From its 1967 combat debut to the final clashes of the Vietnam era, the A-7 Corsair II flew some of its last wartime missions in the confused May 1975 operation to recover a hijacked US merchant ship
Much was expected of the tough-looking little attack jet when the first A-7 Corsair IIs and their squadron, VA-147, joined CVW-2 aboard USS Ranger (CVA-61) in December 1967 for the type’s maiden combat cruise to Vietnam. The aircraft was meant to replace the US Navy’s A-4 Skyhawk quickly in light attack squadrons of both the Pacific and Atlantic Fleets. The Douglas jet had borne the brunt of carrier-based attack missions after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident of August 1964. By the time the Paris Peace Accords took effect on 27 January 1973, ending direct US military involvement in the Vietnam War, only USS Hancock (CVA-19) still had the A-4 in its air wing.
The A-7 rapidly equipped most Navy light attack squadrons, although the A-4 lingered with several Naval Air Reserve units. The 1968 recall of reserve squadrons during the Pueblo Crisis, after North Korea captured the intelligence ship USS Pueblo (AGER-2) on 23 January 1968, was less than successful. It led to a major reorganization of the reserve into more of a mirror image of a frontline carrier air wing, including re-equipping with fleet-compatible aircraft such as the Corsair II. A-7A/Bs went on to see long reserve service, and although most fleet squadrons flew the A-7E from the early 1970s, not all did. CVW-5, forward-deployed to Japan in 1973 and embarked in USS Midway (CVA-41) at sea, included two squadrons (VA-56 and VA-93) that kept A-model Corsair IIs until 1977. CVW-19 had no fewer than three A-7B squadrons (VA-153, VA-155, and VA-215) when it joined USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42) for the carrier’s final Mediterranean cruise in 1976-77.
The end in Vietnam
Carriers returned to patrol off Yankee Station in January 1973 and kept watch on North Vietnam despite the ceasefire. Operation End Sweep sent minesweeping CH-53A helicopters into North Vietnamese harbors to clear mines laid in the final months of the conflict. Meanwhile, prisoners of war, many of whom had spent five to seven years in captivity, began the journey home.
From 28 January, the first day of the ceasefire, USS Oriskany (CVA-34) and USS Constellation (CVA-64) launched strikes into Laos. USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) and Ranger did the same from 11 February. The targets were “lines-of-communication” trails used by the North Vietnamese to supply communist fighters in Laos. Because the Laotian government had requested the strikes, they did not breach the ceasefire. In effect, the war in Southeast Asia continued while the US government sought to extricate its forces from South Vietnam.
The accords ended direct US involvement, but the region stayed “hot,” with periodic skirmishes in Laos and Cambodia between communist factions and government forces. By March 1975, plans were being made to evacuate American and other workers. Operation Eagle Pull was activated on 12 April to extract US citizens and allied Cambodians, and Marines established a perimeter around Phnom Penh. Seven days later, Operation Frequent Wind began, flying out American civilians and key South Vietnamese personnel, especially from Saigon. North Vietnamese forces were rolling south to finish the invasion that the January 1973 ceasefire had cut short, and by 25 April they firmly controlled Saigon and South Vietnam.
US carriers orbited offshore, and their aircraft and crews stood ready to protect the “aerial bridge” of helicopters and aircraft carrying thousands of refugees out of the embattled cities. Hancock and Midway had temporarily beached their air wings to operate solely as helicopter carriers. Aircraft from Coral Sea (VA-22 and VA-94 embarked) and Enterprise (VA-27 and VA-97 embarked) flew 173 sorties, 44 of them by the two A-7E squadrons of CVW-14 aboard CVAN-65.
The US Navy units covered 638 flights by USAF and US Marine Corps fixed-wing aircraft and 250 CIA helicopter flights. These evacuated 395 Americans and 4,475 South Vietnamese from Tan Son Nhut Air Base on the outskirts of Saigon. Other missions took 978 Americans and 1,120 South Vietnamese and allied nationals from Saigon itself. A Coral Sea A-7 from VA-22 escorted the last helicopter, a Marine CH-46 Sea Knight of HMM-165 carrying US Ambassador Graham Martin and his family from the embassy, on the morning of 30 April.
