The Nickel-Dime Book

By Stuart J. Fitrell

Nickel-Dime Book

This work began in 1966 when I was a young Navy lieutenant fighter pilot in a squadron conducting combat operations from Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf during the Vietnam War. I made a conscious decision over Christmas of 1965 to make a detailed daily diary of everything that happened to me, the thoughts I had, and the experiences of others that I thought were interesting. That diary was derisively named by my roommate who objected to the lights being left on while I was carefully writing my entries as the Damned Nickel-Dime Book, now shortened to simply the Nickel-Dime Book.

The book is not a factual account. I have tried to use the technique of telling a story with fictional characters that yields an understanding on the part of the reader of what it was like to be a fighter pilot at sea during that controversial part of our nations history.

The protagonist is Navy lieutenant Tom Farrell, call sign Hawk. Although I was of the same rank, and experienced the same events, I describe the relationship between me and the Hawk as, simply, I was never as good as the Hawk, nor was I ever as bad. I suspect that there are those who would agree with the first assertion and strongly argue the second.

He becomes obsessed with glory as measured by the receipt of medals for valor in combat. He achieves those measures of success, but the cost is a loss of friends and, nearly, a breakup of his marriage.

He is not a particularly courageous pilot; that was never determined. Oh, he clearly sought the dangerous missions and attacked targets with unnecessarily risky tactics, but that does not indicate courage. Courage belongs to the warrior who is himself absolutely terrified but carries out the mission to the best of his ability. If he is not terrified, perhaps he is merely stupid, or, very much a believer in his invulnerability, a somewhat common characteristic of youth.

His performance in combat comes to the attention of the squadron commanding officer and the air wing commander. They are impressed, and begin offering him more challenging mission assignments thus exacerbating Hawks relationships with his squadron mates.

The Prologue introduces the Hawk and his family as they learn, quite suddenly, of a change of orders from his East Coast based squadron to another squadron about to embark for combat operations in Vietnam. Hawk begins the gradual slide of his relationships at home with his enthusiasm and happiness for this chance to shine.

Chapters one through five involve various missions each chapter describing the Hawk in his quest for glory at any cost. Chapters six and seven bring the squadron back to Naval Air Station Cubi Point in the Philippines for rest and recreation. This section focuses more on the rest of the squadron and a young woman, Terri Allen, herself the wife of another pilot from a sister ship who was recently shot down and is now listed as a Missing In Action aviator, is introduced to add complexity to the story and again indicate that Hawk is somewhat casual with the feelings of everyone but himself

Subsequent chapters bring the squadron back to Yankee Station for its second line period and, at the conclusion of that period, Hawk manages to wrangle himself a short term assignment to the ground war in South Vietnam as an observer. These latter adventures on his part have now cut his friends in the squadron to a mere handful.

By chapter 13 the squadron is conducting operations for its final line period. The Hawk has great moments but has finally accepted that something is wrong with the rest of the squadron. The executive officer of the squadron gives the Hawk some leadership lectures and the Hawk conceives of a plan to make a comeback by volunteering for some non-combat logistics flights from Yankee Station back to Cubi. Its fraudulent of course; he is really doing it to get some more time with the MIAs wife, Terri.

At cruise end H

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 13, 2006
• ISBN: 9781469109787

Stuart J. Fitrell

New author who has spent his career flying the airplanes, driving the ships, sailing the yachts, and all in the geographic area of the story's setting. A former test pilot and attack fighter squadron commanding officer, he spent two years studying in England not very far from the location of the final scene. His high school is described in such detail you could recognize it today, just as his own 30h reunion which served as the impetus for the book.

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Copyright © 2006 by Stuart J. Fitrell.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

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information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the

copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product

of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual

persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Dixie Station

Chapter 2

Vinh

Chapter 3

Night Work

Chapter 4

Il De Cac Ba

Chapter 5

Kep

Chapter 6

Cubi

Chapter 7

Terri

Chapter 8

Second Line Period

Chapter 9

Conflicts

Chapter 10

Terri . . . Again

Chapter 11

MOPIX

Chapter 12

Ground Operations

Chapter 13

Dodge City

Chapter 14

Thanh Hoa

Chapter 15

Magic Carpet

Chapter 16

Recovery

Epilogue

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Prologue

December 23, 1965, Jacksonville, Florida

The weather was quite unusual for a Cleveland, Ohio—raised boy who was more accustomed to Lake Erie gales and deep snow in December. Lt. Tom Farrell was standing in the driveway of their brand-new house on Jaguar Drive wearing a T-shirt and shorts while washing the car (which was, regrettably, not a Jaguar.) Six foot tall, 175 pounds, and blonde haired, he was more than just happy to be a U.S. Navy tactical fighter pilot. His world was perfect. He graduated high school and went to the U.S. Naval Academy where he graduated in 1962. He married his high school sweetheart three days later, and she became the perfect wife. They had the perfect kids, the perfect house, and without question, he had the best job in the world. His daily routine included climbing into the cockpit of an A-4 Skyhawk light-attack aircraft to take off and fly wherever he desired in the unconstrained visual flight rules in effect at that time. Then he would land, have lunch, and then a jog or a game of racquetball. His officer-rating reports were outstanding, and he had won a leadership award at the conclusion of a cruise to the Mediterranean during the summer of 1965. Everything was perfect.

Laura called to him from the kitchen. Tom, Hugh Franks is on the phone for you.

Talk to him; I’ll be in there in just a second. He wiped his hands on the T-shirt and went through the garage into the kitchen. He popped Laura on the cheek with a kiss and then talked into the telephone.

Hey, Buddha, what’s goin’ on?

I got the damned SDO duty this weekend, and I’m currently sitting in the hangar reading messages.

Sneering, Tom responded, Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Sure, I’d much rather be at the hangar playing squadron duty officer than here in my brand-new house playing with Laura.

Yeah, kiss my behind. Hey, I know that tight-ass squadron of yours will keep secrets forever, but we got a message from the bureau of personnel that is ordering about a dozen of us to Lemoore squadrons that are deploying to the gulf. Wanted you to know; you know, classmates stand together and go navy, beat army; but goddam it, pal, don’t tell anyone you heard it from me, or I am history.

Buddha, you shittin’ me? Is this really straight, and I am on the list too?

Trust me, baby; your orders read, ‘When directed in January, detach ATKRON 106, proceed and report to CO ATKRON 155, NAS Lemoore.’

Jeez, Buddha, this means we’re goin’ to war. I thought the damn thing would be over before we got a chance. Thanks for the heads up.

Just remember, you don’t know from me from nothin’.

Tom put the phone down, grabbed Laura, and gave her a much better kiss than he had done just a few minutes before.

What was that all about? she demanded.

Buddha has the dirty duty today, and a message came in from Washington that is ordering us all to transfer immediately to a Lemoore squadron. So much for us living here in Jax for a minimum of five more years.

She was stunned. This could not happen; it’s simply unreasonable. Why would they do that? Why would they interrupt our lives without even any notice?

Hell, I don’t know what goes on in DC, but they are giving us a month to start the move; and there is a sort of a war goin’ on. I don’t have a clue, and Buddha was just giving us some notice.

Laura, in shock with the prospect, needed some time to think about it.

About an hour later, she called to Tom who was still in the garage and said that his own squadron duty officer was now on the phone.

Tom here, he answered.

Top of the afternoon, asshole, all officers’ meeting tomorrow at 1100.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve; are you kidding me?

Yeah, that’s what my calendar says too. Believe it or not, Christmas Eve is a workin’ day for most of us naval pukes, and the skipper is even having me call in all of the people on leave. Maybe he’s announcing a party.

I hear you, duty puke, but I have also heard a rumor from a sister squadron friend of some strange surprise orders. Could that be the reason for the meeting? Tom pried.

Hey, don’t talk about things that will get you in a world of shit. I can neither confirm nor deny your ridiculous rumor. However, me too, but not to the same squadron you got.

The next day, the skipper announced at the AOM that the navy was concerned that the war would soon end, that only West Coast squadrons had gained any combat experience, and that it was a smart investment to spread that experience throughout the fleet.

Accordingly, OPSWAP was set in order. The OPSWAP was a set of orders that exchanged junior pilots who had combat experience, one for one, with junior pilots who didn’t from the opposite coast. The skipper made it clear that he didn’t like the program, but the decision was made well above his authority; and he would support his superiors. He then read the names of the officers concerned, and Tom was overjoyed to hear confirmation that he was ordered to attack Squadron 155 based at naval air station Lemoore, California. He was to detach in January and report to the new squadron in the same month, and that they were getting underway for combat operations while embarked in USS Constellation, CVA-64, in June 1966.

The next couple weeks were a blur. In many ways, a pleasant blur, but in many ways, a strain. Laura, normally the practical family money handler, came to the conclusion that even though they had only just signed the mortgage on their new house a month ago, they would move to California as a family. They would stay together as a family as long as possible, and they would trust their finances to luck.

