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E-5 Kerry R. Bignall - VO-67 South East Asia 1967/68

Kerry Bignall served in the Navy's VO-67 Squadron as a flight engineer on a converted P2V-5 Neptune. Flying out of Thailand, their mission was to fly at at low level in mountainous terrain to drop motion, infra red and other sensors over Laos and North Vietnams Ho Chi Minh Trail. This enabled the Air force to hit the troops & supplies coming down from the North. The unit and its 12 aircraft, normally used for A.S.W. operations, took 25% causalties before it stood down from operations. It did force the NVA to adopt some unusual counter measures that included playing tapes of truck noises to fool the air controllers directing the air strikes. VO-67 never stopped the flow of supplies, but they did help make the NVA pay a heavy price and with their high risk 500 ft altitude missions, helped defend the Marine base at Khe Sanh in 1968. In 2003 the US Goverment corrected a long overdue omission and awarded Kerry the DFC for his missions,

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Kerry was born Dec 16, 1944 in Trona, California(up above Ridgecrest in the high desert). He has a brother(William James) and a sister(Ginger Mary).
Kerry: "My father(Kenneth Otis)was a Navy Chief sonarman in WWII. After the Navy, he went to work for Philco Ford Corp, Palo Alto, California. My mother(Mary Eileen)was a photographer and housewife. Times were hard and we just barely got by. In 1944 we moved from Trona, to San Diego, California since my father was home-based out of San Diego. In 1949 he was transferred to Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii where my mother and sister still live today. I grew up learning how to surf, fish and dive.

My mother and father divorced in early 1951. My mother raised me until 1959. She was a professional, free-lance photographer. She had a dark room at home and did mostly military photo shoots on base. My sister has had severe asthma since a very early age. My brother, who is four years younger than I, joined the Army in 1969. He requested orders to Vietnam but was refused because of my involvement with VO-67, even though I had already been discharged in June of 1969. No information could be released, so he stayed stateside. He retired after 21 years. My dad asked if I wanted to go to California and live with him, so I did. We moved to Santa Clara. I went to high school at Buchser High School in Santa Clara. I played football, tight end for the Buscher Bruins

We lived in a regular tract home. My dad was not attached to the military by that time. I went to school dances and parties. A mental picture of American Grafitti is probably as accurate as it will get. I had a 1953 Oldsmobile 2-door hard-top, yellow. It was cool.

We'd go hang out at the drive-in on Friday or Saturday night, sometimes we'd go to Yosemite. My dad was working for Philco Electronics, subcontracted to NASA at Moffett Field. He helped design the telemetry stations for the space program. To earn spending money as a teen I worked in the orchards picking fruit. It was good money if you wanted to hustle. It's hard to believe that the Santa Clara valley was mostly orchards at one time. I didn't do much customization to my '53 Olds. I had just enough money to cover gas and tires. The only thing that was done was I cut a hole in the floor so that when we were stopped by the police we could set our beer on the ground under the car so they couldn't find it so we wouldn't be charged with open containers.
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I joined the Navy in Feb 1962. My father and I agreed, since I was having problems in school, that maybe the Navy would give me the discipline I needed. I had turned 17 years old a couple of months before. Now that I look back on it, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. My first duty station out of boot camp was on CVA-19 USS Hancock, a Navy aircraft carrier, which was doing a six-month tour in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of South Vietnam.

The USS Hancock on her was to S.E.A. passing under the Golden Gate Bridge 1963.
I was assigned to arresting gear and catapults V2 Division. Deck Crews Link Being assigned to arresting gear was one of the most dangerous positions of all. I was an Airman Apprentice, E2. In the last 6 months of 1963 several life-threatening accidents happened aboard the USS Hancock. One of them was an aircraft at 9:20 pm, in the dark, crashing onto the flight deck and hitting me with debris, namely the severed left foot of the pilot, still in a flight boot, hitting me in the chest almost knocking me overboard. It was at that point that I decided to re-enlist early in the STAR program to get a Navy A-School which would relieve me from carrier duty.
Schematic of the process for capturing an aircraft....Its not just a hook catching a wire.]

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In February 1964 I was assigned to NATTC, Memphis, TN.

