USS WASP 1953-54 World Cruise Task Force 77 VF-173

[frank2far]

I picked these two up recently. Comments welcome. They appear to be original era. The VF-173 is a rather large patch.

[frank2far]

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[Salvage Sailor]

Very nice set of World Cruise patches.

 

Operation Mariner was a NATO exercise and what's not listed is Operation Vulture, the potential Op off of Indochina (Vietnam) to assist the French at Dien Bien Phu. Task Force 77 made a demonstration of strength and sailed on by.....

 

Operation Vulture (1954) - When Ike Was Asked to Nuke Vietnam

[frank2far]

Very nice set of World Cruise patches.

 

Operation Mariner was a NATO exercise and what's not listed is Operation Vulture, the potential Op off of Indochina (Vietnam) to assist the French at Dien Bien Phu. Task Force 77 made a demonstration of strength and sailed on by.....

 

Operation Vulture (1954) - When Ike Was Asked to Nuke Vietnam

 

Interestingly, I went to my dad's letters from my book. He mentions something in the following letter.

 

"Sunday

4 April 1954

Dear Mother and Dad,

 

I know it has been a long time since I have written, but I thought maybe they would tell us when we are going home.

 

But all we do is listen to rumors and fly. We fly more than we did off Korea, but it is much more enjoyable. The weather is fines except for 3 or 4 days when the haze was so bad you had to fly instruments even though the sun was blinding and there wasnt a cloud in the sky. Sure was a funny feeling. The hops have been cut down to an hour and a half for ADs so we feel just like jet boys now. Also the Task Force wont let us get over 50 miles away so there isnt any worry about going down and not getting picked up. All in all, Im enjoying it down here except for it causing us to get home late. Dont know when we will get back now.

 

In case you havent read it in the papers, we are off Indochina for some reason. My only guess is to be ready in case the Chinese communists. Try to horn it but that is only my guess, so dont take it as the truth.

 

We have two new dates for getting home now. The 29th of April or the 4th of May, nobody knows yet.

 

My landings have picked up a lot and I have 61 now. Been in a couple of good dog fights, shot down one AD but there isnt much you can do with a jet except keep him from getting you. If he is dumb and lows down to around 200 knots, he is cold turkey though and all you have to do is turn inside him, which is easy in an AD.

 

Wish I could tell you more about when I will be home, but I just dont know anymore. Sure is disconcerting.

 

I probably wont be able to take leave as soon as I get back because I will be in an instrument school at Jax supposedly.

 

Not much else to say now. Havent been getting much mail from either of you lately, but I guess it will catch up with me.

 

Love,

 

Roy

 

P.S. I got your clipping on Harmons death. Its a bad thing to say but Harmon just stalled in on a tow take off. There was nothing wrong with the catapult because he flew for 200 yards after takeoff."

[Salvage Sailor]

"In case you haven't read it in the papers, we are off Indochina for some reason....."

 

Yep, the closely held secret Operation Vulture. It wasn't in the papers for security reasons and of course, and it never happened.

 

Thanks for connecting the letter to the Op as it's always nice to find a first hand reference in a personal letter to back up the historical record.

 

Aloha