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Elizabeth Ellison-Family
to remember
Ellison, John Cooley, CAPT.
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This Sailor has an (IMO) In Memory Of Headstone in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA
In 1967 Attack Squadron 85 (call sign BUCKEYE), operating the A-6A INTRUDER, deployed aboard USS KITTY HAWK. On 24 March, LCDR John "Buzz" Ellison and LTJG Jim Plowman launched in A-6A BuNo 151587 as part of a strike force directed against the Bac Giang thermal power plant in North Vietnam. The target was heavily defended by SAMs and a full spectrum of conventional anti-aircraft weaponry. Ellison and Plowman were tasked with SAM suppression for the bombers. After the strike was completed, friendly radar flight following tracked the BUCKEYE aircraft as it headed toward the Gulf of Tonkin, but the track terminated in the vicinity of Ha Bac Province near the Vietnam/China border. Combat SAR was initiated. Voice contact was achieved with LCDR Ellison, but neither he nor Plowman was rescued. Both men were placed in "Missing in Action" status.
The North Vietnamese never acknowledged capturing either Ellison or Plowman, nor did they report that either man had been killed. However, there is evidence that both men survived. Even so, the two men were never placed in POW status, and on 5 Sep 1975 the Secretary of the Navy approved a Presumptive Finding of Death for now-Captain Ellison, changing his status to "Died while Missing". While I had only a slight acquaintance with these two men -- I joined VA-85 after their loss -- they are not forgotten.
Ken Davis, A-6 Aircrewman, Attack Squadron 85
Other Comments:
LCDR Ellison was promoted to Captain while in a MIA status.
Description This campaign was 8 March to 24 December 1965. As communist efforts in South Vietnam increased, US carriers continued bombing North Vietnam while US Marines landed from seventh Fleet ships at danang, marking the beginning of major combat in involvement in Vietnam.
In April 1965 the Joint General Staff (JGS) decided to enhance their control of the Vietnamese Marine Corps by making it a separate service within the armed forces. In addition, the JGS redesignated the I, II, III and IV Naval Zones as Coastal Zones and, along with the newly created III and IV Riverine Areas, placed them under the operational control of the army commanders of the I, II, III, and IV Corps Tactical Zones. Because of its special riverine characteristics, the Rung Sat remained in the navy's charge. Thus, with the exception of ships steaming outside of territorial waters, most of the navy's combat forces came under army direction.
Administrative responsibility for the navy, however, remained with the Chief of Naval Operations. Another significant reorganization occurred in July 1965 when the JGS formally integrated the 3,500-man, paramilitary Coastal Force into the navy. Thereafter, the command's divisions and the old coastal district designations were dropped and the coastal zones became the operational sectors. In a similar move, in October the following year, the Vietnamese Navy was assigned administrative responsibility for the headquarters and training center of the 24 paramilitary Regional Force Boat Companies and maintenance responsibility for their 192 vehicle and personnel landing craft (LCVP).
The Navy established the coastal surveillance force (dubbed operation Market Time), using its own swift boats and Coast Guard WPBs to stop communist infiltration from the sea. On 18 December, the U.S. Navy began patrolling the rivers of South Vietnam in an operation named game warden.