Dancing On The Flight Deck
Dave Ashworth USN, A-7A, 1968-1969
{ Date Of Hire By Western Airlines: 3/8/1976 }
This is a second story by Dave Ashworth and it gives a wonderful insight into night carrier operations and missions flown over Laos in the pitch dark, while the A-7s were looking for targets in the weather and often ended up jettisoning their ordnance over the water on the way back to the ship. The emotion Dave expresses about the recurring theme of sortie count and the wasted loss of life on these missions will get your attention.
This is history at its best, the oral history written by a pilot who flew these missions and tells what he thinks in the unvarnished truth. This is not the kind of history you will find written by an historian but rather something written by someone who was there, a participant and an eye witness for want of a better term. There are three short three word statements that seem to cover Dave’s thoughts and they say it all: “What a waste,” “This really sucks,” and “This is bullshit.”
Get ready for another great story by Dave Ashworth—and while you’re at it, check out his first story, Volume 2, Chapter 19, “Running on Empty”.
Here’s Dave’s story.
On Mar 31, 1968, President Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection and, at the same time, called a halt to the bombing of all targets in Vietnam north of the 20th parallel. Weary of the prolonged war and the staggering loss of life on both sides of the conflict, he urged Hanoi to begin peace talks. “We are prepared to move immediately toward peace through negotiations,” he declared.
The bombing continued, but by the time my squadron, VA-147, arrived on station in the South China Sea in October 1968, targets in all of North Vietnam were off limits and we were restricted to missions in Laos, South Vietnam and, later, Cambodia. We spent most of our days and nights attacking known enemy troop concentrations, truck parks, supply storage facilities, mobile AAA sites, and the Ho Chi Minh Trail infrastructure (roads and bridges) in Laos. Once in a while we’d get the most satisfying missions of all: close air support for friendlies in contact with the enemy in South Vietnam.
At any given time, there could be as many as 10,000 trucks rolling down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam into Laos. With the bombing restrictions in place, large truck convoys could make it to the border with impunity and would pour over the Mu Gia and Ban Karai passes into Laos, usually at night, unchecked. Once they were in Laos they were fair game, but were hard to find and hit. Nearly 200 sorties per day were flown by Navy, Marine, and Air Force fighter/bombers in an attempt to halt, or at least slow, the flow of war material to the enemy in South Vietnam.
Our squadron of A-7As dropped 500 pound Mk 82 GP (general purpose) bombs, Mk 20 Rockeye cluster bombs, CBUs (cluster bomb units), and napalm on targets mostly designated by gutsy low and slow flying FAC (Forward Air Controller) pilots. Our deliveries were strictly visual in the daytime against targets marked by white phosphorous rockets fired by the FACs. At night we would hit targets designated with reference to burning “logs” dropped by the FACs or illuminated by flares that we would drop ourselves. Occasionally we would hit AAA sites that were spotted by the FACs or that gave away their positions by firing at us. BDA, or bomb damage assessment, given by the FACs was estimated, sometimes a guess, and usually greatly exaggerated as these missions were often pretty unproductive.
By December, the weather got pretty bad as monsoons brought monster thunderstorms and heavy rain to Southeast Asia. We would launch from our carrier, USS Ranger, in miserable weather at night and often would be unable to hit any targets because FACs were not available. The FACs were incredibly brave but not stupid, and they knew when not to fly. It seemed that we didn’t. If we were lucky we might be able to get a combat “sky spot” where an airborne command ship with very sophisticated radars and systems would vector us to a drop point where we would dump our ordnance on known or suspected enemy camps or truck parks. We never got BDA reports but we heard that these area bombardments scared the crap out of the bad guys on the ground, who thought they might be safe for the night. All too often we would end up aborting our night missions and jettison our bombs in the water off the coast of Da Nang. What a waste. And we still had to get back to the ship where the “fun” really began- landing on the pitching deck of the carrier, at night, in the rain. Some fun!
On one particularly ugly night, I was scheduled for the first launch of our midnight-to-noon operating schedule. The flight deck was incredibly dark, and we would trip over tie down chains and chocks as we preflighted our jets and ordnance load with dim red lensed flashlights. Low clouds made visibility almost nil—you could not see the end of the flight deck or the top of the ship’s mast. This was not going to be fun. Moments later, like a loud voice from “above”, the Air Boss came over the 1MC (flight deck loud speaker) with “Attention on the flight deck. The 0100 launch is cancelled. I repeat, the 0100 launch is cancelled”. Pilots cheered, pumped fists in the air, high-fived their plane captains, kicked up their heels. Air Boss: “there will be NO dancing on the flight deck”. The troops went wild. Maybe the crusty old Air Boss, a pilot himself, did have a sense of humor after all.
The ready room was packed when we walked in. We feigned disappointment in not getting airborne, but nobody was buying our act. They could see how relieved we were. Unfortunately, that relief would not last for long. Our state of euphoria would be short lived.
