First Hand Account of the Gulf of Tonkin Combat Mission Aug 5th 1964

This is a firsthand account of Commander Nottingham’s first combat mission in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam on Aug 5^th 1964 and the first combat mission of the Vietnam War. 

 I took this photo of a couple of my friends that I worked with and helped hook up Commander Nottingham’s aircraft to the catapult and launched him off the deck of the USS Constellation CVA64 in his A4 Skyhawk. 

  Lieutenant (Junior grade) Alvarez in his A4 Skyhawk was the first pilot I hooked up to Catapult #1 before we launched him off the carrier. Little did we know that he would be the first pilot to be shot down in the Vietnam War. He lived but spent eight years and seven months of brutal captivity by the North Vietnamese at the Hỏa Lò Prison known as the "Hanoi Hilton. The Captain of the USS Constellation came on the speaker later on and told all of us what had happened.

From  the: “All Hands” navy magazine

First Combat Mission An Eyewitness Report