This was a training command for Naval Aviation rates. I graduated in May of 1964(7 weeks of training) and was promoted to Aviation Machinist Mate 3rd Class(ADJ3). In June 1964 I was transferred to VP-30 Det Alpha in Patuxent River, MD, where I began my training for flight engineer. I spent 15 months assigned to VP-30, which was a training and transition squadron that took personnel from P2V ASW Aircraft and trained them for the P3A model aircraft. In Oct 1965 I requested a transfer to VR-22 in Norfolk, VA which was flying C-130 Hercules transports. I had information that VR-22 was being transferred to Moffett Field, California the next year, which was about 15 miles from home.

VR-22 & VR-8
I arrived at Moffett Field February 9,1966 and was immediately transferred to VR-8, another C-130 Hercules transport outfit.

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In February 1967 I was doing a pre-flight inspection on an aircraft that I was the flight engineer on for a flight to Japan when a LtCdr(Naval Officer) approached me on the flightline. He asked me if I would be interested in volunteering for a special Navy unit. I told him that I was getting ready to make this flight and that I would think about it while I was gone. He left. I finished the pre-flight and walked into the line shack. The Chief in the line shack handed me a packet and said that the LtCdr had left it for me. I looked at it and it was orders to VP-31 Det Noris, San Diego.

I told the Chief that I had this flight to make and he said "Not anymore". You have 8 hours to pack and catch a flight to San Diego." I reported to San Diego where nobody knew what we were going to do or where we were going. From Feb 1967 to June 1967 I was in training(20 weeks total) at VP-31 Det Noris on P2V-5 aircraft. On 17th June 1967 I was transferred to VO-67 (OBSERVATION Squadron 67) Pacific Fleet Alameda.

[Note: Bill Rutledge of HAL-3 was involved in the work-up of the aircraft. Bill: "Secret Emergency Orders sent me to NADC Johnsville/Warminster Pa. where I was assigned to the Highest priority project in the US Military at that time. There were 36 of us flying P2V-5s resurrected from the bone yard at Davis Monthan in Arizona supported by the NADC Maintenance and staff personnel. Six months later we were in Panama flying test and evaluation flights for a project named POTLID from which VO-67 was formed.

When the testing was completed the evaluation flight members were asked if they were interested in volunteering to take the aircraft into combat. There were few takers according to Bill. "I was in the project that worked them up and when were asked if we wanted to volunteer for a squadron that would come out of it [ WE ALL TOOK ONE STEP TO THE REAR". ]

Another story on the genesis of the unit as told by William L. "Bill" Hitch:

Bill: In early October 1966 as a junior Lt., my detailer in Washington called me and said I had two weeks to get to NADC Warminster, Pa. I asked him where was that and why was I being called from my current duty station a year earlier than expected? He told me where NADC was but said that was all he could tell me. So I showed up there on time, along with 15 other Officers, one full Commander and about 130 enlisted personnel. We were hearded into one big room and, of course, we all surrounded the Commander and asked him "What the heck is going on?" He knew as much as the rest of us did - nothing.

Some civilians showed up to give us a brief. Basically all the head guy said was to pack your bags for a warm climate for about two weeks and that we were departing with the four (old) P-2's that were also sent there. The Commander stood and asked our destination and the civilian said, (No lie), "I can't tell you as that is classified Top Secret." The "cool" Commander then said, "Well, it would be nice if we knew our destination so our Navigators could tell our pilots which way to point the aircraft after we took off." There was much laughter and - - no kidding, the civy looked around as if to see who was listening and said, "Panama Canal zone - Howard AFB." We came home 10 MONTHS later.

So I was one of the first to start Potlid - under an Air Force General named Starbird. After we did all the R & R and finally returned to Warminster we were told that a squadron of six very highly modified P-2 aircraft (like we flew our R & R missions in) were assigned to the Army and they took them to Viet Nam.

I was a VP Tactical Coordinator and was one of 16 Officers in Panama. We would sit around for days waiting for the civilians to come up with another experiment. (Played a lot of golf, poker, and fished a lot). Then suddenly there was the "Go" signal. Once I believe we flew 31 straight days (not long flights - maybe 4 to 5 hour flights - as normal ASW flights were 11 to 12 hours long).

