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Dedicated to David Christian and the men of VAW-13

• LTJG David M. Christian (VA-23)
• LTJG M.D. McMican (VAW-13)
• LTJG Gerald M. Romano (VAW-13)
• ATN3 Thomas L. Plants (VAW-13)
• ATR3 William H. Amspacher Jr. (VAW-13)

Overview of June 2, 1965.

On June 2, 1965, LTJG David Christian was shot down while conducting a road reconnaissance mission during Operation Rolling Thunder. His squad mate LT John McKamey and the four-man crew from VAW-13 assisting Christian's rescue were also shot down. By the end of the day, three planes were down and six airmen missing; it was the worst combat loss the U.S.S. Midway had ever suffered.

Questions regarding Christian's fate.

Four months after Christian disappeared, he was featured in the October 11th edition of the Russian newspaper PRAVDA, causing concerns about his possible survival. Two years later a classified Naval Intelligence report was hand-delivered to the Christians stating he did survive, leading to a 32-year search for answers ending in Moscow, where an interview with the PRAVDA journalist took place in 1997.

Their names are still on the mission board.

The U.S.S. Midway keeps their names on the launch status board in the Primary Flight Control Center to this day.

Timeline of June 2, 1965.

Christian left the U.S.S. Midway early in the morning with CDR John Dewenter on a road reconnaissance mission in the Thanh Hóa Province. They spotted an entrenched radar station and made two rocket attacks, destroying it. While pulling up from his second strike, Christian was hit by ground fire. He radioed his commander that his main fuel line had been struck and his engine was out. He glided several miles trying to get to the coast. His commander saw him eject near the coastline about 200 meters from the ground and then lost sight of him in low clouds. The crew flying VR703 from Midway’s Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron picked up an emergency beacon and diverted to that location to provide close-in support for a rescue attempt. Three additional A-1E Skyraiders from VA-25 accompanied VR703 in a box formation and were joined by an HU-16 seaplane. While onsite, VR703 took ground fire and crashed. VA-25 pilot CDR Edwin Greathouse witnessed VR703 crash and reported one crewmember bailed out but was too low for a parachute to open. It was determined to have been ATN3 Thomas L. Plants who bailed out. Intelligence reported a body washed ashore a week later. According to the Joint Task Force Full Account Report, the final coordinates of VR703 were within 100 meters of Christian's last known location.

The coordinates on the map are from reports in the DPAA release. 0092 refers to David Christian's case number; 0093 refers to the case number for the crew of VR703.

Eyewitness account says he survived the shoot down.

"I was the O-in-C of the Detachment aboard the Midway. On June 2nd the Air Wing attacked a target just south of Thanh Hoa. There were A-4s and A-1s from Midway involved, and one of our EA-1Fs was along to provide active ECM for the strike. An A-4 from VA-23 was hit, and the pilot successfully ejected. He came down close to the water and was seen by other pilots to be trying to get to the water. As usual in a combat operation there was chaos and conflicting reports. It appears that the pilot had reached the water but was being pursued by North Vietnamese troops. Our EA-1F was piloted by LTJG M. D. McMican. His crew consisted of LTJG Gerry Romano as Radar operator/ECM coordinator, and the two enlisted ECM operators, ATN-3 Tom Plants and ATR-3 Bill Amspacher. Someone called for close air support to keep the North Vietnamese away from the A-4 pilot. M. D. was in position to do that. Even though we were not officially supposed to engage in attacking the enemy with our 20mms it is plain that M. D. saw no reason not to jump in and help a fellow aviator in need. He made a strafing pass down the beach. He may, in fact, have made more than one pass. At some point, however, the North Vietnamese, who had some heavy machine guns, blasted away at the SPAD, damaging it enough to make it uncontrollable. An eyewitness, LCDR Ed Greathouse from VA-25, was about a half mile away and said he saw the airplane pull up, roll half over, and crash on the beach in a ball of flame. He saw one of the SPAD crewmembers attempt to bail out. The EA-1F was so low there was no chance for success. The ultimate result was the loss of the crew of the EA-1F, and the A-4 pilot, LTJG David Christian. A further loss was that of LT John McKamey of VA-23. His plane was downed but he successfully ejected; only to be captured and spend the next seven years in the Hanoi Hilton. It is not clear if McKamey was shot down as he attempted to cover LTJG Christian or if his shoot down was related to the attack on the main target. What was clear as the strike aircraft returned to Midway was that three did not make it back. Word spread around the ship like wildfire. This was something new. Midway’s losses had not been on this order of magnitude before. In addition, my job was to make sure that our squadron-mates’ gear was inventoried, and official letters were sent to the next of kin. The first decision to be made was: Were they missing in action (MIA) or were they killed in action (KIA)? The Commanding Officer of Midway, CAPT James O’Brien, called me to his cabin to discuss this decision. He was a veteran of Korea. It had been his experience that sending MIA notices to next of kin was a cruel thing to do when a crash appeared not to be survivable. Yes, miracles do happen and sometimes people survive against all odds. However, it had been his experience that many people had been told their loved ones were MIA, which caused them to hold onto hope for years and years when that time could have been better spent in the grieving process. It was his opinion, and I agreed, that it was better to use the phrase, presumed killed in action, bodies not recovered. That didn’t hold out false hope to the survivors."

