Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire My buds brothers Vietnam War story in pics. This will take a while- probably days.

I will post photos initially and go back to edit and add the explanation of an unreal life experience. Please bear with technically challenged me of gfy.

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This is my farming bud Gene Terhune 86 and his bro Jack 78. I met Jack from a few yrs ago and he had a great story of flying in VN war from a carrier. I was very interested as my uncle Carl Harms had flown bombing missions over NVN as a navigator in the 2 seat 104s (?) out of Thailand.

Jack was from Perryton Tx where his family raised wheat on 640 acres. He graduated from Abiline Christian and was to be drafted so he joined the Navy and iirc was sent to the Naval Air Station at Grand Prairie. He took his testing and they wanted to know what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a pilot. A month later he reported to Pensacola Fl in 1961 where he started flight training in a P28.
He did well and was asked if he wanted to fly heli, multi engine or jets. He chose jets and was sent to Beeville, Tx where he got his wings in 3 mo and was sent back to Pensacola as a flight instructor. They called that act "ploughing back" though i got the impression many werent proud of that.


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This was Jacks first picture after getting his wings. Beeville Texas and were i lived from 6-8th grade after dad left Halliburton for Dowell. Coincidences.
Jack was offered east or west coast stationing to take on a carrier and chose the west coast. He was sent to Miramar NAS at San Diego Ca. and assigned No 411 which identified his rank and position as a pilot on the USS Coral Sea. His was a F8U Cruasader built in Grand Prairie Tx to run 5 inch rockets and 20 mm machine guns which are also referred to as 20 mm canons. Perhaps Jorge can comment. It weighed 18,000 lbs and sat on 2 small tires with 100 lbs of pressure.

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Here he shows what they called the business end of the jet. It is the afterburners that expand when 100 fuel is injected into the flaming engine to increase thrust 35-40%.

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I know he did carry sidewinder missiles and cant remember if there are tubes for missiles or missiles on the side in this pic.

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This pic is of Jack or one by Jack of them over the harbor at San Diego with that city to the left. This is his wingman view iirc and the bottom is called Point Loma Ca.

Jorge and Rocky, please add any info or details or corrections as needed.

Thanks, jag.

A MAN'S Airplane! A true "gunfighter" also known as the "Mig Master" . The guns are 20MM cannon. Not the Gatling type found in today's fighters, but the old fashioned type, prone to jamming during high "G" turns. If you have a picture of the tail section, we could ID the squadron and get more history.

Indeed. Also known as "The Last of the GunFighters." Or the F-8 Crusader, to those not in the know. A true air-to-air ONLY airplane.

Thanks guys. I have more to come and first up close pics of Jack being shot down but gotta take a break.

VF-154 Black Knights off of USS Coral Sea (the Coral Maru )

The Crusader did a lot of air to ground work, especially in flak suppression, early in the war. It had a very poor survivable in that role. It had a lot of triple redundant systems but they were all placed right next to each other to make maintenance easier so one hit often took out all three.

Neat pics of a classic fighter. Circa 1999 I was at China Lake doing some special project work and looked up to see an A-7 in the break. Hmm, don't see many of the anymore I thought. As it slowed to abeam I saw the wing come up and thought "holly crap an F-8" apparently a contractor was flying them for project work. That's the only functional one I've ever seen.

Exactly Pugs and thanks for the reminder. Yall please add any details i omit or miss or interesting anecdotes and corrections as need be. Im about 1/4-1/3 through.

Later.

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Refueling after launch.l

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Jack and his jet on deck.


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Coral Sea preparing for deployment at dock. Rumors of Vietnam. Nov 1964. Note Ford Fairlane on edge of dock at top.

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Heading out to sea under San Diego Bay bridge that later collapsed on itself in the earthquake during the World Series in the 80s, while my bro and I were hunting east of Vallecito Res in Col and packing out his first 5x5 bull.

Iirc this bridge had Oakland on the east end. Many considered it more ofan engineering masterpiece than the Golden Gate as it had like 5 or 6 lanes going opposite directions, one above the other.

Now 30 min ago i was able to see all theimages uploaded to photobucket on photobucket. Now, those above are all i can pull up. So, back to the phone store tomorrow to find out wtf.

The tubes on the shoulder mounts in the one photo appear to be 4 shot rocket pods. They look too small to be for Zunis (5") but they could be for 2.75" A-G

Looking a little closer those tubes look like they're even too small for a 4 shot 2.75" pod. Could be single tube Zuni launchers.

In the Phantom and the Tomcat when you lit the "burners" the noise level gradually but quickly increased. In the Crusader when you lit the "burners" it gave a "hard light"......BOOM! Pretty distinctive.

Cool stuff Jim, look forward to tomorrow when the young buck shows you how to post more pics.

Thank you for posting this. It is stuff like this, and the commentary from people who really know what it was like, that keeps me coming to the fire.

Way cool pics, thanks for posting. I'll be watching for more.

Minor thing, in your bridge picture I think you mean San Francisco, not San Diego. Oakland is next to San Fran.

This ^^^^

Tanking off the Whale. My flight school class was one of the very last where people in the OJN track ended up in the A-3. So glad I didn't!