On a Carrier As Bombings Are Resumed

Item

derivative filename/jpeg

363-04812.pdf

Digital Object Identifier

363-04812

Title

On a Carrier As Bombings Are Resumed

Description

Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about the atmosphere aboard the USS Kitty Hawk as bombing runs against North Vietnam recommenced, pages 1 and 4

AI Usage Disclosure

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.

Transcript

--------------------
- Page 1
--------------------
Feb
On the Carrier
As Raids Resume
2
1946.
P.1
On the second day of resumed raids
against North Viet Nam, U. S. Air Force
F-1058 bombed the port of Ben Thuy, 160
miles south of Hanoi. Other planes struck
highway and railroad targets in the southern
part of North Viet Nam. A U. S. spokesman
said overcast prevented assessment of the
damage. In South Viet Nam, 1st Air Cavalry
Division soldiers counted 488 Viet Cong dead.
after eight days of Operation Masher, a sweep
near Bong Son, 300 miles northeast of Saigon..
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
ABOARD THE CARRIER KITTY HAWK.
At 8:30 a. m. Monday, this carrier launched its first
missions after the orders came to end the bombing lull in
the American air war against North Viet Nam.
"For days we watched the bombing pause and we
thought it was good," one jet pilot said. "Then we watched.
the news get blacker and blacker when Hanoi didn't want
peace. We knew we would have to again go on the mission
we'd rather not go on."
Throughout the day the 60,000-ton Kitty Hawk's glant
steam catapults sent up plane after plane from its four-acre
deck as it cruised the sea 25 miles north of the 17th Parallel
at the mouth of the Gulf of Tonkin.
The destroyer Moore protected the northern flank of
this attack aircraft carrier, the flagship of the 7th Fleet's
More on CARRIER-P 4-
Wednesday, February 2, 1966
On a Carrier
As Bombings
Are Resumed
(Continued from page one)
striking force. To the east of this giant floating air base
another destroyer, the Hubbard, steamed in escort. And
in another area a sister ship of the Kitty Hawk, the
Ranget, was launching air strikes against targets in North
Viet Nam.
The sky over the Kitty Hawk was filled with planes as
night teams headed off to North Viet Nam and other planes
circled the ship waiting their turn to land on the flight deck.
The carrier's Cat Company, catapult men in green
sweatshirts, calculated deep within the bowels of the ship
the steam pressure required for the thick steel catapult
cables to lash off the jet planes and conventional aircraft.
The catapults hurled them all aloft-the droop-nosed..
double-the-speed-of-sound F-4 Phantoms; the banana-
, shaped A-6A Intruders, all-weather attack bombers with
computerized bombing equipment; the needle-nosed RA-5C
twin-jet reconnaissance aircraft; the A-1 Skyraider of
Korean War vintage, so old the pilots call them "spads;"
the delicate E-2A Hawkeye, a flying radar station called
the "super fudd."
NIGHT BRIEFING
The order of President Johnson to resume bombing of
North Viet Nam was received on the Kitty Hawk Bunday
evening. At 11 p. m., the pilots were called to the ready
rooms for briefings. At 2. a. m., in the chilly damp darkness,
reconnaissance aircraft packed with millions of dollars
worth of radar, electronic hardware and exotic boxes were
launched in a prelude to the air strikes.
This floating city carries two Terrier missile batteries
capable of hurling supersonic surface-to-air missiles. Its
strike aircraft also carry air-to-air missiles with conven-
tional warheads.
In one of the briefing rooms, Cmdr. Royce Williams,
40, commander of the supersonic Phantom jet squadron,
-described Monday's first mission over North Viet Nam.
"I don't know if we should say it but we couldn't
And the targets. We went over the targets, but because of
the weather we weren't successful . . . so we took our
alternate target."
None of the pilots who flew the missions wanted their
home addresses to be published because one said, "Our
wives, are getting theatening phone calls at home from the
anti-Viet Nam people."

Date

1966, Feb. 2

Subject

Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Navy--United States; Kitty Hawk (Aircraft carrier); Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Aerial operations; United States. Navy; Bombing, aerial; Bombardment; Military morale

Location

Aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, likely in the South China Sea

Coordinates

15.4881; 114.4048

Container

B4, F6

Format

newspaper clippings

Collection Number

MS 363

Collection Title

Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers

Creator

Keever, Beverly Deepe

Copyright Information

These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.

Publisher

Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries

Language

English