As Oriskany’s men enjoyed liberty in the Philippines, military leadership in the United States took part in a last-ditch effort to save the air war. In February 1966 the dovish Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led by Senator William Fulbright, exposed serious divisions within the foreign policy establishment. With testimonies from former general James Gavin and esteemed diplomat George Kennan, the committee grilled Ambassador Maxwell Taylor and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. National television coverage of the Fulbright hearings helped fuel public dissent and accelerated declining support of the war. By the summer of 1967, Secretary McNamara’s disillusionment had turned into outright hostility toward the air war. From his vantage, the military continually promised more than it could deliver, and nowhere was this more apparent than in the failure of the POL campaign.1
McNamara’s hostility left senior military leaders feeling betrayed. They felt that airpower had never been given a real chance to show what could be achieved and that halting the bombing was a mistake. If Rolling Thunder was scaled down, airpower would be seen as a failure, as would its leadership. The military believed they had never been given a chance to succeed because of political limitations. In short, they believed that the targeting policy as forced on them by civilian leaders had stopped Rolling Thunder from producing results, never mind the dogma associated with sortie counts. To block any efforts by McNamara to cut bombing or show that airpower had failed, military leaders turned to Senate hawks for support.
Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Senator John C. Stennis, established themselves as ardent supporters of the war. In August 1967 the hawkish Senate Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee began its own hearings, meant to be the equivalent of the Fulbright hearings. Preparations began in June 1967 and went public on 9 August. The Stennis hearings pitted Robert McNamara against the military leadership, including the JCS, over ongoing restrictions on the bombing of North Vietnam. According to the Pentagon Papers, “The subcommittee unquestionably set out to defeat Mr. McNamara. Its members were known for their hard-line views and military sympathies. . . . They viewed the restraints on bombing as irrational, the shackling of a major instrument which could help win victory.”2 On the day the hearings went public, the Johnson administration attempted to limit any fallout by adding sixteen extra targets and expanding armed reconnaissance missions while removing the restrictions surrounding Hanoi and Haiphong to include the buffer zone along the Chinese border. With restrictions lifted, the air war grew exponentially just in time for Oriskany to resume operations on Yankee Station.
As the hearings progressed, the public finally became aware of the deep divide between the Johnson administration and senior military leadership concerning the air war. During eight days of testimony, generals and admirals testified before the subcommittee, publicly airing their grievances concerning the conduct of the war. On average, the United states conducted thirty thousand sorties a month in Vietnam: seventeen thousand were flown against targets in South Vietnam, while thirteen thousand were flown in North Vietnam. Ninety percent of these sorties were armed reconnaissance attacks, none of which were at issue. The remaining 10 percent of sorties in North Vietnam, some thirteen hundred a month, were directed against fixed targets comprising the target list. The debate centered on this 10 percent. The master target list itself contained 427 targets, 359 of which had been recommended by the Joint Chiefs. Of that 359, 57 had yet to be authorized by the Johnson administration and became the focal point of the disagreement.3 By the time Secretary McNamara testified on 25 August, the damage had been done. Having lost much of his original faith in the war, McNamara felt little need to justify his opposition to the war he helped orchestrate. In typical McNamara fashion, he belittled the importance of every target listed, rattling off numbers, facts, and figures to counter each target on the list.4 However, in the end, comments like this sealed his fate: “I am perfectly prepared to admit that I may be very wrong in my recommendations on these targets, but I am not wrong in submitting to you that the approval of all these targets and the destruction of all of them would not make any material difference in the war, and that is my only point.”5 In his conclusion, McNamara still had the gall to say, “I don’t believe that there is this gulf between the military leaders and the civilian leaders in the executive branch.” He also claimed that pilots faced less risk at the height of 1967 than earlier in the war—a technicality, considering the number of sorties then being flown into Route Package VI.6 McNamara’s aloof testimony and the public nature of the hearings forced President Johnson to make a political decision to expand the air war. The subcommittee’s summary report sided with the military and sharply criticized McNamara’s reasoning, forcing the administration into an awkward position. Ultimately, the president felt compelled to overrule McNamara and expand the air war. By seeking the political middle ground, President Johnson satisfied no one, and his decision resulted in the loss of more American lives.7
Although the Stennis hearings achieved the desired result of exposing the divide between the Johnson administration and the military, it proved to be too little, too late. Public opinion about the war had been split evenly, but as the summer wore on, public support for Vietnam plummeted. Antiwar fervor reached an all-time high, fueled by comments from the hearings like Senator Stuart Symington’s: “If the position as presented by the Secretary this morning is right, I believe the United States should get out of Vietnam at the earliest possible time and on the best possible basis; because with his premises, there would appear to be no chance for any true ‘success’ in this long war.”8 President Johnson eventually authorized the majority of the targets on the JCS’s list. However, the divisiveness of the war, coupled with the upcoming Tet Offensive, eventually forced Johnson to halt Rolling Thunder and ultimately doomed his administration. The men fighting had no way of knowing this, of course. They continued to fly missions throughout the late summer and fall, paying the price in men and planes as their country struggled to comprehend its involvement in Vietnam.