The U.S. Marines were told to march through the jungle (not knowing why), and we would fly over their supposed position and drop parachute retarded listening devices (modified sonobuoys). The parachutes would catch in the upper branches of the trees and we would climb to 10K and listen. The buoys were sound activated and would activate at any noise (howling monkeys, birds, and of course people moving/talking as they moved through the brush). We taped everything and took notes as well and brought it all back to the civilians.

General Starbird would listen to every tape we brought back with all of us there at the debrief in case he wanted questions answered. One comical incident happened that we got all of it on a tape. While at 10K we heard one of the troops say, "What is that up in the trees?" They sent a Marine up the tree to retrieve the sonobuoy. We could hear all they said as they "Wonder where the hell that came from?" They moved back to their march and it was obvious that one guy was carring this buoy. In the nose of the buoy were slits and you could look in there and actually see a microphone. This guy obviously did just that and put his mouth close to the mike (after figuring out that someone is listening to this), and said very clearly, "Hello *@$@%*&%@#. (expletive deleted but you get the point)" We howled and couldn't wait to see the _expression on General Starbird's face when he heard this. He heard it and never blinked an eye - no change in _expression - nothing. What a disappointment.

They never would tell us why we were doing this, but, duh! It was so obvious to all of us - - - flying over a Viet Nam like environment - - listening to troop movement? Come on, civies - - are we going to Viet Nam with this? As it turned out they would not let any of us who were in on the R & R go to Viet Nam as we "knew too much". We thought that was pretty dumb as well. Did that mean that they were NOT going to tell the Army aviators what they were doing over there? Anyway, we finally came back to NADC Warminster and were put in non-descript billets until we finally got orders to a "real" Naval Aviation organization.

I have been told that an Army squadron of 6 P-2's were formed and sent to Nam. I heard that they lost 3 aircraft in the first several months and disbanded the unit. I went to be the XO at the Naval Facility in Puerto Rico. I only saw one of the original group of Officers that were there in Panama the rest of my career.

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Survival Evasion Resistance & Escape School

S.E.R.E. Badge & S.E.R.E. Challenge Coin awarded to graduates.
Prior to leaving for S.E.A I spent ten days at Warner Springs, CA, playing POW in the bush. It was a test of will to see whether they could break you down. At one point they brought you into a room. As you walked in you could see a cage. The only light in the room came from a single light bulb. The cage had a window with a shelf in it. On the shelf was a blank piece of paper and a pencil. A guard came in and told you to sign the paper admitting to committing war crimes. At this time a person inside the cage stuck a gun through the window into my face and started to tell me to sign or he would blow my brains out. As he was telling me this, I took the gun away from him and pointed at the guard. I found out it was empty. I was told that I was not allowed to take away the gun and was put face-down into a small, confining wooden box. Many hours later they came and unlocked the box. I had managed to turn over inside the box so as to be face-up. that did not make them happy campers either. Later that night I tried to escape over the fence. I managed to get a mile and a half from the compound before I was caught. I was then placed three feet in front of a telephone pole with my back to the pole. I was told to bend over backwards and place my forehead on the telephone pole at which point my head was taped to the pole. They also handcuffed my ankle to a large kitchen pan filled with rocks. There were various attempts on my part to escape. None were truly successful but it made the time pass more quickly.

As far as I know, nobody in VO-67 was given a patch or a challenge coin upon graduation from SERE School due to the secrecy of our unit. We weren't even supposed to be there. I acquired mine from a retired Naval pilot in San Diego who had two of them for sale on Ebay. He would not sell them to me until I provided a copy of my orders to SERE School. He had been through SERE School also. I bought both of them and gave one to the VO-67 archives.