The Mayaguez seizure
Two weeks after the fall of Saigon, a combined US Navy, Marine Corps, and USAF operation spanning three days produced the final injuries, fatalities, and aircraft losses in the theater. On 12 May, naval personnel of the Khmer Rouge, which now ruled Cambodia, boarded the US-flagged container ship SS Mayaguez in international waters. They had the crew anchor the vessel off Tang Island, often incorrectly called Koh Tang Island (“Koh” means “island” in Cambodian). The captors’ intentions were initially unclear, and President Gerald R. Ford faced his first international crisis. There was concern that the lack of US support for South Vietnam, as it was overrun, had signalled a loss of American strength and resolve to neighbouring countries.
Aircraft carriers and other potential sources of aid assembled in the region. One of the ships was Coral Sea, which had left Alameda, California, in December 1974 with CVW-15 embarked. The air wing included A-7E-equipped VA-22, VA-94, and VA-95 with A-6A/KA-6D Intruders. Many of its aircrew and enlisted personnel had seen combat in the region before the 1973 ceasefire. With fighting now officially over, however, there was no certainty that air power would be used.
The P-3 Orions keep watch
US Navy assets had monitored events since the capture, chiefly several P-3B Orions, the Navy’s foremost maritime patrol aircraft, whose long loiter times suited the task. An aircraft from VP-17, deployed to NAS Cubi Point in the Philippines to assist VP-4 across their vast shared area of responsibility, sent the initial intelligence that alerted senior commands. The crews had to be cautious, as the Cambodians were known to have well-armed gunboats fitted with 20 mm and 40 mm anti-aircraft artillery (AAA). On 1 April 1968 they had downed a VP-26 P-3B, temporarily based at U-Tapao, Thailand, killing all 12 crew.
On 13 May another VP-17 crew saw Mayaguez with two Cambodian gunboats alongside. The gunboat crews fired on the Orion as it flew down the container ship’s port side, and one 0.50-calibre round hit the vertical tail. The commander judged the damage superficial and stayed on station. The ship then got underway, apparently heading for a nearby port, but as it passed Koh Tang, it turned into a cove on the island’s north coast and anchored about a mile offshore. As the P-3 kept watch, USAF F-111s, F-4s, and A-7s arrived overhead, and the Orion crews turned their attention to Cambodian naval units, finding several gunboats and fishing craft nearby.
On 14 May, a P-3 spotted a trawler similar to the one thought to have taken the Mayaguez crew into Koh Tang harbor a day earlier. A low pass revealed “Caucasians” huddled in the bow. USAF aircraft, including an AC-130 gunship, made close passes, but the trawler held its course into the foggy interior of Kompong Som harbor. It was now assumed that the crew was in Cambodia, although this could not be confirmed. Commands up to the White House were relatively in the dark about how to proceed, and as they had for a decade, American aircrew prepared to follow orders as strike plans were issued.
15 May: confusion over Koh Tang
At dawn on 15 May, a combined effort began to free the ship and search parts of Koh Tang for the crew. Aircraft and helicopters were manned for missions against the island and Ream Field (now Sihanouk International Airport) on the Cambodian coast. Armed T-28 trainers and MiG-17 fighter-bombers of the Air Force of the Khmer Liberation Army were based there, and it was feared they could inflict heavy casualties on inserted US troops. Cambodian resistance became obvious when USAF CH-53s and HH-53s took hits from heavy ground fire as they approached Koh Tang, wounding a number of Marines aboard.
Shortly after the Marines landed, an orbiting P-3 crew spotted a trawler with all 40 Mayaguez crewmen aboard, on their way to be released, and the Marines were ordered to withdraw. Intense enemy fire made the extraction difficult. USS Henry B Wilson (DDG-7) and USS Harold E Holt (FF-1074) provided support, as did several flights from Coral Sea, whose A-6s and A-7s were tasked with attacking Ream Field.
Striking back at the Khmer Rouge
Coral Sea began combat flight operations on 15 May as soon as it was within range of Cambodia. Its aircraft were to fly three strikes involving A-7s from VA-22 and VA-94 and A-6s from VA-95. Whether and when to launch was uncertain. The first word was that aircraft should not drop ordnance or go to Kompong Som harbour, and the strikes were soon cancelled altogether. This happened even after USAF helicopters had been shot down and Marines were fighting for their lives against unexpectedly heavy opposition ashore. The Cambodians had released the ship but evidently not the crew, who were apparently huddled in the bow of a Thai fishing trawler somewhere off Koh Tang.
