- Yankee Station
Yankee Station was a point in the
Gulf of Tonkin off the coast ofVietnam used by the U.S. Navyaircraft carrier s ofTask Force 77 to launch strikes in theVietnam War . While its official designation was "Point Yankee," it was universally referred to as Yankee Station. Carriers conducting air operations at Yankee Station were said to be "on the line" and statistical summaries were based on days on the line.The name derived from it being the geographic reference point "Y", pronounced "Yankee" in the
NATO phonetic alphabet . In turn the term Point Yankee derived from the launch point for "Yankee Team" aerial reconnaissance missions over Laos conducted in 1964. It was located 160 km (100 mi) from the coast, at 16° N latitude and 110° E longitude.During the two periods of sustained air operations against North Vietnam (
March 2 ,1965 -October 31 ,1968 andMarch 30 ,1972 -December 29 ,1972 ) there were normally three carriers on the line, each conducting air operations for twelve hours, then off for twelve hours. One of the carriers would operate from noon to midnight, another from midnight to noon, and one during daylight hours, which gave 24-hour coverage plus additional effort during daylight hours, when sorties were most effective. However at the end of May, 1972, six carriers were for a short period of time on the line at Yankee Station conducting Linebacker strikes.The first aircraft carrier at Yankee Station was USS|Kitty Hawk|CV-63|6, which was ordered there in April
1964 for the Yankee Team missions. Kitty Hawk was joined by USS|Ticonderoga|CV-14|2 in May and USS|Constellation|CV-64|2 in June, two months prior to theGulf of Tonkin Resolution . "Ticonderoga" and "Constellation" launched the first bombing missions from Yankee Station onAugust 5 ,1964 . "Constellation" was also the last carrier conducting operations at Yankee Station onAugust 15 ,1973 .A corresponding
Dixie Station in the South China Sea off theMekong Delta was a single carrier point for conducting strikes withinSouth Vietnam fromMay 15 ,1965 toAugust 3 ,1966 .For a detailed description of Yankee Station operations, see Nichols and Tillman.
Recommended reading
*Francillon, René. "Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club US Carrier Operations off Vietnam", Naval Institute Press (1988) ISBN 0-87021-696-1
*Nichols, John B. (CDR, USN ret.) and Tillman, Barrett. "On Yankee Station", Naval Institute Press, ISBN 0-87021-559-0
*Nordeen, Lon. "Air Warfare in the Missile Age", Smithsonian Institution Press (1985), ISBN 0-87474-680-9
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