As the lousy weather persisted, Ranger was falling behind in the sortie count and ordnance expenditure tally, a dubious measure of success in the air war in Vietnam during the bombing halt of the North. (It was the equivalent to McNamara’s “body count”, or number of enemy soldiers killed, used as a gauge of progress in the ground war in South Vietnam.) When no others could bomb visually, Ranger would launch a few VA-165 A-6As, the all-weather medium attack bombers, who could use their systems to detect and attack moving targets in any kind of weather. I think they actually enjoyed it. They didn’t talk about where they went or what they did. I don’t think we really wanted to know.
Then some clown came up with a really bright idea: launch the A-7s with the A-6s, have them rendezvous on top of the clouds, proceed to Laos, descend into the “clag” (shitty weather, clouds, rain, fog), dodge the thunderstorms, and search for “movers” on the Trail. The A-7s, flying totally blind on the wing of the Intruders, would drop when they did. Buddy bombing. Sounds like fun, right? It wasn’t.
My wingman and I would be flying with LCDR Gordon Nakagawa, a professional, no nonsense Japanese American, UC Berkeley NROTC graduate, and his BN (Bombardier Navigator). The mission brief was straight forward, but its logic was questionable. “This is bullshit”, I said to myself, but thought it best to “shut up and fly wing” as I had been taught. After all, I was a nugget (new guy) Lieutenant (junior grade), in my second month on the cruise, and Gordy was on his second combat deployment and had flown numerous hairy missions up North. Who was I to say this was bullshit?
Our lead A-6A turned off his red rotating beacon signaling our descent into the weather. It was incredibly dark and I was flying within feet of Gordy’s right wingtip green navigation light, all that I could see. My wingman was on the other side, hanging on as well. We trolled along the Ho Chi Minh Trail at 3500’ AGL, 300 KIAS. Low and slow, straight and level! This is asking for trouble, I thought, but isn’t that the idea? If we got shot at, and survived, the Intruder would mark the AAA position for future strikes or we could nail it ourselves. The BN worked his scope, searching for moving trucks on his AMTI (Airborne Moving Target Indicator) which could detect movement of vehicles doing at least 3 mph. It was tiring and disorienting staring at a single wingtip light, and only occasionally would I see the hulking Intruder just feet away when a flash of lighting lit up the sky. Now and then the wingtip light would fade as I unconsciously drifted away. Then it disappeared entirely. I had to make a quick decision: break out of formation or ease back toward Gordy hoping to see him before I hit him. I chose the latter option, and luckily, picked up the green light, my only visual reference to his whereabouts. “This really sucks”, I grumbled to myself for the umpteenth time. After about an hour or so of being tossed around trolling the trail and finding no “movers” or gun sites, we gave up. Apparently, the gomers were taking the night off, and were hunkered down under cover, hoping for a night free of harassment. Smarter than we gave them credit for. They surely didn’t think the Yankee Air Pirates would be dumb enough to fly in this crappy weather. They were wrong.
Unable to get a “sky spot”, we dumped our ordnance in the drink and headed back to the ship. Familiar story there: a less than perfect approach to a “controlled crash” on Ranger. It was nice to be back on board. I really didn’t want to go around on such a shitty night. If I felt like dancing on the flight deck I sure as hell would have, but my knees were still shaking from that ugly pass and trap.
Our first stop was the ready room to shed our stinky flight gear and suffer through the LSO’s (Landing Signal Officer) critique of our “no grade” (i.e. lousy) landings. Next stop was IOIC (intelligence spaces) for the obligatory debrief of the mission with some junior air intelligence weenie. My debrief was short, straightforward and to the point: “This is bullshit”. The night buddy bombing with the A-6’s was terminated shortly thereafter.
On Dec 21, 1972, CDR Gordon Nakagawa was shot down, captured by the enemy, and became a prisoner of war. When I heard that news I was sickened to think that this good man, my friend and former shipmate, might have been bagged on some dumb-ass mission like the one we flew over Laos a few years earlier. It turned out that Gordy was on his 4th WestPac (Western Pacific, i.e. Vietnam) deployment flying A-6s and was hit by ground fire on a low level, single ship night strike on Haiphong, his 185th combat mission! His shoot down occurred during the December 1972 “Christmas bombing” of North Vietnam when many U.S. planes, including 15 B-52s, and brave airmen were lost. What a waste.
Gordy was released from the Hoa Lo POW compound, better known as the “Hanoi Hilton”, on Mar 29, 1973. He returned to flight status and made yet another carrier deployment to Vietnam. He spent more than 30 years in the Navy and retired as a Captain in 1989 after his long and colorful career. It is interesting to note that Gordy’s imprisonment in Hanoi was not his first time to be incarcerated as a prisoner of war.
At age 6, Gordy and his family were forcibly imprisoned at the Tule Lake, California internment camp soon after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It’s ironic that Gordon Nakagawa, a Japanese American, would be imprisoned for his ethnicity by a country that he would later serve so faithfully as a career naval officer and distinguished, highly decorated naval aviator.
About the same time that CDR Nakagawa was released from Hanoi, I was released from active duty and transitioned to the Navy Reserve. I continued to fly the A-7 for a number of years, had command of a squadron, and eventually landed my dream job as a pilot for Western Airlines.
It was an honor and privilege to know and fly with an incredible group of individuals, including the very special group of veterans, like Gordy Nakagawa, who had served their country with valor and distinction in Vietnam.