Flying Warrior by Jules Harper

Author:Jules Harper [Harper, Jules]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, Vietnam War, Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Aviation
ISBN: 9781683500674
Google: x2OeDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Published: 2016-07-26T00:46:51+00:00

Chapter 13

HAIPHONG POWER PLANT; KEP AIRFIELD RAID

The two A-4 squadrons aboard the Kitty Hawk were always selected to bomb the “sensitive targets.” These targets were typically located in a downtown location, and any bombs that missed them could cause extensive collateral damage. As we bombed by sight (or visually), the chances of missing the target were much less than those planes that bombed by instruments using latitude and longitude coordinates.

For example, in 1965, the A-6 Intruders arrived in the Vietnam theater. They were an advanced bomber, using state-of-the-art techniques, like loading the target coordinates into the on-board computer. The A-6 would then fly to the target area and deliver the weapons on the target loaded into the computer prior to departing the carrier.

After several months of operations, it was determined that the A-6 squadrons were missing most of the targets they were trying to destroy. The reason turned out not to be the aircraft system or the crew. The problem was the charts the crews were using. They had been created at a time when there were no sophisticated satellites, GPS, or other advance methods of mapping a country. To correct this problem, the air force was tasked with the responsibility of re-mapping the entire area of Asia where we were working. These countries included North and South Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. On one of my missions over North Vietnam, I observed an SR-71 aircraft flying back and forth from one end of the country to the other. The SR-71 was our secret spy plane at the time. It was very fast, flew at high altitudes, and had the capability to map a geographical area. It was in the process of doing this when I saw the plane over North Vietnam. Shortly after sighting the SR-71, our A-6 aircraft began hitting their targets much more reliably, due to the new charts that arrived on board our carrier.

April 21, 1967, arrived, and we found our carrier teamed up with the carrier Ticonderoga and involved in the first Alpha strike on power plants located in the Haiphong area. Specifically, one power plant was located in the city itself, while the other one was located 2.1 miles northeast of the Haiphong commercial district on the south bank of the Cau Cam River. This second site was the one that I was involved in bombing using MK 81 bombs (two hundred and fifty pounds each).

The mission was briefed to be a flight of four Skyhawks supported by other aircraft from the carrier’s air wing. We were to strike the power plant carefully, so as not to do any collateral damage to buildings in the immediate area. I remember being shot at more than normal due to being over the city of Haiphong, but we all returned safely. We located the target with ease and delivered our bombs right on target. Later, we discussed how we “neatly and surgically removed it from the face of the earth,” and how “Haiphong was now dining by candle light.

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