RIPPLE SALVO… #293… THE ATTACK PILOT’S DREAM: DROP A BRIDGE… but first…
Good Morning: Day TWO HUNDRED NINETY-THREE of a return to an air war fought fifty years ago… Rolling Thunder…
20 December 1966…HOME TOWN HEAD LINES from the New York Times on a cloudy Tuesday with light snow in the air…
Page 1: “U.S. Asks Thant to Seek Parley for a Full Truce” …”Goldberg suggests he take any steps he considers necessary on Vietnam. U.N. Chief makes move by calling in Algerian and Soviet envoys as Washington acts to bar false hopes. Request to Thant is in the form of a letter from Goldberg. What ever is necessary to bring a ceasefire in Vietnam…Washington’s full cooperation is in promoting discussions and bringing them to a successful conclusion. (In Washington officials said the Goldberg letter was not the opening round in the new peace offensive but a move to draw Mr. Thant into efforts to find an opening on the Communist side.) The key paragraph of the Goldberg letter: ‘We turn to you therefore, with hope and the request that you will take whatever steps you consider necessary to bring about the necessary discussions which could lead to a ceasefire. I can assure you that the Government of the United Statesw will cooperate fully with you in getting such discussions started promptly and in bringing them to a successful conclusion.’…The Three conditions Thant requires to commence talks: (1) U.S. must stop bombing, (2) Both sides must reduce ground fighting, and (3) The talks must include the National Liberation Front (Vietcong)…”… Page 6: “Hanoi Again Vows to Fight to Victory”…”Hanoi insists on a protracted war of resistance against the U.S. and to continue the fight until complete victory.’ The Chinese followed with: ‘We are ready to march to the front any time the Vietnamese people require.’ The declarations of unity and support in…’Celebration of 20th anniversary of 1946 resistance of French to restore colonial power after World War II. The celebration was ‘a symbol of unity of the entire people to carry out a protracted war of resistance and to win victory and a brilliant expression of the Vietnamese people’s determination to sacrifice all rather than be enslaved.’ “…
Page 1: “Harper Defends Position to Publish; Kennedy’s Object”… Decision based on position that the public has the right to know the facts of this awesome tragedy, the assassination of President Kennedy. ‘We are defending the books right to live.’ Family argues publisher and Manchester broke a written agreement not to publish until November 1968.”… Page 6: “Secretary of the Army Stanley Resor awarded the Medal of Honor to 1Lt Walter J Marin, Jr. for his heroic actions (killed 18 enemy troops) in the Battle of Iadrang Valley in November 1965. A quote from Resor’s remarks: “Personal courage is a magnificent thing. The ability to lead other men in the face of extreme danger is a rare gift.”
Page 10: R.W Apple writing from Saigon: “Key Vietman Problem: U.S. still unable to sap foes forces faster than they can be replaced. Quote from an unamed U.S. General: ‘Look at these totals. Thousands killed, probably thousands more wounded. It goes on week in, and week out, but we haven’t beaten them down yet. They can still pour in men faster than we can manage to kill them.’ Westmoreland: ‘Not until late 1967 or early 1968 will American strength in the field bring the allies to the point where they can kill enemy soldiers faster than replacements can be recruited in the Mekong Delta or infiltrated down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”
20 December 1966… The President’s Daily Brief… CIA (TS sanitized) CAMBODIA: The Cambodians have again experienced the frustrations of negotiating with the Communists. In late summer the Cambodians spent a fruitless month trying to get Vietcong representatives to buy an agreement accepting the present alignment of the Cambodian border with Vietnam. (The rest of the page redacted)…SOUTH VIETNAM: Labor trouble could hit the Saigon docks this week. Several hundred Vietnamese stevedores are losing their jobs tomorrow when a US Army service battalion takes over some of the cargo handling at the military port. The stevedores had been hired on a temporary basis pending arrival of the US unit, but the situation is being exploited by contending labor leaders. There is talk that other stevedores in the Port of Saigon may go out on a sympathy strike. An effort is underway to find new jobs for the discharged men… SOUTH VIETNAM: “The enemy is determined to destroy our base amp in War Zone C this year,” stated a recently intercepted Vietcong message. Since Operation Attleboro ended in late November, there have been several such messages indicating the Communists are jumpy about the prospects of another major strike into their long time jungle preserve northwest of Saigon. Most of the messages warn subordinate units to watch for new US troop concentrations… JORDAN: Husayn’s radical Arab neighbors are keeping the pressure on him. The United Arab Command is pushing for implementation of its decision of two weeks ago to station Iraqi and Saudi troops in west Jordan by mid-February…
