A-6 Intruder Jet Attack Aircraft
LCDR Fred "Rabbitman" Schrupp
Vietnam - NAVY
U.S.S. America 1972-73
Squadron VA-35

This webpage is honor of my Fred and for our 3 sons and 3 grandsons......"What Daddy did in the War"


It is all part of History now. The following photos were taken by LCDR. Fred Schrupp on his third deployment to Vietnam aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. America with Squadron VA-35. Thanks to our son, Kenneth, these slides have been transferred into jpgs and stored on CDs. Fred made 3 Vietnam deployments, two with VA 85 in 1966 - 1968 and one with VA-35 in 1972-3. He flew 298 missions over North Vietnam.

What you see are the thumbnails. About 10 days before the America was scheduled to depart for a "Med" cruise, orders were changed - it was going on a "WestPack"cruise to Vietnam. The ship left Norfolk, Virginia on June 5, 1972 - The squadrons aboard the America saw heavy combat, including the Linebacker II missions, which led to the end of the flying war in Vietnam and the release of the POWS. The ship returned in spring of 1973. The A-6 Intuder is no longer in service, retired in 1997.  Pity, it was a really sturdy aircraft built by Grumman and with the two man crew sitting side by side, a lot of lives and aircraft were saved. It could be shot all over the place and still make it back to the ship. 



109
A-6 Intruder - VA 35

75
Headed for a mission
141
A-6 Intruders

59
View of Aircraft Carrier from cockpit


30
Coming in for Landing on
Aircraft Carrier

108
Landing gear down - tail hook down
coming in to land on Carrier


N-06
Tailhook down, coming in for landing


 

107
Sucessful landing on Carrier
149
Cloud hopping


112
Full Load

N-16
N-17

104
A-6  - ready for take off
111
A-6 taking off the carrier
143
A-6 planes on deck wings folded

150
A-6 with folded wings
151
LCDR. Fred Schrupp		  

61
Aircraft Carrier

153
154
155
VA-35 planes

156
front of A-7
  
142
flying close together
  
102
Headed for a mission

144
Inflight Refueling
145
Almost there
147
Locked into the basket

159
Flight deck -working on planes
  

57
Flight deck loading up
161

162
Flight deck

116
Emergency Landing
 


  

55
Loading bombs

165
working on flight deck
152
flight deck
148

139
A-6 on the flight deck
127
Night time take off from Aircraft Carrier
Great A-6 pilot - Byron "By" Hodge  gone but never forgotten

105
Instrument panel - radar scopes
160
164
 

166
Fred - Xmas 1972
 

167
Xmas 1972
Infamous Ready Room Head Rests
  

168
Welcome Home 1973
MaryCarol  & Sarah
 















132
1972 -1973 Deployment VA-35
131
126
Planning the mission on map
Target on radar scope

128
129
Planning a mission
Target on radar scope
133

134
135
106
Ground to Air Rocket exploding
the red puff in middle of pic


14
18
16

32
33
35




If you would like bigger jpgs of any of these photos - email me

Jane Colmenares


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