“FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE IN THE HANGAR DECK!”

0725 HOURS, 26 OCTOBER 1966, USS ORISKANY ON YANKEE STATION

LTJG Alexander      LTJG Balisteri             LT Blakely           ENS Boggs         LTJG Brewer          CDR Carter

LTJG Clements        LTJG Copple                AE3 Dilks            CDR Donahue      JOSN Dyke          CDR Farris

LCDR Ford                   LT Francis                 LT Gardner         LCDR Garrity             SN Gray          LT Hammond

CDR Harris                    AA Hart                  LTJG Hudis           LT Hyde              LTJG Johnson       CDR Juntilla

LTJG Kelly                   ENS Kern                      SN Lee           LCDR Levy            AZAN Liste               LTJG McWilliams        

LCDR Merrick            LT Miller         LCDR Morrisette       CDR Nussbaumer      BM3 Shanks   BM3 Shifflett

ENS Siebe           LCDR Smith             LTJG Spitzer               LCDR Strong         ENS Tardio         LTJG Tunick

MMFN Walling     CDR Welch        LTJG Welch

Forty-five officers and men, shipmates united in a deadly battle for the freedom of a desperate people, serving thousands of miles from their homes and families, dedicated to their oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America . . . now only names on a wall . . . killed while fighting valiantly to save their ship . . . written out of the history of the nation they loved by a media not worthy to kiss their feet . . . forgotten by all save their family, friends, and God.

Memories of the 26 October 1966 explosion and fire aboard USS Oriskany on Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf, and the men who perished there, will soon die with those of us who survived; but they are forever enshrined in the Heavens where most of them once soared so high as to “reach out and touch the face of God.”

My Oriskany roommate, VF-111 Sundowner Fighter Pilot Norm Levy, was killed in that fire.  Exactly one year later, I was again back on Yankee Station.  After flying my 4^th mission against Hanoi in 3 days, I rose from a restless night to scribble a note to Norm.  I folded it into a paper airplane, walked back to Oriskany’s fantail, lit the paper on fire, and launched it into the darkness above the ship’s wake (in the Fighter Pilot tradition of “being smoked”).

Norm and I would both have turned 82 this year . . . so, due to natural causes, this was the last of 47 annual letters I wrote to him.  A group of much appreciated patriots from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, led by Siemens’ Employee and Diver Extraordinaire Susan Snapp, saw the letter as it circulated on-line.  They were planning a dive on the “now-a-fish-farm” USS ORISKANY off Pensacola, Florida; so they encased a copy of my letter in a metal container, engraved it with a beautiful and touching memorial, dove down, and chained it to a frame within the now-barnacled PriFly space on Oriskany’s   0-5 level.  They were also so kind as to underwater video-tape the experience.  You can view it by googling “USS Oriskany Honor Mission for Lt. Commander Norm Levy.”  Photos have been attached to show the Oriskany on fire, a burial at sea for one of the casualties, my roommate’s body being off-loaded at Subic Bay, and some of their names on the Wall.

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To: Lieutenant Commander Norman Sidney Levy, US Navy Deceased (1934-1966)

Good morning, Norm.  It’s Memorial Day 2014, 07:29 Tonkin Gulf time.  Haven’t talked with you in a while.  That magnificent lady on which we went through hell together, USS ORISKANY, has slipped away into the deep and now rests forever in silent waters off the Florida coast.  Recall we shared a 6’ by 9’ stateroom aboard her during McNamara and Johnson’s ill-fated Rolling Thunder, when our Air Wing 16 suffered the highest loss rates of any naval aviation unit in the Vietnam conflict.  Three combat deployments, between May ‘65 and January ‘68, resulted in 62 aircraft shot down, 31 lost in flight operations, and 180 damaged by enemy fire, from our assigned complement of 64 combat aircraft.  With an assigned complement of 74 combat air crewmen, 59 of our aviators were killed and 13 captured or missing.  Our statistical probability of surviving Rolling Thunder, where the tactics and targets were designated by combat-illiterate politicians, was less than 30%.  The “probability” of one of our combat pilot’s being an atheist approached zero!

Seems like a good day to make contact again.  I’ve written every year since I threw that first “nickel on the grass” for you.  For several years, it was only a handwritten note . . .  which I ceremoniously burned to simulate your being “smoked.”  With the advent of the internet, I shared annual emails to you with some of our colleagues.  Unfortunately, the net’s now a cesspool of idiocy!  Much of it generated by those 16 million draft dodgers who avoided Vietnam to occupy and unionize America’s academia; where they clearly succeeded in “dumbing down” an entire generation that now controls the heartless soul of a corrupt “Hollywoodized” media.  This will be my last letter.  I’m praying Gabriel will soon fly my wing once more, and I look forward to delivering it to you personally.

This is the 48th year since I last saw you, sitting on the edge of your bunk in our stateroom.  You remember . . .  it was the 26^th of October 1966 and we were on the midnight-to-noon schedule.  There was a wall of thunderstorms over North Vietnam, with tops to 50,000 feet; but McNamara’s civilian planners kept sending us on “critical” missions all night.  At 04:00, they finally ran out of trucks to bomb, in that downpour, and we got a little sleep.

