The year 1965 was a portent of the most tumultuous period in modern American history. It began with President Johnson calling for the creation of his Great Society, whose major goals included the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. It was not to be. Although Johnson viewed the landslide Democratic victories of 1964 as validation of his policies, domestic turmoil and the fight against Communism, especially in Vietnam, derailed his vision.
Politically, Johnson’s involvement in Vietnam seemed logical. Fearing the specter of Communist hegemony, his administration had to act. The lack of any coherent strategy doomed it to failure, however. On 13 February 1965 President Johnson approved the inauguration of what was to become Operation Rolling Thunder. The initial raid was to be against the Quang Khe naval base and Vu Con barracks on 20 February. The targets were all in the southern part of North Vietnam and relatively minor. Due to political unrest in Saigon, Ambassador Maxwell Taylor canceled the raids. One of the initial political restrictions required South Vietnamese participation in the strikes, something they could not do while faced with the likelihood of another coup. It seemed the situation in Vietnam was spiraling rapidly out of control, though in fact the country had seen continuous turmoil for months. Since the bloody coup of Diem in 1963, the Republic of South Vietnam had gone through seven presidents.
Rolling Thunder finally began on 2 March with a strike by U.S. Air Force and South Vietnamese Air Force aircraft. These first strikes reverberated around the world, drawing criticism from both free and Communist capitals. Despite this, the United States was about to rapidly expand its role. On the same day that African Americans were beaten for attempting to march from Selma to Montgomery, elements of the Ninth Marine Expeditionary Brigade landed at Da Nang. They landed not as part of an overall troop buildup but to protect the Da Nang air base, from which American aircraft were operating. After an almost two week-delay, further strikes were finally authorized, this time with the aircraft carriers of CTF-77 participating. Under the semblance of restraint, these deliberate responses were designed to prevent an all-out aerial assault that would result in open conflict with the Soviets or the Chinese, which could lead to the possible use of nuclear weapons. Politically, these token efforts under the guise of limited and deliberate responses may have made sense, but the restrictions and insignificance of the early Rolling Thunder targets dismayed military commanders executing the orders. In early April Johnson expanded the mission of the marines at Da Nang from passive air base defense to active patrolling. The Americanization of the war had begun, and by year’s end two hundred thousand American servicemen would be in Vietnam. It was under these circumstances that Oriskany set sail on 5 April 1965.
Onboard Oriskany, her men knew they were sailing into harm’s way, though they knew little else. Other than a perceived need to staunch the spread of Communism—to save the Southeast Asian dominoes from tumbling—the United States’ involvement had not been truly defined. Nevertheless, President Johnson and his advisors had crossed a critical threshold by deciding to commit American forces to fight in Vietnam. They did so on the predication of a much larger commitment, even though they had neither declared war nor informed the American public.1 Indeed, Robert McNamara admitted years later that all the errors in Vietnam had been committed by the spring of 1965; after that, there seemed no way out.2 Over time, the goal of maintaining U.S. credibility would quietly surpass the supposed objective of a free and independent South Vietnam. Once blood had been spilled, however, it would be impossible to withdraw with any credibility intact. This mindset resulted in increased bombing without any clearly defined objectives. Leadership became fixated on the means rather than the ends. Casualties steadily mounted, and the futility of it all would eventually cause the American public to lose faith.3 This lack of strategy had tremendous implications for Oriskany as she sailed for war.