Following liberty at Cubi Point, Oriskany returned to Yankee Station on 18 August. With the Stennis hearings still in progress, the air wing began striking the newly added targets. This escalation resulted in her pilots flying into “the center of hell with Hanoi as its hub. The area that was defended with three times the force and vigor that protected Berlin during World War II.”9 The heaviest air combat to date occurred on 21 August, with seven strikes (four air force and three navy) bombing targets in Hanoi. The coordinated raids were intricately planned, with each wave spaced exactly two minutes apart. Intrepid’s air wing struck Port Wallut and the Van Diem army depot, while Constellation’s air wing pounded the airfield at Kep and the rail yards at Duc Noi, just 5 miles from downtown Hanoi. This raid was intended as a diversion for Oriskany’s mission, tasked with destroying the Hanoi thermal power plant. Earlier in May, airplanes from Bon Homme Richard had damaged the power plant. As expected, the North Vietnamese repaired the facility, and it was again operational.
Cdr. Bryan Compton led Oriskany’s mission. He later recalled, “This was the first fixed target that we were scheduled to strike that was worth more than the cost of the ordnance we put into it. We were thus excited when we got a chance to devise a plan to take it out.”10 Planning commenced with Lt. Cdrs. Jim Busey, Dean Cramer, and Jerry Breast. Earlier in his career, Breast had performed initial testing on the AGM-62 Walleye and was intimately familiar with the weapon. To successfully destroy the plant, they needed near simultaneous impact of four Walleyes. Figuring they’d lose an airplane on their ingress, they planned for six. As they approached the target, the flight would fan apart and attack from different headings of the compass. Once the team completed planning, Compton briefed the mission up the chain of command to Seventh Fleet, Vice Adm. John Hyland. After the briefings, the strike was on standby until the plant reappeared on the target list.11
On 20 August they were notified that the mission was to be part of the next day’s strikes. As planned, Compton led the mission, with Busey, Breast, Lt. Cdr. John Miles, Lt. (junior grade) Vance Schufeldt, and Lt. (junior grade) Fritz Schroeder. Cramer and Lt. (junior grade) Dave Carey were briefed as well in case anyone aborted. To minimize their exposure to the North Vietnamese defenses, they went without external fuel tanks. This decreased weight and drag, allowing them to fly faster. Because they expected the other six strikes to provide suppression and divert attention, they went with minimum Iron Hand and no AAA suppression elements. TARCAP and two Iron Hand aircraft held along the mountains south of Hanoi alongside their tankers. Because of this, Compton asked Oriskany’s navigator to move the ship as far north as possible, thus minimizing the distance they had to fly.12
On 21 August the mission launched as the third navy strike and fifth out of the day’s seven waves. Miles aborted and was replaced by Cramer. Not surprisingly, Cramer took Carey’s Skyhawk when his first aircraft developed issues. The flight of six flew over the coastline and topped off their fuel. With the other strikes occupying the North Vietnamese, they made it to their turn point before meeting any defenses—two SAMs launched from south of the city. As the flight split into two flights of three for their attack runs, the sprawling city came into view: the Doumer bridge across the Red River, Truc Bach Lake on the northwest side of the city, and the adjacent power plant. At that point AAA opened fire, concentrating on the southern elements. Compton recalled:
Locking onto the target, I got a good picture of the west front of the power plant through my gunsight. Shifting to the Sony Scope [small television screen to monitor the Walleye’s flight to the target], I could see the cross-hair locked on a window in the face of the building, so I “pickled” [to release ordnance] the weapon away. For some reason, nobody seemed to be tracking me with their guns now, so as I pulled away, I took a turn around the target and tried to get a picture or two with my hand-held camera. I could see three distinct impacts on the power plant, but could not see the other two.13
Busey and Cramer faced the preponderance of the defenses. Dean Cramer later recalled the mission:
