Douglas A-1 Skyraider: A Photo Chronicle

The Author Frederick A. Johnsen is the author of numerous historical aviation books, including Thundering Peacemaker, The B-29 Book, Bombers in Blue, Darkly Dangerous, and The Bomber Barons. His articles and photographs have appeared inAirpower,Airman,Aviation Week and Space Technology,Air Progress, FlyPast,Air Classics, Wings, GeneralAviationNews andFlyer, KokuFan, and other periodicals and books. Fred has degrees in history andjournalism from the University ofWashington, where he worked his way through college in the University's Kirsten Wind Tunnel. He served as the consulting curator to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, during critical design phases there, and was the founding curator of the McChord Air Museum at McChord Air Force Base, Washington. He has worked as an Air Force historian since 1981, receiving recognition from Air Mobility Command and the U.S. Air Force, including the U.S. Air Force Excellence in Wing History Programs Award for 1992, for his work.

Douglas

A·1 SKYRAIDER A Photo Chronicle Frederick A. Johnsen

Schiffer Military/Aviation History Atglen, PA

Front cover artwork by Steve Ferguson, Colorado Springs, CO PATTON'S SPAD On 9 October 1966, four VA-176 A-1H Skyraiders from the USS Intrepid were vectored deep into North Vietnam to cover a rescue helicopter trying to reach a downed F-4 Phantom II crew. After pushing through a brief flak barrage, the Spad lead flight pushed further inland where they were set upon by four MiG 17's. In the ensuing maneuvers which twisted down to tree top level, the opponents separated and two of the jets were heavily damaged at the hands ofthe Spad flight leader and his wingman. Seconds later, tail-end-element Lt(jg) Tom Patton in Spad "09" (Bu.N. 13543) reached the fight and dropped down on the last MiG skimming just above the jungle. The enemy pilot attempted a climbing turn followed with a reverse turn which negated all of the MiG's speed. Patton skillfully split-S'ed into point blank range at six o'clock and closed to within 100 feet of the silver intruder. After gutting his target with the last of his 20mm ammo, Patton even tried for a coup de grace with four of his Zuni rockets but missed. The riddled MiG rolled over and plunged out of sight through a low hanging cloud. After a quick turn beneath the thin cloud bank, the victorious Navy aviator caught a glimpse of the MiG driver drifting into the jungle beneath his parachute.

Acknowledgements: Edward H. Heinemann, designer of the Douglas Skyraider, provided many hours' insight into the design and development of this aircraft. He also read the manuscript in an effort to track down any errors that might have crept in. General Nguyen Cao Ky gave his perspective and recollections of VNAF Skyraider operations. Harry S. Gann, of Douglas Aircraft Company at the time of my research, was a reliable source of vintage Skyraider photos. Museums lending a hand include the National Air and Space Museum, Pima Air Museum, U.S. Naval Aviation Museum, and the former, but not forgotten, Pacific Northwest Aviation Historical Foundation (PNAHF). The office of Naval History in the Washington Navy Yard was very helpful. Many individuals provided anecdotes, photos, research, and technical manuals. These include: Jerry Boynton, AI Butterworth, John Campbell, Gary Cave, Jeff Ethell, Dave Feigert, David M. Forrest, Rene J. Francillon, Herb Kissling, Keith Laird, William T. Larkins, Ronald G. Linder, Dave Menard, Houston Morrison, James and Jean Morrow, Earl Otto, Dennis Peltier, Doug Remington, Bill Riepl, and Paul Swendrowski, among others. Manuscript typing and proofreading chores were devotedly performed by Sharon Lea Johnsen and Helen F. Johnsen. From his library of vintage aviation publications, my father, Carl M. Johnsen, performed Skyraider research. The chapter footnote citations are rich with bibliographic material about books and periodicals containing Skyraider information. Special thanks to Barrett Tillman and Walt Boyne.

Dedication

For Sharon <

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Book Design by Robert Biondi First Edition ~1i;..;'r ,t, '}:W:.'t{-t"/I:J:; Copyright © 1994 by Frederick A. Johnsen. ;J". '\j

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""Library of Congress Catalog Number: 93-84499

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any forms or by any means graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the copyright holder. Printed in the United States of America. ISBN: 0-88740-512-6 We are interested in hearing from authors with book ideas on related topics. Published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 77 Lower Valley Road Atglen, PA 19310 Please write for a free catalog. This book may be purchased from the publisher. Please include $2.95 postage. Try your bookstore first.

Contents Preface

5

Chapter I 7 Building a Better Bomber Chapter II 21 Between the Wars: Skyraiders Enter the Navy Chapter III 55 Korea Proves the Skyraider Chapter IV 65 Cold-War Demands Chapter V 71 Able Dogs in Foreign Service Chapter VI 77 Early Asia Chapter VII 88 The Navy in Vietnam Chapter VIII 91 No More Kid Gloves: New Tricks for an Able Dog Chapter IX 101 Wind-Down in Asia Chapter X 109 Skyraiders for the Future

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AD-1 's glossy sea blue wing mirrored its fuselage numbers in flight. (H.G. Martin/Kansas Aviation Historical Society collection)

4

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

Preface

T

he rubble from the Korean War still smoked figuratively when I saw myfirst Douglas Skyraider. It was while on a Sunday drive, a time when my father was fond of checking out the local airports for unusual birds. Newly-minted, its glossy sea blue wings folded overhead, the Skyraider seemed to be all hard points and stores-pylons as it reposed on the Douglas ramp. Skyraider encounter number two came in the summer of 1961. America had moved to suburbia, and I was reluctantly entering a shopping mall to get school clothes for the impending sixth grade when an echelon of rumbling, gray, businesslike ADs from Moffett Field chugged overhead. An impression stuck in my 10-year-old mind: Supersonic jets had failed to oust the rugged, prop-driven, bomb-hauling Skyraider from navy service. In the late 1970s, I would walk amongst veteran exVietnamese Skyraiders which had probably hauled out more South Vietnamese refugees to Thailand when Saigon fell than Douglas designer Ed Heinemann could ever have envisioned his AD carrying. These Skyraiders and others were now entering the expensive world of privately-kept warbirds. For so many years, the Douglas Skyraider was simply there. The legends of its prowess began to accumulate. Company publicists didn't miss a chance to show the Skyraider could carry more ordnance than a B-17 heavy bomber of World War II. Single-engine, prop-driven Skyraiders were given the pivotal task of carrying nuclear weapons. Lugging a special fuel store with a trailing hose, Skyraiders could refuel fleet jets. Bulky radars and electronics systems could be nested in the metamorphosing fuselage of the Able Dog (as we all knew the letters AD really stood for). In far-off South Vietnam in the very early 1960s, coups and counter-coups were executed and thwarted with the aid of menacing Skyraiders. Then Bernie Fisher rode his A-1 E through a nightmare of enemy fire and debris to rescue his flying buddy on the ground at A Shau, earning Fisher a justly-deserved Congressional Medal of Honor, and his Skyraider a permanent berth in the Air Force Museum. But the capper had to be

the Navy "Spad" drivers who outflew North Vietnamese MiG pilots, and used their A-1 s' cannons to shoot down two MiGs over North Vietnam (see cover). The study of any aspect of history must be woven in a context which at least acknowledges the tenor of the times. References to prevailing ideas, technological breakthroughs and limitations, and blind luck season this biography of the Douglas Skyraider aircraft. Interviewees for this book include Edward H. Heinemann, designer of so many famous Douglas planes including the Skyraider; General Nguyen Cao Ky, South Vietnam's spirited flying Premier, who grew to love the Skyraider in combat over his homeland; and legions of pilots, crew chiefs, armorers, and para-rescue technicians who relied on the Skyraider to help them do their jobs. It has been argued that the classic "war story," whether relayed over a beer in the club hours after a mission, or at a dinner party ten years later, is quintessentially true in spite of embellishments. The truth lies not in whether a Skyraider took 30 or 300 hits from groundfire, or whether it pulled out of a dive at tree-top or grass-top height, but rather in the fact that the old Skyraider did what had to be done at the time, and delivered its crews home to talk about it. I have endeavored to flavor this manuscript with war stories that ring true, interviews with key people in the Skyraider saga, accounts from official Navy and Air Force historical sources, and data from company and military tech orders. My mentors in daily newspaper reporting and in the Air Force history program instilled in me a penchant for attribution. Use the footnote references to gain a perspective of my sources, decide if any conclusions drawn in this manuscript match your own, or will warrant a healthy debate some time. Some self-proclaimed adventurers of the 1980s longed to round up a handful of Skyraiders, bomb-up, and do battle with communist guerrillas in Latin America. Was this hopelessly nostalgic saber-rattling, or an accurate assessment of the best tool for this task? Read on ... Frederick A. Johnsen

Preface

5

6

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

CHAPTER I

Building a Better Bomber 'This world belongs to the energetic. " Ralph Waldo Emerson

E

d Heinemann peered over the shoulder of pilot before Northrop left Douglas' employ in 1937. Northrop had Vance Breese, sitting ahead of Heinemann in the founded Douglas' EI Segundo, California operation, which he prototype Northrop-designed BT torpedo bomber ultimately left to form his own company. (Northrop kept some C3.s it hurtled toward earth in a vertical dive. Through ties; when his XP-61 Black Widow night fighter was ready for the windscreen, landscape seemed distant in a high oblique its maiden flight in May 1942, Northrop relied on veteran pilot view, and did not convey the sensation of speed as the Vance Breese to take the big twin-engine XP-61 up for the first encapsulated aviators wrung out the aircraft. time.)4 "About the time Jack (Northrop) left, we converted the Steep, nearly vertical dives such as this one in 1937 over BT's engine and made a lot of changes and came out with a southern California set up a terrific buffeting in the tail of the new airplane. That was in the two years after Jack left," screaming dive bomber when its wing-mounted speed brakes Heinemann said. Next, Heinemann and his associates took were deployed to slow its descent. Ed Heinemann was re- the second BT airframe and tried many variations, including a sponsible for the design of much of the BT, including the short-lived tricycle landing gear. Changes to the fuselage, hydraulic cylinders that activated the dive brakes mounted on engine mount, cowling, powerplant, bomb displacement trathe trailing edge of the wing. peze, canopy, tail, instruments and other features ultimately Years later, Heinemann recalled how the turbulent air . metamorphosed this aircraft into the famous Douglas SBD vortices set up by the deployed speed brakes "damn near Dauntless dive bomber. Because John K. Northrop was shook the tail off."1 Pilot Vance Breese refused to take instrumental in the organization which designed the predeHeinemann on any more of the tests because in the dive, the cessors of the Dauntless, he has sometimes been cited as the Pratt and Whitney engine's carburetor emitted enough un- creator of the SBD. But while Northrop was an aeronautical burned gasoline through the hot exhaust to torch, endanger- design genius in his own right, the Douglas SBD dive bomber ing the fabric tail surfaces. This phenomenon apparently was bore enough evidence of Heinemann's handiwork for the the result of rapid barometric changes affecting engine carbu- patent on the SBD to be taken out in his name. retion as the aircraft dived into ever-thicker atmosphere. No The durable Dauntless was exploited by Navy and Marine one would ever accuse Ed Heinemann of closeting himself in pilots throughout World War II. But Navy planners soon were an office far from the action. He took pride in flying in aircraft anticipating the SBD's replacement, with improved perforwhich bore the Heinemann design touches. Unable to pinpoint mance made possible by the use of the new R-3350 radial the buffeting problem from his perch in the gunner's seat ofthe engine, which generated 2,500 horsepower compared with BT any longer, Heinemann took another approach. "The 1,200 horsepower for the Wright Cyclone powerplant of the Depression was on and we were all broke, but I managed to SBD. buy a Bell and Howell motion picture camera and put it on the The Douglas company's response to the Navy's quest for wing. You wouldn't believe how much that tail oscillated."2 a Dauntless replacement was the awkward-looking XSB2D, Heinemann returned to the design room. Charlie Helm, a two prototypes of which were ordered by the Navy in October National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) advi- 1943. The XSB2D featured tricycle landing gear, and remote sor, suggested the magnitude of the vortices caused by the turrets in the fashion of the Douglas A-26 Invader bomber. deployed brakes could be reduced if air bled through the dive One turret was mounted dorsally and another ventrally, to brake panels. Reluctantly at first, Ed inserted rows of circular sweep rear and beam attack approaches. In addition to the holes in the speed brakes to allow some of the air to stream pilot, a gunner was carried for the turrets. The wing of the through the braking panels, rather than forcing all the air to SB2D was a cranked inverted gull, not as pronounced as that burble overthe brakes. 3 The brakes still more than adequately of the F4U Corsair fighter. An internal bomb bay carried the slowed the BT, and the bleed-through holes eliminated the tail. plane's offensive ordnance. buffeting. In retrospect it seemed a simple solution, void of The SB2D was only mediocre in performance. Hardly a frills or complexities. This simplicity was to become a trade- worthy successor to the storied SBD Dauntless, the SB2D mark of Ed Heinemann, who was proud to say his design never entered service. Instead, the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver philosophy was conservative by nature. went to sea with the carriers in late 1943. Many naval aviators The basic BT layout had been designed under the super- had misgivings about the big, heavy SB2C. Even Curtiss vision of John K. Northrop for Douglas Aircraft Company, officials referred to the Helldiver by one of its nicknames - "the Beast."5 With some naval aviator pundits, it was only natural that the SB2C nomenclature meant "Son of a Bitch, Second OPPOSITE: Ed Heinemann, center, donned Navy khakis for a Class." Ed Heinemann had his own reasons to dislike the fact-finding tour with the men of the U.S.S. Ticonderoga in Helldiver. When the Curtiss plant submitted its bid to the Navy, the fall of 1944. What the Douglas designer saw in the Pacific the Helldiver weighed substantially less, on paper, than the influenced the final design of the Douglas Skyraider dive bomber. (Photo courtesy Edward H. Heinemann.) SB2D. When Helldivers were produced, the weight had in-

Building a Better Bomber

7

The abortive XBTD-1 project spawned this Navy bomber with dual nosewheels. It quickly lapsed into oblivion in favor of the much more workable XBT2D·1 which was to be the Skyraider prototype. (Photo courtesy Edward H. Heinemann.)

In 1943, four of the men who would shape the Skyraider program met for a drink. From left to right, Navy LCDR J.A. Thomas, Edward H. Heinemann, CDR J.N. Murphy, and Heinemann's right-hand man, designer Leo J. Devlin. (Photo courtesy Edward H. Heinemann.)

creased to that projected by the Douglas team for the SB2D, and Heinemann had been convinced such would be the case before Curtiss' design ever entered service. The SB2D evolved into a single-seat copy, the BTD, which was evaluated by the Navy in June 1944. Problems with the airfoil section used in conjunction with an inverted gull wing were among the disappointments which attended the SB2D/ BTD program. The single-seat BTD was the result of a change in Navy operational philosophy. The SBD and SB2D reflected the earlier doctrine of employing aircraft as scouts, with a bombing capability also. As a scouting plane, the slow Dauntless had made good use of its back-seater, both as a defensive gunner and as another pair of eyes to scan for the enemy. But the BTD and its successors were to be dive bombers primarily, and torpedo bombers secondarily. Their scouting role was downplayed , and they were to have performance that was competitive enough to let a lone pilot engage or elude enemy air opposition.sln 1944, nobody dreamed this change in doctrine would one day lead to dogfights between pistonengine dive bombers and jet MiG fighters, with the pistonpowered Skyraiders emerging victorious on two separate occasions. Though still not a sterling winner, the revised single-seat BTD flew better than its sire, the XSB2D. In the summer of 1944, the Navy called representatives from Douglas, Martin, Fleetwing and Curtiss to Washington, D.C., to brief Navy Bureau of Aeronautics officials on the status ofthe com panies' dive bomber projects. A hot, humid June day wore on outside as the BuAer representatives exchanged views on the BTD with Heinemann and his design assistant, Leo Devlin. With Heinemann and Devlin were Douglas aerodynamicist Gene Root and BTD project engineer Reid Bogert. The talks stagnated, so Heinemann boldly asked for the floor to make a proposal. Chairman of the meeting was assistant Bureau of Aeronautics chief Rear Admiral Lawrence B. Richardson, who listened as Heinemann unfolded his idea. The BTD "Destroyer" was an enigma. Heinemann wanted to cancel the existing BTD contract and apply its unspent money on an

entirely new design which Heinemann had been hatching, using the R-2800 engine. Ed pressed for 30 days to prepare the new design for BuAer approval. Admiral Richardson was willing to let Heinemann's team submit a new proposal for the dive bomber competition, but the admiral said the new plane must be built around the R-3350 engine, and the first look would be made at 9:00 a.m. the next morning, not 30 days later as Ed had hoped for!? Heinemann and his stunned engineering associates left the cool recesses of BuAer and returned to the Statler Hotel. Ed, Leo and Gene began putting an airplane on paper in a hotel room. When hunger gnawed at the engineers, they sent out for hamburgers and continued their incredible toiling. Heinemann was convinced of one thing: The XSB2D and BTD had failed in part because the Douglas design team had catered to every wish of the Navy. In accommodating an encyclopedic list of features the Navy said it wanted, the aircraft had ultimately become exercises in compromise and its frequent bedfellow, mediocrity. Ed Heinemann determined to give the Navy a dazzling dive bomber, while professionally evaluating the wisdom of all of that service's design requests. "If the Navy was not right, and we were sure they were not right, we told them."s When Heinemann, Devlin and Root settheir pencils down at 3:00 in the morning, they surveyed Ed's dimensioned drawings, Leo's weight computations, and Gene's aerodynamic calculations. "With those pieces of paper," Heinemann later recalled, "we could pretty well define the airplane." Known initially as the XBT2D-1 ,this design was the beginning of the Skyraider series. "When I think back, I think I was more confident than I had any reason to be," Heinemann said ofthat marathon redesign session. Perhaps part of Heinemann's confidence came from a feeling his new airplane was only an interim plane at best anyway. "When we laid that airplane out originally, we thought it would last for five years."9 (That was in 1944. The last Skyraider was built in February 1957, and South Vietnamese Skyraiders flew combat as late as 1975.)

8

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

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Douglas Model BT2D-1 three-view drawing. (Courtesy Edward H. Heinemann.)

10

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

Ed Heinemann's built-up motor mount departed from the norm, and saved weight and space on the Skyraider. (Douglas Aircraft photo courtesy Harry Gann.)

BuAer pondered Heinemann's new design, and approved the use of the remaining BTD funds to flesh out the new XBT2D at Douglas' EI Segundo plant. Martin and Fleetwing were the competitors to beat, and they each had a half-year lead on the Douglas team. "We had to know what they were doing and what their faults were, and capitalize on them,"

Heinemann related. He quickly discarded the idea of using a Grumman-style wing-folding mechanism which streamlined the wings back along the fuselage for compact storage aboard aircraft carriers. The mechanism needed a canted spar in order to fold properly, and this was more complex than a traditional spar. "It didn't appeal to me," the conservative Heinemann explained. Instead, the XBT2D's lower spar disengaged to allow the wings to fold overhead. "We'd never built a wing fold before, and we were concerned about it." Where the Bureau of Aeronautics specified that the wing-fold fittings should incorporate five percent overstress, the Douglas team added ten percent above that just to be sure the structure would not fail. 10 The 36-year-old Heinemann organized the XBT2D design team at EI Segundo in the summer of 1944; from the Douglas Santa Monica plant he borrowed engineer Harold Adams. For the first few weeks Heinemann called meetings almost daily for the purpose of focusing the design. The sessions lasted 30 minutes to an hour or so. Using about a dozen copies of a master outline drawing of the XBT2D, Heinemann asked his design team section chiefs to suggest changes they deemed justifiable. These jam sessions were productive. At first, Devlin and Root conceived a Dauntlessstyle wing planform using a straight center section and tapered outer wing panels. But Ed thought this was merely a holdover from the old SSD with no engineering reason to exist, so he chose instead to use a constant taper from root to tip. This constant taper gave a broader wing chord at the root than the constant-center section would have, and Heinemann said this enhanced structural integrity. Heinemann also found it possible to design the constant-taper wing at a lighter weight than the SSD-style planform would have required, he said. 11 As the section chiefs refined the XBT2D's design, their individual section specialties of wing, tail, fuselage, stress, weight, powerplant and aerodynamics influenced the outcome. After the meetings, Bob Smith redrew the aircraft to incorporate the latest validated thinking of the working group.

Above left: Deep well for side-mounted dive brake action is visible in this factory view of the BT2D-1 under construction in January 1945. Behind are two tails of ill-fated BTD aircraft on the line. Above right: Among Ed Heinemann's incorporations into the Skyraider design was a constant taper to the wing leading and trailing edges from tip to root, which he said eased construction and saved weight. (both - Douglas photo courtesy Harry Gann.)

Building a Better Bomber

11

BT2D-1 taking shape on the Douglas line in February 1945. (Douglas photo courtesy Harry Gann.)

"After a week ortwo, there were no more changes," Heinemann said. Douglas had flirted with this design brainstorming technique on the A-26 Invader attack bomber for the Army Air Forces, but the new XBT2D dive bomber was the first of Heinemann's projects to fully exploit this philosophy. In the years following the XBT2D's development, Heinemann tried to keep the same engineers doing the same section's tasks on later designs, to build on their own prior experiences. The XBT2D's smooth finish was the result offlush-riveting the skin to the airframe structure. Conservative Heinemann eschewed anything as exotic as the spot-welding technique Vought had used on its sleek F4U Corsair fighter. Heinemann exhorted his engineers to "... use things we know how to use," rather than plunge into unorthodox techniques or materials. From his early years on the Northrop design team, Heinemann formed a negative opinion of castings and of magnesium - both of which John Northrop placed great store in. Heinemann had seen polar explorer Lincoln Ellsworth's Northrop Gamma come back with weakened castings, and the impression stuck in his mind as he shepherded the forerunner of the Skyraider in 1944. He challenged his engineers to prove that alternate

12

Douglas A·1 Skyraider

materials were better than aluminum before committing such materials to the design. 12 The Douglas team worked with Navy counterparts including Captain (later Admiral) John Murphy, head of BuAer's aircraft section; Commander Emerson Fawkes and Captain (later Admiral) John Thomas. The Navy men concurred with Heinemann when he came up with a novel engine mount design for the XBT2D. Eight welded tubes originally were devised to support the engine in a conventional manner. But these hampered oil-cooler installation and cluttered the engine accessory section space. Material strength was at the heart of the problem. With the traditional welded steel tube structure, all eight tubes were necessary. "It took four legs if we made it out of sheet." So the plane's motor mount was radicalized into a built-up truss of one-eighth-inch aluminum which resulted in more unencumbered spaceforthe oil cooler, oil pumps, carburetor and other appliances. When confronted with this apparent aberration in his conservative-design philosophy, Heinemann shrugged. His eyes flashed the beginnings of a smile as he explained, "Well, you have to make some progress." The mandated R-3350 engine was large. To

Douglas test pilot LaVerne Browne made the first flight in the XBT2D-1 on March 18, 1945, while carrier dive bombers still engaged the enemy in combat. Browne, who portrayed "Tailspin Tommy" in a series of 1930s motion pictures, testflew hundreds of Skyraiders for Douglas. Recalling the maiden flight of the prototype of the Skyraider, he said, "I wish I could interject some dramatic incident that occurred on that first flight. There wasn't any. I just floated around up there for an hour and a half and brought her down, though I did do something that's unprecedented, I believe, for a first trip. The airplane handled so well that I put it through rolls and Immelmans to check it for maneuverability." (Douglas photo)

properly streamline a fuselage behind this engine, the fuselage took on a substantial cross section. Fuel stowage in the spacious fuselage was a natural way to give the XBT2D long range, especially since this aircraft deleted its predecessors' internal weapons bay. Rather than invite problems from fuel leaks that sometimes attended rigid metal fuselage tanks, Heinemann chose the so-called "udder tank," a self-sealing rubber fuel cell which hung from the fuselage ceiling. 13 As Heinemann followed the service career of his Skyraider design, he learned the planes sometimes tanked enough gas to fly for more than 10 hours, after which the weary, fatigued pilots occasionally had to be lifted from the cockpits. 14 Later in the summer of 1944, the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics invited makers of naval aircraft to send engineering representatives to the Pacific Theater of operations to learn about aircraft operations in actual service. Douglas Aircraft tapped Ed Heinemann, and he looked forward to the experience with professional curiosity. "This was the beginning of one of the most important segments in my life. I was on the way to a grand symposium which convened aboard carriers and air stations throughout the South Pacific. I would meet with the men who flew and maintained the planes that my colleagues in the industry and I had designed and built. I was about to discover undeniably just how good or bad our products were."15 Heinemann's counterparts at Curtiss and Fleetwing failed to get appointed by their companies, so rather than delay any further, the Navy packed Heinemann aboard aConsolidated PB2Y Coronado flying boat on a mail run to the Pacific on Friday, 13 October, 1944.

Heinemann shipped out of Hawaii aboard the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga (CV-14) five days later. He spent time with the aircraft maintenance crews, patiently hearing their gripes as well as their praise, throughout which ran a common thread - a plea for simplicity. Dressed in khakis and sporting an overseas cap, civilian Heinemann blended in well with his Navy hosts as he circulated among pilots and mechanics, and observed many launches and recoveries of Helldivers, Hellcats, and Avengers. From copious notes, Heinemann digested diverse recommendations: Chart boards currently in use were too heavy; all running lights should be on one rheostat; 20millimeter cannons were preferable to .50-caliber machine guns. 16 As Ed Heinemann toured the Pacific in the fall of 1944, the prospect of a protracted war against Japan was very real. In 1944, a Navy PB4Y-2 aircrewman wrote, "...we had been at war with Japan for two and a half years, and we were considering the possibility of a five- to ten-year war ahead of US."17In 1945, aU .S. Army Air Forces B"24 Liberator flew with the legend "Golden Gate in '48" emblazoned beside its cockpit. A less optimistic crew named their Liberator "Breadline in '49." To all but the very few persons who were privy to the nuclear secrets of the United States in 1944-45, peace with Japan seemed several years distant at best. Ed Heinemann fancied that his XBT2D dive bomber would wade into battle against Japan, and like a proud father, he wanted to give his dive bomber all the advantages he could bestow. On newly-captured Guam in November, Ed observed the ravages of coral dust as it coated aircraft and made a gummy, abrasive mixture with oil and grease. It was while on Guam that he decided to put canvas barriers over the airfoil sections ofthe wings when they were folded, to keep the elements from reaching the wing guns and internal equipment. Heinemann had seen similar canvas boots on the folded wings of Grumman aircraft in the Pacific. But where the Grumman boots had to be removed prior to extending the wings, Heinemann's dive bomber would incorporate canvas baffles which could be left in place always, thereby simplifying maintenance chores while protecting the aircraft. Heinemann returned from the Pacific more convinced than ever that a single-place dive bomber was in order, and that dive bombers should handle that role aggressively, sparing fighters whenever possible from compromising their mission by lugging bombs or rockets. 18 Back at EI Segundo, Heinemann pushed his team to keep the BT2D on schedule. Project engineer Reid Bogert, who had sweated out the early XBT2D drawings in the Statler Hotel with Heinemann, Devlin, and Root, fell ill and was replaced by Leonard Quick. By now, the BT2D was known as the Dauntless II. The Douglas design team worked under stringent rules: No part could be overweight unless an equal amount of weight was pared off elsewhere in the design; some parts which failed to meet minimum weight standards were tested before final acceptance, to make sure they were not made stronger - hence heavier - than their maximum loads would require. An in-house memo circulated among BT2D project workers explained that the saving of 100 pounds on the aircraft

Building a Better Bomber

13

An XBT2D-1 test in the 1946-47 period was the installation of rocket tubes outboard of the 20-millimeter wing guns. From the tubes, one in each wing, spin-stabilized five-inch rocket projectiles were fired at ground targets. The program was not adopted. (Photo courtesy Douglas via Harry Gann.)

14

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

Four Navy AD-1s in echelon show off the ventral dive brake. (Douglas Aircraft Co. photo via Harry Gann.)

could shorten carrier takeoff roll by eight feet, or increase combat radius by 22 miles, or raise sea-level climb rate by eighteen feet a minute, or boost the speed by about a third of a mile an hour. By challenging the Navy's original request for an internal bomb bay, Heinemann's crew shaved 200 pounds off the weight of the earlier BTD by eliminating the bay altogether. Fuselage-mounted dive brakes on the BT2D saved 70 pounds. By making the stub wing a one-piece structure that passed beneath the fuselage, rather than a two-piece stub wing, 100 pounds were lopped off the old BTD weight. The horizontal stabilizer likewise was a one-piece structure passing through the aft fuselage/rudder area, saving 20 pounds off the old BTD weight. When all the weight-saving measures were used, the BT2D was a half ton lighter than Douglas had promised the Navy, giving that much more flexibility to Navy mission planners who could hang more ordnance orfuel. After early Korean War aircraft losses, armor plate weighing about 620 pounds was bolted to the planes, markedly enhancing their survivability while remaining within acceptable weights. 19 The BT2D had a gross weight of 16,500 pounds, which was 1,500 pounds less than the BTD. If an aircraft deserved to wear the name of Dauntless II in honor of its sterling SBD predecessor, it was the BT2D. Fuel servicing time per man was two minutes on the BT2D, compared with 13 on the BTD. If the "udder" fuel tank of the BT2D required removal, the task

required two man hours. For the BTD, this took 72 man hours; for the SBD Dauntless, 144 manhours. The old SB2D and BTD had better performance in their higher speed ranges than they did in slow flight, where their special wing airfoil sections were not at home. The BT2D Dauntless II went back to basics, in the form of a more standard NACA (National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics) airfoil which gave better slow-speed handling, though maybe at the expense of performance at the top end of the plane's speed range. This NACA airfoil gave the Dauntless II greater lift than the BTD.20 When the XBT2D was first conceived, the Navy still placed value on zero-lift vertical dives. A wing provides lift to counteract gravity in level flight. In a vertical dive, the airfoil is still capable of generating "lift", albeit at 90 degrees to the pull of gravity, since the plane is now nosed down. With no similar force tugging in the opposite direction, the lift factor can cause the diving plane to describe a descent path that is not truly vertical. Dive brakes which keep a plane's speed from building up too fast can help promote vertical dives, but Heinemann could see problems ahead for the heavy XBT2D if its brakes were expected to keep the plane slow and stable in a true vertical zero-lift dive. The wing-mounted brakes of the SBD Dauntless helped promote zero-lift dives by acting as spoilers, disrupting normal lift over the wing. Heinemann pondered

Building a Better Bomber

15

AD-2 with radar pod, at NAS Alameda in September 1948. (Photo by William T. Larkins.)

wing brakes for the XBT2D, but discarded them because they would have complicated the wing-folding design and could contribute to buffeting. A reversible-pitch propeller was considered, but no prop with adequate characteristics was available. The design teamed even toyed with the idea of using parachutes as dive brakes, but this plan was not adopted. Heinemann reasoned he could adequately slow the XBT2D Dauntless II with the more-stable fuselage-mounted brakes if the Navy would back off from its quest for zero-lift dives. In the process, a weight savings over other braking systems could be attained with the fuselage brakes. In keeping with his vow to challenge the Navy's design specifications if they seemed unrealistic, Ed Heinemann contested the wisdom of trying to

make the XBT2D fly vertical zero-lift dives. 21 In use the SBD Dauntless often flew a 70-degree dive. 22 Ultimately, the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics agreed that the XBT2D would be designed for 70-degree dives. This dive brake philosophical change opened up new realms for the XBT2D. Where the older SBD had difficulty maintaining level flight with its wing-mounted brakes extended, the XBT2D suffered no loss of lift with its fuselage brakes. The brakes on the XBT2D Dauntless II could be deployed for maneuvering advantages for formations or descents, as well as air-to-air combat. With three brake panels on the aft fuselage - one on each side and the third ventrallylocated - the XBT2D reached 300 miles an hour in a dive. In

Early XAD-1W photo shows belly radome, and early-style flat-paned windscreen. (Douglas photo courtesy Harry Gann.)

