In this article:
Roger Ball!
He was the second of two children and born on 25 January 1940 in Shandon Baptist Hospital in Columbia South Carolina. He, in every way, gave the appearance of a normal, healthy, well-developed kid of average height, slender but not skinny. History would show that he was anything but normal.
His name was John Monroe Smith, and “Roger Ball!” is his story—a tale that should be told. It intertwines the true, firsthand accounts and experiences of a fighter pilot with the significant developments in the fighter community and historical events in which Captain John Monroe Smith, USN, call sign “Hawk” was a part. Finally, it speaks to the men who laid their careers and sometimes their very lives on the line for their shipmates and their country.
Hawk was a legend in the fighter community. During his thirty-year career, he forged a reputation as a skilled and lethal aviator in the air-to-air combat arena, a natural tactician, and consummate leader. To many, he was one of the most essential pathfinders in the modernization of the naval air war arts.
He was just a man, but his story, his life adventure, is a high-fidelity history of personal achievements for naval tactical aviation, devotion to a cause, and service to his nation. It was a time during and shortly after the Vietnam conflict that America became ideologically divided. The military was disillusioned with the intrusion of nonwarriors in the White House over the conduct of the war, and tactical aviation of all the services was struggling to catch up to the realities of the war’s hard lessons. It was a time when the Navy needed leaders and tenacious thinkers to set things right again. It was Hawk’s time!
USS Enterprise during Operation Frequent Wind
By early 1975, the speed and the momentum of the North Vietnamese forces into the south made it clear that the South Vietnamese defenders could not hold for long. The South Vietnamese leadership planned to abandon the cities and providences in the north in order to harden and defend those in the south.
On the 28th of March, Captain C. C. Smith brought the Enterprise out of Subic Bay and headed west—toward the sound of gunfire. The following day, Easter Sunday, North Vietnamese forces entered Danang, and Enterprise took up station off the South Vietnamese coast. For ten days she cruised off the beach, provided airborne and deck alert combat aircraft, and acted as a forward positioned logistics platform for Amphibious Task Force Seven Six (ATF-76).
USS Midway (CV-41) relieved Enterprise on 9 April and the Big “E” was placed on a twelve-hour alert status. If the situation became critical, she would quickly dash back and support the operation.
On April 18th, Enterprise cruised into Manila Bay and dropped anchor. It hardly had time to get wet when the ship received emergency sail orders directing her to proceed at twenty-five knots to a position 150 miles east of Vung Tau, Vietnam, a small village on a spit of land.
Even before the Enterprise arrived on station, CAG-14 had aircraft in the air. She commenced around-the-clock surge operations. At least one E-2, a Vigi, and a flight of fighters or attack aircraft were in the air twenty-four hours a day. They provided security for the ships, the Marine helos, and ground forces. The LSOs manned the platform day and night.
USS Enterprise during Operation Frequent Wind
Enterprise was part of a titanic armada composed of fifty Navy combat and support ships. Their mission was to provide the surface radar picture, engage any hostile surface or air threats, receive evacuees fleeing in small boats and aircraft, and provide combat air patrol for the helicopters.
Enterprise joined three other carriers patrolling the South China Sea. She and Coral Sea (CV-43) had maintained their full airwing complement. Midway (CV-41) and Hancock (CV-19) had been stripped of their airwings to embark ground forces and helicopters.
Coral Sea brought five hundred crack Marine troops of the 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade which would lead the thrust into Saigon and establish security as needed. HMM-165 with twenty-seven CH-46s and an array of other helos flown by HML-367, HMA-369, and the 21st Special Operations Squadron would take leading roles in rescue efforts. But the backbone of the lift was Heavy Marine Helicopter Squadron 463 with thirty-four CH-53s and three hundred aircrew and maintenance personnel under III Marine Expeditionary Force. The USAF was also on alert to provide close air support and armed escort missions with over 120 fighters and support aircraft flown from as far away as Udon Air Base in Thailand, 450 miles from Saigon.
The final offensive against Saigon was unleashed the last week of April. Communist forces met only sporadic resistance. The defense of South Vietnam was crumbling at an alarming rate. At 2245, Washington DC time, 1045 Saigon time on the 29th of April, President Ford ordered Frequent Wind—the emergency evacuation of all remaining Americans in Saigon by helicopter. When Frequent Wind commenced, six thousand Marines spearheaded the biggest helicopter evacuation operation in history.
Tomcat’s first combat sortie
Hawk and his RIO, Joel Graffman, launched from Enterprise on the morning of 29 April on what would become the Tomcat’s first and Hawk’s only combat sortie. Their mission was to provide Combat Air Patrol (CAP) and armed escort for the helos involved in evacuating personnel. They had been briefed prior to the launch that they could expect small arms fire and possibly SAM-7 shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles in the area. The intel-officers added that the SAM-7 envelope extended from the surface up to five thousand feet. Anything within that altitude and under five hundred knots was in-season.
Hawk and Joel headed for their CAP station near Vung Tao. As soon as they checked in with the USAF airborne command post they were vectored to provide cover for several Marine helos. Hawk picked up the helos a few miles away and established a racetrack pattern over them as they headed away from the Embassy and toward the ships.
Everyone involved in Frequent Wind was fully aware that the war was now just hours away from being lost and no one wanted to be listed as the last American casualty of the war. All the TACAIR types gave due regard to the surface threat, but the F-14 aircrews were even more alert to possible stray small-arms fire.
Clutching the American flag
Hawk set up a three thousand foot, 350 knot moving orbit over the helos and covered their egress all the way to the ship. In Hawk’s words, “It seemed pretty uneventful to me. We saw small arms flashes, and a lot of vehicle and troop movement, and the helos even popped flares occasionally but it seemed like a pretty humdrum sortie to me. It wasn’t really what I had in mind when I thought of green-ink 1 time and combat. I’ve had a lot more excitement on any number of test flights.”
In the early hours of 30 April firefights could be heard all around the Embassy and anti-aircraft fire was reported as “heavy.” Admiral Noel Gayler, CINCPAC, personally escorted Ambassador Martin, his wife, clutching the American flag, and his close staff to an awaiting helicopter. At 0458, “Lady Ace 09,” a HMM-165 CH-46 flown by Marine Captain Berry, lifted from the American embassy and flew to Hancock waiting offshore.
At 1100 on 30 April, a North Vietnamese tank rolled to a clattering dusty stop inside the Saigon presidential palace courtyard. Colonel Bui Tin, deputy editor of the North Vietnamese Army newspaper, Qwan Doi Nhan Dan, dismounted, entered the palace, and ascended to a second story reception area. He was surprised to find South Vietnamese General Duong Van Minh and what remained of his staff. General Minh solemnly surrendered South Vietnam to Colonel Bui Tin.
After Action
On behalf of the North Vietnamese government Colonel Bui Tin accepted their surrender and then said, “Between Vietnamese, there are no victors and no vanquished. Only the Americans have been beaten. If you are patriots, consider this a moment of joy. The war for our country is over. Only the Americans have been beaten.”
That wasn’t quite true. Millions of South Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians had been killed. Millions more would die before the insurgency was complete.
Though Frequent Wind would be judged a success, there was just no way to flavor the war’s outcome to make it palatable. The Enterprise crew was part of an epochal event in world history. They had just witnessed the end of America’s longest war and her first major military defeat. The greatest military power in the world just had her clock cleaned by a nation smaller than California.
1 Green Ink time referred to the color of the ink used to designate air combat time in the log books of aircrew.
Photo credit: U.S. Navy