Account provided by retired CDR James Glendenning.

VR 703 and crew were on a normal Zapper mission (over water) off the coast of North Vietnam when they picked up the survival radio beacon of a downed pilot on the ground in NVN. Using the DF equipment in the aircraft they were able to get a bearing on the signal and left their station over water to go across the beach in an attempt to provide RESCAP (Rescue Combat Air Patrol) for the downed pilot using the 20 mm cannons installed in the EA-1F. They were shot down during the attempt, and the aircraft was seen to impact the ground not far from the beach.

Account provided by Lanny Cox from http://www.vaw-13.com/memorial.htm.

Christian was named in a Russian newspaper article and two KGB books.

Four months after Christian's disappearance, concerns began when his name, physical description, and detailed list of his personal belongings appeared in the Russian newspaper PRAVDA. The PRAVDA article was written by Viktor V. Sharapov, a Russian journalist on assignment in North Vietnam. A May 8, 1986, CIA Directorate of Intelligence report gives a detailed profile of Viktor Sharapov and lists his rank as General-Major in the KGB and one of the five top Russian intelligence advisors to President Gorbachev and KGB leader Yuri Andropov. Naval Intelligence documents suggest Sharapov was at the crash site 10 days after it occurred. In 1997, U.S. team members from JCSD interviewed Sharapov about his interactions with U.S. pilots. He told them he kept photos and notes as a journalist and had turned everything over to the PRAVDA archives. He then informed the U.S. team members that he had chronicled most of his crash site visits and P.O.W. interviews in three books he had written. He provided all three books to the U.S. team. David Christian's name and details of his account are in two of Sharapov's three books.

A classified document says he survived.

Two years after Christian's disappearance, a classified document was hand-delivered to the Christian family by the Naval Intelligence Command which suggested Christian did survive. During this visit, Navy Captain Williams relayed its sensitive nature and asked that its information be held in the strictest of confidence. Captain Williams would not leave this document with the Christian. It was kept classified until March 21, 2024, when it was finally released due to a Congressional Inquiry conducted by U.S. Senator John Fetterman's office.

Discrepancy cases.

Intelligence analysts classified 196 cases as "discrepancy cases", A.K.A. "Last Known Alive" cases, which were assigned when the U.S. believed an individual survived a plane crash but was not able to account for him afterward. Christian's case was classified as a discrepancy. These cases received the highest priority when the Joint Casualty Resolution Center (JCRC) and Vietnamese Office for Seeking Missing Persons (VNOSMP) restarted their recovery efforts in the mid 1980s. Christian’s case was chosen as one of the first of eight to begin recovery efforts and was kept open until the mid 1990's when JCRC teams were finally allowed access to the Central Military Museum's secret archives in Hanoi.

Their belongings were found in Hanoi.

On May 28, 1991, the Joint Research Team visited the Military Museum in Hanoi. The museum staff showed the team records consisting of various artifacts related to the loss of VR703 and David Christian. These records and artifacts consisted of military accounts of the incident, ID papers, personal belongings, flight gear, and parts of their planes, including the serial number plate (132540) of the EA1-F Skyraider VR703. While the U.S. investigators were reviewing the Vietnamese's incident reports, they were asked by the Vietnamese to add David Christian's name as the pilot to VR703's crash report. U.S. leadership told the team member to add the name and note the changes to the card in his report. It was discovered that 95 incident reports were missing from their records. There were index numbers for the missing cards, but no corresponding card existed. It was suggested by intelligence analysts that missing records could indicate a pilot was killed during or after his capture and was removed to hide the incident. Even though Sharapov's article gives a detailed list of the belongings taken from Christian, there were no cards found documenting any items taken or any of Christian's plane debris.

