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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-06167 to 363-06172.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-06167 to 363-06172
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Title
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Article about USS Ranger's aerial bombing campaign
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Description
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Original title: "fleet", Keever's title: "USS Ranger Pilot Bombing North Vietnam: 'If You Worry About Death, You Go Bats, So Not Many of Us Think About It", Article about USS Ranger's aerial bombing campaign, from interviews with the pilots and admirals on the ship, for the New York Herald Tribune
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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deepe fleet-1 april 14, 1965 ABOARD USS RANGER, SEVENTH FLEET, SOUTH CHINA SEA--“It’s the greatest show on earth,” meditated Rear Admiral [insertion: Henry] Miller aboard this [insertion: self-contained] 4000-man [deletion: flat] floating airbase. “It’s fantastic. It looks impossible, but we do it 365 days and nights a year.” Even the commander of the Ranger’s sister [deletion: ship,] aircraft carrier, [deletion: the] USS Coral Sea, Rear Admiral Edward Outlaw was impressed. “People spend millions to watch baseball and football games,” Outlaw explained, fingering his own green baseball cap. “But this is the most professional game in the world--right on an aircraft carrier. [deletion: It] I’ve been getting a kick out of it for thirty years.” (More) deepe fleet--2 april 14, 1965 The U.S. Navy planes from the admirals’ two aircraft carriers have since February carried the full load of responsibility for the American sea portion of the airstrikes against North Viet Nam. (Note to Editor: I’ll cable you Friday, when the piece has arrived in New York, the [insertion: latest] official statistics on the number of targets hit by the U.S. Navy planes, number of planes lost, pilots lost etc. This is [deletion: still] being compiled now.) The two admirals perched in the spot-less air-conditioned bridge--which the swabbies called “vulture’s row”--and joked with each other. Both lean and younger looking than their early 50’s, they had been [deletion: navy] buddies since their naval pilot days in the Pacific in World War II. (“I kept calling ‘BLACK PANTER, where are you’,” Admiral Miller joked, “But Outlaw was never around when I needed him.”) Both wore brown leather battle jackets and green baseball caps. [deletion: Admiral Miller’s] Embroidered in gold on the back of Admiral Miller’s was his favorite expression, “Jehovah!” (More) deepe fleet--3 While the admirals joked, their eyes were glued on the “fantastic game” being played below the “vulture’s row.” With precise, coordinated [XXXX indicating deletion] actions, five “football teams” of enlisted men performed their roles. There were the red-shirts--bevies of enlisted men wearing red sweatshirts and red stocking caps (to prevent their hair being caught in the intricate machinery)--whose one function was to load the ordinance, bombs (which they carted through the messhalls many decks below) and the fuel. (“They look like kids, but they are really professional,” Admiral Miller explained. “They’re going all the time.) There were the blue-shirts--commonly called “plane-pushers.” They moved the planes from one deck, placed it on an open-air elevator, which raised it to another deck and pushed it into position. “They just push planes all day, that’s all,” one pilot explained.) There were the green-shirts--the mechanics and maintenance men, who scrubbed, washed, pampered each aircraft. There were the yellow-shirts--the directors of air traffic; and the brown-shirts who were the plane captains in charge of each individual airplane. (More) deepe fleet-4 april 14, 1965 Then the “fantastic game” began. As the Blue-shirts pushed the planes into position, other team members latched a giant steel catapult [deletion: to] onto a small hook on each plane. Automatically a mammoth steel plate arose from the flight deck, to divert the [XXXX indicating deletion] 1200-degree heat generated from the plane’s jet [deletion: burners] back-blast. (“If it weren’t for that steel plate, the heat would melt this entire bridge,” one pilot explained.) Then, suddenly, the [deletion: catap ste] giant steel steam catapults snapped--operating “on the principle of a giant slingshot,” one pilot explained,--jettisoning one plane [XXXX indicating deletion] off the carrier deck and into the air. Thirty seconds later, a second, then a third and then a fourth raced down the flight deck and above the South China Sea. They departed in flights of four, which the pilots called “covies of birds.” Then another four aircraft wheeled into position and the game was re-played, over and over again countlessly. [XXXX indicating deletion] Off the deck flew the swept-wing, twin-engine A3B Skywarrior, a $2-million [deletion: aircraft] jet bomber capable of carrying conventional--or nuclear--weapons. Then were launched the F-4B Phantom--which the pilots labelled “The Monster.” The Phantom--the prize of the U.S. Navy aircraft--flies at double-the-speed of sound. It [deletion: climbs at blim] climbs at 18,000 feet a minute; has a combat radius of 650 miles; consistently carries a Sidewinder deepe fleet-5 When landing upon the flight deck, the giant steel catapults, as though by magic, caught the tiny hook of the planes, traveling at more than 160 miles per hour, and jerked them to a halting stop within 200 feet. Many decks below--even the sailors couldn’t count the number of decks--was the home and the workshop of the 4,000-man floating community. The ship is equipped with an air-conditioning capability to service two Empire State Buildings. There is a communications network consisting of 2,300 telephones for daily conversations. The ship carries its own distilling plant, giving the crew an independent source of water--delivering more than 100,000 gallons an hour. There are more than 800 miles of cables, wires and pipes, winding through a labyrinth of passageways and compartments, carrying electricity, water and steam. There are soda fountains, recreation rooms, a hobby shop, library, guynasium, shoe repair shop and a tailor shop. (The husky Negro tailor explained, “We [XXXX indicating deletion] are the sailor’s wives when it comes to sewing on buttons. We can get the uniforms out overnight--but the admirals’ uniform are fixed in a couple of hours.”) The crew is fed at a daily cost of $1.08 a man; hot meals are available 22 hours of the day. About 10 tons of food are consumed each day. (“The biggest problem on this ship is too much good food,” one pilot explained. “But I walk it off. To go from my room, [deletion: the] to [insertion: the] mess hall to the flight deck is about one mile. Unfortunately, we don’t have [illegible] like in a city,” he laughed.) deepe fleet--6 Following lunch, the pilots departed for the ready rooms--one for each of the [insertion: rangers’] six aircraft squadrons and three detchments, totalling 80 airplaines, 1250 enlisted men and 200 officers. The air-conditioned ready rooms appeared to be miniature movie theatres--with rows of green upholstered chairs for the pilots on alert. Three separate television sets hung in the front of the room, showing the landing and taking off of aircraft on the flight deck far above them, others telegraphing the weather report throughout the South China Sea area. Day or night, some of the squadrons are on twenty-four hour alert; two pilots are always sitting in their planes for instantaneous take-off in case the [deletion: ships are] USS Ranger is attacked. “This is a great operation,” onepilot explained in the “ready room.” “Of course, we lose men sometimes. Like the Skyraider pilot we lost yesterday. My room-mate had eaten breakfast with him before the air-raid on North Viet Nam. And it’s tough on the squadron that he was a member of--sometimes the pilots have known each other for years. But--if you worry about death, you go bats. So not many of us think about it.”
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Date
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1965, Apr. 14
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Ranger (Screw steamer); United States. Navy; Jet planes; Bombing, Aerial--Vietnam; Aircraft carriers
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Location
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Seven Fleet, South China Sea
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Coordinates
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15.4881; 114.4048
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B187, F4
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
