Nice Sea Story. I was a Fighter Pilot in Air Wing 16 on the 67 cruise Purdy references here. I'm sure I have provided him flack suppression and TARCAP (MIG protection) on some of the strikes he and I participated in. I never heard the term "Bloody 16" until many years later when someone wrote a book of the same title. However, we did indeed suffer high losses. As Mr. Purdy says, we did a lot of Alpha Strikes in very hostile areas. But what is important to remember is that we never turned back from a target because of heavy enemy defenses. We got Air Intelligence briefings before each mission and we learned that sometimes other Air Wings from other carriers conducted a strike the day before in the same area, but the entire strike group jettisoned their ordnance and turned back without reaching their target. To a man, we thought that was odd because turning back was simply something Air Wing 16 didn't do. As a result, Oriskany put more bombs on target than any other carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin at the time in spite of being a smaller 27 Charlie sized (Essex class) ship. We paid a heavy price in lost aircraft and about a quarter of we pilots were killed or captured. But we did our duty and nobody serving on that cruise could ever be accused of not giving it our all.
Thank you so much for expanding more information about the heroes who operated off Yankee Station! The men who served on the Oriskany featured in our films are legendary and were an absolute honor to film!
Omg 😲 The angels of God were with you. If it anything would have been different, you would not be here to tell the tail. God bless you brother. God bless every man that went over there, especially those that did not come home 💯🇺🇸⚓🩵
Thank you for your service.
thank you for your service SIR!
Nice Sea Story. I was a Fighter Pilot in Air Wing 16 on the 67 cruise Purdy references here. I'm sure I have provided him flack suppression and TARCAP (MIG protection) on some of the strikes he and I participated in. I never heard the term "Bloody 16" until many years later when someone wrote a book of the same title. However, we did indeed suffer high losses. As Mr. Purdy says, we did a lot of Alpha Strikes in very hostile areas. But what is important to remember is that we never turned back from a target because of heavy enemy defenses.
We got Air Intelligence briefings before each mission and we learned that sometimes other Air Wings from other carriers conducted a strike the day before in the same area, but the entire strike group jettisoned their ordnance and turned back without reaching their target. To a man, we thought that was odd because turning back was simply something Air Wing 16 didn't do. As a result, Oriskany put more bombs on target than any other carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin at the time in spite of being a smaller 27 Charlie sized (Essex class) ship. We paid a heavy price in lost aircraft and about a quarter of we pilots were killed or captured. But we did our duty and nobody serving on that cruise could ever be accused of not giving it our all.
Thank you so much for expanding more information about the heroes who operated off Yankee Station! The men who served on the Oriskany featured in our films are legendary and were an absolute honor to film!
Omg 😲 The angels of God were with you. If it anything would have been different, you would not be here to tell the tail. God bless you brother. God bless every man that went over there, especially those that did not come home 💯🇺🇸⚓🩵
I look forward to these short videos. God bless all of our troops, but especially NAVAIR!♠️⚓️
I found a photo of Lt. Jg Purdy in the cockpit of his A-4 in my Dad’s cruise book from 1967. This is great to know the story behind the image now.
I’ve got two books from my dad. He was stationed on the Big O in 70-72 I think. I’ll have to see but that’s a few years after this story.
@@yankeedogg2212 Awesome! My Dad was home by then. A-7s and F-4s were coming more into play. Much respect.
Walking with Angels is what I call it.
Amen to that
My dad was there with VF-111 on the Oriskany in 1967.
Only got hit 3 times, this guy's a legend 👊🏼 , but it turned out to be 4 times.. sheesh! Thank you for your service 🇺🇸
Like “The Bridge at Tokyo-Ri”
Lets get the new guy to lead the flight what could possibly go wrong? 🤷♂