Declassified Records.

All records for this MIA case, including bios, eyewitness accounts, Vietnamese military reports, DPAA, CIA, Naval Intelligence, Naval Safety Command, Army Bright Light, Air Force Special Activities Group, Library of Congress reports, etc., have been donated to The Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive. Most of these records were declassified by request of U.S. Senator John Fetterman on May 5, 2024. They can be viewed here in the David M. Christian Collection (3531).

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Who was David Christian?

David Christian was born in 1941 in Oakland, California, and moved to Lane, Kansas, where his father helped run the Christian family hardware store and lumberyard. After his family moved back to California, he stayed in Kansas to attend Emporia State University and later Kansas State University. He then enrolled in Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS) at NAS Pensacola. Once commissioned, naval aviators went through ground school and flight training in the T-28 Trojan, a propeller-driven aircraft, followed by jet training in the T-2 Buckeye. He went on to receive final ground attack and carrier landing training in A-4s from the Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) at NAS Lemoore before assignment to a deploying squadron (VA-23 The Black Knights) also based there.

He was described as an athletic, intelligent young man with a great love for his family. Furthermore, he enjoyed singing in the Youth for Christ Quartet. But most of all he wanted to serve his country and had a strong sense of patriotism, which he expressed from a very early age.

Description provided by Truman W. Christian.

Home State: Lakeside California & Lane Kansas
Parents: Jess & Ethel Christian
High School: Grossmont, La Mesa, CA
College: Kansas State University, Emporia State University
Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS): Naval Air Station (NAS), Pensacola FL
Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) Training: Naval Air Station (NAS), Lemoore CA

Squadron: VA-23 Black Knights - Ground Attack Squadron
Plane: A4-E Skyhawk (Buno: 151144 Modex: NE348)
Carrier: U.S.S. Midway CVA-41
Call Sign: Law Case 348
Case No: 0092-1-01

Commendations:

• Purple Heart
• Distinguished Flying Cross
• Combat Action Ribbon
• United States Aviator Badge Navy
• National Defense Service Medal
• Vietnam Campaign Medal
• Vietnam Service Medal
• Navy Presidential Unit Citation
• Vietnam Gallantry Cross
• Navy Good Conduct Medal
• Navy Expeditionary Medal

He is buried or memorialized at Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial and Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego. This is a National American Cemetery administered through the Department of Veteran's Affairs. He is honored on the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington DC. Name inscribed at VVM Wall, Panel 01e, Line 129.

Visit him at the Vietnam Memorial Wall here.

His Bio can be seen here.

Source: www.honorstates.org

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About VAW-13 Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 13 and their specialized EA-1F Skyraider.

Crewmembers:

• LTJG M.D. McMican (Pilot) View DPAA Bio | View Wall of Faces
• LTJG Gerald M. Romano (Copilot - Radar/ECM) View DPAA Bio | View Wall of Faces
• ATN3 Thomas L. Plants (ECM) View DPAA Bio | View Wall of Faces
• ATR3 William H. Amspacher Jr. (ECM) View DPAA Bio | View Wall of Faces

Photo of EA-1F Skyraider VR703 provided by retired CDR James Glendenning.

VAW-13 was an unorthodox squadron. The Navy did not have enough EA-1Fs to put a detachment aboard every deployed aircraft carrier. An alternative solution was decided upon. The main squadron, with about 24 aircraft, was based at NAS Alameda. This unit conducted training of crews to deploy to NAS Cubi Point in the Philippines. It also conducted ECM exercises with carriers that were preparing to deploy to WESPAC.

The unit at Cubi Point was designated as VAW-13 Detachment One. The mission was to send two plane detachments out to operate off carriers that were operating south of Taiwan in the South China Sea. This operation was to ensure the Navy had an ECM capability in the far west Pacific theater if war broke out.

