Testimony of Pilot – RS previously published
Operation Homecoming Part 5: Always Leading and Always Will
by Orson Swindle (USMC, Ret) Prisoner of War in North Viet Nam (Orson Swindle was shot down on November 11, 1966, released on March 4, 1973) Reproduced with permission of USNI and the author … for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while Senior Naval Officer in the Prisoner of War camps of North Vietnam on 4 September 1969. Recognized by his captors as the leader in the Prisoners’ of War resistance to interrogation and in their refusal to participate in propaganda exploitation, Rear Admiral Stockdale was singled out [...]
Operation Homecoming Part 4: The Bracelets
(Note: This piece was originally published on the Project White Horse Forum for Veterans Day 2010.) In high school, Joleta McNelis was never far away from a man she had never met. She carried Lt. John “Jack” Ensch in her heart — and on her wrist. Aside from his name, the only thing McNelis knew about Ensch was the date his fighter jet was shot down over North Vietnam: 8-25-72. It was etched under his name on the metal bracelet she bought when she was 14. Three months earlier, on the day Jack Ensch and Mugs McKeown became double “MIG killers” – the [...]
Gifts & Reflection – No Better Title: “These Good Men”
by John 'Shylock' Koch I still cherish the time I spent with the air wing. As I look back on it we were warriors and comrades all rolled up together. When one of us called for help, we all came, and we owe our lives to each other. If I got a call from any one of you, even now, that we had a strike to hell, I know Snake and I would be there with our 28 Mk 82’s strapped to our ass ready to deliver the payload, for we are Naval Aviators ! Warrior yes, Warlike no. Scratch [...]
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 [...]
Blogroll
Testimony of Pilot – RS previously published
Operation Homecoming Part 5: Always Leading and Always Will
by Orson Swindle (USMC, Ret) Prisoner of War in North Viet Nam (Orson Swindle was shot down on November 11, 1966, released on March 4, 1973) Reproduced with permission of USNI and the author … for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while Senior Naval Officer in the Prisoner of War camps of North Vietnam on 4 September 1969. Recognized by his captors as the leader in the Prisoners’ of War resistance to interrogation and in their refusal to participate in propaganda exploitation, Rear Admiral Stockdale was singled out [...]
Operation Homecoming Part 4: The Bracelets
(Note: This piece was originally published on the Project White Horse Forum for Veterans Day 2010.) In high school, Joleta McNelis was never far away from a man she had never met. She carried Lt. John “Jack” Ensch in her heart — and on her wrist. Aside from his name, the only thing McNelis knew about Ensch was the date his fighter jet was shot down over North Vietnam: 8-25-72. It was etched under his name on the metal bracelet she bought when she was 14. Three months earlier, on the day Jack Ensch and Mugs McKeown became double “MIG killers” – the [...]
Gifts & Reflection – No Better Title: “These Good Men”
by John 'Shylock' Koch I still cherish the time I spent with the air wing. As I look back on it we were warriors and comrades all rolled up together. When one of us called for help, we all came, and we owe our lives to each other. If I got a call from any one of you, even now, that we had a strike to hell, I know Snake and I would be there with our 28 Mk 82’s strapped to our ass ready to deliver the payload, for we are Naval Aviators ! Warrior yes, Warlike no. Scratch [...]
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 [...]