THE WALL OF FACES

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. I am heartened you returned home after the passage of many years though I wish it had been under very different circumstances. May you rest in eternal peace.

Dear Cdr Jack Walters, Thank you for your service as an Unrestricted Line Officer -Naval Flight Officer on the USS KITTY HAWK. Glad you were identified in 1974. Welcome Home. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart . Halloween is soon. Time passes quickly. Please watch over America, it still needs your strength, courage, guidance and faithfulness, especially now. Rest in peace with the angels.

It's been 55 years but some things are never forgotten. Like the day you guys were shot down. All was quiet in the ready room. Hoping for more information that would be years in coming. Two more fine men lost in a war without meaning. Two more families left without their husbands and fathers. Jack, you were one of the best.

Mr. Walters was my Division Officer in RVAH13, a Navy recon squadron attached to the USS Kitty Hawk CVA63. I was a plane captain assigned to Vigliante 602. I worked the night shift and was awakened by “Perky” Fund another plane captain telling me of the aircraft not returning.

Once while standing driver duty, I picked him up at the Navy Exchange in Subic. He had purchased some China and needed a ride to the post office so he could ship it home.

A stone relief depicting a North American RA-5C Vigilante reconnaissance aircraft being shot down over Hanoi on May 19, 1967, is displayed on Le Truc Street in Ba Dinh District in Hanoi, VN.