Not On My Watch

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Ed

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 were hustled back to the Tonkin Gulf a month ahead of schedule. And that was the start of an 11-month odyssey, where we were extended and extended and… extended returning home in March of 1973, after we had brought the war in the North to an end.

This second cruise was the ‘real thing’. We took the fight back to the North Vietnamese for the first time in four years. Eventually our tactical air power was given the opportunity to end the war. The general lack of knowledge in our country of this period of history is what motivated me to write this memoir. Continue reading →

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The “War and Remembrance” Thread

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Ed

This is a quick follow on description of plans for the “war and remembrance” thread that began with  Air War Vietnam: Remembrance at 40 Years – All Days Come From One Day and continued with Dangerous Sky – Combat Rescue: Part #1 – Sandy Superb, and Dangerous Sky – Combat Rescue:  Part # 2 – Wolf FAC. It’s main purpose is as a lead-in and an intro to upcoming excerpts from Dave Snako Kelly’s book, Not On My Watch.

As  Midway departed earlier than expected in April ’72, Dave would begin his second war cruise, eventually accumulating over 200 combat missions in the A-6 Intruder. While all fighter and attack aircraft flew multiple types of strike/bombing missions – both large strikes called “Alpha Strikes” and small armed reconnaissance missions in two plane sections – the Intruders flew without question the toughest, most dangerous missions of the war – night low level single plane strikes deep into North Vietnam. Later in my career, I accumulated over 600 hours in the A-6.  It’s a great airplane, fun to fly, especially low and fast down some river gorge, but I didn’t want their mission then and I wouldn’t want it now. Snako’s stories of the VA-115 A-rabs are great reads … coming now. Continue reading →

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Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines: Heroes & Relics

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Ed

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 of all the men, machines, organizations, and action that made the adventures possible. To that end, I have begun a Blogroll of other aviation sites and links to tales of various magnificent men/women and their certainly magnificent airships. Expect updates periodically and recommendations most welcome.

In addition, Tabs have been added for more robust items – series, videos, photographs. I never tire of watching the Dreamers video, and so I confess, some of this is as much for my own pleasure as for the reader. Paradise is a personal thing, you know.  Enjoy.

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Story Telling

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Ed

Richard Bach -“Paradise is a personal thing.”

Once taken on, flying runs deeply and permanently in one’s blood, and I find that since I can’t “do” anymore, I need to remember and to “tell” and have some fun doing it. I’ve been working on this notion since before opening the Project White Horse website and  thinking about the possibility of a book. Also as you know I have occasionally posted pieces on the FORUM, particularly in light of Memorial Day, Veterans Day, 4th of July, and then throughout 2011 – Naval Aviation’s 100 year anniversary. There were also posts  in regard to the work done at the University of California, Berkeley on High Reliability Organizations (HRO) that investigated day-day operations on an aircraft carrier as the most noteworthy HRO example.  The 24 Oct Midway accident stories were part of this PWH effort.

While Project White Horse 084640 continues, I find I can no longer resist delving into my own remembered sky events and the people who have so influenced my life and indeed, make up such a huge portion of those I consider true friends.  As the site will explain, some of those friends I’ve never met, others I know only through their writing about their personal skies and adventures.

As I noted in the e-mail announcement, the final part of the previous post Remember Sky: Gift of Wings- the “People” quote by Michael Norman is a central thread for the story telling planned on the site.

Comrades gather because they long to be with the men who once acted their best, men who suffered and sacrificed, who were stripped raw, right down to their humanity.

Continue reading →

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Remembered Sky: Gift of Wings

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Ed

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 dead engine and dead airframe come to life at the touch of a human hand, and join their life with the pilot’s own.

*******

Continue reading →

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Dangerous Sky – Combat Rescue: Part # 2 – Wolf FAC

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Ed

Introductory note: Before  we tell Hippo’s story and complete the telling of the rescue of a downed Air Force Wild Weasel crew well inside North Vietnam in November 1972, I think it necessary to provide a short comment on how I anticipate Remembered Sky to playout over time. The next post will provide more on the framework and goals and types of things the reader can expect, but for now let me just say that the intent is not to be a vehicle for me to tell my own stories, nor is it to be just a re-telling or link to stories long known and available. While Remembered Sky will certainly provide both, what is really desired is to lay out the tapestry (only word I can think of) that comes from the people, missions, adventures, emotions, thought, insight, and just listening and associating with all the stories  that evolve day in day out from flying. Bob’s writing sets a great target for future stories.

Richard Bach in A Gift of Wings noted that if you love to fly, if you hang around airports and visit hangars, if you visit the sky, you’re bound to find real friends. Hippo and I have never met, but he’s for sure a great friend.