16

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

AD-1 in glossy sea blue sported insignia with insignia blue background to stars and bars; flat black anti-glare panel. Grumman F8F Bearcat escorted. (H.G. Martin/Kansas Aviation Historical Society collection)

a clean-configuration dive, the big Dauntless II could hit 500 miles an hour, though this was of little value in combat since the pullout had to begin much sooner at higher speeds. The XBT2D cockpit went through five mock-ups at considerable expense by Douglas, to ensure pilot comfort, safety, and ease of operation. Special instruments with quarter-inch numbers were evolved for the XBT2D instrument panel after Heinemann's team determined this size to be needed to enhance instrument legibility at the average XBT2D cockpit distance of 24 inches from the pilot's eyes. 23 Heinemann's Pacific carrier cruise manifested itself in many pilot and groundcrew conveniences built into the Dauntless II. Douglas personnel estimated only half as much time would be required to service the Dauntless II as had been needed for the ill-fated BTD. The Dauntless II was nearing completion in time for a March 1945 first flight, and its builders were enthusiastic about the plane's performance on paper. The landing gear retracted aft into the wings, as the main wheels rotated 90 degrees to lie flush in wing recesses. When it became apparent the production main gear assemblies would not be ready to meet the March schedule, the Douglas company procured Vought F4U Corsair landing gear, which retracted in the same fashion as the gear planned for the Dauntless II. This rearward-retracting landing gear offered an advantage over gear which retracted inboard or outboard.

With rearward-retracting landing gear, less spanwise space was consumed by the landing gear, leaving more underwing and underbody space open for hanging external stores. This underwing area would not go wasted on the Dauntless II. The prototype XBT2D-1 emerged from final assembly sporting a Dash-8 version of the R-3350 engine instead of the Dash-24 of the production version, which, like the landing gear, was unavailable. On the 18th of March, 1945, war in Europe was playing out to an inevitable Allied victory, as U.S. Army Air Forces B-29s were continuing a 9 March shift in tactics to night incendiary raids against Japanese cities, as opposed to standard daylight precision bombing. While victory in Europe seemed certain on that spring day, the war against Japan still showed the potential for dragging on several more years. Thus, not a few engineers and naval planners looked to the Douglas XBT2D-1 as a tool to defeat Japan when the first Dauntless II roared into the southern California sky that March. LaVerne Browne was at the controls of the' naturalaluminum XBT2D-1 for that first takeoff. Thirty-two test hops later, the Douglas team certified the XBT2D-1 for delivery to the Patuxent Naval Air Test Center in Maryland, on 7 April, 1945. 24 Meanwhile, the competing Kaiser Fleetwing XBTK was still unflown, and the Martin XBTM had been returned to the

Building a Better Bomber

17

Above left: Ground run-up of AD-1 revealed white radar pod on pylon. Above right: Wings folded, showing Ed Heinemann's canvas wing-root dust boot in place. (both - H.G. Martin/Kansas Aviation Historical Society collection)

factory for modification after a less-than-stellar debut at Patuxent River. As the Douglas XBT2D-1 raced through its Navy tests in only five weeks, Navy test pilots heaped superlatives upon the new bomber. On 5 May, 1945, the Navy signed a letter of intentto buy 548 BT2D aircraft. As production swung into action, problems cropped up with propeller vibrations and engine exhaust cracks and detonation problems. Production delays ensued as the powerplant and propeller were debugged. 25 The Aeroproducts propeller, which was to be manufactured by the Aeroproducts-Allison Division of General Motors, followed the Aeroproducts design philosophy of brazing sheet steel to a forged, ribbed internal structure, providing substantial strength and structural integrity even when punctured by gunfire. After its initial XBT2D-1 teething troubles were corrected, the Aeroproducts four-bladed prop

was touted for its durability. Several times during the Korean War, direct hits from 37-millimeter rounds tore holes in these props without destroying them or ruining their ability to propel their aircraft to safety.26 The BTD was lauded by the Navy for its simplicity and performance. The Heinemann decision to challenge Navy design requirements which he considered unsound had paid off in an uncluttered airplane that was not overburdened with compromises in its design. In February 1946, with reduced peacetime contracts in effect for both the Douglas and Martin bombers, the name of the BT2D was changed from Dauntless II to Skyraider. The Douglas pattern of Sky-prefixed names already included the transport Skytrain, Skytrooper and Skymaster designs; Navy combat planes following the Skyraiderwould bear names like Skyshark, Skyray, Skyhawk,

Outboard hardpoints on this early AD, BuAer No. 122225, carried rails for HVAR rockets. (both - H.G. Martin/Kansas Aviation Historical Society collection)

18

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

and Skywarrior, among others. Two months after changing the Douglas bomber's name to Skyraider, the Navy Department revised its aircraft nomenclature. Thus the BT2D-1 became the AD-1 under the new simplified system, which stood for Attack, Douglas, model One. The Kaiser-Fleetwing XBTK, powered by the R-280034W engine, never progressed beyond five 1945 prototypes. The Martin BTM became the AM Mauler under the revised designation system. The Mauler airframe rode behind a Pratt and Whitney R-4360 engine. The Mauler was three feet longer than the Skyraider, and weighed about two tons more than an AD-2. The Mauler demonstrated a maximum ordnance loadcarrying ability of 10,689 pounds; in May of 1953, an AD-4 Skyraider carried 10,500 pounds of bombs as part of its useful load which weighed in at 14,941 pounds total. The AM-1 Mauler was a viable warplane for the Navy, and 151 of the Martin bombers were built. But the Douglas Skyraider, with its simple, well-planned design philosophy, was selected for fleet standardization, resulting in termination ofthe Mauler production run in October 1949. Most of the AM-1 s were assigned to Reserve units the following year, and many of the former firstline Mauler squadrons converted to the Skyraider at that time.

Notes 1. Interview between Frederick A. Johnsen and Edward H. Heinemann, 20 July 1982. 2. Ibid. 3. Edward H. Heinemann and Rosario Rausa, Ed Heinemann - Combat Aircraft Designer, p. 36. 4. Frederick A. Johnsen, Darkly Dangerous- The Northrop P-61 Black Widow Night Fighter. Tacoma, Bomber Books, 1981, p.2. 5. Service Department, Curtiss-Wright Corporation, Airplane Division, Columbus, Ohio, Pilot and Beast: What Every Young Pilot Should Know About the Helldiver. 6. B.R. Jackson, Douglas Skyraider, p. 11. 7. Edward H. Heinemann and Rosario Rausa, Ed Heinemann - Combat Aircraft Designer, pp. 100-105. 8. Interview between Frederick A. Johnsen and Edward H. Heinemann, 20 July 1982. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Edward H. Heinemann and Rosario Rausa, Ed Heinemann - Combat Aircraft Designer, p. 111. 16. Ibid. 17. Lt. R.L. Meierhenry, publisher, Battle DiaryofVPB-121, San Diego: Frye and Smith, Ltd., 1945. 18. Heinemann's trip was written in report form for the Bureau of Aeronautics as Report On Trip To Pacific Combat Area, 27 November 1944, Report Number ES 6712, EI Segundo Division, Douglas Aircraft. 19. Edward H. Heinemann and Rosario Rausa, Ed Heinemann - Combat Aircraft Designer, pp. 125-140. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Barrett Tillman, The Dauntless Dive Bomber of World War Two, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1976, p.14. 23. Edward H. Heinemann and Rosario Rausa, Ed Heinemann - Combat Aircraft Designer, pp. 125-140. 24. B.A. Jackson, Douglas Skyraider, pp. 18-19. 25. Ibid. 26. "Tough Props," Aviation Week, May 4, 1953.

Building a Better Bomber

19

20

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

CHAPTER II

Between the Wars: Skyraiders Enter the Navy

P

"To something new, to something strange." Longfellow, Keramos

ost-World War II Navy air was not unlike an awkward teenager, possessing great strength, but still a trifle uncomfortable with its rapidly-nearing adulthood in the simultaneous jet- and atomic-ages. Navy planners clearly understood the value of jet propulsion. Back as early as 20August 1943, the Navy signed a letter of intent asking the young McDonnell Aircraft Corporation to design an all-jet carrier-based fighter aircraft. The straightwingXFD-1 Phantom became the first American all-jet aircraft to operate on an aircraft carrier when it landed aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42) on 21 JUly 1946. Butthe airframes and wing airfoils which capitalized on jet speeds sometimes demanded fast landing speeds and long takeoff rolls unless flung into the air with a strong catapult. Early jet engines also required more time than propellers to rev up to produce significant power increases. For carrier operations, quick applications of power were vital for waveoffs. The Navy cautiously hedged its bets when ordering the Ryan FR-1 Fireball in February of 1943. The Fireball combined a conventional tractor Wright R1820 radial piston engine driving a three-blade propeller with a General Electric 1-16 turbojet mounted in the aft fuselage. The piston engine and propeller allowed rapid acceleration response; the jet gave a boost in speed, albeit modest, from a cruise of 152 miles an hour to a top speed of 404 miles an hour at 17,800 feet. Fireballs began carrier qualification trials aboard the USS Ranger (CV-4) on 1 May 1945. These unusual aircraft were phased out of the Navy flying inventory in 1947 following service aboard the aircraft carriers USS Wake Island (CVE-65), USS Bairoko (CVE-115), and USS Badoeng Strait (CVE-116).1 With acceleration, expeditious takeoff and landing rolls, load-carrying capacity, and endurance all compromised by early naval jet fighter aircraft, it was obvious in the 1940s that carrier-borne attack aircraft would still depend on propellers for the time being, if they were to carry useful payloads and perform their intended functions. The Douglas AD Skyraider still had a home in the burgeoning jet-age Navy. When Ed Heinemann's team was designing the Skyraider back in 1944, word from the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics projected a five-year life span for this aircraft. Heinemann tacked on another five years, and guessed his attack bomber would be around until about 1955 or SO.2 As early as 1947, the Bureau of Aeronautics had expressed interest in having a carrier-capable jet bomber which could deliver strategic nuclear weapons. It was two years before Ed Heinemann's design team at Douglas finished their OPPOSITE: A mixture of single-seat attack Skyraiders and multi-place electronics birds stretches into the recesses of the Douglas plant in a factory portrait of unusually artistic composition. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

response-theA3D Skywarrior. 3 Meanwhile, in 1949, production deliveries began of the North American AJ Savage nuclear strike aircraft, powered by two reciprocating Pratt and Whitney R-2800 engines and one Allison J33 turbojet powerplant. The AD Skyraider also had nuclear-weapons capability, but its rough-and-ready attack role was not especially threatened by the advent of the A3D and AJ. While the AD was waging war in Korea, Ed Heinemann was pondering the Skyraider's successor at Douglas. His team worked from 1950 to 1952 on a single-engine jet successor, the speedy A4D Skyhawk. The Skyhawkfirstflew 22 June 1954, with squadron deliveries to Navy Attack Squadron VA72 beginning in October 1956. 4 The Skyhawk, often affectionately called "Heinemann's Hot Rod," could carry a load of 5,000 pounds, later raised to more than 9,000 pounds, although the A4D did not enjoy the great range or loiter time of the Skyraider. Ultimately, the Grumman A-6 (originally called A2F) Intruder would finish off the remaining Skyraiders in Navy service, but the Navy didn't even request design proposals for such an aircraft until 1956. The A-6 did not enter service until it flew with VA-42 in early 1963. Thus, while the Navy planted the seeds which grew to be all-jet replacements for the Skyraider, the piston-engine AD could not be discarded prematurely. When World War II ended in September 1945, orders for many military aircraft were reduced or eliminated altogether. The Navy's original request for 548 Skyraiders was quickly trimmed to 377 aircraftwhen peaceinthe Pacific was achieved. Soon, this was further pared back to 277 planes. s The 25 XBT2D-1 s, which bore the X designating an experimental design, but which were builtto production plans, were delivered to the Navy during 1945. Before a year had passed, pilots from Navy squadrons VA-3B and VA-4B had finished carrier qualifications aboard the USS Sicily. The early AD-1s bore Ed Heinemann's weight-saving design philosophy. The main landing gear and its wing attachments were designed to withstand carrier landing sink rates of 14 feet per second. In 1946, the Navy began noting serious buckling of AD-1 wing structure around the landing gear. Investigation revealed many landings were made at much higher sink rates than had originally been projected for the Skyraider. The vertical forces were driving the landing gear into the wings as the AD-1 s slammed into carrier decks. s If the actual sink rates could not be kept to a maximum of 14 feet per second, the AD would have to be strengthened.

Ri~ets were loosen.ing a.nd skin was wrinkling o~ the. AD-~ s gOing through service trials out of Alameda, California, With the Navy's Pacific Fleet Air Headquarters. Initial reinforcements applied to the AD-1 s failed to halt deterioration of the

Between the Wars: Skyraiders Enter the Navy

21

The first production AD-3W shows fuselage compartment crew door ahead of national insignia. This compartment replaced side-mounted dive brakes. Revised windscreen from earlier flat-paned design is evident. (Douglas photo courtesy Harry Gann)

Above and below: Two views depict the first AD-4, BuAer number 122853. AD-4s figured prominently in Korean War Skyraider operations. (Douglas photos via Harry Gann)

22

Douglas A·1 Skyraider

AD-4Q shows rear compartment crew door plus side brakes in this retouched photo. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

structure. A major strengthening redesign was instituted by Douglas at EI Segundo. A compromise to Ed Heinemann's original design was inevitable. The Skyraider put on 400 pounds to secure its structure against the stresses of carrier landings. But there was value to Heinemann's weight-conscious design ideas. Only those structures which absolutely needed strengthening put on weight; the rest of the originally lightweight structure still left leeway for later payload or structural additions which might have overgrossed an airplane with an initially heavier weight. Even with the 400-pound rework, the AD-1 s began exhibiting wing-fuselage joint damage and landing gear leg deficiencies. Skin doublers in the wheel wells, internal wing

strengthening, and reinforcement of the wing skin was added, finally allowing the AD to pass sink-rate tests in excess of 23 feet per second. During this evolutionary strengthening ofthe damaged AD-1 s, the structural improvements were incorporated into the remaining AD-1 s and the early AD-2s on the Douglas assembly line. Where the 277 production AD-1s had achieved a top speed of 366 miles an hour behind the R-3350-24 engine which put out 2,500 takeoff horsepower, the AD-2 of 1948 used the improved R-3350-26W powerplant to obtain 3,020 horsepower, giving the Dash-2 Skyraider a listed top speed of 321 miles an hour at 18,300 feet. The AD-2 featured enhanced fuel capabilities and more bomb racks than the AD-1. The

AD-4N, with aft crew compartment and dorsal air vent, carries electronics counter measures pod beneath starboard wing, and searchlight pod under port wing on April 11, 1952. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

Between the Wars: Skyraiders Enter the Navy

23

Additional vertical fins aided stability of the awkward-looking AD-4W with its belly-mounted radome. (Douglas photos courtesy Harry Gann)

workhorse Skyraider was evolving into an ever-better combat machine. Early AD-2s appeared with the flat-paned windshield of the AD-1 and earlier models. Later, AD-2s employed a windshield and canopy which had markedly curved side panels, which were used on the remainder of the single-seat AD

variants. The first of 178 AD-2s was delivered early in 1948. Twenty-one of these were AD-2Q versions with an electronic countermeasures capability in a compartment behind the fuselage udder gas tank. Room for an operator was made in this aft-fuselage location, and the dive brakes were retained outside the compartment, giving the AD-2Q the same basic

AD-3W aft compartment was packed with gear, as evidenced by this company rendering. (Courtesy Harry Gann)

24

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

The tracks of the tides and wakes of ships lace San Francisco Bay behind an AD-1 (BuAer No. 09204) belonging to attack squadron VA-20A on 2 June 1947. (Photo by William T. Larkins)

performance as a stock AD-2. One AD-2 earmarked for target tug modification was soon outmoded by the development of the Mark 22 Dart target, a system which could be mounted to any Skyraider. The AD-2Q was passed by the Patuxent River test center 30 November, 1948. When the AD-3 followed the Dash-2 down the production line, a landing gear oleo strut travel of fourteen inches was used instead oftheten inches previously called for. Some finetuning still was being made to tame abrupt carrier landings. The AD-3W mounted a radar in a bulbous fairing beneath the fuselage. Two operators, seated side-by-side in the aft fuselage, manned the radar. As the American fleet had neared the Japanese home islands in 1945, kamikaze attacks threatened their advance. Picket ships were posted ahead of the main fleet, to detect incoming Japanese aircraft, but soon the pickets took an unacceptably high toll of losses. If the Navy could elevate radar to increase its line-of-sight, the task of detecting incoming hostile planes could be performed with greater safety, closer to the main fleet. Wartime Navy planners initially favored using the four-engine Douglas C-54 transport as a platform for APS-20E search radar, but sea-

soned Navy fighter interception specialists argued that the unarmed C-54s would be decimated in the skies near Japan. Instead, Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress bombers, redesignated PB-1 Ws, were modified for this role, so they could bring their dozen .50-caliber machine guns to bear in any combat.? But the naval Flying Fortresses, which entered service too late for World War II, required land bases. The big AD-3 of 1948 could bring an umbrella of airborne radar protection aboard the carriers at sea. The Skyraider's Airborne Early Warning (AEW) radome first was fitted to the sole XAD-1W, which had started out as an XBT2D-1 . The AD-3W did not ease into fleet service without operational problems. The large ventral radome created some aerodynamic situations which Douglas engineers found difficult to recreate in a wind tunnel. This led to some surprises during flight testing of the radar Skyraiders. On 14 October 1948, an AD-3W test aircraft was going through scheduled maneuvers at Patuxent River. Early indications were routine, with but minor changes being made to the plane to enhance stability.

Between the Wars: Skyraiders Enter the Navy

25

Bearing pre-1947 style national insignia is the XBT2D-1Q Skyraider with countermeasures provisions. Effective January 1947, a red bar was to be added to the white bars flanking the star. Long prop dome was unusual for Skyraiders. (Photo courtesy Edward H. Heinemann)

The AD-1Q (BuAer No. 09372), with 1947 red added to the bars of the national insignia. Dust boot is in place over the exposed wing root. (Photo courtesy Edward H. Heinemann)

This Skyraider was aloft the following day when a fuel tank which should have been nearly full registered empty on the gauge as the R-3350 engine wheezed and manifested all the symptoms of fuel starvation. The test pilot, Lieutenant Commander Weems, brought the stricken AD-3W down for a water landing on the Patuxent River's surface. The broad radome planed over the water like a boat hull, and Lieutenant Commander Weems was able to prolong this action until the AD3W slid up on the shallow riverbank. When the Navy investigated the unusual mishap, the accident board concluded that the shape of the large radome had altered the airflow over fuel vents, causing the udder tank to collapse as its gas siphoned overboard. The condition causing this fluke was corrected. The following month, Douglas test pilot R.O. Rahn pushed an AD-3W prototype into a high-speed dive during a test series monitoring the radome's aerodynamic characteristics under such conditions. Rahn was jammed down into the AD's seat by a violent uncommanded pitch-up and rollover which probably resulted in a maximum loading of eleven gs on the AD-3W. a Rahn brought the Skyraider back under control, and flew to the Douglas Santa Monica, California, plant for a landing. The Santa Monica control tower crew told Rahn his

radome was gone from the belly of the AD-3W as he approached for landing. This plane had carried only the radome cover, and not the actual radar dish. Rahn had most emphatically found the AD-3W's high-speed dive parameters. In addition to the 31 AD-3Ws, 124 straight AD-3s were delivered, along with 15 AD-3Ns for night sorties, and 23 countermeasure AD-30s. Two of the -3Ns were converted to AD-3S configuration as submarine killers intended to operate in concert with two AD-3Es modified from AD-3Ws, as submarine hunters. During 1949, Douglas introduced the AD-4 on the shop floor. Changes from the Dash-Three included use of a P-1 autopilot in the AD-4, replacement of the older APS-4 radar with APS-19A equipment, and smaller changes. The first of 372 AD-4s reached squadrons in 1950. AD-4Bs (the liB" denoted special armament) were modified to givethis Skyraider the capability of using tactical nuclear weapons. These totaled 165 aircraft. The 307 AD-4Ns were equipped for night operations. Thirty-nine AD-40s carried countermeasures equipment, and 168 AD-4Ws slung the belly-mounted radar scanner. Mission requirements dictated converting 29 AD-4s to AD-4B configuration, while 63 AD-4s were winterized under

ECM-Iaden AD-1Q, circa 1947. (Photo courtesy Edward H. Heinemann)

26

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

Publicists delighted in comparing the Skyraider's capacity for ordnance with the smaller total carried by a World War II fourengine B-17 bomber. This maximum load was photographed in May 1953. (Photo courtesy Edward H. Heinemann)

Fifteen bombs of varying capacities are mounted on the external hard points of this AD-4B. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

the designation AD-4L. When 159 AD-4Ns were stripped for day-attack duties, they were classified AD-4NAs. Twentythree more AD-4NAs were built in this configuration. Thirtyseven AD-4Ns were winterized to become AD-4NLs. The AD-5 marked some major changes in the Skyraider design. Its production was extended in part due to the Korean War, which proved the utility ofthe AD in the jet age. The Dash-

Five Skyraider's fuselage was lengthened two feet, and widened to provide for a side-by-side crew seating arrangement. A main selling point of the AD-5 was this enlarged fuselage, which Douglas said could be converted from the basic AD-5 day attack bomber to an AD-5N night attack version or an AD-5W airborne early warning or anti-submarine patrol aircraft. This basic chassis employed what Ed Heinemann

A total of 12 five-inch high velocity aircraft rockets (HVARs) could be carried by Skyraiders, as seen on this early AD-1. Old· style flat-paned windscreen is readily visible. (U.S. Air Force photo)

Between the Wars: Skyraiders Enter the Navy

27

Above: One of 63 winterized AD-4Ls, with de-icer boots, carries a pair of 11.7S-inch Tiny Tim rockets in addition to 12 five-inch missiles and a centerline bomb. Early Skyraider with pre-1947 insignia painted under, as well as on, fuselage dive brakes, carries five-inch and 11.7S-inch air-to-ground rockets. (both - Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

28

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

A·1H carries 84 folding-fin rockets in 12 underwing pods, plus 18 new-type low-drag gravity bombs on multiple ejector racks. (Douglas photo)

called "the Detroit philosophy." This meant the AD-5 started down the assembly line in one basic form, and emerged from the other end customized to one of the three basic versions, after the fashion of Detroit automobile assembly lines of the day. Special kits offered other multiple roles for the AD-5. In 1953, Heinemann was quoted in Aviation Week magazine as saying "We do not advocate doing this to all aircraft." For multiuse planes all too frequently resulted in disappointing compromises in performance. 9 Nearly 30 years later, Heinemann was even more to the point when characterizing the boxy AD-5: "The Dash-Five was kind of a dog. It was never really accepted, but they (the Navy) bought it and used it." "It was kind of a homeless airplane," Heinemann added. Heinemann never was totally sold on the multi-use concept. Douglas officials told the Navy the DashFive could be configured for a variety of roles, "and sure enough, they bought some," Heinemann said with a trace of irony in his voice, for defense planners have a weakness for so-called multi-role aircraft. But the order for AD-5s kept the Skyraider production line open longer than it otherwise would

have, making it feasible to produce the single-seat AD-6 and AD-7 later when the need arose. 10 The roles offered by Douglas for the AD-5 in 1953 were: - VIP transport kit, with four plush rear-facing seats fastening to studs in the floor behind the flight deck, for quick disconnect. - High-density passenger kit, using two center-facing bench seats capable of carrying ten passengers plus a flight crew of two. - Cargo kit, featuring a hoist and plywood flooring in the space behind the pilot, for carrying up to a ton of cargo. - Ambulance kit, with four litters and a hoist. - Long-range kit, using a pair of 150-gallon fuel tanks, to double the internal fuel tankage, plus external tanks. - Tow-target kit, including a belly pod for the target reel. - Photographic kit, featuring five aerial mapping or reconnaissance cameras.

Among the changes built into the basic AD-5 was the lack of main wheel doors to save weight, and the relocation of the

AD·1 wings stagger to fold, as the system powering the mechanism hefts the weight of the outer wing panels. The squadron is VA-20A at NAS Alameda in 1947. See also photos page 18. (Photos by William T. Larkins)

Between the Wars: Skyraiders Enter the Navy

29

Retouched Douglas photo of 1949 shows AD-3E with long turtledeck behind cockpit. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

AD·3W radome installation. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

AD-4NL with searchlight pod under wing, and winterization features in place. Wingtip mounts a test probe in this 31 August 1951 company shot. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

A blue bus. This early AD-5 photo, taken November 1952, shows the forward-swept large-store pylons introduced on this and subsequent Able Dogs. The AD-5 could go to war or carry passengers and freight, as needed. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

radar operator from the aft fuselage to the seat beside the pilot in versions calling for a second crew member. This latter alteration facilitated communication between the two crewmen, enhancing their ability to work as a team. The capacious AD-5 fuselage made possible inflight servicing of the electronic equipment aboard Dash-Fives so equipped. The regular AD-5 day attack version, with four 20-mm. cannon, could be operated by one person. Initially, AD-5s carried only one

set of flight controls, for the pilot in the left seat. But when the South Vietnamese air force began employing AD-5s and American advisors before the United States was overtly flying combat in southeast Asia, the Navy added a second set of flight controls, both to train Vietnamese aviators, and in some cases, to obscure the fact that American pilots were actually making combat strikes in VNAF Skyraiders.

