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Nostalgia Kill

By lex, on January 31st, 2011

USS Yorktown collision at sea with a Soviet Krivak-class destroyer during a freedom of navigation op on 12 FEB 1988.

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January 31st, 2011 | Tags: , | Category: History, Navy

22 comments to Nostalgia Kill

  • AW1 Tim
    January 31, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    There was also quite a big fracas in ’76, I believe, when a Soviet Echo II tried to cut the towed array of USS Voge (FF-1047) and misjudged his approach. The submarine’s sail ran right under the screws on Voge and sustained some damage. The whole thing was caught on video tape.

    Here’s a still photo of the mast of the Echo II just before impact.

    http://fleetaw.tripod.com/Standby.jpg

    • SJBill
      January 31, 2011 at 8:08 pm

      We were simul-typing, Tim. ;-)

      • SK1
        February 1, 2011 at 5:49 am

        Kinda why this Seabee liked being out in the desert…collisions in desert are mainly our weapons “colliding” with a terrorist…..much better outcome for us, not so much for them.

  • SJBill
    January 31, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    There was always the potential for your day to be ruined out there. A TU-16 Badger paid the price with the loss of all hands following a crazy overflight of ESSEX, back in May of ’68. This was at the same time as the loss of SCORPION, and somewhat following the seizure of PUEBLO, so you can get a taste of the midset.

    The INCSEA Treaty of ’73 was the outcome. Our old OpsBoss, CAPT Ed R. Day was present to sign the treaty, along with then SECNAV John Warner and a few Soviet dignitaries better known for thei parts in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

    One of the big Cold War WHISKY-TANGO-FOXTROT events was the ramming of the USS VOGE FF-1047 by a Sov Echo-II. ADM Harry DePuy Train II details that event pretty well here: http://www.usni.org/heritage/train

    If interested in the Good Old Days, Dr. David Winkler has compiled many of the Cold War events in a book entitled “Cold War at Sea, High-Seas Confrontation between the United State and the Soviet Union,” USNI Press, 2000 or thereabouts. That book is how we got to meet each other and exchange a few e-mails.

    They were very exciting times.

  • Quartermaster
    February 1, 2011 at 4:46 am

    I can’t remember the ships involved, but there was an underway refueling and a Sov steamed right between the ships involved to watch emergency breakaway procedures. That happened while I was in the Med, iirc.

  • Bill the Shoe
    February 1, 2011 at 4:57 am

    One piece of fallout from Yorktown’s Black Sea shouldering was the sudden need to know whether Harpoon missiles are HERO-safe after the missile body has been ripped open. NAVSEA conclusion was that they are, but put several layers of aluminum foil over the exposed internals just in case.

  • xformed
    February 1, 2011 at 5:16 am

    During the later part of the OVL (Ops in the vicinity of Libya)/El Dorado Canyon ops in mid-86, a KARA cut off JACK WILLIAMS (FFG-24) in CV lifeguard one dark night. No scrapped paint, but very, very close to it….

    When the group staff radioed “save the DRT traces,” the response was “we didn’t have it on.”

  • Scott
    February 1, 2011 at 5:42 am

    Well, I can see the weenie pack, but without seeing the lip stack or the guns in the back, color me unconvinced that is a Krivak.

    Funny the things that stay locked in your mind…

  • VQ Bubba
    February 1, 2011 at 6:05 am

    When you talk Cold War tensions, it’s always good to include recce flights. VP/VQ squadrons logged over 75 dead or missing. Nice write up at http://www.coldwar.org/histories/HistoryofUSNavyFleetAirReconnaissancePartTwo.asp.

    And, of course, more recently, we have the EP-3 collision with Major Wang Wei. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident Not that there exists any sort of Cold War type tension with the Chinese — I mean, the photo on my desk of a PLAAF Su-27 intercept looks pretty benign and all.

