A Lucky Day
Lieutenant Commander Richard J. Nowatzki, U.S. Navy (Retired)
I was a witness to some of the events that James M. Scott’s April article, “The Navy Targets Tokyo” described. A seaman first class in the deck force on board the USS Hornet (CV-8), I stood on the flight deck on 18 April 1942 and watched as Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle’s B-25 was successfully launched to start his historic raid.
Doolittle circled the Hornet, waggled his plane’s wings, and headed straight for Japan. We had launched him earlier than initially planned. Gas was to be the limiting factor for all of the planes, which did not wait to form; all immediately headed west. The seas were rough, and the Hornet pitched fore and aft throughout the entire operation. The sailor removing the tie-downs from the last plane got too close to the left propeller and lost an arm.
We had left Alameda, California, on 2 April. The crew thought we were going to ferry the B-25s to Hawaii. Shortly after leaving the Golden Gate Bridge, near the Farallon Islands, Captain Marc Mitscher announced on the 1MC, the shipboard pubic-address system, that we were to transport the Army bombers to the coast of Japan to bomb Tokyo. A terrific cheer went up as we realized we were finally going to strike back at Japan.
The USS Enterprise (CV-6) had joined us to provide air cover since the Hornet could not launch her own planes with the B-25s covering the flight deck. Vice Admiral “Bull” Halsey was SOPA (senior officer present afloat) on board the Enterprise, so there were 16 Army Air Forces planes being directed by two Navy officers—him and Mitscher.
A year later, Halsey was directing operations in the South Pacific from his headquarters in Noumea, New Caledonia. Mitscher, now a rear admiral, was on Guadalcanal, in charge of the Army, Navy, and Marine aircraft stationed there. The Navy codebreakers in Hawaii broke a message concerning an inspection trip near Bougainville Island in the Northern Solomons to be made by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the author of Pearl Harbor attack. Halsey received orders to try to intercept Yamamoto and passed it on to Mitscher. He selected 18 Army Air Forces P-38 fighters to make the attempt. Because one blew a tire and the other had engine trouble, again, the two Navy officers once again had 16 Army planes. They successfully located and killed the Japanese admiral.
The date was 18 April 1943, exactly one year after the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo. When Mitscher sent a message to Halsey announcing the successful outcome, he stated words to the effect of, “April 18th must be our day.”
Navy Air + Marine Air = Naval Aviation
Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn, U.S. Navy (Retired)
In “The Marine’s Vietnam Commitment” (April), Dr. John Prados has performed a signal service by reviewing the long and effective performance of U.S. Marines during the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, perhaps inadvertently, he seems to try to drive a wedge between Navy and Marine aviation in the process. He does this by comparing the numbers of sorties by Marine air to the numbers of sorties by Navy air during selected time periods, effectively ignoring several important factors.
First and foremost, Navy air and Marine air are one, together called naval aviation. In addition to basing ashore close to ground Marines, Marine air routinely deploys aboard carriers flying the same aircraft types, faces the same problems, and is ready for the same missions as their Navy comrades. In fact, squadrons are generally interchangeable. Naval aviation is oriented toward war at sea and projection of power from the sea while Marines are focused more on supporting Marines ashore, but both services are trained for both missions.
As Vietnam heated up, most Marines were based ashore as an essential part of the air-ground team. However, a few squadrons still went afloat. VMF (AW)-212flew F-8 Crusaders from the Oriskany (CVA-34) early in the war, VMFA-333 flew F-4 Phantoms from the America (CV-66), and VMA-224 flew A-6 Intruders from the Coral Sea (CV-43). There were also two Mediterranean deployments of Marine A-4s while the Vietnam War was ongoing.
Dr. Prados errs not only by differentiating between Navy and Marine air, he misleads by comparing the number of Marine sorties to the number of Navy sorties over a given time period. Navy sorties from carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin averaged just short of two hours, whereas Marine sorties from Da Nang or Chu Lai were much shorter, some much less than one hour. Marines often flew two and sometimes even more sorties each day, a pace much more tolerable than the average one and a half per day at almost two hours each flown from the carriers.
Then there’s the matter of the opposition. Marines did indeed face an incredible amount of small-arms, heavy machine-gun, and 23-mm fire during close-air support missions and took great risk to support ground troops. Marines also flew some limited direct-air support missions in Route Package One just north of the DMZ, EA-6A electronic-warfare support, and nightly F-4 combat air patrol off the coast, but seldom operated against the more sophisticated and larger-caliber antiaircraft artillery, surface-to-air-missiles, and MiGs as did the Navy and Air Force flying over North Vietnam. Moreover, the author does not acknowledge the number of in-country low-threat strikes conducted with the aid of the TPQ-10, a pre-GPS system for delivering ordnance from above the clouds (frequently used at Con Thien, for example). Nor do we know from the article whether the author counts in his statistics only fixed-wing fighter and attack aircraft or includes transports and helicopters as well. He also ignored that the Navy also flew close-air support missions from the Gulf of Tonkin carriers, especially in 1966.
None of this is to denigrate the skill, the perseverance, and the dedication with which Marine aviators support their Marine colleagues on the ground. That support is legendary and has been one of the principal keys to Marine success since before World War II, but the Navy provides that same support, albeit in lesser measure. To report differences where they do not exist does a disservice to all who risked their lives in support of a national mission.
