Frank Elkins was a U. S. Navy A-4 Sky-hawk pilot during the early years of the Vietnam War. He kept a diary that his wife inherited after Frank was killed on October 13, 1966. She edited the diary and it was first published in 1973. The charm of the diary is that it was not written to be read by the public — it contains the intimate thoughts of a brave young man very much in love and facing combat, an honorable man keenly aware of the duty he owes to his country and his shipmates. One wishes that Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara had the courage to read this diary after it was published, but probably they didn’t. Life isn’t like that.
August 24,1966
Once I got to sleep yesterday, I dreamt and
Tossed and rolled. I had a dream about some girl I didn’t know. I don’t seem to dream about Marilyn that much. I guess, regardless of what else may be said, Barry is right in that man, in the primitive state at least, is not a monogamous creature. But if I found it necessary to look for other women here, loving Marilyn the way I do, and knowing that she is mine only, I couldn’t get up in the morning. . . .It’s not a moral thing with me; I just don’t want to disappoint Marilyn in any way, don’t want any secrets to come between what we share.
One thing that’s really difficult about being married to her is that my attitude is now not as good as it was when I felt that I had nothing really to lose. I enjoy living more than some, and if I’m killed, surely there are plenty who will say, “Too bad,” and mean it. But I’ve never felt that the world would be greatly altered. I’ve lost that attitude, though it’s the best possible frame of mind to be in when you know there’s a good chance you won’t make it back. It’s those who have too much to live for; they’re always the ones who get it. And me. I’ve got too much to live for now. I have to keep my longings and daydreams in check, or I’m afraid I’ll lose something that’s really necessary to get me through all this.
After 2300 I was half-awake. I had already checked the schedule and knew where my 0300 strike would be. Checking the schedule is always a mistake. If you don’t know where you’re going on a hop, you can’t really worry because you can’t form pictures of the terrain and the flak and the hills where you might be forced to parachute down in the pitch, milky black. But I had seen the schedule, and I knew that I was to go into the area of heavy fire at checkpoint 32 in the middle of Brandon Bay, to follow the roads west for twenty miles, then turn north and reconnaissance that part of the road up to checkpoint 38, then turn back southeast to the coast.
Lying there in bed, I mentally dodged bullets and shells, called Bob a hundred times giving him instructions, and struggled the way one will do in a dream when he doesn’t know what he’s fighting; I just tense up against whatever it is I’m to go up against, although tensing up doesn’t do anything either. I lay there for half an hour doing this, the way in the afternoons in high school before a night football game, I would lie upstairs and mentally make touchdowns and fantastic razzle-dazzle football plays. Except in this case there was the tough load of having to shepherd Bob in and out of there as well as just live through the whole thing.
And, unlike the football game, there’s no great thrill about looking forward to a night armed-reconnaissance hop; there’s only the dread of the dark, of not seeing anything worth bombing and yet risking your very ass every minute of the night, keeping track of yourself and another man over hostile territory, making bombing runs when a mistake in navigation might drive you into a mountain or hillside, or, even easier, cause you to drop a bomb where the elevation puts you down in your own bomb fragmentation pattern and blow yourself out of the air. Hell, even night hops in the States were dangerous, and people flew into the ground and killed themselves, just because there’s so damned much that you have to take care of, keep track of, and get done.
But, add all this to a murky, milky, black night, with no horizon and rolling variable terrain, and lights out in both aircraft, bullets, flak, the possibility of SAMs and MiGs, a wingman who, even though I think he’s the damned best in the squadron except for Barry, is nevertheless the section leader’s responsibility, and then, take all that to bed with you when you know you’ve got to get up in a couple of hours, right in the middle of the night, and face all that garbage. Try to get a little rest under those circumstances.
I gave up and wrote Marilyn a letter instead.
After the hop is over and you are back on the ship, it’s virtually impossible to remember how much you dreaded going out there at night. It’s true; even now I can’t really put myself in the helpless, inadequate mood I was in before manning aircraft this morning.
During the brief in Air Intelligence, you know you’re going and you listen carefully. Then back in the ready room, you begin to dread it and you go on briefing though, even though you’re beginning to look for a way out, to hope that you’re really not going out, that the spare will be launched in your place, that you’ll be late starting, that you’ll have no radio, or a bad ALQ, or something — anything — that’ll give you a decent, honorable out of that particular night hop. After the brief, waiting to suit up and man aircraft, you really dread it most then. A cup of coffee and another nervous call to the head, and you’re told to man your aircraft for the 0300 launch.
Up on the flight deck, you start looking for something wrong; you go all the way around the aircraft, looking for that little gem that’ll be reason enough to your conscience and your comrades to refuse to go out. And it doesn’t come. You never give
Up though, first the damned radio works, and the damned ALQ works, and the damned TAG AN works. . .
