Gene Raymond Gollahon – Lieutenant, United States Navy

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Gene Raymond Gollahon was born on November 7, 1938 and joined the Armed Forces while in Cincinnati, Ohio.

He served in the United Sates Navy.  In 4 years of service, he attained the rank of Lieutenant.

Gene Raymond Gollahon is listed as Missing in Action.

GOLLAHON, GENE RAYMOND
Remains Identified 02/08/2002
Name: Gene Raymond Gollahon
Rank/Branch: O3/US Navy
Unit:
Date of Birth: 07 November 1930
Home City of Record: Cincinnati OH
Date of Loss: 13 August 1965
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 200659N 1055157E (WH905244)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 3
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F8D
Refno: 0126
Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 May 1990 from one or more of
the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence
with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W.
NETWORK 2002.

SYNOPSIS:

North Vietnam learned the lessons of modern aerial warfare rapidly. Over the short span of 36 months, Ho Chi Minh, with the help of hissupporters, led the North Vietnamese military from technology-poor andground-oriented military to one with one of the world’s strongest and mostsophisticated air defense networks.The motivation was simple. During the 1965-1968 ROLLING THUNDER program,U.S. aircraft dropped a daily average of 800 tons of bombs, rockets andmissiles on North Vietnam. The Soviet Union and China to a lesser degree,provided surface-to-air missiles (SAM), anti-aircraft guns, small arms andjet aircraft almost as fast as the dock workers at Haiphong could unload the cargo. They also sent an array of technical advisors and food products to support their communist brethren. Consequently, North Vietnamese missile sites grew from ground zero in 1965 to estimates three years later of two hundred SAM sites nationwide and some thirty missile battalions in the Hanoi area alone. Each battalion contained up to six missile launchers plus accompanying radar, computers and generators.

Surface-to-air missiles, however, were just one element for U.S. pilots to reckon with. By September 1967 the defense system included some eight thousand lethal AAA guns firing twenty-five thousand tons of ammunition each month at American planes, a complex radar system, and computerized control centers. An elaborate warning system was devised, the more sophisticated systems keyed by Soviet observation trawlers on duty near American carriers. These spy ships relayed how many aircraft were leaving the deck, their bomb loads and side numbers, and it was not too difficult for North Vietnam to compute where and when the aircraft would arrive and to prepare a proper welcome. The primitive alarm systems utilized observation towers, whistles, gongs, drums and triangles to warn of impending attacks. The rules of engagement (ROE) limited ROLLING THUNDER’s damage on the enemy. It was actually designed only to apply military pressure “for the specific purpose of halting aggression in South Vietnam,” not for inflicting maximum damage. Unfortunately, U.S. aircrews died while fighting under these less than ideal conditions as the North Vietnamese became very efficient at employing their defense network. The SAMs (Soviet-supplies SA-2 Guideline missiles) consisted of a thirty-five-foot-high, two-stage, radar-guided rocket topped by a 350-pound explosive warhead. The missile, with a ceiling of sixty thousand feet, was fused to go off on contact; by proximity or altitude; or on command from below. SAMs were typically fired in pairs, and in most cases were lethal if they exploded within three hundred feet of an aircraft. The first SAM site was discovered in April 1965, yet U.S. pilots were forbidden to take immediate defensive action. A second SAM site was spotted about a year later, and by mid-July, several more sites were photographed in the area of Hanoi and Haiphong. Defensive strikes were not approved for any of the sites, primarily because Washington leadership feared killing Soviet personnel involved in training the North Vietnamese crews. It was not until the North Vietnamese had shot down a number of U.S. aircraft that U.S. air forces were permitted to strike back at the sites. On the night of August 11-12, the first Navy aircraft fell victim to SAMs. LCDR Francis D. Roberge and LTJG Donald H. Brown of VA 23, flying A4Es from the deck of the carrier USS MIDWAY, were struck by SAMS while on a road reconnaissance some sixty miles south of Hanoi. The pilots saw what they believed were two flares glowing beneath the clouds and coming closer. Too late, they realized that glowing missile propellant was the source of the light. Brown’s aircraft exploded and crashed, while Roberge’s limped back to the ship with a horribly scorched and peppered belly.

