THE WALL OF FACES

Dear PO1C Richard Sandifer, Thank you for your service as an Aviation Machinist's Mate 1st Class on the USS CONSTELLATION. Your 54th anniversary just passed, sad. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart. Thanksgiving is this week. Time moves quickly. Please watch over America, it stills needs your strength, courage, guidance and faithfulness, especially now. Rest in peace with the angels.

I didn't know you for very long, as you only checked into VAH-8 a day or two before we lost you. I do remember how very happy you were to be back in a Heavy Attack squadron after a tour with (Constellation's ship's company?). You bought a brand new watch (a SEIKO?) just before your first flight with us and asked me to hold onto it until after your flight (you didn't want to scratch it up). Over the years I have remembered you often, though I didn't know where you were laid to rest. Now that I know, I promise to visit.

On November 3, 1967, the aircraft carrier USS Constellation (CV-64) was conducting night air combat operations on Yankee Station, about fifty miles off the coast of North Vietnam. At approximately 7:22 PM, a Douglas KA-3B Skywarrior modified for tanker duty attempted a launch off the carrier. Movement and acceleration down the catapult track appeared normal for about ninety feet when sparks were suddenly seen coming from the aft nose section of the jet. The Skywarrior decelerated for the remainder of the travel down the track. It left the carrier in a wings-level, nose slightly low attitude without sufficient velocity for a successful launch and subsequently impacted the water off the port bow. When the spray cleared, the tail of the aircraft was visible above the water, but the jet submerged almost immediately and sank in 192 feet of water. An extensive search was conducted by Naval destroyers USS O’Bannon (DD-450) and USS Leonard F. Mason (DD-852) which resulted in the recovery of the body of crewman ADJ1 Richard W. Sandifer. One helmet and various aircraft debris was also located. Pilot LCDR Peter H. Krusi and navigator LTJG Hans H. Grauert were not found. Search and recovery efforts were later terminated with both missing crewmen were presumed dead. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org]

I remember you forever

Sandy,

During the time that we served together in RVAH-12, and during our deployment on the U.S.S. Constellation (CVA-64) we became friends. It has now been nearly 48 years since I last saw you on the night before your plane crashed. You were flying as an Air Crewman, with your old squadron which was also onboard "Connie" and you were officially transferred back to that squadron on the same day that you were killed. You and the two others who were onboard the plane you were on were killed when the plane crashed while being launched. You were the only one recovered from the water, but you died before the chopper could get you back to the ship.

I was privileged to speak by telephone to your sons several years ago, after I had responded to a posting that one of them had left asking for information about you. I think that you would be very proud of them. They are now grown, married with children of their own, and probably by now, grandchildren.

Your wife remarried, and her new husband treated your sons as though they were his own. Although they were both very young when they lost you, your memory has been kept alive so that they have not forgotten you. I'm certain that you would be happy to know that they were blessed to have another father come into their lives to guide them and to provide the special love and caring that is needed by children. I know how lucky they were because I was also blessed with a special man, who became my step-father, after my own father died when I was only 14.

Even after all these years I still often think of you, of the friendship we had and of the good times that we shared.

Mark