August 25, 1966
It’s 0800; at 0230 I briefed Bob Smith and the spare, Darell, for a night armed-reconnaissance hop. At 0400 we manned aircraft. At 0400 Bob was launched, and as I was taxiing up on the cat, I noticed his aircraft, at about one-half a mile forward from the ship, start a hard left turn. Then I noticed he was descending rapidly, and I grabbed for the mike key. I couldn’t say a word before aircraft, bombs, and everything hit the water and went up in a 1,500-foot fireball. No ejection. No chance for survival.
There was no horizon, clouds everywhere, perfect vertigo weather. I suspect that this is what happened. Disorientation or a bad gyro.
Since then I’ve been in sort of a daze. I guess, flying with Bob every day, I got to be much closer to him than I had meant to be. Also, he was really my first wingman, and there’s a lot to that too. Sort of like he was mine. And he was really coming along too. He was as good as anybody I ever met at that experience level. Gone. What a waste.
He has a kid brother aboard who is an enlisted man. I went down with the chaplain and told his brother about Bob’s death this morning. He looked so sad. I finished and went out on the catwalk and cried for five minutes or so.
And the war goes on. I flew my second hop. I guess if the spare hadn’t been down, I’d have been expected to fly the one on which Bob was killed. On the second hop Bob and I were scheduled to go out again. Richard was in his place. When I went back to the ready room, I expected to see Bob there ready to brief. Damn it all, it’s just too bad. Engaged and to be married the first couple of weeks back from this damned place. Zap. Over. Gone. Written off.
It’s a tough blow. I liked Bob, and he was so doggoned good in the air. We really didn’t pal around much on the ground, but oh what a pleasure to fly with him on my wing. He held the tight formation just like I do with three years’ less experience than I have. And he used his head and could be trusted. We were just getting so we could feel what the other was thinking and doing in the air. Lately, almost nothing had to be said, for we each already knew what to expect from the other. And now it’s gone, and I don’t think it’ll ever be exactly the same. At least not this
Cruise. Oh, God, what a loss to the squadron, to his girl, to his brother and family.
August 27, 1966
I don’t like to admit this, and if I get killed and Barry reads this as I have given him permission to do, I think it may make him cringe as it would me if I were reading the same thing in his journal. However, the truth is, I downed an aircraft on deck for a bad gyro, and it just wasn’t the truth.
It was a 2300 brief with Ralph and Bost as spare. I briefed for a flight in the area of north Brandon Bay, following the route over to checkpoints 38 and up to 41. We were to look for traffic on the road. I intended to go, for I knew after having seen Bob go in the night before, I needed to have a terrifically hard hop turn out successfully before I could have my confidence restored. I intended to go, but the dread of it was in my mind all the time. When we manned aircraft at 0100, I began meticulously looking for something wrong with the aircraft, but there was nothing really wrong.
I started, checked and rechecked everything, and everything was still working. Going through my mind right then was all the camaraderie that Barry, Tom, T. R., and I
Have had about not giving a damn when the going got rough and when things were most hairy, and how that what I really wanted from God right then was not the strength to endure, but just a good, safe way out. I did wrong; I can’t feel any other way about that. But my conscience hasn’t bothered me like I thought it might. I called, “416, in and up,” and I thought that I had my head problem solved and that I was going out and solve my lack of confidence right then.
But as I taxied up on the cat, I looked to 10:30/11:00 and thought I could see Bob’s lights zooming by and the fireball blazing and blinding. I couldn’t see the horizon and I tried to concentrate on checking my instruments and takeoff checklist. But right then, without thinking or anything else, I called, “This is 416, on cat number two. I’m down. Bad gyro.” I chickened out and didn’t fly.
I flew the second hop of the day and put a big hole in a bridge near Caobang.
All this happened yesterday.
Today, I briefed at 0100 with the XO as his wingman on the same route I was to fly last night when I showed yellow. When we got to the aircraft, it was last night’s scene all over again. Scared. Dread was engulfing me. No horizon. But, knowing that things weren’t going to get any better until I had
Gone out on just such a night as this — thunderstorms everywhere, fog, soup, rain, no horizon — I wouldn’t be up to myself again. So, taxiing up on the cat, there was Bob’s fireball again, looking at me from 10:30, but I gritted my teeth and went ahead. Tearing down that cat, I was 100 percent adrenaline. I ran my seat down and was all instruments and no visual. I got into the air okay, and suddenly I knew I had it made, faced the devil and grinned him down.
The rendezvous was blacker’n ever and in the goo and hairy again, but I never really sweated it. I got on the XO’s wing, and here we went. Terrible weather, but I was suddenly all guts. North Viemam couldn’t get to me since I had beaten the Frank Elkins devil. I overcame the weakling, the mama’s boy, the guy about whom Billy said, “Give the ball to Elkins. He’ll dance across the goal.” And I didn’t give one rat’s ass if the whole world was shooting at me, I had already won.
