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Narrator: Douglas Peterson

Interviewer: Jason Mizerek

Date of Interview: 09.22.15

Location: Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum Complex

Transcriber: Ellen Fisher

Date Transcript Approved: 03.21.16

Project ID: OHP 082

Note: Text enclosed in brackets [ ] indicates information and edits that were added by the

narrator after reviewing the transcript. Therefore, this information is not present in the

interview’s video format.

(0:00:10 – 0:00:20) Jason Mizerek: Good afternoon. This is the Intrepid Oral History Project.

My name is Jason Mizerek and I’m sitting down this afternoon with Doug Peterson. Good

afternoon.

(0:00:20 – 0:00:21) Douglas Peterson: Good Afternoon.

(0:00:21 – 0:00:22) Jason Mizerek: May I call you Doug for the duration?

(0:00:22 – 0:00:23) Douglas Peterson: Yes, please, please, yes.

(0:00:24 – 0:00:46) Jason Mizerek: Thank you. Doug was on Intrepid. He was with VA-34 during

the second deployment to Vietnam in 1967. Before we jump right into your service here on the

ship, could you give us a little bit of background information--where you were born and where

you were raised.

(0:00:47 – 0:01:06) Douglas Peterson: Okay I was born in a small town in Southwestern

Wisconsin called Soldiers Grove, population 700. I spent my entire life growing up there, went

through high school, after that, of course, I went on to college and ultimately into the Navy.

(0:01:07 – 0:01:15) Jason Mizerek: Now when you joined the Navy are you an aviator first or in

the Navy first?

(0:01:16 – 0:05:35) Douglas Peterson: Well that’s a long story really because adding to what I

said before, when I was growing up I was an airplane fanatic. As far as my memory goes back, I

was fascinated by airplanes. I think I spent every penny I earned mowing lawns and shoveling

snow buying stick model airplanes of tissue paper and a stick. That evolved into the desire to fly

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airplanes and it was . . . I realized back and this was in the mid- fifties, that this is not something

you do without at least getting some college and things of that nature. My family didn’t really

have any money so college for me was problematic. By the time I got to my senior year in high

school, Plan A was to . . . probably after I graduated from high school, work for a year, earn

enough money to go to school for a year and then go from there. I had applied for some

scholarships in my senior year but, unfortunately, I didn’t get any. Right after I graduated I went

and I tried to find a job, working. Unfortunately at that time, I had not yet turned eighteen so I

couldn’t get a job. There went the work a year (laughs), college a year plan. So I actually

enlisted in the Air Force. I talked to the recruiter and he made it clear to me that right then,

this was in probably early summer of 1958, right then they were deferring recruitments, and he

said that they would test me and give me my physical and then I would have to come back

home and wait until they actually had openings and needed recruits, and at that time I’d be

sworn in and going into basic training in the Air Force. So they scheduled me for a physical. I

went and got my Air Force physical and took all the classification tests, things of that nature,

and came back home to wait for my recruit class to start. Well, it wasn’t two days after I got

back home from taking my Air Force physical that I got a letter in the mail from my

congressman, and in it was an offer of the principal nomination to the United States Naval

Academy. Well I knew that . . . in fact I’d done some of the letter writing but I didn’t figure that

I had a ghost’s chance of getting into the Naval Academy because I thought that this was for

special people that knew people and things of that nature. I’ll be darned if some of the people

in town hadn’t written nice letters of recommendation for me, and my congressman gave me

the offer of the principal nomination. Unfortunately, that couldn’t get me into that class. It was

too late in the application process to get me in so the congressman told me . . . he says, “What

you should do is go to college for a year.” (laughs) So I’m back to square one, no money. Well

anyway I ultimately was able to get a job later on in the fall. That summer I worked doing farm

work, things of that nature and earned some money that way. I got a regular job after I turned

eighteen and I worked for a year, and then I enrolled in a state college in Wisconsin, and during

this time, of course, I’d taken my physical for the Naval Academy and I had to take the entrance

exams and things of that nature, and when I was about half way through my first year in college

I received notice that I had been accepted at the Naval Academy. So . . . then the pieces started

falling into place. I knew that if I got through the Naval Academy I would get my commission

and flight training was then an option. And that’s exactly what happened. I entered the Naval

Academy in June of 1960, graduated class of 1964, and in our service selection process I had

stood high enough in the class that I was able to get into flight training. So that’s where the

flying started.

(0:05:36 – 0:05:39) Jason Mizerek: By that time I imagine you had already been on your first

flight.

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(0:05:40 – 0:05:56) Douglas Peterson: Well, I had taken a short flight on one of those little Piper

Cub airplanes when I was in high school. But it was just a sight-seeing ride I guess you’d call it,

but at that point, no I had never flown in an airplane until I actually got down to Pensacola and

started flight training.

(0:05:57 – 0:06:02) Jason Mizerek: Had you already fulfilled your Air Force obligations by that

point.

(0:06:02 – 0:07:07) Douglas Peterson: Well no see . . . I left this part out. When I got the letter

from the congressman telling me that I’d been offered the principal nomination, I called the Air

Force recruiter that had sent me off to . . . I take that back, what actually happened was he had

called me, and it was on the very same day that I got the letter from the congressman offering

me the nomination to the Naval Academy. So the recruiter calls and I tell him, I said, “I’ve got

this problem,” I said. “You want me to . . . ”. He said, “You scored one of the highest scores

ever when you took your test for recruit training, classification test.” He said, “They want you

to go right now. We can get you in next week’s class.” And I said, “Well I’ve got this problem. I

also have an appointment, a nomination I should say to the Naval Academy.” And he says,

“Wow, that’s great. I’m really glad for you. No problem, we’ll cancel you out of this next call up

and you’re on your way.” So I was not officially in the Air Force but they were ready to take me.

(0:07:07 – 0:07:22) Jason Mizerek: Okay. Very good. That’s an interesting way of going about it.

That doesn’t happen for too many people. I’ve heard stories of congressmen vouching but you

never really actually meet the person so it’s pretty amazing that that’s your story.

(0:07:22 – 0:07:43) Douglas Peterson: Yeah it was . . . well the whole process was somewhat

crazy because all the way through this academy thing I didn’t think that I had any chance at all

of getting in. I just didn’t think that it was going to happen so I was as surprised as anybody

when I actually got the nomination. But he made it clear, of course, that I had to pass the

physical and the entrance exams and all that other stuff before I could actually go in.

(0:07:44 – 0:07:48) Jason Mizerek: So I think now we’re up to . . . it’s maybe 1964 and you’re

down at Pensacola. Is that correct?

(0:07:49 – 0:07:49) Douglas Peterson: Right.

(0:07:50 – 0:07:52) Jason Mizerek: Can you describe a little bit of your time there?

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(0:07:53 – 0:10:37) Douglas Peterson: Well of course you go through pre-flight which is a lot of

physical conditioning and you take some fundamental classes in dealing with air craft power

plants. We had some meteorology, and a little bit of aeronautical stuff. Most of the things we

had at Annapolis. Book work and then . . . but like I said the emphasis was, a lot of it was

physical training. I was already a commissioned officer so I didn’t have to go through any of the

Mickey Mouse stuff, like the aviation cadets had to or whatever. But that was the ground

school part of it and then of course after you finish the ground school we all went out to Saufley

Field and went through primary flight training in the T-34s which is a small piston engine

aircraft, prop driven. And we were there for probably two months. And of course at the end of

that primary flight process, which I think was about twenty flights . . . you’re graded all the way

through, of course. My main concern was I wanted to grade high enough that I could get into

what they call the jet pipeline and fly jets as opposed to going into either helicopters or multi-

engines, which I did, I scored fairly well on my flying and I did get into the jet pipeline, went up

to Meridian, Mississippi and we were there for . . . actually it took us about 8 months to get

through Meridian and basic jet training-- flying a T-2 Buckeye. There we learned, obviously, the

basic aircraft operation, some basic instrument training, formation flying was a big part of it so

you learned to fly in formation. After we finished at Meridian, we went back to Pensacola for

our carrier qualification and air-to-air gunnery. That was a short course, that was only about

four weeks. We got through that and the next step was to Texas for advanced jet. And at that

point you would split, they’d either send you to Kingsville, Texas or Beeville, Texas. It’s basically

the same curriculum except at Beeville after you got through your . . . what was primarily

instrument training in the F9 Cougar, you got about 20 or 30 hours in the F-11 Tiger which was

a super-sonic fighter with after burner and all that. Well fortunately I got sent to Beeville so I

got to fly the F-11 as well, going through that. But it was advanced flight training was heavily on

instrument training and of course we carrier qualed again at the end of that in the F9, and once

we finished that, got through with flying the F-11, we got our wings and orders to the fleet.

(0:10:39 – 0:10:48) Jason Mizerek: I’m going to just back up just a little bit. You mentioned that

you went through carrier qualifications. Was that smooth sailing for you or were there any

hiccups along the way with that?

