Immediately went to work for Kitsap County in 1992 following military retirement. Presently the Maintenance Supervisor here at the Kitsap County Fair and Events Center. Retired November 13 2009.
Description Operation Pocket Money was the title of a U.S. Navy Task Force 77 aerial mining campaign conducted against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 9 May 1972 (Vietnamese time), during the Vietnam War. Its purpose was to halt or slow the transportation of supplies and materials for the Nguyen Hue Offensive (known in the West as the Easter Offensive), an invasion of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), by forces of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), that had been launched on 30 March. Pocket Money was the first use of naval mines against North Vietnam.
On 9 May 1972, a Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star made an early morning launch from Da Nang to support the operation. USS Kitty Hawk launched seventeen aircraft for a diversionary airstrike against the Nam Dinh railroad siding. The Kitty Hawk airstrike found bad weather over the primary target and struck the secondary targets of Thanh at 0840 and Phu Qui at 0845.
At daylight on the 9th, a destroyer force struck the Haiphong Harbor air defense batteries with a 30 minute bombardment from their 5-inch (127mm) guns, which preceded the aerial mining. The strike force was commanded by Captain Robert Pace, who succeeded Admiral Robinson, and consisted of the USS Richard S. Edwards, Berkeley, Buchanan, and Myles C. Fox.
The VMA-224 A-6A Intruders left Coral Sea at 0840 with A-7E Corsairs from VFA-22 and VA-94 and a single EKA-3B Skywarrior for electronic countermeasures support. Chicago set general quarters at 0840, and within minutes launched two Talos missiles at two MiGs in a holding pattern awaiting air control vectors on the approaching bombers. One MiG was destroyed.
Coral Sea bombers began releasing mines at 0859. Sheets radioed the carrier at 0901 to verify the mines were in the water. Coral Sea forwarded the message to the White House where President Nixon was speaking. Nixon had been speaking slowly to avoid jeopardizing the mission; but upon receiving the message he stated:
I have ordered the following measures, which are being implemented as I am speaking to you. All entrances to North Vietnamese ports will be mined to prevent access to these ports and North Vietnamese naval operations from these ports. United States forces have been directed to take appropriate measures within the international and claimed territorial waters of North Vietnam to interdict the delivery of supplies. Rail and all communications will be cut off to the maximum extent possible. Air and naval strikes against North Vietnam will continue."
Additional mining missions began on 11 May. By the end of the year Navy and Marine Corps bombers had dropped more than eight thousand mines in North Vietnamese coastal waters and three thousand in inland waterways.
