal straight-in approach in the landing configuration; but with my arresting hook in the up position, hoping it was Oriskany, but willing to accept almost anything. The drop lights over the stern looked familiar, but the Kitty Hawk also had those. I flew the meat-ball on the landing aid down to a low pass. The LSO finally saw me coming, and it was probably the first time I’d been glad to see the bright red wave-off lights flashing at me. I added power, but was so far into the approach that my wheels inadvertently touched the flight deck. “Damn!” I thought, “If Pete Peters is on the platform, he’ll count that as a bolter!” I tried to glance at the ship’s island, but couldn’t be sure the numbers were 34.
Re-focusing on the limited flight instruments to initiate a left turn and circle for another approach, I suddenly realized I was absolutely fatigued! My eyes were burning from the sweat running down my face, and the herniated lumbar vertebra from a bad catapult shot a year earlier was killing me; but keeping me very alert! My left arm was trembling from the tension of controlling the throttle and holding the flashlight steady.
I finished my downwind 180 degree turn directly abeam the Landing Signal Officer platform near the end of the ship. I was certain the LSO would be following the sound of that blacked-out Crusader, which had suddenly appeared out of the darkness a few moments before. If it was fellow Sundowner Pete Peters, or the sister squadron’s J.P. O’Neil, I knew I’d soon be sipping one of the Flight Surgeon’s medicinal brandies.
Starting at the abeam position with 500 feet of altitude, I’d essentially be flying the approach that was normally done in the daylight. “There I was,” partial instruments, no radio, unknown fuel weight, flying in a black hole with a goose-neck flashlight under my arm pit. I turned in, made it past the 90 degree position and soon intercepted the glide path and the meat-ball at 300 feet and rolled wings level. “For God, for Country” . . . the ball started to go a little low but my trembling left arm applied exactly the right amount of power to stop the sink rate. Then I didn’t have to look at the turn needle anymore! The alignment of the stern drop lights and the deck center line lights was telling me my wing position. A little more power and WHAM! The Crusader’s hook caught the #2 wire and it was all over.
Taxiing forward, over my left shoulder, I caught the view of a Crusader waving off from a landing approach. My short turn-in approach had cut Bob Rasmussen out of the pattern. Somehow, I figured I’d be forgiven by a Skipper who would be damned glad he hadn’t lost another pilot and aircraft over Vietnam.
I was amazed to see that all the ordnance was off my aircraft. The two Zuni tubes were empty and both missile rails were clear.
Pete Peters had a theory that proved correct. On early models of the F8-C, the pickle was a gunsight caging button. When you were tracking the target, you pushed it to uncage the gyro and allow the gunsight to compute the correct lead on your target, and it stayed uncaged until you pushed it again. Its function was changed to fire missiles a couple years later, and a momentary switch was supposed to be installed. An inspection proved that change wasn’t installed, and the switch remained hot after being actuated. When I fired the Focus and moved the wafer to the last Zuni, it fired the first two Zuni’s, then the Sidewinder, then the last two Zuni’s. The first two Zuni’s fired were caught by the Sidewinder, which had produced the explosion I flew through.
Between 11 and 14 October 1967, I flew four consecutive night strikes against North Vietnam; in an effort to achieve a successful Focus missile launch. The first two missions were into the southern coastal area of the Red River Delta, near the infamous Thanh Hoa Bridge. Unfortunately, the search for truck headlights traveling south on main roads, or lights on off-shore barges, proved fruitless. The third attempt, as described above, also proved unsuccessful because neither I nor Bob Rasmussen had seen our Focus hit the ground.