(0:10:49 – 0:11:57) Douglas Peterson: Going through the first carqual at Pensacola in the T-2,

the training was intense. We’d go out two, sometimes three times a day and have what they

called field carrier landing practice, FCLP. And you go out and you’d fly around the pattern, a six

hundred foot pattern and just keep doing touch and go’s. And of course they have it configured

just like it would be on the deck of a ship. They had the stripes painted in the runway, they had

the mirror landing aid off to the left, and then they had the LSOs out there as well grading your

passes. And it was very tightly controlled. We did those practice landings for, I’d say it was

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probably close to four weeks and by the time that we were ready to go out to the ship to

actually do the carrier landings, we . . . I felt pretty comfortable doing it. The biggest shock

actually was the catapult shot because they didn’t replicate that when you were doing the

FCLPs. But obviously, you’re anxious, you’re nervous, but everything went well. I had no

problems, yeah.

(0:11:57 – 0:12:00) Jason Mizerek: Do you remember which ship it was that you qualified on?

(0:12:01 – 0:12:03) Douglas Peterson: I carqualed on the Lexington.

(0:12:03 – 0:12:04) Jason Mizerek: Lexington, okay.

(0:12:05 – 0:12:09) Douglas Peterson: CVS 16 which was a 27 Charlie Class same as the Intrepid.

(0:12:10 – 0:12:17) Jason Mizerek: Can you describe a little bit about the first cat shot that you

were on? You said you hadn’t experienced that in the training and it was the first time around.

(0:12:18 – 0:13:18) Douglas Peterson: Well, like I say, it’s not simulated and it’s kind of hard to

describe. I remember one of our instructor pilots said, “When you take the cat shot,” he said,

“get yourself snugged up against the back of the seat and after you salute the LSO, put your

head back against the headrest so it doesn’t get snapped back.” And he says, “Take and tuck

your elbow into your side and cup your hand behind the stick,” he says, “don’t hang on to the

stick, just cup your hand behind the stick.” You get the cat shot and you get slammed back

pretty hard of course. And at the end of this . . . and during this process the stick will come back

into your hand. He said, “Just gently grab a hold of it and hold it right about there. When you go

off the end of the ship you should be pretty close to a flying attitude and if you’re not, you

know, you can just adjust it and,” he said, “after a while you get so accustomed to putting your

elbow into your side and your hand behind the stick that it’ll automatically go right to where

you want it so that when you go off the end of the bow you’ll be in the right attitude to clear

the bow.”

(0:13:19 – 0:13:25) Jason Mizerek: So now you have your wings, you’re finished with training.

What’s the next step?

(0:13:26 – 0:14:18) Douglas Peterson: Well you get orders to one of the fleet squadrons, of

course, and what they do as you’re nearing the end of your training, you fill out what’s called a

dream sheet, list your preferences . . . like in my case I wanted A-4s out of Cecil Field which is

Jacksonville, East Coast . . . and I wanted A-4s because I’d always liked the airplane from the

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time when I was a kid. It was small, nimble and it just looked like a neat airplane to fly. In

addition to that, the A-4 had the attack mission which was mainly air to ground and that

appealed to me more than the fighter mission which of course was mainly air to air. You put

down, I think, three or four choices. Obviously they could either send you east or west,

wherever they needed you but fortunately I was able to get just exactly what I asked for: A-4s

East Coast.

(0:14:19 – 0:14:22) Jason Mizerek: Do you remember any of the other options? The A-4 and

then you said there were fighter aircraft?

(0:14:23 – 0:15:00) Douglas Peterson: Yeah, and I don’t know why I did this but for my second

choice, well I put down A-4s West Coast, of course as a second choice and then my third choice

. . . I was trying to figure out what it was . . . well, back then the F-4 was just coming into the

fleet then, but the F-8 had been the predominant fighter up to that point. So I put down F-8s,

then I thought a minute and I said well I don’t really want to be a fighter pilot per se, so I put

down photographic F-8, VFP I guess it’s called, which is probably one of the dumbest things I

ever did but it was moot because I got what I wanted.

(0:15:01 – 0:15:03) Jason Mizerek: Was the A-1 Skyraider still an option at that point?

(0:15:04 – 0:15:45) Douglas Peterson: It was. In fact, a very good friend of mine . . . that we

went all the way through flight training together . . . from day one to the day we got our wings

pinned on . . . he got A-1s. But the reason they sent him to A-1s was because they were

transitioning all those squadrons to A-6s. So really they told him, “Gene, we’re going to send

you to A-1s, Spad School they called it, but don’t worry, you’ll be getting into A-6s later on.”

Well, unfortunately, he went into a Spad squadron, an A-1 squadron, and he was killed on his

WESTPAC cruise so he never got to where he wanted to go.

(0:15:46 – 0:16:05) Jason Mizerek: The first time you’re able to fly an A-4, you have your wings,

you made a dream sheet of aircraft that you would like to fly, it was your top choice, what was

your first flight like? Or what was your first time experiencing one up close and in a cockpit?

(0:16:06 – 0:18:37) Douglas Peterson: Well it was everything that I expected it to be. Really.

Now I’d flown when I was in Advanced Training Command. I mentioned I flew the F9, the

Cougar. We had two models of that. One was a two seat model which was a trainer, obviously.

But they also had some single seat F9s. They were called the AF-9J. And some of those were

used for formation flights and some of the weapons training, the gunnery hops we flew the

single seater as well. Once you got assigned to a single seater, that’s pretty much what you flew

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on all your solo hops. And I can remember getting into the cockpit in that AF-9J the first time

and looking over my shoulder and there was no seat behind me, no instructor pilot, and that

was the biggest thrill. Well I had pretty much the same feeling when I got in the A-4. You know

we’d had cockpit training and flight simulator training and all that other stuff so by the time you

actually get in the cockpit, you know where everything is and you feel pretty comfortable. At

that time they didn’t have the two seat version of the A-4 so your first flight was a solo flight in

the A-4. But they briefed you pretty well. It did have some peculiarities that we hadn’t

experienced before and they just alerted you to those things so that you wouldn’t be surprised

when these things happened. I got assigned the instructor and briefed and taxied out, and he

said, “I’ll be right behind you. Just take off and fly it around and get the feel of it, enjoy it, look

over at the country side and get familiar with some of the landmarks and whatnot.” We got out

to the runway, jammed the power forward and, well I had my brakes on of course. You hold

your brakes while you’re running the power up and I forgot that, unlike most other airplanes,

you can’t run the power all the way to 100% because in the A-4, if it’s not heavily loaded it will

actually skid down the runway with the brakes locked. So I started to skid, then I realized what

was happening . . . first mistake, pulled the power back, I think the instructor’s probably

laughing, he’s sitting there beside me, parked beside me or lined up beside me I should say. So

then we took off and the only thing that was a little bit unusual at first . . . in the A-4, you get

airborne, you raised your gear, and when you raised your flaps the aircraft wanted to settle,

and if you didn’t counter that you’d feel like you’re going to be settling into the ground. That

was the only thing that was really unusual about it. After that, it was a nice flight. Airplane

handled well, easy to land, fell in love with it, first time.

(0:18:38 – 0:19:04) Jason Mizerek: I wanted to take a step back for a moment and look at more

of the bigger picture of what’s happening in the country or really in the world. Because as

you’re progressing through your training, Vietnam is now a country that the United States has

an interest in. Was there any point in your training or after your training where you thought to

yourself, “Hey I could actually end up there because my training and Vietnam are sort of

coinciding with one another.”

(0:19:05 – 0:20:18) Douglas Peterson: Yeah, I think most of us assumed that eventually we’d

probably wind up there but being an East Coast pilot . . . at that time . . . they had called up a

few East Coast squadrons and put them on West Coast carriers to deploy. But I didn’t think that

something would happen to me right away but yeah it was in the back of our minds and even

when we were in the training command . . . they were . . . the Gulf of Tonkin incident had

transpired, well I guess when we were probably going through pre-flight, so we knew that there

was a chance that we were going to be getting into a shooting match and every now and then .

. . even when I was going through the A-4 training there were guys that were coming back into

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the A-4 RAG as instructor pilots that had been in combat . . . so we had a pretty good feel for

what was going on. But at that point, being in an East Coast squadron, I didn’t think that I’d be

going over right away and as it turned out that was the case. Because when I finished my A-4

training in Jacksonville, at Cecil Field, I deployed to the Saratoga in the Mediterranean for that

cruise.

(0:20:19 – 0:20:31) Jason Mizerek: You have a military obligation to fulfill but do you have a

personal opinion of what was happening over there and was it always in line with what you

were possibly training for?

(0:20:30 – 0:21:21) Douglas Peterson: Yeah, back then . . . it’s kind of hard to put yourself back

in that frame of reference . . . but yeah I didn’t really give it too much thought. I figured if

something happens that I have to go over there, that’s what I signed on for, and I didn’t have

any problems with it. You know by that time going through the A-4 training . . . that was pretty

heavily oriented towards weapons delivery, bombing and strafing and shooting rockets and all

that other stuff so they didn’t do that for nothing obviously . . . so I was prepared . . . I figured it

was just part of the job. And politically, I didn’t have any opinions one way or the other. That

was before all the antiwar stuff had gotten ginned up so that wasn’t an issue that gave me any

concerns.