20 DECEMBER 1966…OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER…New York Times (21 December reporting 20 Dec ops) Page 3: “Planes Strike Route to China”…”American Air Force F-105s struck within 25 miles of the Chinese border yesterday to destroy a railroad bridge on the main supply route into North Vietnam at Langbun 135 miles northwest of Hanoi. Navy A-4 Skyhawks from the carrier Enterprise flew in from the Gulf of Tonkin to destroy two more bridges 45 miles south of the coastal port of Vinh.”… “Vietnam: Air Losses” (Hobson) There was one fixed wing aircraft lost in Southeast Asia on 20 december 1966…
(1) 1LT DAVID ANTHONY LUM and an unidentified back-seater were flying an F-4C of the 497th TFS and 8th TFW out of Ubon on a ferry flight when the Phantom suffered a flight control failure and crashed at sea off Military Region 1. 1LT LUM was killed in the operational accident. The other crewman was rescued and survived. 1LT LUM died fifty years ago in the service of his country and is remembered as a young and honorable warrior taken too soon…
RIPPLE SALVO… #293… RTR offers a double-barreled post on this day, 20 December. “Mighty Thunder” posts the first person tale of a Navy Fighter Pilot– Rear Admiral Denny Wisely, who lived the fighter pilot’s dream on 20 December 1966 when he and his RIO, Dave Jordan, bagged a North Vietnamese aircraft (an AN-2). The post is Chapter 7– “FIRST Shootdown”– out of his book . From the other barrel, your Humble Host tells a tale of a Navy Light Attack Pilot’s equivalent dream– to bag a bridge. Modesty forbid, here is my account of my first combat flight flown on 18 December 1966 that I mailed home to the family. “A Dream Come True: to Kill a Bridge”…my first counter…
I was about as sleepy as a kid on Christmas eve night. I rolled and squirmed with the anxious thoughts of the coming day. My eyes were wide open most of the night. What my mind turned over and over at max RPM was not a kid’s vision of sugar plums or a new football, all I saw was flak and surface-to-air missiles–the visions of a first combat flight fraught with danger.
The year and a half preceding my first combat flight were spent as an A-4 Skyhawk flight instructor. I was well informed and well prepared for a combat seat since it was my instructor assignment to boil out the essence of combat reports from the Gulf of Tonkin and update the training squadron’s tactics and navigation syllabi. I was proficient in the A-4 with over 1500-hours and several years of carrier squadron experience–Cold War cruises in the Mediterranean looking the Soviet in the eye, always ready to deliver a MK-28 on a Communist target if the balloon went up, as it almost did in October 1962. As an instructor in VA-125 at Lemoore Naval Air Station for 16-months prior to assignment to VA-113 of Carrier Air Wing Nine embarked in USS Enterprise, I met and flew with scores of the attack pilots flowing out to the 24 squadrons of A-4s of the Pacific Fleet.
My brush-up before and after joining the VA-113 Stingers was the best preparation for combat available anywhere in the world, but I had never been shot at. At dawn on 18 December 1966, my ten years of getting ready came to an end.
The usual morning routines were accomplished as a zombie with my mind engrossed in what ifs? The vivid pictures presented in weeks of briefings of enemy defenses streaked through my mind. The welcome advice of the squadron Executive Officer Andy Burnett, who was returning for his second combat cruise and an old hand at carrying the fight to the enemy in his homeland, was helpful in suppressing my fears. He told me, along with ten other untried new boys, that we had four things going for us. First, we were, and are, the best trained pilots in the world and that we fly a great aircraft. The A-4 had proven to be able to withstand violent punishment and still make it back to the carrier, or at least to the relative safety of the sea. Second, the enemy gunners record of downed aircraft wasn’t very impressive when the total number of sorties flown over their guns was considered. Third, we pick our time and place to attack. If the weather or other conditions aren’t tilted in our favor we lay back and go another day. Fourth, our attitude was just right. We were neither complacent nor too aggressive. He said we were ready. It was hard not to accept every word. I was still uptight and looking for the relief that can only come with getting out and doing it.
