| Date: 25 June 1972 |
| Aircraft type: A-7E Corsair |
| Serial Number: 157437 |
| Military Unit: VA-22 |
| Service: USN |
| Home Base: USS Coral Sea |
| Name(s): |
| Lt Geoffrey Raymond Shumway (KIA) |
| At dusk on the 25th two A-7s from the Coral Sea set off an armed reconnaissance mission in the area north of Vinh. Lt Shumway (call sign Beefeater 311) in the leading aircraft saw two trucks parked in hilly terrain near the village of Thung Lim, 30 miles north of Vinh. Lt Shumway was seen to roll in to a 20-degree dive attack but when his wingman next looked after setting up his own attack all he saw was a fireball on the ground near the target. It was suspected that Lt Shumway had flown into the ground in the poor light conditions of approaching night while he was concentrating on hitting the trucks. This was the last aircraft lost by the Coral Sea before the end of its sixth war cruise on 11 July 1972. The carrier returned for a seventh cruise on 20 March 1973 but did not lose any more aircraft. The Coral Sea was finally decommissioned on 30 April 1991 and was scrapped at Baltimore between 1993 and 1997. In 1993 a joint US/Vietnamese team excavated a crash site and recovered human remains but it took until June 2002 for the remains to be confirmed as being those of Lt Shumway. |
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