In the rank structure aboard the navy’s aircraft carriers in the 1960s, the commander, air group (CAG) was subordinate to the captain of the ship. Though the air wing was the carrier’s main battery to project power ashore, air wing commanders could find themselves answering to people who knew little about combat—or had little idea of the tactical realities of the air war over North Vietnam, whether they were out-of-touch ship captains or staff officers trying to drum up numbers for Pentagon briefings. With the exaggerated emphasis that was placed on sorties, the promotion of the captain of an aircraft carrier to admiral often depended on how many sorties his ship produced.4 As the officer primarily responsible for what the sorties actually accomplished during day-to-day tactical operations over North Vietnam, the position of CAG became one of the most revered and sought-after leadership positions in naval aviation. Those selected as CAGs were typically above-average pilots with superior performance throughout their career. They had successfully completed a tour as the commander of a fighter or attack squadron and made the cut above their peers. The competition has always been extremely harsh: since the position was created in the 1920s, fewer than a thousand men have held this coveted job.5 Selection as CAG was seen as the culmination of nearly twenty years of preparation and training, making that man the acknowledged leader in a profession that was very unforgiving of error.6
Cdr. James Bond Stockdale was the archetypical air wing commander. He commanded CVW-16 during the 1965 cruise and set the stage for the air wing’s accomplishments during Rolling Thunder. A native of Abingdon, Illinois, Jim Stockdale graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1947. By 1954 he’d been accepted into the Navy Test Pilot School alongside future astronaut John Glenn. Before he became the commanding officer of VF-51, a fighter squadron on USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), Stockdale earned his master’s degree from Stanford University and was on the fast track. Stockdale took command of CVW-16 in April 1965, just as Oriskany departed for Southeast Asia. Stockdale had a wealth of experience concerning operations in Vietnam, since his squadron had already been on station in the Tonkin Gulf. He had also been airborne as the on-scene commander during the Tonkin Gulf incident and knew that there had been no second North Vietnamese attack in August 1964. Stockdale also took part in several of the initial reprisal raids. These experiences made him uniquely suited for command of Oriskany’s air wing as she departed for her first Vietnam War cruise.
A large part of Stockdale’s success can be attributed to his relationship with Oriskany’s captain, Bart Connolly III. Connolly commanded PT-115 alongside John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 in the Solomon Islands during World War II. He was awarded the Navy Cross before eventually becoming a naval aviator in 1947. Connolly assumed command of Oriskany in March 1965, immediately making an impact with his leadership style. Connolly gave the CAG authority to run his air wing as he saw fit, something seldom seen on other aircraft carriers. Administratively, this meant that CAG Stockdale had the authority to sign for and release all messages that dealt with air wing matters. Instead of waiting for approval from the captain of the ship, CAG Stockdale decided whether a downed pilot was missing in action (MIA) or killed in action (KIA) and sent the appropriate message from the ship to Washington.7 Operationally, CAG Stockdale was given complete authority over his air wing, though he often consulted with Captain Connolly on matters that he felt could put the captain in jeopardy. According to Stockdale, “Captain Bart Connolly, skipper of the Oriskany and a living jewel in the combat environment, was very tolerant of my ever-more-flagrant rule-bending in my attempt to maintain tactical autonomy for the sake of effectiveness and safety. Bart watched me like a hawk, and as long as I met his standards, all the pilots aboard—those regularly assigned to my air group and the many that were being sent out from shore bases to temporarily reinforce us—were mine to work with as I saw fit.”8 It was a working relationship that set the tone for how Carrier Air Wing 16 and Oriskany operated for the next two years.
As Oriskany sailed from Hawaiian waters to the Philippines, the leadership of both Stockdale and Connolly became more focused. Despite the lack of clear strategy from above, these men knew that in a short time their pilots would be flying combat, and they had little use for peacetime thinking. Captain Connolly gave pilots time to fly despite a restrictive schedule. He realized that if pilots didn’t fly during the voyage, their skills would atrophy, with potentially dangerous results once they were flying over Vietnam. CAG Stockdale spent time in VA-164’s ready room, talking with squadron pilots about their role in what was already recognized as a war of limited aim.9 Adm. U. S. Grant Sharp described one impromptu meeting in his 1978 memoir, Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect. CAG Stockdale did not make a two-hour speech, nor was the entire wing present, as has often been reported. It was simply the CAG leading his men by providing insight during a twenty- to thirty-minute pep talk:
I think I owe you in addition a straight from the shoulder discussion of pilots’ mental attitudes and orientation in “limited war” circumstances. . . . I want to level with you right now, so you can think it over here in mid-Pacific and not kid yourself into imagining “stark realizations” in the Gulf of Tonkin. Once you go “feet dry” over the beach, there can be nothing limited about your commitment. “Limited war” means to us that our target list has limits, our ordnance loadout has limits, our rules of engagement have limits, but that does not mean that there is anything “limited” about our personal obligations as fighting men to carry out assigned missions with all we’ve got. If you think it is possible for a man, in the heat of battle, to apply something less than total personal commitment—equated perhaps to your idea of the proportion of national potential being applied, you are wrong. It’s contrary to human nature. So also is the idea I was alarmed to find suggested to me by a military friend in a letter recently: that the prisoner of war’s Code of Conduct is some sort of “total war” document. You can’t go half way on that either. The Code of Conduct was not written for “total wars” or “limited wars,” it was written for all wars, and let it be understood that it applies with full force to this Air Wing—in this war.
