Whale Tale
(Back to While Waiting)
(This Ship's XO sent
me this tale. You gotta love it when a plan comes together.)
Vietnam 1967, A Whale Tale
The Russian "Trawlers" (Russian AGI) with what looked like one
thousand "fishing" antennas plied the Gulf of Tonkin on a daily
basis...needless to say, it was a cat and mouse game to see what havoc they
could expend towards our two carriers operating there 24 hours a day.
Since the U.S. government had proclaimed the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin three
miles off the coast of North Vietnam and Hinan Island, People's Republic of
China, to be international waters, American ships in the Gulf were bound to obey
the international rules of the road for ocean navigation. This meant that
if the Russian ship maneuvered herself into the path of an aircraft carrier
where she had the right of way, the carrier had to give way even if she was
engaged in launching or recovering aircraft. The navigation officer was
constantly trying to maneuver the ship so that the trawler wouldn't be able to
get in position to abuse the rules of the road and gain the right of way.
Sometimes he was successful in sucking the trawler out of position, but
the room available for the ship to maneuver was limited by our on-station
requirements, and sometimes the trawler was successful interrupting our
flight operations. The pilots of the air wing were strictly forbidden to
take any action against the Russian ship, but on this day CDR John Wunche, the
commanding officer of the heavy tanker KA-3B detachment, had finally had enough
of the Russians' antics.
John Wunche was a big man with bright red hair and a flaming red handlebar
mustache. He was a frustrated fighter pilot whom fate and the Bureau of
Naval Personnel had put into the cockpit of a former heavy bomber now employed
as a carrier-based tanker. CDR Wunche flew the tanker like a fighter and
frequently delighted the tactical pilots by rolling the "Whale," as we
all called the KA-3B tanker, on completion of a tanker mission. Consequently,
John's nickname was "the Red Baron." On 21 July 1967 he proved
just how appropriate that name was.
The "Bonnie Dick" had nearly completed a recovery. The Russian
trawler had been steaming at full speed to try to cut across our bow, and the
bridge watch had been keeping a wary eye on the intruder. For a while it
looked as if the Russian would be too late and we would finish the recovery
before having to give way to the trawler. But a couple of untimely bolters
extended the recovery and the Bon Homme Richard had to back down and change
course to comply with the rules. The LSO hit the wave-off lights when the
“Whale” was just a few yards from the ramp. John crammed on full power
and sucked up the speed brakes for the go-around. The "Bonnie
Dick" began a sharp right turn to pass behind the Russian, causing the ship
to list steeply, and there, dead ahead of John, was the Russian trawler. He
couldn't resist. He leveled the “Whale” about a hundred feet off the
water and roared across the mast of the Trawler with all fuel dumps open like a
crop duster spraying a field of boll weevils. The Russian disappeared in a
heavy white cloud of jet fuel spray, then reemerged with JP-4 jet fuel
glistening from her superstructure and running lip-full in the scuppers.
The Russian trawler immediately lost power as the ship's crew frantically tried
to shut down anything that might generate a spark and ignite the fuel. She was
rolling dead in the water in the Bon Homme Richards wake, the crew breaking out
fire hoses to wash down the fuel, as we steamed out of sight completing the
recovery of the Whale. The Red Baron was an instant hero to the entire
ship's company.
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