An Unsung Hero’s Final Flight

“Not exactly beautiful, with that blunt nose. Flies great, though.”

--Former A-6 pilot Stephen Coonts in his novel “Flight of the Intruder.”

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On a concrete clearing in the deep forest here, a remarkable but little-known era in aviation will come to a quiet and bittersweet end Friday.

Navy Attack Squadron 196, the last West Coast unit to fly the Navy’s A-6 Intruder attack bomber, will be disbanded.

To outsiders, the “disestablishment” ceremony set for the naval air station on Puget Sound may look like just another funeral in the post-Cold War whirl of base closings and budget cuts.

But aviation insiders will be paying their last respects to a technological marvel, one of the great warplanes of all time--unheralded, unglamorous but beloved by a unique group of fliers and ground crew members bound by a passion for this plane.

Military analysts know that the carrier-based A-6 Intruder, which has been compared to a flying drumstick, a tadpole, a dump truck or worse, is probably more important militarily than its better-known and better-looking cohorts.

Sure, the F-14 fighter tapped into America’s fascination with speed and daring, but there is a Navy saying for that: Fighter pilots make movies--most recently “Top Gun”--but attack guys make history.

For three decades, the ability of presidents to deploy aircraft carriers anywhere in the world to display formidable military power has, in large measure, been a testament to the durability and deadly bomb-dropping and missile-launching proficiency of the Intruder.

“The fighters are sexy, and the B-52s are awesome in size, but the work of winning battles and intimidating would-be enemies has been done by the A-6,” said aviation expert Rene Francillon.

In the Vietnam War, the A-6 dropped more bombs than even the Air Force’s mighty B-52. In the 1980s, the A-6 was assigned the vital task of running air strikes against terrorist strongholds in Lebanon and off the coast of Libya to strike at Moammar Kadafi.

And in Operation Desert Storm, the A-6 was in the forefront of the air war, completing bombing runs in weather so heavy that other planes were forced to retreat. Its performance even made believers out of Air Force generals who had thought the Intruder was too old and slow to fight a modern war.

“The A-6 is not pretty, but it always gets the job done,” said Lt. Stuart Abrahamson, an A-6 bombardier-navigator who flew 40 bombing missions during Operation Desert Storm, most at night, some at altitudes as low as 200 feet.

The sense of loss within what the military calls “the A-6 community” is intensified by the circumstances of the plane’s demise.

“The only battle the A-6 ever lost was in the Pentagon,” said Capt. Terry Toms, a veteran of 4,000 hours and 40 combat missions in A-6s.

After Friday’s ceremony, the few remaining Intruders at Whidbey Island will be dispatched to the desert for storage. A few hours before the farewell at Whidbey, a ceremony at Oceana, Va., will mark the disestablishment of the last A-6 squadron on the East Coast.

Personnel will be reassigned. Toms has opted to retire rather than take an assignment away from the A-6.

Military Hedges Its Bet

The Intruder did not lose out to a better airplane. Nor is it being shelved because it no longer can carry out its missions against ground-based or seaborne targets. It simply has gotten old and lost political support. In an era of cuts, it is considered too expensive to maintain.

“The A-6 is being sent to the desert at the height of its capability,” said Lt. Mike Briddell, a bombardier-navigator.

Conceived during President Dwight Eisenhower’s first term, the A-6 remained the Navy’s main attack bomber into President Clinton’s second term--an amazing record of longevity.

It has been called the Navy’s mailed fist: capable of low-level precision bombing, night or day, in foul weather or fair. Lest its secrets become known to a potential enemy, Congress has never allowed the A-6 to be sold to a foreign country--even an ally.

Even as the Pentagon phases out the A-6 in favor of the newer, faster, sleeker, more easily maintained F/A-18 Hornet, the military is hedging its bet: A hundred Intruders will be kept in sealed “up and up” condition at an Air Force base in Arizona in case the Hornet, as some military analysts fear, proves incapable of fulfilling the A-6’s mission.

Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, once an A-6 bombardier-navigator, called the plane’s phasing out “a loss to national security” because it will require the military to depend more heavily on the Air Force’s land-based bombers, which can be hamstrung in crises by friendly but nervous foreign governments denying them “overfly” rights.

“The real loss is the disestablishment of the A-6 community,” Lehman said. “The A-6 guys are a font of knowledge about what works and what doesn’t in fighting wars.”

For much of the public, carrier aviation is what they saw in “Top Gun,” the 1986 movie that glamorized the swept-wing, high-flying F-14 and provided a glimpse of the macho, ego-engorged milieu of the “fighter jock.”

Truth be told, however, F-14s do not win wars.

The F-14’s main job is to guard the fleet from enemy aircraft and to provide protection for the attack planes like the A-6. Unless those attack planes reach their targets, having a perfectly protected fleet or the best dogfighting fighter planes in the world does not count for much.

“The only reason for fighters to exist is to help get the A-6 to the beach,” said retired Rear Adm. John Christiansen, a World War II pilot, Navy Cross winner and a carrier skipper during Vietnam.

Both the F-14 and the A-6 carry two crew members: a pilot and a radar operator. But fighter pilots are wrapped in a mythology dating from the single-seat fighters of both World Wars.

They have come to reflect the quintessential American ideal--the lone hero, like the marshal in “High Noon,” facing down the forces of evil and ripping through the skies faster than the speed of sound.

The A-6 musters barely half of the F-14’s supersonic speed and possesses no guns or weaponry to shoot down an enemy. Anyone looking for fame and glory by engaging in mano-a-mano combat at 20,000 feet need not apply.

A-6 duty has always required teamwork with crew members sharing duties equally, compared with the fighter jock’s hellbent individualism.

“We always felt we were a little bit above that,” said Marine Brig. Gen. Charles Bolden, who flew 100 A-6 missions in Vietnam. “We were more mature, less macho. A-6 guys had less to prove.”

Navy Petty Officer Bjorn Bjornstad, an A-6 maintenance worker, said A-6 crewmen “are not like fighter guys who run around with their hair on fire. They’re just guys who do the job every day and have a lot of pride in it.”

In what some A-6 fliers see as the final indignity, some of the Intruders have been hauled to the bombing range outside Fallon, Nev., to provide targets for fighter pilots.

Cmdr. David Frederick, the last commanding officer of Attack Squadron 196, will probably fly other planes and may someday train at the Fallon range. But he’s made a vow.

“I will never drop a bomb on an A-6,” said Frederick, a bombardier-navigator with 3,800 hours in A-6s and 28 missions in Operation Desert Storm. “An F-14 hulk, that’s a different story.”

Part of the A-6’s elan for Frederick and others stems from facing the danger inherent in the Intruder’s low-level, all-weather attack mission.

One reason the Navy is shifting to the F/A-18, despite its shortcomings, is a belief that its greater speed and maneuverability will provide greater “survivability” than the aging A-6.

On Thursday, a plaque will be dedicated at Whidbey to the 86 pilots and bombardier-navigators from West Coast-based A-6 squadrons who have been killed in the last 28 years.

“If you were an A-6 commander, you knew someday you’d be giving a eulogy for an A-6 guy with his 4-year-old son sitting in the front row looking at you,” said Toms, commander of the attack wing of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

The plane that Toms and an estimated 4,000 Navy aviators have flown since it joined the fleet in 1964 was developed because of battlefield frustrations during the Korean War. Snow and thick fog often kept carrier-based planes from flying, leaving ground troops without air support.

In 1953, the government sponsored a competition among the nation’s aircraft companies to build an attack plane that could fly even when the weather was at its worst. Grumman Corp. of Long Island won and was awarded a $100-million contract in 1957.

By the time the A-6 Intruder--A for Attack, 6 because the Navy had five previous bombers, and Intruder for its ability to go anywhere, any time--was ready for the fleet, the United States had begun its long struggle in Vietnam.