What I am saying is that national commitment and personal commitment are two different things. . . . We are all at a fork in the road this week. Think it over. If you find yourself rationalizing about moving your bomb release altitude up a thousand feet from where your strike leader briefs it, or adding a few hundred pounds fuel to your over target bingo because “the Navy needs you for greater things,” or you must save the airplane for some “great war” of the future, you’re in the wrong outfit. . . . Let us all face our prospects squarely. We’ve got to be prepared to obey the rules and contribute without reservation. If political or religious conviction helps you do this, so much the better, but you’re still going to be expected to press on with or without these comforting thoughts, simply because this uniform commits us to a military ethic—the ethic of personal pride and excellence that alone has supported some of the greatest fighting men in history. Don’t require Hollywood answers to “What are we fighting for?” We’re here to fight because it’s in the interest of the United States that we do so. This may not be the most dramatic way to explain it, but it has the advantage of being absolutely correct.10
Stockdale gave this forewarning in April 1965, before the Americanization of the war began in earnest, and yet he knew enough about Vietnam and the salient issues, including America’s limited commitment, to know that the war would eventually cause great debate among Americans. His caution to the pilots of VA-164 before they entered combat showed that he had a greater understanding of the realities facing them and the United States than many of his superiors, including the politicians and military leadership running the war from Washington.
In the six months he led Air Wing 16, CAG Stockdale had a profound effect on the air wing that lasted throughout their time onboard Oriskany. Stockdale’s drive and personal commitment obliged him to fly frequently, often two missions per day in addition to his daily duties as CAG. He recalled, “High-spirited pilots are more effective pilots and safer pilots. And they like to see their boss in the cockpit. I gave all major strike briefings myself and always flew in these missions, but not always as strike leader; as often as not, I would give strike lead to a squadron commander and I would fly back in the pack. Every one of my 120 pilots knew my voice, however, and knew that I maintained override authority over any airborne action taken or order given.”11
His style of leadership was seen as almost superhuman and caused many of the officers in the air wing to emulate him. Lt. (junior grade) Rick Adams, a Crusader pilot in VF-162, remembered, “Stockdale used to walk around the flight deck when we were manning airplanes and look for an airplane with a good bomb load on it. He would find one and say to the pilot, ‘You,’ motioning him to get out. Then he would strap in and away he would go. The man had cojones as big as bowling balls.”12 Cdr. Wynn Foster, the executive officer of VA-163, had a closer affiliation with Stockdale and described him more succinctly: “Although he was generally quiet and low key, there never was any doubt about who was in charge of the air wing. Jim never was heavy handed or meddlesome in the affairs of the several squadrons, but he always knew what was going on. He allowed skippers free rein in running their outfits while masterfully molding their efforts into the highly effective main battery of the USS Oriskany.”13 CAG Stockdale’s leadership affected even the most junior sailors on the ship. His full name was James Bond Stockdale, and he used the popularity of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels to his advantage, taking “double-oh-seven” as his personal radio call sign. Oriskany’s crew loved it and painted 007 on airplanes, tow tractors, starter jeeps, forklifts, and crash cranes.14 Jim Stockdale left an indelible mark on his air wing. Put simply, he was the right man in the right place at the right time.
The flight deck on an aircraft carrier at sea is one of the most hazardous places to work. The advent of jet aircraft made it even more so. Sailors contended not only with spinning propellers capable of hacking a man to pieces in a split second but also with jet engines. A jet could suck a man down an intake, or its exhaust could blow unsuspecting men anywhere—into other propellers or intakes or even overboard the ship. Men had to be constantly alert lest they fall victim. In carrier squadrons the men who worked on the flight deck and prepared aircraft for upcoming missions were members of the Line Division, commonly known as the Line Shack. Upon checking into a squadron, junior sailors were usually assigned there not only to perform basic grunt work but to be exposed to the flight deck. Under the close supervision of a chief petty officer, these young sailors learned the skills needed to keep them safe while at the same time learning their trade. It was on-the-job training in an extremely deadly environment, and it usually led to a sense of camaraderie that existed nowhere else. This sense of camaraderie was personified in VA-164’s Line Shack, led by Aviation Machinist Mate 1st Class Vernon Beach. They became known throughout the ship and air wing as “the Beach Boys” in honor not only of their leader but also of the extremely popular rock band of the time.