Our phone rang at seven; you were scheduled for the Alert Five.  I’d bagged a little more rack time than you, so I said I’d take it.   I went to shave in the shower room around the elevator pit, the one near the flare locker.  The ordnance men were busy putting away the flares.  They’d been taking them out and putting them back all night as McNamara’s “whiz kids” continually changed the targets.  I’d finished shaving and started back to our room when the guy on the ship’s loudspeaker screamed: “This is a drill; this is a drill, FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!”  I smelled smoke and looked back at the door that separated the pilots’ quarters from the flare locker.  Smoke was coming from underneath.

I ran the last few steps to our room and turned on the light.  You sat up on the edge of your bunk and I shouted:  “Norm, this is no drill.  Let’s get the hell out of here!”  I went down the passage way around the elevator pit, banging on the sheet metal wall and shouting:  “It’s no drill.  We’re on fire!  We’re on fire!”  I was rounding the corner of that U-shaped passage when the flare locker exploded.  There was a tremendous concussion effect that blew me down and out of the passage way and onto the hangar deck.  A huge ball of fire was rolling across the top of the hangar bay.

You and forty-five other guys, mostly Air Wing pilots, didn’t make it, Norm.  I’m sorry.  Oh, dear God, I am sorry!  But we went home together:  Norm Levy, a Jewish boy from Miami, and Dick Schaffert, a Lutheran cornhusker from Nebraska.

I rode in the economy class of that Flying Tigers 707, along with the other few surviving pilots.  You were in a flag-draped box in the cargo compartment.   Unfortunately, the scum media had publicized the return of us “Baby Killers,” and Lindberg Field was packed with vile demonstrators enjoying the right to protest.  The “right” you died for!

Our wives were waiting in a bus to meet our plane.  There was a black hearse for you.  The protestors threw rocks and eggs at our bus and your hearse; not a policeman in sight.  When we finally got off the airport, they chased us to Fort Rosecrans.  They tried to interrupt your graveside service, until your honor guard of three brave young Marines with rifles convinced them to stay back.

I watched the TV news with my family that night, Norm.  Sorry, the only clips of our homecoming were the “Baby Killer” banners and bombs exploding in the South Vietnam jungle . . . recall our operations were up North, against heavily defended targets, where we were frequently shot down and captured or killed.  It was tough to explain all that to my four pre-teen children.

You know the rest of the story: The vulgar demonstrators were the media’s heroes.   They became the CEO’s, who steal from our companies . . . the lawyers, who prey off our misery . . . the doctors, whom we can’t afford . . . the elected politicians, who break the faith and the promises.

The only military recognized as “heroes” were the POW’s.  They finally came home, not because of any politician’s self-aggrandized expertise, but because there were those of us who kept going back over Hanoi, again and again . . . dodging the SAM’s and the flak . . . attacking day and night . . . keeping the pressure on . . . all by ourselves!  Absolutely no support from anyone!  Many of us didn’t come home, Norm.  You know; the guys who are up there with you now.  But it was our “un-mentioned” efforts that brought the POW’s home.   We kept the faith with them, and with you.

It never really ended.  We seemed to go directly from combat into disabled retirement and poverty, ignored by those whose freedoms we insured by paying that bloody premium.  The politically adjusted report, issued for the 100^th Anniversary of U.S. Naval Aviation, confirmed that we, and our brothers who flew in Korea, have been written out of American history.  Norm, I only hope that today’s over-paid bureaucratic “dudes” who cook the books, scramble the facts, and push the propaganda for their political puppet-masters, will not succeed in scrubbing your name off the Wall.  That Wall and our memories are the only things many of us have left.  We hold those memories dear!  We band together in groups like the Crusader Association, which is now holding its 27^th “Last Annual” reunion.  Some say the association has to do with flying a peculiar aircraft, I say it has to do with a peculiar bunch of guys.  We’ll all be seeing you shortly, Norm.  Put in a good word for us with the Man.  Ask Him to think of us as His peace-makers, as His children.  Have a restful Memorial Day, Fighter Pilot.  You earned it.

Very Respectfully, Your Roommate Dick (Brown Bear) Schaffert

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It’s been more than 40 years since I finally sailed from Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf (aboard another carrier), arrived off the southern California coast, made my last catapult launch, and proudly led my squadron home to Naval Air Station Miramar. There were no “cheering crowds” to greet us, only family and friends from whom we had literally been separated for years.  We, who had cheated death or imprisonment in the Hanoi Hilton, didn’t need any of the Hollwoodized fanfare that now accompanies the return of “warriors.”  We had each other; and, as we had learned during 10,000 days and nights of combat flying and fighting over North Vietnam, that’s all we really needed — each other! Our duty was to God, honor and country, but our allegiance in those politically troubled times was first and foremost to each other!

I can truthfully and factually state, since my return from that combat, I have never witnessed any meaningful “act” by any politician that recognized my service or the sacrifices of my roommates and wingmen.

Very Respectfully Submitted,  Dick (Brown Bear) Schaffert