Navy Jets Pound North Viet Airfield

May 8, 1965 - U.S. Navy jets for the first time struck an airfield in North Vietnam today, battering its runway and installations with 160 tons of bombs and scoring a direct hit on a radar unit. Morning and afternoon raids on the field left it 70% destroyed.

Two F-8 Crusader jets were shot down by moderate ground fire, and one pilot was listed as missing. The other pilot was rescued from the South China Sea.

The attacks were aimed three miles north of the big industrial center of Vinh, 150 miles south of Hanoi.

In South Vietnam, two U.S. servicemen were killed and three wounded in the last 24 hours. A Marine (pictured) was slain by a sniper while he passed out gum and books to villagers near Da Nang air base as part of a program to win the friendship of the peasants, and an Army adviser was killed and another wounded in a Red land mine explosion 290 miles northeast of Saigon.

A U.S. Army officer was seriously wounded by a Viet Cong mine in Phu Yen Province, and a helicopter gunner was hit on a mission 70 miles southwest of Saigon.

At Chulai beach in Quangtin Province, 3,400 Marines and Seabees have come ashore in an amphibious landing operation near the site where a military airfield is to be built.

Military officials said the number of American servicemen in South Vietnam had reached 42,200, broken down as follows: Army, 18,800; Navy, 1,800; Air Force, 9,300; Marines, 12,300.

Support this project at patreon.com/realtime1960s