The fourth attempt the next night was almost hilarious! My Focus failed its pre-flight check. I heard no growl when the Ordie tried the flashlight test. Extremely disappointed, I motioned the Ordie to my cockpit to talk with him. The remainder of the 12-plane launch was commencing, and it was loud and dangerous on the flight deck. Recalling last night’s exhilarating no-lights, partial-instrument carrier landing, and the fact that the weight of the Focus approximated the fuel required for one night approach, I asked the Ordie to take the Focus off the Crusader’s weapons pylon. The equally frustrated red-shirted Petty Officer scrambled down the ladder and over to his assistant, waiting in the catwalk behind our Crusader. I accomplished the remainder of my pre-flight checks and radioed the Air Boss that I had ordnance problems but would be up shortly. The Boss was not happy! I was spotted about half-way back on the left side of the deck and would have to get out of that position on schedule or risk delaying a ready-deck for returning aircraft.
Over my left shoulder I saw the Ordie gesturing wildly at his red-shirted supervisor. I waved at them to get their attention, and the Petty Officer quickly returned to my Crusader’s cockpit. They didn’t have anywhere to put the missile if the took it off! All the missile carts were already off the flight deck, but the dedicated Petty Officer was not giving up! He shouted at me that they would find a place, just as the A-4 next to us began taxiing forward. I grabbed the Ordie’s arm and hung on to him as the tail of the A-4 swung toward us. The resultant blast from the Skyhawk’s engine almost blew the red-shirt off the ladder, but he clung tightly to my arm.
I was angry as hell at the taxi director. Finally the A-4 was clear, and I shouted disgustedly at the Ordie: “Just throw the damned thing over the side!”
The Ordie descended and the taxi director was giving me the signal to hold brakes. The Air Boss was on the radio: “Old Nick 105, we have to move you. Are you ready to launch.”
I was in a Crusader still armed with four Zuni rockers and one Sidewinder. My wingman and I were briefed for a mission to destroy Soviet weapons moving over roads in North Vietnam, enroute to re-supply Communist forces attacking South Vietnam.
“105, up and ready.” The taxi director gave the signal and I began to taxi forward. A quick glance over my left shoulder revealed the two dedicated, fearless, Ordnance men lifting the 250 lb. Focus missile and gingerly lowering it to two other red-shirts in the catwalk.
Unfortunately, it was another disappointing mission. No visible lights on the ground. Only an occasional flash from Vietnamese flak sights apparently reacting to the sounds of our Crusader engines passing overhead in radar-trail formation. There had been a wild dive for the deck when the warbling warning of a Soviet SA-2 blared in our headsets. “Wild dive” at night meant rolling inverted, pulling sharply nose down 45 degrees, lifting a wing to attain a 90 degree bank, pulling through about 90 degrees of turn, then rolling wings level and pulling up into a 4.5G barrel roll.
We had gradually worked our way north from Thanh Hoa, up the coast of the Red River Delta. Then saw the lights of Haiphong about 20 miles ahead. Whenever I had ordnance left on my aircraft, my thoughts automatically returned to six weeks earlier, when my friend, Magic Stone A-4 driver Dick Perry, had been “bagged” 13 miles south of Haiphong. Hit by a Soviet SAM, Perry had made for the coast. He was barely feet wet when he ejected from his burning aircraft. As his parachute descended, flak sites along the coast fired a barrage of 57 and 85MM at his chute. A brave helo crew off the Northern Search-and-Rescue destroyer flew into that hell in an attempt to save him. The swimmer who went into the water found him literally shot to pieces. He was so entangled in the chute it was impossible to cut his body loose. Under incredibly heavy fire from the shore batteries, they were forced to withdraw.
Now, I was sure those batteries would open up again when they heard a Crusader overhead. “Brown Bear Two, break off right. Proceed to rendezvous at Angels 20 on TACAN bearing 325 degrees, 60 miles from Childs Play.”
“Two, wilco. Give ‘em hell, Brown Bear.” He had flown through this area with me before.