Night-flying AD-4N carried flash suppresors on muzzles of 20-millimeter wing cannons, as well as ridge above exhaust stacks to block flame from affecting pilot's night vision. (H.G. Martin/Kansas Aviation Historical Society collection)

30

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

A Navy AD·4NA, with rear compartment, shows off gray-and-white camouflage scheme initiated in 1955. The photo was taken in 1956 at Moffett Field; AD·4NAs that survived in the inventory until 1962 were redesignated A·1 Ds. (William T. Larkins photo)

AD·6s rolled off the Douglas line in dark sea blue paint overall. Navy squadron VA-65 added green and white trim to this specimen, photographed at Oakland, California in September 1955. (Photo by William T. Larkins)

The AD-5N could use sonar and a searchlight, to become a one-ship sub hunter and killer, theoretically obviating the need for a two-plane hunter-killer team. To compensate for the belly radome of the AD-5W, the vertical fin-and-rudder area was enlarged 50 percent, instead of using auxiliary vertical fins as had been done on the AD-4W. All AD-5s carried this larger tail. Two new bomb racks, one under each wing, swept forward ahead of the wing leading edge, adding a rakish appearance while carrying heavier ordnance, or fuel stores. Two independently-sliding canopy sections covered the side-by-side crew seats up front in the AD-5. Two panels in the rear of the crew compartment were removable for emergency egress, and an escape hatch was designed into the bottom of the rear compartment. Electrical wiring on the AD-5 was rerouted in the engine compartment to facilitate easier access to the oil tank and accessories than had been enjoyed on earlier Skyraiders. Additionally, electrical and hydraulic com-

ponents in the forward equipment compartment were separated. To save space, the AD-5 used electric trim tabs instead of manual tabs as had been used on the AD-4. The sidemounted dive brakes were deleted on the AD-5, but the ventral brake remained. 11 The number of regular AD-5s built was 212; 239 AD-5Ns were built, 218 AD-5Ws were built, and a single AD-5S was finished. Fifty-four AD-5Qs were converted from AD-5Ns. The AD-6 was a single-seat Skyraider employing some of the engineering refinements of the AD-5, plus a low-level dive bombing mission role. The AD-6 carried a bomb director which was suitable for either high-or low-level bombing. Removable external armor plate shielded vital areas of the AD-6 from flak and small-arms fire, and could quickly be taken off if not needed. (Text continues on page 51)

Between the Wars: Skyraiders Enter the Navy

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Above: AD-SW used the larger fuselage of the AD-S plus the radome set for early-warning duties. Pylons are not fitted outboard of the large forward-swept hardpoint. Below: Fuselage and tail differences can be seen in this comparison photo of a new AD-SW (foreground) and an equally new AD-5. (both - Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

32

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

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Jack Spanich's AD-4NA, restored to represent the Navy's MiG-killing A-1 H from VA-176, captured all the snarling line in this 1978 photograph. (Photo by the author)

The South Vietnamese extended the combat life of the A-1 over their countryside into the 1970s. (Photo via Keith Laird collection)

Color Gallery

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USAF Skyraiders provided ground-attack and rescue support in Southeast Asia. (USAF photo)

Museum-piece Skyraider AEW.1 recalls British service. (Photo courtesy of John M. Bowdler)

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Douglas A-1 Skyraider

French AD-4s figured in international diplomacy, including unsuccessful American attempts to get them back for use in Southeast Asia. (Photo via Jim Morrow collection)

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u.s. Navy and Marines occasionally shared dual-marked Skyraiders for stateside use. (Photo via Jim Morrow collection) Color Gallery

35

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Blue AD-4Q (BuAer No. 124063) served Navy squadron VA·728, a reserve squadron, in the early 1950s over South Korea. (Photo via Doug Remington collection)

AD-4 number H·512 ofVA·728, BuAer No. 123836, between missions in South Korea, circa 1951-1953. (Photo via Doug Remington collection)

36

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

Ordnance expended, a South Vietnamese Air Force A-1 taxies back to its revetment at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in the last half of the 1960s. (Photo courtesy of Bill Latner)

Vietnamese A-1 E, with characteristic black and yellow checker fuselage band seen on many 23rd Wing VNAF Skyraiders. (USAF photo)

Color Gallery

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First Special Operations Squadron A-1 s follow an H-3 to a rescue site in Southeast Asia. (USAF)

USAF A·1 E beside a ramshackle Air Vietnam hangar. (Keith Laird collection)

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Douglas A-1 Skyraider

VNAF A-1, No. 34557, shares ramp space in South Vietnam with civilian Piper Aztec. Hardpoinfare off A·1s wings. (Keith Laird collection)

56th SOW A-1H, No. 137593. (Merritt/Holmberg/Morgan collections)

Color Gallery

39

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40

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

Bearing typical.commander's strip~s in this USAF A-1 of the 56th Special Operations Wing, photographed from the open 'door of a- rescue helicopter. (USAF photo)

Color Gallery

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Douglas A-1 Skyraider

Color Gallery

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Extra long-range tanks hang from this 56th SOW A-1 H, No. 137713. (Merritt/Holberg/Morgan collections)

Southeast Asia A-1 pilots couldn't resist the open-cockpit appeal of their slower than Mach mounts. This aircraft is a 56th SOW A-1H, No. 137517. (Merritt/Homberg/Morgan collections)

44

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

Above and below: USN EA-1 of VAW-13. (Jim Morrow photos)

Striking study of single-seat Navy A-1. (Jim Morrow photo)

Color Gallery

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"Sock It To 'Em" of the 56th SOW shows oil migration pattern on centerline tank. (Merritt/Holmberg/Morgan collections)

Ex-French AD-4 of the late Jack Spanich in 1982. Spanich was a warbird importer who painted this example to represent a USAF A·1H of the 1st Special Operations Squadron. (Photo by Paul Swendrowski)

46

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

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Aluminum-silver painted AD·4 in French service, No. 12694. (Jim Morrow collection)

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AD-5W from VAW·11 of the USS Kearsarge. (Jim Morrow collection)

Color Gallery

47

The wooden flight deckof the USS Intrepid felt the impact of this Skyraider's arrested landing as two underwing fuel pods wrenched from the wings and skated ahead of the aircraft as its engine tore loose and crashed to the deck in flames. Earlier in its WESTPAC cruise, this Skyraider had ditched and was repaired. This was its test hop; the plane did not fly again, and the pilot was uninjured. (Photos courtesy of John M. Campbell archives)

48

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

The electronics countermeasures AD-5Qs became EA-1Fs with the redesignation system of 1962. Underwing pylons vary to fit their special purposes on this Skyraider, and guns are absent. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

Gloss blue AD·6 of Navy squadron VA·155 shows white national star painted directly on sea blue fuselage, without the use of insignia blue to surround the star - a common U.S. Navy practice in the 1950s. (Photo by William T.Larkins)

Air Task Group One used this AD-6 in 1958. (Photo by William T. Larkins)

Between the Wars: Skyraiders Enter the Navy

49

VA-115 - the Arabs - flew AD-6 BuAer No. 139731 in 1962 at Moffett Field. (Photo by William T. Larkins)

A clean A-1J from USS Oriskany, seen at Moffett Field in 1963. (Photo by William T. Larkins)

50

Douglas A·1 Skyraider

Heinemann's planes in action: AD-6 with buddy store drags a refueling hose for another Douglas product, an A4D Skyhawk, in September 1956. (Douglas photo via Edward H. Heinemann)

The underwing bomb racks of the AD-6 were similar to those of earlier Skyraiders, although the pylons were positioned 14 inches forward ofthe position on the previous singleseat AD-4 and earlier Skyraiders. The follow-on AD-7 was the last variant of the Skyraider to leave the Douglas plant. The Dash-7 acknowledged the rigors of low-altitude combat flying by incorporating structural improvements in the wing to enhance fatigue life. 12 Where the AD-6 had been powered by an R-3350-26-WA engine, the Dash-7 used the -WB version giving comparable performance. When the last of 72 AD-7s was delivered in February 1957,3,180 Skyraiders had been built. Into the 1960s, military planners would ponder reopening the line, to crank out more

of these durable attack planes which turned out to be wellsuited for countering jungle warfare in Southeast Asia. The Navy began pumping Skyraiders into its squadrons in 1946 with deliveries to VA-19A (later designated VA-194). Navy Skyraider squadrons peaked out at 29 in the fall of 1955, remaining at that number until the middle of 1957 when the number of active Navy Skyraider squadrons began to wane. By late 1965 the Navy operated only 10 A-1 squadrons. 13 The last two U.S. Navy Skyraiders left service in 1971. They were A-1 Es, dispatched to the U.S. Marine Corps Museum at Quantico, Virginia, and to the Military Aircraft Storage and Disposition Center (MASDC) at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona. 14

U.S.(Navy squa ronSOper? tng yr?ider anne ..qrps began receiVtn included: VA-19A(laterVA-194), VA-1B (VA~24), Skyraidersin 951, intosquadronVMA-121 (the VA-28 (VA·25), VA-3B (VA-44), VA-4B(VA-45), letter 'M' indicated a: Marine squadron.) At some VA-5B (VA-64), VA-6B (VA-65), VA-20A (VA- ~tations such~s Seattle, Washington's, old Sand. 195), VA-34, VA-114, VA-154,VA-155, VA-175, Point Naval ~ir Station, Skyraiders flown by ReVC-12 (VAW-12),VA-35, VF-54 (VA-54), VA-55, servists wore joint Navy and Marine markings. VA-74,VA-75, VA94, VA-12A (VA-115), YA-~ 74, U.S. Marine Corps Skyraidersquadrons included: VA-175, VC-l1 (VAW-l,1), V~,.15i VA-923 (VA- VMA,.121, Vf\1A-151 ;Vf\1fk-1, VMC-3 (lat~rVMJC125r,VA~7p2 '. 4§),:V.fk~~~0lM~!~~)'iYC! MA'.. -2.,_·. 1.· . VM,.AT...:·· VMA T.•. .·20.·...••·•.:VM•.. C...:.2. 35 (VAAW,.35)' ( ,. 28;(VA:~~p5);VF7J~4(V AJC:'2);'y - 51 ,V . . ,. ,.....'.'. 12, VM,LX':225, VMA196), VA-95, VA,.105, VA-104'; VA-16,VA-176, ~?4, VMA-33n, VMA-33?;and VMA-33.3; VA-215, VA-216, VF-92, VC~4 (VFAW-4),VA-96, VA-126, VA-52, VA-122, VA-144, VA-152, VA165, and VA-135. 15 (In Navy usage, the letter V indicated 'squadron'; A indicated 'attack'; F was 'fighter', and so forth.) ............ :::< ••• ,

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Between the Wars: Skyraiders Enter the Navy

' • • '•••.••

51

The bUddy store mounted to the centerline rack as seen on this AD-6 in October 1955. A trailing hose could be winched out to refuel fleet jets who ran low. (Douglas photo via Edward H. Heinemann)

A clean AD-6 shows off its many hardpoints and the demarcation between the white undersides and gray upper surfaces. Fuselage colors blended with a soft spray line; wing leading edge was gray sharply masked to white below the leading edge. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

In May of 1958, an AD-6 of VA·35 refuels a McDonnell F3H-2N from VF-31 over the Mediterranean Sea. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

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Douglas A-1 Skyraider

When the last AD-7 rolled out in February 1957, Navy and Douglas officials gathered to honor the rugged Skyraider. Standing in the center of the grouping in a dark business suit is Ed Heinemannn, designer of the AD. (Douglas photo courtesy Edward H. Heinemann)

Notes 1. Gordon Swanborough and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, pp. 295-296, 362-363. 2. Interview between Frederick A. Johnsen and Edward H. Heinemann, 20 July 1982. 3. Gordon Swanborough and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, pp. 186-188. 4. Ibid., pp. 305-309. 5. B.R. Jackson, Douglas Skyraider, p. 19. 6. Ibid., p. 21. 7. Frederick A. Johnsen, Winged Majesty - The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress in War and Peace, Tacoma: Bomber Books 1980, pp. 31-33. 8. B.A. Jackson, Douglas Skyraider, p. 24.

9. "AD-5 Converts from Bomberto Transport," Aviation Weekmagazine, Aug. 24, 1953, pp. 24-26. 10. Interview between Frederick A. Johnsen and Edward H. Heinemann, 20 July 1982. 11. "AD-5 Converts from Bomber to transport," Aviation Week magazine, Aug. 24, 1953, pp. 24-26. 12. "Standard Aircraft Characteristics - AD-7 Skyraider", Douglas Aircraft Co., Inc., EI Segundo Division, 7 November 1955. 13. B.A. Jackson, Douglas Skyraider, pp. 137-138. 14. British Aviation Research Group, A History of the Douglas Skyraider, AEw'1,p.8. 15. B.R. Jackson, Douglas Skyraider, pp. 137-138. 16. Ibid.

Between the Wars: Skyraiders Enter the Navy

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Blue single-seat Skyraider came to grief on a carrier deck as crash team raced to protect pilot. (Campbell Archives)

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Douglas A-1 Skyraider

CHAPTER III

Korea Proves the Skyraider 'J!\n undying hatred and a wound never to be cured. " Juvenal, Satires

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Korean peninsula is a series of folded granite and limestone mountains jutting from China, and sharing a brief border in the extreme northeast with Russia. Only about 20 percent of the land is flat, and most of this is in the southwest, where Korea's major rice crop flourishes. Korean summers can be hot and muggy, with monsoon rains. The winters are cold and dry, with crusty snow accenting terraced rice paddies and frozen rivers. Koreans are proud and industrious, and work their uneven terrain to produce crops and industrial goods that gained worldwide markets in the 1980s. The evolution of a Korean state is marked by centuries of invaders and foreign occupiers. The Chinese moved troops down into the Korean peninsula in 109 B. C., remaining in force nearly 400 years. A rising kingdom within Korea led to the Shilla dynasty by 668 AD., during which a unified Korean identity emerged. Mongol invaders in the 13th Century allowed much of the Korean social structure to remain. The seizure of power by General Yi Song-gye in 1392 established the durable Yi Dynasty, which further entrenched the Korean identity. In 1910, Japan established colonial rule over Korea which lasted until American and Russian troops split the country and defeated the Japanese in 1945. The same post-World War II land-grabbing goals which prompted the Soviet Union to blockade Berlin in 1948 in an effort to take West Berlin led to the Soviet arming of North Korea. The United Nations had plans for the reunification of the two Koreas, separated by the 38th Parallel, but a Sovietbacked attack from the North on June 25, 1950 made combat the only alternative to a Soviet-dictated combining of the two Koreas. While the United States moved quickly to evacuate Americans from threatened South Korea, the long-term American combat commitment was made under the aegis of a United Nations multi-national force sent to Korea to return the borders to their pre-1950 invasion position as a prelude to any future peace. More than four decades later, the 38th Parallel still marks an armed truce between the communists to the north, and the Republic of Korea (ROK) to the south. South Koreans, still outraged at indignities suffered under Japanese rule, are loathe to accommodate the North Koreans who attacked them from the north. Even now, some pundits say the large American military presence in the south may be needed more to . keep the South Koreans from zealously attacking the north, instead of vice versa! After a resolution from the U.N. Security Council asked member-nations to help the Republic of Korea repel its invaders, American support began in earnest. In 1950, some U.S. Navy planners argued about the relative merits of prop-driven attack planes such as the AD, and fast-moving jets. In a study ultimately published in August

1950 in Naval Aviation News, arguments in favor of propdriven planes like the Skyraider centered on loitering time over target and its attendant morale value on friendly troops below, as well as the short-field and rustic terrain advantages prop planes held over their slow-to-accelerate jet brethren. Jet backers claimed speed would replace loitering time as a virtue to pinned ground troops, and argued that jets were more accurate ordnance delivery platforms. 1 The heavy demands that were quickly placed on Navy and Marine attack aviation beginning in the summer of 1950 over Korea gave no room for debate. The available Skyraiders and Corsairs roared into combat, delivering bombs, rockets, and gunfire while F9F Panther jets typically prowled overhead in shifts, looking for air opposition. Days after the United Nations resolution urged military support of South Korea, U.S. Navy Skyraiders from the U.S.S. Valley Forge were attacking communisttargets north of Seoul. 2 The "Happy Valley" was the Navy's lone aircraft carrier in the region at the time. "Valley's" attack bombers hit airfields and other transportation complexes around Pyongyang on July 3 and 4, before withdrawing to Okinawa to help guard against a possible Chinese invasion of Formosa. Ultimately, other patrol forces would watch the approaches to Formosa for a communist Chinese invasion that was never launched. Meanwhile, Valley Forge steamed back to Korean waters in time to provide close air support for the First Cavalry Division's landing at Pohang on the east coast. Opposition failed to materialize for the Pohang landings, so Valley Forge's planes, including Skyraiders, turned to coastal targets like the petroleum refinery at Wonsan, which they devastated. The Valley Forge was the core ofTask Force 77, with Carrier Air Group Five aboard. During that first hectic July, CAG Five's pilots began nicknaming parts of Korea after the way enemy vehicles littered the roads. The stretch from Seoul to Pyongtaek was known as "Wreckage Row," after repeated workouts from VA-55's Skyraiders, which had been the first ADs to enter combat in July. Ground/air coordinators of strikes in Korea were amazed when they first employed Skyraiders. "A single plane, the AD, could make run after run on enemy installations and still have enough load to handle all targets in the area," a Navy correspondent wrote in 1950.3 The Skyraider legend was borneand it would endure for decades of service. The Valley Forge was joined near Korea by the carriers Boxer and Philippine Sea in time for the September 15, 1950, amphibious invasion at Inchon. Ultimately, during the Korean War, the Navy would operate Skyraiders in 12 attack squadrons, four composite squadrons, and two fighter squadrons of the Seventh Fleet. The Marines put ashore two attack squadrons of Skyraiders, and one Marine composite reconnaissance squadron to bolster the combat effort. 4

Korea, Proves the Skyraider

55

VA-195's famous kitchen-sink bomb, lugged to a Korean target by an AD. (McDonnell Douglas photo courtesy Harry Gann)

The amphibious invasion at Inchon was critically timed to match the optimum height of the region's 30-foot tides. The United Nations counter offensive at Inchon, in the rear of the communists' newly-held territory, was intended as a thrust for Seoul, a major transportation hub from which the communists had to be routed. The U.N. plan placed the burden of air support near Inchon upon the Navy's carriers, which now included the smaller Sicily and Badoeng Strait in addition to the three fast carriers Valley Forge, Boxer, and Philippine Sea. The Royal Navy furnished HMS Triumph to round outthe carrier force available for the Inchon landings. Boxer was fresh into the fray after ferrying 145 U.S. Air Force F-51 Mustang fighters, 2,000 tons of Air Force supplies, and 1,000 military passengers to the Far East for combat. On September 12, 1950, three days before the invasion, aircraft from Valley Forge and Philippine Sea began striking in the Inchon area. The hammering was taken up on the 14th by planes from the Sicily and Badoeng Strait. When the Marines landed at Wolmi-do and next Inchon itself, they found the enemy's beach defenses decimated by CAG-Five's air strikes. Overhead air support helped the Marines advance toward Seoul, and retake Kimpo airfield in a couple days. By September 19, Marine squadrons from Japan arrived at Kimpo, and began operational missions from there the following day.

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Douglas A-1 Skyraider

The Skyraider excelled in the close air support role, causing naval aviation's official house organ, Naval Aviation News, to state in December 1952: "The load carrying ability, the accuracy of dive bombing, and the ruggedness of the AD Skyraider attack plane employed from carriers and by the Marines has been the most devastating attack factor in the Korean air war." By October 1950, the U.N. counter-offensive was taking effect, and optimists forecast an end to the war. But U.N. forces soon engaged increasing numbers of communist Chinese troops sent down to help North Korea's faltering conquest. The following month, in early November, plans were made to stem the flow of Chinese troops into North Korea by severing bridges across the Yalu River, which split Korea from China. Navy dive bombers got the tasking on November 8, with a frustrating caveat: They were forbidden to fly across the Yalu into Chinese airspace. This precluded attacks down the length ofthe bridges straddling the river, and also did not allow the naval aviators the chance to silence antiaircraft guns on the Chinese side of the river. The gunners in China had no orders keeping them from firing across the river on the American planes. To compound the problem ofthe Yalu border bridges, the North Koreans staged their newly-acquired Russian MiG-15

jet fighters in Manchurian sanctuaries, from which they could defend the vital Yalu bridges. Classic Navy jet-and-prop tactics were employed in the Yalu operation, as seen on November 9, when Skyraiders were joined by other pistonengine attackers - F4U Corsairs - for a bridge busting strike. Fifty minutes after the Skyraiders and Corsairs cleared the carriers, a flight of F9F Panther jet fighters launched for the Yalu, followed by two more jet flights at 15-minute intervals. Long before the slower Skyraiders and Corsairs reached the target, they were overhauled by the first jet escort element which flew top cover inbound to the target. The second jet flight relieved the fuel-guzzling first jets over the target, and the third and final jet flight escorted the prop planes out of the fray. The jet escort relays worked - throughout November, none of the bridge-busters was lost to MiGs as long as a fighter escort was present. The Panther pilots, meanwhile, claimed three MiG-15 kills, and several probabies for the loss of one F9F.5 Though hampered by airspace restrictions, the Skyraiders and Corsairs dropped bridge spans, slowing Chinese advances. The hard freeze of the Korean winter put an end to the bridge busting by late November, when the Yalu froze and allowed the Chinese to cross it without benefit of bridges. 6 The Chinese hit Marine ground forces and forced an evacuation from the Chosin reservoir in November. Carrier planes covered the Marines' withdrawal. As the communists took over airfields, carrier air, including Skyraiders, became increasingly vital to United Nations operations in Korea. The Chinese continued to push south below the 38th Parallel, but the see-saw land war would reverse again, enabling Marine Skyraiders to fly from Korean soil. Interdiction became a way of life for the AD pilots, replacing some of their close air support duties. Now, bridges, trains, convoys, and any form of transportation used by the enemy was targeted by the ADs. But one of the most unusual air support strikes of the Korean War was executed by torpedo-laden Skyraiders from U.S.S. Princeton in May 1951. Their target was not shipping - the torpedoes were destined to burst the floodgates of the Hwachon reservoir in central eastern Korea. United Nations forces had dug in behind the Pukhan River. The communists sought to lower the depth of the river to facilitate crossing by closing the Hwachon floodgates upstream. The Skyraiders of Air Group 19, escorted by Corsairs, carried the first torpedoes launched by Navy air since World War II. The reservoir strike also was the debut of Skyraider torpedo tactics in combat. One of the floodgates was destroyed, another ripped open below water level, and other parts of the 200-foot-high dam suffered damage. The Able Dog fliers had to jink around ridges and settle into a short run-in to the dam, barely reaching the proper altitude above water when it was time to release their tin fish. The exit was obstructed by high-tension lines and mountains, forcing the Skyraiders into abrupt climbouts after dropping their torpedoes into the fresh water reservoir. The torpedo attack succeeded where earlier conventional bombing had failed; the river was allowed to rise again.? The communists' spring offensive of 1951 was defeated by United Nations forces. As the year unfolded, carrier aircraft were directed to serve U.N. needs in northeast Korea, which

coincidentally removed the ship-based Skyraiders from the arena of air-to-air combat. Peacetime tests had shown the AD to be a contender when matched with piston-engined fighters like the F8F Bearcat. And years later, over Viet Nam, Navy Skyraiders would twice make world news by downing North Vietnamese MiG jet fighters. But Korea was not to be a dogfight war for the Able Dog, except in isolated bouts with night nuisance hecklers. The commander of Navy Task Force 77 employed his Skyraiders almost exclusively for interdiction now. His fast-flying Panther jets and bomb-laden Skyraiders and Corsairs adopted a routine for interdiction sorties that was vital, but lacked razzle-dazzle. The task force commander described the day-in, day-out interdiction campaign as "a day to day routine where stamina replaces glamour and persistence is pitted against oriental perseverance."B During this period, persistent Skyraider fliers participated in a six-strike effort to remove a North Korean rail bridge from the war forever. A ravine of about a ninth of a mile separated two tunnels near Songjin in the north. Lt. Cdr. Clement M. Craig spied the railroad bridge while winging home from a combat mission. That same day, Navy fliers damaged one of the bridge's approaches. A cycle of bombing and rebuilding began, with the Navy keenly interested because this span was a choke point for all traffic moving into northeast Korea from Manchuria. The day after the first strike, VA-195's Skyraiders, led by the squadron commander, Lt. Cdr. Harold G. Carlson, removed one bridge span and damaged two more. The site became known as "Carlson's Canyon." Soon a second span crashed to the bottom of the ravine after raid number three. But about ten days into the game, communist builders had made major repairs with temporary timbers. Strike four wiped out the new construction, but within two weeks the bridge was rebuilt and awaiting the laying of rails to accommodate southbound communist war supplies. Strikes five and six were executed by hefty blue Skyraiders loosing one-ton bombs, which Navy correspondents said put an end to efforts to rebuild the "Bouncing Bridge of Carlson's Canyon."9 Communist power plants on the Yalu River and nearby attracted an armada of carrier air, shore-based Marines, and Fifth Air Force planes on June 23 and 24, 1952. The first day's strikes employed Skyraiders in a mixed bag of 223 carrier birds and 77 ground-based Marine aircraft. The mix of blue birds included Panthers and Corsairs in addition to the durable ADs. On the 24th, the carriers launched about 323 planes while the Marines mustered 60. The fliers wearing golden wings took credit for a significant part of the muscle used to actually bomb the power plants. 1o The Joint Chiefs of Staff originally scheduled the powerplant strikes for June 19, but slipped the beginning to June 23 for the benefit of Vice-Admiral Robert P. Briscol, commander of Naval Forces Far East. This allowed Briscol's forces time to muster four fast carriers forthis major joint effort. This marked the first time so many fast carriers were amassed since the Hungnam evacuation operations of December 1950, when carrier air support covered the evacuation of U.S. Marines by keeping Skyraiders and Corsairs loitering at the beck and call of the Marines as they withdrew down a mountain road lined by the communists. ll

Korea Proves the Skyraider

57

As late as June 19, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington had changed the power plant attack plan by adding the generating plant at Sui-ho to the target list. Sui-ho lay a scant 38 miles from a major MiG concentration at Antung. Vice Admiral J.J. Clark, the Seventh Fleet's new commander, wanted to get carrier air into the fray, and he flew to Seoul to propose to the Air Force that the Navy ought to have a hand in the Sui-ho strike. For the first time since the frustrating Yalu bridge attacks of 1950, the Sui-ho mission put Navy air up MiG Alley. Sui-ho was to be hit first by Navy and Air Force fighterbombers. With Sui-ho under attack, Fifth Air Force planes would tackle the Chosin plants Three and Four and the Fusen plants Three and Four. Meanwhile, Navy air would strike at Fusen plants One and Two and four plants located at Kyosen. That night, Air Force B-29s were to bomb Chosin plants One and Two, using SHORAN navigational bombing equipment. 12 The morning of June 23, 1952, cloud cover rendered the Yalu River powerplants obscured, and all crews stood down. As the day wore on, the cloud cover shifted south, exposing the targets and masking the approach and departure paths the United Nations planes would use. The die was recast, and at 1600 on June 23,35 Skyraiders from Boxer, Philippine Sea, and Princeton rolled into their attacks on the works at Sui-ho. Panthers flew flak suppression and Air Force Sabres watched for MiGs. Inexplicably, the MiGs did not attack, and in fact an estimated 160 communist planes fled to Manchuria, probably in fear of airfield attacks by the American force. 13 While Sui-ho burned, Fifth Air Force F-51 Mustang fighters, sturdy prop-driven retreads from World War II, attacked Fusen Three and Four. Carrier-based Skyraiders joined Corsairs and Panthers in hitting Fusen One and Two, as well as the Kyosen four-plant system. Returning Skyraider pilots said the flak at Sui-ho was admirably suppressed by the F9F jets, allowing the Able Dogs a clear shot with an aggregate of 90 tons of bombs. As the Skyraiders slipped back into cloud cover after the attack, 79 F-84 Thunderjets and 45 F-80 Shooting Stars from the Air Force took their turn over Sui-ho. The Kyosen raid was a Corsair show, with only six ADs in the gaggle. Fusen One and Two reeled under the firepower of about 90 Navy planes, including a contingent of Skyraiders. Fliers observed one power house cave in, and watched the demolition of a transformer yard. The next day, the Navy ignored the useless rubble at Sui-ho, and sent bombers against Kyosen and Fusen. From Princeton, Skyraiders followed the flakkilling Panthers over Fusen. The ADs dumped five-thousandpound bomb loads here, proving themselves again without equal in the dive bombing role. 14 The Air Force continued hammering the power plants two more days. When it was over, Navy sources said seven of the nine targeted plants were destroyed, and the other two were nearly useless. The shared tasking between Navy and Air Force units worked well. Lt. Gen. Glen E. Barcus, Fifth Air Force commander, sent a message to Admiral Clark at Seventh Fleet, saying, "My hat's off to the Navy for a terrific job. We must get together again sometime."15 Air planners of the decisive powerplant raids were chagrined when members of Parliament in England criticized the attacks as provocative, and U.S. congressmen raised ques-

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Douglas A-1 Skyraider

tions over the timing of the attacks. This lack of United Nations solidarity has been viewed by Air Force historians as blunting the overall effect the otherwise successful strikes had on the will of the communists. 16 The Navy pioneered remotely-controlled bombs during World War II, ranging from explosives-laden PB4Y-1 liberators like the one which took Joseph Kennedy to his death in Europe, to Bat glide bombs carried under the wings of PB4Y2B variants of the Privateer patrol bomber. A more successful marriage of explosives and remote-control electronics was the direction of F6F-5K Hellcat drones by AD-4Q Skyraiders during the Korean War. On August 28, 1952, the Navy's Guided Missile Unit 90, aboard U.S.S. Boxer, unleashed drone Hellcats for the first time in combat. 1? As the unmanned F6F, toting a 2,000-pound bomb, roared down Boxer's lefthand catapult, an AD-4Q already launched on the right side shepherded the drone by means of a television guidance system. A second Skyraider mother ship on deck guided the Hellcat through takeoff until the airborne AD-4 took control. Droning was used when targets were too heavily defended by the communists to permit a manned attack. In the stand-off Skyraider, the drone operator, watched a television image ofthe Hellcat's "view" as he guided the F6F flying bomb on its final combat sortie. The spacious AD-4Q fuselage accommodated the drone-direction equipment and operator aft of the pilot. A half-dozen drone Hellcat attacks were controlled by Skyraiders during this Korean War operation. Whether flying nameless interdiction sorties or spectacular powerplant attacks, the blue Skyraiders over Korea proved they were more than a flash in the pan. What the Corsair did well with bombs, the AD did better. Where the fast-flying jets were only secondarily suited to bombing, the Skyraider was bred for the task. Combat over Korea proved a real need existed in the 1950s for Ed Heinemann's AD, and production continued with newer models. As new Skyraiders rolled off the line back home, the United Nations air forces began a new campaign of sustained pressure on the communists in October 1952. The Navy's Task Force 77 launched "Cherokee" strikes - mass fighterbomber strikes against enemy troops and supply dumps near the fighting arena. The task force typically launched eight Skyraiders, eight Corsairs, and up to a dozen Panther jets on a Cherokee strike. This firepower, including the Skyraider's incredible capacity for repeated bomb runs, stood a good chance of neutralizing the target. In its own fashion, the Fifth Air Force also highlighted juicy targets worthy of mass attacks. 18 On the ground, the Eighth Army designated a bomb line behind which no U.N. air strikes could be targeted without positive control by an airborne controller or a tactical air controller. The intent was to spare friendly casualties from wayward bombs, but the bomb line sometimes extended as far as 10,000 meters in front of Eighth Army lines. To honor the bomb line meant rounding up controllers for on-scene strike work. This procedure robbed the Cherokee strikes of the lightning spontaneity necessary to get the most effect from Cherokee's massed firepower. 19

Shrapnel riddled the fuselage of this Navy Skyraider over Korea, but failed to stop the plane. (McDonnell Douglas photo courtesy Harry Gann)

