GOING FOR IT!

A-4 Skyhawks strike hard in the Tet Offensive

- BY ERIC HAMMEL

This Navy A-4 Skyhawk, owned by the Warbird Heritage Foundation, re-creates another day at the office in Vietnam. Skyhawks were affectionately known as "Scooters" and both the U.S. Navy and Marines depended on them for pinpoint ordnance delivery. (Photo by Scott Slocum)

MARINE AIR WAS AS OVERWORKED and effective during the great Tet Offensive of 1968 as it had been at any other time in its proud history. Without it, even greater numbers of Marine infantrymen would have died. But it was an endless source of frustration to all concerned that weather conditions over Hue prevented all forms of air support for all but the first few and last few days of the month-long struggle by three Marine battalions to eject two reinforced North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regiments from the city. For all of three weeks, while Marines on the ground in Hue struggled forward without any air support whatsoever, Marine airmen waited for the sky to clear. By the time that happened, the battle inside the Citadel of Hue was nearly over. But the hard-bitten NVA units facing the battle-worn remnant of Major Robert Thompson's 1/5 were so desperate and so tightly compacted-fighting literally with their backs to the Citadel's 75-meter-thick wall-that the Marine ground assault was in danger of bogging down. At that critical moment, the weather over Hue cleared-but only barely.

Citadel inbound