1971 Vietnam As Seen From Yankee Station
USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) 6 Oct 1971 – 26 Jan 72
I attended a command generated Direct Support (DIRSUP) orientation course given in the Receivers building that also housed the collection operations where I was previously assigned . The course was target orientation, mainly Morse code practice and lectures, long, droning and boring. The DIRSUP spaces were also used to create the technical support kits that deployed to every ship we manned. The tech support crew published a bunch of documents on water soluble paper so they could be easily destroyed by simply throwing them overboard in the case of an emergency destruction. They left these water soluble documents in stacks on the table for binding the next day. Geckos, small lizards which were in every building in the Philippines, security clearance or not, would crap from the ceilings they crawled over. Like bird crap but even more liquid, occasionally fell on you or stuff you were using. Well, gecko poop fell on the water soluble documents and little holes dissolved by the poop formed wherever it landed. The documents were rendered useless; so much for that innovation.
The USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) came into Subic Bay Naval Base for a liberty call and whatever upkeep was needed. I was ordered to replace a DIRSUP crew member who was transferring. Me and Bill Meahl , better known as “Far Out” whom I knew from ‘A’ school checked aboard the ship on 6 October. All but one or two people were out on the beach for liberty so there was nobody to put us to work. The Admin person had duty and showed us to our rack assignments and told us to be in the working spaces called Supplementary Radio (SUPRAD) the next morning. We stowed our sea bags and immediately left the ship to catch a bus back up to San Miguel. There was a typhoon in the area and it rained in buckets clear into the next morning. When we caught a local Victory Liner bus back to Subic Bay the roads were washed out and the mountain just outside the back gate of Subic Naval Base had washed across the road. The steep mountain side was used as a grave yard and our bus was sloshing through a foot or more of mud and rocks and coffins that had washed across the road. We were running very late for our morning check-in. When we rounded a corner I could see the Enterprise had already departed. I figured we’d be court martialed for missing ship’s movement but it turned out the ship had pulled out of port on short notice for typhoon evacuation. There must have been a thousand people on the pier waiting for the “Big E” to return. What great luck!
Within a day or two, we set sail for operations in the Gulf of Tonkin. The ship pulled out of port early in the morning while I was in still my rack recovering from the last night of liberty when we began to recover and launch aircraft in the South China Sea just offshore Subic Bay. Being my first ship I had no idea what to expect. Before launching aircraft they always fire the catapults (cats) with what is called “no loads”, no aircraft or other weights attached. My rack was right under the port cat and when they fired that first no load I was rudely awakened with a loud shoooowsh BANG and a big jolt that shook the ship as the cat hit the end of the track. I thought there must have been an explosion so I look around our berthing spaces and nobody seemed concerned. Some sailors were playing cards at a table and some were watching the closed circuit TV. I figured I must have been dreaming and turned over for a few more minutes of rest. Shoooosh BANG went the second no load. This was no dream. I jumped out of my rack, dressed and headed into SUPRAD where I began my education on carrier operations.
At this point I had been in the Navy just 10 Months and 24 days and was still a seaman apprentice (E2) and only 19 years old, but there would be no side saddle in Direct Support operations. Only the minimum number of crew were sent to perform these operations and you were expected to perform on day one. The mission was such that you could be, granted only on rare occasions, the determining factor of the mission’s success or the life and death of a pilot or other personnel. In other words, everyone took this responsibility very seriously and you had better be up to the task. No pressure; what 19 year old ever thought he wasn’t up to the task. I was thoroughly impressed with the mission and after my 3 months and 20 day in the Enterprise, I felt extreme job satisfaction and a newfound confidence.
About 10 December the Enterprise was called from her Vietnam duty on Yankee Station to go to the Indian Ocean. The Indian Pakistani war had heated up with India aiding West Pakistan in her bid for independence. The Enterprise was sent to the area in case there was a need to evacuate American Citizens or at least that was the officially stated purpose provided to the crew. We headed toward the Straits of Malacca at high speed but had to hold up off of Singapore for a COD (Carrier Onboard Deliver) aircraft that was overdue. This C2 aircraft had 6 CT’s onboard to augment our Indian Ocean mission and bring the technical support kit for that area of operations. Everyone onboard the C2 died when it crashed about 250 NM out of Cubi Point. We loitered until it was clear the aircraft was not going to make it and then headed through the Straits at 35 knots. It is quite a site to see a ship the size of the Enterprise traveling at 35 knots. The waters in the straits were as calm as a lake and the ship threw a rooster tail up behind her that was probably 30 feet tall and create a wake that “Far Out” said he would have loved to surf. We entered the India Ocean on the 15th of December, but our mission was nearly nonexistent without the technical materials we needed. The ship was never required to become involved in the war and we returned to Subic Bay on 12 January after spending 58 continuous days at sea7.
USS Hancock (CVA-19) 4 Feb 1972 – 21 May 72
In the nine days between the USS Enterprise (CVAN-65), the newest attack carrier in the Navy at the time and boarding the USS Hancock (CVA-19), the oldest attack carrier in the Navy at the time, we were given a 96 hour liberty. Gene Polley, a country boy like me from Missouri, and I went to Manila, stayed in a nice air conditioned hotel, ate at some really good restaurants, saw the sights of a big, crowded bustling city and probably hit a night club or two. We boarded the Hancock on the 4th of February with a team that was mostly made up of personnel from the Enterprise deployment. Our supervisor was CTR1 Keith (Skip) Sprague and some of the others in the group were Gene Polley, Jake Banta and myself. The Vietnamese linguist from Enterprise was swapped out for a much more likable and capable guy. I remember his face well, but unfortunately I’ve forgotten his name. I think his last name was Spencer. He was a great guy and a good skedder. With one exception, this group of sailors stayed together up to America’s end to the Vietnam conflict in April 1973.