Navy reaction was immediate, but costly. On Black Friday, August 13 1965, seventy-six low-level “Iron Hand” missions were launched to seek out and destroy SAM sites. Five aircraft and three pilots were lost to enemy guns, and seven other planes were damaged, but no SAMs were discovered. One of the pilots lost on August 13 were Navy CDR Harry E. Thomas, skipper of the “Blue Tails — VA 153, an attack squadron flying off the carrier CORAL SEA. Thomas, a Korean War veteran had been skipper of the squadron since May. He had a lot of air combat experience, and important to the squadron, a lot of night experience. He taught the younger officers night flying, which in Vietnam, proved to be not only highly successful, but also safer than day strikes. The method used was to fly low at about 100 or 200 feet beneath the flares to find the target and, using low-level, lay-down ordnance such as snakeyes, cluster bombs or gun pods, to destroy such targets as enemy truck convoys.

On the August 13 mission, Blue Tail members went on a mass, low-level strike looking for SAM sites. Thomas’ aircraft flew into a volley of flak and was hit by heavy anti-aircraft fire and crashed. Observers noted that the canopy was still intact on the aircraft, thus precluding any chance that Thomas survived. He was listed Killed in Action, Body Not Recovered. SAM evasion tactics were still being devised. The current tactic was to fly in low, below two thousand feet because thei North Vietnamese could not get the radar guidance working at that altitude. But it also put a pilot right down into the fire zone of small arms and even foreign objects thrown by hand that the aircraft could conceivably ingest and go down from. Thomas had not believed the tactic of flying en masse at low levels was smart, but was not given the normal tactical flexibility to change it. The Navy never used this particular tactic again. They learned that, even at high speed, you couldn’t beat massed automatic weapons. Eventually, the military moved from medium alititude to 3,000 to 5,000 feet and had more success dealing with SAMs.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy was that VA153’s aircraft was fitted with the APR-23 Redhead, a device that would have been helpful in locating SAM sites, had the squadron been trained to use them. Thomas and CDR David Leue, who
replaced him as squadron skipper, tried to generate interest in using this device rather than sending in a mass, low-level group looking for SAMS. Their efforts were futile. Following Thomas’ death, however, tactics were changed, based on the material and information available at the time. The second pilot lost on Black Friday was Air Force Captain Fredric M. Mellor. Mellor was the pilot of an RF101C “Voodoo” tactical reconnaissance aircraft. During his mission, Mellor’s aircraft was hit by enemy fire and crashed. Mellor radioed that he had successfully ejected and was on the ground without serious injury. He was advised to avoid further radio contact until the arrival of rescue forces. When the rescue helicopter approached the area and attempted to make radio contact with Mellor, there was no reply. Subsequent search operations were negative. Mellor had disappeared. In U.S. Government records dated 1970-1973, Mellor’s last known location was listed in Son La Province, North Vietnam, about 25 miles due west of the city of Hoa Binh. Defense Department records of 25 July 1980 show he disappeared about 25 miles east-northeast of that location, or about 100 miles due west of Hanoi on the tri-province borders of Son La, Nghia Lo and Hoa Binh.

The third pilot shot down on Black Friday was U.S. Navy LT Gene R. Gollahon F8D pilot. Gollahon’s aircraft was hit by enemy fire about 10 miles west of the city of Phat Diem in Thanh Hoa Province, North Vietnam. The aircraft crashed and exploded. No parachute was noted and no emergency radio beeper signals were heard. Little hope was held out for Gollahon’s survival and he was declared Killed/Body Not Recovered. Of the four pilots lost in the beginning days of ROLLING THUNDER, three were declared dead. On August 14, 1985, twenty years and two days after he was shot down, the Vietnamese “discovered” the remains of Donald H. Brown, Jr. and returned them to U.S. control. Of the four, only Fredric Mellor was declared Missing in Action. Public perception of the word “MIA” is ashes on an isolated mountainside, or someone lost at the bottom of the sea. Mellor was alive and well on the ground. There is every reason to believe he was captured, or that the North Vietnamese know very well what happened to him on that day. Yet, the Vietnamese deny knowledge of him, and the U.S. has not found a way to bring him home — dead or alive.

Between 1965 and 1968, the Navy’s Seventh Fleet lost 382 planes over Southeast Asia, of which fifty-eight fell victim to SAMs nd the rest to AAA and small arms fire.

grgollahon-100302-mrpPhoto By M. R. Patterson, October 2002

GOLLAHON, GENE RAYMOND
LT   US NAVY
VIETNAM

  • DATE OF BIRTH: 11/07/1938
  • DATE OF DEATH: 08/13/1965
  • BURIED AT: SECTION 66  SITE 7005
    ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

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