302

UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION 1910-1995

1973-Contin ued

Former POW CDR William R. Stark is greeted by his family upon his

anjval at NAS Miramar, Calif

27 January Task Force 78 was formed to conduct

minesweeping operations in North Vietnamese waters

under the code name Operation Endsweep. It consist-

ed of surface mines weeping elements and an Air

Mobile Mine Countermeasures Command. The latter

was made up of HM-12, HMH-463 and HMM-165,

organized into units Alpha through Delta, an airborne

mine countermeasures planning element, command

and control element, an aircraft element and a material

element.

28 January Aircraft from Enterprise and Ranger flew

81 combat sorties on the first day of the Vietnam

cease-fire against lines-of-communication targets in

Laos. The corridor for overflights was between Hue

and Da Nang in SVN. These combat support sorties

were flown in support of the Laotian government

which had requested this assistance and it had no rela-

tionship with the cease-fire in Vietnam.

1 February The U.S. Third Fleet was reactivated at

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with the merger of the First Fleet

and Antisubmarine Warfare Forces, Pacific Fleet. The

change was made to reduce fleet staffs and achieve

economies while retaining control of operational units,

including some 100 ships and 60,000 men serving a

50-million-square mile area from the West Coast to

beyond Midway Island.

3 February Task Force 78 flagship New Orleans,

with escort ships, began a six-day mine countermea-

sures exercise in Subic Bay, R.P., in preparation for

scheduled Endsweep operations in NVN.

5 February Commander, Task Force 78, and other

Navy mine demolition experts met with North

Vietnamese leaders in Haiphong to discuss Operation

Endsweep, the clearing of mines in NVN.

6 February Surface minesweepers of Task Force 78

began preliminary sweeping to prepare an anchorage

in deep water off the approaches to Haiphong Harbor.

Ships of the force included New Orleans and Inchon.

The ocean anchorage would be used by command

and supply ships of the U.S. Navy in on-scene support

of minesweeping of NVN harbors, coastal and inland

waterways. During the operation Task Force 78 ships

were joined by Tripoli.

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Minesweeping TF-78 on Operation Endsweep off Haiphong Harb01:

6 February NAVAIR established a policy that new

avionics equipment generally be designed for auto-

matic troubleshooting with the general purpose

Versatile Avionics Shop Test (VAST) computerized

equipment. This policy significantly improved the

maintenance of avionics equipment through use of the

VAST system which was designed with the capability

to test the majority of avionics within the Naval

Aviation inventory.

11 February Aircraft from Constellation and

Oriskany operating on Yankee Station, the location of

which was changed to a position off the coast of the

northern part of South Vietnam, flew strikes against