Valor Friday

I was recently reading an article about the much admired A-1 Skyraider. The single-engine light bomber and attack aircraft was designed and first flown during World War II. Coming too late to see service during that war, the aircraft is emblematic of the rapid advancements made in aviation during the period. A Skyraider is capable of carrying the same bomb load as a B-17 Flying Fortress, the state of the art heavy bomber at the beginning of the war less than a decade before.

The Skyraider would enter service with the Navy post-war, and then the Air Force and Marine Corps. It would also become a favored plane of allied air forces such as those of South Vietnam. She earned a reputation as an excellent aircraft and was a favorite of the grunts in Korea for conducting close air support missions. Serving well into the Vietnam War, I found it somewhat surprising that only two Skyraider drivers were ever awarded the Medal of Honor.

The Skyraider was adept at performing a variety of missions. To match her many jobs, the plane received several nicknames along the way. Most famously, they were known as “Spad” in honor of the World War I warplane and “Sandy.” The latter was the radio callsign given to A-1s flying combat search and rescue (CSAR) missions to rescue downed aviators.

It was one of these close air support missions in 1966 over Vietnam that Bernard Fisher would be the first member of the US Air Force to receive the Medal of Honor during the war.

Fisher was a 39 year old major at the time of his action. He started his service in the Navy at the tail end of World War II, then joined the Air National Guard post-war, before being commissioned in the active duty Air Force in 1951. From there he’d go through the lengthy training to become a pilot. A jet fighter pilot in the Air Defense Command, he volunteered for Vietnam duty in 1965.

Over the course of the year from June 1965 to July 1966, Fisher would fly more than 200 combat missions in Vietnam. A member of the 1st Air Commando Squadron, he flew the venerable Skyraider.

It was 9 March 1966 when a group of 17 Army Green Berets and 400 South Vietnamese militiamen they were advising were attacked at their camp in the A Shau Valley by a force of 800 North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops.

Besieged and outgunned for two days, the Special Forces soldiers repeatedly called in air strikes. The enemy was so close, the Allied aircraft were throwing munitions at danger close ranges.

The cloud ceiling was about 800 feet on 9 March, dropping to 200 feet on the 10th. The surrounding mountains soared to 1,500 feet. The limited visibility required the Allied pilots to fly within sight of the enemy gun positions. In some cases, the enemy on the mountain tops were able to fire down onto the bombing planes.

Flying into the valley, one Spad pilot remarked that the voluminous enemy fire “was like flying inside Yankee Stadium with the people in the bleachers firing at you with machine guns.” Into this firestorm, Major Dafford “Jump” Myers flew in.

Myers took heavy fire, he radioed simply, “I’ve been hit and hit hard.” Whatever struck him took out his engine and filled his cockpit with smoke. He was flying at just 400 feet above ground level, so parachuting out wasn’t an option.

With skill and determination, Myers landed on the airstrip at the base in a wheels up landing. Myers had been unable to drop his belly tank full of fuel. When he hit the runway, the tank exploded, engulfing the aircraft in flames. The Spad skidded 800 feet down the strip, trailing flames. Myers was immediately surrounded by the enemy, only 200 yards distant. The nearest rescue helicopter would take at least 30 minutes to reach him.

Then-Major Fisher followed Myers down, watching him crash land. Fisher watched as Myers leapt from his burning aircraft and rolled into the ditch. Making a pass, he could see Myers waving. This meant Myers was alive, so Fisher flew higher to call in a rescue operation. Assured a helicopter was enroute, Fisher returned to the fight.

Fisher could see the situation on the ground worsening. Ten minutes had passed and he knew that Myers couldn’t wait any longer. Fisher knew the enemy wasn’t taking prisoners, so he felt compelled to get him out immediately.

Fisher told his wingmen, “I’m going in.” The A-1 is a single seat aircraft, but it is quite large for a single-engine fighter plane. It has a bomb bay that can actually be configured to carry passengers. This was a quirk of its design. When originally constructed for the Navy, the service wanted an aircraft that could ferry personnel and cargo to their carriers. The long-serving C-2 Greyhound would soon fill this role, but on the smaller carriers of World War II, something smaller would be needed.

The A-1E model that Fisher was flying was a multiple crew version, with seating for two pilots side-by-side. While most A-1s were single-seat, some versions such as this one, had originally been built with the extra cockpit room for a second pilot on longer missions or for use by a radar operator.

It was this extra seating space that would let Major Fisher even attempt to rescue his comrade. Fisher could land and take Myers home inside his plane. Even with the capability to do so, the willingness to fly into the enemy fire that had just downed another Skyraider was undeniably brave.

Coming in over the airfield, Fisher found the strip so littered with battle damage and debris that he aborted his first attempt to land. Touching down on his second approach, he stood on his brakes to stop in time. He’d been told the airstrip was 3,500 feet long, just enough to land his plane. It was in fact actually just 2,500 feet. Fisher overran the end of the runway by a few hundred feet, right into a fuel storage area. Though he missed the 55-gallon drums of fuel with his wings, he bonked some of them with his tail.

Small arms and automatic weapons fire pinged off his Spad. Even so, the enemy was virtually on top of him. “The enemy was so close,” Fisher noted, “I was afraid a couple of them might jump aboard my Skyraider before Myers could make it.”

As he’d passed Myers’ location, he could see the man waving. Now past the end of the runway, Fisher turned and taxied 1,800 feet to get back close to Myers. The big, slow fighter was now the easiest target for the substantial enemy fire.

