ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED WHEN NAVAL AVIATION ROARED TALES OF THE BRAVE AND BOLD 20

COMMEMORATING THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE VIETNAM WAR (1961-1973)… and honoring the valiant Naval Aviators. Naval Flight Officers, and air crewmen who carried the war to Ho Chi Minh’s doorstep in downtown Hanoi during the years of Operation Rolling Thunder (1965-1968)…

GOOD EVENING. Faithful Scribe has another Intruder tale to tell. WHEN NAVAL AVIATION ROARED. Tale #20 of 50. Nothing fancy–just your average A-6A Intruder Rolling Thunder mission. Two young warriors of Medium Attack Squadron ONE NINETY-SIX embarked in USS CONSTELLATION (CVA-64) doing what they were trained to do. Carry the fight to the enemy where he lives and destroy military targets. Make his life miserable and destroy his will and ability to fight. All in a night’s work…a hundred night’s work… and then another cruise and another 100 missions… “Where do we find such men?”…

Source of the following tale: Author’s notes from 1985 research of CINCPACFLT Vietnam Awards Files…

STRATEGIC INTERDICTION: Destruction at the top of the funnel for war materials headed south to support North Vietnamese and Viet Cong combat operations in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia…

In the early morning hours of 23 June 1967, a highly-destructive night Rolling Thunder A-6A Intruder radar bombing attack on the Thai Binh Transshipment and storage area, 35 miles southwest of Haiphong, North Vietnam, was executed with extraordinary results. Thai Binh, situated along the Song Tra La River at the intersection of several major highways and railroad lines originating in Haiphong, Hai Duong and Hanoi, was the target for a lone VA-196 A-6 strike. In order to inflict maximum damage to the target, the assigned crew of LIEUTENANT Elwood Jay SUERETH, pilot, and LIEUTENANT Jiles Underhill ACORD, Jr, Bombardier/Navigator, made an intensive study of available charts, photographs, and known defenses. The target was within range of several SAM sites, at least three of which were active on June 22-23. In addition, the route to and from the target and the target area were covered by more than fifty 37mm, 57mm and 85mm antiaircraft artillery sites, more than half of which were manned and ready to defend against the lone A-6 headed to the Thai Binh complex. Enemy MiGs were possible, but unlikely to oppose the night low level bombing attack.

After studying the enemy defenses and the orientation of the target, LT SUERETH and LT ACORD determined the optimum approach would be from the southeast. The attack would be on a northwesterly heading, and the actual attack heading would have to be within one degree of the pre-planned heading to ensure maximum destruction of the target. Since the radar significance of the target itself was doubtful, LT ACORD would have to rely on offset bombing technique to direct the aircraft to the proper release point. He then measured and calculated precisely the required data and runin heading to obtain the most accurate results. The attack would involve a low level–200 feet AGL– approach with a climb, initiated ten miles from the target, to an altitude of 2,000-feet affording better radar acquisition of the target area. LT ACORD would have appproximately one minute to identify the appropriate offset aimpoint, initiate tracking, and facilitate an accurate bombing solution.

Shortly after midnight in the early AM of 23 June 1967, LT SUERETH and LT ACORD launched from USS CONSTELLATION at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin into a clear sky lighted by a full moon, which would prove to be more help to the enemy gunners than the Intruder crew navigating by radar. The crew perfomed required reliability aircraft and bombing system checks before going feet dry at their preplanned coast-in point. At feet dry the lone A-6 began picking up small arms and automatic weapon fire that continued to their initial point where a climb to 2,000-feet for radar acquisition of the navigation and bombing aim points neccessary to strike the Thai Binh Transhipment and storage area. LT ACORD quickly acquired and identified the appropriate aim point and initiated the bombing solution. LT SUERETH immediately accomplished the directed maneuvers to establish the aircraft on the desired attack heading. With approximately seven miles — less than one minute of flight time– to the target, the intruding Intruder was taken under intense antiaircraft fire that buffeted the aircraft as it maintained a steady, level run across the target. LT ACORD, with unusual coolness, made his final adjustments to his aim point and LT SUERETH made corresponding adjustments to the final path across the target. LT ACORD released the string of 22 MK-82 500-pound bombs precisely as planned and LT SUERETH immediately executed a high “G” breakaway turn on instruments descending to minimum altitude to avoid expected SAM opposition. SAM missile warnings failed to result in any observed SAM firings, but the intense flak followed the path of the Intruder as it rolled out on a forty mile path to coast out. In the turn, the bombs were observed to explode on target and create several secondaries and towering fires that were still visible to the crew more than four minutes later (about 20 miles southeast of the blazing target). Mission accomplished, the intrepid Intruder crew took deep breaths as they reported feet wet enroute to a full moon landing on Connie. The bold, brave young aviators had logged another two-hour adventure in the ever dangerous skies of Rolling Thunder… Tomorrow night: Thai Nguyen…

BITS OF RIBBON. The young Intruder crew of LT Elwood SUERETH and LT Jiles ACORD were awarded NAVY COMMENDATION MEDALS with the Combat Distinguishing Device (V)… Second Gold Stars in lieu of third NCMs with CDD…

END NOTE. Faithful Scribe has been requested to post a copy of a VA-75 Dining-In speech made in January 1977 at the NAS Oceana O’Club while I was Commander, Carrier Air Wing THREE (USS SARATOGA). It is proudly presented here:

