Bear Taylor 
RIPPLE SALVO… NAVCAD CLASS 34-55….DREAMS INTO MEMORIES … but first…..
Good Morning: Day THIRTY of a look back to Operation Rolling Thunder… Fifty Years Ago…
30 MARCH 1966 (NYT)…ON THE HOME FRONT…. A cloudy Wednesday with some rain in New York… The big news on page 1 came under the headlines: “Brezhnev Opens Soviet Congress; Bids U.S. End War” ... The Communist Party chief spoke to more than 6000 delegates and observers and said better ties with the United States hinge on an American halt to a “policy of aggression” in Vietnam… then the BIG news…”CLAY BEATS CHERVALO IN HARD TITLE FIGHT”…”Cassius Clay absorbed more than 100 punches below the belt. Clay successfully defended his world heavy weight boxing championship by out pointing Chervalo.” It was a bruising 15-rounder with Clay scoring his 23rd victory against the Canadian heavy weight champ, known for his brawling style…. On page 10– that little box that carries the latest KIAs in Vietnam…today: 10 KIA. 54 yesterday…”The air war,” also on page 10: “Bad weather again hampered United States Navy and Air Force planes over North Vietnam. Together they only flew 26 missions striking mainly in the vicinity of Vinh.”…. Page 11 probably got some attention on the college campuses. The Selective Service announced that 34,600 will be drafted into the Army in May. It had asked for 21,700 for April. The peak call was for 40,200 in December 1965. Total Army strength was now 1,144,000: 176,000 had been added since June of 1965. The call for more troops was explained: “The Army still needs 90,000 men to complete its buildup for the Vietnam War. The new call “dimmed hopes previously expressed that the induction of college students might be avoided.” Induction rate planned was for 30,00o draftees per month, but that was based on a healthy voluntary enlistment rate…. The editorial pages were headlined: “Slow War on Narcotics.“…”Governor Rockefeller’s war on narcotics legislation, which has passed the State Senate so overwhelmingly carries special significance for New York City. Roughly 50,000 addicts, or half the total in the nation, reside here, and the police estimates that 50-per cent of the crime is linked to the drug habit…. Your Humble Host notes that the country thought they had a drug problem 50-years ago — March 1966 — when the national total was 100,000 addicts …
War on Drugs?…I just googled an update as of 2010: ” Drug use is on the rise in this country and 23.5 million Americans are addicted to alcohol and drugs. That’s approximately one in every ten Americans over the age of 12 — roughly equal to the entire population of Texas…only 11-per cent of those with an addiction receive treatment.” A 2015 Columbia University study on the subject: “Addition is America’s most neglected disease. 40 million Americans age 12 and over meet the clinical criteria for addition involving nicotine, alcohol or other drugs.” You have to hand it to the Boomers — they sure know how to change a nation’s culture.
30 MARCH 1966… ROLLING THUNDER….”the air war”… Lousy weather holding… The only loss of aircraft was an F-100 D from the416TFS out of Tan Son Nhut… CAPTAIN R.C. OAKS was hit while executing a strafing pass on a CAS target south of the Mekong Delta and was forced to eject. He was rescued and survived…
So, a FLASHBACK to a few days of Rolling Thunder in 1965…
1-3 JUNE 1965…USS Midway… and …USS Bon Homme Richard …Yankee Station…1 June: Bad day for Photo Recon…LTJG M.R. FIELDS of the VFP-63 Det on Midway was hit on an RF-8A photo pass on the railroad yards at Vinh. He controlled the crippled aircraft to feet wet and ejected about 30-miles from shore. He was rescued by an Air Force HU-16… LCDR FREDERICK PETER CROSBY piloting an RF-8A from the VFP-63 Det on Bonnie Dick was hit while on a high speed (550-knot) pass at 500-feet on the bridge at Dong Phong Thuong, ten miles north of the Thanh Hoa Bridge. His aircraft almost immediately rolled and flew into the ground. LCDR CROSBY was Killed in Action… On 2 June Midway lost two aircraft and five aircrew. LTJG DAVID MARION CHRISTIAN was flying an A-4E from the VA-23 squadron on an armed recce south of Thanh Hoa and on a pull out from a second rocket attack on a radar site he was hit and lost his engine. He subsequently flew the aircraft into the ground or ejected too late to survive. LTJG CHRISTIAN was Killed in Action…. An EA-1F from the VAW Det on Midway responded to the A-4 downing and proceeded over the beach, at low altitude, at Sam Son east of Thanh Hoa to take station as SAR commander. The aircraft was hit by ground fire and crashed. LTJG M.D. MICAN, LTJG GERALD MICHAEL ROMANO, PO3 WILLIAM HENRY AMSPACKER AND ATN3 THOMAS LEE PLANTS were Killed in Action. Over time the remains of all five of the