Bear Taylor 
GOOD MORNING. I have a Rolling Thunder tale to tell. WHEN NAVAL AVIATION ROARED… #12… A tale of the brave and bold: USS KITTY HAWK (CVA-63) and Carrier Air Wing 11 attack the transportation network in-and-around Thanh Hoa, North Vietnam on 4 February 1967…
KITTY HAWK and her air wing were on the second of six deployments to the Vietnam war, departing North island, San Diego on 5 November 1966 and returning on 30 June 1967. They logged 118 days of combat at Yankee Station and lost 14 aircraft in combat and three more in operational accidents. The ship and wing left 18 of her brave aviators behind: eight were killed-in-action; six were POWs who returned in 1973 after five to six years of captivity in Hanoi; two were captured alive but died in captivity; and two pilots were killed in operational losses. The summer and fall of 1967 were months of intense combat. In 1967 America lost 655 aircraft to enemy defenses, 584 aviators were killed-in-action, and 163 were captured to spend the duration of the war as brutally treated POWs of the North Vietnamese. KITTY HAWK and CVW-11 were in the heat of that fight.
THE MISSION. In the first days of February 1967 Navy RA-5Cs broke through the clouds over North Vietnam to acquire photography confirming the entrapment of large numbers of North Vietnamese railroad rolling stock and several engines. A three-day, three carrier air wing bombing assault was planned and coordinated to take advantage of this lucrative opportunity. Bridges north and south of Thanh Hoa were confirmed down or unserviceable and the enemy rolling stock was stuck in Thanh Hoa’s rail yards, sidings and spurs. On 4 February carriers KITTY HAWK, ENTERPRISE and TICONDEROGA conducted nine daytime Alpha strikes, several night A-6 Intruder strikes on the rail system, bridges and storage facilities in the Thanh Hoa area, as well as numerous night armed recce bombing missions over the roadways north and south of Thanh Hoa. On the morning of 4 February KITTY HAWK and Carrier Air Wing ELEVEN conducted the first of multiple strikes against the Thanh Hoa complex. These strikes were designed to capitalize on the concentration of entrapped rolling stock and war materials in the Thanh Hoa area.
ENEMY DEFENSES. As noted in previous tales in this series by this “Faithful Scribe,” Thanh Hoa was defended by scores of AAA sites of multiple barrels of 37mm/57mm/85mm artillery, several SAM sites of which three were confirmed as active in February 1967, and the area was also covered by MiGs from north of 20-degrees North. It was not Hanoi, Hai Duong or Haiphong, but it was the most heavily defended area of North Vietnam below the 20th parallel. However, the CTF-77 plan of a saturation attack by three air wings executing an unrelenting schedule of strikes was based on hard-learned experience–unrelenting saturation amounted to silencing enemy opposition as their ammunition supplies were expended. That was good for the strike pilots on day three, but day one, 4 February, was not an easy day…
PLANNING. Commander Carrier Air Wing ELEVEN, CDR Hank URBAN planned, briefed and coordinated the KITTY HAWK strike with the Air Wing strike leaders on ENTERPRISE and TICONDEROGA. The 30 plane CVW-11 strike plan was executed as briefed.
EXECUTION. Following an expeditious rendezvous, strike force navigation at low level to a point 20 miles from coast-in was precisely executed by the A-6 attack element leader. The A-6 SAM suppression element had preceded the main strike group by 20 miles in order to be in an attack position as the main strike group penetrated the SAM envelope. The A-4 attack element assumed navigation lead three minutes prior to coast-in (feet dry) as the F-4 flak suppressors accelerated ahead, popping to their roll-in altitude for attacks from the south. The faster, overtaking A-6 and F-4 attack elements of the main strike force popped up two miles ahead of the twelve A-4s in the main force and swung wide of Thanh Hoa city to make their diving attacks from the west simultaneously with the A-4 bombers coming from the east and a few seconds after the first proximity fuzed AGM-12 Bullpups hit their targets. The F-4 flak suppressors completed their troll and attack on a few of the innumerable active AAA sites. Multiple partial cloud layers added difficulty to the execution of all facets of the multiple path, visual attack plan, but execution closely adhered to that plan as a consequence of strike element leaders previous experience in the Thanh Hoa area. Following the main attack as the main strike aircraft retired, two A-4 warriors scored direct hits on the girders of the Thanh Hoa Bridge rendering the bridge unserviceable (for the short term). Retirement was uneventful with the A-4s exiting west, then south and east out to the GOT. The A-6s and F-4s retired on the direction of their diving attacks, to the east. The A-6 Ironhand retired to the east after a dive bombing attack on the railroad yards and tracks south of the city.
ENEMY OPPOSITION. Moderate tracking fire was encountered from coast-in through the multiple angle attack on various targets in the complex to the the coast out of all strike force aircraft. Opposition in the target area was intense but divided and ineffective as a result of the precise execution of a simultaneous and well timed attacks from four directions. There was no SAM or MiG activity other than warnings. No aircraft were hit or damaged by the notorious AAA defenses of Thanh Hoa.