On 5 May, as Oriskany steamed through the South China Sea, her men experienced the deadly nature of carrier operations. During late afternoon operations, an F-8 Crusader taxied into position for launch. Following the signals of a flight deck director, the Crusader’s pilot added power to make a sharp turn. The sudden increase of the turning fighter’s exhaust caught five flight deck crewmen off guard, swept them off their feet, and blew them toward the edge of the flight deck. One man managed to grab onto a nearby aircraft’s landing gear as he tumbled by. Another grabbed an aircraft’s tie-down chain and hung on for dear life. Two others managed to grab hold of the scupper along the deck edge and slow themselves enough to drop into the safety net outboard of the flight deck. The fifth man, Tom Prezorski, wasn’t as fortunate as the others. He was lifted completely off his feet and blown clear of the flight deck.15 He fell six stories into the ocean, and the impact knocked him unconscious. Oriskany’s plane guard helicopter was overhead immediately. Prezorski was scooped from the water and returned to the flight deck, where medical personnel met the helicopter and began to apply emergency resuscitation to no avail. Airman Tom Prezorski, nineteen years old, from Brooklyn, New York, had become the Oriskany’s first casualty of the Vietnam War.16
During the fall of 1964 and spring of 1965, as the war continued to escalate, the air force began deploying squadrons of tactical aircraft to bases throughout Southeast Asia. Bien Hoa air base near Saigon was just one of the many bases from which the air force flew in-country missions. The base supported a variety of aircraft flying daily missions over South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Bien Hoa was also a training base for Vietnamese pilots and was often used as a divert field for carrier-based aircraft operating off the coast. At the request of MACV, which ran the ground war in South Vietnam, the navy began stationing aircraft carriers off the coast of South Vietnam to complement the air force’s tactical aircraft flying CAS missions in South Vietnam. In May 1965 this became formally known as Dixie Station, and Oriskany became the first aircraft carrier to conduct operations from there, although the experience would be marred by a disastrous accident at Bien Hoa.
Sunday, 16 May 1965, was by all accounts a quiet day for the in-country war. Oriskany had just finished a week of Dixie Station operations and was preparing to sail north for the resumption of Rolling Thunder following the first bombing pause. Maj. Robert Bell, an air force pilot flying on an exchange tour with VF-162, had launched on a CAS mission over South Vietnam. During the course of the flight, he was unable to drop one of his bombs. Rather than bring the hung bomb back to the Oriskany, he diverted to Bien Hoa air base to have the bomb downloaded before returning to the ship. Upon landing, his Crusader was parked adjacent to several rows of B-57 Canberra bombers. Although Bell had gone into base operations to file the requisite paperwork, he had forgotten some in his cockpit. As he walked back to his aircraft to retrieve the papers, a bomb on a B-57 taxiing out of the parking area exploded. Nearby aircraft were parked wingtip to wingtip, and each had been serviced with fuel and ordnance in preparation for the day’s missions. Flaming debris, bombs, and ordnance hurtled into these aircraft, causing a chain reaction of explosions that turned the whole tarmac into a raging inferno. For the next two days and nights, ordnance continued to cook off on the flight line. On Monday evening, ten 500-pound bombs still remained on the ramp. These bombs had become extremely unstable from the intense heat. Compounding the danger, the bombs were equipped with delayed fuzes and antidisturbance devices. On Tuesday, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams successfully detonated the remaining bombs, and by early Wednesday morning, the parking ramp was finally declared safe. The devastation was complete. Twenty-seven men, including Bell, were killed, and 105 were wounded in the inferno. Huge craters 20 feet across and 6 feet deep pockmarked the area. Debris was scattered everywhere. On top of Bell’s F-8, ten B-57s and fifteen South Vietnamese Air Force A-1s were destroyed. More than thirty helicopters and A-1s were also damaged by the flying debris. Five 50,000-gallon fuel tanks full of jet fuel went up in smoke.17
Although the air base opened for operations on Wednesday, 19 May, it took another week before the air force could replace the aircraft lost in the disaster. Surviving B-57s were transferred to Tan Son Nhut and continued to fly sorties on a reduced scale until new airplanes could be flown in from the United States. As a result of the disaster, the air force began an emergency program for revetment construction. Civil engineering teams deployed to Vietnam to commence construction at major air bases. After it was discovered that a number of men lost their lives in collapsed bunkers, hardened structures were also built to provide additional protection for personnel. The accident, arguably one of the worst of the war, had cost dearly in human lives and property. It was a tremendous setback to the budding American efforts. In the meantime, as the only carrier on Dixie Station, Oriskany remained off the coast of South Vietnam for an additional nine days to cover the lost sorties.