    • AW1 Tim
      February 1, 2011 at 7:30 am

      As one of the VP-Bubbas, I agree. There’s an awful lot of stories that have yet to see the light of day.

      • virgil xenophon
        February 1, 2011 at 9:41 am

        And don’t forget all the SAC B-47 recce/Elint birds shot-down over/near Soviet airspace in the 50s..

        • Buck
          February 1, 2011 at 10:49 am

          And the EC/RC-135s in the 60s and 70s, too. The SAC Museum in Omaha (or whatever they’re calling it now) has a great memorial to the guys that went down on those birds.

        • Justthisguy
          February 1, 2011 at 2:12 pm

          My former next-door neighbor worked on B-47 bomb-nav systems back in the late fifties, at what is now Hunter Army Air Field, near Savannah. I mentioned something I had heard about RB-47s flying near the Soviet Union and getting shot at, and he told me that no, some of “his” RB-47s had actually violated the sacred territory of Mother Russia, and one came back to Savannah with about eight feet of wing tip shot off.

          • virgil xenophon
            February 1, 2011 at 3:37 pm

            LeMay used to give all his SAC crews single-msn DFCs for those msns over Russia–wanted to give them Silver Stars but DFC was highest medal he could give w.o. Congressional authorization–which would have raised inconvenient questions if such an award had been submitted for approval as Congress didn’t know a damned thing about them–not even the intelligence committees..it was a SAC to Gods ear sort of deal..

    • Comjam
      February 1, 2011 at 7:52 am

      For a good recap of the history of PARPRO, and the not-so-cold-war lists of MIA/KIA aircrew that resulted from it, see: “The Price of Vigilance,” by Tart, Ballentine, New York, 2001 and “By Any Means Necessary,” by Burrows, Farrar, Straus & Giroux New York 2001. RJ also knows of whence I speak.

      SteelJaw Scribe has also written a lot about the missions of VQ-1 & VQ-2, as well as certain other units. Highest “peacetime” non-mishap losses of life and are still the disregarded step-children of naval aviation. I can guarantee you that as I write this, there are VQ missions aloft in multiple places, and squadron OPS and EW departments that are maintaining a “listening watch,” as it were. G-dspeed, aviators.

      “In G-d We Trust; All Others We Monitor.”

      • Todd
        February 1, 2011 at 10:48 am

        Used to see a lot of the VQ crews come through the NSGA spaces back in the day in Japan. Don’t remember the squadrons (Misawa, 88-90) but they all seemed like really good guys.

        Not quite related, but I’ve always found it a ‘little’ on the irritating side that while I can join the American Legion, I cannot affiliate with the VFW – overseas Cold War duty doesn’t count.

        • Comjam
          February 1, 2011 at 5:47 pm

          Todd, I got told the same thing by a VFW Chapter Commander back in the 90′s. Seems that now, as their numbers dwindle even more, despite the large number of ODS/OIF/OEF vets out there, they’ve changed their tune. They can kiss my Sandeman @$$.

          • Todd
            February 1, 2011 at 7:25 pm

            I was told I could join the “VFW Mens Auxiliary”, with the sons/grandsons of members that never served themselves.

            With almost 10 years of active duty, half of that outside CONUS, I politely declined.

      • AW1 Tim
        February 1, 2011 at 1:32 pm

        FWIW, here’s a list of my fellow AW’s lost in action. I think that the civilian world might well be amazed at how many folks we lost every year. The Cold War could be rather warm at times.

        http://www.tourohio.com/fleetaw/memorialindex.html

  • Steeljaw Scribe
    February 1, 2011 at 9:05 am

    And not just Navy too — as witness the shootdown of a USAF C-130 (17 KIA)over Armenia among others (MiG’s view)
    w/r, SJS

  • Andrey
    February 3, 2011 at 5:04 am

    Than in July 1992 two US ships – Yorktown and O’Bannon visited Severomorsk – Russian NAVY Base where I lived. So I had a chance to be on the deck of those two ships.
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