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The worst memory I have was when Crew 6 was at Eglin AFB in Florida, which is a special weapons and training facility. This was a few months before we left to go to NKP. Robert McNamara, Secty of Defense, showed up while we were on a flight line getting ready for a test flight. He came up and started telling us that he was proud of us and that we were very important to the war effort. He invited all of us to the White House upon our return to the States. He started shaking hands. He went to shake my hand and I refused. He asked me why I refused to shake his hand. I told him that he was a liar and that we were never coming back from Vietnam. (You see, this was his pet project. He had told people in the government that our attrition rate was going to be as high as 80%)

Nobody knew I was going to Vietnam as it classified Top Secret. If shot down, we were to bury our chute if at all possible, activate our transponder and hide ourselves. Our escape vest consisted of a radio transponder, flashlight, sewing kit, soap, a wire wood saw, plastic map, rapell kit (nylon strap 1" wide, 50 ft long, with ratchet lock mechanism), a navigational compass, a container with matches, a pistol and a very large survival knife. As far as I know we are the only squadron to have anybody shot down in Laos and recovered. We were so secret that no one was ever going to admit that we were flying missions into Laos in 1968. There was a little known article published in National Geographic, Sept 1968, regarding the shoot down and recovery of Combat Air Crew 7 in Laos. The Combat Air Crew was not specifically mentioned because of the secrecy but the article stated that it was a Navy crew of nine personnel. The depiction of the sight where the crew was shot down is exactly where Crew 7 was shot down. We never flew any missions into Cambodia, only Laos, North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

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I was assigned to Combat Aircrew 6 flying our own aircraft, MR6. We flew that aircraft from Alameda, CA, stopping for fuel in Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam, & the Philippines before getting to Nakhon Phanom, Thailand

We arrived at NKP in mid-Nov 1967. As stated earlier, there were NO volunteers. All we know is that our CO, Capt W. Sharp, was given carte blanche as to who he wanted in the squadron and the orders were sent out. ADJ2 is Aviation Machinist Mate Jets / 2nd Class 2M is Second Mechanic. In other words there is a Plane Capt who is in charge of the enlisted crew and then there is the 2nd Mech who is second in charge of the enlisted crew or the backup for the plane capt. The Plane Capt is also an enlisted aviation machinist mate. We did have wings with a 6 in the middle but these were not Navy-issue. These were made up in town by some of the crew members. Our official Navy wings were the gold AC wings.

We were supposed to wear the combat air crew wings but since we were so short lived we had to stay with the gold AC wings.

1967 at NKP, our operating base in Thailand. Note that the wings that I am wearing are the gold AC wings.

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Our first mission was in Laos. No amount of training can prepare you for being shot at. Each mission's duration was between an hour and an hour and a half. We generally assumed that the enemy had people working in positions on base. No idle chatter during the runs. We flew during daylight hours, early morning and late afternoon. The times were chosen mainly in case of a shootdown, it would be easier to extract personnel. All of us that flew these aircraft were the "Best of the Best" at what we did. What sticks out in my mind is that we flew at 250-300 feet, right at tree-top level. Once we returned to base we had to clear out the foliage from the cowl flaps. The missions were primarily lone trips. Some missions were flown with 2 or 3 VO-67 aircraft targeting an area that required a saturation of sensors immediately. But that only happened a few times.

The FAC's provided intelligence as to enemy weapon placements and marked, at times, our placement of sensors. They were not escorts on the missions. We did not have any other flak-suppressing aircraft assigned to us. On one mission we were at the insertion points when two Navy A4-E fighters

flew up alongside of us and radioed "What the hell is an old WWII Navy anti-submarine warfare aircraft doing at Khe Sahn?" CDR Alexander told him that we were on secret missions and if they wanted to stick around and watch they could. They told him that he had "balls bigger than garbage cans". They decided that it was in their best interest to depart.

A picture of sensors on a wing rack MER ready to be sent on a mission. the caption says they are mounted on an OP-2E, which was the correct designation for our aircraft once we were completely modified and in-country ready for missions.

Our aircraft sustained AAA damage many, many times. On one misson to Khe Sahn we were coming in at 1000 ft to drop down to start our run at 250-500 ft. I was the aft, port side gunner. Neil Cleveland was the starboard side gunner. The aft window was removed with the M-60 in place.

I heard a muffled explosion and felt a slight concussion. Then I heard a second explosion and felt the concussion. I took off my helmet and looked out the window. I saw what appeared to be 36mm rounds being fired at us. The next round exploded aft of us, about 30 yards."

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Note: [The NVA and even the Viet Cong could field some heavy anti aircraft fire. U.S. forces were often amazed at the heavy weaponry the other side managed to bring through jungle with no roads. At 250-500 feet massed AK-47 fire or an RPG fired in your path can still do a lot of damage.]