(0:21:22 – 0:21:29) Jason Mizerek: So now you’re deployed to the Saratoga in the

Mediterranean. This is your first ship.

(0:21:29 – 0:21:30) Douglas Peterson: Right.

(0:21:31 – 0:21:33) Jason Mizerek: What was the purpose of the Saratoga at that point?

(0:21:33 – 0:22:57) Douglas Peterson: Well the Saratoga and the Sixth Fleet in its entirety was

all part of the NATO defense composition, if you will. We didn’t really do an awful lot. In fact we

probably spent about half our time in port, but when we did go out, we would fly a lot of

exercises and those exercises were usually against other ships in the fleet. Yeah we’d do a lot of

things like going out maybe two or three hundred miles and coming back in towards, let’s say, a

destroyer on an assigned radial and sometimes we would go in high, sometimes we’d go down

right on top of the waves. And what they’d be doing is they’d be training their radar operators

to pick up aircraft that were coming in, might be a threat to the fleet. There were a few other . .

. we had some ordnance exercises . . . there were some targets in the Mediterranean that the

Navy used for dropping live ordnance which is something we have to do, and we had some joint

exercises with the French, things of that nature. It wasn’t real concentrated work because, like I

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said, we’d no sooner get warmed up and we’d sail into port and spend two weeks in port. I

think a lot of it had to do with the fact that most of the money and assets were going to the

Pacific Fleet at that time because of what was going on in Vietnam.

(0:22:58 – 0:23:01) Jason Mizerek: So after the Saratoga, is the Intrepid your next stop?

(0:23:02 – 0:25:05) Douglas Peterson: Yes, we came back . . . this would have been in late

October of ’66. We got back from the Mediterranean on the Saratoga, and at that time we

were all given, I think, a month’s leave, and when we left to go on leave the word was that we

were going to be going back to the Mediterranean on the Saratoga in the spring. Well, we got

back from leave and started getting worked up for the next cruise and the next thing we know

is our orders have been changed. VA-34 was going to chop to CAG 10 and we were going to

WESTPAC on the Intrepid, which was a bit of a shock (laughs). But after you thought about it for

a while you figured oh okay I guess it’s our turn, so. Intrepid was home ported at Norfolk at the

time. VA-15 who had been on the ‘66 cruise on Intrepid was moved from Oceania, Virginia

down to Cecil Field and put in the hangar right next to us so we started getting to know some of

those guys since we’d be flying with them off and on. And we started working up, right after the

first of the year I guess it would have been, and in March we went . . . flew all our aircraft up to

Norfolk, and set out on Intrepid for a shakedown cruise they called it, which was just a cruise to

get . . . probably more for the deck crew than anything else. It was March and it was still cold up

there of course so we had to wear what they called poopie suits, anti-exposure suits. We hated

them. They were difficult to get on, they were uncomfortable because the A-4 cockpit is so

small, and I can’t remember how long that was, maybe two or three weeks I think we were on

that cruise, then came back into Norfolk and flew everything back to Cecil Field again in

Jacksonville.

(0:25:06 – 0:25:08) Jason Mizerek: And then eventually, no more shakedown, it’s the real deal.

(0:25:09 – 0:26:58) Douglas Peterson: Well, no we had one more. After we finished the

shakedown cruise and went back to Cecil Field, like I said, we started operating with VA-15 as a

CAG air wing group. I think that VSF-3, it may have been VSF-1 at the time, I’m not sure, they

were stationed at Alameda on the West Coast and I think that they even came back and we did

some air wing type operations together to kind of get a feel for what it was like to go out as a

flight of twenty-five or thirty airplanes and hit a target in a coordinated type attack. But

anyway, after we did that workup . . . then Intrepid sailed down and they were operating off the

Florida coast and we went on what was called an ORI . . . an operational readiness inspection.

All the squadrons go out and they wanted the ships and the squadrons to operate like they

normally will and they have these inspectors that come down from one of the staffs either in

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Norfolk or Washington . . . I’m not sure what it was . . . and grade everything you do: all your

flight operations, your aircraft handling operations, they even get into the way the ship

operates. That I think was . . . I think that was probably about three weeks. During that time we

did a lot more of these coordinated, joint type operations with all the air wing squadrons

working together on the same basis. After that we came back into port . . . I think that was in

April . . . and we deployed probably about a month later, sometime in May we actually left

Norfolk to head to WESTPAC.

(0:26:59 – 0:07:00) Jason Mizerek: You had an interesting trip, on the way?

(0:27:01 – 0:29:39) Douglas Peterson: Yes we did. You probably heard about this.(laughs) We

got into the Med, the Mediterranean, and we did some flight ops . . . just for kind of warm-ups .

. . and about the time we got ready to enter the Suez Canal . . . and at that time I think they

called it the United Arab Republic, which was Egypt and I think Jordan was involved in that too .

. . were starting to rattle their saber against Israel . . . and our entry into the canal was delayed,

and the problem was, if we didn’t get through the canal, they would have to reposition oilers

around South Africa, the Cape, whatever it was, so we could refuel to get all the way around

that way. Apparently [intended to say Personally], I’ve always felt that LBJ called up whoever

the Premier of Israel was at the time and said, “I want my ship to go through the Canal.” So all

of a sudden the gates open and in we went. When we steamed through the canal . . . well, first

of all, when we were waiting to enter the Suez Canal, we were shadowed by probably two or

three Russian ships and I’m sure there were submarines all around us too. So we knew that

things were getting kind of tense. But anyway, we entered the Suez Canal and the captain put

the ship at general quarters . . . they closed all the exterior hatches and they left the hangar bay

doors open just a crack, so I was able to get some pictures when we were going through the

canal, and I have some pictures of . . . on the Sinai side of the canal . . . an Egyptian troop train

was going down the Sinai peninsula and the train stopped, and we could see these soldiers

running across the sand . . . it was desert . . . running across the sand and they ran up over the

berm that was along the Suez Canal and were shaking their fists at us and the MiGs were

buzzing the ship . . . you could hear them, I couldn’t see them, but you could hear the MiGs

flying over the ship, Egyptian MiGs. But anyway we got through without any problems . . . and I

think it was about the time that we got into the Red Sea . . . obviously we were out of the canal

. . . that’s when the Israelis shot up the Liberty and it was shortly after that that they . . . I guess

it was called the Six Day War, occurred. Well we just kept on going. We went across the Indian

Ocean through the Straits of Malacca, past Singapore and on into Subic Bay in the Philippines.

Can I get a drink of water?

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(0:29:40 – 0:30:11) Jason Mizerek: Sure, absolutely . . . yeah, there seems to be a common

theme . . . what view did you have of the Suez Canal . . . of those who were on the ship at that

time period . . . and yours was . . . (Douglas Peterson: The canal itself.) What was your view of

that event? What was your perspective? You said you were on the hangar deck, peering

through the door.

(0:30:11 – 0:30:31) Douglas Peterson: Well, yeah and at one time I went up in I think it was the

weather station which was up on one of the higher levels on the ship . . . I can’t remember

which one it was but I was able to get up there without going onto what they call the weather

deck, outside the skin of the ship . . . and I got some pictures from up there too.

(0:30:32 – 0:31:06) This section has been redacted as per the narrator’s request.

(0:31:07 – 0:31:18) Douglas Peterson: But the impression of the canal itself . . . I don’t know

how that ship fit through there . . . I mean it was pretty tight in spots, and once you go in you

can’t turn around and go back until you get down to, I think it was Great Bitter Lake was the

only turn around point.

(0:31:19 – 0:32:21) Jason Mizerek: Now you said you had your camera with you.

(0:31:21 – 0:31:21) Douglas Peterson: Mhm.

(0:31:22 – 0:31:25) Jason Mizerek: Was that common for crew members to have cameras or

were you the exception?

(0:31:25 – 0:32:05) Douglas Peterson: No, no, there was no problem taking pictures. I had . . . it

was a beat up old . . . it wasn’t a single lens reflex . . . it was not even . . . of course they didn’t

even have autofocus back in those days . . . but, unfortunately, it was a manual wind and that

was a problem . . . I always carried it when I was flying . . . but you could only usually take about

one picture because you just couldn’t advance the film and fly an airplane. But I did take some

pictures when we were flying over the beach in Vietnam . . . a few . . . not many.

(0:32:06 – 0:32:23) Jason Mizerek: So I guess we can go into that next. You left off last at Subic

Bay. This is Intrepid’s second stint but you’re VA-34s first (Douglas Peterson: Right.) on Intrepid.

You experienced the Lexington briefly and the Saratoga in the Med. What was your impression

of Intrepid as a ship?

12

(0:32:23 – 0:33:45) Douglas Peterson: Well, the only thing I didn’t like about Intrepid was our

staterooms were not air conditioned. I call it a stateroom, it was a little compartment was what

it was. But once we got into the Tonkin Gulf in the summertime . . . the temperature in our

stateroom was almost a constant 95 degrees, and it was almost a fatigue factor because when

it’s that hot and muggy, it’s really hard to get a good night’s sleep. From an operating

standpoint, the ship was fantastic. It was quick getting into the wind, it was quick launching.

