Hi David. I am the wife of an American Legion Service Officer, but my husband and I are both stumped at where to find information for one particular sailor who is now dying of pancreatic cancer. He served on the Kittyhawk August to November of 1966. He said that he used to move the barrels with the orange band, clean up leaks and maintain handling of the barrels. The VA says he is Blue Water Navy so without boots on the ground, he's out if luck. He and his wife have gone through all their savings, and with him now going through chemo they may well lose their house. He has an appeal in the system but needs statements from shipmates stating there was AO on board and what the men did with it. He can remember only one name from his team, a "Jasper C. Cantwell"...says there were more if course but he can't remember. He gave me some numbers, "Action VA.112" and "CVA 63," if those are any help.

I have searched high and low for any info on the Hawk. Can you point me to any direction of discussion for the storage and use of AO on the Hawk in 66? I'm not sure how much longer this gent has...he's young but he's fading fast. It's more for his wife, at this point.

I'm also the president of our local American Legion Auxiliary unit, and with more information I can help others sent our way. Any help is absolutely appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Cindy Woodman
President
American Legion Auxiliary Unit #4
Pocatello, Idaho

Hi Cindy,

Might have a good option for you, the first is the USS Kitty Hawk has a Facebook page that was set up by former shipmates. I'm a member of the group myself and I see ships personnel posting on the page from all years of service, so I would start there. The good thing is if a particular person knows someone else who was on the ship the same time as the veteran they will also put you in contact with them. I've seen guys posting from the Vietnam era quite regularly so it's a good chance you may find someone.

The next shot is the US Navy Historical unit and you can actually go to their page and you can first find the Hawk, and then by year they allow you to click on a given year and you can see the ships log of activities. Also if certain incidents occurred I seem to remember that the names were left so you could see everything. The logs are declassified and allow you to see everything up to and including Vietnam operations for all years the Hawk was on station off the coast.

Lastly my next direction would be National Archives. They are supposed to be a repository for all records now and you should be able to contact a historian there and find out how to get a copy of unit rosters for the time your vet was on the boat and then if you can get one use the names to start doing searches on the Internet to see if those names show up or as I said before using those names and using like the Kitty Hawk Facebook group and putting feelers out. That group is super helpful and they have good admins who run the page too.

That's all I can think of for now. Also keep checking the VA's AO website and specifically the list of ships, because my understanding was as long as their was proof of AO on a ship that was blue water the VA was supposed to add the ship. My understanding is they are even covering people who served at a couple bases in Thailand that were responsible for loading the stuff on aircraft for dispersant missions.

Hope that helps and let me know what you find out. I think also since the USS Kitty Hawk Facebook page is a closed group you should probably contact an admin on the group and let them know what you are doing, but maybe just try joining the group and see if they let you.

Dave

I cannot thank you enough! You've given me a lot of great leads! Thank you so much!! I know he and his wife will feel a sense of hope for the first time in many, many years. Thank you!

My dad-Art Bounds born in 1946-has been denied claims for many, many years. He just recently had a final appeal-he should know the outcome in a couple months.
He’s not sure what month the slide (picture) was taken & isn't aware of any other photos like this one. He is 2nd from left as looking at pic. The date on this only showed the year 1966. The guy to the left of him when you are looking at the picture is Charles Long (tall black man) who was from Detroit Michigan area, and on the Kitty Hawk 1965-1967. Art Bounds, my dad was on the ship 1965 until it docked in 1967 in San Diego, he thinks around early fall. The guy on his right as you look at the picture was Hershall Judd who was from Salt Lake City Utah area. My dad says these canisters were stored in magazines, where he had been in approximately 4-5 of them. In these magazines-where there were far more than this-stored defoliant, bombs, missiles. They were stored like in the picture with little cart like thing with a handle. These drums were white aluminum with a orange stripe on each end (depending on defoliant) which told what was inside these. On left side of these drums said "DEFOLIANT". In the center of the drum was a 5 sentence listing the nasty chemicals & the last two words were" Contains Dioxin". He says they were used on a fixed wing aircraft maybe a 115. The defoliant had two hooks, like the bombs did to attach to the planes. There would be no deck log regarding the incident with the forklift, he has checked. There were only operations listed. I have a picture of AO on Kittyhawk which I am happy to e-mail this to share with any other vets needing help. Obviously proof of just this picture is not enough for the VA to help someone who risked his life for his country. My dad lives in Arlington, WA. His health is not good-his quality of life is very poor.
If you want to see this photo-go to main page of this website-select photos-select photo album-select photo memories-select photo saying "Agent Orange On USS KittyHawk".

Sandy thanks for that info, it's actually really good info. A good friend of mine in Alaska who was one of the VFW SERVICE OFFICERS at the VA clinic once told me that any evidence can be considered and I remember the staffer in charge of the benefits unit at the Alaska VA also said her unit did everything they could to use supporting evidence. Hope this info is helpful to Cindy but I think photographic evidence is great.