The Farrell family flying circus departed Jacksonville, Florida, in a driving rainstorm. They crossed the nation expeditiously but did manage to take K&K (the children Kristen and Kenneth, four and three respectively) to Disneyland, known within the family as Mickey Mouse’s house.

Upon arrival in Lemoore, they moved into base housing, and Tom began his preparation for war with a total dedication. He felt he had some serious work to do. During the last cruise in the Mediterranean, he had done extremely well as a division officer and, in fact, had won the skipper’s annual leadership award. However, his bombing scores were poor; his carrier-landing grades were such that louie-louie, his shipboard roommate, considered taking out a life-insurance policy on Tom with Louie-louie as beneficiary. Tom’s best aviation strength was in air-combat maneuvering, dogfighting, but that would be of very little use in the type of war they were about to be involved.

Assuming that the answer to the dilemma was to know the words, Tom began studying them in earnest. The words were contained in a two-inch-thick flight manual and a similarly sized tactical book known as the Cuds. The Cuds was the conventional weapons delivery supplement, and it was totally devoted to waging nonnuclear war while flying the Skyhawk.

In March, the new squadron left home for a week at NAS Fallon, Nevada. Fallon, another name for remote, is a modern air station smack in the middle of nowhere about 150 miles from Lake Tahoe. The base is surrounded by targets, and its purpose is to provide a site where the squadrons could gather together for simulated-carrier air-wing-level combat operations in a realistic environment away from home. They were able to concentrate on getting up on the edge of high-intensity simulated combat around the clock without daily interruptions for cutting the grass, attending school plays, telling bedtime stories, or attending church with the families on Sundays.

The base got its name from a very small town just outside the gate whose main attraction was a bar/casino called Ma’s. Ma ran a joint. You could get food cheap; you could get booze cheap; you could gamble with bets as low as a nickel with a limit to quarters for commanders.

There were ladies of all ages with whom one might flirt, but at closing, they went home; and the pilots went back to the bachelor officers’ quarters. Ma had rules that neither her girls nor her boys would dare transcend. The irony was that Ma still recognized some of the boys who were now forty-year-old commanders who she had taught to play blackjack when they were only twenty-five.

Tom made Fallon a maximum personal effort. He went to Ma’s a few times but skipped the rental car fighter sweep to Tahoe. This was the time to fix his bombing and landing grades; and by the end of the deployment, Tom stood first in landing grades (for field-carrier-landing practice sessions with the landing signal officer [LSO] on the airfield grading every pass) and third in weapons delivery. He had made a good first impression in the new squadron and now was bound for the supreme test of naval aviation: force projection from an aircraft carrier at sea.

The transpacific voyage consisted of dozens of training meetings that emphasized the geography and defenses of the theater of war, the rules of warfare, and the best tactics for success. It was emphasized that success was determined by completion of the mission and return to the ship with an airplane ready for refueling and rearming for an additional launch on another mission.

It also consisted of choir practice conducted at least three or four times a week, sometimes daily. Choir practice was a not-so-secret meeting in one of the officers’ staterooms wherein great quantities of a mix were consumed. The formula was simple; a large amount of fruit-flavored liquids was mixed in a relatively clean plastic-foam cooler with a bunch of ice and either a couple bottles of brown or a couple bottles of white. Brown was bourbon, scotch, and dark rum. White was gin, light rum, vodka. It would never be sold in a tavern at home. It was the very definition of the term acquired taste, but the acquisition period for most pilots was measured in minutes.

The navy was, and is, dry. However, during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, pilots managed to bring alcohol aboard and take part in a drink or two after finishing flying each day. When the following day was a stand-down day, i.e., no flying, choir practice and its attendant alcohol abuse could be expected.

The squadron officers were billeted in a group of two-man rooms. Tom’s roommate was WP, a nickname for William Purcell Stanley. Old WP was a country boy with no pretenses either for squadron command or admiral’s stars, but a solid love for flying and going home to his family. He was six feet one inch and 185 pounds and was rumored to have worked out once in his life, but that rumor was never confirmed. He started his naval career as a multiengine pilot but switched to A-4s as soon as he could. WP’s philosophy was to do the assigned job in the air and bring the airplane back, each as important as the other. He was mature for his rank and age, much more so than most lieutenants, making him the perfect counter to a quick-draw, hip-shooter like Tom Farrell. WP was a member of the sister squadron on the last cruise to the Mediterranean and, of course, was also one of the pilots involved, with his family, in OPSWAP.