The bigger deck of the Saratoga . . . actually I think it was easier to land on the Intrepid than it

was on the Saratoga because everything seemed kind of right there in front of you. The skipper

of the ship, and I think at that time it was Captain McVey or Captain Fair, I can’t remember

which one it was now, but he did everything he could to help out the air wing in terms of

steaming . . . he’d steam as far north as he could in the Gulf so we were closer to targets and

things of that nature so . . . apart from that one thing . . . the air conditioning . . . it was a good

ship to fly off.

(0:33:47 – 0:33:55) Jason Mizerek: Now before we sat down and started our interview today

you said that your stateroom was forward of the wardroom.

(0:33:55 – 0:34:54) Douglas Peterson: I think it was just . . . it was just outside the aft entrance

to the officer’s wardroom . . . there was a little . . . it wasn’t a water tight door, it was just a

passage door, and then as you step out that and there was a hatch that went down one deck,

and there were two staterooms or compartments if you will down, that was officer’s quarters . .

. and there were two guys right across the hall from us from VA-15 that lived in those

compartments . . . no doors, you just had curtains hanging on the entryways . . . and our room

was right against the outer bulkhead of the ship. I didn’t really move too much around the ship.

You’re in your ready room, wardroom, sleep, and that was about it . . . the flight deck of course.

But I never went into the engineering spaces or anything like that, didn’t have any need to.

(0:34:55 – 0:35:12) Jason Mizerek: A lot of what we know about VA-34’s time on the ship comes

from the fo’c’sle area where Triple Stix is located (Douglas Peterson: (laughs) Yeah.), so it’s

interesting to hear of your perspective from a different area. So how were the staterooms

actually divided up? Was it first come first serve or were they assigned?

(0:35:12 – 0:36:08) Douglas Peterson: Well they did it by rank . . . you just went down the . . .

they called it the rocket list and you had a rocket number. I started out the cruise as rocket

number 15, and when the cruise was over I think I worked myself up to rocket number 13. But

they went right down the list, and obviously the more senior officers they had, in officer’s

country, they had areas that were for the more senior officers and some of those even had air

conditioned staterooms. And then that’s just the way you go down the list and when they came

13

to me, I get my choice and as it turned out I roomed with the same guy that I had roomed with

on the Saratoga, he was a classmate of mine at the Naval Academy so we roomed that way.

They don’t actually assign rooms and roommates per se, at least we didn’t in our squadron

anyway.

(0:36:09 – 0:36:11) Jason Mizerek: So you were in a double occupancy stateroom.

(0:36:12 – 0:36:36) Douglas Peterson: Yeah. Top and bottom bunks. I had the top and I had

about this much room between my bunk . . . my head I should say . . . and there was an air duct

or something that ran through there. I remember they . . . the marines fired the five inch 38s

one time and all this dust and chipped paint and stuff like that came flying out of that duct.

(0:36:37 – 0:36:46) Jason Mizerek: So were you removed from the antics that we’re very

familiar with that were coming from the fo’c’sle, or was this sort of a space that you would flow

back and forth between?

(0:36:47 – 0:38:59) Douglas Peterson: Not really . . . we didn’t really have a lot of time . . . if you

want to call it socializing on board ship . . . we were pretty busy . . . even when we weren’t

flying I had a collateral duty, I had the . . . what was called the aircraft division, and these were

the enlisted guys that worked on the power plants . . . the engines, and maintained the

airframes and the hydraulic systems of the aircraft. In fact I think I even had the parachute

riggers . . . I think they worked for me for a while too. So usually if I wasn’t flying I tried to check

in with those guys and see how things were going even though I didn’t spend a lot of time face

to face with the maintenance guys . . . they were busy and I was busy. Triple Stix had a

reputation. What would happen is . . . if we came off the line for a short period for, say

rearming or refueling or something like that we would just head down to the southern end of

the operating area for doing those things, and that usually meant a day that we would skip

flying. So when they did that the flight surgeon would come down. He’d have a little brown

paper bag, and he’d hand out these little mini bottles of whiskey and brandy and stuff like that.

Well we’d hoard those things and when we had one of these stand down days . . . probably on a

couple of different occasions we’d wind up in the room you’re talking about which we called

Triple Stix . . . room 111 or compartment 111 . . . whatever it was. It was forward . . . I think it

was right adjacent to one of the elevators . . . the bow elevator . . . forward elevator . . .

whatever you call it, but we’d go up there and the reason we went there is because it was the

biggest . . . it was the JO bunkroom is what it was. It was the biggest compartment that we had

available . . . we could all crawl into. So we’d all get in there and drink our little bottles of

whiskey and maybe a little bit more, and have a good time. And a lot of those times I’m

14

reluctant to tell you about so they’ll just have to leave that to . . . they’ll have to read the book I

guess (laughs).

(0:38:59 – 0:39:08) Jason Mizerek: We’ll have to reference the book. Well on a more serious

note, can you recall your first flight over Vietnam, or the first time you went in country there?

(0:39:09 – 0:44:48) Douglas Peterson: Yes I can. That’s an easy one. We got on the line and the

way it would work is that our target assignments and all of those other kinds of details would

come in to CAG operations and then I think that CAG operations, they doled out the tasking to

the different squadrons and they broke it up pretty evenly. When you came onto the line for

the first time or when you came back to the line after a R&R period, in port period . . . usually

you’d operate for . . . well anywhere from a couple, three, you might even go four or five days

doing what they call cyclic operations. Each squadron would launch about four airplanes at a

time . . . they might split up and go out and do a road reconnaissance or a water reconnaissance

or a rail reconnaissance . . . armed recces we’d call them, armed reconnaissance. And that’s

what we were scheduled for on our first missions, and I was a section leader so I, Mike Krebs

was the name of my wingman. We got . . . they put together the flight schedule which had each

event listed and Mike and I were listed for some time maybe in the midmorning. We were going

to launch on a two plane, and we were going to do a road recce . . . that was our schedule . . . I

think we had probably a load of six 250 pound bombs I think. What you would do is you’d go

out and you’d fly reconnaissance on an assigned stretch of highway and what you’d be looking

for is obviously traffic which you never saw during the daytime, or looking off to the sides and

particularly if you had groves of trees or jungle canopy . . . looking for what they called truck

parks . . . because the trucks that come down from the north during the daytime, and then

they’d pull up into, underneath this foliage so they could hide during the day . . . so you’d fly

along looking on each side of the road . . . you’d weave back and forth across the highway

looking . . . and if you didn’t see any targets of opportunity then you had a secondary target

that was assigned which is close to the end of your route, and it was usually a small bridge or it

could be a gun emplacement . . . something like that. And you’d drop your ordnance on that.

Well anyway, that’s what we were assigned to do. I got my target segment that I was going to

fly this road and I got my maps and I planned everything out to the nearest second and all that

other stuff and I wanted to make sure I prepared. So, we got our air intelligence brief about an

hour before the mission . . . get the air intelligence brief . . . they’d tell you about what was

going on in the sector you were flying in . . . what the threat was . . . what the weather was and

all those other kinds of things. You’d get the frequencies that you had to use for whatever op

area you were operating in. Got all that information . . . Mike and I went up to get in our aircraft

. . . got all strapped in, started up and we started moving forward to get launched. Well I was

just about ready to go forward to get launched and Air Ops came up on the radio and said,

15

“Tiger so-and-so, your wingman went down.” Oh, all that planning . . . which I thought I was

going to get scrubbed because I can’t go alone. And he came back and said, “By the way Tiger

so-and-so, you’re going to join up with Tiger, Dan Snavely’s flight, basically. You’re going to join

up with him and go and take his target . . . follow him in . . . bomb with his group.” Dan was

leading a flight of four as I recall, that’s my recollection anyway. So we got off and got airborne

and I checked in with Dan and told him that I was going to tag along and he told me to fall in

the number four or five slot, whatever it was. I had no idea where we were going. I had no idea

what our target was. (laughs) So he said, “Just follow us. When I roll in, you roll in.” We headed

out and got over the beach and of course the tactic was . . . they called it a jinking . . . keep

moving around . . . move something every few seconds so that if someone is tracking you with a

gun, make it harder for them to track. So we’re all jinking around. I’m just thinking that, I

wonder where we’re going. So eventually we got to the point, and Dan says, “Okay, the target’s

down at 10 o’clock or whatever it was. I’m rolling in.” So Dan rolls in and we all roll in and drop

our ordnance and away we go. Of course we’re all scared to death, the airplanes are going all

over the sky, get out over the water, of course then you can relax, headed back to the ship, and

that was my first mission. And we thought we’d do this for . . . like I said, three or four days, but

I think it was within a day or two after that, we were watching the evening movie in the ready

room . . . we didn’t have any night ops right then . . . and all of a sudden the squawk box which

is right by the duty officer’s desk came up and it said, “All commanding officers report to CAG

operations.” So the skipper gets up and says, “Shut off the movie.” So we turned off the movie

. . . he heads out and goes up to strike op, or CAG ops, and eventually he came back with the

word that we’re going to get our first Alpha Strike, which was the big ones, and I consider that

to be my first real mission because at that point I knew where we were going and what we

were going to do and all that other stuff.