I was hit in my dive, my glide, by an 85-millimeter that exploded underneath and blew the plane inverted. I got back level, but the Walleye screen was all screwed up and I could hear the bomb, with a thin tin-like skin, tearing away from the plane. The 85-millimeter, and I didn’t know this, put a hole in one wing, a small hole, which was bleeding fuel and leaving a white vapor trail behind me. Every God damn SAM and flak site in Hanoi, I’m convinced was shooting at me. I ducked six or eight SAMs, controlled SAMs. I flew up, there’d be one, and I’d go down and there’d be another. All the SAMs were in close, reasonable range and finally they just ran out. Then I got complacent, flying straight and level, and a 37-millimeter shell blew a hole in the port wing, which caught fire. The wing’s burning merrily and I say, “Okay, I’m hit, I’m on fire and coming out.” We’re on a tactical frequency, over Hanoi and I think nobody else can hear. Wrong.14
Knowing that the day and this mission would encounter heavy resistance, the discrete strike frequency was broadcast throughout the ship. Oriskany’s men stood transfixed by the events as they unfolded over the ship’s loudspeakers. Busey was also hit, though he continued and got his Walleye on the power plant. The drama continued as Cramer calmly broadcast his intentions. With fuel streaming he became critically short on fuel. Both waiting tankers experienced problems, leaving Cramer desperate before he finally managed to rendezvous with a Skywarrior. Cramer’s aircraft was so badly damaged that the tanker could only transfer 200 pounds. Because Oriskany was so far north, that much fuel was enough to get him to the ship.
Dean Cramer continued:
The ship clears me straight in, but unbeknownst to me, Busey’s cleared straight in on a different frequency. So here we are both coming straight in, and I’ve got another problem. If I come in on a normal approach, the plane’s going to flame out right over the fantail. So in my head, I decide to shoot a precautionary flameout. But I can’t tell the Oriskany because nobody will ever approve it. I plan to come in at 2,000 or 3,000 feet, chop the power to idle, dump the nose down, and flare myself into the wire. As I decide, “Okay now,” out from under my nose comes Jim. “Aw shit!” I pullout, say, “Okay Jim, you’ve got it.” He says, “No, I’ll take it around.” “No Jim, you’ve got it.” He says, “No, I’ll take it around.” “No, Jim, you’ve got it, and I’m already doing a 360 because I expect my wing will fall off when I trap and clobber the deck.” Jim comes in and bolters, and I call up and say, “Sorry about that Jim, but you had your chance.” By now, I’m back in position, drop the nose, flare the wire, and land. I look around and the God damn island has people all over it, and they’re all waving. It’s like family day, and on the flight deck is the admiral and the captain of the ship, and they’re both waving. I park the airplane, climb out, and they’re beating me on the back. Then I find out it’s all been on the 1MC.
The admiral gave all of us medicinal brandy, Christian Brother’s brandy with cokes, two or three of those. A kid who had been a public affairs officer on Second Fleet staff is now a PAO on the Seventh Fleet staff, and I know him and he knows me, and he says, “Mr. Cramer, did you think about ejecting?” I said, “Eject? Hell no, the liberty’s piss poor over there.” Everybody laughs and I don’t think anything about it. That night I write a letter to my wife—another day, a couple of hops—and about a week later I get a letter from her saying she just heard about me on television. Walter Cronkite picked it up.15
By all accounts, Oriskany’s part in the day’s raids was a big success. The North Vietnamese defenses were ferocious, launching nearly thirty SAMs at the six Skyhawks, as well as AAA and small arms fire. Sailors counted 127 holes in the starboard wing of Jim Busey’s Skyhawk. The wing was warped and buckled from the intensity of the flames. The end of the starboard horizontal stabilizer had been shot off, and the elevator had been ripped away by the airstream. Dean Cramer’s Skyhawk suffered similar damage. Sailors stood in awe, gaping at damage that included a hole nearly 3 feet wide in the port wing.16 Five jets made it to the power plant. Three hit the generator, and the other two hit the boiler, producing columns of heavy black and white smoke that rose high into the sky over Hanoi. Both Compton and Busey received the Navy Cross for the raid. Jerry Breast received the Silver Star, while the others received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Despite Oriskany’s success, the day was very costly. The North Vietnamese fired over 150 SAMs at the seven raids.17 Two air force F-105s were shot down. Constellation’s mission against the Doc Noi rail yard met with disaster. They intended to attack the rail station two minutes before VA-163 hit the power plant, and the four F-4 Phantoms and four A-6A Intruders were pummeled by the same defenses. AAA hit one Intruder on the ingress, though the crew continued to the target. A SAM hit the lead A-6 at the top of its dive, and the other Intruders narrowly missed hitting the crew as they swung in their parachutes. The crew was quickly captured. The remaining three airplanes bombed the rail yard and made a wide turn to the north to avoid bad weather. Unfortunately, the turn took them over Kep airfield, whose alert gunners had just been bombed. As the crews fled from the AAA at Kep, they unwittingly flew toward China. Before the flight could alert the lead Intruder of their proximity to China, they were attacked by Chinese MiGs, which downed two more aircraft. The last Intruder ducked into a nearby storm cloud to escape before the crew made their way back to the Tonkin Gulf—the sole survivors of a flight of four A-6s.18
