Testimony of Pilot -Series
Christmas ’72 Stories: (Final) Gifts, a Tree, and a Turkey with all the Trimmings
As the story has been told – as I noted previously- the end of the war in Vietnam is considered the result of the Christmas bombing operations of Linebacker II, and so the convention of telling this story. I’ll end the “Christmas Stories” series discussing what I choose to refer to as the gifts of Christmas 1972 – memories beyond price. […]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (8) “A-rab Beeper, come up voice.”
Professional history of war mostly addresses major battles, the dates, the generals, the admirals, tactics and technology, and then analysis of results, all for obvious reasons. But significant detail is invariably lost particularly when one event leads to a most significant occurrence -the end to the conflict. Almost without exception, this thread – the ending of Linebacker II with the agreement by the North Vietnamese to return to the negotiations in Paris on 2 January 1973, leading to President Nixon’s announcement on the 23rd and formal end of the Vietnam war on 27 January, and finally the return of our POWs – constitutes the concluding remarks of the [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (7) A Gentlemen’s Gentleman
Linebacker II was halted on 29 December 1972. The North Vietnamese agreed to come back to the negotiations in Paris. Having enjoyed Christmas, Midway left Singapore and celebrated New Years Eve at sea on the way back to the Gulf of Tonkin to continue combat missions into both North and South Vietnam. Missions were restricted above the 20th Parallel - no flights into Route Pac 6, the Red River Valley, Hanoi or Haiphong. Still it was wartime footing and operations off of a carrier are always problematic. Within days of recommencing we were to learn that lesson twice more. On [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (6) “We had been there too long!”
As I write this post, it is fast approaching 0659 30 December 2012 in Hanoi – 40 years exactly from the end to Linebacker II. President Nixon’s decision – the Linebacker II campaign – in the face of world wide denunciation and in opposition to many in his own cabinet has left NVN militarily “Winchester” – without the SAMs. Indeed Snako noted in Not on My Watch that in his memoirs published in 2007, General Giap, the highly respected leader of the NVA and victor at Dien Bien Phu, included the following quote: “What we still don’t understand is why you Americans stopped [...]
Schoolboy: Essence of Winning and Losing (6/6)
Just a little bit of repeat by way of summary to make sure a point or two gets highlighted: Twilight Launch by Jim Horsely, VA-115 pilot On the “day after” – morning of 25 October – USS Midway launched strikes into North Vietnam. For a warship, survival on your “own terms” means carrying out your mission, in this case sending combat sorties over the North. […]
Schoolboy – stories from the night of 24 October 1972 (2-5/6)
The stories of the A-6 accident on 24 October 1972 were originally posted on the Project White Horse FORUM beginning with Naval Aviation 100 Years – Part 1: A Bad Night for Schoolboy – A Self-designing, High Reliability Organization. These stories are being transfered to Remembered Sky with certain modifications. The specific High Reliability Organization link has been separated from the stories and presented independently as a Remembered Sky tabbed page above -The Carrier – in three parts. Here then are the stories from that night: […]
Not On My Watch
by Dave ‘Snako’ Kelly Prologue This is a memoir of my personal experiences in Naval (carrier) Aviation and my short but intense involvement in the Air War over Vietnam. Admittedly my perspective is somewhat limited. My tours were at the end of the war with North Vietnam, and I was near the bottom of the Navy’s chain-of-command. I was, however, at the ‘pointy end of the spear’ as part of a medium attack squadron during two deployments of the aircraft carrier, USS MIDWAY from 1971 to 1973. (The second cruise) When the war abruptly heated up in early ’72, we [...]
Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines: Heroes & Relics
Believe that some good thing is possible, find the principle that makes it so, put the principle into practice, there you have it - Freedom Richard Bach As related in the previous two posts, Remembered Sky certainly flows from my own personal experiences with aviation, but its future depends heavily upon the people either in or related to those stories to expand the storyline on the basis and through their own perception, and then on relating their further adventures. In a sense the site is a series of branches and sequels, but it requires firm grounding in the history [...]
Remembered Sky: Gift of Wings
Throughout our lives we receive multiple gifts, many simply because we are loved. Whether private, commercial or military, aviators are given the gift of wings only if they earn the right and persist in a pursuit of perfecting the gift. My intent after posting several articles was to explain my vision for Remembered Sky. As in Ghosts of Christmas Past, it seemed a wiser choice to defer to those who’ve already said the words. And so, airplanes, adventure, mission, country and people. The Airplane: A Gift of Wings by Richard Bach And like no other sculpture in the history of art, the [...]
James Tiberius Kirk, Where Are You?