(0:44:49 – 0:44:50) Jason Mizerek: Can you recall that Alpha Strike?

(0:44:50 – 0:47:54) Douglas Peterson: Oh yes, yes. It was what they called a transshipment

point which basically was an area where a railroad came in . . . actually, probably a number of

railroads came in and terminated at a waterway terminal, and there was . . . the target photos

you could see there were piles of stuff here and there and things piled up, and then of course

you could see the gun sites positioned around the target area too. It was a place called Nam

Dinh . . . it was a fair ways inland but not a long ways inland. We launched and I think there

were probably four divisions which is twelve aircraft of bombers, and then typically they had

two divisions of flak suppressors, and then they had something they called them Iron Hand

birds that would carry the anti-radiation missiles, the Shrike missiles. Then of course we had our

friendly fighters up above us that were looking around for MIGs and all that other stuff. And as I

recall, it went pretty much the way it was planned . . . we got airborne and one of the big

16

concerns on a strike like this is mid-air collision because you’ve got all these airplanes . . .

they’re going off and they’re going off pretty fast, but even then you got to look at where

they’re being rendezvoused, and get up there and find your spot and get in position into your

own division and where you belong. But it went pretty well, we all got joined up and headed on

into the target, and we got over the beach, of course, we started moving around, and they

called out the target and I could see it. As I started to roll in . . . the airplane was just about

upside down and pulling down towards the target, and right in front of me I saw about four or

five flak bursts. And I said, “Well, there’s nowhere I can go,” so I just kept on going . . . flew

down, dropped my bombs . . . everything hit where it was supposed to . . . got back to the ship .

. . got debriefed in air intelligence and went back down to the ready room and I was sitting

down there for fifteen or twenty minutes and the maintenance officer came in and said, “Hold

out your hands.” So I held out my hands and he dropped . . . it was four pieces of flak . . . I said,

“What are those?” and he said, “We took those out of the leading edge of your wing.” Well the

skipper came over and he was upset. He said, “Noisey, you flew through your frag pattern, you

pulled out too low, you flew through the bomb fragment patterns.” And I said, “I didn’t think I

pulled out low.” So I had rolled one of these pieces around, it was about the size of my little

fingernail and I noticed it had rifling marks on it. So I told the skipper, I said, “That’s not from a

bomb, that’s from an artillery shell, I can see the rifling marks on it.” So that was my first

mission. I was the first guy in the squadron to get hit, and that was the last time I got hit. And I

didn’t even know I got hit, even though I saw the bursts that probably threw out the shrapnel.

(0:47:56 – 0:48:03) Jason Mizerek: Out of that entire description, you mentioned something

that I want to hone on a little bit . . . your nickname. Are you carrying that over from Saratoga?

(0:48:03 – 0:48:49) Douglas Peterson: Yes. I got to the Saratoga and, of course, your first cruise

you’re called a nugget, and I was always told to keep your ears open, your eyes open, and your

mouth shut, so I didn’t say very much . . . I listened and I learned. I’m pretty sure it was Dan

Snavely, he started ragging me, ”You don’t never say nothing,” so they started calling me

Noisey. Dan did this to other guys too. He’d give them a name that was an anomaly. For

example, one other guy’s name was Brian Walker . . . well he called him Runner. I can’t think of

all the other ones but that was what he did. And it stuck.

(0:48:49 – 0:48:51) Jason Mizerek: Did you ever contribute to anyone else’s nickname?

(0:48:52 – 0:48:55) Douglas Peterson: No, no I can’t say that I did. (laughs)

(0:48:56 – 0:49:05) Jason Mizerek: What was the purpose of going by nicknames and to what

extent would you use those and when would maybe a more official name be required?

17

(0:49:06 – 0:49:34) Douglas Peterson: Well, we all had call signs and I used Noisey for my call

sign . . . it didn’t bother me. The other guys didn’t but that doesn’t have . . . the nicknames,

handles, whatever you want to call them . . . they don’t really have any significance other than

within the squadron . . . because when you’re airborne you usually use your aircraft’s side

number to identify yourself.

(0:49:35 – 0:49:40) Jason Mizerek: So where would the call sign in the aircraft come in to play?

Would that just be between individuals?

(0:49:40 – 0:50:04) Douglas Peterson: Between the, yeah, like if I was flying . . . I can’t

remember what our XO’s call sign was but when I’m flying with his group, it would be . . . call it

whatever, Blue Flight or whatever . . . when I was flying with Mike I’d be Noisey Check, Noisey

Flight . . . whatever.

(0:50:06 – 0:50:23) Jason Mizerek: You mention that one of your early, or the first Alpha Strike

was a pretty busy night up in the air, there were a lot of aircraft in the air. Can you describe a

little bit about coming back to the ship and maybe the landing pattern you would have to get

into to make sure all those pieces are coming back in an orderly fashion?

(0:50:24 – 0:52:30) Douglas Peterson: Well, the way that they would do it is they . . . in any big

strike like that going in, we had assets and resources that were further north in the Tonkin Gulf

. . . one of them was called the PIRAZ ship. It was a positive identification radar advisory zone, I

think was actually what that meant . . . I think it went by the name of Red Crown . . . that was

his call sign . . . and Red Crown had a couple of functions as well as our own airborne early

warning assets which we had on the Intrepid . . . there were a couple of . . . they call them Willie

Fudds . . . they had the big radome on top . . . they would also launch with us and they would

act as middlemen and they would also help keep track of the airplanes coming and going. What

they would do is . . . between PIRAZ and our own airborne early warning assets . . . they kind of

keep track of who was coming back. Now we had transponders on our aircraft which gave out

what they called an IFF code which basically identified your aircraft, but I think we normally

turned those off when we went over the beach because it was a radiation source. Anytime you

come back from a strike, everybody called “feet wet” when you get back out over the water . . .

and the division leader would use that to keep track of his people. The big picture part of it was

done to some extent by the PIRAZ people . . . if somebody turned up missing then they would

start looking for maybe a radar blip that was still inland, and if somebody was missing then

obviously you went into a search and rescue type of a mode, but on that particular mission that

we flew . . . everybody that went out came back as I recall, yeah. But every now and then, you

18

know, somebody didn’t, and sometimes they were observed going down and there were other

times that they weren’t and they just . . . they were just missing.

(0:52:33 – 0:52:48) Jason Mizerek: Just for a moment if I could have you share about the A-4’s

capabilities. For instance, it was capable of mid-air refueling. (Douglas Peterson: Right.) Was

that something that you would do on a regular basis or was that a unique scenario?

(0:52:48 – 0:53:35) Douglas Peterson: I don’t think that on the cruise . . . I don’t think that I ever

had to do any in-flight refueling. I think that we did a couple of, we called them practice plugs. If

we got back from say a road recce, usually would be the time we would have to do it if we had

got back early enough before recovery, we might call up the tanker and ask him if he can

stream the hose and let us do some practice plugs, and I think you did that maybe just a few

times. Typically though, you wouldn’t have to refuel unless you had some battle damage and

were losing fuel out of your wing which was one big fuel tank.

(0:53:36 – 0:57:01) This section has been redacted as per the narrator’s request.

(0:57:01 – 0:57:04) Jason Mizerek: Would the A-4, would all of those aircraft come equipped

with that type of arming device or were there only special . . .

(0:57:04 – 0:58:55) Douglas Peterson: I think that panel was just in the aircraft that were

designated delivery aircraft, and it was on the left hand side, forward as I recall, and when we

deployed to WESTPAC, of course, that stuff was all taken out of the aircraft and replaced with

either a blank panel or something else . . . I can’t remember it now. We had a lot of electronic

gear added to our airplanes when we got ready to go to WESTPAC . . . I can’t remember what

the designation of all of them were but they were early warning devices for different types of

radar, fire control, search radar, even some of the guidance radar that you would see on some

of the missiles, those boxes were put on the airplanes and they added antennas to the aircraft

so that you could pick up all these threats and be aware that something might be coming your

way. We had a warning light on our glare shield that if a missile was . . . if it was picking up the

missile guidance radar it would beep slow . . . it would give you a slow beeping tone . . . and if it

locked onto you, at that point it would start beeping rapidly . . . so those things were all added,

like I said between the Saratoga cruise and the Intrepid cruise, and some of those things, I

think, were even added after we got into the Philippines because they were in short supply, and

they called them Yankee Team Assets I think, and then one ship would leave and they’d leave

all the goodies behind and they’d install them in the aircraft that were coming on the line.

19

(0:58:55 – 0:59:00) Jason Mizerek: Did that equipment give you any inspiration for a poem that

you’re famous for?