Earlier in July, Admiral Sharp’s staff developed a plan to isolate the port of Haiphong using a concentrated interdiction ring around the city. During early August, only 10 percent of the daily sorties were directed toward this effort. With the Stennis hearings ongoing, reconnaissance photos revealed an immense buildup of supplies on the docks and wharfs. As restrictions were lifted, Oriskany’s air wing found itself at the forefront of efforts to isolate the port city. They struck rail and road bridges while seeding coastal waterways with mines in an attempt to stem the movement of supplies out of the port city.
Unknown to the men flying these missions was that the North Vietnamese, with help from their Soviet advisors, discovered a way to defeat the navy’s ALQ-51 self-protect jammers. The air force continuously upgraded their self-protect jammers, while the navy continued without updating the ALQ-51. By late August North Vietnamese SAM operators had become proficient enough to differentiate between the false returns of the ALQ-51 and actual targets.19 In the measure/countermeasure battle of electrons, the North Vietnamese now had an advantage that they began to exploit with deadly results. Losses to SAMs suddenly spiked, and the navy never understood how or why. By August, air force aircraft were being hit once per one hundred SAM firings, while four navy aircraft were being hit per one hundred SAM firings.20 In 1967 SAMs accounted for half of the navy’s losses and one-third of the Oriskany’s. During the waning months of Rolling Thunder, the navy commissioned studies to understand why. Many theories were postulated: the terrain favored the air force; the larger numbers of aircraft per strike favored the air force; the F-105 was faster and thus better able to evade missiles. The reports completely ignored the importance of self-protect jammers. One report even stated that “there is no clear cut relationship between the use of this equipment and a subsequent decrease in SAM effectiveness.”21 In the end, it came down to the simple answer that the North Vietnamese had effectively countered the navy’s electronic countermeasures.
On 31 August Oriskany’s air wing discovered the deadliness of this new North Vietnamese advantage. For the previous two days, the air wing struck targets in and around Haiphong. Cdr. Bryan Compton developed a ruse in which the strikes would go feet-dry south of Haiphong and fly inland several miles before making a hard right turn to bomb their target in Haiphong. It worked the first two days, but by the third day the North Vietnamese knew the pattern and set a trap.
On that fateful third day, Oriskany launched a strike against the rail bridge at Vat Cach. What should have been a twelve-plane strike quickly degraded to a ten-plane strike as squadrons struggled to keep planes flyable in the hectic tempo. VA-163 managed to launch six airplanes with a division led by Compton and Lt. Cdr. Hugh Stafford. Lt. Cdr. Dean Cramer followed with his wingman, Lt. Donovan Wood. VA-164 had their own division, led by Lt. Cdr. Richard Perry and Lt. John Davis. Shortly after going feet-dry, the North Vietnamese 285th Missile Regiment / Seventy-Third SAM Battalion ambushed the strike from a new site they relocated after the previous two days.22
Cramer saw two missiles launch and called for evasive maneuvers. The flight immediately broke apart as Skyhawks began defending. The SAM site was beneath the flight, and the men had mere seconds to react. Compton and his wingman pulled up and to the right, as did Cramer and Wood. Stafford and his wingman dove down, straight into the first missile. The SAM exploded directly in front of Stafford’s Skyhawk. The force of the explosion blew Stafford out of his cockpit, still strapped to his ejection seat. The blast shattered his left arm and broke his collarbone and ribs. Immobilized, Stafford was fortunate to survive due to the automatic functions of his ejection seat, which deployed his parachute. He landed in a tree near a village and was quickly captured.