We arrived on Yankee Station on about 6 February and performed normal operations until 13 March when we headed for a port call in Yokosuka, Japan. When we reached the Philippine Sea Hancock decided to have a live fire exercise and took the salt crusted covers off the 5 inch guns that were mounted forward in the port and starboard catwalks just below the flight deck. Our spaces were amidships just below the island and we had quick access to the port catwalk. Since we were in transit there wasn’t a lot to do so we were able to catch the exercise from the catwalk. When the port side 5 inch gun fired it’s first round it made a loud bang and shook the ship pretty good. We were expecting to see the shell splash down a few miles out but only a few thousand yards out we could see it skipping across the surface like somebody skipping rocks on a pond. They fired two or three more rounds with the same result before they called off the exercise. The next day we were in the mid western Pacific about another day out of Yokuska, Japan when the Soviets overflew us with two TU-95 Bear bomber aircraft. Normally we were required to have fighters in the air to escort the soviet aircraft but the weather was really rough with some green water crashing over the flight deck so we couldn’t launch. We informed the Combat Information Center of the approaching Soviet aircraft and the Ops Boss came back over the intercom with “MAN THE 5 INCH GUNS!” and we all had a good laugh. The cloud cover was so low I doubt the Bears ever got much of a look at us anyway.
We augmenters from San Miguel weren’t expecting such a northerly trip in early March and the weather in Japan felt very cold. In fact there had been a resent snow and some was still on the ground when we arrived. The first thing I did was head to the Navy Exchange to buy a warmer jacket. Skip, Gene and I took the commuter train to Tokyo and stayed a couple of nights at the New Otani hotel. We also caught the bullet train to Kobe, Japan some 500 KM west of Tokyo and had a Kobe beef dinner in one of the restaurants before heading back to the hotel. An easy day trip on the bullet train. On 22 March we headed back to Yankee Station, but it wouldn’t be normal operations anymore.
On 30 March 1972 North Vietnam started the Spring/Summer offensive better know know as the Easter Offensive10. The U.S. Navy was caught off guard and the USS Hancock was the only aircraft carrier on the line in the Gulf of Tonkin when the offensive started. The ship immediately began around the clock flight operations flying sorties some 20 hours a day. The poor Airedales, the navy aviation ratings, were catching naps on the steel decks of passage ways, on the wings of aircraft and anywhere else they could get some sleep between launch and recovery cycles. The CT’s had no ability to surge. We continued our normal 12 hour watches 24 hours a day every day. While we didn’t have it nearly as rough as the flight deck crews we never had a stand down day where air crew and ships company would take an occasional day off and book it to safety training. However, with flight operations going around the clock there was no time for complacency. We stepped up our game along with everyone else.
On the night of 17 April the USS Higbee (DD-806) was reported to have been bombed by a couple of MiG 17’s12. We had no indication that the MiG’s were over water and I used to the accuracy of the account. However, the source sited here has a pretty detailed description of events including one of the MiG pilots name, so it is possible they got past our surveillance.
One day I was fortunate enough to come across some intelligence that indicated the North Vietnamese were trying to fly a MiG 21 down to Vinh airfield. This was their southern most airfield and having a modern fighter aircraft there would have jeopardized operations south of the DMZ and given them much closer access to our carrier operations on Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin. We were in the process of launching an Alpha strike of about 30 aircraft into North Vietnam so the air warfare coordinator changed their target to Vinh in mid-launch. They blew the runway out from under the MiG which was on it’s way down when the strike hit. That made this insignificant Seaman (or Seaman Apprentice) at that time feel pretty significant. It played a role in my decision a couple of years later to stay in the Navy. Operations continued at a high pace until it was time for the Hancock to rotate back to her home port in the states. On 21 May the augmenters from San Miguel cross-decked from the Hancock to the USS Midway (CVA-41)
USS Midway (CVA-41) 21 May 1972 — 8 February 1973
As our helicopter circled around waiting for the Midway’s launch cycle to complete so we could land I noticed the pilot and copilot pointing out the cockpit to something. The load master jumped up and was looking at what they were pointing at so I stood up to see what was going on. At that moment an F-4 Phantom that had just launched from Midway splashed down into the ocean a few thousand yards ahead of the ship and the F-4 pilot was swinging down on his parachute landing very near the wreckage. We found out when we got aboard that the hydraulic system had locked up and the aircraft could no longer be controlled.
I was expecting a short hop over to a ship only a couple of miles away. Instead the the ship was hundreds of miles south of us off Saigon so our helicopter ascended to 12,000 ft and, only in shirt sleeves, the extremely cold and noisy trip took an uncomfortable 2 hours.
That evening on the way to chow I passed through the area where weapons are armed and sent up to the flight deck on an elevator. Always in a rush to get the aircraft loaded and ready for the next launch, a crewman pushed the a load of 500 lb bombs on to the elevator and sent them up to the flight deck but he had not pushed the cart all the way into the elevator and the handle caught in the door tipping the cart sideways. Another crewman was holding the load of bombs from dropping down the elevator shaft using a screw driver as a wedge. At this point I was really worried about what I had gotten myself into; Midway seemed jinxed.
Air operations of Vietnam were still in full swing but there were several aircraft carriers on the line so tempo was high but not stretched as it had been when the Easter Offensive started.
Cross deck to USS Enterprise 8 Feb 73 – 13 Apr 73
