Vietnam Carrier Deployment question

[Andrew D. the Jolly Rogers guy]

Somehow I decided to post this question here instead of in General; okay, it's not a GB question, but hopefully this is a meetingplace of those who might know.

What is the "real" reason Atlantic Fleet carriers were sent to Vietnam? I mean, it makes sense to me as a layman that you'd send whoever was closest. Unless there weren't enough.

I asked this of a VF-84 Phantom pilot I was corresponding with, since his air wing (along with VF-41, VA-72 & 86, etc) were among the very first Atlantic air wings sent. And the only answer I got was "I guess they wanted to send the very best! :P" Nice thought, but not the historical answer I sought.

What's the real reason, then?

[Mike Phillips]

I'm gonna take a stab at this one....altho I'm by no means an expert.

I would say it would be to give the East Coast pilots some combat experience. I know at the time that there were "two air navies", East Coast and West Coast. I've read that they would ship pilots from the east coast to the west coast squadrons, and the west coast guys didnt think much of them. I'm sure that as the war continued, just having pilots to fly was the important thing, not where they were stationed. I'm sure after a while, it just made more sense to send the whole squadron, instead of sending them in a piecemeal fashion.

Just my .02

Mike

[Andrew D. the Jolly Rogers guy]

Not a bad theory! Although, seems like having carrier battle groups cruise all the way south to the Panama Canal and then across the Pacific to prove a point is about as stubborn-sounding as some of the women in my life<_<

[Spongebob]

Most carriers were/are too big for the Canal.

My guess: look at the deployment schedules for the West Coast boats... "Big Navy" was driving the requirements as far as #'s that needed to be there, and even with (generally) an East Coast ship there the whole time, the West Coast airwings/ships were doing 9 months deployed/9 months home rotations. Pretty crappy when you factor in some squadrons lost a lot of dudes/jets while they were deployed. I don't down that "spreading the experience" was also a side issue.

Another issue with that short turn around is a.) the ships don't get repaired properly after the deployment and b.) it's tough to swap people and get the new guys spun up for combat ops in 9 months. I did a year turn around back in 2002/3, and it hurt. A ton of work, and when you add it up I only slept in my own casa for about 5 months of that year.... and I didn't go TAD outside of when the squadron did. Scary to think I was in the Wallbangers for 2 years, but was only in my house for that short amount of time. Impeccable timing.

HTH

Spongebob

[Joe Hegedus]

Personnel and careers probably came into play, also. If only the west coast guys are going to war, the east coast guys are at a disadvantage when it comes time for promotions when up against guys with a lot of combat time logged if they don't have any. At least that's something I've heard along the way. Plus, like someone else said it makes sense to get as many of your people as much experience as possible if you can.