One of the many replacements who arrived in June, Lt. (junior grade) Dave Carey was also on his first deployment. The exploding SAM destroyed the engine of his Skyhawk, and Carey ejected as fire quickly consumed the aircraft. Carey landed in a rice paddy next to a village less than a mile from Stafford. Carey managed to raise Cramer on his survival radio as he flew by. Cramer advised him he couldn’t get a helicopter in for the rescue and told Carey he’d see him “when it was all over.”23 Carey was also quickly captured and bound by villagers, who began chopping off his flight gear with a machete. The same SAM that brought down Stafford and Carey also severely damaged Cramer’s and Wood’s Skyhawks. Cramer’s jet engine ingested warhead fragments, which destroyed it. Luckily, the engine held together long enough for him to make it back to Oriskany, where sailors replaced it.
The second missile targeted the division from VA-164. The SAM site was directly underneath them, giving them even less time to react. The missile came up nearly vertically and detonated directly under Perry’s Skyhawk, with the blast rocking all four planes in the flight. The explosion blew large holes in the bottom of Perry’s aircraft. With fuel streaming from his aircraft, Perry turned toward the water. His wingman, Lt. (junior grade) Mike Mullane, joined Compton and continued toward the target. Lt. John Davis and his wingman, Lt. (junior grade) George Schindlar, joined Perry to escort his mortally wounded Skyhawk. Perry calmly radioed he’d been hit and jettisoned his bombs and drop tanks as he flew to the gulf. Davis recalled:
As he approached the shoreline, I could see fire start to emanate from the engine bay vents just forward of the fuselage break, and I told him so. He didn’t respond on the radio (highly possible he’d lost electrical by this point). As he crossed the shoreline, Dick’s plane started a right hand roll. I told him time to get out. His plane completed a full 360 degree roll, now about 1–1.5 miles offshore, and as it came through wings level, he ejected. The chute was immediately normal. As I remember, altitude was on the order of 10,000 feet.
I set up an orbit with George around him. Some minutes passed. Then George reminded me that Dick should be up on the hand-held radio, and I concurred. I put full flaps down and slowed as much as possible (to just above buffet) and made a pass close aboard to Dick in his chute. He was limp and lifeless, and I’m certain he was dead at that point.
After a long descent, Dick went into the water. He slowly went under, it was about five–ten minutes after water entry before the helo got there. The helo sent a swimmer down to him, who surfaced and declared Dick KIA. The helo came under fire from shore batteries and retreated before Dick’s body could be recovered. We learned when back on Oriskany that the swimmer had seen a large hole in Dick’s chest.24
In a span of seconds, Oriskany lost three airplanes and three men. Two Skyhawks were destroyed by a single SAM. Another two aircraft were damaged. Perry, one of the most respected and beloved men in the air wing, was dead. To make matters worse, they had been unable to recover his body, leading to years of anguish for his family. Perry’s loss was a tremendous blow to morale. He was dearly loved by all who knew him.25 At the time of his death, Jessie Beck was sending so many care packages that the carrier onboard delivery (COD) aircraft often contained more mail bags for VA-164 than the rest of the ship and air wing combined.26 To honor Perry’s legacy, VA-164 began painting “Lady Jessie” on their commanding officer’s aircraft. It became a point of pride and tradition for the squadron. Richard Perry’s legacy would live on, and the squadron continued to honor his relationship with Jessie Beck. To be certain, the air war would continue, as would the losses. But after Perry’s death, men continued on as if in a daze.
President Johnson called for an unscheduled news conference on 1 September in an attempt to contain the damage caused by the Stennis hearings. During the conference, Johnson denied any division among his advisors and overruled McNamara. Even worse than McNamara’s public dressing-down was the subsequent escalation against his advice.27 Despite the apparent removal of most restrictions, the exasperating on-again, off-again nature of Rolling Thunder continued. The Johnson administration extended peace feelers in mid-August at the same time it ratcheted up strikes on Hanoi. Then in September, McNamara ordered a cessation of strikes within the 10-mile circle around the city as a show of faith to the North Vietnamese. To keep peace talks quiet, the military wasn’t informed of the reasoning. It was maddening. Hanoi complained loudly that Johnson was merely retargeting Haiphong instead of Hanoi and escalating, not deescalating, the war.
