Search the Community
Showing results for tags '; CVW-16'.
-
Good Morning, here's the 1st of my 2 entries for this GB. Whilst I have a couple of ships on the go, none will get even close to completion for this GB, so it's aviation subjects for me. Of all the aviation books I have read in years, Peter Fey's "Bloody Sixteen" (USS Oriskany and Air Wing 16 during the Vietnam War) has proven to be the most sobering yet truly inspiring that I have read. For the unfamiliar, USS Oriskany and Air Wing 16 completed 3 operational deployments in the 1965-67 timeframe, unfortunately always arriving on station just as the pointless bombing halts came to an end. The statistics of planes and aircrew lost are eye watering (you'll be familiar with names such as James Stockdale & John McCain as just 2, lucky(?) enough to become POWs). 1967 appears to be the worst year, compounded with an avoidable fire that took even more lives in October. But the book is also a source of some of the most inspirational examples of Leadership that I have ever seen and would serve well to become mandatory reading at Military Staff Colleges...... So my subject here is Lt Cdr Richard Perry's VA-164 A-4E - the original Lady Jessie. (Thanks to Modelling Minion who very kindly supplied the scheme from that rare as **** Victory Productions A-4 sheet to my request in the Wanted section). Lt Cdr Perry was killed on 31st August 1967, the Lady Jessie A-4 lasted only another 7 weeks being shot down over Haiphong on 18th Oct 1967 (with another pilot, Lt Cdr Barr being killed) IMG_0064 IMG_0065
- 13 replies
-
- 13
-
- VA-164; USS ORISKANY; CVA-34; Lady Jessie
- ; CVW-16
- (and 1 more)