President Ford finally permitted the strikes, and by 0845 hrs the first wave had left Coral Sea and reached its targets. Another Flash message from the Joint Chiefs of Staff stopped the mission, and the strikers had to drop their ordnance in the sea before returning. Conflicting communications from Washington and the field commands continued until a second strike was launched at 1000 hrs to bomb Ream Field.
The lack of specific planning and orders from higher command, as throughout the Vietnam War, hampered a smooth launch and strike. Cdr (later Rear Admiral) Jack Calvert, CO of VA-22, had learned of the capture on 12 May but by 0800 hrs on the 15th still had no orders to launch. The status of the ship and crew was only then filtering in, largely thanks to the P-3 crews. Shortly after 0800 hrs, Calvert and his operations officer, Lt Cdr (later Rear Admiral) Jim Lair, launched in a four-jet flight of A-7s that had no assigned targets. Near Koh Tang, the pilots were held in orbit because USAF F-4s from Thailand occupied the airspace. USAF Special Operations CH-53s then arrived to insert Marines and were shot down with heavy casualties by Khmer Rouge AAA. The confusion kept the A-7s from attacking, and after some 90 minutes, Calvert took his frustrated pilots back to the carrier after dropping their ordnance in the water.
Meanwhile, VA-95’s A-6s had launched to attack Ream Field. A 1000 hrs launch of four more VA-22 A-7s and a “tag-along” VA-94 Corsair II reached the airport first. The VA-22 XO, Cdr Al Dundon, led the five jets, each armed with six Mk 82 500-lb bombs and two Mk 20 Rockeye canisters. The Rockeyes carried 247 bomblets each, an effective weapon against runways.
On approach, a USAF pilot radioed that he had spotted a boat with people and a white flag, in fact, the Mayaguez crew. The A-7s nevertheless lined up for their attack. AAA engaged them, and the pilots resorted to mild jinking. Each dropped his Mk 82s on the runway, then came around for a second pass to deliver the Rockeyes, which opened some 500 ft above the ground. Lt(jg) Mark Sloat, flying No. 2, hit a dispersal area and rolled left to watch the impact. A large aircraft, possibly a C-47 transport, burst into flames, and Lt. Ed Fahy called “Nice hit!” over the radio.
With their underwing ordnance expended, the pilots set up a strafing pattern against aircraft in runway revetments. Sloat rolled into a 15-degree strafing angle, but his aircraft’s single M61 20 mm cannon would not fire. The XO told him to pull off and orbit a nearby island offshore, where the others would collect him on the way back to the ship. The VA-95 A-6s, which had also attacked the airfield and were going “feet wet”, received a sharp radio call from an irritated USAF controller demanding to know who had authorised the Navy strike. By then it was too late to abort the Ream Field attack or another strike at around 1100 hrs.
The sinking of the patrol boat
That 1100 hrs mission sank a Cambodian gunboat with an A-7. It was flown by Lt Cdr Lair, his VA-22 wingman Lt Kirk Lewis, and Lt Jay Munninghoff of VA-94. Their briefing had covered the insertion of Marines by CH-53s and instructed them to check in with the USAF Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Center (ABCCC) EC-130E monitoring the action on Koh Tang. The Carrier Air Wing commander, Cdr (later Rear Admiral) E I “Hoagy” Carmichael, flying a VA-95 A-6, had spotted a fast-moving former US Navy patrol boat, riverine (PBR), captured by the Khmer Rouge earlier in the year, heading toward Mayaguez. No word of the crew’s release and return to the ship had yet reached the air wing.
When the A-7s arrived overhead, the PBR was making an estimated 25 knots. The EC-130E ABCCC cleared Lair and his pilots to destroy it. They first dropped Mk 20 Rockeyes, but the boat outran the bomblets and manoeuvred so aggressively that it complicated their aiming. The only solution was to strafe, and the A-7’s M61 Gatling gun was ideal. It could fire 4,000-6,000 rounds per minute (the A-7 carried 1,000 rounds of 20 mm ammunition) and could literally saw a target in half.
Lair began his run from about 1,000 ft in a ten-degree dive. As he recalled: “The in-range firing cue appeared on the Heads-Up Display at approximately 700 ft above the water. I started firing and could see the rounds impacting the boat. I ceased firing at approximately 200 ft. I made a hard turn and saw that the boat was sinking. I reported the results and returned to Coral Sea.”