In the early days of the war, day-to-day operations around the ship proved more costly than actual combat. On 25 May Oriskany lost its second aircraft during normal operations. A VAH-4 A-3B Skywarrior was launching on a routine tanker flight when the catapult ripped the nose landing gear out of the aircraft. An earlier wheels-up landing in 1962 had damaged the Skywarrior’s catapult attachment points, and when the heavily laden aircraft launched, the hook finally broke. The aircraft had enough momentum from the failed catapult shot to go careening off the bow but not enough speed to fly. As the Whale crashed into the sea, Oriskany took evasive action so the ship wouldn’t run over the doomed aircraft. The crew struggled to escape the sinking aircraft in part because the normal three-man crew was flying with a guest, and both the pilot, Lt. Cdr. Richard Walls, and his bombardier/navigator (b/n), Lt. (junior grade) Jerry Adams, suffered broken legs in the impact. Lt. (junior grade) Ignatius Signorelli and Lt. (junior grade) Frank Tunic were unhurt. Underscoring the dangers of carrier aviation, Tunic was a non-aviation-rated officer who just happened to be along for the flight as the whole incident unfolded around him. Though he suffered from a compound fracture in one of his legs, Walls assisted Tunic out of the sinking airplane, even helping him inflate his life vest. Oriskany’s UH-2A helicopter picked up Walls, Adams, and Tunic, while the plane guard destroyer, USS Boyd (DD-544), rescued Signorelli.18 Frank Tunic and the rest of the crew were lucky to have survived. With less than three weeks on the line, Oriskany had lost two airplanes and two men in operational accidents. Oriskany closed out her first line period by finally sailing north to Yankee Station, launching several strikes in support of Rolling Thunder 16. Worsening weather from Typhoon Babe precluded operations over North Vietnam, and on 31 May, USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31) relieved her on Yankee Station. Though Oriskany had a rough first line period, flying over North Vietnam would eventually prove even deadlier.
The war was still young in June 1965, and while they were prepared for nuclear conflict, the services were simply unprepared for the conventional fighting, and the peacetime supply system lagged behind emerging needs. For example, the only flight suits in the supply system were orange or khaki, neither of which was suitable for combat missions over the jungles of Southeast Asia. Aviators scrambled to buy green dye while Oriskany was in port at Subic Bay so that they would not have to wear orange flight suits during missions over North Vietnam. As Wynn Foster commented, “In peacetime its high visibility was an advantage during search and rescue. But in combat it was a distinct disadvantage, crying ‘Hey, here I am!’ to a converging enemy force should a pilot have to bail out into a green jungle.”19 Throughout Rolling Thunder, men purchased custom flight suits made in the Philippines or wore camouflage utilities altered to wear as flight suits. While the utilities’ fire retardant capabilities were certainly less than those of the issue flight suits, being able to blend into the jungle far outweighed any concerns of that nature. Period photographs readily illustrate this fact, as Oriskany’s aviators look like they just walked off the set of the TV show M*A*S*H.20
Politics and interservice rivalries combined to make operations anything but routine. Following a short port call in Subic Bay, Oriskany returned to Dixie Station for a week of CAS missions. Missions flown by the air force over both North and South Vietnam came under the overall control of MACV. Saigon detailed the specifics of each mission in daily frag orders. Navy missions in South Vietnam and Laos were also subject to these controls. Confusing the issue, however, was the fact that the admiral in charge of CTF-77 and Yankee Station operations (who, incidentally, reported directly to CINCPACFLT, not MACV) controlled navy missions over North Vietnam. It was not a good command structure, and it was an even worse working relationship. Chaos reigned. In an effort to stop the confusion, the Rolling Thunder Coordination Committee (RTCC) was established. Under the auspices of the RTCC, policies and procedures for assigning the weekly Rolling Thunder programs were changed daily. In reality, these efforts only added another maddening level of bureaucracy to the daily existence of aircrew flying missions.21 Unexpected last-minute mission substitutions, modifications, and cancellations were the norm. It meant that normal sixteen-hour working days were often extended into exhausting twenty-hour days as missions were added, planned, and then often cancelled.