The high-water mark of these efforts to isolate Haiphong was 4 September. CAG Shepherd led the first strike against Haiphong’s southern highway bridge. When they approached within 5 miles of the bridge, the sky erupted with bursts of 37 and 85 mm AAA. Twenty airplanes managed to drop four of the bridge’s five spans, with VA-163’s Lt. (junior grade) Ken Adams receiving credit for dropping two of them. The young aviator earned a Distinguished Flying Cross not only for his bombing but for saving his wingman from a volley of five SAMs. Over the next eleven days, Oriskany flew thirty Alpha strikes against targets near Haiphong, losing three aircraft in the process. Much to McNamara’s chagrin, one of these targets included the port of Cam Pha, which he had vehemently argued against weeks earlier. On 10 September jets from Coral Sea and Oriskany pounded the port facility, leaving coal stocks burning. Newspaper headlines announced, “Jets Bomb North Viet Port for 1st Time.”28 Two days later, jets from the same carriers struck the very center of Haiphong, bombing warehouses and rail yards. By the end of the day, just one bridge remained standing—a span on the city’s southern edge.29 The focus on Haiphong resulted in one unintended, albeit favorable, consequence, of which the administration should have taken note. After nearly nine continuous days of strikes, the North Vietnamese began to run out of SAMs and ammunition. The large stockpiles of supplies lining the streets of Haiphong in August vanished. For the first time since Rolling Thunder began, strikes experienced fewer defenses due to the concentrated efforts.30
Unfortunately, the success would not last. Poor weather from the northeast monsoon, coupled with extended peace initiatives, gave the North Vietnamese a chance when they needed it most. In August the United States flew 11,634 sorties—the majority of them over Route Package VI. By September the totals had fallen to 8,540. John Colvin, the British consul general to North Vietnam from 1966 to 1967, later described the effects the campaign achieved. Upon leaving Hanoi in September, he concluded that North Vietnam “was no longer capable of maintaining itself as an economic unit nor of mounting aggressive war against its neighbor”:
The strength of the American bombing campaign of summer 1967 had rested not only on its weight but on its consistency, hour after hour, day after day. The strategy, as well as damaging or destroying—in ports, on railway lines, and on storage areas—the capacity of the D.R.V. to feed itself and to maintain invasion, had also, for the first time, allowed the North Vietnamese no time to repair warmaking facilities. No sooner were they repaired than they were struck again; Tonkinese ingenuity had been defeated and, by the remorseless persistence of the campaign, their will eroded to near-extinction. But although some spasmodic bombing in the northeast quadrant took place after September, it was on a greatly reduced scale and frequently interrupted by long periods of inactivity during “peace initiatives,” all illusory if not contrived, and anyway occasions when the campaign should have maintained, even increased, momentum. . . . Victory—by September 1967 in American hands—was not so much thrown away as shunned with prim, averted eyes.31
President Johnson and members of his administration were fully aware of all this but remained unable to make the politically tough decision to escalate the campaign and probably win the war. Walt Rostow sent President Johnson a top secret memorandum describing the impact of Rolling Thunder on Vietnam. He described how in early 1966 the North Vietnamese had been able to unload a freighter in less than ten days, but by August 1967 they required thirty-three days to offload the supplies. Over six hundred thousand people were now required to repair bridges and keep roads open. Those people were no longer working in the limited industrial base or in the fields to feed the country. Soviet aid skyrocketed from $100 to $700 million in 1967 as North Vietnam appeared to be on the verge of collapse.32 With North Vietnam on the verge of collapse, Rolling Thunder might have succeeded, but that didn’t happen (even though the bombing continued, albeit at lesser levels).
Pilots flying over North Vietnam paid for this gradualism in spades. Perhaps none paid more than the men of Oriskany. As she sailed for a port call in Sasebo on the island of Kyushu, Japan, McNamara’s restrictions remained. As the Joint Chiefs and Admiral Sharp argued for more strikes, the North Vietnamese used the time to rearm and fortify their defenses for the next round. While in Japan, Oriskany’s pilot ranks, severely depleted during the previous line periods, began to receive replacements. The new pilots included Lt. Cdr. John McCain III, who volunteered for combat after surviving the inferno on Forrestal. McCain came from a navy family, and he followed in the steps of his father and grandfather, both of whom were famous admirals. His father would eventually replace Admiral Sharp as CINCPAC in July 1968. Unfortunately, these inexperienced replacements did not last long, as Johnson lifted the restrictions again in October. A quick glance at VA-163 tells the story. The squadron received three new replacements in Sasebo. By the end of October, one remained.