Fifth Air Force went to bat, and persuaded Eighth Army to shorten the bomb line to about 3,000 meters out from friendly outposts. Another 25 miles out (approximately) an imaginary line divided general support missions from interdiction sorties. This gave the Cherokee fliers a field day in the area between 3,000 and about 20,000 meters ahead of the Eighth Army's positions. Cherokee foretold of future ground support combat in Vietnam, where again Army commanders would have, at times anyway, a surfeit of airpower at their disposal. Taking hits and spreading ordnance with a quickness that chilled the enemy, the armored ADs contributed mightily to the success of Cherokee operations. Air Force scholars said Cherokee strikes seemed to take a serious morale toll of the communists. Some Eighth Army officers called Cherokee "airpower's most potent contribution" to the condition of static lines of combat in Korea. 2o Among the Marines' contributions to Korean combat was the placement of VMA-121 ,the Wolfraiders, with AD-3s on the Korean peninsula. As part of Marine Air Group (MAG) 12, the AD-3s bombed in concert with F4U and special attack AU-1 Corsairs flown by VMA 212 and 323. These ground-based squadrons were the closest Marine units to the scene of battle,

and pilots, armorers, and mechanics sometimes carried small arms and wore steel pots as they traveled out to their Skyraiders, in acknowledgment of the potential for guerilla attacks, Navy journalists wrote. Col. Robert E. Galer, a World War II ace who downed 13 Japanese planes, commanded MAG 12. The group's seven-day-a-week war was fought from a former Japanese fighter base, constructed during the Second World War when the Japanese feared American air attacks on their occupied Korea. But runways and aprons sufficient to support lightweight Zero fighters could not handle heavy, bomb-laden ADs, so U.S. Army engineers beefed up the field for Skyraider and ground-attack Corsair operations. 21 Local Korean labor earned as much as a dollar a day assembling bombs which Marine ordnancemen loaded under the Skyraiders and Corsairs for the next day's sorties. The Wolfraiders' ADs were under the operational control of Fifth Air Force. They dropped bombs to support Army troops and Korean units as well as ground-pounding leathernecks. As the war progressed into 1952, the Marines found themselves more frequently flying pre-briefed strikes, a departure from the free-wheeling nature of close-air support where they had loitered in their ADs over friendly troops, just waiting for a call

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to attack a hot spot. A Navy journalist put it this way: "...Under the present set-up, the close air support is not quite so close as it used to be."22 "Close" or not, the Marines added to the combat log of the Skyraiders over Korea. Chains of command which delayed response time were not the making of the Marines who manned the blue ADs - when called, the flying leathernecks exploited their Skyraiders' abilities to punch out enemy bunkers, guns, or troop concentrations. The Wolfraiders used the huge capacity of their Skyraiders to surpass a Corsair record for highest bomb tonnage dropped by a squadron in a single day. Previously, "Deathrattler" Marines in Corsairs set the mark at 218,000 pounds of bombs. Without disclosing the Wolfraiders' new high tonnage mark, possibly as a bow to wartime censors, Naval journalists said the ADs ofthe groundbased VMA-121 carried 2,OOO-pounders to beat the old Corsair tally. 23 Toward the end of combat in the first half of 1953, Marine Air Wing One put a pair of ADs, with radar and an operator for the set in the planes' bellies, at a forward base where North Korean "Bedcheck Charlie" nuisance flights disrupted the nocturnal peace. The radar, intended as a bombing aid, was adapted for night stalking. The quarry were slow-flying North Korean PO-2 aircraft which harassed the United Nations positions. Radar-equipped jet interceptors were at a loss to get down with the slow PO-2s in the darkness. Majors Robert H. Mitchell and George H. Linnemeier piloted the Marine ADs assigned to this night combat air patrol. The Skyraider could hang in at 90 knots to do battle with the annoying PO-2, but the intercept had to be made in darkness, at minimum altitude, over terrain which jutted up several thousand feet abruptly. The radar operator, like his World War II counterpart in Army Air Forces P-61 Black Widow night fighters, shared the night shift by mapping the terrain with radar while tracking Bedcheck Charlie. Major Linnemeier killed a PO-2 with 20-millimeter cannon fire, but found his glossy sea blue AD targeted by communist AA gunners in what may have been a trap. Linnemeier escaped the flak and returned home victorious. The next night was Robert Mitchell's date to intercept Charlie. Mitchell claimed hits on his bogey, but he had to break off the attack when the big Skyraider overhauled the communist plane too fast. 24 It is fitting that Marines, legendary for possessing the grit and ingenuity to bulldoze obstacles, turned Skyraiders into night fighters over Korea. Marine units working the AD in Korea included VMA-121 at K-3 beginning in the fall of 1951, flying AD-3s; VMA-251 at K-6 in June and July 1953, flying AD-3s; and VMC-1, based at K-16, flying AD-2Qs and AD3Ns. Navy squadron VC-35 put successive Skyraider night attack teams to sea with Task Force 77 for 34 months of operations. Though VC-35 was mainly an anti-submarine unit, its radar-equipped ADs were suited to nocturnal heckling along communist supply lines. The pilot and two radar operators scanned roads and railways for signs of activity. A sighting could bring a brilliant burst of light from a flare dropped by the Skyraider. If a target presented itself under the canopy of the flare, the Able Dog roared in for battle. The plan was to deny

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the communists the advantage of darkness for moving war supplies to the front. In spite of land battle reverses early in the fighting, the Korean air war favored the United Nations fliers. To be sure, flak and weather were mortal foes, and MiGs challenged especially the Air Force, but a tongue-in-cheek cockiness peNaded Naval air war stories relayed home by correspondents. These anecdotes flesh out the Skyraider's Korean War diary: In the first months of combat in 1950, VA-55 AD-4 pilots took ribbing from jet pilots aboard their carrier who snickered at the propeller-driven dive bombers. The Skyraider drivers took pride in the fact they had license to do what any redblooded fighter pilot longs for - the ADs could "flat hat" at treetop level in search of targets, while the jets milled overhead, or came down for specific attacks. The AD pilots rubbed it in with an Op Order saying "Window-peeking is hereby authorized." Honors of "chief peeker" went to VA-55's Lt. Bud Gallagher. On one exhilarating "flat hat" sortie, Ensign "Atomic" Aldrich of VA-55 obseNed two trees doing the impossible moving closer together on a railroad track. A quick squirt of 20millimeter fire from the wings of Aldrich's Skyraider knocked out a handcar loaded with eight enemy soldiers. 25 During this early period, a VA-55 pilot experienced the effect of his own 1,OOO-pound general-purpose bombs. He was east of Seoul in 1950. making his third run on a communist-held railroad bridge. As he pulled out from the bomb run, the sound and impact of an explosion shook him and heeled his blue AD-4 into a steep bank. Recovering, the flier found he had no aileron response and scant hydraulic pressure. limping back to his carrier, the Skyraider pilot applied rudder to control the plane's wings-level attitude. The LSO waved him off once, but the ADA plunked down in a good landing next time around. Two chunks of shrapnel, products of the Skyraider's own wrath, had embedded themselves in the AD4. One fragment damaged hydraulic lines in the port stub wing; the other punched through the bottom of the fuselage, cutting hydraulics, electrical wiring, and ruining aileron controls before spending its energy in the pilot's parachute pack. 26 Ensign R. Sanders of VA-65 was piloting his blue AD-4 on September 17, 1950, a few miles southeast of Seoul when small arms fire dropped his Skyraider's oil pressure to zero. Sanders scrambled for altitude, but the Skyraider's radial engine gave up without oil at 3,000 feet. Between rugged terrain and unacceptable rice paddies, only a dirt road promised much in the form of a place to park the silent Skyraider. Sanders popped the plane's three fuselage-mounted dive brakes. His path was leading him to a stout tree; to clear the tree would mean missing the road on this deadstick one-timeonly approach. So Sanders ploughed into the thick tree trunk with his wing root, touching down on the dirt road at 135 knots. The extended belly dive brake vaulted the skidding Skyraider onto its nose until the brake ripped free. The plane dragged through the dirt another 100 feet before nosing up, and rocking back to a halt. Shaken but mobile, Ensign Sanders walked away from the smashed Skyraider, noting that the plane's radio continued to broadcast its scratchy litany as the plane lay wrecked in the dirt. 27

The Skyraider pilots looked for incongruities on the ground, which sometimes gave away communist camouflage. In 1951 , Ensign Louis Page took his Skyraider from the Philippine Sea for a sortie along the west coastline of Korea. Page saw a haystack, neatly placed in the middle of a railroad yard. "Haystack and railroad yards just don't go together," Page later recounted. So he pushed his AD into a strafing run and pumped 20-millimeter into the hay. A resounding explosion showed there was much more than a needle hiding in this haystack. With the aggressive pride of a fighter, Page was quoted as saying, "It was a wonderful day. Everything I shot at burned."28 Ice glazed the deck of the Valley Forge on a frigid early morning in February 1952 when Lt. Cdr. William "Buck" (of course!) Rogers gunned his AD-3 "Guppy" radar bird and braced for the expected jolt of a catapult launch into the darkness. With no help from the still-cocked catapult, the Skyraider was sliding down the deck toward the carrier's bow. Rogers brought back the throttle and tapped the brakes, but the icy deck offered no resistance. The pilot jammed full power

on and alerted his two radar operators for a ditching. The bulky AD with its large, drag-producing belly radome, dipped beneath the Valley Forge's bow as pilot Rogers raised landing gear and nudged back on the stick. The radome smacked the waves smartly, and the AD careened back into the air in a shower of sea spray. Rogers coolly nursed the Guppy at wave-top height as flying speed increased. Back on deck, Rogers and electronics men Donald Backofen and Raymond Frausto checked out impact damage to their Skyraider's radome. A faulty holdback ring on the catapult had allowed the Skyraider to skid forward when Rogers first throttled up. As with the Patuxent River incident where a Skyraider Guppy boated to shore on its belly radome, this bulbous housing proved amazingly seaworthy.29 Also in 1952 aboard the "Happy Valley," eight ensign pilots found a novel way to mark their passage to lieutenant, junior grade. They orchestrated an all-ensign air strike, flying their VF-194 Skyraiders under the lead of one of their num ber they had picked. The raid was pulled off a day before they all were scheduled for promotion. Each of the eight Skyraiders

The Marines stayed on after the Korean truce. This AD-3 bought some trouble at airfield K·6 in August 1954, while assigned to Marine attack squadron VMA-121. (Photo courtesy Dick Berry via Dave Forrest)

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was loaded with 4,000 pounds of bombs which the ensigns delivered to bridges, railroads, and other targets. Charles Brown led the raid, backed up by Robert Miller, Frank Melton, Dean Hofferth, Joe Akagi, Joe Molnar, Ken Wittman, and Stan Broughton. 30 Lt. Cmdr. Lynn DuTemple was pulling away from his fourth pass on a rail bridge in Hamhung when the canopy of his AD crystallized in a fractured pattern. He thought it was small-arms fire, and trotted the damaged VA-195 asset back to the Princeton. When he entered the pattern and made appropriate prop and throttle adjustments, the hollow Aeroproducts propeller howled so loudly the LSOs on the deck could hear it. When the prop ticked to a halt, one blade bore a 37-millimeter AA hole as big as a man's hand. 31 A photo of lucky DuTemple and the blade later was used by Aeroproducts in advertisements touting the toughness oftheir propellers. Another Princeton AD pilot in 1952 found himself inverted over Wonsan after anti-aircraft fire exploded 20-millimeter ammo in the wing ammunition cans of his plane. Lt. Og) Bill Buttlar was banking away from an enemy train at 400 knots when the explosions in his wing cranked the Skyraider over on its back. Buttlar regained control. and made an emergency landing. 32 After massive hydroelectric powerplant strikes in 1952, Lt. Cdr. M.K. Dennis of VA-195 made the age-old off-hand comment, "We dropped everything on them but the kitchen sink." Navy wags were not going to let this pass - not as long as the hefty, bomb-hauling Skyraiders of VA-195 were available. Aviation mechanics R.B. Deland and H.J. Burdett picked up Dennis' comment, and worked a fix with Princeton's maintenance people to permit a genuine sink, complete with S-trap drain pipe, to be lashed to a 1,OOO-pound bomb. 33 Nay-sayers predicted the contraption could not get airborne, or that the blocky sink would create problems during

the bombing dive. Lt. Og) Carl B. Austin took the apparatus under his AD for a sortie over North Korea's capital city of Pyongyang. Lieutenant Austin said flak over the capital city was so intense he pondered whether he could get in close enough to drop the sink bomb. He did deliver the ordnance, making it clear the communist war effort was going down the drain. 34 Another Princeton Skyraider driver, Lt. Og) Jack Everling, neared his target at Kowan in 1952 when something struck his AD with enough force to knock the control stick from his grip. As this happened, the Skyraider's clock cover glass splintered. spraying shards inside the cockpit. Everling climbed and leveled off to assess the trouble. His wingman followed, and radioed to Everling the news that his plane's left elevator had a huge hole in it. Reports later said the gap was large enough for a man to crawl through. Everling found he could apply some stick back pressure and use trim to keep his AD level as he motored back to the deck of the Princeton. Following a safe landing, the Skyraider was assessed for damage. More than 200 shrapnel holes were counted. The blast which tore open the elevator produced enough concussion to pop a rivet from the armor plate behind his seat. This missile rivet struck the clock and sent glass flying. Butthe AD's structural integrity brought it and its pilot home safely.35 The night Skyraiders which used radar to help find and destroy communist road traffic sometim~s were nicknamed "Roadrunners". Lt. Dawn D. Tanner's previous profession of California Highway Patrolman suggested another patch for his Skyraider squadron off the Korean coast. In a shield reminiscent of the California patrol logo, these nocturnal Skyraiderfliers from the Princeton wryly called themselves the Korean Highway PatroL They no doubt caused more accidents in North Korea than their California police counterparts could have administered aid to back home. 36

Clean AD-3 (BuAer No. 122799) of VA·95 at Oakland, California. October 17, 1953. (Photo by William T. Larkins)

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Notes 1. "Close Air Support With Jets", Naval Aviation News, August 1950, pp.9-11. 2. Gordon Swanborough and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, London: Putnam, 1976. 3. "Carrier War Off Korea", Naval Aviation News, December 1950, p. 12. 4. Data provided by aviation historian Rene J. Francillon. 5. "Naval Air War", Naval Aviation News, December 1952, pp. 4-5 6. Ibid. 7. "First Torpedo Attack", Naval Aviation News, July 1951. 8. "Naval Air War", Naval Aviation News, December 1952, p. 7. 9. "Navy Wrecks Korea's 'Bouncing Bridge"', Naval Aviation News, February 1952, p. 13. 10. "Naval Air War", Naval Aviation News, December 1952, p. 7. 11. Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953, Washington: Office of Air Force History, 1983, pp. 482-489. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. "Navy Hits Korean Power Plants", Naval Aviation News, August 1952, p.16. 15. Ibid. 16. Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953, Washington: Office of Air Force History, 1983, pp. 482-489.

17. Data provided by aviation historian Rene J. Francillon. 18. Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953, Washington: Office of Air Force History, 1983, pp. 618-619. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. "Land-Based Marine Air Hammers Reds", Naval Aviation News, September 1952, pp. 10-11. 22. Ibid. 23. "Record Smashers", Naval Aviation News, February 1953, p. 9. 24. "AD Night Interceptor", Naval Aviation News, October 1953, p. 6. 25. "Legalized Flat-hatters", Naval Aviation News, November 1950. 26. "Pilot Collects Own Bomb", Naval Aviation News, December 1950. 27. "Landing the Hard Way", Naval Aviation News, January 1951. 28. "Railroad Haymaker", Naval Aviation News, June 1951. 29. "Grunt and Groan", Naval Aviation News, April 1952. 30. "All-Ensign Air Strike", Naval Aviation News, August 1952, p. 13. 31. "The Whistler", Naval Aviation News, September 1952, p. 19. 32. "Shoots Himself', Naval Aviation News, September 1952, p. 19. 33. "Including a Sink", Naval Aviation News, December 1952, p. 13. 34. Ibid. 35. "Grateful Pilot", Naval Aviation News, December 1952, p. 13. 36. "Skyraider Patrolman", Naval Aviation News, August 1953, p. 10.

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CHAPTER IV

Cold-War Demands "He who did well in war just earns the right to begin doing well in peace. " Robert Browning, Luria

A

,

fter Korea, no doubt existed aboutthe Skyraider's A fleet pilot, early for his practice, loosed a 500-pound utility as a ruggedly reliable dive bomber. Kept in bomb, oblivious to the red, yellow and gray Skyraider. "You production for the peacetime, post-Korean War could hear it coming, just like in the movies! I swore at that pilot Navy, the boxy multi-place AD-5s were superseded by im- for hours." The hefty Skyraider was skidded sideways by the proved single-seaters - AD-6s and AD-7s - which would see blast, but emerged from the range none the worse for wear. combat in southeast Asia 10 years later. 1 "It wasn't a very accurate way to judge, I'll tell you that. It Publicists were fond of pointing out the Skyraider's ability was kind of seat-of-the-pants," Morrison said. to carry a heavier bomb load than a World War II Boeing B-17 On target sleeve runs, the deployment of the sleeve well Flying Fortress four engine bomber. The Navy harnessed the behind the AD on a steel cable was hardly noticed by the crew. Skyraider to carry atomic weapons in view of the AD's With nearly 3,000 horsepower, "the weight was not a factor Herculean qualities. when you had that many ponies pulling you," Morrison reWhen the United States used small Pacific atolls like membered. Comparing notes, the VU-1 crews agreed deKwajalein and Eniwetok for atmospheric testing of atomic stroyers were the least likely to hit the target sleeve, and on weapons, the planes dropping these cataclysmically hot loads occasion even gave the AD a run for its money with their AA included Douglas Skyraiders. 2 Later, during the time when fire. Much more stable in the water were fleet oilers, whose U.S. Navy Skyraiders participated in the Vietnam war through gunners enjoyed a high percentage of hits on the sleeves 20 February 1968, A-1s sometimes sat cocked on a carrier towed by the ADs of VU-1. 4 catapult, armed with nukes which never were unleashed. 3 If On 23 July 1954, communist Chinese fighters doggedly sitting nuclear alert was the penultimate in responsibility and attacked a commercial DC-4 transport, firing at the Douglas importance for some Skyraider pilots, other AD crews earned airliner until it crashed into the sea near Hainan. World powers their pay in the less prestigious but sometimes dangerous job tensed as they would nearly 30 years later when Russian jets of target towing. would down a Korean 747 airliner north of Japan. The USS Navy Utility Squadron One (VU-1) employed a mixed bag Philippine Sea, simmering in the heat of July, was near of aircraft at NAS Barber's Point, Hawaii in the early 1960s for enough to launch patrols to search for survivors of the DC-4 a variety of target duties. Drone F9F Panther jets of Korean shootdown. Philippine Sea's aircrews included a mixture of combat War vintage, North American FJ-3 Fury jets, F8U Crusaders, TV-2 Shooting Stars, Piasecki HUP-2 helicopters and brightly- veterans and new fliers who were more familiar with peacepainted AD-5 Skyraiders executed their tasks for the squad- time flying-hour reductions than they were with live fire and ron. combat turns. For several days, they flew their F9F-6 CouThe AD-5s had dark gray fuselages highlighted with gars, F4U-4 Corsairs, AD-4Ns and AD-4W "Guppy" radar yellow and red wings for high visibility. The Skyraiders towed Skyraiders in search of evidence of the downed airliner. 5 On target buckets for anti-aircraft gunners in the fleet, and scored 26 July, 15 AD-4s and two Corsairs searched for the crash and bomb strikes from about 500 feet off the deck "and not very far provided protection to one AD-4W in their midst for relaying out" from the target area, recalled former Aviation Machinist's communications back to ship. Eleven of the Able Dogs were Mate Houston Morrison. Morrison frequently was tapped for stationed in three groups, at altitudes of 500,3,000, and 5,000 right-seat duty in the big AD-5s. His job consisted of "radio and feet. Near the north end of Hainan, while the American fliers eyeballs," he explained. Scoring bomb strikes near Molokai warily honored Chinese claims to a 12-mile territorial limit, two for fleet units held its own brand of excitement for the AD unidentified aircraft initiated a firing pass on the AD-4s. The crews. "One morning we damn near got it," Houston ex- Skyraider pilots knew what to do, and quickly carried the fight plained. Making an inspection run overthe target during a time back to their attackers. The attacking aircraft were identified period when the range was supposed to be safe from activity, as Soviet-made Lavochkin La-7 single-engine fighters. These Morrison soon was startled by the fact he could hear a World War II holdovers were said to be capable of exceeding screaming noise above the roar of the AD's big R-3350 400 miles an hour. Their closely-cowled radial engines and underslung belly-mounted oil coolers occasionally caused the engine. La-7s to be mistaken for P-51 Mustangs. But the rounded wingtips and tail of the La-7 left its own signature. The pilots of these two camouflaged La-7s near Hainan OPPOSITE: Folded wings reveal six hardpoints beneath each were presumed to be Chinese. Their attack on U.S. Navy wing of these blue AD-5s of VC-33. Cowling over nose was Skyraiders would prove as costly to them as the Libyan Sukhoi painted anti-glare flat black to reduce the reflection of the attack on U.S. Navy F-14s in similar circumstances more than glossy sea blue in front of the pilot. (McDonnell Douglas photo courtesy Harry Gann) a quarter century later. The first La-7 made his pass only to find

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The end of Navy blues is evident in this mid-1950s portrait of two VC-33 AD-5s warming up for launch. (McDonnell Douglas photo courtesy Harry Gann)

Classic weekend warriors - AD-4Bs of NAS Atlanta show off white paint, Dayglo orange markings, and black exhaust paths, common in the late 1950s and early 1960s. (Photo courtesy Frank Price via Dave Forrest)

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Above: AD-5Q at Moffett Field April 29, 1961. Below: A practice nuclear store rides the centerline of this AD-6 of VA-196, May 16,1959. (Both photos by William T. Larkins)

himself on the receiving end of 20-millimeter fire from an AD4. The Lavochkin summarily struck the water. The second La7 enjoyed a temporary reprieve as an excited AD pilot forgot to arm his cannons. A brace of Skyraiders and Corsairs closed on the lone Lavochkin. Four Skyraiders and one Corsair shared in the subsequent kill. Anticipating international inquiry into the peacetime combat off the China coast, the AD and F4U fliers actually figured as an example in international law cases dealing with the right to overfly an attacker's territory if in hot pursuitofthe attacker. In fact, a U.S. Navy veteran of the

engagement recalled, the fight never left international skies. 6 The Cold War 1950s provided the framework for U.S Skyraider operations of that era. From nuclear weapons delivery to antisubmarine patrols to carrier onboard delivery (COD), the threat was perceived to be Soviet, and possibly Chinese, hostilities. In this setting, some nuances of Skyraider operations helped define the character of Ed Heinemann's Able Dog and the men who flew it. Maintenance officers cringed when their beloved carrierbased ADs took part in Pinwheel operations. Pinwheel in-

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EA-1F of VAW-13 at NAS San Diego, January 28,1967. (Photo by William T. Larkins)

This AD-4 sported antennae, including probably an AT-53 blade angling down and back from lower fuselage. (U.S. Navy photo via Don Keller)

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volved lashing Skyraiders to the carrier deck, and rewing their powerful R-3350 engines to maneuver the carrier in port in tight places. But it worked. In cities like Seattle, Washington, Naval Air Reserve units sometimes shared their aircraft with reserve Marine aviators in the 1950s and early 1960s. Seattle's Sand Point Naval Air Station was a choice close-in flying field long coveted by nonaviation users who eventually succeeded in carving it into a park. Sand Point NAS hosted boxy AD-5s in gray and Dayglo orange paint, bearing the dual legends "Navy" and "Marines" on their fuselage sides. Some of the Marine Corps reservists couldn't help but exercise the combat techniques they had honed as regulars in years gone by. Ships in Puget Sound were considered fair game for mock dive bombing runs. But the plum was the Aurora Bridge carrying Highway 99 over a ship canal near Lake Union. It was a high bridge with clear spans large enough to allow a Skyraider to pass. And right through this urban Seattle neighborhood a reserve Leatherneck took his AD-5, for all the usual reasons ... And in early 1954, another Marine, MajorWarren Schoeder, strapped into a blue AD-2 at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) EI Toro, California and showed how 250-gallon napalm tanks could be converted to carry fire retardant instead. 7 This forestfire-battling Skyraider did not become a firefighting tool, however. Surplus aircraft, in which permanent tanks with doors could be mounted, became the preferred firebombers, replacing the idea of dropping a tank which would burst on impact.

Notes 1. The French rebuffed U.S. efforts to get back surplus French AD-4s for use in Viet Nam, placing a heavy load on the available AD-5s, -6s, and -7s in American stocks. 2. Interview between Frederick A. Johnsen and Edward H. Heinemann, 20 July 1982. 3. Ibid. 4. Interview between Frederick A. Johnsen and Houston Morrison, July 1982. 5. Rosario Rausa, Skyraider - The Douglas A-1 "Flying Dump Truck", Annapolis: The Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1982, pp. 101-105. 6. Ibid. 7. Information provided by aviation historian Rene J. Francillon.

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Gaggle of four Royal Navy Skyraiders shows two placements for fuselage roundel/number combination. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

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CHAPTER V

Able Dogs in Foreign Service "My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. " Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

I

t is axiomatic that an aircraft as versatile, rugged, and long-lived as the Douglas Skyraider will serve more users than it$ original customer. From Scandinavia to the tropics, a variety of Skyraiders were welcomed into the air services of at least eight countries. Long before America's Military Assistance Program (MAP) began supplying A-1 s to South Vietnam, the British took delivery of 50 AD-4W radar birds beginning in November 1951. The AD-4W provided early-warning radar capability to the fleet at sea. Its origins were traceable to the 1944 'Cadillac Project' at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Mount Cadillac facility, where first a TBM was fitted with a large earlywarning radar as an intended response to aggressive Japanese kamikaze attacks. 1 The Cadillac Project also converted four-engine Boeing B-17Gs as PB-1Ws for Navy use, but neither the radar-fitted TBMs nor the PB-1Ws saw combat before World War II ended in 1945. The AD-4W improved on earlier radar-equipped Skyraiders by housing new APS-20A radar in its belly fairing, and by using an autopilot, new instrument panel, and redesigned windscreen. Under provisions of the Mutual Defense Aid Program (MDAP) 50 AD-4Ws were earmarked for use by Great Britain's Royal Navy. Twenty were brand-new planes from the U.S. Navy's production run atthe Douglas EI Segundo plant, while the other 30 Skyraiders for Britain were taken out of the U.S. Navy's inventory.2 The new British Skyraiders underwent modernization at NAS Quonset Point, Rhode Island, or NAS Alameda, California, prior to ferry flights to NAS Norfolk, Virginia, where radar Skyraiders received electronic equipment. From Norfolk, the British Skyraiders were shipped to Glasgow, Scotland. In British service, the AD-4Ws were redesignated AEW.1 s. They wore a glossy sea blue finish, with large Royal Navy roundels on the fuselage sides; the undersides of both wings near the tips; and the top surfaces of both wings, inboard even with the aileron trim tabs. Individual aircraft codes and other lettering were white with few exceptions. During the Suez crisis in 1956, AEW.1 s which intervened wore black-andyellow invasion stripes around the wings and fuselage. These invasion markings, also applied to participating French Aeronavale F4U-7s in the Suez operations, were for the benefit of Anglo-French troops which were landed in an effort to block fighting between Israel and Egypt. The stripes gave the ground-pounders a quick means of verifying whether aircraft overhead were friendly when they were still too distant for regular markings to be seen c1early.3 Royal Navy 778 Squadron took the first four Skyraider AEW.1 aircraft in November 1951. The British Skyraiders bypassed the usually long-winded carrier suitability trials, since this aircraft type was already well accepted in U.S. Navy

shipboard service. The first AEW.1 s were checked at Farnborough for compatibility with British arrestor systems and catapults. It became 778 Squadron's responsibility to evaluate the Skyraider's American electronics in the Royal Navy operating regime. The Royal Navy envisioned a very active use of the AEW.1 s' radar, enabling these Skyraiders to control carrier air patrols and direct strike aircraft, as well as detect surface ships at great distances. 4 In July 1952, the evaluation role of 778 Squadron changed as the squadron was redesignated a front-line squadron, No. 849 Squadron. In November 1952, 849 Squadron's A Flight was formed, borrowing Headquarters Flight Skyraiders since the first four AEW.1 s to arrive in Great Britain were still the only Royal Navy Skyraiders on hand. The ship HMS Perseus delivered 13 more AEW.1 s on the 19th of February, 1953, followed a little over a month later by another shipment of Skyraiders. A Flight and B Flight equipped themselves with aircraft, with C Flight forming early in June. By December, D Flight and E Flight were formed. These were sufficient to allow one flight for each Royal Navy aircraft carrier then being built. But construction delays on the carriers kept all RN Skyraiders except those of A Flight land-based for their first year of service. This delay further prompted the British to pare their Skyraider flights back to four (A through D). The Squadron Flights of 849 Squadron remained in permanent commission, regardless of the status of their particular aircraft carrier. As deployed by 849 Squadron, the Skyraider AEW.1 s were used mainly for airborne early warning against low-flying aircraft, anti-submarine searches, weather reconnaissance, and the British equivalent of COD (Carrier Onboard Delivery).5 Spare engines and parts were in short supply for the Royal Navy Skyraiders, according to British aviation historians. By late 1958 several of the 50 British AEW.1 s were being robbed of parts at Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) Donibristle, where major airframe reconditioning took place on the British Skyraiders. 6 On 29 January 1953, A Flight went to sea for the first time, on the HMS Eagle. On 16 April 1956, Eagle, carrying A Flight's Syraiders, left port. Eagle was kept in the Mediterranean due to mideast tensions, and in the fall of 1956, Eagle's A Flight and HMS Albion's C Flight launched AEW.1 s to provide airborne early warning protection forthe Anglo-French fleet engaged in Suez operations, and for ship-to-shore duties. The Suez intervention was named Operation Musketeer. The last embarkation for A Flight as a Skyraider unit came on 13 April 1959, aboard HMS Eagle. The next month, A Flight was reduced to three Skyraiders, and in August this dwindled to a pair of AEW.1 s. The first Fairey Gannet arrived in September for A Flight, and

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Factory shot of a Royal Navy Skyraider AEW.1 shows outboard placement of roundels, which accommodated code letters on wing. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann)

by December 1959, A Flight operated three Gannets and two Skyraiders. In February 1960, A Flight relinquished the last two of its Skyraiders.7This scenario was typical for Royal Navy Skyraiders. Half of B Flight's Skyraider aircrews trained in the United States. When the Flight's complement of Skyraiders arrived, B Flight's first assignment was a tour of five months at Royal Naval Air Station Hal Far, Malta. B Flight was assigned to HMS Ark Royal in 1955, and sailed with that carrier in October ofthat year for a Mediterranean cruise. When Ark Royal was docked for refitting in 1956, B Flight remained at Culdrose as A and C Flights gave sufficient airborne early warning support for the Suez operation that year. Continued refit operations took Ark Royal out of service again in 1957 and 1958, so B Flight's Skyraiders were re-assigned to HMS Victorious. A number of cruises in British home waters as well as the Mediterranean cemented the bonds between B Flight and the Victorious. 8 C Flight began Skyraider work in June 1953, embarking with A Flight aboard Eagle, and later that year flying out to Hal Far, Malta, to relieve B Flight. During C Flight's 1953 Malta duty, it became the only AEW Skyraider Flight to embark aboard a wartime class light fleet aircraft carrier, the HMS Glory, for about two weeks from 30 November. In October 1958, C Flight joined HMS Albion for a 1O-month cruise which included Cyprus, Karachi, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and South America. 9

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D Flight flew from HMS Eagle in 1953, and the following year, the Flight moved to RNAS Eglinton to confirm U.S. Navy performance data on the search radar. D Flight's subsequent carrier embarkations included the Bulwark, Albion and Centaur. Following operations with HMS Girdle Ness during trials of the Seaslug missile in 1959, D Flight returned to Culdrose. A 10-month Far East cruise aboard HMS Albion, ending 15 December 1960, was also the end of front-line Royal Navy Skyraider service. The next day, D Flight disbanded. Its four Skyraiders were sent to Abbotsinch for disposal. 1o E Flight was a casualty of the 1954 reorganization of British Skyraider Flights, when it was relettered as D Flight. E Flight served at RNAS Hal Far, Malta during its brief existence, as well as at Culdrose, before assuming D Flight's identity.11 The replacement of British Skyraider AEW.1 s with Fairey Gannets in the Royal Navy signaled advances in airborne early warning aircraft, but not the expiration of the British Skyraiders as usable airplanes. The Skyraider's legendary loitering ability and hauling capacity had already led to the use of U.S. Navy ADs as target tugs, and when Sweden needed tugs, 12 surplus Royal Navy AEW.1 s filled the bill. Aircraft-carrier gear, including tail hooks, and the bulging belly radomes and radars were stripped from the AEW.1 s sold to Sweden late in 1961. The target winch operator occupied the former radar observer's cabin in the fuselage. The radome originally had prompted the use of two additional vertical fins.