Kerry: "I knew that within a very few seconds, since we flew in a straight line, that if we didn't change course we were going to be shot down. Neil Cleveland yelled over the radio to Cdr Alexander that we were taking heavy flak. We were only three feet apart. I really think that Neil Cleveland should be credited with saving us from being shot down that day.

I put my helmet back on so I could yell at CDR Alexander to please get this aircraft out of here! I told him that we were taking enemy fire directly aft, Immediately I found myself laying against the starboard bulkhead since he had made a hard turn to starboard. We still flew our mission." Nobody in Crew 6 was wounded from AAA. There were a lot of close calls. CDR Alexander, the first pilot for Crew 6, broke his back on October 23, 1967 while on a flight to pick up a Norden bomb-sight.

We hit clean air turbulence over Denver, CO. He elected to stay with us until early March 1968 at which point it was so bad he might have become a serious liability to Crew 6. He elected to have himself sent stateside for treatment at Balboa Naval Hospital, San Diego, CA.

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Take a Virtual Tour of a P2V - At 500 feet, even with a stripped down version, Kerry and the crew had little to no chance of survival if the pilot could not keep control long enough to buy them some altitude for bailout. P2V Interior Virtual TOUR

Kerry: "I flew two different positions. One was stationed right behind the pilot and co-pilot where I could handle the engine throttles and fuel transfers. This was called the jump seat for Plane Captain or 2nd Mech. I also flew in the aft section as a gunner when required. My responsibility as a gunner was to shoot anyone or anything that endangered the crew or the mission. Our complete armament consisted of two SU-11 mini-guns, one mounted on the port wing and one mounted on the starboard wing; two M-60 sub-machine guns mounted out the rear windows, port and starboard; and various onboard personal weapons of choice. So, as you can see, we had very little capability of defending ourselves. We had chaff dispensors mounted in the tail section of the aircraft which was to be manually dispursed. I don't know if any of the shoulder-mounted RPG's were used against us. I do know that there were mobile railroad carts with 36mm weapons and other AAA used. We wore our parachutes as much as we possibly could. If you were at a position aft of the wing beam you could wear your chute the whole time. If you were forward it was kind of hard to get over the wing beam with your chute on. There was an egress out the nose gear wheel well and another in the aft part of the aircraft right in front of the tail. My bailout station was wherever I was at. Regarding the loss of the crews, you have to understand that we who were assigned as permanent combat aircrew personnel were older than the average non-combat flight crew. We were more mature and had extensive training. After the second crew went down we knew that there were no replacements and it became apparent that we were on a one-way ticket to hell. When the third crew went down and was recovered we thought we might have a fighting chance. So morale was given a little boost. Nobody cried "Boo Hoo" or felt sorry for themselves. We had a job to do and we were going to do it to the best of our ability.

A Soviet made shoulder fired AA missle. A forerunner to the American Stinger supplied to the NVA. Tough on helicopters and low flying slow aircraft like the Neptunes.
Project Igloo White

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Due to our secrecy, the only place that we could R&R was Bangkok, Thailand. When you stay at the Southeast Hotel you are treated like kings. "Carrier Landing" was primarily a bar game that officers played. A couple of guys would pick up and toss a third officer down the bar. He would try and stop himself before he fell of the end. Reminiscient of an aircraft coming in to land on a carrier deck and hooking a wire. The contestants were somewhat inebriated.

Me and Neil Cleveland, ATN3, Crew 6 at the Royal Thai Air Commando NCO Club.

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There was no "normal" tour. There were no rotations of personnel. According to Naval history, the powers to be set our tour from November 1967 to July 1968, no matter how many casualties or how much damage we took, we were there to do a job. Those of us that survived had to keep flying the missions even after we saw what happened to our other crews. We had a total of 12 aircraft that flew the missions. I flew 11 documented missions but there were many others flown into enemy territory, probably 25-30 more. All the missions that I flew on were with Crew 6. After the missions the debriefing was conducted by Command Intelligence and only the pilots and electronics officers that flew the missions were in attendance. My preflight responsibilities consisted of inspecting the aircraft from top to bottom for any conditions that would jeopardize the airworthiness of the aircraft such as hydraulic leaks, oil leaks, propeller damage, tire condition, structural damage, etc. I worked directly with the line division which performed all necessary repairs. Between flights aircraft maintenance, test flights, and studying for advancement in rate were what occupied most of our daytime hours. Our evenings were pretty much ours to do as we pleased, playing cards, doing laundry, etc.