From the beginning, the A-6 was unlike any plane that had preceded it.

The airframe was milled from a single block of aluminum alloy like a keel on a ship. That allowed the plane to withstand repeated pounding from carrier landings and catapult launches.

The wings were straight and thick, providing strength and lift and allowing the A-6 to carry more bombs than any previous Navy plane. A refueling probe protruding from the nose looked like something an entomologist might find on a rare insect, but it extended the plane’s range.

The most significant feature--and its dominant physical characteristic--was a bulbous nose crammed with three kinds of radar gear. The width of the nose made it possible to put the pilot and bombardier-navigator side by side in the cockpit, rather than fore-and-aft like other two-seat aircraft.

An early generation computer provided “ground mapping” targeting information for the bombardier-navigator, enabling Navy pilots for the first time to drop bombs without seeing their targets.

“Unequivocally, the A-6 revolutionized the naval attack business,” wrote aviation historians Anthony M. Thornborough and Peter E. Davies.

Despite lacking air-to-air weaponry, the Intruder was often able to complete missions without fighter escorts by flying at night, in bad weather and at treetop level.

A Dangerous Role

The plane’s dangerous--but essential--role attracted crewmen like Larry Yarham. “I was pretty excited about putting bombs on targets,” said the San Diego high-tech executive who, as a pilot, flew 310 missions in Vietnam.

Since the Vietnam War, the radar and other electronics on the A-6 have been upgraded to include laser and infrared target detection to accommodate every precision-guided weapon in the Navy’s arsenal. New wings have been attached to old airframes.

In all, Grumman built 693 Intruders for the Navy and Marine Corps, and by 1991 the Navy had 20 A-6 squadrons split between the coasts. The Marines had six squadrons, including one at El Toro. By the mid-1980s, each A-6 was costing $35 million.

But even classic planes get old. Parts get harder to find, and maintenance is an ever-present problem. The A-6 was built as late as 1990, although the military has been looking to replace it since the early 1980s. Plans for a plane that would have greater overall capabilities were thwarted by technical, political and budget problems.

Design teams at Lockheed-Martin and Boeing are now vying to build what is called a joint strike-fighter to be used by the Navy and Air Force, marrying the fighter abilities of an F-14 and the bombing abilities of the Intruder.

That project, however, is a decade or more away from completion, and the Congressional Budget Office has warned that the plane may prove too costly to build.

Still, after the Gulf War, the Pentagon decided not to wait any longer for a full-fledged A-6 replacement and began phasing out the plane in favor of the F/A-18.

The decision to retire the A-6 was made despite the fact that the Hornet cannot carry as many bombs, cannot fly as far without refueling and does not have the gear to allow it to “see” through clouds to spot a bombing target. Originally built as a fighter, the Hornet has been upgraded to include attack capability.

As sad as he is to see the A-6 go, Vice Adm. Herbert Browne, commander of the Navy’s 3rd Fleet, is convinced the plane’s time had come. He concurs with analysts who worry about maintenance needs and the possibility of metal fatigue in the aging airframes.

“It was time for the airframe to go,” said Browne, who flew 180 missions as an A-6 bombardier-navigator over Vietnam. “It’s like watching your daughter leave home and get married. It’s time to let go.”

Terry Toms was watching television recently when he saw a news story about one use the Pentagon has found for old Intruders: sinking them to bolster a reef off Jacksonville, Fla. The tail number of one sunken plane told him it was one that he had flown.

“It was awful to watch,” Toms said. “My wife came in and found me with tears in my eyes.”

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The A-6 Intruder

The A-6 is designed as an all-weather long-range attack plane able to deliver up to 18,000 pounds of bombs with pinpoint accuracy. Launched from carriers, the A-6 has a maximum speed of 610 mph and an operational radius of 316 nautical miles.

Armament

* Harpoon missiles

* Gravity bombs

* HARM missiles

Source: Times files