CAG Speaks

I remember the first commander of a Navy Air Group (CAG) I ever saw. He was talking to the Captain on the bridge of Michener’s fictitious carrier in the movie version of The Bridges of Toko-Ri. The Hollywood version of the CAG was the usual grizzled, square-jawed hero type dressed in wrinkled khakis and a well-patched leather flight jacket. But it wasn’t so much what the CAG looked like as it was what he said that stands out in the early memory. At that point in the movie the air group had a full share of bad luck both in operations against the enemy in Korea and around the deck of the carrier. Michener’s golden pen gave Hollywood all it needed to make the tailhook profession come across as one of the most hazardous and demanding, as well as glamorous, occupations a man could pursue. So it was easy to understand the CAG when he asked an unanswered question of the Captain, “Where do we get such men?” It is a question that predates my Navy career, now at 22 years, and one for which I have been molding an answer since I heard it in 1955.
“Where do we get such men?” I have asked myself the question repeatedly as I watched squadron mates and shipmates hit the ramp, fail to survive cold catapult shots, and run the gauntlet of flak, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and MiGs to hit targets in the heartland of North Vietnam, some never to return, others to survive six or seven years of incarceration. I have also asked the question whenever I have observed the countless other tests of human desire and ability to survive in the face of danger inherent in this occupation and of the depths of courage required to press on where other men would shy away or turn back. It is the question I have asked whenever I have seen men refuse to fear as they pushed on.
I remember most vividly one evening on Enterprise (CVA(N)-65) at Yankee Station ten years ago this month. I passed through the IOIC, or CVIC as we know it today, at about 8:00 PM to pick up some charts of the Ninh Binh area in Route Package 6. I was to lead a division to that fairly well defended area at dawn the next day. I knew the weather was rotten and I’d be sure be going on another milky-radar drop south of the DMZ, but IOIC was chock full of VA-35 A-6 crews. I intruded on the Intruders and got a rubberneck look at a briefing chart Commander Glenn Kollman (Executive Officer of VA-35) was preparing in order to show the on-board Admiral where the night’s 12 A-6 strikers where going. Twelve strips of narrow colored tape were laid out to show the different routes planned to take the 12 aircraft across the night’s targets and back to Enterprise. I was awed by the directness of the routes and by the destination targets. All but a few were aimed straight at the heartland of North Vietnam – Hanoi, Hai Duong and Haiphong. These brave A-6 shipmates were preparing for a task more demanding and more hazardous that any I’d ever seen. I was going on a milky and their guys were going to the heartland, again and again, every night. I stepped clear of the Intruder chart makers and in total awe and admiration, asked again, “Where do we get such men?”
For years the Naval Aviation prima donnas were the fighter pilots. I remember the signs in the F-8 era that said “Gangway, Fighter Pilot”. But the courage, skill and success of the Intruder crews who penetrated the toughest gauntlet of opposition in the history of aerial warfare every night, who made two combat cruises and flew the hundreds of missions, who carried the war when all others were grounded by weather, and who met and killed the enemy, changed all that. The Intruder crews became the prima donnas, and when the shooting begins again they will be in the van and they will once again be the ones that will have to muster the courage, skill and determination to press on, and defeat the enemy. Gone are the “Gangway, Fight Pilot” signs, and if they ever hang new ones they must say “Gangway, Intruder Crews”. For they are the men who will go first, endure more, and suffer most greatly when we are called to do our duty. They, more than any others, must therefore develop and maintain a reservoir of courage that will sustain them in the execution of their vital duty. It will be the kind of courage that General George Patton held came largely out of habit and self-confidence.
My study of military history has led me to the conclusion that every military effort in the past has been spearheaded by an elite force of courageous, skilled, disciplined and loyal fighters imbued with the spirit of attack. Intruder crews are that elite among the elite. That’s you, Sunday Punchers. You will ride Saratoga into harm’s way and you could very well be the first on the scene. You will be the elite that will spearhead Saratoga’s effort. You can count on it, and you will have to be able to dig down in your brave hearts and find the courage, the skill, the discipline and the loyalty to fight with the spirit of attack. I have no doubt that you will find in your hearts the vital qualifications and that you will succeed. Just as the Intruder crews did in Vietnam.
You are “such men” and I know where you come from. You are the cream of the nation’s manhood, men who have combined a career and service to your country. Men who have elected to participate of your own choice, in a death-defying profession. Men who can at any time say, “That is enough” and leave the service, to do well at some other profession I have no doubt. Men who along with me suffer the fantastic disease of the pounding heart, who know the exhilaration of running on pure adrenaline. Men who willingly trade the freedoms of a democratic society for the restrictions of a military order knowing that in the exchange comes an equalizing ticket to the unequalled freedom of the skies.
And you – you have a tradition to uphold. One that Commander Kollman and Lieutenant John Griffith typify. CDR Kollman died at the controls of his A-6 toward the end of his second combat deployment a few days after he said, “To me, my duty here is as natural and normal as accepting the responsibility of caring for my wife and children. It is my job and I’m going to do it. I would not ask someone else to do my job.” And the bravest of the brave, LT John Griffith who died with Skipper Kollman, “This is my job, I believe in what I am doing. I can do it well and I will.”
Where do we get such men? Out there in our society. Where are such men? Right here; among the Sunday Punchers.

The short speech was later published in NAVAL AVIATION NEWS June 1977, page two. It can be found online at:

https://www.history.navy.mil/content/dam/nhhc/research/histories/naval-aviation/Naval%20Aviation%20News/1970/pdf/jun77.pdf

NEXT POST. The BONNIE DICK light attackers do the Uong Bi Power Plant on 11 June 1967. But the story is about the rescue of Pageboy 450.

Lest we forget…   Bear