Rolling Thunder programs 16 through 21 continued the weekly cycle of authorization from Washington. They included the gradual northward trend of strikes. Significantly, they finally allowed for the restrike of fixed targets and armed reconnaissance missions. On June 18 Oriskany joined USS Coral Sea (CVA-43) on Yankee Station, and Rolling Thunder began to interdict roads, bridges, and railways feeding supplies to South Vietnam. These raids had the dubious distinction of introducing Oriskany’s aviators to the increasing AAA now protecting key bridges and transportation nodes. AAA was already a significant issue and getting worse as hundreds of Soviet and Chinese guns arrived each month. The growing North Vietnamese defenses, coupled with the aforementioned lack of coordination, began to impact morale. In mid-1965 pilots flying from Yankee Station might fly once a day with little perceived impact, while pilots flying over South Vietnam could fly several missions a day with the added benefit of knowing they were supporting U.S. servicemen on the ground. According to Cdr. Harry Jenkins, the commanding officer of VA-163, “The war up North was very controlled. Down South, you were assigned a FAC, and wherever he placed you, that’s where you’d go. Up North, the routes were picked for us and the targets did not extend beyond the highway. We ran the roads looking for trucks and if there was nothing, dumped our ordnance on a place called Tiger Island.”22
As the pace of Rolling Thunder picked up, losses began to mount. It became obvious very quickly just how unprepared the military was, especially with regard to CSAR. Both the navy and air force struggled to cobble together any rescue capability. In the interim, both forces relied on Air America to help recover downed aviators. Air America was the name given to the CIA’s secretive passenger and cargo airline, which supplied and supported covert operations and counterinsurgency efforts throughout Southeast Asia. Despite limited numbers of both helicopters and pilots, Air America performed the preponderance of rescues during the early months of Rolling Thunder. In fact, between June and July 1965, Air America rescued twenty-one aviators, while the air force rescue services picked up five.23 It was an ad hoc task Air America pilots were not prepared for nor trained to accomplish. They made it happen, however, as leaving downed airmen to an unknown fate in Vietnam and Laos was not an option.
Concurrent with Air America’s sudden thrust into the CSAR business, VPAF MiGs became an active part of the North Vietnamese defenses. After several air force aircraft were lost, all strikes became wary of the new threat. On 17 June, the day before Oriskany arrived back on Yankee Station, F-4 Phantoms from VF-21 on USS Midway (CVA-41) officially shot down the first MiGs of the war.24 Three days later, CAG Stockdale led a large strike against the Moc Chau army barracks, taking the air wing deep into North Vietnam, as the target was over 50 miles west of Hanoi. It also took them relatively close to Phuc Yen, the primary VPAF MiG base. Stockdale’s strike encountered no MiGs, perhaps because they had been vectored to intercept an unrelated air force strike against army barracks at Son La. During the Son La strike, an F-4C piloted by Capt. Anthony Kari and Capt. Curtiss Briggs from the Forty-Fifth Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS) had been shot down.
The downed crew’s squadron mates established themselves overhead, beginning one of the more storied rescues of the war. Captain Kari was captured immediately, while Captain Briggs was able to evade. A division of VA-25 A-1 Skyraiders from Midway diverted from their armed reconnaissance mission and proceeded to reinforce the on-station rescue combat air patrol (RESCAP). VA-152 on Oriskany was standing CSAR alert and launched a division consisting of Lt. Charles Mullaney, Lt. R. A. Price, Lt. Jack Smith, Lt. Gordon Wileen, Lt. Bud Edson, and Lt. (junior grade) Ed Davis to assist with the CSAR. As the Midway A-1s went feet dry and began their 150-mile transit, they were easy prey for MiGs. At this early stage of the war, there was very little coordinated radar coverage of Vietnam; however, on this day, USS Ernest Small (DDR-838) was on station. About 80 miles from the shoot down, both flights of Skyraiders heard the “Skylark Red” call from Texaco (Skylark Red was the daily code word for MiGs, and Texaco was Ernest Small’s call sign). In a highly unlikely scenario, Midway’s Skyraiders engaged two MiG-17s and eventually shot one down. With even more MiGs being vectored toward the Oriskany and Midway aircraft, the Skyraiders were unable to reach the distant rescue scene. According to Lt. Gordon Wileen,
Jack and I saw it all as we were evading just above the treetops. Since all of us had punched off our tanks, we didn’t have enough fuel left to make it back to the ship, so we joined up with a USAF C-118 transport in near darkness and flew his wing into Udorn Air Base, where we landed 3.7 hours after leaving the ship.
