258
UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION 1910-1995
1965-Contin ued
23 June In an unusual mission for ships of her type,
the seaplane tender Currituck carried out a shore
bombardment of Viet Cong positions in the Mekong
Delta area of South Vietnam.
30 June Seven years after its establishment, the
Pacific extension of Dewline ceased to operate and
Barrier Force, Pacific and Airborne Early Warning
Barrier Squadron, Pacific went out of existence.
1 July FAW-8 was established at NAS Moffett Field,
Calif., Captain David C. Kendrick commanding.
1 July The Navy's first Oceanographic Air Survey
Unit (OASU) was established at NAS Patuxent River,
Md., Commander Harold R. Hutchinson commanding.
Tasks assigned included aerial ice reconnaissance in
the North Atlantic and Polar areas and aerial opera-
tions concerned with worldwide magnetic collection
and observation, known as Project Magnet.
1 July Helicopter Utility Squadrons (HU) were
redesignated Helicopter Combat Support Squadrons
(HC) and Utility Squadrons (VU) were redesignated
Fleet Composite Squadrons (VC) as more representa-
tive of their functions and composition.
14 July Yorktown left San Diego for Subic Bay on a
turnaround trip to deliver urgently needed materials to
forces operating in and around South Vietnam.
13 August To achieve the increase in personnel nec-
essary to carry out missions created by the requirements
of a deteriorating international situation, a temporary
policy was established which deferred the separation of
officers and enlisted men from active service.
26 August The barrier air patrol over the North
Atlantic ended as an EC-121J Warning Star of VW-ll
landed at Keflavik, Iceland. The landing also signaled
a change in which a new and advanced radar system
took over from the aircraft and men of Naval Aviation
who for the past 10 years had maintained constant
vigil over the northern approaches to the American
continent.
29 August Gemini 5 splashed down into the
Atlantic 90 miles off target after a record breaking
eight-day space flight, and 45 minutes later Navy frog-
men helped astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles
Conrad out of their space capsule and aboard a heli-
copter for flight to the prime recovery ship Lake
Champlain.
31 August President Johnson approved a policy
on the promotion and decoration of astronauts by
which each military astronaut would receive, upon
the completion of his first space flight, a one grade
promotion up to and including colonel in the Air
Force and Marine Corps and captain in the Navy,
and Gemini astronauts completing a successful space
flight would receive the NASA Medal for Exceptional
Service (or cluster).
1 September In accord with the provision of an act
of Congress, the Secretary of the Navy authorized
additional pay to flight deck personnel for duty per-
formed in the hazardous environment of flight opera-
tions on the decks of attack and antisubmarine carri-
ers.
11 September Lead elements of the First Cavalry
Division, U.S. Army, with their helicopter and light
observation aircraft, went ashore at Qui Nhon, South
Vietnam, from Boxer in which they had been trans-
ported from Mayport, Fla., by way of the Suez Canal.
24 September As the accelerated frequency of
manned space flights placed increasing demands
upon Navy recovery capabilities, a flag officer was
designated CNO Representative and Navy Deputy to
the DOD Manager for Manned Space Flight Support
Operations and given additional duty as Commander,
Manned Space Recovery Force, Atlantic. His assigned
mission was to coordinate and consolidate opera-
tional requirements with all commands providing
Navy resources in support of manned space flights.
14 October The A-I, 1,200 nautical mile range,
Polaris missile was retired from duty with the return of
Abraham Lincoln (SSBN 602) to the United States for
overhaul and refitting with the 2,500 nautical mile
range Polaris A-3.
15 October To expand Pacific airlift capabilities, VR-
22 was moved from its base at NAS Norfolk to the
west coast at NAS Moffett Field, Calif.
2 December The nuclear powered Enterprise, carry-
ing the largest air wing (CVW-9) deployed to the
western Pacific to that time, joined the action off
Vietnam with strikes on Viet Cong installations near
Bien Hoa.
16 December Wasp recovered Captain Walter M.
Schirra and Major Thomas P. Stafford, USAF, in their
Gemini 6A spacecraft one hour after their landing in
the western Atlantic about 300 miles north of Puerto
Rico. The astronauts had completed a one-day flight

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