Two A-6s and six more A-7s launched at the same time hit an oil refinery, other buildings and warehouses. When Lair’s flight trapped back aboard, they were briefed that the Mayaguez crew had safely returned to their ship and were preparing to get underway for Thailand with their cargo. Coral Sea‘s aircraft spent the rest of the day monitoring Koh Tang. That night the carrier steamed three miles off the island while Lt(jg) Sloat sat in his fully armed A-7 on Alert 5, ready to launch within five minutes. He was not needed, though he could hear the fighting ashore over the radio.
The day’s operation landed 289 Marines on the island, secured the release of the Mayaguez crew, and ended with the extraction of the Marines and their USAF handlers. Eighteen Marines and USAF crew were killed in action, and three CH-53s were lost. Three Marines left behind to cover their comrades were subsequently executed by their Khmer Rouge captors.
Camouflaged Corsair IIs
The Coral Sea jets were not the only A-7s in action. Lt Col R Medley Gatewood, a USAF veteran of earlier tours in the F-100 Super Sabre and the A-7D, explained that two A-7D squadrons of the 354th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) had deployed to Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base (RTAFB) in September 1972 and entered combat. Besides the usual attack missions, they quickly took over the “Sandy” Combat Search and Rescue role, previously perfected by USAF A-1 Skyraiders. By the time Gatewood arrived in June 1974, the US drawdown had left only the 3rd Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS) of the 388th TFW with A-7Ds at Korat. By the end of April 1975, they had scrambled and supported the evacuations of Phnom Penh and Saigon.
For the “Sandys”, the crisis began early on 13 May. Gatewood, as C Flight commander, was readying four pilots for dawn-to-dusk “Sandy” alert when they heard of the possible hijacking on Armed Forces Network Radio. As he put it: “Of course, the first ‘they’ would be us, because we were the only USAF warplanes in-theatre on alert and ‘loaded for bear’!”
After a hasty briefing by the 388th TFW CO, “Sandy” Flight headed south to the reported position of Mayaguez at Koh Tang. With “Sandys 3” and “4” in a high orbit at 15,000 ft and “Sandy 2” at 5,000 ft, Gatewood made several passes at ever lower altitudes from different directions. He saw no movement on the decks or bridge, and the ship appeared to be at anchor. Later, smoke built up from the single stack. To remind whoever was aboard of their presence, he fired all seven “Willie Pete” 2.75-inch marking rockets from one of his two LAU-32/A pods across the bow, and the smoke subsided. Some 20 minutes later the smoke returned, and he had his No. 2, a 1st Lieutenant with no combat time, fire a full pod-load across the stern. That ended the ship’s attempted movement. The flight kept watching from 5,000 ft until fuel ran low, then handed on-scene command to Nos. 3 and 4 and went off to find a KC-135 tanker. After refuelling, Gatewood and his wingman resumed on-scene command while the other two A-7s tanked up and returned to base.
In the evening, a lone F-4D from Udorn RTAFB checked in and offered his only armament, an externally mounted 20 mm cannon pod. Gatewood said the A-7s had plenty of high explosive incendiary rounds, and the F-4 pilot offered to go “trolling” to draw fire. In the twilight, the A-7s turned 180 degrees apart to keep him in sight. The F-4 approached the ship at high speed and deck-high altitude. As Gatewood recalled: “And suddenly, out from the edge of the jungle about a mile away from the Mayaguez, crossing over the most beautiful white beach you can imagine, in total silence, came a stream of bright red, glowing, ‘golf ball’-sized tracers aimed way behind the trolling F-4. The gunners of this high-calibre machine gun or cannon apparently had never heard of ‘lead for target motion!'”
Despite the darkness, the A-7s fixed the weapon’s location with the “Mark” feature of the A-7D’s AN/ASN-91 Navigation/Weapon Delivery Computer and returned to Korat. The exact coordinates were given to Intelligence as an Essential Element of Information (EEI) that should have reached other US units operating near Koh Tang. Unfortunately, it was not forwarded to at least some of the participants. Two days later, when two USAF helicopters tried to put Marines ashore on that same white beach, they landed directly in the gun’s field of fire, with devastating results. Gatewood called it “the ‘Mother of All SNAFUs'”.
This account covers only the first A-7D mission on the first full day of the incident, which was more an intelligence-gathering sortie than a rip-roaring combat affair. On 14-15 May, however, the 3rd TFS flew scores of Corsair II sorties, alongside USAF Phantom IIs and AC-130 Spectre gunships. Most of them involved genuine combat amid the fog of war over a chaotic battlefield.
This article is from the book “A-7 Corsair II Units 1975-91” by Peter Mersky, available here.
