Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War by Bruce Henderson Page A

airborne—quickly showed up to assist Maddox . The planes attacked the retreating torpedo boats, leaving one dead in the water and two damaged.
    Constellation , meanwhile, was at anchor off Green Island in the port of Hong Kong. That same evening of August 2 found many VA-145 pilots partying at the Eagle’s Nest Bar at the top of the Hong Kong Hilton. About 9:00 P.M ., someone walked in and informed the group that all leave and liberty had been canceled and everyone was to report to the ship. It took another day to gather up all the ship’s crewmen and air wing personnel. Constellation got under way at 8:00 A.M . on August 4 to rejoin Ticonderoga in the South China Sea.
    Later that same day Maddox , now in the company of another destroyer, Turner Joy (DD-951), was back on patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin in gusty winds and choppy seas. That night at 8:41 P.M . sonar and radar contacts were reported, possibly signaling another attack by North Vietnamese naval forces.
    Launching at midnight when Constellation came within range in the South China Sea east of Hainan Island—where Chinese MiG fighters were known to be based—were four VA-145 Skyraiders led by Commander Harold“Hal” Griffith, a seasoned aviator. Normally, the squadron’s commanding officer (CO) would lead such a high-stakes mission, but it had fallen by default to Griffith, the squadron’s executive officer (XO), or second in command. Upon the scheduled rotation of VA-145’s commanding officer to his next assignment, the previous XO, Commander Harold T. Gower, had been due to “fleet up” to CO. However, Gower experienced “some problems” during night carrier landing qualifications and thereafter turned in his wings, an ignoble end for any navy pilot but one which everyone knew could happen given the nerve-racking nature of the work. As a result, the same month Griffith had joined the squadron—January 1964—he was swiftly promoted to XO to replace Gower. Griffith had then expected he would become the next CO, but the bureau of personnel decided to bring in a more senior officer to take over. The new CO, Commander Melvin Blixt, had only recently reported aboard, and assumed command of VA-145 in Hong Kong just a couple of days earlier. Since Blixt had so little time in the squadron, Griffith was given the mission.
    Griffith, thirty-eight, of Port Jefferson, New York, had joined the navy in 1943 at age seventeen. Instead of going to sea with the fleet in wartime, he was sent to Colgate University as a NAVCAD cadet. In January 1945 he entered flight training, during which one of his instructors was the famous baseball player and Marine Corps fighter pilot Ted Williams. By the time Griffith received his commission and wings, the war he had hoped to help win was over. He was among a large contingent of reserve pilots no longer needed who were released from active service. Called back to duty during Korea, Griffith was assigned to an east coast squadron, but he never saw action in what became known by navy pilots as the “west coast war,” as the west coast squadrons were the only ones deployed to the combat zone. After Korea, Griffith went to night school at the University of Maryland and earned his BS degree. He was then allowed to transfer from the reserves to regular navy, so he was at last on track to make the navy his career. Before VA-145, he had served as operations officer and then XO of VA-25, a Skyraider squadron aboard the carrier Midway (CVA-41). After missing the last two wars, Griffith was to lead the first missions in the new war.
    Forming up in the dark, the Spads flew southwest across the moonlit sea until they cleared Hainan, thereby avoiding Chinese airspace. They thenturned north into the Gulf of Tonkin. Each was loaded with LAU-3 wing pods that fired nineteen high-explosive rockets individually, sequentially, or simultaneously, and full ammunition (200 rounds each) for their four 20 mm cannons.
    As they neared the position of the two