(0:59:00 – 1:00:33) Douglas Peterson: (Laughs) Oh, yeah, yeah, “Crickets”. Well, the missile

warning tone, and again I can’t remember what the designation of the equipment was but, like

I said, when a missile was tracking you it would start singing high and also one of the fire

control radars . . . it sounded just like a cricket when it was scanning you and that basically told

you that the tracking radar was locked on to you. Well that meant that something was coming

your way . . . it could either be a missile or it could be controlled anti-aircraft fire or something

like that. Dan Snavely . . . he was in charge of putting out this little newsletter that we had

called Tiger Tracks, and he was always looking for a contribution, something to put in it to mail

back home to the families. So I sat down one night and I was going to write . . . trying to write a

limerick . . . and I started out . . . and I started writing and I got to about the second or third line

and all of a sudden the stuff just poured out, and all the way through. I think I wrote that poem

in maybe an hour or two, and I gave it to Dan and I said, “I’ve got this. I don’t know if this will fit

in your Tiger Tracks.” And he said, “Well, sure.” He took it from me and I said, “Wait a minute. I

got to proof it. I haven’t really cleaned it up.” He said, “Ah, that’s alright.” So it went in just the

way I wrote it.

(1:00:35 – 1:00:36) Jason Mizerek: Was that a onetime thing or did you frequently write

poems?

(1:00:36 – 1:00:50) Douglas Peterson: No, that was, like I said, I was trying to write a limerick

which is what, four or five lines, something like that . . . and that came out . . . and that’s the

last . . . I don’t know if it was the first poem I wrote, but it certainly was the last.

(1:00:52 – 1:01:01) Jason Mizerek: So you had a newspaper, Tiger Tracks, a newsletter. Right? Is

this something that circulated within the air wing or is this throughout the ship?

(1:01:01 – 1:01:30) Douglas Peterson: Each squadron . . . each squadron had its own and we . . .

it was primarily for the families back home. They’d have little photos and articles about who is

doing what and maybe if we had a port visit, Dan would put something in about the sights that

the guys saw . . . the tours they took, things of that nature. Like I said, it was for the families, to

make them feel a little bit closer to what we were doing.

(1:01:32 – 1:01:43) Jason Mizerek: So how much of a division was there between your squadron

and, I think you said, VA-15 was on board as well? Was there a very clear division or did you

sort of all work together for the same purpose?

20

(1:01:43 – 1:02:56) Douglas Peterson: We, strangely enough . . . well obviously when we have a

strike group launched we’d have, all squadrons would be participating for the most part. But on

a personal level, we were closer to VA-15, primarily because their ready room was right next

door to ours . . . or close by anyway. I guess we had a little more . . . probably closer relations

with those guys. VSF-3 . . . they were a west coast squadron for starters, and technically they

were a fighter squadron even though they were A-4s carrying bombs just like the rest of us, but

I don’t know why it happened this way . . . they were kind of the poor sisters . . . the air group

commander, CAG Burrows, . . . he was probably more favorably inclined towards VA-15, and I

would say that was simply because he had been with them on the previous cruise. So he flew

with them probably more than he flew with us but CAG did fly with us too . . . in fact I actually

flew one mission with him , a two plane.

(1:02:59 – 1:03:14) Jason Mizerek: What about . . . earlier before our interview we were talking

a little bit about the wardroom situation and you said that your stateroom was nearby one of

the wardrooms. How exactly would that break down? Were you sharing a wardroom with ship’s

company or was this specifically for . . .

(1:03:14 – 1:03:20) Douglas Peterson: No it was all officers . . . all officers . . . the ship’s

company . . . air wing . . . whatever.

(1:03:20 – 1:03:27) Jason Mizerek: So how was your interaction with maybe a black shoe or an

officer on the ship?

(1:03:29 – 1:04:23) Douglas Peterson: To be honest with you, we didn’t see those guys that

much. And even, I can remember on more than one occasion . . . the . . . I think he was the

assistant hangar deck officer and I think he was a lieutenant if I recall . . . nice guy, and every

now and then he would sit at . . . well the tables were big enough to hold maybe JO’s from a

couple of squadrons . . . and sometimes he’d join us, and I can remember more than once

where, “Lieutenant so-and-so, report to the hangar deck,” and he would have to jump up in the

middle of his meal and leave because that was the way it worked . . . those guys worked long

hours and they worked any hour . . . it didn’t make for a close relationship I guess because the

only time we ever saw them, really was when we were in the wardroom having dinner or

something like that.

(1:04:24 – 1:04:51) Jason Mizerek: So the mess deck that we have here on the ship today, which

was used by the enlisted personnel . . . we interpret that space to the public. Unfortunately, the

wardrooms or what was once a wardroom is not open to the public so we sort of verbalize and

we explain what the wardroom’s setup was like but we don’t have the physical example. Is

21

there a way that you can explain it so that we can interpret the wardroom better to the public?

What was the setup like? What were some unique things that maybe the enlisted sailors did

not have?

(1:04:51 – 1:06:57) Douglas Peterson: Well . . . we had tablecloths for starters, and cushioned

chairs . . . I can remember as you go in, when you went into the wardroom for a meal, the first

thing you did, you went over to . . . there was a rack along the wall that had napkins in it and

you . . . I think the slots were numbered and you had a napkin ring that was your napkin ring

and after you’d . . . well when you went in, you take your napkin ring and go and use that

napkin at your meal, and then when you got through, you’d roll it up, slip the ring on it and put

it back in the slot, and then every I don’t know how often, but every now and then the stewards

would launder the napkins and replace them back in the pigeon holes. I think the meals were

family style, if I recall . . . but I’m just thinking about it now . . . yeah, I’m pretty sure it was

family style, except for breakfast. When you went down for breakfast, it was like a . . . well they

had kind of a cafeteria line where you would order your eggs or whatever it is you wanted . . .

picked that up and then go in, and I think in the forward part of the ready room I believe was

what they called the dirty shirt mess and if you’re in flight suits and getting ready to go out on a

hop or something like that you’d go in and eat in that area . . . otherwise for the formal mess

calls, they’d ring the chimes or whatever and it was a seating . . . they always had more than

one seating I think for each meal . . . at least that’s my recollection anyway. Other than that, I

don’t know if they showed movies in the wardrooms or not. I know we had air wing meetings in

the wardroom occasionally because that was the only place you could fit all the pilots in the air

wing. A lot of that stuff has kind of faded from memory.

(1:06:58 – 1:07:01) Jason Mizerek: Was there any seating arrangements? Did you have to sit by

rank for instance?

(1:07:01 – 1:07:37) Douglas Peterson: Well, as a lieutenant j.g. we were at the bottom of the

rung so to speak. We usually went down as a group, the guys who weren’t flying, and we’d all

go in at the same time and sit at the same table and it was kind of a routine that we did and I’m

sure that the other squadrons did the same thing. They pretty much sat with themselves . . .

although some guys kind of mingled around, but beyond that I can’t remember if they

separated us by rank . . . I thought that perhaps some of the senior officers had a reserved area

for them but I just don’t remember now.

(1:07:37 – 1:07:46) Jason Mizerek: And you also said that there were two seatings possibly so

does that mean that you had a designated time to go? Was it free-flowing or was it a very

formal, sit-down?

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(1:07:47 – 1:08:08) Douglas Peterson: It was . . . I think that you would go in and you would

stand by your chair as I recall and everybody sat down at once and I’m really taxing my memory

now because I’m really not sure but I think that they did, at least on some occasions, have more

than one seating, but I wouldn’t swear to it. I just don’t remember.

(1:08:09 – 1:08:57) Jason Mizerek: That would help us out, big time, having that firsthand

account of being in one of the wardrooms. Again it’s not really a space we talk too much about

on the ship but we would love to share that information so that’s very helpful. Stepping back

for a moment, it’s very possible that you mentioned this with one of your prior stories, but as a

young aviator, a young male . . . most young men have a feeling of invincibility when they’re

younger. For pilots, I can imagine that that could wear away very quickly and very decisively

with one event. You did mention the one instance where you flew through the flak. Would you

consider that to be the moment that really woke you up or was there another instance where

you felt like this was a serious job that you were in?

(1:08:59 – 1:11:05) Douglas Peterson: Well this invincibility thing, there’s something to that. I . .

. speaking for myself . . . and I think a lot of guys were the same way . . . if something happens

it’s going to be the other guy . . . going through flight training, learning how to fly and all that

other stuff, I was never in a position where I was really concerned about my safety or anything

like that. Occasionally you might get in some bad weather but you’re trained to the point where

you can deal with most of that. Going into combat, to answer your question, when I took that

hit from the flak, I didn’t know it happened until after I got back to the ship. I saw the bursts

and everything but on subsequent missions . . . I mean really, the stuff was all over us . . . I

mean I’ve seen tracers coming right straight at me, literally, and I never panicked . . . I don’t

know why but I think probably training had a lot to do with it . . . and exposure, after a while,

you see it and nothing happens so you figure, well this doesn’t mean I’m going to get shot down

every time I go in or whatever, but it never really bothered me that much . . . there were maybe

a few missions . . . in particular the ones that were inland quite a ways, and trips to Hanoi . . . I

mean trips to Hanoi were always this way . . . I personally had no problem with the briefings

and all the taking off and joining up and going in, but about the time you got to the shore line

and went into the threat . . . occasionally I’d get a feeling of dread (laughs) . . . you wonder well,

is this . . . you knew it was going to be a bad mission one way or the another because those

areas were always hot, but after a while, once you get busy, and are looking for this, that and

watching for what’s going on, you forget about it and you just do it.