We were ecstatic over the MiG kill, and the USAF guys at Udorn celebrated with us. They took us into the nearby town to a clean little hotel and we drank ourselves to sleep with Singha beer. Next morning the Seventh Air Force commandeered all six of us and teamed us up with Air America crews hunting for downed airmen. We flew two 4.5–6.0 hour missions each day until we were released back to US Navy control on 23 June. While at Udorn, an A-3 from Oriskany brought Jack Smith and me $20.00 and a toiletries kit. We had to pay for some fine meals in the Air America compound, and it was worth every cent.25
What happened during the actual rescue of Captain Briggs was overshadowed by the ostensible David versus Goliath MiG engagement. Two Air America UH-34Ds flew into North Vietnam from their bases in Laos. At the presumed survivor location, both helicopters were engaged by extremely heavy North Vietnamese 37 mm and 57 mm AAA in the vicinity of the just-bombed army barracks. On board the lead helicopter was Colonel Thong, an ethnic Lao who had been helping the CIA fight the Communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese in Laos. He had volunteered for the emergency mission in order to help guide the helicopters through uncharted and unfamiliar territory. Thong was killed by machine gun fire, and the crew of his helicopter limped back to Laos. The second helicopter, flown by Dick Casterlin, was also severely damaged. As both helicopters returned to Laos, they left Briggs behind to evade through the night. Casterlin and his crew made an emergency landing at a secret airfield in Laos, where they spent a wet night in their severely holed helicopter. The next day, two new UH-34s were flown in, and another rescue was attempted. To the crew’s amazement, Briggs had become disoriented during the night and had actually trekked several miles back toward the army barracks. With North Vietnamese soldiers searching in close proximity, Casterlin and his crew brought their helicopter to a hover over the marshy area Briggs was hiding in and lowered the rescue hoist. Some twenty-six hours after being shot down, Briggs was dragged along the ground before finally being hoisted onboard. The crew flew to a remote Air America field where local Hmong villagers gave Briggs a crossbow before continuing on to the Air America compound at Udorn.26
As a result of this rescue, the military began implementing procedures to improve its CSAR capabilities. The Skyraider became critical to this improvement. Because the air force didn’t have an aircraft with such firepower and loiter time, it kept VA-152 Skyraiders in Thailand. Eventually, the air force procured the navy’s old Skyraiders as navy attack squadrons transitioned to newer aircraft. In the meantime, however, the absence of six A-1s left CVW-16 unable to cover their own sortie requirements. Only after CAG Stockdale intervened was the issue resolved, and the pilots and planes returned to Oriskany. According to Jim Stockdale,
One unusual event that took place during my CAG tour was the Air Force kept borrowing our A-1s to augment their search and rescue forces in trying to find and rescue shot down pilots in western Vietnam. At times, half or more of our A-1s were “TDY [temporary duty] to Udorn.” Our A-1 skipper was getting upset over half his forces being out of his control, and he had a point.
The guy in charge of SAR forces over in Udorn had been a recent National War College classmate of the admiral and, at the admiral’s suggestion, Capt Connolly and I arranged for me to be launched to Udorn in a “Spad” [nickname for the A-1 Skyraider] just after midnight when night carrier operations were over. It was just daylight when I got there and at the Officers’ Mess breakfast, I found the brigadier general in charge, explained Admiral Cousins’ concern about the situation, and he freed up the planes—provided they would do a little SAR up and around Dien Bien Phu on the way home. I joined them on that trip, and we got back to the Oriskany about noon.27
This impromptu arrangement provides a good example of how the military struggled to meet the growing commitments of 1965. More U.S. forces arrived daily, yet there was little strategic guidance, other than restrictions coming from Washington. Unfortunately, the situation would not improve, as the war proved to be all consuming. There would be no grand strategy, hence the inability of achieving desired ends through the most efficient use of available means. The initial rationale of Rolling Thunder was to coerce Hanoi into suspending its support of the revolution in the south. But because North Vietnam was an agricultural nation—and subsistence agriculture at that—the bombing would never have the devastating economic effect presumed by planners who envisioned a strategic bombing campaign similar to that carried out against Nazi Germany. Furthermore, as aviators were about to discover, the Soviet Union and China gave North Vietnam a blank check. Manpower and the latest in Communist weaponry flooded into North Vietnam, and its partners rapidly replaced whatever the United States bombers destroyed. Compounding the lack of American strategy were the continued instability and incessant coups that plagued South Vietnam. In June Nguyen Van Thieu became president, while Nguyen Cao Ky became prime minister. While these men appeared to have calmed the volatility, any American strategy was doomed without a viable government in South Vietnam.
