Peter Fey - Bloody Sixteen: The USS Oriskany and Air Wing 16 during the Vietnam War

To this day it stuns me that their own countrymen missed the story of their service, lost in the bitter confusion of the war itself.... That boomer elites can canonize this sort of conduct of their fathers generation while ignoring their own is more than a simple oversightit is a conscious, continuing tragedy.

Senator Jim Webb, Heroes of the Vietnam Generation

My interest in this story began with my attendance at the annual Tailhook convention in September 2001. The infamous 1991 Tailhook convention happened the year I graduated from high school, and news stories of the scandal were still etched in my brain ten years later as I weighed the decision to go. It was with some trepidation that I went. Im glad I did.

Imagine my surprise as my roommate and I stepped away from the registration booth to be met (more like accosted) by a grandfatherly man with a prosthetic right arm. This man proceeded to question us, pressing us for details about our naval service and flying from ships at sea before telling us to buy his book. Being the stereotypical, egotistical young aviators, we laughed off his sales attempt and walked away to join another conversation. Fortunately, we came to our senses and doubled back to learn more. Maybe the old man knew more than he was letting on.

Little did we know, we had just met Wynn Foster, aka Captain Hook. After pressing him for details, we stood spellbound as he regaled us with stories about flying from the USS Oriskany ( CVA -34) during the Vietnam War. Needless to say, we both bought copies of his book, Captain Hook: A Pilots Tragedy and Triumph in the Vietnam War, and left in awe. I consider myself lucky to have met him that night and even more fortunate to have been able to correspond with him throughout the years before his death in 2013. I enjoyed meeting him at each Tailhook convention. Wynn piqued my already high interest in aviation history. The more I studied, the more impressed I became. The saga of the naval aviators flying from Oriskany during the early Vietnam years is the stuff from which legends are born.

Without doubt, readers familiar with the topic will point out that it has been covered in great detail. So why another book about the Oriskany? Zalin Grant wrote a New York Times best seller entitled Over the Beach. Why not provide us with a history of the USS Kitty Hawk ( CVA -63), which served gallantly during the same period? My simple and honest answer is this. I wrote this book for the men of the Oriskany and her embarked Carrier Air Wing 16 ( CVW -16) because they asked me to.

Shortly after I met Wynn Foster, the September 11 attacks occurred. I soon found myself frequently deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq. In the midst of it all, I was given ten months during which I was able to write a short masters thesis on the topic. It was warmly received by these men, but I believed I could do much better. Even though I was an outsider, I belonged to that small fraternity of naval aviators, and they began to open up to me. They began to provide information and relate stories that no doubt they had repressed for many years. I attended reunions, collecting photos and more sea stories as word spread, and these aviators shared even more. Time passed, and I was deployed again and again. The gentle prodding to get their story told started to become none too gentle. These men are not getting any younger. As I write this, the senior leaders are in their eighties. Even the youngest men are now in their late sixties.

What became clear is that there was much more to their stories than had been told before. Oriskany and CVW -16 made three deployments to Vietnam between April 1965 and January 1968. Each deployment coincided with the most dangerous phases of Operation Rolling Thunder; the Johnson administrations slow squeeze meant that Oriskany arrived on station just as previous restrictions were lifted and bombing raids increased. As a result, Oriskanys pilots bore the burden as they ventured into heavily defended areas previously declared off limits at a time when the summer monsoons provided the clearest skies over North Vietnam. As this was the best time frame for flight operations, the numbers of sorties flown increased dramatically. The air wing suffered dearly. During 1965 CVW -16 spent 141 days on the line, losing twenty-three aircraft. During 1966 the air wing lost twenty-five aircraft during an eighty-seven-day line period. This cruise was cut short due to a tragic fire on 26 October 1966 that killed forty-four men, including twenty-four aviators and the air wing commander. A shortage of aircraft carriers meant Oriskany had only seven months for repairs before deploying again in 1967. The air wings worst losses were sustained during the June 1967 to January 1968 deployment, when it lost over half of its assigned aircraft and over a third of its assigned pilots. Oriskanys losses accounted for almost 20 percent of the navys total losses during 1967, the highest loss rate of any carrier air wing during the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, these numbers dont account for the numerous aircraft that were damaged on each mission, adding to the strain on already overtasked sailors.