The briefing for my first strike sortie was thorough. I was flying wing on a seasoned warrior with as much experience in light attack as I had, plus a full combat cruise of more than 100 counters in his log book. Ted Bronson and I had cruised together in the Med on USS F.D. Roosevelt, among other adventures. I would fly Ted’s wing on a well defended bridge near Ha Tinh. The intelligence officer’s brief covered the words of the day, hot flak areas, who and what was where, and the weather. Another hour was spent in the squadron ready room with Ted briefing the specifics of our assignment, including: our comm plan, navigation, target recognition, alternate mission in case of weather at the target, strike tactics, and emergency procedures. When all the questions had been answered and we were thinking exactly alike, we suited up.
With the call to man the aircraft, we checked the maintenance records of our assigned aircraft. Then it was “arriba, arriba, pronto, pronto,” as it was my custom to call aloud, and off to the flight deck to meet my Skyhawk for the day.
An o’dark thirty 0600 manning covered my apprehension from the young plane captains under and around my bird and I moved quickly though my pre-flight to seek the safety of the tight Skyhawk cockpit. Start and pre-launch procedures were automatic and I was as ready as my ride– “304.” About the only specific I remember from the pre-launch routine was the bomb load–five MK-82 500-pounders. A max load for the catshot. A great load for banging a bridge.
The night catapult shot was routine and just as scary as they always are. But this cat shot was special–I was off the carrier to carry out a long awaited event–go get shot at while knocking down a bridge, and come back to do it again and again. The light attack pilot’s dream. I also noted that I was the first attack pilot off the cat on the first event of USS Enterprise’s second combat cruise.
I felt very comfortable climbing up out of the dark to my rendezvous point and after a turn at rendezvous I spotted the lights of my flight leader climbing up to the point and quickly closed on Ted’s wing for the transit to the beach of North Vietnam. We orbited in place for several minutes awaiting the sun rise. Quiet. Smooth. Gentle aviating. Calm before storm. As the sky lightened we turned westward toward the land of Southeast Asia and homeland of our enemy. Shortly, the coast of North Vietnam came into view, but alas, the area of our target was covered with several layers of clouds. Ted turned to the southwest and headed for clearer skies west of Cape Mui Ron, a small peninsula that sticks out into the Gulf of Tonkin and an easily identified point for navigation. Our alternate mission was an armed reconnaissance of Highway 1A. We were to check for trucks reported to be moving south just west of Cap Mui Ron. As we approached the coast — switches on–Ted dropped his nose and added power to accelerate to about 400-knots. I dove after him in a free cruise at his six as he picked up the ribbon of road called Highway 1A, a main artery running the length of North Vietnam from Thanh Hoa to the demilitarized zone at 17 North.
Ted kept his speed up and was jinking from one side of the barren highway to the other, but the cloud cover limited the area we could cover. Ted pulled up into a climb back to dive bombing altitude from his 3000-foot recce altitude, and as we reached 10,000-feet he called a target for our ten Mk-82s. He identified it as a small bridge on the highway that crossed what appeared to me to be an irrigation canal winding between lowlands covered by squares of rice paddies. The gray of dawn was fading and the greens and browns of the area were now coming alive. It was as peaceful a scene as any I could imagine. Where was the enemy? And the flak?
I dropped back to look for the bridge somewhere south of Ha Tinh as Ted rolled in hot. I took a little more interval and sighted the target. Thousands of hours of weapons delivery training took over and the little Skyhawk and I slid into a 45-degree dive and tracked up the dive line to bring the little bridge under my pipper as I hit the 4000-foot release point–bombs away. As I pulled off in a 4-g up and to the right recovery, I saw Ted’s bombs cover the target and a few seconds later I saw my five 500-pounders track right through the bridge. Five blossoms of fire, smoke and dust exploded on a tight line on target. I also noted the smooth surfaces of the near-by rice paddies being broken by falling debris as I climbed up to rendezvous on my leader.
I rejoined Ted and we hightailed the dozen or so miles to the coast at high speed and increasing altitude with a jink or two just in case. From there to marshall for recovery on the Enterprise was unremarkable, as was my carrier landing. But I do remembere the feeling of exhilaration and joy to have accomplished a light attack pilot’s dream–weapons delivered with precision on an enemy target. Damn, that was fun. One down and a couple hundred to go. God willing.
Denny Wisely would kill another enemy aircraft, a MIG-17, flying with Gary Anderson later in his cruise on USS Kitty Hawk on 24 April 1967. Two kills! And I would get many more opportunities to drop a span or two–Vinh, Vinh Son, Thanh Hoa, Dong Phong Thong, Hai Duong and Haiphong…
Lest we forget… Bear -30-
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