AIR WING SIXTEEN SARS OFF ORISKANY ON YANKEE STATION

While conducting combat operations on Yankee Station in October ’66, an explosion and fire aboard USS Oriskany disabled the carrier and killed forty-six men, most of whom were air wing pilots.  Only eight months later, Air Wing Sixteen and Oriskany were back in the fight.  After a brief warm-up on Dixie Station, during which we lost an A-4 Skyhawk off the catapult, we moved to Yankee Station on 14 July ‘67.  That first day, an Attack Squadron 164 Ghost Rider, Larry Cunningham, lost his Skyhawk to flak in Route Package 1, but we got him back.

In the 17 remaining days in July, we lost 12 aircraft:  (1) AD-7 Spad, (6) A-4 Skyhawks, (4) F-8 Crusaders, and (1) KA-3D Whale.  Dead or missing were attack pilots Rob Castle, Dick Hartman, and Mac Davis; fighter pilots Herb Hunter and Charlie Zuhoski; and A-3 crewmen Bruce Patterson and Charlie Hardie.  Rescued from deep in Indian Country were F-8 driver Butch Verich and A-4 pilot Larry Duthie.  Now, let me tell you how it went with Duthie and the “malfunctioning” Fighter Squadron One-hundred-Eleven Crusader, call sign Old Nick 106, that saved him.

On 18 July, I was assigned MIGCAP to escort an Alpha strike against the Co Trai Bridge.  Unfortunately, after the catapult shot 106 gave me a wing-unlocked warning light.  Several re-cycling’s didn’t change anything, and since my wingman had a radio failure, I traded Fighter Squadron 162’s John Hellman my MIGCAP for his BARCAP.  I dropped my wingy off, so he could join the recovery in progress, and proceeded to the BARCAP station over  Northern SAR destroyer Harbor Master.

During the strike, Ghost Rider Dick Hartman’s A-4 was hit by flak.  He got about 25 miles south of Hanoi before ejecting.  Other Skyhawks set up a RESCAP over him, but they were getting low on fuel.

Listening to all this on Strike Control frequency, I again recycled 106’s wing several times; still the unlocked indication.  The A-4 RESCAP made contact with Hartman on his emergency radio and reported his position to Oriskany, but they were out of fuel and had to bingo back to the ship.

I knew from personal experience with the rescue of VF-162’s Butch Verich two days earlier, that timing was everything.  If the rescue could not be made in the first hour or two, the unfavorable odds became astronomical!  So, I asked Red Crown (the Yankee Station command and control cruiser) for a steer to Hartman’s position and went feet dry.

I’d witnessed Superheat Lee Prost’s death off the Oriskany a few months earlier, when his wing came off in a strafing run, so I tried to hold 106’s speed down to the wing-unlocked limitation of 220kts.  Not possible!  Before I got to the middle of the Red River Delta, I started taking 37mm flak close aboard, so I pushed it up to 300kts.  When a Fansong tracking radar for surface-to-air missiles locked on, and my APR-27 warned of a SAM launch, Old Nick 106 showed me her wing would stay on through a 350kt/3g barrel roll.

I was about 20 miles south of Hartman’s reported position, and down to 1,500 feet trying to shake-off another SAM, when I stumbled across an emergency radio beeper.  Going over the top in another barrel roll, I spotted a parachute in the trees.

It was the first time we realized that two Skyhawks were down; both Hartman and his wingy, Larry Duthie.  I couldn’t get Duthie to answer on the radio, but his emergency beeper was loud and clear; so I swung down into the trees in an attempt to pick him up visually.  That brought a whole lot of 37mm my way.  Not wanting to give Duthie’s position away to the bad guys, I climbed out of there and took up a position to the west.

An Air Force Jolly Green and Sandy’s had scrambled when Hartman was reported down and were already enroute from the southwest.  Communications from Harbor Master indicated they were launching their SH-3 SAR Helo.  It was simply a matter of me staying overhead to vector them to Duthie’s parachute when they got there.  That involved 45 minutes of evading continual flak and an occasional SAM.   At one particularly hazardous point, 106 kept her wing on at 400kts and 4.5g before the SAM-2 flew past.

Unfortunately, the SAR aircraft still had a long way to come when I reached bingo fuel.  Oriskany had earlier launched all her KA-3D tankers to top off the Alpha strike and was trying to hot-spin one to get some fuel back in the air, but all they had airborne now was one A-4 buddy tanker to cover the recovery.  The rules were clear!  That tanker had to stay around the carrier landing pattern.

God was in the air that day.  I felt His hands on the stick many times!  He also inspired one hell of an A-4 driver by the name of Mac Davis to lie about his fuel state, take the fuel from the buddy tanker, and come back in to help me.

When I heard Mac coming in, I knew we had a great chance to get Duthie; if I could stay there long enough to show him the ‘chute.  So, I changed my bingo calculations from making Oriskany to just making feet wet.  Davis made a perfect rendezvous, and I dropped him off over Duthie’s ‘chute as a Sandy flight reported coming in from the southwest and Harbor Master’s helo reported going feet dry.