Fritz had an electrical failure and, after one try for the deck, punched out. He was being rescued as we were landing.
Then I heard Maverick Two call, “This is Magic Stone 403. I’ve lost you in the clouds, Darell.”
Darell said, “Roger, make a twenty-degree
Right turn.” He did and the ship had him on radar and was talking to him.
Then Benny called, “I’ve lost my gyro and external lights.”
Darell said, “Roger. Pull your emergency generator.”
“Roger, but I don’t think it’ll do any good; I’ve still got my standby gyro, and I’ve got it under control.”
“Roger. As long as you’ve got control.”
But Benny lost the rest of his gear, lost his lights, calmly took off his kneeboard, and sold the aircraft to the fish. Bingo. Pop-up and out into the free airstream for a nylon letdown into the saltwater bath. The helo got him out after half an hour or so. He’s okay, and I’m taking him on two hops tomorrow.
Since Bob’s death, I’ve decided to retire the “Genghis” flight call — that’ll be mine and his. I was Genghis One and Bob was Genghis Two, and there won’t ever be another Genghis flight as far as I’m concerned.
This week has been like a bad dream. Since Bob got killed, the whole squadron seems different to me. Never knew I thought so much of Bob. Never realized how comfortable I was flying with him, and probably I did better not to know. Damn, I never meant to let myself get close to anybody out here where a death is something you have to
Expect and prepare for. But without knowing it, I guess I did.
August 28,1966
Commander Stone of the Spad squadron just had an engine fire and jumped out at Hon Me. He was fired upon during the rescue operation, but nobody else was hurt. He was banged up a little and burned, but he’s being flown back here right now. That makes nineteen airplanes we’ve lost in actual combat operations, not to mention the other crunches.
My own flights were uneventful: I’m beginning to recover from that bout I was having with my nerves.
August 29, 1966
Bad news today. We’ll be extended on the line until September 8, which means I won’t be seeing Marilyn until the ninth.
Along with the announcement night before last that we would be extended, they gave us a sort of conciliatory boon; we were given three days as white carrier. That is, we fly days only for three days, until the first. Red, white, and blue carriers; white has the day shift, blue flies noon-to-midnight, and red
Has the gruesome midnight-to-noon shift.
Late this evening I went out with Bost for a typical no-control, no-plan, confused two hours of pure hair, up in the island area to the north, just south of China. On earlier flights, SAMs had been fired at everyone in that area. That damned Bost had us going around at 10,000 feet, right in the most vulnerable area, at the most vulnerable altitude. We were looking for SAM sites, and boy, I got a full half hour of eye strain, not to mention mental indigestion. We drew a lot of fire from an automatic-gun site. I saw two tracers fly over my right wing and then a couple go under the wing. There’s a tracer bullet about every eighth round in the ammo belt; at least that’s the way we did it in the North Carolina National Guard. So, for every tracer bullet you see, there are seven or so more invisible bullets zigging around. The tracer helps the gunner see where he’s shooting and, incidentally, gives the aviator a sporting chance, not to mention a little fear.
Dammit, I don’t feel right saying, “Come on, September ninth.” It should be September 5.
September 4,1966
Yesterday was an eventful day for me.
Tim asked me the night before if I minded being sent into the dreaded island area around Cac Ba, Hon Gay, and the Haiphong harbor channel area on Bost’s wing. That’s like asking a turkey on Christmas Eve if he minds laying his head on the block of wood while you’re filing your ax.
I said something like, “Hell, yes; it might save some lesser wingman’s life, so I’ll go.” But when it came time to go, I began to wish I had uttered sentiments similar to those of other junior officers who have flown that particular tactical position.
We accompanied the strike group up to a point just east of the island area. At that point, the strike group, led by the CO, proceeded farther north to a coast-in-point. Don and I broke off to the east and flew in to begin monitoring the fan-song radars on our Shrike missiles. Only hitch here was that the ship had run out of Shrikes, and there I was with only a load of bombs, in the worst SAM/flak area outside of Hanoi/ Haiphong, with no passive radar to tell me when I was being tracked or painted by SAM or fire-control radar sites.
As the skipper rolled in, I got myself steeled somehow and flew in there like a madman, looking down gun barrels and directly at SAM sites known to be active, and
Went tearing into that area, found the SAM site that had fired on most of us, and laid my stick of bombs right across that momma. Bingo! Zap and away!
I was still in a hell of an area though and went dodging out the Haiphong channel at
2,000 feet. Back at the ship, CAG and the skipper met me in the ready room, slapping me on the back and hollering congratulations. Tim cursed me properly because he and I have been plotting for a week on various ways to get up there and hit that particular site. After secure last night, we got a message from the admiral personally congratulating the two of us. Since Bost was leading the flight, he gets credit for my hit as well. Both of us are being recommended for Distinguished Flying Crosses for the flight.
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