Aviation Ordnancemen, assigned to Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 8, perform routine maintenance on an F/A-18E Super Hornet on the flight deck of the world’s largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) in the Mediterranean Sea, Oct. 16, 2023. VFA-37 is deployed aboard Gerald R. Ford as part of Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 8. Gerald R. Ford is the U.S. Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, representing a generational leap in the U.S. Navy’s capacity to project power on a global scale. The Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group is currently operating in the Mediterranean Sea, at the direction of the Secretary of Defense. The U.S. maintains forward-deployed, ready, and postured forces to deter aggression and support security and stability around the world. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Tajh Payne)
With the current “where’s the carriers” moment in history– including having the Ford Carrier Strike Group (CVN-78/CAW-8) in the Eastern Mediterranean along with U.S. 6th Fleet command ship USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20) and USS Mesa Verde (LPD-19) with half of the 26th MEU aboard while the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (CVN-69/CAW-3) is operating in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz with the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group and the rest of the 26th MEU in the Red Sea– a look back at the old “million sortie” war waged from Yankee and Delta Station days is relevant, in which sortie rates would average upwards of 4,000 a month when three carriers were on station.
Vietnam
The NHHC recognizes at least 103 deployments of 21 assorted fleet carriers (CV, CVA, CVAN, CVS) to support operations in/off Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin between USS Oriskany (CVA-34)’s first cruise that began 1 Aug 1963 and her last that ended, post-Operation Frequent Wind, on 3 March 1976– putting “Big O” as the bookends for the conflict in terms of flattop operations.
The following ships are visible (bottom to top): USS Wiltsie (DD-716), USS Tappahannock (AO-43), USS Oriskany (CVA-34), USS Mars (AFS-1), and USS Perkins (DD-877). The Oriskany, with assigned Carrier Air Wing 19 (CVW-19), was deployed to Vietnam from 16 April to 17 November 1969.
A-7B of VA-215 standing by on the catapult of USS_Oriskany (CV-34) in 1976.
Only one of these carriers (USS Shangri-la) actually touched port in the Republic of South Viet Nam and only for one day (21 June 1970) when she stood into Danang for vitally needed parts for the down Number 3 elevator– received via helo. The ship returned to Yankee Station the same day.
The carriers
The run down by carrier and number of deployments, highest to lowest:
USS Oriskany (10)
USS Hancock (9)
USS Kitty Hawk (9)
USS Constellation (8)
USS Coral Sea (8)
USS Ranger (8)
USS Enterprise (7)
USS Ticonderoga (7)
USS Bon Homme Richard (6)
USS Midway (6)
USS Bennington (4)
USS Kearsarge (4)
USS America (3)
USS Hornet (3)
USS Intrepid (3)
USS Yorktown (3)
USS Forrestal (1)
USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (1)
USS Independence (1)
USS Saratoga (1)
USS Shangri-la (1)
It was an air war that started with a generation of aircraft left over from WWII and ended with the final generations of the Cold War.
A well-worn A-1A Skyraider of VA-215, “The Barn Owls,” is brought up to the Hancock’s catapult, while operating off the coast of Vietnam, 6 May 1966. Photographed by Photographer’s Mate Third Class Worthington, USN 1120337
An F-14A Tomcat of Fighter Squadron (VF) 2 pictured just after launching from the carrier Enterprise (CVAN 65). F-14s flew combat air patrols during Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of South Vietnam in 1975. (1st PHX launch from CV: Bean Barrett/Wizard McCabe) Robert L. Lawson Photograph Collection NNAM.1996.253.7419.029
Deployments by class:
Midway: 15 by 3 carriers
Essex: 50 by 10 carriers
Forrestal: 11 by 4 carriers
Kitty Hawk: 20 by 3 carriers
Enterprise: 7 by 1 carrier
Those who didn’t have a turn in the barrel
Just about every combat carrier in the U.S. arsenal during Vietnam made a deployment there with only a few exceptions.
USS John F. Kennedy (CVA-67), commissioned in 1968, spent Vietnam on Mediterranean Sea deployments. Meanwhile, the brand new USS Nimitz (CVN-68) was commissioned on 3 May 1975 and didn’t embark on her first deployment until the following summer, likewise to the Med.
Of the 19 Essex class flattops that were in commission in the era (1963-76), 10 clocked in on Vietnam’s Yankee/Delta Stations including four that were anti-sub boats. Of the others, four (Essex, Randolph, Wasp, and Lake Champlain) were East Coast anti-submarine (CVS) ships needed in the Atlantic to keep tabs on the Soviet Bear and provide recovery ships for NASA missions, Lexington was in a training role at Pensacola from 1962 onward, Antietam mothballed early in 1963, and the three unmodified “straight deck” carriers (Boxer, Princeton, and Valley Forge) rerated during the era as amphibious helicopter platforms (LPH) and served extensively in both shuttling Marines around during assorted Vietnam operations and carrying Army helicopters to the theater.
Boxer (LPH-4) loaded with 200 helicopters of the 1st Cavalry Division bound for the Vietnam War, 1965
As noted by VADM Dunn in a 2015 article on Yankee Station.
To keep three to four carriers on the line, at least seven had to be deployed. In addition to the four, one of the other three would be at Cubi Point, one at Hong Kong and one at Yokosuka, Japan. The latter had the only real ship repair facility in the western Pacific, with an aircraft repair facility close by, although lighter maintenance and less extensive alternations could be effected in Cubi as well. As for crew liberty, no one seemed to complain about any of the three ports.
Great white elephants?
Not too many years or even months ago, it was a popular pastime for amateur military strategists to speak and write words that questioned the U. S. investment in aircraft carriers in the U. S. Navy. These capital ships, termed “super-carriers” in the press, were considered to be great white elephants, vulnerable to whatever force an enemy chose to throw at them; costly dinosaurs that plodded the seas at 30 knots in an era when air speeds above a thousand knots were commonplace.Today, as the continuous pounding from the three attack carriers at “Yankee Station” grinds on, this criticism is seldom heard. Instead, there are repeated requests for more carriers on the line, and expressions of approbation from quarters once opposed to the carrier weapons system. Thus, it appears appropriate after three years of conflict in Southeast Asia to examine the aircraft carrier and its aircraft and to forecast its future in this war and others the nation may encounter.
The cost was heavy
Over 700 men from air wings and ships companies were lost in action or taken prisoner. A whole generation of squadron and wing commanders was erased from the pipeline as more than 100 Navy commanders (O-5s) were killed or captured within nine years. No less than 532 Navy fixed-wing carrier aircraft were lost in combat and another 329 to operational causes with the F-4 Phantom leading the pack with 138 lost.
Those figures don’t include another 32 Sea Kings and Sea Sprites lost in operations in the Gulf of Tonkin or of Marines who flew from Navy carriers.
Throw in the terrible fires experienced by USS Oriskany (CV-34) that killed 45 in 1966, Forrestal in 1967 that killed 134, and Enterprise in 1969 that left 28 dead, and you realize just how dangerous extended carrier operations can be.
Still, the refrain, “Where are the carriers,” endures.
