Operation Market Time: Remembering the Vietnam War In-Person
While the land and air battles of the Vietnam War raged, South Vietnam’s coastal and Mekong Delta waterways constituted a free-flowing Viet Cong logistic network. The U.S. Navy established Operation Market Time (-1972) to prevent North Vietnamese ships from supplying enemy forces in South Vietnam with guns and ammunition by sea. An airborne barrier flown by Navy P-3 Orion Patrol planes was the mainstay of the Market Time Mission
Navy Captain Randy Hotten, resident of Canton, Michigan and graduate of Michigan State University, flew the P-3 Orion aircraft on Market Time missions off the coast of Vietnam in 1968 and 1969.
Following Vietnam, his career and life have been full of these and other adventures:
- Cold War anti-submarine patrols in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
- Flying the C-1A COD from the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier
- Flying for a variety of civilian airlines and corporations
- Serving on the Michigan Flight Museum Board of Directors
- Piloting the Museum’s C-47 (DC-3) during summer flying season.
- Induction into The Michigan Aviation Hall of Fame in 2020
- A well-deserved retirement from USA Jet Airlines
- Writing a memoir on his war-time experiences.
Join us at the library to hear him tell the story of how he operated on ten-hour patrols both day and night in all weather conditions along Vietnam's 1200-mile coast. Copies of his memoir will be available for purchase.
REGISTER for a reminder.