Ballad Of John Greene is an early 1970s film produced by Vought Aeronautics and narrated by Jackie Cooper, U.S. Naval Reserve Commander. The short film follows Navy Pilot John Greene, cutting back and forth between his naval air training and a current mission in Vietnam. The film opens with a shot of pink skies over the ocean. John Greene looks out over the Navy attack carrier USS Ranger. Vought A-7 Corsair IIs are moved into takeoff position on the carrier. Pilots meet for a briefing in an operations room about an upcoming mission to attack a bridge (03:28). John Greene runs through his inspection of an A-7 Corsair II then climbs in. A-7 Corsair IIs take off from the USS Ranger (06:00). Footage shows the A-7s flying through the sky and specifically features shots of Greene. The film then cuts back to a younger Greene sitting in a car with his girlfriend, and another shot of him driving a buggy on a beach. Later, Greene stands at attention with other men at Naval Air Training Command in Pensacola, FL (08:14). Footage shows men running through an obstacle course, studying an engine in a classroom, and participating in a simulated underwater cockpit escape (09:55). Greene trains at a base in Meridian, Mississippi; the pilot trains in a North American T-2 Buckeye (11:40). The film shows Grumman F-9 Cougars flying in formation (13:06), then cuts back to the film’s present. Greene is flying the mission, and aerial views show explosions on the ground. Footage shows an attack on a bridge from the point of view of a plane (15:55). The target bridge is bombed and destroyed (17:45). Footage shows the cockpit of Greene’s plane as he takes fire. A wingman observes the damage to Greene’s A-7. The film then takes viewers back to Greene’s training: the pilot studies the control panel of the A-7 Corsair II (20:02). In the present, the two A-7s fly back to their carrier. Another flashback shows Greene undergoing additional training (21:15), including training in cockpit ejection and experiencing hitting water with a parachute. Greene successfully lands his damaged A-7 on the flight deck of the carrier (23:05). The film then ends with U.S. Naval Reserve Commander Jackie Cooper then addressing the camera (24:16) and footage of the USS Ranger returning home where a crowd waits for the ship.
The LTV A-7 Corsair II is an American carrier-capable subsonic light attack aircraft
manufactured by Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) to replace the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. Its airframe design is a somewhat smaller version of the supersonic Vought F-8 Crusader. The Corsair II initially entered service with the United States Navy (USN) during the Vietnam War. It was later adopted by the United States Air Force (USAF), including the Air National Guard, to replace the Douglas A-1 Skyraider and North American F-100 Super Sabre. The aircraft was also exported to Greece in the 1970s, and to Portugal in the late 1980s.
The seventh USS Ranger (CV/CVA-61) was one of four Forrestal-class supercarriers built for the United States Navy in the 1950s. Although all four ships of the class were completed with
angled decks, Ranger had the distinction of being the first US carrier built from the beginning as an angled-deck ship. Commissioned in 1957, she served extensively in the Pacific, especially the Vietnam War, for which she earned 13 battle stars. Near the end of her career, she also served in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. Ranger appeared on television in The Six Million Dollar Man and Baa Baa Black Sheep, and in the films Top Gun, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (standing in for the carrier Enterprise), and Flight of the Intruder. Ranger was decommissioned in 1993, and was stored at Bremerton, Washington until March 2015. She was then moved to Brownsville for scrapping, which was completed in November 2017.
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