In April 1972, AEW.1 number WT121 was airlifted into Royal Navy Air Station Yeovilton for display in the Fleet Air Arm museum collection there. (John Bowdler collection)

After years of outside display at Yeovilton, Skyraider WT121 was moved indoors for exhibition. (Photo by John Bowdler)

With the radome removal came the removal of these fins as well. The Swedish Skyraiders were painted bright yellow, and registered to Svensk Flygtjanst AB at Bromma, Sweden. They were modified to tow differing targets for the Swedish Army, Navy, and Air Force. They also could be fitted with radardefeating pods under their port wings. In 1973, Sweden began replacing its Skyraiders with Mitsubishi MU-2Fs and Learjets. 12

French armed forces were the recipients of varied American aircraft from the time the Free French began fighting Germany in World War II with Martin B-26s, through the use of Bell P-63 Kingcobras, Douglas A-26s, and Consolidated PB4Y-2s in Indochina, and on to Republic P-47 Thunderbolts and A-26s against Algerian rebels in the 1950s. From 1954 until Algeria wrestled its independence in 1962, the French

A French AD-4 revs up in Algeria in 1963. (J.P. Hoehn collection)

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Silver paint was standard for French Skyraiders like this AD-4NA of the 20th TFW, photographed at Chateaudun Air Depot in June 1966. (J.P. Hoehn collection)

fought the rebels with ground-attack aircraft. The aging P-47s needed a replacement; the Skyraider's Korean War ground attack exploits made it a most desirable substitute. In 1959, France received the first of 40 AD-4NAs and 53 AD-4Ns. French AD-4s were pressed into service in Algeria. The Algerian rebels had no airpower, and only light antiaircraft capabilities. The French aviators fought a war unmarked by spectacular air actions. When ordered not to drop bombs on some Algerian villages, some of the French balked at the prospects of letting suspected rebel hideouts go unscathed. So they harassed the Algerian rebels in a time-tested manner: Empty beer bottles were dumped from the French AD-4s. 13 Long before, airmen had learned a falling empty beer bottle would catch the wind and howl like a bomb in flight. When no bomb explosions followed, the targeted villagers (and rebels) could speculate on delayed-fuse bombs lying in the earth.

By 1965, the United States was scrambling to keep Skyraiders operable. Both the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force were using A-1 s in Southeast Asia, as was the growing air force of the Republic of South Vietnam (VNAF). In theory, it was reasonable for American planners to expect the French to return the AD-4s when they were finished with them. But a minor international incident between the United States and France brewed when the French instead gave 10 ADs to Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk in 1965, followed later by five more Skyraiders. The Cambodian Skyraiders probably saw more service against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese communists afterSihanouk'sfalifrom power in 1970thanthey did earlier, but sabotage, attrition, and inexperience removed Cambodian Skyraiders from service in the ensuing period. 14 Though French colonies had waned, France continued close ties with a number of African states in the 1970s. The Republic of Chad, Central African Republic, and Gabon all

A late French AD-4 freshly overhauled, circa 1972. (J.P. Hoehn collection)

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Last stand for the French AD-4s was Africa, where a Djiboutibased Skyraider of 21 Escadrille awaited armorers. Another AD-4 and a Skyraider hulk keep company in the distance. (J.P. Hoehn collection)

Ex-French AD-4, nearest camera, shared ramp space in Phnom Penh with Cambodian-marked AD-6, circa 1972. Published accounts indicate Cambodia had AD·4s from France; swept pylons and serial number 137587 under tail show this gray Skyraider to be an ex-U.S. Navy AD-6 which was sent from NAS Quonset Point, R.I. to NAS Alameda, California, in late 1963, where it was stricken from Navy records. Perhaps 137587 went next to the South Vietnamese air force. Its subsequent dilapidated condition in Cambodian markings is still not fully explained. (Photo by R. Linder.)

made use of French AD-4s, with Gabon replacing the Skyraiders with variants of a Macchi jet trainer in the 1980s. But in fact, according to French aviation historian Rene' Francillon, French crews operated the Skyraiders in these emerging African nations. But the key foreign user of Ed Heinemann's rugged Skyraider was South Vietnam's VNAF, a fighting force worthy of its own definitive history book, and its own sections in this volume.

Notes 1. British Aviation Research Group, A History of the Douglas Skyraider AEW. 1,1974. p. 8. 2. Ibid, p. 20. 3. Frederick A. Johnsen, F4U Corsair, London: Janes, 1983. p.53 4. British Aviation Research Group, A History of the Douglas Skyraider AEW.1, p. 19. 5. Ibid, p. 20. 6. Ibid, p. 20. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. InteNiew, Rene Francillon with Frederick A. Johnsen, 1 August 1984. 14. Rosario Rausa, Skyraider - the Douglas A-1 'Flying Dump truck', Annapolis: Nautical and Aviation, 1982. p. 223.

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IS': v 758

Gray Skyraider paint scheme predominated in the early to mid 1960s in Southeast Asia, as seen on these VNAF A·1 Hs. VNAF insignia was a modification of U.S. marking, with red border on bars and red perimeter to blue star field. Bars beside white star were yellow, split with red.

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CHAPTER VI

Early Asia '~

I

great country cannot wage

a little war. " Wellington, to the House of Lords, 16 January 1838.

n the summer of 1964, a generation of Americans knew of war only as something seen at the movies, or related by older family members who had participated in World War II or Korea. But a new war - a shooting war - was building in Southeast Asia even as President Lyndon B. Johnson pursued an aggressive space program and his vision of a Great Society at home. Bitter ironies attended the fighting in Southeast Asia from the start. When France withdrew from French Indochina in 1954, the resulting Geneva Accord signed by France banned the use of combat jets in that fighting arena. Although the United States did not sign the Geneva Accord, American support for the provisions in that document extended to the jet ban. Though it mattered little· to the communist troops in Vietnam whether the bombs which felled them were lugged to the target by a jet or a piston-powered airplane, American planners were reluctant to make an overt breach of the Geneva Accord after voicing support for the Accord's contents, which included free and independent elections in Vietnam. But reconnaissance jets - RF-1 01 Voodoos and RB-57 Canberras -were deployed by the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam in 1964. After all, American defense planners reasoned, such planes were not "combat" jets in the strictest interpretation of the word. Claude Witze, senior editor for Air Force Magazine in 1964, said the jet ban prompted one sensitive military planner to suggest "that newsmen should not mention the type of engine that propels the Army's Huey helicopter. A turbine turns the rotor blades, which makes it technically a jet."1 And Hueys were already deployed in Vietnam. The Air Force utilized piston-engine ground-attack aircraft in Vietnam both as a means of honoring the Geneva Accord, and because the rugged simplicity of some of the unsophisticated prop planes lent itselfto the little brushfire war being waged in southeast Asia. North American T-28 trainers were fitted with bomb racks and machine guns, and joined Douglas B-26 Invaders in the early Vietnam war. When aT-28 and a B-26 crashed, cries of structural weakness prompted congressional hearings. Subsequently, the Douglas Invaders would be beefed up by On Mark Engineering in Van Nuys, California to strengthen their wing spars and otherwise update them for modern ground attack duties; the T-28 would be withdrawn from attack use by the U.S. Air Force Air Commandos and replaced by a Navy attack aircraft: The Douglas Skyraider. In fact, the South Vietnamese gained some AD-6s in 1960. With the uniform aircraft designation system adopted for Navy and Air Force aircraft in 1962, the multi-place AD-5 became the A-1 E, and the single-seat AD-6 was redesignated

A-1 H. The Air Force obtained surplus A-1 Es from Navy storage, and added a second set of pilot controls, a feature not required by the Navy. The extra controls enabled a South Vietnamese pilot to participate in strikes during a time when American military advisors in Vietnam were not supposed to fly solo combat. In May of 1964, 50 A-1 Es and 25 single-seat A-1 Hs were being readied at NAS Alameda for combat in Vietnam with the Republic of Vietnam Air Force. U.S. Navy pilots were to provide transition training at Bien Hoa for the Vietnamese. The following month, U.S. Air Force crews led by Lt. Col. John M. Porter flew six A-1 Es on a hop from the Philippines to the USAF Special Air Warfare Center also at Bien Hoa. The Skyraider was employed in a familiar role of ground-attack, dumping napalm and bombs from the many hard points beneath the wings and fuselage. Limited warfare in southeast Asia demanded rugged, simple bomb-carriers with long loitering time, and not necessarily speed. The previous decade had seen both Navy and Air Force emphasize high-speed nuclearequipped strategic aircraft. "In the strategic sense, the 1957 era found Naval aviation locking horns with the Strategic Air Command for equitable distribution of strategic targets," wrote Lt. Cdr. A. Dodge McFall in an article sympathetic to the continued use of the A-1. 2 While the Navy and Air Force fought over who got to bomb what in the event of total war, the fact remained that by 1964 no suitable replacement for the venerable A-1 existed. Under the acronym COIN (COunter INsurgency), new propjet planes were proposed as replacements for the Skyraider. Conventional jets also stood ready. But in mid-1964, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara reviewed the new COIN proposals and said they offered little improvement over the A-1. Even when given a $123,000 overhaul before shipment to Vietnam, the big Skyraider was a bargain when compared with sophisticated $4 million Grumman A-6 Intruders for the same mission. Air Force Secretary Eugene M. Zuckert voiced support for sending A-1 s to Vietnam in 1964, saying an exhaustive evaluation of the Skyraider by the U.S. Air Force Special Air Warfare Center at Eglin AFB, Florida showed "that because of its simplicity of operation, versatility, maintainability, minimum runway requirements and other capabilities, the A-1 would be highly successful for its role in South Vietnam."3 In fact, queries were made into the feasibility of reopening the Skyraider production line to meet the needs of combat in Southeast Asia, but the cost was deemed prohibitive. Coups and internal bickering periodically plagued the government of South Vietnam, and the Douglas Skyraiders of the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) were employed both in coup attempts and anti-coup activities. In early 1962, rebelling

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VNAF pilots nosed their AD-6 Skyraiders toward the Saigon palace of President Ngo Dinh Diem in an attack which failed to harm Diem. The first batch of AD-6s had been shipped to the Republic of Vietnam by the Eisenhower administration in 1960 when the VNAF commander at that time, Col. Nguyen Xuan Vinh, grounded his squadron of Grumman F8F Bearcats, declaring the Grummans to be no longer safe for flight. Early logistics support for the AD-6s was inadequate, and a number of the batch of 25 VNAF Skyraiders languished on the ground, awaiting parts. Though these VNAF AD-6s failed to oust Diem in 1962, they were more instrumental in his removal from office during a coup executed on 1 and 2 November 1963. Coup leaders sensed the time was right for action as the Diem government's repressive measures against Buddhists stirred international opinion. With Army of Vietnam (ARVN) units dispatched to fight the ground war, Diem would be hard-pressed to maintain his security in the face of a serious coup challenge. Coup leaders quickly seized the VNAF commander, while his deputy collaborated with the rebels, and launched an air mission which included four A-1 Hs (redesignated from the earlier AD6 nomenclature) against the presidential palace in Saigon. When ARVN troops loyal to Diem attempted to intervene on his behalf, the potential for air raids thwarted them. On 2 November 1963, President Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, head of the secret police, surrendered to the rebels and were killed. The Skyraider's muscle had been used in internecine warfare by Vietnamese fliers against their countrymen. 4 General Duong Van Minh tried to head the new Saigon government, while purging Diem officials from office. Government disarray was evident, and sparked concerted enemy attacks. Dissatisfaction with Minh's stewardship led Maj. Gen. Nguyen Khanh, commander of I Corps, to undertake another coup on 30 January 1964. Khanh, mindful of the VNAF's role in the Diem overthrow the previous year, retained a selfproclaimed "anti-coup" officer, Nguyen Cao Ky, as commander of the VNAF. In his 1981 book, The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: The Advisory Years to 1965, published by the Office of Air Force History in Washington, D.C., author Robert F. Futrell said, "Col. Nguyen Cao Ky had won command of the Vietnamese Air Force for his part in the Minh coup, and polished his prestige by supporting the Khanh coup." In a July 1982 interview, Ky said he rose to the position of VNAF commander in the Minh regime after another commander failed to work out. "After the coup against Diem," Ky related, "a new commander of the Air Force was named. I guess because of connections and friendship they named a man who was not a flier." Ky recalled that his predecessor lasted about 10 days, after which the Armed Forces Council asked him to take charge of the VNAF. From this point, Ky's record was that of an anti-coup officer. Still later, in 1965, when Ky became prime minister of the Republic of Vietnam amid rumors he had been instrumental in yet another coup, he denied the contention. "Actually, I'm an anti-coup officer. I never staged a coup, because to

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effectively stop the communists, we must work together," he said later. According to author Futrell, VNAF A-1 sortie rates were adversely affected because Air Vice Marshal Ky needed a "Palace Guard" flight of standby A-1 Hs at Tan Son Nhut tasked to thwart coup attempts. Part of Ky's own elite 83rd Squadron, these pilots were hand-picked for their flying abilities as well as their loyalty to the government. Routinely, they flew air strikes against Viet Cong in South Vietnam's III and IV corps areas when not flexing their Skyraiders' muscles in support of the government beginning in 1964. In addition to his role as Air Vice Marshal, Ky personally commanded the 83rd Squadron at Tan Son Nhut. He became a colorful figure in the international news media, as he was often photographed wearing the black flying suit and lavender flying scarf of the 83rd. The insignia of this squadron featured a dragon's head surmounted by five stars. In Vietnamese beneath this was the legend THAN PHONG. This was the Vietnamese translation of the Japanese word "kamikaze," and meant "Wind of a God" to the VNAF A-1 pilots, with none of the suicidal connotations history has attached to "kamikaze." The lavender scarf, Ky explained, represented a Vietnamese wildflower called Xim, which had been popularized by a Vietnamese poet whose words later influenced the lyrics of a song about the flower. s Khanh's judgment of Ky's loyalty paid off in September 1964 when disaffected ARVN troops following Brig. Gen. Lam Van Phat moved armor into Saigon in an attempted coup against Khanh. Ky and VNAF remained loyal to the Saigon government, and A-1 s were launched as a warning to the rebels. "We considered them an enemy," Ky said. "We didn't have to drop one bomb." Ky figured the rebel troops would respect the potency of the VNAF A-1 s, having called them in for many air strikes against communist positions. "We just scrambled one or two flights and flew over their heads, and that was it," Ky recalled. An L-19 dropped a message to the rebel leader, underscoring the intention of the VNAF to defend the government of Khanh. The coup was thwarted, under a small . umbrella of Skyraiders which never unleashed ordnance. 6 In the summer of 1965, Air Vice Marshal Ky was engaged to a strikingly beautiful Air Vietnam stewardess who was to become his wife. Over dinner one night in Mayor June of that year, the future Madame Ky told her fiance she would be working a DC-6 flight out of Tan Son Nhut the next morning. The VNAF commander possessed a military pilot's inherent love of unorthodox flying, and Ky determined to fly formation on his girlfriend's airliner. The young general soon learned the only VNAF aircraft available which could maintain formation flight with the powerful DC-6 was an A-1 Skyraider, also at Tan Son Nhut Air Base as part of a special operations squadron he had set up. "So I came down to the A-1 squadron and said 'I need one'," Ky recalled. The 83rd Squadron's flying safety officer said he could not let the Air Vice Marshal fly an A-1. Ky remembered his response: "What do you mean? I'm the boss. If you won't let me, you're out of a job!" "Of course, I was wrong," the general reflected years later.

South Vietnam's General Nguyen Cao Ky, 1965. (Nguyen Cao Ky collection.)

Though squadron officers balked, they nonetheless gave the VNAF leader a helmet. Ky had never before flown the big A1. "OK, start the engine for me," the general requested. Ky listed the A-1 's flight procedures on a knee pad strapped to his leg, and made ready for his first flight in the roaring Douglas warplane.? "So here I am, in the cockpit. Fortunately, I had some basic training on the T-6. It's very similar," Ky said. He advanced the throttle and roared down the Tan Son Nhut runway, charging into the morning sky, buoyed byadrenalin and the excitement of a new flying adventure. Going over his scribbled post-takeoff checklist and cleaning up the landing gear, the general found himself at 10,000 feet, and lost, when the procedures were completed. "But talking with the control tower, I eventually could see her airplane." Ky moved in on the DC-6 for some formation air work. "It scared the pilot. He knew I never flew an A-1 before." After about 15 minutes of flying in concert with the DC-6 airliner, General Ky broke formation at the urging of his fiance speaking on his radio frequency. Chugging noisily back to Tan Son Nhut, Ky's A-1 was on final approach with the gear down and locked. Ky prepared for a smooth touchdown, but the reality was something else. "I made the worst landing in all my life - three or four big bounces," General Ky said. Not satisfied, Ky shoved in the throttle and accelerated back into the sky as the A-1 's prop

took hold. "The second time was perfect, like a true A-1 pilot," Ky recalled years later, with the hint of a satisfied smile subtly animating his face. 8 Nguyen Cao Ky embraced the Skyraider as the ideal ground attack aircraft available for Vietnam. "I liked the A-1 better than the A-37 (an attack jet version of the small Cessna T-37 trainer) - particularly for the ground support role; you could stay longer in the air." Ky also remembered the durability of the A-1 under fire. After his initial flight, Ky became proficient in the A-1 and participated in combat strikes, staying current even after his governmental rise to the post of Prime Minister in June 1965. Ky retained control of the VNAF during this time. "I always liked combat missions," he later remarked. Ky said his 83rd Squadron had a strength of between 18 and 24 Skyraiders. He enjoyed the challenges imposed by the big prop-driven A-1, and said the huge engine's torque made for some squirrelly handling that was "more fun" than flying jets. "With a propeller, you have to learn about the plane, and there is some personal feeling attached to that. While with a jet flying high and fast, you feel like you are sitting in a mechanized robot. But the A-1 is still an airplane," Ky explained. VNAF A-1 operations in the mid-60s appealed to Ky's fighter-pilot instincts. "At the beginning, we had a really good group of fighter pilots. We had good esprit d'corps. Those were the best years of our lives." Ky said he watched this camaraderie and skill-level erode from the A-1 flying squadrons, as well as other VNAF units, as his country's air force expanded and adopted some Americanized features of organization. "We had so many good combat fighter pilots behind the desk doing red tape."9 Until his election as South Vietnam's vice president in 1967, General Ky remained commander of the VNAF. During this time, VNAF A-1 s supported troops battling the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, and occasionally flew leaflets to North Vietnam, to warn civilians of impending American bombardment. "For some reason, I never kept records of my flying time," Ky said, adding that he did not keep a journal or diary because to do so seemed presumptuous at the time. From memory, Ky recalled his longest A-1 mission lasted four hours. Sometimes, he carried a centerline fuel tank to stretch the range or loitering capability of his A-1 . But the Viet Cong brought the fighting uncomfortably close to home. "With fighting in the III Corps area," he explained, "you were fighting as soon as you got up to altitude. You didn't have to go far to fight the enemy," he said, especially during the last two years before Saigon fell in April 1975. While still VNAF commander, prior to his 1967 vice presidential election, Ky and other Vietnamese pilots were enjoying the conviviality of a black-tie formal affair when Bien Hoa Air Base came under a nocturnal Viet Cong attack. The Skyraider contingent on the ramp at Bien Hoa had to be taken aloft right away to avoid destruction on the ground by enemy fire. Ky sent his subordinates out in formal attire to fly A-1 s, while wisely electing to ground himself out of respect for the volume of alcohol he had consumed in the course of the evening. 1O

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Vietnamese Skyraider pilots learned to judge when to release their bombs, from experience, and by visual judgments, General Ky said. "Normally once you get enough experience, you go in with the feeling. You automatically had the right angle and speed." "Normally we didn't use dive brakes," Ky continued. He said VNAF pilots were instructed to peel into a roll for initiating a diving attack, but in actual practice in the rush of combat, targets sometimes were acquired simply by pushing the stick forward and lining up with the target. When responding to a call for A-1 air strikes, Ky said, the VNAF usually tried to dispatch three Skyraiders to do the job, but sometimes only a pair of the Douglas warplanes would go. Ground forces often specified A-1 s when calling in an air strike, Ky said, because the A-1 s could carry more ordnance and loiter longer than the VNAF's diminutive A-37s. The A-1 s also tended toflytheirwarat a lower altitude, andthe chugging roar of radial 3350s was a morale booster to ARVN troops on the ground. By about 1968-69, the U.S. Air Force had established a good pipeline of parts for VNAF Skyraiders through a supply depot at Bien Hoa Air Base, according to General Ky. Gone, at least for awhile, were the parts shortages which had grounded many of the VNAF's original AD-6s in the beginning of the decade. Ky said his A-1 fliers and their American advisors generally cooperated well. "As airmen, we didn't have any problem to deal with other airmen. It's not like the other services. We share the common spirit of pilots." Ky said the first time USAF captains would meet with VNAF pilots, "they (the Americans) thought they were the champs." But, Ky continued, the skills of some of the VNAF A-1 crews surprised their American advisors, who began to loosen up and adopt local styles and habits. "They shared everything with us. They started to eat Vietnamese food and go to town with us and live the Vietnamese way," Ky said. On 24 April 1~:llO, USAF and VNAF tactical aircraft began striking targets in Cambodia occupied by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. The missions were in anticipation of an incursion into Cambodia on 29 April and 1 May by 48,000 South Vietnamese and 42,000 American troops, authorized by President Richard M. Nixon. 11 At this time, Nguyen Cao Ky was vice president of the Republic of Vietnam. Though he had relinquished command of the South Vietnamese air force when elected vice president, Ky still flew when possible. A sure rarity among senior politicians was this flying vice president who undertook a combat sortie into Cambodia in a VNAF A-1 during the 1970 offensive in that country. General Ky's A-1 was called in on a small anti-aircraft position consisting of one 75-millimeter gun - a weapon with a considerable bite. The general's ordnance load consisted of 500-pound bombs without fuse extenders and 20-millimeter ammo for his Skyraider's wing-mounted cannons. The roaring A-1, diving low and laden with bombs, had a high intimidation value. The communist gunners· abandoned their weapon rather than keep firing at Ky, he said. "If they were not really professional or courageous, at the sight of an airplane diving,

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they just jumped," Ky explained. Ky made only one pass on the 75-millimeter gun emplacement. "After that the ground troops said, 'OK! thank you!'," indicating the gun had been knocked out of the fight. Had ground forces not transmitted the victory message, Ky said he was prepared to wheel back in for a strafing run. So the vice president returned to base, with the sweat of combat making his flight suit cling to his wiry frame. 12 As American forces pulled out of Vietnam in the first quarter of 1973 under Henry Kissinger's negotiated peace plan, the VNAF had grown in numbers of personnel and aircraft. By the previous December, VNAF strength was 42,000 personnel, plus an additional 10,000 being trained, with about 2,000 aircraft. Yet left to their own defense, the South Vietnamese found themselves unable to check Hanoi's persistent pushes south. General Ky found himself at odds with South Vietnam's president Nguyen Van Thieu. Ky's strong anti-communist beliefs caused him grief as he observed the enemy exerting relentless pressure on South Vietnam. Ky felt the war had been lost by a directionless United States military presence, which now had departed, leaving a void. "America came to Vietnam without a firm policy to win the war," Ky said. "I told (Presidents) Johnson and later Nixon: Why do you send almost 600,000 Americans to Vietnam if you have a no-win policy?" "We should have gone north and finished the war within three months," when America was present in Vietnam, Ky said. We could have done this with all the power we had."13 Against this backdrop of a losing war, Nguyen Cao Ky made his last flight in an A-1 Skyraider during 1974. "I was so depressed," Ky remembered. Hopping into a multi-seat A-1 E with another pilot, Ky flew to the coast to escape the rigors of the city for a few hours. "It was a night flight with a full moon and it was beautiful. I think that is why I still flew when I was Premier. When you are depressed with too many problems, you feel better." Ky and his fellow aviator chugged over the Asian landscape, letting the luminous full moon and the satisfaction of flying with finesse in a reliable A-1 temporarily hold their country's woes in check. The pilots stayed overnight on the coast, and flew back the following day.14 Nguyen Cao Ky's affair with the Douglas Skyraider began and ended with joyrides which buoyed his spirits. In the nine years between those flights, Ky planned, and sometimes flew in, VNAF Skyraider combat and internal security operations which proved the mettle of the durable Douglas design. "When you look at the old A-1 ," Ky reminisced, "it's like a lady." The alliance between the U.S. Air Force and the air arm of South Vietnam went through phases and evolutions, as did the war and politics of the era. On 14 April 1961 , the U.S. Air Force's 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron, forever to be known by its nickname, "Jungle Jim", was created at Eglin AFB, Florida. The archetypal Jungle Jim fliers were hardy adventurers who sometimes wore the moniker "Air Commandos." Jungle Jim was charged with the responsibility for training foreign air forces in counter-insurgency techniques. In prac-

tice, this training role would put the air commandos themselves into combat. In 1961, the Jungle Jim roster of aircraft included C-47s, Douglas B-26s, and North American T-28 trainers which were modified for interdiction bombing and strafing. 15 While Jungle Jim's band of airmen evolved their counter-insurgency syllabus in Florida in 1961, the air force of South Vietnam - VNAF - struggled to keep its few AD-6 Skyraiders flying sorties against insurgents. A long supply pipeline back to the United States kept some of these early VNAF AD-6s on the ground; operational lapses kept others from doing their job. Once, in the fall of 1961, a handful of VNAF AD-6's was ordered to attack Viet Cong troops massed across a river from the edge of Phuoc Thanh province. A cumbersome South Vietnamese Rule of Engagement required the Skyraider pilots to delay attacking until the Phuoc Thanh province chief approved the air strike in his territory. When the provincial leader could not be located, the Vietnamese AD-6 drivers loitered for three hours. The Viet Cong had long since crossed the river to press their attack while the armed Skyraiders could do nothing. 16 Into this convoluted scenario on 11 October 1961 President John F. Kennedy authorized sending Jungle Jim to South Vietnam, expressly "as a training mission and not for combat at the present time."17 The U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Frederick Nolting, requested Jungle Jim's aircraft arrive in VNAF markings. Back at Eglin, those Jungle Jim forces readying for deployment to Vietnam were designated Detachment 2A of the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron, and were code named Farm Gate. They departed Florida 5 November 1961, reaching Bien Hoa air base. The commander of the 4400th, Col. Benjamin H. King, earlier had been briefed by Gen. Curtis LeMay, Air Force Chief of Staff, that his Farm Gate crews would participate in combat in Vietnam while training VNAF airmen. This was a touchy subject in 1961, for the overt presence of American combatants in Vietnam was downplayed as long as possible by the government of the United States. In early operations, Farm Gate crews in armed T-28s followed Vietnamese crews in AD6s to obseNe VNAF attack procedures, and occasionally to fire on targets when authorized. The Farm Gate crews were anticipating a combat role against the communists, and this was good for their morale. But erratic policy guidelines caused the mission of Farm Gate crews to be in doubt, and to emphasize training instead of combat. Some clarification came about on 6 December 1961 when the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff formally authorized Farm Gate aircraft to partake in combat sorties if Vietnamese were on board the planes fortraining. This doctrine would lead to the use of dual flight controls in Farm Gate A-1 Es three years later. On 26 February 1962, a pair of VNAF pilots strayed from a Mekong delta airstrike and pressed an attack against the palace of South Vietnamese President Diem. Purpose oftheir renegade mission turned out to be a grudge against Diem's controversial brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, head of South Vietnam's secret police. The 1st Fighter Squadron of the VNAF gave chase in more AD-6s, to no avail. It was apparent the miscreant AD-6 pilots held the potential for mayhem, so some Farm