So here’s an intro to Bob Hipps, and then the Wolf FAC story: Continue reading →

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Dangerous Sky – Combat Rescue: Part #1 – Sandy Superb

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Ed

Few missions are more dangerous than rescue of a downed aircrew behind enemy lines.  Needless to say, a slow moving helicopter is an easy target. The aircrew location must be exact, few search planes escaped damage,  suppressing enemy fire critical.  Losses could escalate immediately, yet no matter the threat, no effort is left undone, if there’s even the slightest change of getting one of our own out before they can be captured. Many of the most heroic events of the Vietnam war were rescue missions. These were the Sandy missions and in 1972 included the Air Force A-7D Corsair II and the HH-53 Jollie Green Giant helicopters. (Carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin often hosted Jollie Green Detachments onboard.  Needless to say, these balls of steel AF dudes always found a welcome and invite down to the bunkrooms for some hiden/forbidden young Scotch.)

The story (in two parts) of one of those aircrew rescues deep inside North Vietnam is Remembered Sky’s next offering in the War and Remembrance thread. The whole comes from Major Bob Hipps (USAF Ret). It’s in two parts because the first part is about the A-7D Sandy mission. The second part relates the equally dangerous F-4 Phantom Fast FAC mission without which the rescue could not have been accomplished.

More about Hippo (like me a Nashville boy/mutual friends, etc) in the second part, but note this story and the send to Remembered Sky is case perfect of what I want this site to be about –  people, organizations, airplanes, missions, all  in a tapestry of flying. Continue reading →

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James Tiberius Kirk, Where Are You?

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Ed

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. Continue reading →

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Air War Vietnam: Remembrance at 40 Years – All Days Come From One Day

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Ed
Note: This article was originally posted April 10, 2012 on the Project White Horse Blog

On April 10, 1972, Midway steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, bound on a 7800 mile voyage to the Vietnam War Zone.  This in itself was not uncommon.  What made this cruise different from proceeding ones in the ship’s history was the fact that Midway was deploying over seven weeks in advance of the scheduled departure date with less than one week’s notice, with a vastly abbreviated training period, and with the additional handicap of a short, three day load out.

 Shouldering these burdens, on April 29, exactly 19 days after departure, the aircraft of Carrier Air Wing Five were winging their way off USS Midway and towards the Republic of Vietnam.  Their mission, as part of the ship’s overall mission, was of two basic parts: one, they were to provide aerial support for the South Vietnamese forces in their efforts to turn back the tide of the Communist invasion from the north, and two, they were to protect the remaining Americans present in Vietnam as the withdrawal of United States ground forces continued.

From: Opening pages, USS MIDWAY 1972-73 Cruise Book

All days come from one day, as the writer, the poet, the singer  says, so without attempting to channel Ernest Hemingway, this reflects basic remembrance of the day I and a lot of young men went off to war.  For me, it meant I would spend the 11thof April at sea – my one month wedding anniversary.  I left a beautiful young woman crying on the pier.  She drove from Alameda to the Golden Gate Bridge to watch MIDWAY change her life in ways completely unexpected a month earlier in the chapel at Point Mugu.  We weren’t following closely the day-day of the war nor privy to the back channel information of impending crisis in the war in Vietnam. Things had been rather quite there since the bombing halt up North in 1968 called by President Johnson after the Tet Offensive.  Continue reading →

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Sticks & Wires & Cloth

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Ed

“An airplane is just a bunch of sticks and wires and cloth, a tool for learning about the sky and about what kind of person I am, when I fly.  An airplane stands for freedom, for joy, for the power to understand, and to demonstrate that understanding.  Those things aren’t destructible.”

Nothing by Chance, Richard Bach

 

Nanna by Kristin Hill

That quote also serves as the first words in Sticks & Wires & Cloth by Anne Hopkins.  Then in the closing chapter  she begins:

“Someday I will discover that climbing into Nana’s cockpit takes too great a toll on my body, or I will make a mistake. I will miss seeing traffic that I should have seen, land badly without understanding why, make a dangerous pilotage error, or perhaps do something even worse.  Then the little voice within will whisper, “You’ve had a good run, quit now.”… Knowing this, I avoid spending leisure time on anything I will be able to enjoy later as the mind fades or the need arises for cane or wheelchair.”

As noted in Remembered Sky’s opening post, reading Anne’s book was the catalyst in finally moving ahead with this blog. I had a good run in flying, now its time to put some stories together. It’s her fault I’ve started Remembered Sky, so let’s talk about her book and the connected story abit. Continue reading →

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