STRIKE RESULTS. The A-4 strike elements succeeded in destroying or damaging 51 of 64 boxcars and interdicting 1,000-feet of track. The A-6 strike element destroyed 1,000-feet of track in the marshaling, several storage buildings, the marshaling yard bypass, and more than a dozen boxcars.The F-4 attack element successfully interdicted their assigned targets in the complex including the “turning Y”, associated storage buildings and 16 boxcars. The Thanh Hoa Bridge, “the Dragon’s Jaw,” suffered significant damage as the result of two Bullpup hits on the bridge’s girder structure. All BDA was confirmed by post-strike photography. COMSEVENTHFLT messaged a congratulatory “atta boy” to the ship and air wing on the success of the strike.
BITS OF RIBBON. Not many! (Ref: USS KITTY HAWK ltr 1650 Ser 0290 of 13 Jun 1967) The ship/air wing submitted award recommendations for forty-one fearless CVW-11 aviators; five DFCs, ten Air Medals and 26 Navy Commendation Medals with Combat V. Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet approved only two DFCs: LT Lew DUNTON, III, USN and LT Bob MAIER. Their story was detailed in an earlier RTR post covering 4 February 1967. CINCPACFLT slashed the rest of the ship/air wing recommendation to approve a total of seven Air Medals and six NCMs. Twenty-six of the guys who went to Thanh Hoa earned 2-points toward their next Strike-Flight Air Medal. Sigh! Your old Navy correspondent knows the feeling: I flew a strike off ENTERPRISE on 4 February and put nine MK-82s on an engine hidden on a spur, tucked in close to a karst on the west side of Thanh Hoa. “Thar she blows” — two points and a fun day for the Bear.
CINCPACFLT had an awards problem. The submission of award recommendations by the ships came months after the glorious feat had been accomplished and arrived at a time of ever more intense and costly–in aviators and aircraft–strike operations as the summer, fall of 1967 progressed and Hanoi, Haiphong and Hai Duong and the air fields of the North came under CTF-77 fire. Selling an award for a good mission to targets south of the 20th parallel became a tough sell by June 1967. The “bits of ribbon” were appropriately awarded to the strike pilots and NFOs hitting targets in the Red River Valley, where dodging SAMs, ducking MiGs, and flashing through streams of AAA fire was the standard fare…
OLD NAVY SCRIBE’s END NOTE… and the rest of the story… On the night of 4 February 1967 USS KITTY HAWK, CVW-11 and embarked F-4B squadron VF-213 lost an F-4B call sign “Black Lion 102” to the gunners defending the roads north of Thanh Hoa. LT Donald E. THOMPSON, pilot, and LT Allan P. COLLAMORE, RIO, launched as the number two aircraft in a section ordered to conduct a night armed reconnaissance mission along the road segments north of Thanh Hoa. LT THOMPSON was briefed to fly in a five to seven mile trail position of the lead aircraft as they crossed into North Vietnam at Lan Trai, 28 miles northeast of Thanh Hoa and 68 miles southeast of Hanoi. Immediately upon crossing into North Vietnam the lead aircraft executed a flare drop that illuminated an enemy convoy moving south on a highway. About one minute after the flare drop the flight leader observed a large fireball on the ground a few miles behind him. He immediately attempted to contact LTS THOMPSON and COLLAMORE with no response. When he reached the area of the explosion he observed a large, intensely burning fire as well as enemy trucks and multiple muzzle flashes. Lead also saw a red survival flare, which he believed was ignited by one of the two downed aviators. Search and rescue efforts were initiated at first light on 5 February and continued for two days with no response or trace of either of the two fighter guys. All SAR activity was terminated and LTs THOMPSON and COLLAMORE were declared missing-in-action.
Neither aviator came home with the POWs in March 1973, ending hope that the two were among them. In September 1974 intelligence information was received by the U.S. Government indicating that an American jet was downed in the general location and timeframe with both aviators perishing in the crash and both bodies being buried near the crash site by the North Vietnamese. In 2001 additional information was developed that led to a joint recover team excavating the crash site of “Black Lion 102” and the recovery of the remains of both LCDR THOMPSON and LCDR COLLAMORE, both promoted while MIA, which were positively identified in 2003. Both warriors now rest in peace in Arlington National Cemetery. They are remembered here with admiration and respect… And a big atta boy to the DPAA Joint Recovery folks, who never give up on those we left behind…
NEXT POST. Tale #13, USS ORISKANY’s infamous Brown Bear stirs up a cloud of MiGs on an air wing strike on the Taun Tinh Ferry near Haiphong on 14 December 1967. Your faithful scribe has the original message describing the action and results…
Lest we forget… Bear