(1:11:06 – 1:11:10) Jason Mizerek: Would you say those hot missions were typically over,

maybe Hanoi or Haiphong?

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(1:11:10 – 1:12:35) Douglas Peterson: Well, we didn’t go to Hanoi that many times. I think I

went . . . that time that I went it was just on the outskirts. CAG . . . our air wing . . . most of what

we did was around Haiphong . . . the Air Force, of course came in from the back door from

Thailand and those bases, and I guess they did, probably the majority of the work around

Hanoi. Although we did have some Hanoi missions but I would say that easily over half of the

strikes that I flew on were into the Haiphong area and it was bridges. I can remember we hit an

ammunition dump, an airfield, oh golly there were some . . . we couldn’t bomb anything tied up

at the docks in Haiphong Harbor, but there was one occasion where there was this long string

of barges that were out in the river and we hit those, and that . . . Haiphong was always a hot

ride . . . I think there was one occasion and we‘d gone in there probably, three times a day for

maybe three or four days running, and by that last run that we went in for that particular string

anyway, we didn’t get hardly any opposition, and the thought was that they simply ran out of

ammunition. That was the only explanation we could offer.

(1:12:37 – 1:12:42) Jason Mizerek: What was your personal opinion about not targeting things,

not targeting ships at the dock that were tied up?

(1:12:43 – 1:15:07) Douglas Peterson: It was frustrating, it really was, and it wasn’t only ships at

the dock . . . we couldn’t . . . when we went into Haiphong, I think that was referred to as a

restricted area which basically meant that you couldn’t drop on anything unless it was

designated as a target, and I can remember on one occasion, coming off . . . we were bombing a

bridge . . . I came off the target and there was a shelf of flak above me so I went right straight

down, and went down on the deck so to speak . . . and flying down this tree lined street on the

outskirts of Haiphong and there were trucks parked along the street and stuff piled up all over

the place, and the reason for that simply was because they were bringing the stuff in faster

than they could get it out and a lot of the bridges that we bombed around Haiphong, it was

probably the reason why a lot of that stuff was getting piled up because it was frustrating their

efforts to get it out of the city. Beyond that they made it clear . . . when you’re flying in a group,

like in a group strike, you don’t have any choice, I mean you have to maintain integrity and

whatnot so you bomb the target that they tell you to bomb, but if they had . . . had we been

given permission to bomb those docks . . . there’s no question about it, that war would have

been a hell of a lot shorter than it actually turned out to be. And I think that was proven when

they mined Haiphong Harbor and went into the linebacker operations and just flattened

everything that they could get at. We were told the reason that you can’t bomb the docks is

because there’s foreign shipping tied up to the docks, and we went through that with two other

ports that were northeast of Haiphong . . . one was . . . I think one was Hon Gai and the other

was Cam Pha, and we actually at one point were sending airplanes up there every morning to

see if there was foreign shipping tied up in the port. If there was . . . if there wasn’t I should say

24

. . . they were going to launch strikes . . . they were going to divert strikes actually up there to

go and bomb that place because there was a lot of stuff coming through there too. From that

standpoint, yeah, it didn’t make any sense as a pilot to see a lucrative target and not be able to

bomb it . . . but those were the rules and we had to follow the rules.

(1:15:07 – 1:15:15) Jason Mizerek: So would you say that your military training took over and

you obeyed orders or did any of that frustration spill out, maybe back in the stateroom, back in

the wardroom, back on the ship?

(1:15:15 – 1:15:46) Douglas Peterson: Oh yeah, sure, guys would make comments about, “Oh

boy, I saw this, I would’ve loved to hit it,” but you couldn’t. We didn’t really fly that many

armed reconnaissance missions and of course in those cases, and those were down in the

panhandle which was outside the so-called restricted areas. You could bomb anything that

looked like it was worth bombing, but once you got up into Haiphong and that area, Hanoi and

those areas . . . you had to paint within the lines.

(1:15:47 – 1:16:01) Jason Mizerek: There were a group of men who I believe were on the ship,

they were part of the ship’s company. I think this was the next deployment, the ‘68

deployment. I believe you were off the ship at this point, but they actually deserted out of

protest of the war.

(1:16:01 – 1:16:02) Douglas Peterson: That was on our ship.

(1:16:03 – 1:16:04) Jason Mizerek: They were on . . . were they on when you were on?

(1:16:04 – 1:16:05) Douglas Peterson: Yes, yes.

(1:16:05 – 1:16:08) Jason Mizerek: They did, okay, I apologize, I got the timeframe mixed up.

(1:16:08 – 1:18:04) Douglas Peterson: It may have happened again, I don’t know. I think it was

on a port visit to Japan. I think it was two or three sailors . . . I can’t remember, and somehow

they got wooed in by, I don’t know if they were Swedish or who they were quite honestly, and

a lot of this I just heard second and third hand because they didn’t want to talk about it. But

they wound up deserting the ship and going to Norway or Sweden or someplace like that, I’m

not sure where. I don’t know whatever became of those guys or I don’t think that they tried

them in absentia or anything like that but, we were told, somebody told us that the Intrepid

was, I think was put in for a Presidential Unit Citation, and I was told that that was the reason

that the PUC was downgraded to a Meritorious or no, it was a Secretary of the Navy, Navy Unit

25

Citation I guess it was . . . otherwise we probably, had they not done that and sullied the name

so to speak of the Intrepid and its crew that we would have gotten the PUC, and I think we

deserved it quite honestly. Because the period that we were over there in the summer of ‘67

and into the fall, I think can truly be said was the peak of Operation Rolling Thunder because it

wasn’t too long after we came back that they had a bombing halt and I think they restricted the

bombing south of a certain parallel, which was . . . to us those were milk runs, and I don’t think

that what they called Route Package Six which was Haiphong and Hanoi and that area . . . I

don’t think that was bombed until Linebacker in late ‘72, early ’73, so we . . . you could look at it

this way, at least when we were over there what we did was worthwhile, at least that’s the way

I feel.

(1:18:06 – 1:18:22) Jason Mizerek: So with the deserters you may have experienced it, maybe

you didn’t know them personally but you experienced opposition with that incident. Were you

aware of any opposition that was happening back at home in ‘67?

(1:18:23 – 1:20:17) Douglas Peterson: Well, a little bit. I think that the ship put out a little . . .

you can’t call it a paper because I think it was just maybe one or two sheet s about world events

so we could keep up with what was going on in the real world, but I for some reason or other, I

never really paid that much attention to the thing and I don’t think I read it much more than

once or twice. We were aware that there was stuff going on back home, but we didn’t see

television or anything like that so we didn’t have any visual idea of how . . . what it was like. I

didn’t give it much thought myself. In fact I didn’t really give it a lot of thought until after I had

got out of the Navy and moved back to Wisconsin. My first job was in Madison, Wisconsin, and I

mean that was crazy time when it came to that kind of thing. The anti-war protestors were

trashing anything in sight. They bombed one of the buildings at the University of Wisconsin and

killed some poor guy that was doing a physics experiment or something, that’s how bad it was,

and at that point, that’s when I really started developing a deep and abiding sense of hatred for

these people because, I thought it was disrespectful of the sacrifices that a lot of guys were

making. They were back here raising hell . . . not getting drafted for whatever reason and the

rest of the . . . me and other guys like me were over there trying to do the right thing, and this is

the thanks we got, so to speak. But as the time went by I said, “Whatever . . .,” I guess they

thought they were doing what they thought was right so, I made my peace with that kind of

thing a long time ago.

(1:20:18 – 1:20:20) Jason Mizerek: Did you have any opposition on the homecoming?

(1:20:23 – 1:22:33) Douglas Peterson: We didn’t really . . . we came back on what was called

the magic carpet, the pilots. The ship dropped us off at Subic Bay, and the pilots stayed there

26

and then the ship, let’s see, the ship stayed in Subic Bay until the other carrier that replaced us

which I think was Kitty Hawk, actually got on the line, and once Kitty Hawk was on the line they

turned us loose, the Intrepid loose, and the reason they did that was because . . . I think it was

when the Oriskany had its fire back in sixty-six I guess it was . . . well the other carrier had

already headed back home and was quite a ways gone by the time they were able to get a

recall and get them back on the line, so what they did after that, SOP was to keep the carrier

being relieved at Subic Bay until the other carrier got on the line and was established, then

they’d release the other ship that was coming off the line to go back to the states. But we just

went into Cubi Point for a few days, then they transferred us down to Manila and we spent

some time at NAS Manila, Sangley Point, the name of the air station, and then after about a

week we got on the airplane and flew back home. We got into Chicago at about two o’clock in

the morning, I guess, changed planes, and flew down to Jacksonville and, there were no people,

protestors of any kind there, in fact I don’t recall ever seeing anything like that in Jacksonville. I

was only there for another . . . let’s see, that was December . . . I was only there for about

another five months, not even that actually because I had . . . after I got back from my leave,

after the Intrepid cruise I got temporary orders to recruiting duty in Michigan, and from there I

went directly to California to my next squadron.

(1:22:34 – 1:22:36) Jason Mizerek: And then where did that take you after Intrepid?