Gate aircraft took to the ai r to avoid possible destruction on the ground. South Vietnamese anti-aircraft gunners knocked down one of the Skyraiders. Its pilot was captured. The other flier failed to inflict any damage, and crash-landed his AD-6 in Cambodia. NeNous over this apparently isolated event, and mindful of his countrymen's potential for launching a coup, Diem grounded the VNAF in the aftermath of the February palace attack, although that attack lacked the feNor of a full-fledged coup. When he returned the VNAF to flying status, President Diem denied his aircraft all ordnance larger than 20-millimeter ammunition. Still later, Diem reintroduced bomb loads for VNAF strike aircraft, but in practice the amount of such ordnance still was restricted on VNAF planes in II and III Corps, the geographic regions closest to Diem's Saigon palace. 1B While Diem's VNAF bomb load restrictions were in place in early 1962, U.S. ambassador Nolting received the goahead to employ USAF Farm Gate aircraft in support of ground combat operations, as long as VNAF AD-6s accompanied the Farm Gate flights. This caveat was to deflect any impression that the United States was assuming responsibility for the air war. 19 On 4 March 1962, VNAF AD-6s, armed only with their 20millimeter cannons, scrambled to attack 50 to 70 VC near a river bend 30 miles from Tan Son Nhut. Farm Gate planes, exempt from Diem's bomb ban, were asked to join the attack. The following day, optimistic Vietnamese reports listed 50 to 60 Viet Cong killed in the air attacks; a U.S. advisor scaled this down to 25 dead. Captured Viet Cong guerrillas revealed the locations of 12 communist headquarters, most of which were near the Cambodian border. President Diem approved bombings, to be followed by an airborne assault, on 2 January 1963. All available VNAF AD-6s, numbering 26 Skyraiders, joined Farm Gate's two dozen T-28s and 16 B-26s in a day-long tactical role that killed as many as 1,000 enemy soldiers, and paved the way for the Vietnamese paratroopers and rangers who followed. It was a textbook application of tactical air support in the III Corps area, and American advisors were encouraged by its success. Perhaps the VNAF Skyraiders, augmented by Farm Gate planes, were overcoming their earlier logistical and political hobbles. 20 Farm Gate crews patterned techniques for coming to the aid of friendly outposts under night attack from the Viet Congo The strategy was passed on to the VNAF, which kept C-47s on alert as flare-droppers. These flare ships would illuminate outposts under night attack, permitting strike aircraft to direct their ordnance at the attacking Viet Congo But in 1963, the commander of one VNAF fighter squadron at first balked at using his A-1 H (formerly AD-6) crews for night combat, citing inexperience. The commander yielded partially to American pressure and took on about half the nocturnal missions his squadron had been given. As 1963 pressed on, the VC intensified operations in South Vietnam, creating greater need for VNAF response. In the face of heightened combat, the commander of the 516th VNAF Fighter Squadron cut four T-28s from a squadron detachment, to release those crews for

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A-1 upgrade training. The commander of a VNAF fighter But to avoid widening the appearance of U.S. involvement, the squadron sometimes ignored requests for napalm strikes and third U.S. Skyraider squadron was turned down in Washingin September 1963 he occasionally released only nine of his ton, with more A-1 s diverted to the VNAF instead. The facade of USAF pilots flying only training or support 26A-1 Hs to the air operations center for combat use. The rest of his flyable A-1s, he said, were needed for pilot upgrading. missions was torn several times. On 8 March 1964, a singleThrough 1963, combat experience showed the value of seat VNAF A-1 H crashed, killing USAF Col. Thomas M. air escorts for convoys. The Viet Cong were often reluctant to Hergert, deputy chief of the Military Assistance Advisory attack a convoy if an L-19 spotter plane was flying overhead, Group (MAAG) Air Force Section. Colonel Hergert had been because the L-19 could call in an air strike on the attackers. On flying as wingman to a Vietnamese Skyraider pilot on an the last day of 1963, the Vietnamese 5th Division had a ranger interdiction mission. A loose interpretation of the "supportbattalion surrounded by about twice as many Viet Cong in III and-training-only" doctrine had been employed, whereby USAF Corps, 10 miles west of Ben Cat. While South Vietnamese pilots were flying combat, but not leading flights, or being the ground troops worked their way toward their besieged ranger first to attack. The Americans were not to continue if the comrades, a forward air controller in an L-19 and at least two Vietnamese flight leader aborted the attack. Later that month, A-1 Hs armed with bombs and cannons orbited overhead, letters written by another USAF Farm Gate pilot who was killed asking for clearance to strike. But 5th Division tried using revealed the use of basic Vietnamese airmen who were not armed Bell UH-1 helicopter gunships instead. The chopper really pilot candidates as the token VNAF on-board personnel attacks did not blunt the Viet Cong attack, but without clear- for some Farm Gate combat sorties. The Farm Gate airmen ance to join the fray, the armed A-1 s were powerless to help. somewhat derisively referred to these required VNAF memThe big gray Skyraiders chugged back to Bien Hoa and bers as "sandbags." By using the "sandbags" who were not landed, without participating in the rangers' battle. The next pilots, Farm Gate missions did not tie up actual VNAF fliers day, rescuing ground troops entered the scene of battle to find who could be more productively used in other aircraft. Renewed emphasis was placed on building up VNAF the rangers had ultimately been scattered and defeated by the larger VC force. The rangers sustained six fatalities, 12 Skyraider squadrons, while banning USAF participation in wounded, and 31 missing. American strategists were dis- combat missions except where bona fide training could be mayed that the South Vietnamese had failed to capitalize on cited. The three VNAF fighter squadrons, flying A-1 s, were to the Skyraiders at their disposal. 21 be enlarged to four by October 1964, and then to six by early In 1964, VNAF's commander, Col. Nguyen Cao Ky, took 1965, according to plans hatched by MACV (Military Assissteps to centralize control of his squadrons. Previously, Corps tance Command Vietnam). Along with this increase in VNAF commanders in the Vietnamese corps areas had guarded air A-1 aircraft came a push to enlarge the number of VNAF pilots assets in their corps, sometimes not releasing them to neigh- available to fly the big Skyraiders. The aim was to increase the boring corps. Now Ky planned to assign new wings to geo- ratio from 1.5 pilots per plane to 2 per plane. Training ofVNAF graphical corps areas, but not to the corps commanders. This 516th and 520th Fighter Squadron pilots was split between gave Ky the centralized control of these air assets for deploy- the USAF's 34th Tactical Group and the U.S. Navy's VA-152 ment wherever needed. squadron at Bien Hoa. The 34th received the original flight of Meanwhile, wing failures in Farm Gate B-26s and T-28s six A-1 Es on 30 May 1964, ferried from Clark Air Base in the prompted the withdrawal of most of these two aircraft types Philippines to Bien Hoa. The E-model Skyraider, under the from combat. The old craft were being loaded beyond their revised designation system for American military aircraft, was limits in wrenching maneuvers that overstressed their wing the multi-seat AD-5. The day after their arrival, these A-1 Es spars. Some B-26s would return to Southeast Asia as B-26K flew combat. The 34th Group had a dozen A-1 Es by the end Counter Invaders with strengthened wings and more under- of June, with which to train Vietnamese pilots. wing ordnance racks. Butthe real solution tothe gap in ground During this period, frailties in USAF-VNAF tactical operaattack aircraft left by the B-26s and T-28s was to send more tions manifested themselves. In July 1964, the Nam Dong Skyraiders overseas. The dual-control A-1 Es (AD-5s) which special forces camp was besieged by Viet Cong at night. arrived in 1964 gave Farm Gate fliers a chance to get into While a flareship remained on station and illuminated the area combat with Vietnamese crewmen aboard, to legitimize the until dawn robbed the VC of cover, VNAF A-1 Hs did not arrive operations in the eyes of American planners who still insisted on scene with an 0-1 forward air controller until daylight the U.S. role was advisory. because the A-1 drivers were not released for night sorties. To Viet Cong groundfire was becoming more concentrated compound this delay, the 0-1 was bound by Vietnamese rules and more accurate. A defense to this was the use of four-ship which forbade FACs from marking targets near friendly forces attack formations, allowing two A-1 s to cover the two making without positive identification. The FAC over Nam Dong was an attack. The U.S. Air Force planned to have three Skyraider unable to raise the ground forces on radio. Later that month, squadrons in South Vietnam by 1965. In part, these U.S. USAF A-1 Es, ostensibly with qualified VNAFtrainees aboard, Skyraiders would shore up sortie rates which sagged. The pressed attacks coordinated by a U.S. Army 0-1 pilot. But other forecast benefit, reasoned General Joseph H. Moore, subsequent Vietnamese Skyraider pilots in this battle refused Second Air Division commander, would be the example to to strike targets pointed out by the U.S. controller and a VNAF fliers set by USAF A-1 E crews flying timely air support Vietnamese ground observer. By the time a Vietnamese FAC strikes, with their token Vietnamese crewmembers aboard. was on station, the VC were gone from the battle scene. 23

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Douglas A·1 Skyraider

As the second half of 1964 wore on, American planners tried to make ground attack aviation in Vietnam more effective. More A-1 s were earmarked for the VNAF, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed letting the "sandbag" VNAF observers fulfill the need for VNAF observers aboa~d USAF A-1 Es on strike missions. The use of "sandbags" was resisted by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Ambassador to South Vietnam Maxwell Taylor, who were loathe to see the American air combat role expanded in Vietnam. As forecast, the fourth VNAF A-1 squadron came into existence in October. By December, the men of this unit, the 520th Fighter Squadron, were ready to fly combat in their A-1 Hs. Their intended base of Can Tho (the name of which was later changed to Binh Thuy) was still under construction, and security for the Skyraiders could not be provided after dark. So five 520th Skyraiders deployed to Binh Thuy daily from Bien Hoa, to spread the A-1 umbrella over a larger part of South Vietnam. By December 1964, the USAF's 34th Group could muster about 50 Skyraider sorties daily, some 17 of which were usable for combat. Though plagued by engine maintenance problems, the 34th kept an operational readiness rate of 80 percent. A comparable Vietnamese A-1 operational rate of that period was 58 percent,24 On 1 November 1964 a Viet Cong mortar squad got close enough to the Bien Hoa flightline to lob projectiles in the dark of night for a half hour. Five USAF B-57s were destroyed; other USAF and VNAF planes were destroyed or damaged. Four persons were killed and 72 injured in the VC attack. Washington was at once outraged at the attack and indecisive on how to respond. While the Americans mulled over their response, on the night of 6 November Air Vice Marshal Ky commanded a flight of 32 VNAF A-1 Hs which struck a Viet Cong camp in Zone D Northeast of Saigon. The South Vietnamese made it known this air raid was a response to the Bien Hoa mortar attack. By their own tallies, the South Vietnamese claimed to have inflicted 500 Viet Cong casualties in this Skyraider fight. Whatever the casualty count, this raid showed an increased capability on the part of Vietnamese Skyraider squadrons. By year's end, 48 USAF A-1 Es and 92 VNAF A-1 s were counted in South Vietnam. Together these Skyraiders could mount about 60 combat sorties daily plus training missions. 25 The Vietnamese contribution to this mission tally was limited by Air Vice Marshal Ky's anti-coup flight of Skyraiders at Tan Son Nhut. These A-1 s were manned by dependable, loyal fliers. Though the palace guard drew combat missions, these planes sometimes were withheld from action if dissidence seemed to warrant this. VNAF and USAF pilots learned to love their big radialengine bombers. Some pilots requested A-1 s for the experience of flying a propeller-driven, tailwheeled design reaching back to World War II, when their fellow flying class graduates were testing the limits of supersonic jets. Some new navigational aids, and the Yankee crew extraction parachute system, helped ease the Skyraider into its mid-Sixties war. The U.S. Air Force flight manual for A-1 aircraft, upgraded for changes through 30 April 1972, explains the nature of the

Vietnam-era Skyraider which confronted USAF and VNAF pilots. For the dual-control A-1 Es, an additional throttle control lever was installed on the center console, enabling the pilot in the righthand seat to make throttle adjustments with his left hand, which was standard for stick-and-throttle aircraft. This right-seat throttle was directly connected to the original pilot's throttle on the left console of the aircraft, and the right seater did not have his own throttle stops or friction locks. Additionally, the right seatthrottle had a stowable guard which covered the spare throttle when the left seat pilot was flying, to prevent accidental movement of the throttle controls by the right seater. 26 Some A-1 Es were fitted with right-seat rudder pedals identical to those for the left seat. The right-seat pilot, somewhat euphemistically called the "assistant pilot" in the USAF Skyraiderflight manual, had at his disposal a control stick grip identical to the pilot's grip, with appropriate trim tab switches, gun trigger, and external-stores release switches. The assistant pilot's control stick could be removed and stowed in a bracket on the outboard side of the righthand console. When this was done, crews were admonished to install a dust cap over the control stick housing's electrical connector to avoid short-circuiting the trim tab or armament release circuitry. Some A-1 Es were fitted with an assistant pilot's rudder trim control knob which was identical to the pilot's rudder trim equipment. The assistant pilot could use this to trim the rudder when the trim selector switch was turned to the position marked CO-PILOT. Aircraft supplied to foreign countries were identified as Military Assistance Program (MAP) equipment. The Air Force Skyraider flight manual makes distinctions between equipment typically installed on USAF A-1 s versus the equipment in MAP Skyraiders. Among the USAF-reserved options was the XM-47 mine disperser, and autopilot gyro horizon indicator. According to the flight manual, many USAF and VNAF Skyraiders flew with the stall warning system deactivated. Some others did not use the speed brakes. But for USAF and MAP A-1 s which retained functional dive brakes, features and limitations were discussed in the flight manual. For A-1 Es with operable brakes, the brake was a hydraulically-actuated flat surface that hinged from the bottom of the fuselage. A switch on the control stick actuated the brake. The brake had a blowback feature which retracted the brake at airspeeds above 348 knots indicated airspeed (lAS) to avoid structure damage. An interconnect between the landing gear and the speed brake prevented extending the brake when the landing gear was down. This feature also retracted the brake if it was in the deployed position when the landing gear handle was moved to the Down position. An override made it possible to have gear and brake extended simultaneously for emergency operation. This override was located on the lefthand console on A-1 Es so equipped. Single-seat USAF and MAP Skyraiders had three fuselage-mounted brake panels: One ventral and two sidemounted. No mechanical linkage tied the three panels together. Rather, each brake panel's operating cylinder operated simultaneously with the other two. On the single-seaters the speed brake control was situated on the left console. When activated, the

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On 1 July 1966, this modified A·1G of the VNAF 524th Tactical Fighter Squadron suffered a landing gear collapse, with the usual severe bending of the hollow Aeroproducts propeller. VNAF tail marking was yellow with red stripes; 524th Squadron emblem on cowl (both sides) featured a red disc edged in yellow, with a black bomb, white lightning bolt, yellow '524' and white inscription 'Thien Loi'. This A-1G carried no national insignia on its wings. (Photos by Earl Otto.)

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Douglas A·1 Skyraider

three brake panels took about two and a half seconds to open. A manual lockout valve could be set to prevent the ventral brake from deploying when large stores, which might interfere, were carried on the centerline rack. A solenoid safety lock prevented use ofthe brakes on single-seat Skyraiders on the ground. The speed brakes were designed to allow steep dives without building up excessive speed, which made stick forces greater and prolonged recovery from a dive. USAF and MAP Skyraider pilots were cautioned never to use the moveable stabilizer for dive recovery. Only elevator back pressure on the control'stick was permitted, to avoid excessive loads which could cause structural failure. Crews were also told, when making dives with the speed brakes extended, to keep the brakes deployed until the dive recovery was well underway and the Skyraider was nearly level. If the brakes were retracted in the dive before pull-up, the dive speed would increase and possibly be joined by a nose-down trim change. 27 Though it may seem incredible, the statistics of flight include several instances in which the pilots of folding-wing aircraft attempted to take off in their machines while the wings were still folded. The USAF Skyraider flight manual detailed a feature of the A-1 which would, it was hoped, deter this costly oversight. Crews were admonished that "the wing pin lock door and the wing fold handle should be kept in the open (unlocked and folded) position at all times when the wings are folded ...The angular position of the wing pin lock door, when in the full open position and restricting the movement of the pilot's knee, serves as a warning to the pilot to spread the wings before takeoff." USAF and VNAF pilots learned the fundamentals of the twisting and folding main landing gear mechanism on their sturdy Skyraiders. As the main struts streamlined and retracted aft, they automatically telescoped in, compressing to fit between the wing spars. The men who flew Skyraiders for the VNAF and USAF in southeast Asia were warned never to set or reset their planes' G-2 gyro compass while flying the Skyraider with the P-1 autopilot in use. If the G-2 compass was set in this mode, it could induce in the autopilot abrupt and violent rudder forces stronger than the design limits of the A_1. 28 These Skyraider pilots had the Yankee crew escape system at their disposal. A rocket pulled the crew member from the cockpit as his seat bottom folded downward. With the crew member pulled into a standing position and automatically separated from the partially extracted seat, the rocket separated from the crewman and the parachute deployed. The firing sequence activated a canopy cutter to create openings forthe pilot and right-seater in the A-1 E; in the A-1 H, the entire canopy was jettisoned before the extraction sequence would work. Two angled rocket nozzles spin-stabilized the Yankee rocket; two lines between the crewman's parachute and the rocket were attached with a swivel to avoid fouling. The Yankee system was viable even at ground level. In the event passengers were aboard the A-1 E in seats behind the pilots, the following instructions for abandoning the airplane in flight were given by the Air Force to its Vietnam-era students: 29

WARNING It is imperative, if passengers are occupying the middle compartment, that the aft canopy be jettisoned before the forward canopy. Failure to observe this precaution will cause an extreme pressure drop within the airplane. At speeds greater than 250 KIAS, the result may be structural failu re to the aft fuselage section and collapse ofthe aft canopy with an inward burst of shattered plexiglass. At speeds below 250 KIAS, the reduced pressure may dangerously hinder an attemptto jettison the aft canopy. When abandoning the airplane from the middle compartment, care must be taken to keep the body as low to the compartment rail as possible during bailout. Upon gaining the proper position for bailout, give a vigorous coordinated push with the feet and pull-push with the hands and arms while diving for the wing. This is necessary to ensure a clear breakaway from the fuselage, wing, and horizontal stabilizer. The body should be doubled up with the legs and arms well tucked in upon leaving the airplane. Bailout should be accomplished from a point as far forward as possible. This will provide the individual with some protection from the slipstream, during the initial roll over the rail, and will aid in clearing the horizontal stabilizer. Whenever possible, bailout should be made from the right side of the airplane.

EqUipped with this knowledge and much more provided by seasoned pilots, VNAF and USAF Skyraider pilots gained the confidence needed to maximize their use of the A-1 as a combat aircraft. A normal takeoff run was described in the Air Force A-1 flight manual as follows: TAKEOFF Release brakes and advance throttle smoothly to full power, do not exceed predicted TOP or allowable MAP. As the aircraft accelerates, the pilot should be in no hurry to raise the tail. During the initial roll, the pilot should concentrate on heading control. The rudder becomes effective at an airspeed of 15 to 20 knots. It may therefore be necessary, especially in a calm or light wind condition, to apply small amount of braking action to help maintain directional control until the air speed atwhich the rudder becomes effective is reached. The tailwheel should be held on the runway for the first part of the roll, as this will help maintain directional control and minimize the need for braking. After the rudder becomes effective, back stick pressure is relaxed and enough forward pressure is applied to raise the tailwheel off the runway to position the airplane in a slightly flatter than takeoff attitude. To maintain a straight takeoff roll, it is necessary to change rudder pressure as the airspeed increases. At takeoff speed, rudder pressure should be almost neutral. The flatter

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attitude is held until takeoff airspeed is approached at which time the airplane is rotated slightly and allowed to lift from the runway. No attempt should be made to pUll it off. Typical takeoff speeds with wing flaps up and gross weight of 18,500 pounds are 95 to 100 KIAS. With 25-degree wing flap setting and a gross weight of 25,000 pounds, takeoff speed Is 110 KIAS. The landing gear should retract in a maximum time of 9 seconds. The throttle lever should not be retarded until the wheels are retracted and the airplane has attained sufficient altitude and airspeed to permit safe control in the event of sudden engine failure.

For landing the Skyraider, the manual for USAF and VNAF pilots instructed: LANDING liThe most important factor in landing is a good approach and airspeed. For the best aircraft control on approach, maintain a speed 20 percent above stalling speed for aircraft weight (Section VI). Use power as necessary to maintain airspeed on final. Leave the power on when making wheels landings, during cross wind landings, or when encountering turbulence. If the landing is to be made three point, then all three wheels should contact the runway simultaneously. Under this condition the tail wheel is on the ground immediately and the chances of a ground loop are reduced. The three point attitude should be established just prior to touchdown. In making a wheels landing, the aircraft must be flown to a touchdown point with power on and landing on the two main gear only. On touchdown the power is gradually eased off while lowering the tail wheel to the runway. After the tail wheel is on the runway, hold the stick full back with aileron into the wind, check the throttle closed, trim full nose up, and raise the flaps. Use rudder and aileron aggressively to maintain directional control. Placing the stick into the crosswind will help to keep the aircraft rolling straight with approximately one third less rudder displacement. The raised upwind aileron is keeping the wing from raising; the lowered downward aileron is creating drag, preventing to some degree the weathervane tendency. As airspeed decreases during the rollout and the controls become ineffective, quickly slide your feet up on the brakes and cautiously begin to use differential braking for directional control. Do not

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Douglas A-1 Skyraider

land with feet on the brakes. The application or reduction of power, variations in wind direction or speed, landing in a crab, over controlling on the part of the pilot - all of these, separately or in combination can cause the airplane to rapidly change its heading. If this heading change is not correctly countered it can develop into a vicious swerve. For this reason, the pilot must be especially alert and immediately responsive to any heading deviation on the ground.

When VNAF and USAF pilots jumped from the two-seat A-1 E to the single seat A-1 H, some alterations in flying technique were advised in the flight manual: A-1 H LANDING With very few exceptions, procedures and techniques used in landing the A-1E can be employed in landing the A-1 H. The rudder is about three feet smaller in total area than the E and the rudder has a stiffer feel due to greater rudder spring tension in the controls. For these reasons be more alert in the H than in the E for deviations in roll-out heading. The shorter control stick is a significant difference and will require a few changes in technique. Because of limited lateral displacement of the stick, when landing in strong cross-winds, the leg on the upwind side of the cockpit will sometimes have to be raised to obtain full aileron deflection.

Without a bomb ejector cartridge, Skyraider centerline stores, particularly empty fuel tanks, could strike the fuselage upon release. Jettisoning large centerline stores could also cause the Skyraider to nose over. The Americans and South Vietnamese were not the only personnel in Southeast Asia with a Skyraider syllabus. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia prepared a somewhat rustic training document for ground troops. Translated by lieutenant Colonel Sok Sambaur of the Khmer (Cambodian) Air Force, part Four of the "Aircraft Shooting Lesson" is entitled "Howto ShootA-1 (orT-28)." Crediting these prop planes with a rather incredible speed of 600 kilometers per hour, the document stated: "We must lead him by three times the length of his fuselage, because he almost has the speed of an OV10. We must all shoot together at the karman Uuncture of wings and fuselage), pointing our guns at the same place when he is diving."30 The accuracy of groundfire in Southeast Asia would take a toll of the Skyraiders over the years of conflict.

Notes 1. Air Force Magazine, August 1964. 2. "Farewell to 'Spads'," by Lt. Cdr. A. Dodge McFall, USN, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1965. 3. Aviation Week and Space Technology, June 1, 1964, p. 16. 4. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1977, p.27. 5. Interview, Gen. Nguyen Cao Ky with Frederick A. Johnsen, 22 July 1982. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1977, pp. 141-142. 12. Interview, Gen. Nguyen Cao Kywith Frederick A. Johnsen, 22 July 1982. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: The Advisory Years to 1965, by Robert F. Futrell, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C., 1981, pp. 79-84.

16. Ibid, p. 75. 17. Ibid, p. 80. 18. Ibid, p. 129. 19. Ibid, p. 129. 20. Ibid, pp. 156-157. 21. Ibid, p. 197. 22. Ibid, p. 218. 23. Ibid, pp. 220-224. 24. Ibid, p. 237. 25. Ibid, p. 263. 26. Flight Manual, USAF Series A-1 E/G/H/J Aircraft, T.O. 1A-1 E-1 , 30 April 1971 (change 2-30 April 1972). 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Aircraft Shooting Lesson, How to Shoot A-1 (or T-28), translated 15 August 1971 by Lt. Col. Sok Sambaur, Cambodian Air Force. Translation furnished by Colonel Ronald G., Linder, USAF (Retired).

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CHAPTER VII

The N,ctvy in Vietnam "Once more upon the waters! Yet once more!" Byron, Chi/de Harold

A

n American presence in French Indochina built month advising and training the Vietnamese Air Force, acsubtly for years. During World War Two, Army cording to a report published in the January 1965 issue of Air Forces B-24 Liberator bombers hit Japanese Naval Aviation News, the Navy's official flying house organ. targets in occupied Indochina while Navy fighters and bombOvert U.S. Navy combat missions in A-1 s began August ers ranged over the land. After the end of the Second World 5, 1964, in retaliatory strikes launched from the USS War, colonial France fought a gentleman's war against com- Ticonderoga and Constellation after North Vietnamese patrol munist and nationalist insurgents who sought to remove the boats attacked American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. A French from power. When the French garrison at Dien Bien total of 64 sorties included A-4 Skyhawks and MiG-cap F-8 Phu faced a major siege by the insurgents, French reinforce- Crusaders, as well as A-1 Hs from VA-52 and VA-145. 2 menttroops were flown in by U.S. Air Force C-124 Globemaster Five targets in North Vietnam were hit during the four-hour transports. operation of August 5. In addition to an oil tank farm at Ninh, A familiar pattern emerged in Vietnam. The communists the planes of the fleet hit four patrol boat bases. Following the controlled the northern part of the country, contiguous to strike, Robert McNamara, secretary of defense, estimated 25 communist China, while the non-communists fled to the south. patrol boats were destroyed. A Skyhawk was downed and its This geography would later produce frustrating rules of en- pilot captured. Lt. Gg) Richard Sather's Skyraider from Congagement allowing communist jets to escape pursuit by flying stellation was another victim of anti-aircraft fire. A second across the border into China. Skyraider from the Constellation sustained damage requiring But in the late 1950s the concerns were not over jet it to divert to Danang in South Vietnam where the pilot landed warfare. Rather, in observance of Geneva accords, the United safely. Sather initially was listed missing in action. 3 States sought to bolster South Vietnam's air forces with For nearly four years, the Navy would launch Skyraiders propeller-driven planes instead of escalating a hardware war on southeast Asia combat sorties from carriers in the South by introducing jets. South Vietnam had been flying F8F China Sea. The American posture in the early years offighting Bearcats. The U.S. Navy, with its lingering use of piston- in southeast Asia frequently linked communist raids with engine shipboard planes, had more to offer the Vietnamese specifically-cited retaliatory air strikes designed to instill a than did the fast-flying jet U.S. Air Force of the period. Not cause-and-effect reaction among the communists. Commusurprisingly, AD Skyraiders were picked for the growing air nist attacks which killed American advisors in South Vietnam, force of South Vietnam, as chronicled in the previous chapter. and allegations of increased communist atrocities against The U.S. Navy trained South Vietnamese air force pilots civilians, provided the "cause" for the "effect" of raids launched in Skyraider operations in 1960 when some AD-6s were given by the carriers Hancock and Coral Sea in the first part of to the Vietnamese. Initially, six officers and eight enlisted February 1965. The second strike, launched February 11, members of the VNAF (Vietnam Air Force) trained at Corpus was a responsive strike against North Vietnamese and Viet Christi, Texas, for a month and a half before joining with attack· Cong barracks and staging areas. Among the naval particisquadron VA-122 for more training out of North Island, San . pants were the sturdy Skyraiders of VA-125, joining A-4C and Diego, California. The Vietnamese aviators flew single-seat A-4E Skyhawk attack jets. F-8C and F-8E Crusaders provided AD-6s. They participated in training exercises off the Califor- fighter escort. Though three jets were downed, the A-1s nia coast and over the expansive desert near Yuma, Arizona. escaped this fate. The Skyraider was back in combat with the The original AD-6s for the South Vietnamese came under the U.S. Navy, and serving reliably.4 On June 20, 1965, four A-1 H single-seaters from VA-25 auspices of the Mutual Defense Assistance Pact,1 Four years later, in October 1964, the U.S. Navy was mixed it up with North Vietnamese MiG jets, downing a MiGgiven the task of training 22 U.S. Air Force officers how to fly 17 and discouraging another. Navy Lt. Clint Johnson was A-1 H Skyraiders at Corpus Christi. Training Squadron 30 (VT- credited with squeezing off the 20-millimeter rounds which 30) had the job at Corpus. The Air Force fliers were subse- doomed the enemy jet fighter. Johnson, flying VA-25's A-1 H quently assigned to South Vietnam to advise VNAF Skyraider number 139768, caught the MiG-17 slow and in front of him as fliers. Ultimately, USAF Skyraider pilots would train their own the jets attempted to dogfight in the A-1 s' speed range. A in use of the A-1, but in the early 1960s, the Navy had the second A-1 pursued the attack on the MiG, joining Johnson in expertise. a classic scissors maneuver. One A-1 fired from above and In South Vietnam, Detachment Zulu of U.S. Navy squad- the other from below the communist jet, according to a ron VA-152 trained more Vietnamese pilots in the tactical contemporary account of the fray in the June 28, 1965, issue employment of the Skyraider in the early 1960s. The detach- of Aviation Week and Space Technology. The Aviation Week ment presented A-1 qualification certificates to successful clientele of aerospace engineers and related industry profesVNAF graduates. The detachment flew nearly 1,000 hours a sionals doubtlessly were amazed to see the old and slow