Dr. Prados responds:
Thanks to Admiral Dunn for his perceptive comments regarding naval aviation and the Marine air arm in the context of the article. Please be assured that I meant no invidious comparison between Navy and Marine air. And I was not trying to “differentiate” Marine from Navy air, simply to honor Marine airmen in a piece about Marines in Vietnam. The admiral is quite correct to point out that Navy air crews were flying longer missions and against the heart of North Vietnamese air defenses. The heroism of the Navy crews was amazing.
On the other hand, the sortie numbers logged by Marine aviation were also extraordinary. I stand by my remarks on Marine air performance in the war.
Let me also say it is a little misleading to assert that Navy and Marine air were “interchangeable.” Although Marine aircraft belonged to the Navy, and pilots and other aircrew went through the same initial training programs, Marine air was employed like the Navy’s as an exception, not as the rule. The three examples Admiral Dunn cites are in fact the only deployments of full Marine squadrons on Navy aircraft carriers in Vietnamese waters during the war. There were slightly more than 100 carrier deployments to the western Pacific and Yankee Station during the war period (October 1963–January 1973). Most were by attack carriers (carrying five or six squadrons plus an array of specialized detachments), though 19 were by smaller vessels (CVs or CVSs that bore three or four squadrons plus some detachments). Counting only full-squadron cruise deployments, that adds up to roughly 467 “squadron loadings.” There are also about a half dozen carrier cruises by detachments of specialized Marine squadrons (but the overall number of aircraft detachments sailing on carriers during this period is again in the mid- to high-hundreds). As a percentage of squadron/detachment cruises with carrier air groups, the Marine presence amounts to fractions of one percent.
The characterization of Marine carrier air deployments as “routine” is just not accurate. It would be better to say that Marine air maintained a measure of carrier proficiency by occasional deployments on board ship. The Navy and Marines may have flown the same aircraft types but that did not make them interchangeable.
Conversely it was quite rare to find a Navy attack squadron flying from a Marine air base in III Marine Expeditionary Force. And Navy air squadrons, with the exception of those supporting the riverine war in the Mekong Delta, were hardly even trained in close-air support techniques. Indeed some of the differences between Marine air and Navy air (land basing, closer to the scene of the battle, less sophisticated air defenses) are the very ones Admiral Dunn uses to buttress his argument that the Marines had advantages in maintaining the sortie rate that they did.
The better takeaway is that the Navy and Marines together put in a performance quite comparable to that of the Air Force. All members of naval aviation should feel proud.
A Promising New Author
Tim McGrath
Each issue of Naval History contains articles that are both informative and entertaining. But with April’s “Ships of Honor”, readers were also introduced to the writing talents of Mercy Mei Tangredi. Her narrative of the chaplains whose calling in life was exemplified by their compassion and courage is an inspiring and terrific read. I expect—and hope—that we will be seeing her byline for years to come.
A Cipher is Solved
Robert J. Hanyok
In regard to Merlin Dorfman’s query in April’s “In Contact”: Briefly, the U.S. Navy in 1899 was still using paper and pencil manual codes and ciphers. There were no cipher “machines” as such until the 1930s with the appearance of the ECM Mark I. In 1899 the Navy was still some years away from using radios, so encoded or encrypted messages were passed by flags or lights. Cables, such as the one from Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt to Commodore George Dewey ordering the latter to Manila Bay, were sent via telegraph. The recipient would pick up the cable at a previously agreed on location such as Hong Kong. JN-25 was a paper and pencil system.
What About NAPs?
Charles M. Fuss, Jr.
I was disappointed that Hill Goodspeed’s article “One Hundred Years at Pensacola” (December 2014) made no mention of the approximately 5,000 enlisted pilots who earned their wings of gold at Pensacola between 1916 and 1948. He did cite the 1918 heroics of Machinist’s Mate James Ormsbee, who was in fact an enlisted pilot but not identified as such. Naval aviation pilots (NAPs) left their mark on the history of the Sea Services. They served in peace and war in all types of Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard aircraft.
One piloted Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd on his Arctic explorations and three received the Medal of Honor. I had the privilege of serving with Navy and Marine Corps NAPs in the Korean War and conducting fishery patrols in search of Soviet trawlers with NAP Master Chief John Greathouse, the last Coast Guard–enlisted pilot. The NAPs were a unique breed and must be remembered.
Mr. Goodspeed responds:
Thank you for addressing my article’s oversight in specifically mentioning the contributions of the enlisted naval aviation pilots, many of whom trained at Naval Air Station Pensacola. They were indeed a unique breed who made tremendous contributions to naval aviation history. I am proud to say that my wife’s grandfather, who just recently turned 90, was one of them, retiring from active duty as the pilot for the chief of Naval Operations.
The Correct Titus
Jeanette Titus Lockovich alerted us that the photograph on page 50 of the February issue’s article “Ghost Team of Island X” was incorrectly identified as being of her father, Silas Titus. It’s actually a photo of Silas’ younger brother, George, who also played football for Holy Cross, graduating in 1943 and then serving in the Navy.