NAMED CAMO VIETNAM US NAVY FIGHTER PILOT HELMET

US Navy Camo Sierra Size Large Fighter Pilot / Naval Aviator Vietnam Helmet with Dark and Clear lenses plus Oxygen mask. This rig was named to Naval Aviator Captain Allen Fancher who joined the US Navy in 1956 and was an Aviator for 22 years and flew Fighter Planes off of nine different Carriers in both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets. Captain Fancher flew 100 missions in the F-8 Crusader from the USS Ticonderoga during the Vietnam War. He served as Commanding Officer of VF-32, the first Atlantic Fleet F-14 Fighter Squadron at NAS Oceana in 1973-74. In 1975 he became Commanding Officer of VF-124, the F-14 Fleet replacement squadron in San Diego, California. At the time, VF-124 was the largest tactical squadron in the Navy, manned by 1800 Naval and Marine Corp personnel flying seventy six of the F-14 aircraft. VietnamGulf of Tonkin incident: On 2 August, while operating in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin, the destroyer Maddox reported being attacked by units of the (North) Vietnam People's Navy. Within minutes of her receipt of the message, Ticonderoga dispatched four, rocket-armed F8E Crusaders to the destroyer's assistance. Upon arrival, the Crusaders launched Zuni rockets and strafed the North Vietnamese craft with their 20 mm (0.79 in) cannon. After the efforts of Ticonderoga and Maddox, one boat was left dead in the water and the other two damaged. Two days later, late in the evening of 4 August, Ticonderoga received urgent requests from the destroyer Turner Joy – by then on patrol with Maddox – for air support in resisting what the destroyer alleged to be another torpedo boat foray. The carrier again launched aircraft to aid the American surface ships, and Turner Joy directed them. The Navy surface and air team believed it had sunk two boats and damaged another pair. President Lyndon Johnson responded with a reprisal to what he felt at the time to be two unprovoked attacks on American seapower and ordered retaliatory air strikes on selected North Vietnamese motor torpedo boat bases. On 5 August, Ticonderoga and Constellation launched 60 sorties against four bases and their supporting oil storage facilities. The USN attacks reportedly resulted in the destruction of 25 PT-type boats, severe damage to the bases, and almost complete razing of the oil storage depot. For her quick reaction and successful combat actions on those three occasions, Ticonderoga received the Navy Unit Commendation. Subsequent operations: After a return visit to Japan in September, the aircraft carrier resumed normal operations in the South China Sea until winding up the deployment late in the year. She returned to the Naval Air Station North Island, California, on 15 December 1964. Following post-deployment and holiday stand-down, Ticonderoga moved to the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard on 27 January 1965 to begin a five-month overhaul. She completed repairs in June and spent the summer operating along the coast of southern California. On 28 September, the aircraft carrier put to sea for another deployment to the Orient. She spent some time in the Hawaiian Islands for an operational readiness exercise then continued on to the Far East. She reached "Dixie Station" on 5 November and immediately began combat air operations. Ticonderoga's winter deployment of 1965 and 1966 was her first total combat tour of duty during American involvement in the Vietnam War. During her six months in the Far East, the carrier spent a total of 116 days in air operations off the coast of Vietnam dividing her time almost evenly between "Dixie" and "Yankee Stations", the carrier operating areas off South and North Vietnam, respectively. Her air group delivered over 8,000 short tons (7,300 t) of ordnance in more than 10,000 combat sorties, with a loss of 16 aircraft, but only five pilots. For the most part, her aircraft hit enemy installations in North Vietnam and interdicted supply routes into South Vietnam, including river-borne and coastwise junk and sampan traffic as well as roads, bridges, and trucks on land. Specifically, they claimed the destruction of 35 bridges as well as numerous warehouses, barracks, trucks, boats, and railroad cars and severe damage to a major North Vietnamese thermal power plant located at Uong Bi north of Haiphong. After a stop at Yokosuka, Japan, from 25 April to 3 May 1966, the warship was put to sea to return to the United States. On 13 May, she pulled into port at San Diego to end the deployment. On 5 December 1965, an A-4 Skyhawk was lost overboard while the aircraft carrier was 80 miles (130 km) from Kikai Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan The aircraft was being rolled from a hangar bay onto an elevator. The aircraft had mounted on it a B43 nuclear bomb. The pilot, Lieutenant JG Douglas Webster, the A-4E Skyhawk, BuNo 151022, of Attack Squadron VA-56 "Champions", and the nuclear weapon were all lost. No public mention was made of the incident at the time and it would not come to light until a 1981 United States Department of Defense report revealed that a one-megaton bomb had been lost. Japan then asked for details of the incident. 1966–1967, 1967–1968 deployments: Following repairs she steamed out of San Diego on 9 July to begin a normal round of West Coast training operations. Those and similar evolutions continued until 15 October, when Ticonderoga departed San Diego, bound via Hawaii for the western Pacific. The carrier reached Yokosuka, Japan, on 30 October and remained there until 5 November when she headed south for an overnight stop at U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay, Subic Bay in the Philippines on 10–11 November. On 13 November, Ticonderoga arrived in the Gulf of Tonkin and began the first of three combat tours during her 1966–1967 deployment. She launched 11,650 combat sorties, all against enemy targets located in North Vietnam. Again, her primary targets were logistics and communications lines and transportation facilities. For her contribution and that of Air Wing Nineteen to Operation Rolling Thunder, Ticonderoga was awarded her second Navy Unit Commendation. She completed her final line period on 27 April 1967 and returned to Yokosuka, from which she departed again on 19 May to return to the United States. Ten days later, the carrier entered San Diego and began a month-long, post-deployment stand-down. At the beginning of July, she shifted to Bremerton, Washington, where she entered the Puget Sound for two months of repairs. Upon the completion of yard work, she departed Bremerton on 6 September and steamed south to training operations off the coast of southern California. On 28 December 1967, Ticonderoga sailed for her fourth combat deployment to the waters off the Indochinese coast and arrived on Yankee Station in January 1968. Ticonderoga was on Yankee Station for the beginning of the 1968 Tet Offensive. Nearly coincidental with the Tet Offensive, the siege of Khe Sanh began and Pueblo, an American spy ship, was seized by the North Koreans and taken to Wonsan harbor. The aircraft carrier Ranger was immediately deployed to the coast of North Korea, beginning Operation Formation Star. Approximately a week later, Ranger was relieved off Korea by Ticonderoga and returned to Yankee Station. Enterprise joined Ticonderoga and strikes were planned against seven MiG airfields with approximately 200 MiGS. These strikes were never executed and Ticonderoga returned to Yankee Station to resume her role in the Tet Offensive. Between January 1968 and July 1968, Ticonderoga was on the line off the coast of Vietnam for five separate periods totaling 120 days of combat duty. During that time, her air wing flew just over 13,000 combat sorties against North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces, most frequently in the continuing attempts to interdict the enemy lines of supply. Between line periods, she regularly returned to Subic Bay and Naval Air Station Cubi Point for rest and replenishment. She also made port visits at Singapore and Hong Kong. On 9 July, during her fifth line period, LCDR John B. Nichols claimed Ticonderoga's first MiG kill. The carrier completed that line period and entered Subic Bay for upkeep on 25 July. Ticonderoga then proceeded for her homeport in Naval Air Station North Island, Coronado, California arriving on 17 August 1968 after a one-day delay in the fog off San Diego in the San Clemente Channel. Shortly thereafter, Ticonderoga moved to the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for repairs and certain conversions to handle the A-7 Corsair attack jet and to prepare for her fifth combat cruise in February 1969.