Veteran to present on the P-3 Orion as part of yearlong Vietnam commemoration

It was a command from a Marine sergeant in 1966 that changed Randy Hotton’s life forever. It also appears as the title of his new book. 

On Sept. 18, Hotton comes to The War Memorial for “Flying the P-3 Orion: A Vietnam War Pilot’s Story.” Doors open at 6 p.m., with the presentation commencing at 6:30 p.m.  

This informative and exciting lecture focuses on the P-3 Orion Aircraft flown in Vietnam. Hotton, an 81-year-old retired Navy captain, piloted the P-3 during Operation Market Time in the Vietnam War. That operation was aimed at preventing the infiltration of supplies from North Vietnam to South Vietnam by sea.  

P-3 Orion

“I’m going to go through the operation and how it worked,” he said. “Then I’ll talk about how I got involved in the Navy, going through training, and going to Vietnam and the missions we did.”  

Hotton’s appearance is part of The War Memorial’s yearlong Vietnam War Commemoration Celebration. Hotton is the author of “Get the F*#k Off My Quarterdeck: Becoming a Vietnam-Era P-3 Pilot” a memoir that was released earlier this year. 

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnam used the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia to supply their troops in South Vietnam. The trail inadequacies prevented them from moving enough supplies. To augment the trail, they started using fishing boats loaded with guns and ammunition.  These boats would mix in with fishing fleets off the coast. The discovery of suspicious “fishing boats” in early 1965 prompted the initiation of Operation Market Time.   

“The North Vietnamese had been supplying the Vietcong in the south with arms by steel haul trailers that they would run at night and cover them up, unload them, and go back out,” Hotton said. “Almost all the arms going into South Vietnam were coming by sea. When the U.S. got involved in 1965, they had to up the arms flow, so started flying patrols around Vietnam, looking for gun runners. They pretty well shut down the sea lanes of delivery, which caused the North Vietnamese to develop the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”    

An airborne barrier flown by Navy P-3 Orion patrol planes was the mainstay of the Market Time mission. Hotton flew on Market Time missions off the coast of Vietnam from December 1968 to June 1969.  He spent 11 years in the Navy, leaving as a lieutenant, followed by 15 years in the Navy Reserve, retiring in 1991 as a captain. 

At the Sept. 18 event, folks can hear Hotton’s story of how he operated on 10-hour patrols both day and night in all weather conditions along Vietnam’s 1,200-mile coast.  

“We flew over 100 hours a month and had to fly from the North-South Vietnam border up around Da Nang down to the Cambodian border and had to look at every ship out to 120 miles,” he said. “We were clipping along at 300-400 miles per hour looking at these boats that were about 200 feet off of the water. It was demanding flying and you were exhausted. We did that every-other day.”   

This effort was to maintain a barrier and prevent the resupply of enemy forces in South Vietnam. 

“Looking at the operation, it was a success,” he said. “It basically shut down the North Vietnamese ability to supply their forces in the south by the sea.”   

Hotton described the P-3 as the Navy’s newest airplane around the time he enlisted.  
 
“It replaced the old World War II piston-powered airplane with a turbo propped version of the Lockheed Electra,” he said. “It was pressurized, and was faster than any jet I’ve ever flown. It would go about 470 miles per hour.”    

Hotton, of Canton, is a 1961 graduate of Troy High School. His father was a production tool engineer at Willow Run Airport during World War II. It was at Michigan State University that Hotton knew he wanted to fly airplanes. 
 
“The Navy recruiter came by the campus as the war was building up for Vietnam,” he said. “I enlisted in the Navy in 1965. I had always been a fan of the military and wanted to be one of those guys. There was a camaraderie they had and were taking on things bigger than themselves.”    

Speaking about the presidential election of 1964, Hotton said President Lyndon B. Johnson said that Republican candidate Barry Goldwater might get the U.S. involved in a war. 

“He said ‘I promise you if I’m elected that I’m not going to send American boys 10,000 miles away to do what Asian boys should be doing for themselves,’ so I voted for Johnson,” Hotton said. “Then the draft started cranking up, but I was already recruited by the Navy, so I didn’t have to worry about that.”  

For Hotton, he recalls that training to be a pilot in the Navy was fast paced. He started off with the T-34 Mentor which he got about 25 hours of flight time with. Then it was training on the T-28 Trojan. 

“We weren’t practicing things 17 times and if you can’t do it, you may be going to a jacket review board,” he said. “I started my training in Pensacola, then since I selected multi-engine training, I went to Corpus Christi, Texas and got my multi-engine time and my wings there.”  

He began Officer Candidate School in June 1966 and completed flight training in March 1968. By December 1968, Hotton found himself in southeast Asia, part of Patrol Squadron 45. In Vietnam, Hotton operated from Cam Ranh Bay. 

Reflecting on the Vietnam War, a conflict that resulted in the loss of over 58,000 American service members, Hotton believes the U.S. should have never been involved to begin with. 

“It was screwed up,” he said. “As far as flying, when you are involved with intensive operations like that, you really get close to the people you fly with and I’ve established lifetime friendships to stay in touch with those guys.” 

In his civilian life, Hotton worked for numerous airlines and has about 16,000 hours of total flight time, flying about 70 different airplanes. 

Also at his War Memorial appearance, Hotton will sell copies of his book “Get the F*#k Off My Quarterdeck: Becoming a Vietnam-Era P-3 Pilot.” To register for Hotton’s event, click here.