Fisher kept his engine running, ready to launch the moment Myers was secured. Myers ran out of the ditch, recalling later, “Nobody’s ever seen an old man like me run so fast in his life” as he chased down his friend’s plane.

Climbing onto his savior’s aircraft, the wash coming off the prop of the plane blew Myers off the wing when he first tried to climb aboard. Fisher, who hadn’t seen Myers running along behind him. Fisher throttled back to idle and set the brakes. He was going to go look for Myers on foot. When he jumped up in his cockpit, into the open of the enemy fire, he saw a set of eyes trying to climb up the back of the wing. Battered, muddied, and eyes red from the smoke, it was Myers. Fisher then helped pull Myers head first into the cockpit. Tossing the downed aviator into the second seat.

Part one of his daring operation complete, now Fisher needed to get out of the dragon’s den. Throttling up, Fisher rolled down the runway, swerving around debris as he went. He hit the gas before they’d even started to buckle into their seats. As the Skyraider rolled down the runway, the base defenders on the ground cheered.

Incredibly, they made it out. When they landed a short time later in a friendlier location, they found 19 holes in the Skyraider. The actual plane Fisher flew has been preserved and is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. It had crash landed and burned in another mission shortly after Fisher’s. It was recovered, restored, and in 1967 flown to the NMUSAF by none other than Jump Myers.

Myers was singed and battered, but not seriously injured. Fisher said he smelled pretty badly though. For his part, Myers wanted to buy Fisher a year’s worth of whiskey. Fisher didn’t even drink coffee, he was a Mormon. Instead Myers bought him a Nikon camera and engraved it “A Shau, March 10, 1966”.

For his heroism in action that day, Fisher was awarded the Medal of Honor. Not only was Fisher’s the first MoH awarded to a member of the Air Force for Vietnam, but he was the first recipient of the Air Force-specific Medal of Honor, which had only been authorized the year before. Prior to 1965, Air Force airmen received the Army version of the medal.

During his tour in Vietnam, Fisher would also earn the Distinguished Flying Cross and eight Air Medals. The day before his Medal of Honor earning action, Fisher earned the Silver Star. He got the country’s third highest decoration for combat gallantry (and his second bravery medal in as many days) for flying into the A Shau Valley. Flying under the low cloud cover, he stayed over the beleaguered base for more than two hours to deliver effective fire on enemy positions.

When the base was critically low on ammunition, supplies, and needed to evacuate wounded, he rendezvoused with flights of friendly aircraft and led them into the camp. Doing this once or twice would be impressive, but Fisher did it four times.

After having the Medal of Honor draped around his neck by President Johnson (in front of Fisher’s wife and five sons), Fisher served in a variety of posts in Europe and the US. In 1971 he was the operations officer for the 87th Fighter Squadron of the Minnesota Air National Guard at Duluth. His final assignment was with the Idaho Air National Guard, from which he retired in 1974 as a colonel. His service had begun 30 years previous and three wars earlier.

Remaining in Idaho, he stood as the Republican candidate for the state’s governor in 1981. In 1999, a Military Sealift Command ship was named for him. MV Maj. Bernard F. Fisher (T-AK-4396) remains in active service today. Fisher passed away in 2014 at the age of 87. ‘

On the ground at the Battle of A Shau was then-Sergeant First Class Bennie Adkins. One of the Green Berets, Adkins would receive the Medal of Honor for his role in the battle in 2014 from President Obama. We talked about him here.

Within hours of Fisher’s heroic display of brotherhood, the order came down to the defenders at A Shau to abandon the base. About 200 were rescued in a harrowing airlift combat evacuation. As the rescuing aircraft were being shot down as they tried to flee, some of the men, being led by Bennie Adkins, took to the bush. Surviving in the jungle against all odds, Adkins led his men to safety. Unfortunately all this sacrifice was for naught. The NVA took A Shau in a decided victory.

Among the Green Berets on the ground were;

• Captain John Blair (Distinguished Service Cross)
• Captain Tennis Carter (DSC)
• 1st Lieutenant Louis Mari (DSC)
• Sergeant First Class Victor Underwood (DSC)
• Sergeant First Class Raymond Allen (KIA)
• Staff Sergeant Billie Hall (DSC, KIA)
• Sergeant James Taylor (KIA)
• Sergeant Owen McCann (KIA)
• Specialist Fifth Class Phillip Stahl (DSC, KIA)

Others involved in operations related to the battle were;

• Lieutenant Colonel Charles House, USMC (Aviator, Navy Cross)
• Captain Francis Kelley, USAF (CH-3H Pilot, Silver Star)
• Captain Willard Collins, USAF (AC-47 Aircraft Commander, Air Force Cross, MIA and never recovered)
• Captain Delbert Peterson, USAF (Collins’ Co-Pilot, AFC, KIA, never recovered)
  • Collins and Peterson’s aircrew:
    • Captain Jerry L. Meek
    • Staff Sergeants John G. Brown, James Turner, Jr., and Robert E. Foster (KIA, never recovered
• Captain Donald Couture, USAF (H-3 Pilot, Silver Star)
• 2nd Lieutenant Donald Berger, USMC (Aviator, Navy Cross)
• 1st Lieutenant Augusto Xavier, USMC (Aviator, Silver Star, KIA, never recovered)
• Staff Sergeant David Wheeler, USAF (Pararescue Jumper, Silver Star)
• Airman Second Class Albert Foster, USAF (PJ, Silver Star)

Category: Air Force, Historical, Medal of Honor, Valor, We Remember