first possible sighting of the deck (not
normal for recovery).
“I sighted the deck and pilot Brian
transitioned to the landing mirror
[deck landing aid]. We were rather
high and, rather than wave-off, Brian
dived for the deck – a no-no for
carrier approaches. The good news
was that we snagged a wire and came
to a normal stop.
The bad news was that I was not
repositioned for the 6-plus ‘g’ landing,
head slammed down to my chest, and
most likely injured a disc in my neck.”CROSS-DECKING
Cdr Jerry Zacharias, the commanding
officer of VA-72 ‘The Sunday
Punchers’ from December 1967 to
June 1968, described one mission
which involved ‘Going Downtown’
as a strike on Hanoi, the North
Vietnamese capital, was known.
“As soon as [USS] Enterprise arrived,
Kitty Hawk departed for some well-
deserved rest and recreation,” he said.
“As we approached the Philippines,
and everyone was preparing for
liberty ashore, a message came in
from Commander Task Force 77
that ordered a strike against the port
facilities, right in downtown Hanoi.
“The message ordered a joint strike
from Enterprise. So, we launched two
aircraft and landed aboard [the carrier]
thatafternoon. We did mission planning
for the strike with the aircrews from
the A-6 squadron on Enterprise,
VA-35. We manned airplanes at 01:30
hours and launched at 02:00.
“Unfortunately, the Enterprise A-6
squadron ground crew aligned my
A-6’s inertial system in the Polar
Mode. You only use that above 65°
degrees north or south latitude. We
happened to be at 19° degrees north.
“As we rolled down the catapult
track, my primary attitude reference,
the Visual Display Indicator (VDI),
turned upside down and I climbed
out on the
smaller
standbygyro. I called the Enterprise and
told them that my inertial platform
tumbled on the catapult shot.
“As planned, I continued climbing
overhead Enterprise to 10,000ft to
join the rest of the flight topping off
their fuel from an A-3 tanker for the
long transit to Hanoi. Because of my
system problems, I was the last in
line to tank. Approaching the tanker
to plug in, the tanker had electrical
failure and was unable to transfer fuel.VIETNAM WAR GRUMMAN INTRUDER
“At 100ft, even though it was pitch black
outside, I could see objects whizzing by my
left windscreen and I thought to myself
those must be farmhouses”afternoon. We did mission planning
for the strike with the aircrews fromAbove
Intruders of VA-145
alongside a Vigilante.
STAN DAVISFar right
Lt Pete Young of VA-195
aboard USS ‘Ranger’
checks his bomb load
prior to a mission in
the spring of 1970. PETE
YOUNGRight centre
Pete Young during
training on A-6As with
VA-128 at NAS Whidbey
Island in 1968. PETE
YOUNG28 FLYPAST May 2018