It happened 60 years ago today.
Official period caption: “The shadow of a U.S. Navy photograph reconnaissance jet passes near a burning Communist Vietnamese PT boat after it was blasted by U.S. Seventh Fleet aircraft from aircraft carriers USS Midway (CV 41) and USS Hancock (CV 19). This was one of the five PT boats destroyed by U.S. Navy aircraft on April 28, 1965. The boats were spotted in the Song Giang River near the Quang Khe Naval Base (located some 50 miles north of the 17th Parallel) despite heavy camouflage. A total of 58 Navy aircraft (28 strike and 30 support types) took part in the day-long attack. All were recovered safely.”
330-PSA-81-65 (USN 711478)
The silhouette is unmistakably that of a Crusader, making it either from Hancock’s embarked CVW-21’s Light Photographic Squadron (VFP) 63 Det. L or Midway’s CVW-2’s VFP-63 Det A, both of which flew RF-8A photo birds during that time.
While not made in big numbers (just 144 constructed), the RF-8A was key in Cold War history, playing a critical role during the Cuban Missile Crisis spotting Russian missile sites. In 1957, five years before becoming the first man to orbit the Earth, Marine Major John Herschel Glenn Jr. made the first supersonic transcontinental flight in “Project Bullet,” a photo Crusader, cruising from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8.3 seconds, averaging 725.55mph. It would have been faster had he not had to slow for three aerial refuelings. Glenn’s on-board camera likewise took the first continuous, transcontinental panoramic photograph of the United States.
For what it is worth, postwar analysis shows that the Vietnam People’s Navy lost three Chinese-supplied Type 55A (NATO Shantou or “Swatow” class) gunboats on 28 April 1968 at Song Gianh, South Vietnam: T-161, T-163, and T-173. Two others, though roughed up a bit by Navy air and follow-on strikes by USAF F-105 Thunderchief, were able to limp away to fight another day. The 82-foot steel-hulled diesel-powered boats were based on the Soviet P-6 class (Project 183) PT boats (which themselves were based on American-built Elco and Higgins mosquito boats delivered to Uncle Joe during WWII via Lend-lease), but only carried guns and depth charges, not torpedoes and were notable for their involvement in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964.