A-6 bridge buster – Courage under fire in North Vietnam

Bridge out ahead. Bomb damage assessment photo from the low-level Intruder strike. (Photo courtesy of James P. Busha)

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My first contact with the Grumman A-6 was in the early spring of 1963 off the coast of Virginia on the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), when an A-6 flew out from the Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Maryland, for carrier-suitability tests. I was a catapult officer on the “Big E.” We conducted all sorts of flight-deck ops, with emphasis on different-weight “cat” shots. It also was my first real intro to the aircraft nose-launch system....

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