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Skyraider emerge victorious in a dogfight against jets, though the outcome was less profound to them than it was to the MiG17 driver that June day. Nor was VA-25's kill to be the only jet downed by a Skyraider over Vietnam. On October 9, 1966, Lt. Ug) W.T. Patton, flying A-1 H number 137543 of VA-176, engaged a MiG over North Vietnam. Patton wasn't certain whether his bogey was a MiG-17 or a -21. The enemy jet was attacking a fellow Skyraider at low altitude and subsonic speed. Patton entered the engagement from about a half mile above the MiG, diving to build up speed against the faster jet. The MiG pilot broke off his attack and sought to gain altitude in a climbing left turn. Patton's diving speed brought him to within about 200 feet of the MiG, where rounds from the A-1 H's four cannons punctured the jet aircraft's structure. As the MiG rapidly departed controlled flight and went inverted, the North Vietnamese pilot ejected. Subsequent accounts of Patton's victory suggest his quarry was a MiG-17. In 1966, Lt. Ug) Norman Lessard told a war correspondent what Skyraider bomb strikes were like, from launch to recovery aboard the USS Ranger. Sometimes laden with four tons of bombs, Lessard's Skyraider hurled off the Ranger to join other VA-145 A-1 s en route to the target. Radio silence was seldom broken by Lessard and his squadron mates, who chose instead to motor within 30 feet of each other for sign language or, if at night, light signals. 5 Plunging earthward in an attacking dive, Lessard had no time to contemplate his vulnerability to the intense communist anti-aircraft fire. He concentrated on attack angles and sight computations, registering bomb release by the distinct feeling his A-1 had when heavy ordnance fell from the wings. Then it was into a muscle-tugging 4.5g pullout for Lessard and his "Spad." If the target were important enough, or the groundfire negligible, a second run-in might be initiated. There was some frustration for Lessard and his comrades because their targets frequently were obscured by the jungle's canopy. Only the occasional secondary explosion hinted at target destruction. Far more visible was the return fire from automatic weapons and heavy anti-aircraft guns. 6 It was the intense groundfire which damaged the A-1 H of Navy Lt. Ug) Dieter Dengler on February 1, 1966, as the flier from USS Ranger struck North Vietnamese targets near the Laotian border. The Skyraider remained controllable, so Dengler headed west, managing a crash landing in Laos. Dieter vacated his Skyraider and hid from searchers whom he thought to be of no good to his cause. He slept in his sleeping bag that night, and commenced his foot travel again at daybreak. A pair of Pathet Lao men caught Dengler about noon, and relieved the Navy flier of his watch and compass. For the next week and a day, Dengler was abused by his captors. He was staked to the ground where leeches and insects infested him, and marched from village to village. On one occasion, Dengler faced whistling bullets when he was tied to a tree as his captors intentionally shot branches from the tree. Dengler, a naturalized citizen born in Germany, probably confounded his tormentors because he still carried an expired German passport to explain his accent. Two weeks after crash-landing his A-1 , Dieter Dengler was brought to a prison

in the jungle where six other prisoners were kept. Months passed as the prisoners contemplated an escape, waiting for monsoo ins they thought would aid their getaway. Getting wind of guards' inclinations toward executing the prisoners, the captives made their break June 29, 1966. Skyraider pilot Dengler slipped out of his wooden restraints and stole four American and Chinese guns. A firefight erupted, during which several guards were shot and probably killed. Dengler and U.S. Air Force 1 Lt. Duane Martin paired up and slipped into the jungle, barefoot and ill. The two built a raft and traveled down a stream until losing the vessel in a waterfall. Ten days after their violent escape, Dengler and Martin stumbled across an abandoned village where they spent the night. Days later, Dengler tried signal fires, but drew no friendly aircraft. A week later, as Dieter Dengler and Martin approached what they thought was an abandoned village, a man leaped from a hut and set upon Martin with a machete. The Air Force lieutenant fell, dying from wounds hacked by his attacker, who then turned on Dengler who had been behind Martin. When the swung machete missed Dieter, he managed to escape into the jungle. That night, Dengler torched the village where the attack had taken place. Twenty-two days after escaping the prison, Dengler tried again to signal planes by laying out an S.O.S. message with remnants of a parachute flare. Another Skyraider pilot - Air Force Lt. Col. Eugene Deatrich - saw Dengler's sign and ushered a rescue helicopter to where Dengler waited for the lowered sling.? As 1966 closed, Navy carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 33 ryAW-33) retired its last two EA-1 E "Guppy" Skyraiders, so nicknamed for the ventral radomes they carried. The EA-1 E entered seNice under the old designation AD-5W. The Guppies of VAW-33 intercepted. and photographed Soviet Badger jet bombers reconnoitering 1964 NATO exercises, and flew support missions for the splashdown recoveries of five Gemini space capsules. The retirement of VAW-33's last pair of Guppies marked the end of operational ASW (antisubmarine warfare) EA-1 E seNice in the Navy.s (Some electronics-laden EA-1 F-models seNed a while longer.) When VA-75 launched the first jet A-6 Intruder attacks in July 1965, the inevitable draw-down of A-1 s was apparent. The radar of the Intruder gave the jet an attractive all-weather capability, and its electronics jamming abilities were turned against the surface-to-air missiles which increasingly made flying over North Vietnam dangerous. VA-25 took Navy Skyraiders out of combat in the first quarter of 1968, but A-1 s flew combat with the U.S. Air Force and the air force of South Vietnam for several years to come. Notes 1. "South Viet Nam to Get Skyraiders", Naval Aviation News, October 1960, p.30. 2. "For This Unprovoked Attack", Naval Aviation News, September 1964, p.11; plus information provided by aviation historian Rene Francillon. 3. "For This Unprovoked Attack", Naval Aviation News, September 1964, p.11. 4. "Vietnam: War at Sea and Ashore", Naval Aviation News, May 1965, pp. 18-22. 5. "Today's Pilots for Today's Conflict", Naval Aviation News, 1966, p.B. 6.lbid. 7. "A Grounded Eagle Escapes Captors", Naval Aviation News, November 1966, pp. 18-19. B. "VAW-33 Retires EA-1E 'Guppies"', Naval Aviation News, 1967, p.16

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CHAPTER VIII

No More Kid Gloves: New Tricks for an Able Dog

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"Let us not be too particular. It is better to have old second-hand diamonds than none at all." Mark Twain

y 1965, American air operations in Vietnam were increasingly overt and aggressive, in the wake of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong attacks viewed as provocations. As 1965 began, the U.S. Air Force pondered a way to avoid the need for a lengthy ground battle by using airpower to rout a Viet Cong base from the Soi Loi Woods, a tropical forest 10 miles from the Cambodian border, and some 25 miles northwest of Saigon, within South Vietnam. The American answer to the problem intended to deny the Viet Cong use of the forest in which to hide their base. To do this, plans called for stripping the trees of their leaves by chemical defoliation, and then burning the denuded trees with a fueled fire. American advisors supported the idea, and the South Vietnamese government agreed. Vietnamese officials asked the U.S. Air Force's Ranch Hand defoliation operation to spray 18,500 acres in the Soi Loi Woods where, the Vietnamese believed, one Viet Cong regiment and two guerrilla units shared the woods with 100 acres of crops. The defoliation and burning were to be preceded by publicity intended to move noncombatant residents of the woods into secure South Vietnamese resettlement areas. General William Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), asked for a staff opinion on the Soi Loi operation. Air Force Major General Robert R. Rowland, head of the Air Force Advisory Group in Vietnam, hatched the fire plan. MACV analysts said the tropical Soi Loi Woods would not catch fire like an American pine forest would, but the chemical defoliation might in itself be promising. So defoliation was ordered, preceded by heavy USAF and VNAF Skyraider strikes in the Soi Loi Woods between 18-20 January. The combined A-1 strikes dropped more than 395 tons of bombs. In addition to specific VC targets, the Skyraiders engaged in area bombing. Sometimes the Skyraiders released bombs with delayed fuses. These bombs later exploded with a random uncertainty that made Soi Loi residents uneasy, and may have helped persuade some of them to leave. Ranch Hand Fairchild C-123 Provider transports began defoliating the area on 22 January, while the Skyraiders continued to bomb and strafe. This A-1 action while the spray planes were deployed accounted for an additional 372 tons of bombs dropped in 316 sorties, with 85,000 rounds of 20-millimeter cannon ammunition spent in the Soi Loi Woods. 1 The aggressive Skyraider work was unusual for this period in the Vietnam war, and no doubt helped reduce the number of ground fire hits the low and slow

C-123s took. In March, the Second Air Division revived the forestfire idea, suggesting saturating the windward area ofthe woods with fuel to be ignited by bombing. It was hoped the wind would spread this fire into the defoliated target acreage. MACV bought the scheme. Choices ranged from having lowflying KC-135 tankers spray fuel from altitudes of 300-500 feet, to having transport planes dump barrels of fuel. On 31 March, 24 C-123 sorties dumped 1,200 gallons of diesel fuel each from drums, along with flares intended to ignite the splashed fuel. Skyraiders swept over the fuelsoaked woods, dropping napalm on. the same area. The conclusion ofthe Soi Loi firebombing experiment was eight S57 sorties, sowing M35 incendiary bombs ahead of the main fire in an effort to induce the flames to spread in that direction. 2 Two thunderstorms followed the bombers that day, and quenchedtheflames.Thefireshadnotfannedfarfromwhere the flares and Skyraider napalm had ignited them, just as some MACV analysts had originally predicted. Though proponents of the fire-starting blamed the rain, subsequent experiments proved again and again that forest fires were not a practical tool of war in the jungles of South Vietnam. 3 The use of Skyraiders for flak-suppression was to continue throughout the war, with varying success. The loiter time of the chugging A-1 was high, allowing repeated runs on a persistent target. Skyraiders were employed in other unconventional operations in Vietnam. The early Farm Gate U.S. Air Force fliers sought ways to airdrop vital supplies to besieged outposts. This included airdrops from Skyraiders. At Pleiku, U.S. Air Force Colonel Eugene P. Deatrick, Jr., commanderofthe First Air Commando Squadron, worked with Lieutenant Colonel Eleazar Parmly IV, the U.S. Army Special Forces commander, to use the Air Commandos' Skyraiders in this supply role. Canisters were already approved for this purpose, and were used by some VNAF Skyraider squadrons, but Deatrick and Parmly experimented with empty napalm tanks filled with supplies and rigged with a parachute. Each A-1 could carry eight of the 500-pound converted napalm tanks. Tactics called for twilight drops, masked by strafing runs to keep the enemy unaware of the actual purpose of the drops by making them look like air strikes. Release of the parachute canisters was at slow speeds, at altitudes between 50 and 300 feet. Early in November 1966, the squadron began these air drop tactics west of Pleiku, with ground forces reporting a high recovery rate of supplies dropped this way.4 Though Seventh Air Force lauded the ingenuity of the First Air Commando Squadron for these airdrops, further OPPOSITE: The paraphernalia of modern warfare is lugged experiments in this vein were turned down. The use of napalm from a Skyraider by U.S. Air Force A·1 pilot Ronald G. Linder, tanks for supply drops by A-1 s was not publicized, and only a who flew combat and trained south Vietnamese pilots. (Photo few pilots were trained in the technique. During operation from the collection of Col. Ronald G. Linder, USAF Ret.)

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The U.S. Air Force snapped up multi-place A·1E Skyraiders for use in Vietnam, to train south Vietnamese pilots. Rigged with dual controls, the early gray A·1 Es ostensibly were flown by Vietnamese pilots, with Americans only observing and advising, in a time when the United States was not overtly engaged in combat operations. In actuality, Americans frequently flew combat with Vietnamese on board to legitimize the strike. Black paint obscures the exhaust smudges on the fuselages of these USAF A·1Es circa 1965. (Photo by Col. Ronald G. Linder, USAF Ret.)

Blackjack 31 in early 1967, the Army's Fifth Special Forces Group recovered all 96 containers dropped by Skyraiders. Later at Can Tho during Blackjack 41, several napalm containers filled with ammunition exploded on impact when the supporting parachutes failed. The Skyraider delivery had a disadvantage - nine·napalm tanks were equal to one airdrop bundle from a C-7 Caribou aircraft, and a single Caribou could carry three such bundles. It was more difficult to chase down the numerous smaller Skyraider loads. s But the successes enjoyed by Skyraider pilots in accuratelydelivering supplies in converted napalm bombs prompted some Army Special Forces officers to suggest expanding these A-1 supply missions to cover all of Vietnam. Some Air Force officers argued against diverting Skyraiders from actual airstrike missions. In August 1967, the napalm canisters received Air Force certification as airdrop supply containers, but the airdrop role for U.S. Air Force Skyraiders dwindled from a small start. 6 During the months of pilot training, while droning in an airplane over a monotonous landscape, or while seated safely with friends in the officers' club, it is human nature to ponder whether one has the courage and judgment to wage heroic

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actions in an emergency. Two U.S. Air Force Skyraider pilots who demonstrated their heroism underfire in Vietnam earned the United States' highest award, the Medal of Honor. On 10 March 1966, Major Bernard F. Fisher (always hailed as "Bernie" in written accounts of his actions) swung into A-1 E number 649. The gray Skyraider was loaded with 100-pound bombs and poised on the ramp at Pleiku where the First Air Commando Squadron set up shop. The mission was an effort to rout 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers who had attacked and now occupied the south portion of the strategic Special Forces camp at A Shau. The importance of A Shau was the ability of the Special Forces there to observe North Vietnamese troop movements into South Vietnam from nearby Laos. The ride to A Shau covered 150 miles. Fisher and five other A-1 E pilots found an undercast obscuring the valley. Major Fisher spied a hole in the clouds and took the other Skyraiders down into the valley. The gray murk opened up only 800 feet above ground, and the valley walls rose to 1,500 feet. The A Shau valley is less than one mile wide, but six miles long, terminating in mountains at one end and Laos at the other. Attacks on the communist troop positions could only be

made one way, down the length of the A Shau valley. Antiaircraft gunners on the sides of the valley poured fire into the Skyraiders, sometimes actually aiming down on the low-flying prop bombers. Captain Hubert King was the first casualty of the A Shau shooting gallery when his A-1 's canopy shattered from bullet impacts which narrowly missed King. With visibility robbed by a crazed and shattered windscreen, King announced his predicament and poked his Skyraider back into the clouds and limped for Pleiku. 7 King had been one of four ofthe six Skyraider pilots participating in that first pass. Fisher and the other two remaining from that first pass cranked their A-1 s around in tight turns to make another attack on the overrun A Shau camp. The besieged defenders of A Shau, holed up in the north bunker of the camp, radioed enemy positions to the Skyraider pilots who responded with accurate attacks. On the second Skyraider attack, Major Dafford W. "Jump" Myers was jolted in his A-1 E as big-bore anti-aircraft rounds connected with the moving target he presented. As Myers' Skyraider lost power it sheeted flame back past its tail. Myers' A-1 would come to earth quickly, and he guided his sudden

glider in for the only landing approach he would get on the battle-littered A Shau landing strip. On the radio Major Fisher urged Myers to retract his Skyraider's landing gear when it became apparent the crippled A-1 was carrying too much deadstick speed to stop on the short runway with its wheels rolling. In the rushed seconds remaining, Major Myers pulled up the gear and tried in vain to jettison the plane's centerline fuel tank. That drop tank ruptured and exploded in flame as Myers rode the Skyraider to a halt, skidding off the right side of the runway. Overhead, Bernie Fisher made a pylon turn above his long-time buddy Myers. As the Skyraider burned, Myers finally emerged after doffing his personal gear. Trailing smoke, Myers scrambled out the right wing of his ruined Skyraider and headed for undergrowth on the side of the airstrip opposite enemy positions. The other two Skyraiders of the original six joined up with Bernie Fisher and his wingman, Captain Francisco "Paco" Vazquez, and the four A-1 s repeatedly strafed the enemy to aid both the Special Forces contingent and their downed fellow flier. The airborne command post involved in the A Shau operation said a rescue helicopter was 20 minutes away. Ten

USAF A-1 Es adopted tactical camouflage colors for the war in southeast Asia. Dark aft canopy was tinted blue, giving rise to the nickname for the rear compartment on A-1 Es: 'The Blue Room.' (Douglas photo via Harry Gann.)

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Bernie Fisher's legendary A-1 E almost didn't make it to the Air Force Museum. Number 32649 suffered a major accident in Vietnam, shedding debris in the process. (Photos courtesy Dave Menard.)

A diving A-1E pilot concentrates on the onrushing ground as he makes an attack against communist positions in southeast Asia. (Douglas photo via Harry Gann.)

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minutes later another radio transmission from the command post said the chopper was still 20 minutes distant, and asked Fisher if he could meet up with the helo and guide it back through the hole in the clouds. Major Fisher quickly nixed that idea. The departure of Skyraiders from their strafing runs would likely have given the communists timeto reach the downed Myers and capture him. Instead, against advice from the command post, Bernie Fisher elected to land on the same airstrip and try to pick up Myers. With Paco Vazquez flying on his wing, hosing A Shau with cannon fire, Bernie Fisher shredded through a pall of smoke and touched his Skyraider's wheels on the plank steel runway mat. Battle debris, rocket pods, oil drums and sheet metal littered the wet metal-clad airstrip. Fisher gingerly applied rudder to dodge the garbage in his path, and came to the sinking realization his big Skyraider could not stop on the 2,500-foot runway. Cobbing the power to his plane's Wright R3350 engine, Fisher clambered back into the sky. His aborted landing no doubt had telegraphed his intentions to the persistent communist attackers. 8 Fisher wrenched his A-1 E through a demanding 180degree turn and attempted a landing from the opposite direction, sailing through heavy gunfire. Through years of piloting, Fisher had the skill needed to place seven tons of roaring warplane down right near the beginning of the runway. Again he missed debris, riding the plane's brakes and raising wing flaps to decrease lift, putting more weight on the wheels for better friction. Still, Fisher's gray Skyraider rolled off the opposite end of the wet runway. He cranked in a turn. As the A-1 E's wings passed over 55-gallon drums in the weeds at the end of the runway, the plane's tail banged into some in the turn. Quickly taxiing back down the strip to where Myers was concealed, Fisher stopped when he saw his buddy waving both arms, but the Skyraider's fast taxi run made it overshoot Myers' location by about 100 feet. Fisher planted the plane's parking brake, unbuckled from his seat, and headed to the right side of the wide cockpit to see if Myers needed help reaching the plane. What Fisher saw next he described as "two little red beady eyes trying to crawl up the back of the wing."g It was smoky Myers, and Fisher unceremoniously grabbed his fellow aviator's flightsuit and hauled the man headfirst onto the floor of the A-1. As the rescue was taking place, the three remaining airborne A-1 Es kept bombing and strafing to occupy the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers. When they ran out of ordnance, this trio made dry attack runs, hoping to keep the communists ducking. Fisher demanded power from his A-1, and scooted around the junk on the runway while the plane built up flying speed. He hoisted the A-1 aloft with minimal flying speed, and avoided climbing until the plane built up airspeed. Captain Jon Lucas, in one of the other three A-1 s, registered battle damage in the fray as his plane smoked away from A Shau. More A-1 s replaced Fisher's gaggle at A Shau that March day. The bravery of these U.S. Air Force Skyraider pilots was credited with helping to hold off the communists until 13 of the 17 surviving Special Forces members could be evacuated. Bernie Fisher's special bravery also saved his

friend, Jump Myers, from capture or death. Nineteen bullet holes attested to the hell Fisher's Skyraider had gone through to rescue Myers, in the heart of enemy-held ground. 10 Major Fisher's Skyraider, itself once the victim of a damaging belly landing, was carefully rebuilt. In its May 1967 issue, Air Progress magazine urged its readers to write their congressmen, requesting that Fisher's historic Skyraider be sent to the Air Force Museum for preservation. It was, and visitors to the great museum galleries at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio, can conjure Bernie Fisher's war as they view the gray A-1 E in which he earned the Medal of Honor. Only one other of the 12 Air Force Medal of Honor recipients from the Vietnam war was an A-1 driver. He was Lieutenant Colonel William A. Jones III, commanding officer of the 602nd Special Operations Squadron based at Nakhon Phanom in Thailand. The squadron operated single-seat A1H (AD-6) and A-1 J (AD-7) Skyraiders. On 1 September 1968, Lieutenant Colonel Jones' Skyraider flying under the call sign "Sandy 1", signifying the lead of a search-and-rescue flight, was his perch from which to direct the rescue of a downed F-4 Phantom aircrew. It was Jones' 98th combat mission, and ittook him into North Vietnam, northwest of Dong Hoi. Another flight of Phantom jets made radio contact with the downed F-4 pilot, but they misunderstood the flier's location, and led the Sandy Skyraiders eight miles from where the pilot was. The Skyraiders burned up nearly an hour's precious search time before the pilot of an F-1 00 reestablished contact with the airman in distress, and guided the A-1 s to the right location. The Super Sabre pilot warned Lieutenant Colonel Jones the crashed airman was in range of a host of antiaircraft weapons up to 37-millimeter. ll Bill Jones nosed his single-seat Skyraider down to scan the jungle for signs of the pilot. A scraggly broken cloud layer obscured some of the higher hilltops as Jones spread a search pattern over the rugged ground. His wingman and other fighters called out enemy gun positions to Jones as he dragged the jungles forthe concealed airman. A jolting explosion temporarily caused smoke to fill

To keep their out-of-production Skyraiders flying, Air Force A-1 E mechanics stripped badly damaged Skyraider hangarqueens in a desolate boneyard circa 1965. (Photo by Col. Ronald G. Linder, USAF Ret.)

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Jones' Skyraider. An enemy gunner had come too close for comfort, but failed to seriously damage the A-1 . A trap set by the communist gunners was to beef up any available AA defenses around a downed American flier, using the hapless airman as bait, certain to draw rescuing aircraft into the ring of fire. Still searching for the airman, Jones' pluck was rewarded when the downed pilot radioed that a Skyraider had just passed directly overhead. This pinpointed his position. Bill Jones found himself in a situation similar to that experienced by Bernie Fisher, with hillside gunners on the limestone karst firing down on his Skyraider. Jones cranked his single-seater into a turn that lined him up for an attack on those hillside guns. He pickled off rockets and fired his 20millimeters at the enemy guns, and rolled in for a second attack. This time, 14.5-millimeter gunfire found his Skyraider. The rocket motor in the A-1 's Yankee extraction system ignited when hit by a round, but did not deploy. The Skyraider was an airborne Roman candle as the rocket motor spewed flame. Colonel Jones cleared the area and pulled the Yankee extraction handle to initiate the pilot extraction sequence. The canopy blew away instantly, accompanied by a rush of air that fanned the flames. But the torching extraction rocket no longer worked to propel Jones from his A-1. He released the Yankee system so he could climb from the cockpit under his own power. In the rapid sequence of events since his Skyraider began to burn, Jones tried to radio the downed flier's position, but his transmissions went unheard as his fellow pilots used the frequencies to urge him to bail out ofthe flaming Skyraider. When Jones' radio failed to transmit, and the fire began 'to subside, he assessed his predicament. If he left the crippled Skyraider now, the other rescue planes would have to run the same gauntlet to locate the downed Phantom flier all over again. Plus, Jones would also become the object of a search, further complicating an already complex situation. Bill Jones was out of this fight, unable to transmit on his radio and severe!'~ burned on his hands, arms, shoulders and head. But he carried the downed flier's location with him as he limped 90 miles back to NKP (Nakhon Phanom). Captain Paul Meeks flew wing for Jones, and took up a lead position to ease Jones' navigating tasks. Only a portion of the left side of the wind-screen remained in place on Jones' A-1, so he deliberately skidded in skewed flight, presenting that left panel to the slipstream to give his burned body some additional protection from the open-air blast. Faced with an undercast at NKP, Jones managed to follow Meeks down through the cloud deck in tight formation. Jones brought his A-1 H in hot and shallow in a no-flap landing. As rescuers tried to lift him from his scorched Skyraider cockpit, Bill Jones grabbed for his charts, refusing aid until he was convinced the positions of the Phantom flier and the enemy gunners were understood by the other aircraft in the area. He continued debriefing even while on the NKP operating table, where his wounds were tended. Later that afternoon, the Phantom pilot was successfully plucked from the jungle. Bill Jones' tenacity paid off. 12 Asthe war progressed, U.S. Air Force use of the Skyraider typically included the role of "Sandy", the call sign for rescue escort. The Sandys often acted as on-scene rescue commanders, and frequently escorted HH-3 rescue helicopters to

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the site of a downed airman. The rescue chopper might hold several miles from the position of the downed flier while the A1s went in to beat up AA batteries prior to calling for the vulnerable helicopter. The courage of the Skyraider pilots was matched by that of the rescue helo crews who braved a hail of enemy fire while hovering over the downed airmen, lowering a rescue sling and a para rescue specialist if the flier was incapacitated. In the mid summer of 1967, U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant Bud Pentz was a door gunner on an HH-3 Jolly Green Giant rescue chopper paddling out of Da Nang toward a Navy flier down in North Vietnam, about 50 miles south of Hanoi. A Crown airborne rescue command post C-130 controlled all the aircraft involved in this penetration into North Vietnam. A-1 s were tasked in their familiar ground attack and flak suppression role. The pilot of Pentz' Jolly Green elected to land about 100 yards from the injured Navy flier, since the flier's leg injuries prevented him from climbing aboard a jungle penetrator device which the chopper crew could wind down into the undergrowth and then hoist back up. North Vietnamese troops challenged the rescue with small arms fire. "There was no way we could get in position to give protective fire," Pentz said. So he removed his 7.62-millimeter M-60 machine gun from its door mount, grabbed several ammunition containers, left the HH-3, and covered the successful extraction of the Navy pilot by a para rescue specialist from Pentz' Jolly Green. Suddenly Sergeant Pentz was surrounded and cut off from his chopper by men and women wearing starred pith helmets and firing small arms. "Probably the smartest thing I did was take a radio with me," Pentz later explained. Rather than keep the entire HH-3 and crew in jeopardy any longer, Sergeant Pentz urged them to get airborne while he held off the North Vietnamese with his M-60. The Jolly Green radioed the Sandys and told them one of the rescuers had just become a rescuee in need of help. A pair of A-1 Es from NKP loitered protectively for the next 90 minutes to two hours, as faster jets came and went delivering a variety of ordnance including cluster bomb units on the North Vietnamese. "For three hours, I saw just about everything in the Air Force arsenal," Pentz said. The A-1 s spotted targets for the jets and used their 20 millimeter cannons to surgically intervene when the North Vietnamese were within 150 yards of Pentz. "The Sandy pilots were telling me constantly what was going on; I never felt alone," Bud remembered. The A-1 s explained over the radio what kind of ordnance was aboutto be dropped. "Iftheywere using general purpose bombs, they'd tell me to get low." The incessant bom bing and strafing, plus Pentz' trusty machine gun, kept the pith-helmeted attackers at bay. "I know for a fact there were more than 100 sorties involved in keeping them off me."13 Bud took refuge in a bomb crater. The Orbiting A-1s advised him when the enemy troops got closer, and then the Sandy drivers told him the direction ofthe next Skyraiderfiring pass to afford him protection. The Skyraiders dropped what ordnance they had, made cannon passes and dry runs to keep the communists busy. As the first pair of Skyraiders retired, two more took up station in the wake of a Navy jet attack. Pentz looked up to see the unique blue Plexiglas covering part of the A-1 Es glint in the sun. "That was probably the best sight I could

see above me," said Pentz, whose previous combat experiences gave him a healthy respect for the durable A-1 s. When the Skyraiders advised Pentz the enemy troops were too close to his position to allow for bombing, Bud momentarily poked up from his crater and cut loose with 7.62-millimeter rounds. But he didn't spend most of his time trading bullets. "Mostly I was hiding - not so much from them, but from the ordnance."14 Ultimately, F-4s massed for a plane-after-plane attack to paralyze the North Vietnamese troops. Another HH-3 touched down in coordination with the F-4 Phantoms. Pentz was down to two rounds of ammunition for his machine gun. Grabbing the firing pin to render the weapon useless to the enemy, Pentz dived for the door of the HH-3. "There was no way I could have ridden the tree penetrator because of the intensity of the ground fire," Bud recalled. As he was diving into the chopper, it lifted off, its hard floor catching Pentz in mid air. He had seen enemy soldiers as close as 15 yards, but had not been hit during his three-hour ordeal. The Air Force thought Bud Pentz' actions warranted the Distinguished Flying Cross. Bud remained grateful to the aircraft which persisted in his own rescue - especially the long-lasting cool-headed A-1 Skyraider pilots. 15 Jerry Boynton was an Airman First Class when the Air Force sent him to Nakhon Phanom - NKP - on 26 February 1970. Because he had previous reciprocating engine experience as a Lockheed C-121 mechanic, Airman Boynton had settled into his A-1 training at Hurlburt earlier that year with minimal adjustment. At Hurlburt in Florida's Eglin Air Force Base complex, Boynton learned about the Yankee extraction seat system, A-1 engine runs, fuel tank removal and other aspects of Skyraider operations. Since his A-1 schooling lasted four weeks, Boynton was in for on-the-job training with the 22nd Special Operations Squadron at NKP. At Nakhon Phanom, Jerry became involved in hanging ordnance under the wings of A-1 s, including 50-pound loads of Willie Pete white phosphorous -rockets, often in the harried climate of frantic-search-and-rescue (SAR) operations. "It was an unwritten law that during a SAR no unauthorized person was on the flightline," Boynton remembered, to avoid accidents and injuries possible in the mix of whirling Aeroproducts props and live ordnance. Six A-1 s were kept on alert for SAR while Boynton was involved in Skyraider operations at NKP. These six Skyraiders were paced on SAR missions. The first two went in to the location of the subject of the rescue. They dropped all their ordnance to suppress flak and keep enemy troops at bay, and then orbited with the Jolly Green rescue helicopter while the second two Skyraiders layed down smoke as needed. Then the chopper's turn came; if the Jolly Green still found enemy fire too stiff, the last pair of A-1 s went in to soften things up, he recalled. For protracted rescue efforts, more A-1 s could be generated to augmentthe first six Sandys. Crew chiefs whose Skyraiders had launched would go help their fellows prepare the other A-1 s during peak SAR activity, to get Skyraiders into the fight as expeditiously as possible. 16 About the middle of 1970, the 22nd SOS sent two Skyraiders and two Jollies on temporary duty to Pleiku for 30 days. The squadron set up 90-day temporary duty at Bien Hoa. Skyraiders rotated back to NKP with aircrews every

three days; crew chiefs stayed behind, receiving niceties such as mail with the arrival of new aircrews and Skyraiders. It was during one such temporary duty period for Boynton in the latter half of 1970 that the 22nd SOS became the 602nd SOS and 1st SOS. By October, these two squadron designators were consolidated as the 1st SOS. Early in November 1970, the 1st SOS relinquished sixA-1 s-a mixed bag of Es and Hs-tothe VNAF, which was expanding its Skyraider war. Some of the Vietnamese who came to NKP to pick up the A-1s betrayed their lack offamiliarity with the big attack bombers as they tried to get acquainted with the A-1 s. Others in the VNAF contingent had only flown A-1 s equipped for Military Assistance Program standards. As they eyed these planes newly stricken from U.S. Air Force records they kept remarking "Our airplanes don't have this; our airplanes don't have that," as they encountered equipment peculiar to USAF A-1 s, Boynton said. It was this transfer of Skyraiders to the South Vietnamese which prompted the consolidation of the remaining USAF planes and crews of the 602nd and 1s~ Special Operations Squadrons. Boynton recalled that the A-1 s given to the VNAF had black undersurfaces, which the Vietnamese requested be painted white. Around November 1970 this was done, including USAF A-1 s as the planes passed through periodic maintenance cycles, he saidY Late in November 1970, some new, unknown "assistant pilots" showed up at NKP. "We didn't know where they came from," Jerry Boynton said. The strangers affixed panels in the cockpits of A-1 Es for guiding smart bombs, mating the most sophisticated weapons and weapons delivery technology with these holdover planes from World War II design philosophy, Boynton remembered. Security was tight around the entire operation involving A-1 Es and smart bombs, but Boynton learned through the G.!. grapevine that these speciallyequipped A-1 Es took part in the clandestine night prison raid on Son Tay inside North Vietnam. The Skyraiders, Boynton was told, had flown from NKP to Da Nang, and out over the ocean, turning at minimum altitude and running lean and hot for the several hours needed to fly from Da Nang to Son Tay and recover at NKP after the mission. This lean fuel mixture "more or less cleaned out the cylinders," Boynton remembered, but he said it did no harm to the 3350s. 18 Official Air Force published history still is vague about the role ofthe A-1 s in the Son Tay prison break-in of 20 November, and the stories gleaned at that time at NKP still need more thorough documentation. But an Air Force supply officer at a jet base in Thailand where smart bombs were routinely stocked and used is reported to have remarked about an unusual shipment of these weapons going to the base at NKP about this time, and published Air Force historical accounts of the Son Tay raid say the Skyraiders involved were five multiseat A-1 Es, consistent with Boynton's information about additional pilots being used to operate smart bomb guidance equipment. The Son Tay prison compound was supposed to house as many as 50 prisoners of war. The Joint Chiefs of Staff approved planning a raid to rescue the prisoners at Son Tay back on 5 June 1970. A heavy rainy season was to foil this scheme in a most unusual way.