Back in over the beach at 15,000 feet, accelerating to 450 knots, guessing when I would be 13 miles south of the lights of Haiphong; then a hard turn to an easterly heading. Approaching feet wet again, I heard the expected cackle of search radars scanning the area. I pulled the nose up and tapped the afterburner briefly, broke sharply left for 90 degrees, looked down to see the AAA batteries open up on the location where I’d hit the ‘burner, continued left into a sharp 5G nose down maneuver to align my gunsight with the muzzle flashes, pickled off the first two Zuni’s, switched quickly to the last position on the wafer switch, and fired the last two. Then a 6G pitch-up into a barrel roll to the left, leveling out at 20 thousand feet enroute to the rendezvous with my wingy.
“For God, for Country, and Lady Jessie!”
Lady Jessie was the name Dick Perry had stenciled on his aircraft. It was in recognition of the owner of a casino in Reno, Nevada, who had played an important part in Perry’s younger life. Years later, an A4-E Memorial at NAS Lemoore CA would also bear that name. A fitting tribute to the memory of a brave young man, brutalized in a brutal war, thousands of miles from Reno.
Safely back on Oriskany, we waited in Ready Room Three for the squadron Air Intelligence Officer. It was a required debrief for all Focus missions.
“How did it go, Brown Bear?”
“Same old crap, Gordon. No lights, occasional SAMs and frequent 57MM! Anything to add, John?”
“No, Sir. Just another night at the movies.”
Ensign Moffett laughed, “Wish you guys would get rid of those damn Focus. The paperwork is horrendous. Yours is back in the missile magazine again, John. Brown Bear, where did you shoot yours?”
“Shoot mine? Last I saw it was being downloaded off the flight deck and on its way to the magazine.”
“No way, Jose! I just re-counted all those damn things on the way down here. Yours is not in the magazine. I checked your aircraft and it’s not there either.”
My career flashed in front of my eyes. “Oh, damn! Those guys couldn’t have taken me serious . . . could they?”
Skipper Rasmussen stepped through the door. “Did you hit anything, Dick? Sure would be great to finally report that we hit something with one of those damn things.”
I drew a quick breath. “Fired my Zuni’s at some gun flashes on the ground, Sir. But didn’t shoot the Focus. It failed the preflight test, and I had them download it before I launched.”
“Aw, damn! We’ll have to waste some more flights to get those things off my back.”
“Maybe one less, Skipper,” chimed Ensign Moffett. “I checked both the magazine and 105, and Brown Bear’s Focus is not there.”
“What? If he didn’t shoot it, where the hell is it?”
“Sir,” I began slowly, “when it didn’t check out, I asked the Ordies to download it so I could have fuel for another pass, if I needed it.”
“Yeah,” laughed the Skipper, “J.P. marked you down for a bolter last night. I tried to talk him out of it, but he said you were lucky he didn’t write you up for a hook-up pass, which would have required your setting up the bar the next time in Cubi.”
I continued: “Sir, I have a quezzy feeling about what happened to the Focus. The Ordies didn’t want to download it because all the missile carts were off the flight deck. I was only joking when I told them to throw the damned thing over the side, but . . .”
The Commanding Officer glared at us. “Do you jokers have any idea how much tax-payer money those pieces of junk cost?” He paused then continued, “Neither do I, but they sure aren’t worth whatever it is. Gordon, how are we going to report this?”
The young Ensign looked up from the form he was studying. “Sir, it’s pretty straight-forward: Geographical position, designated target, altitude and speed at release, estimated result.”
Ras thought for a moment. “Here’s your report, Mr. Moffett. Get the ship’s 2130 position from the Quartermaster for the georef. Designated target is ‘suspected water-borne craft,’ altitude is ‘90 feet,’ speed is ‘30 knots,’ and result is ‘obscured by darkness.’”
Years later, while assigned to the Pentagon, I visited the Naval Historical Department at the Washington Naval Yard to examine ordnance expenditure reports from the air war over Vietnam. There it was, exactly as the Skipper had dictated it! Scanning down the form, I noted a handwritten note in the comments section: “The fog of war.”