VO67 Ending

I can tell you about MY return. We taxied MR6 up to the terminal at Alameda NAS. We got out. We were told that we had 30 days leave and during that time we would receive new orders. We were not to talk to anyone else, not even our family. There was no ceremony. The only person that was waiting at the terminal was my first wife and a Naval Officer asking if we wanted to ferry this aircraft to Arizona for salvage. And I said' "No, No, No." I went on leave. Within 30 days I had new orders. That was the end. Neil Cleveland, who was in Crew 6 with me in VO-67 was one of my best friends. I didn't get to talk to him again until our first reunion in July 1999. I never spoke to anyone from VO-67 again until 1998. We still have shipmates that don't even know that we are declassified! After VO-67 I was assigned to a VP squadron at Barbers Point, Hawaii and flew as a flight engineer. It was mundane compared to VO-67. The aircraft was a P3 Orion.

VP-6 was the squadron and several times subs were sighted. My enlistment was up September of 1969. I elected not to re-enlist.

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This is a picture of Combat AirCrew 6 taken in late April 1968 at NKP
Standing from left to right: ATR2 Vine, LT Browne, LTJG Harsanyi, LTJG Paulsen, LTCDR Shultz, AO1 Squire, AE2 Moorman,
Kneeling from left to right: AE2 Clark, ATR3 Bissell, ADJ2 Bignall, ADR1 Witt, AMCS Underwood, AX3 Cleveland,
Note that I am wearing a Marine-issue flak jacket, everyone else is in Navy-issue. I wanted to make sure that I had every chance of getting back. The AAA at 250-500 ft was pretty bad.

This is a picture of (l-r)CDR Bruce Brown, OPC Crew 4; CDR AG Alexander, original OPC Crew 6; and LT Ray Eckert, Maintenance Control. This is the only picture with my Original pilot, CDR AG Alexander. In March of 1968 he was returned stateside due to a broken back.

THE CREW SIX ROSTER: Alexander, A. G. Jr. CDR OPC...Shultz, Donald E. LCDR OPC...Browne,Davenport N. LT 2P...Paulsen, Paul E. LTjg 3P...Harsanyi, William S. LTjg NFO...Bouchey, David O. ENS NFO...Witt, Edward J. ADR1 PC...Bignall, Kerry R. ADJ2 2M...Bissell, Anthony ATR3 RDO...Cleveland, Cornelius C. AX3 2nd Tech...Vine, Thomas A. AT2 1st Tech (not located)...Clark, Thomas D. AE2 Gunner...Squier, Robert G. AO1 Ordnance (not located)...Moorman, Thomas H. AE2 Gunner (not located)...Underwood, Melvin E. AMCS Gunner CDR. Contributed by CDR. A.G.(ALEX) ALEXANDER via VP NAVY PAGES.

The military call sign for VO-67 was "LINDY". The unofficial squadron moniker was the "GANDY DANCERS".
Each Combat AirCrew had it's own moniker.
Crew 6 was Golden Eagles
Crew 2 was Cave Canem
Crew 9 was Green Garudas
Crew 8 was Albers Animals
Crew 10 was Back Stabbing Lizards
Some of the other crews just had wings with their crew number in the middle.

In 1999 Kerry was the first Navy GOLD WING Combat Aircrewman from the Vietnam era to be inducted into the ENLISTED COMBAT AIR CREW ROLL OF HONOR upon the USS Yorktown CV-10 at Patriots Point, SC.