Midway flyers were recovered, identified and buried in the United States.. Later on 2 June LT JOHN BRYAN McKAMEY flying a VA-23 A-4E from Midway, was hit while conducting an armed recce northwest of Vinh and while making a low pass to locate a ferry at the Cam Ngoc river crossing he was hit by ground fire and disabled. His engine failed and he ejected and was captured. LT McKAMEY spent eight years as a POW, returning to the United States on 12 February 1973… On 3 June, Midway lost another A-4 from VA-22 piloted by LT RAYMOND P. ILG while conducting an armed recce mission in the Barrel Roll area of Laos. LT ILG was hit over Route 65 ten miles east of Sam Neua. He ejected and evaded capture for two days in very hostile country. He was rescued by an Air America helicopter piloted by CAPTAIN JULIAN KANACH. LT PAUL ILG would return to eventually command a carrier squadron, a nuclear carrier, and several Flag assignments before retiring as a Vice Admiral…oohrah…. There are no easy days and there are some real bad days… Midway had a few real bad days in June 1965…
SIX good men, brave men, gone, fifty one years ago– but not forgotten…CROSBY, CHRISTIAN, MICAN, ROMANO, AMSPACKER, and LEE… Rest in peace….
RIPPLE SALVO… NAV CAD Class 34-55… In the mid-1950s major transitions were occurring in Naval Aviation and the world. The national strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union was a combination of “containment” and “Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).” It was called the “Cold War” but it was also an arms race, as each side attempted to swing the pendulum of power to their respective side. That didn’t happen until President Ronald Reagan and Michail Gorbachev shook hands in 1989-90. In the 1950s Naval Aviation was both transitioning from props to jets and expanding the force to man more and bigger carriers. carriers and aviators that would play a role in containing communism and spreading the nation’s nuclear weapons delivery capability wide and deep in order to maintain a second strike capability that would, and did, help hold the Soviets in check. In the mid-1950s the nation was necking down from a dozen aircraft manufacturers, who produced the tens of thousands of propeller driven aircraft required to fight and win World War II, to a lesser number, a few thousand jets to equip a carrier force of about twenty aircraft carriers. The learning curve for both industry and the pilots was painful. Several hundred pilots were killed every year mastering too many new types and models of carrier aircraft. As a consequence, the demand for young men to enter the Navy as enlisted Naval Aviation Cadets (starting pay $100 + $50 for flight pay — if you could keep from washing out to complete your two year enlistment as a White Hat) was strong and steady. Seventy draft eligible college dropouts, who had 2-years of passing grades, were fit and fairly smart, had an opportunity for adventure few are given. Nav Cad Class 34-55 began the process leading to a commission as an Ensign or 2nd LT, USMC with a set of Wings of Gold in September 1955. I was one of the 70 in that class. Many of us chose careers in Naval Aviation (rather than the airlines) and as a consequence, when ROLLING THUNDER got underway in March 1965, Class 34-55, with nine years of looking the Soviets in the eye, and practicing for war, was well represented. LT J.B. McKAMEY (see Midway above) was one of us. So were AL STAFFORD and ARVIN CHAUNCEY, who were also A-4 Light Attackers shot down in ROLLING THUNDER. They were captured and joined J.B. McKAMEY as POWs in the Hanoi Hilton. All three would return home on 12 February 1973. In addition, DENNY WEICHMAN, among the bravest of the brave, served several tours in Southeast Asia, including ROLLING THUNDER, as an attack pilot, and log more than 600 combat missions before being killed in an aviation accident. An old warrior friend of mine, who served on Oriskany with Weichman, said this of Denny: “…a natural-born heroic SOB! If they would have let him lead more Alphas, we would have suffered fewer losses. He knew how to focus under fire, how to get in there and get the job done, and get out.”Another dozen 34-55 Naval Aviators, Navy and Marine, had combat and other flying roles in the theater during the years of Rolling Thunder. Our periodic reunions have ROLLING THUNDER and the Vietnam War stories on the agenda in spades…
In the mid-1950s Pensacola welcomed 70 young men with dreams into the “Cradle of Naval Aviation” every week. Naval Aviation Cadet Class 34-55 was typical of every other. We were so young… Happy Warriors fulfilling our dreams … from 20 to 80 in a flash… so many memories…
Lest we forget…. Bear
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