Detachment One had about 12 aircraft with 30 officers and 100 enlisted men. We usually had a full schedule of ECM exercises with U.S. Navy ships and when we had the capacity, with Royal Navy and Australian Navy ships.

The EA-1F carried a crew of four. A pilot, a Naval Flight Officer who operated the radars, and two ECM operators who did the ECM collection and jamming. The aircraft was normally equipped with two jammer pods, two chaff dispensers, two ECM receivers, an APS 31 terrain following radar, and an APS 19 high-definition radar that allowed targeting of other aircraft. The aircraft were normally fitted with a 300-gallon centerline tank to allow missions of up to eight hours. All aircraft were equipped with four 20mm canons and an optical sight that projected a reticle on the forward wind screen. The 20mms were primarily self-defense weapons. The fact that two MIGs were shot down in North Vietnam by A-1s using 20MMs demonstrated that they would have been useful if attacked.

The ECM equipment was dated and powered by vacuum tubes, which provided a maintenance challenge since every carrier landing imposed an unavoidable jolt on the electronics.

The airplane and crew were capable of collecting electronic intelligence - finding what kinds of radars were being used and where they were located. However, most of the missions in Vietnam were active jamming missions against the Fire Can or Fan Song radars that the enemy anti-aircraft batteries were equipped with.

The squadron had some highly skilled electronics techs. In 1964 they developed an omni-directional jamming antenna that provided more complete coverage than the directional jamming pods that had been standard. The directional jammers were effective up to 50 miles, but they had to be pointed directly at the radar. That presented problems of coverage when the radar location was not easy to determine.

The omni-directional antennas were effect iv up to 15 miles and gave more complete jamming coverage. When the air war against North Vietnam began, we were able to go over the targets at 8,000 to 10,000 feet. With two airplanes jamming and dropping chaff, we could successfully keep the enemy radars from acquiring targets.

That was our standard operational mode until the North Vietnamese acquired the SAM missiles. When the SAMs went operational in late July of 1965, the EA-1F became too vulnerable to being shot down by a SAM. For the next three years, the tactic for all ECM missions was to use directional jammers from over the water. It was a necessary trade off until the Navy could acquire jet powered aircraft with ECM capabilities that were less vulnerable to the SAMs.

Plane: EA-1F Skyraider (SPAD)
Buno: 132540
Tale Code: VR
Modex: 703
Call Sign: ROBINSON (AKA Robbie 703)
Squadron: VAW-13 Zappers - Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 13
Aircraft Specs: Radial R3350-26W
Upgraded Skyraider with specialized EMC Radar Jamming Equipment. Also equipped with 20mm cannons for protection.

Description provided by retired CDR James Glendenning.

You can read more about this squadron on the VAW-13 web page.

Congressional Inquiries (4).

A total of four congressional inquiries have been submitted, resulting in the declassified release of over 600+ pages of investigative records from the Defense P.O.W./MIAA Accounting Agency (DPAA).

Inquiry No 1: December 12, 1986 - Congressional inquiry submitted by his family seeking all classified information regarding the status of LTJG David Marion Christian.

Inquiry No 2: January 19, 2024 - Senator John Fetterman submitted a congressional inquiry to secure his full investigation records. On May 5, 2024, Defense P.O.W./MIAA Accounting Agency (DPAA) released over 600+ pages of investigation records. In the Declassified Records section above, you can view various records, eyewitness accounts, and case reports, including DPAA, DIA, CIA, and Joint Chiefs of Staff investigation and meeting notes for his case (0092-1-01).

• ABC27 TV February 5, 2024 coverage of Senator Fetterman's Congressional Inquiry.
• ABC27 TV July 5, 2024 coverage of Senator Fetterman's Congressional Inquiry.

Inquiry No 3: August 15, 2024 - U.S. Representative Scott Perry inquires into all information pertaining to the February 18, 1997, interview with KGB agent Viktor V. Sharapov regarding the disappearance and possible survival of LTJG David Marion Christian.

• ABC27 TV September 20, 2024 coverage of Congressman Scott Perry's Congressional Inquiry.
  

Inquiry No 4: August 23, 2024 - U.S. Representative Scott Perry inquiries into all records and information collected by the Navy regarding the June 2, 1965, shoot down and loss of LTJG David Marion Christian.

• ABC27 TV September 20, 2024 coverage of Congressman Scott Perry's Congressional Inquiry.