Ask any pilot, why or how they got into flying and you’ll find multiple answers, many will overlap but some will be unique, but all will be a personal thing long remembered. […]
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Testimony of Pilot -Series
Christmas ’72 Stories: (Final) Gifts, a Tree, and a Turkey with all the Trimmings
As the story has been told – as I noted previously- the end of the war in Vietnam is considered the result of the Christmas bombing operations of Linebacker II, and so the convention of telling this story. I’ll end the “Christmas Stories” series discussing what I choose to refer to as the gifts of Christmas 1972 – memories beyond price. […]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (8) “A-rab Beeper, come up voice.”
Professional history of war mostly addresses major battles, the dates, the generals, the admirals, tactics and technology, and then analysis of results, all for obvious reasons. But significant detail is invariably lost particularly when one event leads to a most significant occurrence -the end to the conflict. Almost without exception, this thread – the ending of Linebacker II with the agreement by the North Vietnamese to return to the negotiations in Paris on 2 January 1973, leading to President Nixon’s announcement on the 23rd and formal end of the Vietnam war on 27 January, and finally the return of our POWs – constitutes the concluding remarks of the [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (7) A Gentlemen’s Gentleman
Linebacker II was halted on 29 December 1972. The North Vietnamese agreed to come back to the negotiations in Paris. Having enjoyed Christmas, Midway left Singapore and celebrated New Years Eve at sea on the way back to the Gulf of Tonkin to continue combat missions into both North and South Vietnam. Missions were restricted above the 20th Parallel - no flights into Route Pac 6, the Red River Valley, Hanoi or Haiphong. Still it was wartime footing and operations off of a carrier are always problematic. Within days of recommencing we were to learn that lesson twice more. On [...]
Christmas ’72 Stories: (6) “We had been there too long!”
As I write this post, it is fast approaching 0659 30 December 2012 in Hanoi – 40 years exactly from the end to Linebacker II. President Nixon’s decision – the Linebacker II campaign – in the face of world wide denunciation and in opposition to many in his own cabinet has left NVN militarily “Winchester” – without the SAMs. Indeed Snako noted in Not on My Watch that in his memoirs published in 2007, General Giap, the highly respected leader of the NVA and victor at Dien Bien Phu, included the following quote: “What we still don’t understand is why you Americans stopped [...]
Schoolboy: Essence of Winning and Losing (6/6)
Just a little bit of repeat by way of summary to make sure a point or two gets highlighted: Twilight Launch by Jim Horsely, VA-115 pilot On the “day after” – morning of 25 October – USS Midway launched strikes into North Vietnam. For a warship, survival on your “own terms” means carrying out your mission, in this case sending combat sorties over the North. […]
Schoolboy – stories from the night of 24 October 1972 (2-5/6)
The stories of the A-6 accident on 24 October 1972 were originally posted on the Project White Horse FORUM beginning with Naval Aviation 100 Years – Part 1: A Bad Night for Schoolboy – A Self-designing, High Reliability Organization. These stories are being transfered to Remembered Sky with certain modifications. The specific High Reliability Organization link has been separated from the stories and presented independently as a Remembered Sky tabbed page above -The Carrier – in three parts. Here then are the stories from that night: […]
Not On My Watch
by Dave ‘Snako’ Kelly Prologue This is a memoir of my personal experiences in Naval (carrier) Aviation and my short but intense involvement in the Air War over Vietnam. Admittedly my perspective is somewhat limited. My tours were at the end of the war with North Vietnam, and I was near the bottom of the Navy’s chain-of-command. I was, however, at the ‘pointy end of the spear’ as part of a medium attack squadron during two deployments of the aircraft carrier, USS MIDWAY from 1971 to 1973. (The second cruise) When the war abruptly heated up in early ’72, we [...]
Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines: Heroes & Relics
Believe that some good thing is possible, find the principle that makes it so, put the principle into practice, there you have it - Freedom Richard Bach As related in the previous two posts, Remembered Sky certainly flows from my own personal experiences with aviation, but its future depends heavily upon the people either in or related to those stories to expand the storyline on the basis and through their own perception, and then on relating their further adventures. In a sense the site is a series of branches and sequels, but it requires firm grounding in the history [...]
Remembered Sky: Gift of Wings
Throughout our lives we receive multiple gifts, many simply because we are loved. Whether private, commercial or military, aviators are given the gift of wings only if they earn the right and persist in a pursuit of perfecting the gift. My intent after posting several articles was to explain my vision for Remembered Sky. As in Ghosts of Christmas Past, it seemed a wiser choice to defer to those who’ve already said the words. And so, airplanes, adventure, mission, country and people. The Airplane: A Gift of Wings by Richard Bach And like no other sculpture in the history of art, the [...]
James Tiberius Kirk, Where Are You?
Ask any pilot, why or how they got into flying and you’ll find multiple answers, many will overlap but some will be unique, but all will be a personal thing long remembered. […]