I was down to 500 lbs. (less than 10 minutes) of fuel and didn’t really think I could make it to the coast.  I was contacting Red Crown with my likely ejection position when tanker pilot Tom Maxwell came up on the frequency.  His KA-3D detachment had dozens of “saves” during that ’67-‘68 cruise, and I was the recipient of two of them in our first week on the line.

It was against all the rules for the guys in those big slow tankers to go feet dry in the area of known SAM firings, but Tom Maxwell gave me the same break I’d given Duthie and came on in.  I heard later that he’d simply looked at his two crewmen while they were listening to my situation and they both gave him an automatic “thumbs up.”  Tom made a perfect rendezvous on me and swung in front of 106 with his drogue extended, and our APR-27’s blaring a SAM launch warning in our ears.

After plug-in, I glanced down at the fuel gauge and saw it rising past the first index mark from zero.  When I disconnected with enough to get back to the ship, the Harbor Master SAR helo was checking in over Duthie’s position.  Unfortunately, they got shot up; real quick and real bad!  One of their crew was killed and they were forced to withdraw.  Perfume, the Yankee Station Commander, wasn’t about to give up on Duthie!  After other helos and AD-7’s were hit by ground fire, Larry was finally plucked from the jungle by Major York and his brave crew with a Jolly Green HH-3 from the USAF in Thailand/Laos.  York was awarded the Air Force Cross, and his crew Silver Stars.

Contact was re-established with Dick Hartman, but it was too late in the day for another rescue attempt.  Perfume attempted to maintain radio contact with him.  Crusader drivers J.P. O’Neil and Pete Peters, and others, dodged SAM’s in that area, just 20 miles south of Hanoi, all night long.  Hartman reported an intensive weapons build-up all around him and suggested a massive strike on the area.

At first light the next morning, Oriskany launched 16 aircraft; under the leadership of that courageous SOB of a Spad Driver VA-152 skipper Wilson, to escort the second Northern SAR helo to get Hartman.  Just short of Dick’s position, the helo made an unfortunate turn over a 37mm gun position and all seven brave souls onboard were killed.  Wilson immediately went back for another helo, but that one got shot-up before getting more than ten miles feet dry.  Perfume called it off.  There was talk of trying the Fulton Recovery Rig, and we attempted contact with Hartman as he evaded capture for three days, then it was over.  He was either killed while being captured or died shortly thereafter.  Dick’s remains were returned in 1974.  The remains of the heroic helo crew were returned in 2012.

Years later, I wondered if Hartman’s story had been the inspiration for Stephen Coonts’ rescue segment in the movie, Flight of the Intruder.  I know they stole Rock Hodge’s “Cool Hand” call sign.  But God bless them for keeping him alive in some way!  Rock was a former Air Force B-47 pilot who transferred to the Navy to get into combat.  Flying a Ghost Rider A-4E Skyhawk with Shrike missiles, he was an absolutely fearless SAM killer . . .  until a vicious fight near Hanoi on 7 October 1967, when he took on too many Hanoi SAM sites at the same time.  I escorted Rock on several Iron Hand missions.  It didn’t matter to him where the target was; if there were no SAM’s there to shoot at us, he’d fly towards Hanoi until they opened up and he could launch his Shrike’s at them!

Rock’s remains were recovered in 1996 during a joint US/Vietnam effort, finally returned to America, and recently interred at Arlington.  In a note to his daughter, I mentioned that, while on Yankee Station, I’d add the Twenty-Third Psalm to my prayers . . . and when I was scheduled to escort Rock, I’d add: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow death, I shall fear no evil; for Thou art with me, and I’m going there with Cool Hand.”  Rock Hodges was one of only two mortals I ever knew who could give the Angels lessons in courage.

Mac Davis was also killed, seven days after he vectored the first Harbor Master Big Mother rescue helo to Duthie.  Secretary of Defense McNamara was visiting Oriskany; and we had to show him that we could bomb trucks at night, under a 500 foot overcast.  Mac hit the side of a hill in Route Package One.

Between July ’67 and January ’68, Oriskany lost 37 aircraft and 26 pilots.  During Johnson and McNamara’s Rolling Thunder, Air Wing Sixteen made three major deployments (Apr ’65-Jan ’68).   We lost 93 of our assigned compliment of 72 aircraft.  242 aircraft were hit by enemy fire; 180 were damaged and 62 knocked down.  Of our assigned complement of 75 combat pilots, 56 were killed in action, 12 became prisoners of war and 5 were missing in action.  An Air Wing Sixteen combat pilot’s probability of surviving Rolling Thunder was less than 30 percent; the statistical probability of our being atheists approached zero!

Our Air Wing Commander Burt Shepherd did get some recognition on the Ed Sullivan Show as the Navy’s (then) most decorated aviator; and, of course, now-Senator John McCain (who survived the Forrestal fire to fly 23 missions before he got bagged) was the star of Discovery Channel’s documentary about our Attack Squadron 163.

The rest of us have just suffered in silence, along with scores of others, through long sleepless nights, occasionally trying to type an e-mail with tears fogging our glasses.  God Bless Us, each and every one!

Respectfully submitted,Dick (Brown Bear) Schaffert

VF-111 Sundowner, F8E/C off Oriskany on Yankee; 1966,1967-8

VF-92 Silverkite, F4-J off Constellation on Yankee; 1972, 1973