Douglas A-4 Skyhawks: Provided Support For Vietnam War

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Marine pilots flying the small, maneuverable Skyhawk were indeed popular candidates for close air support because they rarely lost any time in arriving over the target. The A-4 squadrons had initiated hot pad alerts at Chu Lai, during which a section of armed aircraft awaited the scramble call with pilots in their cockpits and engines turning over.

There were enough hazards to be faced by Marine airmen south of the Demilitarized Zone without undue attention from the enemy’s defense trump card, the SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air (SAM) missile. It was used mainly in the North, but two Marine Skyhawks were to fall victim to SAMs during the war, one of them flown by Major Ralph E. Brubaker of the Tomcats. On July 6, having ejected after his A-4 became uncontrollable when the missile detonated, Brubaker suffered a dislocated knee. Safely on the ground, he was rescued by helicopter.

By the end of 1967, little progress had been made toward a successful end to the war. The North Vietnamese planned a nationwide coup to unite the country under Communist rule that was timed to start during the 1968 Tet, or lunar new year, celebrations. When the Tet Offensive began in January 1968, a focal point of the North Vietnamese attacks was the U.S. outpost at Khe Sanh. Having been isolated by the loss of the A Shau Valley area in 1966, the garrison expected an attack, and the 26th Marines stationed there were hardly taken by surprise when the offensive began.

The core of the enemy offensive was concurrent attacks on towns and U.S. installations throughout South Vietnam. Among the targets was Chu Lai, where, on January 31, rockets injured two men from VMA-311, damaged four of that squadron’s A-4s and destroyed part of the bomb dump. In retaliation, the Bulldogs destroyed an enemy rocket dump south of their base on February 25.

The battle to prevent the capture of Khe Sanh became one of the epic ground-air actions of the war. It included a huge logistics airlift to bring the Marine defenders food, medical supplies and ammunition. To help this effort, the Corps devised the Super Gaggle formation, which centered on a Lockheed Hercules C-130 cargo plane, flying with helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft escort.

Twelve A-4s flew the first Super Gaggle on February 24, 1968, joining 20 CH-46 and UH-1E helicopters on a mission coordinated by a TA-4F. The role of the Skyhawks was to sanitize the en route and landing areas by working them over with bombs, napalm and 20mm cannon fire. Operation Niagara, the huge, coordinated air plan to hold Khe Sanh helped break the Tet Offensive; yet the break was not exploited, and the United States ultimately began withdrawing combat units. A number of bases lost their front-line status, among them Chu Lai. It was handed over to the Army on September 3, 1970; the last Marine sorties were flown from there on September 11.

MAG-12 had meanwhile departed Vietnam in February 1970 and relocated in Japan; VMA-211 accompanied it, while VMA-223 returned home. The Marine combat units that remained in Vietnam moved to Da Nang, among them VMA-311, which then came under the operational control of MAG-11 and continued to support the ongoing war in Laos and Cambodia. One of the earliest arrivals in the war zone, VMA-311 had by May 7, 1971, flown 47,663 sorties. That looked like the end of the war for VMA-311, but on March 30, 1972, the North Vietnamese invaded the South, and the squadron flew into Bien Hoa, near Saigon. On May 1, VMA-311 began flying combat missions again. Many sorties were flown into Cambodian border regions, and on August 29, 1st Lt. Charles G. Reed flew VMA-311’s 50,000th sortie. The squadron went on to raise its sortie total to 54,625 before the war’s end.

Even after the successful containment of the April 1972 invasion of South Vietnam–the Eastertide Offensive–operations in Laos and Cambodia continued to attract American air support. But it was clear that after the January 1973 cease-fire, the United States was, militarily speaking, out of Vietnam for good. VMA-311 was to be the last air combat unit of all the U.S. services to leave that war-ravaged country, but it took some weeks for the cease-fire to take complete effect. Not until January 28 did VMA-311 ground personnel refuel the last A-4s, hang the last bombs–painted red, white and blue for the occasion and daubed with slogans–on the airplanes and strap in the last duty pilots.

Fittingly, Dean Macho, commander of MAG-12, led the mission, a strike into the Mekong Delta region. Asked if their target lay east, west, north or south of a marked point, the Vietnamese forward air controller simply replied, Roger. The comment was indicative of the hold the enemy had on the country. Da Nang’s ground troops waited anxiously for the Skyhawks to return. They all did, 1st Lt. Thomas Boykin’s aircraft being the last to land. He reported that, true to form, the enemy had hit his aircraft over the Mekong Delta area, but the minor damage had not given him any problems. Boykin said, I dropped the last bomb….I’m glad it’s over.

Lieutenant David Mowrey told a reporter that his war had been a hell of an education. He added something that could be echoed by almost every combat flier, The common denominator of the guys here is that we love to fly, but the sad thing is that in terms of quality and quantity, the best flying comes when you’re in a war.

This article was written by Jerry Scutts and originally published in the May 1996 issue of Aviation History magazine. For more great articles subscribe to Aviation History magazine today!

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Airborne Operations, Aircraft, Aviation History, Historical Conflicts, Vietnam War