(1:22:36 – 1:22:53) Douglas Peterson: I went to VA-122 at Lemoore which was the A-7 RAG or

training squadron, if you will, and I was an instructor pilot there for another two years, and

after that I resigned my active commission, took a reserve commission, and got out.

(1:22:54 – 1:22:59) Jason Mizerek: And then afterwards, you pursued a career in . . . ?

(1:22:59 – 1:26:23) Douglas Peterson: Well I literally walked into the utility industry off the

street. After I got out of the Navy I went back to Wisconsin where my home was, and I think I

had ninety days of terminal leave coming, so I just wanted to take some time off. We had all our

housing effects put in storage, not that we had that many, and I went back to Soldiers Grove

and I lived in my mother’s house for, a couple, three months I think, and by that time of course I

was married, I had a couple of kids. After my terminal leave ran out I figured, well I better get a

job, and I thought about joining the airlines but after thinking about it, I said I don’t want to do

that because it’s like driving a bus, and you’re away from home all the time which is one of the

reasons that I got out . . . was the fact that I just hadn’t hardly been home in three years. So, I

had interviewed with the State of Wisconsin for a job, they had an Aviation Department and I

interviewed in Madison for a job with the State of Wisconsin in that Aviation Department and

while I was down there I figured, well I’ll go up to the state unemployment office and apply for

27

unemployment benefits, I was entitled to them so I figured why not take them? I went up there

and called in for an interview and the lady says, “Naval Academy graduate and you’re a pilot?”

(laughs) And she looked at me like, what am I supposed to translate that into? Then she asked

about airlines and I said, “I don’t want to do that.” She says, “Well, all I can do is put your name

in the file and if a professional type position comes up I’ll get in touch with you.” Well as she’s

sitting there talking, the phone rings. She picks it up and she’s talking, talking . . . she said, “By

the way, I have a Naval Academy graduate here, he’s 27 years old . . . I take that back I was 30

at that time . . . do you have anything that you might be able to use him for?” She said, “Okay,

okay, I’ll do it.” She hangs up and says, “Wisconsin Power and Light wants you to come up and

just talk to them.” So, it was just not even a block away so I walk up there, sit down, I talk to

their personnel director, and he says, “Well, we don’t have any need for any pilots . . . ,” he kind

of laughed, “but we have a training program, a management training program. We put you in

that and you work in all the various departments: engineering and marketing and transmission

design and all that other stuff”. Being an engineer they figured I could do those things. “And if

you like it , find someplace you want to go, place you want to work, fine, we’ll assign you to

that department and you can get out of the Management Training Program and get into the

progression.” And that sounded pretty good to me because I had no idea what I wanted to do

so I went to work for Wisconsin Power and Light, and I worked in the utility industry for the

next thirty years, and enjoyed it, even though I didn’t do any flying or it didn’t have anything to

do with airplanes.

(1:26:24 – 1:26:33) Jason Mizerek: Earlier when we first met you said that you had visited the

museum many times since it has become a museum. Can you recall the first you came back to

Intrepid?

(1:26:33 – 1:27:12) Douglas Peterson: I certainly can. My wife’s sister, her husband was an

executive at, I think it was either Gulf & Western or Time Warner, at the time. He had been a

Navy enlisted man way back when, Korean war era I guess. Well anyway, we were out here

visiting one time and Art knew that I‘d been in the Navy and everything. His name was Art

Barron.

(1:27:13 – 1:27:28) Temporary pause in recording.

(1:27:28 – 1:30:51) Douglas Peterson: Anyway, Art was working at Time Warner and we were

out here visiting Art & Joan. I think it was the year that they brought the ship over from

Bayonne or wherever they had it, Philadelphia, I can’t remember, and they have an apartment

in Manhattan so we’re right in the city and we were talking, for some reason talking about the

Intrepid, and I made the comment that I had heard that they had brought it over here and were

28

going to make a museum out of it, and Art said, “Yeah. I had a meeting with Zack Fisher about

that.” And I don’t know if Zach was looking for donors or benefactors, whatever you want to

call it, and he said, “I’ll call Zach’s office and see if I can get a tour set up for you.” I said, “That

would be great, I’d love it.” Well I’m not sure if the ship was even, the museum I should say,

was even open at that point, but anyway, Art made the call and he said go down, tomorrow or

the day after, whatever it was, and be there at nine o’clock or whatever it was, so we go down

and my wife and I and, Art’s wife Joan came along with us, and they greeted us on the ship and

gave us VIP hats and were showing us around, of course there wasn’t too much in the way of

displays, I can’t remember if there was even any displays on the ship at the time, but I was

pointing out different things, of course, this was in eighty something or other, some of the

things looked familiar to me because they hadn’t changed a lot on the ship at that point. But I

asked him, I said, “Can we go down below? Below decks, I ‘d like to go down and see if I can

find my old ready room.” And he said, “Well, we can’t. We got all these codes and everything

the city is imposing on us and we’re really not supposed to go down there.” And I said, “Aw gee,

that’s too bad, I really would like to go.” He says, “Ah, the hell with it”, so he goes and I wish I

remembered the guy’s name but I really don’t . . . but he goes and he gets some big flashlights

and down we go. He’s opening hatches and I’m trying to think where it was we had to go, but

we went down and shining our way through the dark, and we found the ready room . . . ready 6

. . . so we go in there, and I said it was like a tomb . . . the chairs were gone, but they still had

the status board up in front and the old teletype machine, I don’t know what they called it, and

there was still some grease pencil writing on that thing and it almost made the hair on the back

of my neck stand up, but of course by that time there were mainly VS squadrons that were

flying so it wasn’t anything that I could really relate to, but we walked around and I think we

actually did go back and find the officer’s wardroom if I’m not mistaken because I was looking

for where my room was . . . well I found the hatch that went down to the room that I had

stayed in but, it was all bolted shut and everything and he couldn’t get into it so. That was the

first trip, and I’ve been back probably five or six times since then I guess, over the years.

(1:30:52 – 1:31:17) Jason Mizerek: We’re coming to the end but before we do that I wanted to

make sure that we got what you felt was appropriate out in the open, and is there anything

that we missed about your time here on Intrepid that you think is worthy of sharing, keeping in

mind that someone might watch this interview next week, but also, maybe fifty years from

now. Is there something you’d like to share that you think is very valuable to pass on?

(1:31:18 – 1:34:30) Douglas Peterson: Well, maybe the only thing is that, you mentioned the

anti-war protestors, and whether or not we thought or felt, even now, whether or not what we

did was worth anything, and I had a conversation with somebody, I think it was a guy that I

worked with after I got out of the Navy. And he’d gone to the University of Wisconsin, I guess

29

he was on campus when a lot of that stuff was going on and he made a comment to the effect

that, well, “How’d you feel, dropping bombs on all those people? And how’d you feel about

killing people?” And things of that nature. I said, “Well, first of all, what I was doing, I couldn’t

really see anybody per se. We knew there were people down there shooting at us but that’s fair

game, that’s what it’s all about. As far as the rest of it’s concerned, I didn’t consider what we

were doing as an effort to win the war or stop the war or anything like that. What always was in

my mind was the fact that we had people in South Vietnam, grunts that were fighting in the

mud and bleeding and all that other stuff.” In fact at that time when I was on Yankee Station, I

had a cousin that was in South Vietnam fighting, he was an Army infantry guy, and he had been

wounded just about the time that we came off the line because when we got back in the

Philippines, I had tried to track him down, I had heard he had gone to Clark I think and then

somewhere in Japan but by then I guess he’d already been moved back to the states, and I

don’t know what hospital he was in, but he was hurt pretty bad, in fact he was a paraplegic

afterwards. Anyway, I told the guy, I said, “Look, I felt that every bomb that I dropped and blew

up a barge load of ammunitions or a train car full of ammunition or stuff like that . . . that was

one less shell or whatever that might wind up in the belly of some GI in South Vietnam . . .” and

I said, “As far as I was concerned, I was fighting the war for those guys as much as anything

else,” because a lot of what we did was simply to frustrate the movement of all that stuff to

South Vietnam. The other thing I told him, I said, “You know, North Vietnam was an armed

fortress,” I said, “There were gun sites everywhere,” I said, “It took troops to man those sites, it

took troops to supply them with ammunition, in fact, it was ammunition, if they weren’t

shooting at us they would have been shooting at the guys down in South Vietnam so, all things

considered, I felt that that was what we did was a hell of a contribution from the standpoint

that I think it did,” I mean it didn’t stop them, but I think it certainly frustrated North Vietnam’s

efforts to overrun the south, and when the US eventually pulled out I think that that point was

proven because they just walked in and took over. Other than that, I can’t think of anything

that I can add.

(1:34:31 – 1:34:43) Jason Mizerek: Well, thank you for sharing that and I think, as you may have

heard, one of your buddies is on the other side of the door right now trying to knock it down.

(Douglas Peterson: (laughs) Is that Snavely?) I think he wants to say hello. Before we conclude,

first off, I want to thank you so much for spending the afternoon and sharing your stories.

(1:34:43 – 1:34:45) Douglas Peterson: My pleasure, it was my pleasure.

(End of interview)