Next door were the Baron and the Loser. Loser’s name was Ltjg. Dick Mars. Dick arrived to the squadron late because he had a landing accident during his first carrier-qualification period. Reading the naval message that reported the accident, one of the officers remarked, Wow, this guy is coming to us, and he crashed on carqual. He must really be a loser! Traditionally, everyone gets a nickname, but they don’t get to choose their own call sign; that task falls to the squadron. Surely, all the Rhodes will be Dusty; an overweight guy might be Pear, but the naming begins after the new guy arrives. Loser earned his name before arrival.

The Baron was U.S. Marine Corps Major Ted Sterling. Ted got his nickname because he simply looked as though he were the Hollywood caricature of a baron. The Baron’s job in the squadron was to sit on the tactics board and the mission-planning board. This meant that the Baron would be the only one in the squadron who knew exactly which missions would be flown the next day.

Tom, nicknamed The Hawk, was the Baron’s in-flight wingman, and when not flying, his job was preparing the daily flight schedule. The Baron and the Hawk quickly noted that, with the advance intelligence as to which missions promised to be the better, and the fact that one of them wrote the schedule, they were provided with an opportunity for viewing the daily air plan as a buffet cart from which to choose their flying.

The stateroom on the opposite side of Tom’s was occupied by Lt. George Herman Martin. Giving evidence for the proof of the small world adage, Martin had been a member of the class two years senior to Tom at the naval academy. However, during his third year, Martin got into trouble with the honor court over some alleged cheating issue and was sent away. He later rejoined the navy as an aviation cadet and began the journey to pilot status with that program. By 1966, they, Tom and Martin, were both in VA-155 with Tom now slightly senior to Martin. Tom especially enjoyed the situation because, as a plebe, he suffered some minor hazing from Midshipman Second Class Martin, and now the tables were turned in Tom’s favor.

* * *

Vietnam operations were conducted by naval air power from two at sea positions. They were called Dixie Station (unsurprisingly located in the southern part of the area) and Yankee Station, which was located to the north. An arriving aircraft carrier usually spent a week or so operating from Dixie Station. This was because the missions were similar to the northern missions except that they were flown in a much more benign environment. In fact, it could be argued they could fly a mission and never get shot at.

Once the ship and its embarked air wing were refreshed and comfortable with the tasks, about two weeks, they were moved north to the dangerous skies adjacent to Yankee Station.

Chapter 1

Dixie Station

Constellation heeled slightly to starboard as her rudders bit into the sea. The bow carved an arc of white foam to port as she sought a heading directly into the wind.

It was nearly launch time, which occurred at fairly predictable hours each day. Even the enemy knew that the ship normally operated on a fixed launch and recovery cycle of an hour and forty minutes.

On this first day of combat, a brilliant blue sky dominated the cobalt Tonkin Gulf on which, from horizon to horizon, all one could see were the ships of the aircraft carrier-battle group. The force consisted of the carrier, attendant destroyers, and a cruiser, all of which performed force-air defense, antisubmarine defense, and pilot-rescue services should an accident occur on takeoff or during landing.

On that thirty-knot rapidly turning flight deck, crammed with over eighty jet aircraft, engines spewing fumes of burning fuel at sound levels certain to cause pain to the unprotected ear, hundreds of professionals wearing color-coded jerseys worked a task of nearly unbelievable complexity.

The flight-deck professionals have often been likened to a ballet company. But ballet company is not nearly so accurately descriptive as is, perhaps, the equally grim and determined players of the National Football League. After just a short period of time, the professionalism demonstrated on the flight deck approaches the Super Bowl level. However, while an error in the stadium on a Sunday in January can result in torn knees, broken fingers, and slight concussions, an error on the flight deck may result in another memorial service a couple days later. It could be assumed that whenever a carrier went to sea, not all of the men standing solemnly at the rail as the ship got underway would be standing there for the cheering on her return.

Tom Farrell saw the yellow-shirted plane director indicate that the tiller bar was attached. That meant a sailor was right under his canopy and was manhandling the direction of the taxiing aircraft as it inched forward toward the shuttle. It was imperative that the aircraft be perfectly aligned with the catapult track during the launch, and tiny Skyhawk, the A-4 light-attack aircraft, was designed without pilot-controlled nosewheel steering.

Once aligned on the catapult track, the aircraft would be fitted with a holdback whose function was to hold the aircraft in place even with the engine at full power until the catapult was fired.

When ready, the catapult officer would signal to the pilot to advance the throttle to the maximum position, and upon hearing the engines wind up, he would signal the catapult crew to put their machine in readiness. The pilot would then