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Skyraiders Shoot Down Chinese Attackers 1954
Waring Hills Jul 26, 2011On 26 July 1954, two Skyraiders (AD-4s) from Air Group Five and USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) shot down two LA-7 aircraft of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force off Hainan Island. The Skyraiders were attacked by the Chinese pilots, while they were searching for survivors from the shoot down of a Cathay Pacific Skymaster airliner. They defended themselves and shot down both attacking Chinese aircraft.
Three days prior on 23 July, Chinese fighters had shot down the airliner near Hainan Island off the Chinese coast, mistaking it for a Taiwanese military plane. Philippine Sea was ordered into the area as part of a search mission with the hope that the remaining survivors might be found. Ten of the nineteen people onboard the airliner survived the shoot down. Later this came to be known unofficially as the “Hainan Incident”.
Unfortunately there would be another Hainan Incident in 2001, but luckily not as many lives were lost in this one.
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Sorry to say but the ADs that shot down the Chinese planes didn’t come from CVA 47. I was there.
The flight was “01 Onionskin.” I was on the strike net in CIC on the USS Hornet and heard it all. It was over in seconds.
The two AD’s that shot down the LA’s came from VA-54 of Air Group 5 deployed aboard the USS Philippine Sea (CVA-47)
The Chicoms jumped the Air Group Commander who was at minimum altitude searching for survivors of the Cathay
airliner that had been lost , CAG called for help from his section leader who was orbiting at 500 feet above. Immediately
“Toot” Tatum and his wingman rolled onto the tails of the Chicoms who were now fleeing just above the waves. “Toot”,
who happened to be a gunnery instructor in PNS, fired his four 20 mm cannon and the LA-7 wingman went down. The Chicom leader went down next. Those are the facts, Darrel. I was there flying CAP. Heard the whole thing on radio.
My father was one of the AD pilots. It was CV-47