The bombing continued to inch northward, and on 30 June Oriskany and Coral Sea took part in a joint strike on the airfield at Vinh. Previous strikes against Vinh encountered heavy flak and cost several aircraft. The forty-seven-plane strike received moderate AAA and managed to destroy part of the runway. While no aircraft were lost over the target, Oriskany’s air wing still lost several aircraft during the day. Upon returning from the strike, Capt. Ross Chaimson of VMF(AW)-212 could not lower the nose gear of his Crusader. Rather than risk a landing aboard the ship, he diverted to Da Nang, where he landed, albeit with serious damage to the aircraft. Oriskany lost another aircraft while launching on an unrelated mission. Lt. Cdr. Eric Schade’s Skyraider crashed into the water when his engine failed following his catapult shot. He escaped the sinking plane and was picked up by USS Perkins (DD-877). Perkins returned him to Oriskany in exchange for 35 gallons of ice cream.28 Flying from the aircraft carrier continued to be more hazardous than combat in the skies over Vietnam, though that would soon change.
On the afternoon of 2 July, the air wing struck a POL storage facility at Nam Dinh, roughly 40 miles south of Hanoi—the closest any strikes had come to the capital. The restrictions remained very tight, and due to the weekly Rolling Thunder programs, this particular target had just been struck, albeit with mixed results. This second effort, led by VA-163’s Cdr. Harry Jenkins, destroyed the majority of the facility, with thick black smoke rising past 20,000 feet. The strike encountered the heaviest AAA to date, though only one aircraft sustained damage. As Oriskany wrapped up operations on Yankee Station, Lt. Hank McWhorter, an RF-8 pilot with the VFP-63 detachment, managed to photograph crates of SA-2 SAMs stacked on the docks of Haiphong—an ominous development, to be sure. Though the air wing spent the remainder of the line period flying in-country missions, they would face this new threat the next time they ventured north.
During Dixie Station operations, Lt. Cdr. Bill Smith of VA-163 suggested that the ship invite some of the FAC pilots they had been working with out to the ship. The idea was acted upon immediately, and soon six air force pilots came out to the ship for a three-day visit. It was a huge success, as both sides discussed capabilities and limitations unique to carrier operations, as well as ongoing ground operations.29 Of course, the air force pilots reciprocated, and the air wing sent several pilots to fly with them. VA-152’s Lt. Cdr. Paul Merchant even found himself on the ground patrolling with army Rangers and gaining far more insight into ground combat than he bargained for. The exchange was an eye-opening experience for all involved, earning front-page status in the Pacific edition of the Stars and Stripes under the headline “Spotter Lauds Navy Pilots.”30
On 18 July Oriskany wrapped up operations on Dixie Station and set sail for Yokosuka, Japan, and a well-deserved port call. The day was marred, however, by the ship’s fourth operational loss and third fatality of the cruise. An A-4 Skyhawk from VA-163 suffered engine failure during its catapult shot. The airplane crashed into the water just ahead of the ship, killing Lt. Malcolm Art Avore instantly. The event put the air wing in a somber mood for the voyage and upcoming port call in Japan.
On 28 July, as Oriskany’s crew enjoyed liberty in port in Yokosuka, Japan, President Johnson shocked the nation by announcing his decision to commit even more troops to the conflict in Vietnam. By sending, in his words, “the flower of the nation’s youth to battle,” he raised the troop numbers in Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000 men, with additional numbers sent as requested. He also doubled the monthly draft call from 17,000 to 35,000 men per month to meet the growing war needs. He did so without the concurrence of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, without mobilizing the reserves, and without asking Congress for additional funding authorization. Blinded by his desire to pass the Great Society legislative programs, President Johnson found it impossible to balance the demands of war with those of his Great Society. In the next week, he signed landmark bills, including the Social Security Act and Voting Rights Act, into law. Unfortunately, there was to be no Great Society equivalent in foreign policy because there was no perceived latitude or flexibility with regard to Communism. By using rhetoric equating any opposition to his policies to the abandonment of America’s soldiers on the front lines, Johnson quickly found himself in an untenable situation. If he denied Gen. William Westmoreland’s requests for more troops, the same rhetoric would be used against him, and his Great Society would be in peril. Thus, with no real strategy on how to proceed in Vietnam, the Johnson administration forged ahead, and the country was committed.