From left to right are as follows: Sadie and Alex McCormick(USAF Ret) my wife's parents, Capt Ray Schultz (USNR Ret) and Kerry & Maxine Bignall.
>

The Yorktown Museum Charleston SC.
In 1997, after reading an article in the VFW magazine regarding ECAC, I contacted Capt Ray Schultz in Baltimore, MD to find out how I could submit our KIA's for the Honor Roll. After two years of correspondence, Ray Schultz was invited to attend our first reunion in July 1999 in Las Vegas, NV. During the dinner he made a surprise announcement that I was to be the first Navy Gold Wing Combat Aircrewman of the Vietnam era to be selected for induction.
Since then another of Kerrys crewmates has been inducted. ADR1 Witt

After leaving the Navy in 1969, I have worked primarily in machining and welding. I have been a machine shop superintendent and a welder-fabricator. I was in business for years doing specialized work on Harley Davidson motorcycles. Some years back I helped a buddy of mine get his shop off the ground. I have built a couple of bikes of my own. I have been riding since 1959. I do custom work as it comes around. I used to ride for the fun of it.

Kerry is retired today. He has some service related disabiliity as the whole perimeter of our airbase at NKP was sprayed with agent orange to defoliate it. Agent Orange Link.
"I have a small personal shop that I putter in. I also help my wife in her endeavors. She raises, trains and shows Australian Shepherds in agility and obedience. I also spend quite a bit of time helping other VO-67 personnel to obtain the awards and medals that were due to them so long ago. The VA recently stated that if you were in Vietnam then it is presumptive that you were exposed to Agent Orange. Any problems that VO-67 personnel have had with the VA regarding disability compensation has been due to the secrecy of our squadron. Bill Rutledge, HAL-3, has been extremely helpful and supportive in my efforts for my shipmates." We were told NEVER to discuss or disclose ANY information to ANYONE; friends, family or spouse. 1998 was the year that we were declassified sufficiently to the point where we could talk about it. That is when the big push started on finding our shipmates. Prior to 1998 we had personnel apply for VA benefits and were told that there were no records to substantiate their claims regarding VO-67. My wife of 22 years knew nothing until 1998, other than that I had been in Vietnam. My father who, was a Navy Chief, died in 1980 not knowing of my service in VO-67. My son, who died in 1989, never knew anything either.

UPDATED June 4 2003.

AWARD OF THE DFC.

Kerry is a life member of the Khe Sanh Veterans Association. 31 years after the fact he was awarded the Air Medal for his missions over Vietnam and in the defense of Khe Sanh.

NAVY COMMENDATION RIBBON & HONORABLE DISCHARGE BUTTON

Single Action Air Medal (Est 1942) Criteria: Heroic actions or meritorious service while participating in aerial flight. Devices: Bronze Letter "V", Bronze Numeral ("0","1","2",..."9"), Gold Star - Mounted, Silver Star, Bronze Star

Vietnam Service Medal with Star Vietnam (RVN) Service Medal (Est 1965) Dates: 1965-73 Criteria: Service in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, or Thailand during the above period. Devices: Bronze Star, Silver Star, Fleet Marine

Vietnam Gallantry Cross(MUC) with Palm Republic of Vietnam (RVN) Gallantry Cross Medal w/Palm (Est 1950) Criteria: Awarded for valor and heroic conduct while fighting the enemy. Notes: Palm device is citation for unit awards & for medal award at Army or higher level.

National Defense Service Medal - NDSM (Est 1953) Dates: 1950-54, 1961-74, 1990-95 Criteria: Any honorable active duty service during any of the above periods. Devices: Bronze Star, Bronze Oak Leaf

Navy Good Conduct Medal (Est 1888) Criteria: Outstanding performance and conduct during 4 years of continuous active enlisted service. Devices: Bronze Star, Silver Star

Republic of Vietnam (RVN) Campaign Medal with Date Bar (Est 1966) Dates: 1961-1973 Criteria: 6 months service in the Republic of Vietnam between 1961 and 1973 or if wounded, captured or killed in action during 1964-1973. Notes

E-Mail Me @ worldwar2mem@yahoo.com

VO-67 Web Site

Great site for VO-67 aircraft it calls out differences from PV2. See Folder 15

VO-67 Web Site 2

VO-67 Aircraft site

VO-67 Artist Drawings

VO-67 Crew 2 Site

NakhonPhanom Royal Thai AFB

VP NAVY PATROL SQUADRONS WEB SITE

Thailand Laos Cambodia Brotherhood Web Site
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