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This page and opposite: Skyraiders of the First Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida, reveal irregularities in camouflage. An Air Force tech order prescribed the pattern for camouflaging aircraft including Skyraiders. In actual practice, one wave of the spray gun brought about a variation in style. These single-seat A-1 Hs and multi-place A-1 Es trained many U.S. and Vietnamese fliers in the art of Skyraider warfare. (Photos by Tom Brewer via John M. Bowdler.)

The rains brought flooding which fouled water wells serving the prison. The Hanoi government also apparently perceived they would receive international praise for humane actions if they separated the Protestants and the Catholics in Son Tay, because each group had requested to hold separate religious services. Weighing the water problems and the erroneously-perceived propaganda value to be derived by segregating the prisoners according to their religious preferences, the North Vietnamese moved all ofthe prisoners of war from Son Tay by 14 July, while American planning for the raid progressed. Reconnaissance photography picked up con-

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tinuing activity at Son Tay, however, because a contingent of guards and other North Vietnamese continued to dwell there. 19 The armada massed for the November raid on Son Tay included "Wild Weasel" F-1 05 Thunderchiefs to thwart North Vietnamese anti-aircraft missile batteries; five HH-53 helicopters to carry raiders in, and additionally, freed prisoners out, one more-expendable HH-3E helicopter, two pathfinding Combat Talon MC-130E unconventional warfare transports, and the five A-1 E Skyraiders. The HH-3 chopper was to deliver shock troops in the middle of the Son Tay prison yard. A tree known to be in the yard would certainly smash the rotor

blades of the HH-3 as it landed, so the rescuers planned on leaving it behind as they loaded everybody into the HH-53s. The Combat Talon C-130s were to aid the five Skyraiders in navigating to and from Son Tay in the dead of night. Planners also intended for the C-130s to drop a pallet loaded with napalm bombs to create a flaming beacon for other aircraft in the operation. The A-1 Es also were fitted with napalm in case the C-130s were unable to drop theirs. Primarily, the A-1 Es were tasked to bomb a bridge in an effort to slow any enemy reinforcements. (Accurately bombing a bridge at night near a P.O.W. camp lends further credibility to the stories that the Skyraiders were equipped with precision smart bombs which could be maneuvered to a target.) If enemy troops prevailed after this, the A-1 Es were to strafe with their 20-millimeter cannons. The planners also blocked

the periods from 21-25 October and 21-25 November as the bestfor likely having clear weather, and just enough moonlight to complement night-viewing optics without silhouetting the aircraft or troops. In actuality, typhoon Patsy was forecast to make the Gulf of Tonkin too rough for the Navy carriers to launch their diversionary strikes by 21 N(~)Vember. The October dates had been lost due to peace negotiations which Dr. Henry Kissinger, a special assistant to the President of the United States, feared would be hurt by an American incursion of 150 men into North Vietnam. So on the night of 20 November the Son Tay raiders launched. 20 While Navy A-6s and-7s purposely alerted North Vietnamese and Chinese radar to confuse the issue, the main force pressed on for Son Tay. The first C-130 dropped its napalm marker; a minute later the second C-130 delivered the

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five multi-place Skyraiders overhead. Once the A-1 Es moved out on their own, the second C-130 dropped its napalm pallet. The Skyraiders went to work on the bridge and then orbited above the napalm marker. The expendable HH-3 inadvertently landed in a military sapper training school instead of the Son Tay prison yard. Fortunately no tree existed in the sapper schoolyard to cripple the chopper, and it quickly lifted off for the prison. The Americans achieved their objective of penetrating the prison, killing North Vietnamese as they raced through the compound in a futile search for the P.O.W.s who weren't there anymore. The raiders demolished their HH-3 with an explosive charge, and left Son Tay aboard the HH-53s. Surface-to-air (SAM) missiles damaged two of the F-1 05s; one was abandoned and its crew rescued at dawn in Laos. 21 The Son Tay raid received mixed reviews. Critics marveled at launching such a sophisticated attack, and not having up-to-date intelligence information on the location of the prisoners. Those more sympathetic said the raid worked well, and proved what a coordinated armada could do. Dismal failure or tactical milestone, the Son Tay raid called upon the ability of the capacious A-1 E Skyraider once more. (Son Tay postscript: Colonel Benjamin Kraljev, Jr. was an unconventional warfare action officer involved in the Son Tay planning. In the winter 1984 issue of Airlift: The Journal of the Airlift Operations School, Colonel Kraljev said the A-1 E leftseaters were hand-picked for longevity in the type. He said the right-seaters were returned from southeast Asia "under the guise of participating in a night recovery system Rescue was developing. We now had a stick and rudder pilot who was highly experienced in the airplane with a pilot who knew what was going on currently in southeast Asia." Colonel Kraljev does not mention the use of smart bombs. He further says the bridge at Son Tay was neutralized by an Army demolition charge. But he is quick in his defense of the suitability of the Skyraider for the raid: "We decided we also needed some fighter support, something that could fly low and slow. The obvious answer was A-1.")22

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Notes 1. William A. Buckingham, Jr., Operation Ranch Hand - The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961-1971, Office of Air Force History, Washington D.C. 1982, pp.109-112. 2. Ibid. 3.lbid. 4. Ray L. Bowers, The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia -Tactical Airlift, Office of Air Force History, Washington. D.C. 1983, p.424. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Major Donald Schneider, Air Force Heroes in Vietnam (USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series Vol. VII, Monograph 9) Air War College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 1979. pp. 3-11, 72, and 75. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Interview, Frederick A. Johnsen with Bud Pentz, July 1982. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Interview, Frederick A. Johnsen with Jerry Boynton. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Earl H. Tilford, Jr., Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia, 1961-1975, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C. 1980, pp. 103-112. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Benjamin Kraljev, Jr., Colonel, USAF, "The Son Tay Raid", Airlift: The Journal of the Airlift Operations School, Winter 1984, Military Airlift Command.

CHAPTER IX

Wind-Down in Asia ''There has never been

I

a protracted campaign from which a country has benefitted." Sun Tzu, 400-320 B.C., Art of War

n the wintry months of January and February 1969, while the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held antiwar rallies on American college campuses, Second Lieutenant Gary Cave buzzed over the foliage of South Vietnam in his gray USAF-emblazoned Cessna 0-1 E. The single-engine Cessna 0-1 was a derivative of the Iightplanes that company was famous for. Laden with "Willie Pete" - white phosphorous rockets used for target-markingthe 0-1 served as bird dog for the bomb-haulers. Gary Cave was a FAC (Forward Air Controller), who guided American and South Vietnamese attack aircraft to specific targets. He was assigned to the 22nd Tactical Air Support Squadron at Sinh Thuy.

Thus it was on a wintry 1969 day that Lieutenant Cave was coordinating between U.S. Army intelligence advisors and South Vietnamese army troops, requesting an air strike against a concrete bunker over which cut boughs were regularly replenished by the enemy. The network for fielding such requests through American and Vietnamese channels was capricious. As Cave orbited in his noisy Cessna, he was prepared for a wait of between five minutes and two hours for approval of this bomb strike. With approval came a flight of VNAF A-1 sJo do the job. These were not the novice "sandbag" Vietnamese that early USAF pilots had ridiculed - the complexion of the war had changed enough that Lieutenant Cave had at his disposal

A 1st Special Operations Squadron (1 50S) Skyraider - probably a G-model- used sandbags for wheel chocks in its revetment in Southeast Asia.

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A VNAF A·1 H sits poised for battle, on the ramp at Tan Son Nhut, 14 December 1970. (Photo by Norman E. Taylor, via Dennis Peltier.)

some high-time Skyraider fliers. Some could boast more than 6,000 flying hours, most of it in combat in their homeland. The leader of the four VNAF A-1 s sent to demolish the bunker spoke English, and addressed Lieutenant Cave, by the FACs' traditional call sign: "'David', I have four A-1 s." It was traditional for the inbound attack aircraft to list their ordnance to "David" - the FAC - so he could orchestrate the attack

against the particular target at hand. As Lieutenant Cave switched channels on his 0-1 's comm radios to contact ground units and the VNAF A-1 drivers, he missed hearing only the first ordnance hard point on the A-1 leader's plane. Cave copied the rest of the ordnance load: Some 250pounders, rockets, CBUs (Cluster Bomb Units), and the heavy 20-millimeter ammunition.

A VNAF A-1 H securely ensconced in a steel and earth-fill revetment at Pleiku, circa 1972-73. Modern revetments afforded protection, but communist ground attacks nonetheless destroyed VNAF Skyraiders here. Small South Vietnamese flag flaps from the corner of the revetment, its yellow and red colors reproduced on the rudder of the A-1. (Photo by Col. Ronald G. Linder, USAF Ret.)

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Near Pleiku,the gutted, burned hulk of an 'A-1 E lies neglected in the weeds. Though the VNAF employed Skyraiders after the United States retired them from combat, anti-aircraft accuracy and equipment were threatening an end to the environment the Skyraiderhad been built to fight in. (Photo by Col. Ronald G. Linder, USAF, Ret.)

Flying about 1,500 feet above ground level, perhaps 600 feet to one side of the mysterious bunker, Cave called in all four Skyraiders to bomb in trail, following the leader. When the leader loosed his first store, Gary Cave watched, momentarily perplexed, because the plummeting object looked like the plane's centerline fuel tank. "It was huge," Cave remembered, obviously unlike any mere 250-pound bomb. This was the one piece of ordnance Cave had not copied in the radio transmission with the Vietnamese flight leader - a 2,000-pound bomb. The resulting blast "demolished one bunker and a lot of trees and everything else around it," Cave said. With scant time to react, Cave found his light 0-1 rocked into a 25-to 30-degree bank by the huge blast's concussion, which shook the plexiglas windows in the Cessna. Cave vouched that his fear instincts were, at that moment, as good as the next man's. The Skyraiders rumbled away from the smoky, choking rubble, toting most of their ordnance unexpended. 1 Increasingly, the VNAF shouldered responsibility in its Skyraiders. In contrast to early operations, when inexperienced VNAF A-1 pilots had been grounded after the sun went down, by 1967 two VNAF A-1 's flew nocturnal cover over Bien

Hoa, ready to strike at infiltrators in the dark. Yet, the quick reaction afforded by this airborne umbrella all too frequently was retarded by maddening delays in obtaining Vietnamese approval to hit targets. 2 Pairs of night-riding VNAF Skyraiders similarly patrolled over Binh Thuy after that base was jolted by five stand-off ground attacks between December 1966 and May 1967. Nha Trang also employed two Vietnamese A-1s. All of these base protection sorties were in concert with other mass-firepower planes including AC-47 gunships and UH-1 helicopter gunship variants. The 1968 Tet offensive appears to have been engineered by Hanoi as a media show as much as it was a military campaign. Sensing the anti-war value to be derived from a bloody campaign, the North Vietnamese orchestrated largely Viet Cong attacks on most of the major cities of South Vietnam. American media scholars and critics have argued that, while the United States and ARVN forces actually thwarted North Vietnam's 1968 Tet offensive militarily, the increased levels of bloody combat relayed home on American news broadcasts implied theAmericans were mired and losing. This implication contributed to the growing weariness in America with the dragging war, and probably hastened America's departure from South Vietnam thereafter. Between January 30 and February 25, 1968, the VNAF flew 4,648 close air support sorties and 1,535 interdiction sorties, working their A-1 Skyraiders hard, along with the rest of their aircraft inventory.3 This was a large-scale campaign affecting all four South Vietnamese regional corps areas. The VNAF Skyraiders performed well, but their performance limitations kept the A-1 s tethered to the particular corps in which the squadrons were based. It was not feasible to amass Skyraiders for attacks in other corps as long as they were physically located in a distant corps. This pointed up an ongoing dilemma of VNAF Skyraider operations. Early in the war, USAF advisors criticized the practice of ARVN corps commanders to conserve the A-1 s based in their corps areas, keeping them for duties in their own corps instead of crossing corps boundaries if greater needs were in other regions.

VNAF A-1Hs at Tan Son Nhut, 13 November 1970, fitted with high-speed, low-drag bombs. (Photo by Norman E. Taylor, via Dennis Peltier)

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A train of 500-pound bombs on trailers services Vietnamese A·1 Hs at Tan Son Nhut, 13 November 1970. (Norman E. Taylor photo via Dennis Peltier)

During Tet, it seemed, the rapidly-changing needs for airstrikes were beyond the timely response capabilities of the slow A-1 s when requested by another geographic corps. On March 30, 1972, 40,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, equipped with Soviet long-range artillery, tanks, and new hand-held SA-7 surface-to-air missiles, launched a new offensive. The concentrations of North Vietnamese tanks were unusual. The attack appeared designed to cut off South Vietnam's northern provinces of Quang Tri and Thua Thien. Only the massive application of airpower prevented the fall of these provinces. In the central highlands of South Vietnam, communist objectives appeared to be the capture of the cities of Kontum and Pleiku. Airlift saved besieged defenders and airstrikes broke North Vietnamese attacks, but not without high cost. By April 30, Dong Ha and Quang Tri were lost to the North Vietnamese. For the first time U.S. and VNAF planes were downed by the SA-7 missiles. The air environment was not permissive; the new Soviet antiaircraft weapons signaled a new and deadly era for air operations in Vietnamese skies. One VNAF A-1 H was bagged by an SA-7 on 1 May; the next day, two more Skyraiders were lost. The hostile AA firepower made air operations costly below 10,000 feet and 450 knots, spelling trouble for the Skyraiders. 4 By this time, the South Vietnamese were putting jet A-37s into battle, as well as their old Skyraiders. U.S. airpower was a major factor in the 1972 counteroffensive, and a centralized direction of airpower was used to advantage, as aircraft shifted quickly from Military Region I, (the new term for the former corps regions) to MRII, to MRIII. If total daily sorties averaged 207, 45 of these were generated by the plucky VNAF. This was just about "the maximum they (the VNAF) 104

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could generate considering the limited range of their aircraft and number of sorties that had to be flown in support of the other military regions," U.S. Air Force historians concluded. s Pleiku-based VNAF Skyraiders joined the jet A-37s in tank-busting duties during the battle for Kontum. Cloud cover dictated low attacks, and the slow Skyraiders took numerous hits. Nine A-1 s were lost to enemy action during the battle for Kontum. By late May, parts of Kontum were in North Vietnamese hands. Though ultimately staved off by airpower, some North Vietnamese resistance was felt northwest of the city as late as July, long after Kontum was resecured by the South Vietnamese. The old VNAF bugaboo of pilots who were only qualified for daylight visual operations reappeared during the Kontum fighting. The Vietnamese Skyraiders could not join the A-37s when these conditions of visibility were not present. s Ultimately, the offensive was broken by airpower and the onset of the rainy season. Observers noted that VNAF air support was more intense than during the 1968 Tet offensive. But the slow-movers -especially the Skyraiders - were in grave danger from the new levels of communist anti-aircraft firepower. When possible, the VNAF did attempt to centralize its airpower during the 1972 counter-offensive, although still limited by the performance of its Skyraiders andA-37s. By 1972, in-country Skyraider operations were the province of VNAF A-1 s, except for penetrations by Thai-based USAF Skyraiders on SAR (Search And Rescue) escort missions. Ronald G. Linder had flown USAF Skyraiders in Vietnam back in 1964 and 1965 as a flight instructor with the First Air Commando Squadron. He returned to Skyraider duty in 1972 and 1973. "I was requalified in the A-1E at Hurlburt Field ... Florida" in August-October 1972, Linder, who retired

A·1E, 132514, at Tan Son Nhut in December 1970 with oil-swirled centerline tank. Two prop blades appear to be replacements, possibly indicating a belly flop in this Skyraider's past. (Norman E. Taylor photo via Dennis Peltier) as a USAF colonel, recalled. "It was the last 'Express' class and had only three or four members. One day in late October 1972 we were on the gunnery range when halfway through the mission we were recalled." The impending U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam prompted the U.S. Air Force to turn over its remaining Skyraiders to the VNAF, Linder was told. "We had search and rescue A-1 s in Thailand, a training section at Hurlburt Field, and one A-1 , at Hill AFB, Utah, which was used for ordnance testing."? The following month, Ronald Linder was assigned as chief USAF advisor to the VNAF Sixth Air Division, headquartered at Pleiku. Here, the VNAF's 530th squadron operated a collection of A-1 Es, Gs, Hs, and Js. In the fall of 1972, up to the 27 January 1973 ceasefire, Pleiku was subjected to a number of rocket attacks. VNAF Skyraiders, some fully armed and in revetments, were destroyed in these attacks. "I flew 20 combat missions in December 1972 and January 1973 with the Black Cat Squadron (530th Fighter Squadron, VNAF) at Pleiku," recalled Colonel Linder. "(I) believe that I flew the very last A-1 combat mission flown by an American in Vietnam on 22 January 1973 just six days before the ceasefire," he added. 8 Linder recalled VNAF Skyraiders flew during the ceasefire. 9 The South Vietnamese air force continued to prosecute the war until South Vietnam fell with the surrender of Saigon on 30 April 1975. Before this time, according to official U.S. Air Force historical accounts, the VNAF Skyraiders had been put in storage to streamline VNAF maintenance chores in the absence of an American presence. But with the takeover of South Vietnam by North Vietnamese forces in April 1975,

scores of South Vietnamese fliers evacuated their homeland, taking airworthy VNAF-planes including Skyraiders to the U.S. base at U-Tapao, Thailand. To downed airmen and harried helicopter rescue crews, the Southeast Asia Skyraider saga will forever conjure images of loitering USAF A-1 s keeping the enemy from reaching downed Americans. Answering to the radio call sign "Sandy", these rescue A-1 s were a latter-day Twentieth Century reincarnation of the cavalry, often arriving in the nick of time and making the difference between a successful save, or an addition to Hanoi's cold POW/MIA (Prisoner-of-War/Missing in Action) list. In the 1960s, when the U.S. Navy still operated A-1s in combat, their carrier-launched Skyraiders also participated in rescue plots. But the camouflaged Sandys of the U.S. Air Force will forever be the archetypal avenging angels ofthe war in Southeast Asia. By 1967, the Skyraider posted the highest loss rate of any USAF plane in Southeast Asia, due at least in part to the heroic and dangerous low-level loitering which determined search-and-rescue pilots adopted in defense of their downed fellows. During 1967, Skyraider loss rates were 6.2 per 1,000 sorties over North Vietnam; 2.3 over Laos; and 1.0 over South Vietnam. Twenty-five Air Force Skyraiders downed over North Vietnam between June 1966 and June 1967 included seven performing rescue missions. 10 All too frequently, enemy gunners used downed fliers as bait to lure rescue planes within range of hastily-deployed anti-aircraft weapons. Although the U.S. Navy set air-to-air combat tacticians buzzing when Navy Skyraiders shot down two North Vietnamese MiG jet fighters, the Air Force paid the price with two confirmed A-1 losses to enemy MiGs during

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Grey USAF A-1E takes on high-drag iron bombs with box fins of World War II design. Skyraiders in Southeast Asia hauled all kinds of ordnance; may have even carried smart bombs. (USAF photo)

rescue operations. The HH-3 rescue helicopter crews knew and respected the Sandy A-1 fliers who escorted them. Dave Feigert, then an Air Force lieutenant flying right seat in "Jolly Green" rescue choppers, remembered backto 1966and 1967 when "Sandy"crews and "Jolly Green" crews stood up for each other in barroom brawls a bit less glamorous than those staged in Hollywood. Feigert's collection of A-1 anecdotes fit the classic parameters of war stories - they are fantastic enough to be true. Like the time Sandy pilot Dave Lester, flying on temporary duty (TDY) status out of Udorn, Thailand, had his A-1 shot out from under him. Lester, an accomplished skydiver, was over Laos in the fall of 1966 when he had to abandon his crippled Skyraider near Tchepone Pass. Lester had rehearsed this contingency mentally. He free-fell after leaving the A-1, to present a smaller, speedier target to the enemy gunners on the ground. Close to the jungle he popped his chute, nestling into the top boughs of dense trees some 200 feet above the jungle floor. He could hear the communists below him as he orchestrated his own rescue just as if he were still charging around in his Skyraider, vectoring help for another downed 106

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flier. Dave Feigert was aboard the HH-3 that located Lester. The only hitch in the operation was the intense rotor downwash from the large HH-3. "We damn near blew him out ofthe trees, and down to the hostile jungle floor so far below," Feigert said. Lester braced himself with his parachute harness for the rough rotor wash, and grabbed the jungle penetrator winched to him from the helicopter. As he scrambled onto the penetrator amid a flurry of leaves, the Jolly Green hoisted him to safety from the treetops.l1 The spacious A-1 Es featured a large aft cabin once intended to carry as many as 10 passengers in addition to the flight crew of two up front. But for SEA USAF operations, A1Es usually were flown solo. The glazing over the aft cabin was tinted blue and crews going aft would report "I'm going to the Blue Room," as if they were wandering the halls of a mansion. During a two-ship formation out of Thailand, with only one man per A-1 E, the leader's wingman noticed the unmistakably bulky form of the formation leader moving around in the Blue Room. Nobody, obviously, was flying the airplane.

The pilot had trimmed his big dive bomber for level flight, and then moved aft for reasons of his own. But when the door to the flight deck jammed shut, the aviator became a prisoner in his own plane. He contemplated using his service .38caliber revolver to destroy the door latch, but succeeded in manually wrestling it open. All the while, in the back of his mind lurked the possibility the big A-1 E would slip out of trim and head earthward with the pilot still locked in the Blue Room. The incident became a source of much laughter thereafter when the Sandy drivers and air rescue crews got together for a beer. 12 There was a grim aspect of the Skyraider's war that involved anti-personnel attacks. In a reversal of the "shakeand-bake" tactics, one USAF A-1 would drop napalm tanks to flush communist troops out of jungle hiding. The next A-1 would arrive overhead as the troops were running in clear ground. This Skyraider dispensed CBUs (Cluster Bomb Units) which were deadly anti-personnel shrapnel-producing explosives. 13

Notes 1. Interview, Frederick A. Johnsen with Maj. Gary Cave, USAF, August 1984. 2. Air Base Defense in the Republic of Vietnam - 1961-1973, Office of Air Force History, USAF, Washington, D.C. 1979, pp.130-131. 3. The Vietnamese Air Force, 1951-1975, An Analysis of its Role in Combat, USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series, Volume 3, 1975, pp. 33-34. 4. Ibid, p. 45. 5. Ibid, p. 46. 6. Airpowerand the 1972 Spring Invasion, USAF Southeast Asia Monograph Series, Volume 2, p. 75. 7. Letter by Col Ronald G. Linder, USAF (Ret.), 9 Sep. 82. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. The United States Air Force Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia, Earl H. Tilford, Jr., Office of Air Force History, USAF, Washington, D.C. 1980, pp. 72-73. 11. Interview, FrederickA. Johnsen with Maj. Dave Feigert, USAF, November 1984. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid.

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In the 1970s, Atlantan Dave Forrest restored his AD-4, BuAer number 123827, in the glossy blue colors and markings it wore at NAS Atlanta in the 1950s. Here carrying civil registration number N23827, Forrest's Skyraider cruises at 12,500 feet over central Georgia in concert with a restored Hawker Sea Fury, left, and P·51 Mustang, right. (U.S. Navy photo via Dave Forrest.)

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CHAPTER X

Skyraiders for the Future "...all times, when old, are good." Byron, The Age of Bronze

A

s this is written, more than 50 Skyraiders worldwide are in the hands of collectors, museums, or other organizations in a position to make them available for preservation or public viewing. Recent U.S. civil registration records show more than 20 Skyraiders have received civil registration numbers in this country, although the assignment of an N-number to a Skyraider does not signify the aircraft is currently flightworthy. Georgia resident Dave Forrest deserves credit for his pioneering efforts to get an early AD-4 flying on the warbird circuit. The late Jack Spanich boosted the American civilian Skyraider population when he brought several ex-French AD-

4s back, beginning in the late 1970s. David Tallichet added several late-model singleseaters and A-IEs to his warbird stable in the early 1980s. One of the most remarkable civil-owned Skyraider restorations is the AD-4 rebuilt over a 10-year period by Dave Forrest of Atlanta, Georgia. This Skyraider, BuAer No. 123827, toured with VA-55 aboard the U.S.S. Valley Forge during part of 1949, through March 1951. It ended its Navy career as a gate guardian at the old NAS Atlanta, Georgia, before Forrest acquired the plane. Its subsequent meticulous restoration to flying status included repainting the plane in the markings it wore in 1956, plus civil registration number N-23827.

In January 1966, the long-neglected AD-4later acquired in Atlanta, Georgia, by Dave Forrest was missing cowl panels, windscreen, canopy Plexiglas and much dignity.

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Before and after views of Dave Forrest's AD-4, derelict on the ground in Atlanta, and back in the air in vintage glossy blue with an orange Naval Reserve fuselage band. Plane's BuAer number is 123827. (Dave Forrest collection)

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The boom in civil Skyraiders has exacted a toll on the warbird community. Jack Spanich and Florida warbird operator Harry Doan each died in Skyraider accidents. France's burgeoning warbird movement embraced about seven surplus ex-French AD-4s in the 1980s so that it is now possible to see Able Dogs flying on two continents. The U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, displays the A-1 E in which Bernie Fisher earned his Medal of Honor for his harrowing A Shau Valley rescue during the war in Southeast Asia. It is refreshing that the Air Force had foresight to save Fisher's actual aircraft because of its significance; all too often, museums paint nondescript examples of aircraft to masquerade as significant combat aircraft that were scrapped. The list of Skyraiders in preservation and in private ownership fluctuates like the commodities market. Some of the more stable Skyraiders on display, and likely to remain so, include: Bradley Air Museum, Windsor Locks, Connecticut: AD4N BuAer No. 125739. Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton, UK: AD-4W AEW.1, BuAer No. 124121, and AD-4W, BuAer No. 124086.

Musee de L'Air, Paris, France: AD-4NA, BuAer No. 126979. Pima Air Museum, Tucson, Arizona: EA-1 F, BuAer NO.135018. United States Marine Corps Museum, Quantico, Virginia: AD-4B BuAer No. 132261 (may be at nearby Camp Barrett). United States Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida: EA-1 F, BuAer No. 132532, and A-1 H, BuAer No. 135300. United States Navy, Naval Air Station Lemoore, California: A-1 H. United States Air Force, Hurlburt Field, Florida: A-1 G, BuAer No. 132598. United States Air Force Museum, Dayton, Ohio: A-1 E, BuAer No. 132649. United States Air Force, McClellan Air Force Base, California: A-1 E, BuAer No. 132463. Royal Thai Air Force Museum, Bangkok, Thailand: A-1 H, BuAer No. 134472. Additionally, flying examples will continue to create excitement at air shows around the United States and in Europe, while others go on display in museums.

MCDONNELL

-Two of Dave Tallichet's ex-SEA Skyraiders, an A-1 H and a multi-place A-1 E, in storage adjacent to the Douglas plant at Long Beach, California in July 1982. (Photo by Frederick A. Johnsen.)

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With amazing fidelity to markings details, Jack Spanich recreated VA-176's MiG-killing A-1H using this ex-French AD-4NA he purchased abroad. Telltale marks of an AD-4NA - fuselage door and dorsal air scoop - belie the markings in this photo taken at the 1978 Experimental Aircraft Association Fly-In Convention at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. (Photo by Frederick A. Johnsen.)

A variety of high-speed bombs decorates "Anita Michelle", a slngle-seat A-1 of the 56th Special Operations Wing. (Merrlt/Holmberg/Morgan ...........). collections)

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