Passing of Heros (II)
If you haven’t already, you need to go to Pinch’s site and read the AAR of the memorial service held for BGEN Robin Olds, USAF-Ret. A rare bird in his time, unfortunately probably more so now. Go. Read. Remember.

If you haven’t already, you need to go to Pinch’s site and read the AAR of the memorial service held for BGEN Robin Olds, USAF-Ret. A rare bird in his time, unfortunately probably more so now. Go. Read. Remember.

USS Turner DD 648 (April 1943) 0600L Aboard the Gleaves-class destroyer USS Turner (DD 648) the crew is either moving to breakfast or to stations in preparation for a 0700 underway time for the Brooklyn Navy Yards for a scheduled refit and repair period. Laid down in November 1942 and commissioned in April 1943, she…
(h/t to Southern Air Pirate for the topic suggestion) 29 April 1975. South Vietnam is ceasing to exist as a geopolitical entity – Saigon is falling. Under leaden skies, the assembled ships and aircraft of TF 76, headed by carriers Hancock and Midway begin executing Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of US personnel along with Vietnamese…
A little while back, lex spoke of the qualities of a good wingman. Today, comes the story (courtesy of a cell-, er, cube-mate) of another wingman, albeit from the other Service with pilots who fly jets, but compelling nonetheless. -SJS "Nearly all plumes of black smoke on dry lake beds are resulted from planned,…
Pausing for a moment to acknowledge this signatory event in VAW history before returning to the discussion on the Maritime Strategy later today… -SJS 1967: VAW-11 (West coast) and VAW-12 (East coast) constitute the two largest squadrons in the Navy with some 200 officers and 800 enlisted each. Each squadrom supports 4 plane E-1B Tracer…
Staggered, Bloodied but Unbowed After the morning’s attacks Enterprise had suffered significant damage, but still able to put up a fight defensively and conduct air ops. The number two elevator, aft most on the flightdeck, was temporarily stuck in the down position, leaving a large, square hole just forward of the arresting gear. Forward, just aft…
Background: In the course of writing for this blog I’ve had occasion to meet up with a number of folks who’ve “been there/done that” in a historical context. By default many have been from Vietnam, a few from Korea andsome of whom have been by proxy from WWII, but late last year I had the…
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Thanks for the link, SJS.
Nice tribute to a warrior. I remember reading his exploits in VietNam when I was still in high school.