Cleared Hot!

PART I
chapter 1
Vietnam, 1965
The steady drone of the four turboprop engines of the Marine Corps KC-130 transport aircraft from VMGR-152 abruptly changed. The drone shifted to a high-pitched whine as the plane started a descent. Lieutenant Colonel Duphey, the KC-130 aircraft commander, could be heard on the Mickey Mouse headset, saying, "Okay, fellas, to our right is Vietnam. We'll make a descending right turn to intercept the Da Nang one-eight-zero radial for a straight-in to runway three-six. I'll keep it high until final approach. Some of our other transports have received hitsfrom Viet Cong guerrillas. Some when they were as close as five miles to Da Nang Airfield. That city ahead, for those who can see it, is Da Nang. Not too long ago, it used to be called Tourane, under the French rule."
I leaned to the right, twisting my neck to try to see through the small porthole window. I was just another passenger in the cold, large, metallic fuselage of this marine cargo and passenger aircraft. As I peered out of the right side of the aircraft, I saw a very green countryside. There were large brown and black mountains that appeared to be about fifteen to twenty miles inland from the expansive, golden beaches that merged with the white surf of the ever-so-green, calm-appearing South China Sea.
All the officers and troops, about 150 of them, were straining to look out over the countryside that none of them had been to before. Only two KC-130 crew members in the cargo compartment and I wore earphones that allowed us to hear the in-cockpit chatter of Colonel Duphey, his copilot, and the flight engineer.
I had known Duphey for several years. Therefore, when we and the other marines boarded the KC-130 at the Marine Air Base, Futema, Okinawa, Colonel Duphey had given me a plug-in-type crew member's headset. This enabled me to listen to the crew talk as they flew all the way down to Vietnam from Okinawa.
The KC-130 had, besides the troops, about twenty officers of varying ranks traveling on individual orders. Most were coming from the States; the others had joined up at Futema on Okinawa. The enlisted men, in dark green utilities, had their M-14 rifles lying under their cloth seats. Each had been issued one clip of ammunition. The officers had no weapons. They would draw their pistols from the unit that they reported to. There were only a handful of Americans in Vietnam. It was spring 1965.
Inside the aircraft, there were four jeeps and two "water buffalo," or water trailers, along with one 105-mm howitzer artillery piece. All equipment was strapped down to the center passageway of the troop/cargo hold.
The flight had been long and very boring. Most of the passengers had slept and now had awakened because of the change in the sound of the engines for the descent into Da Nang Airfield.
Curiosity had half of the marines up from their webbed seats and standing around the small portholes of the fuselage.
Colonel Duphey's voice came over my headset, "Crew chief, tell all the passengers to sit down and strap in. We're approaching for a landing." I saw the two crewmen going up and down the aisles, telling the marines to strap in for the landing. I tightened my seat belt and continued to peer out of the nearby porthole. As the plane rolled out of the turn, the noise of the landing gear coming down convinced all the passengers that indeed they were landing in Vietnam. I saw the green beauty of thousands of rice paddies with dikes built around each paddy plot. There were hundreds of tree-lined villages with grass-roofed huts. I saw people in black pajamas wearing golden-colored, straw, conical hats. Most of the people were out in the rice paddies working. Along the paddy dikes were caribou, or water buffalo, similar to the type I had seen in the Philippines some years back. The country, green and lush, was simply beautiful.
I looked about the semidark passenger compartment. I could see the excitement with very little apprehension on the faces of the young enlisted men and the similar expressions on the faces of the slightly older officers. I knew that they all had some feelings of approaching the unknown. Yet, I thought, they probably felt like I felt. War is why I'm in this Marine Corps uniform. This may only be a small communist guerrilla revolutionary war, but if we don't stop the communist guerrillas here, I thought, where will we stop them? Along the Mexican Border? The Vietnamese in the South have asked for our help, and as usual, we Americans are here to assist. As a professional marine, this is where I should be. I leaned back into the cold, webbed seat and turned away from the small porthole. I closed my eyes and thought. All of us aboard were on individual orders to replace some marines who had completed their thirteen months' tour of combat, assisting the Republic of Vietnam in fighting off communist guerrilla attacks in the farming countryside. The Russians, and to a limited degree the Chinese, were supplying arms and equipment to the Viet Minh, now called the Viet Cong, or VC. Unlike the internationally supported direct invasion thrust of the North Koreans into South Korea just six years after World War II, this war was different.
I reflected on the history of Vietnam, which I had researched after receiving my orders while stationed in Hawaii. In Hawaii I had been a pilot in Marine Aircraft Group 13 and a platoon commander in the 1st Air and Naval Gunfire Liaison Company--1st ANGLICO.
Leaning relaxed against the webbed seat-backing, I thought about how well I had been trained for all these years. I had eight years of Marine Corps training and was now a captain. I had flown fixed-wing aircraft (airplanes), both prop and jet, and helicopters for over two thousand hours in many parts of the world: Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the USA. I was ready; I was well trained no matter what the size of the war. I had a small exposure to combat conditions in '62 in Cuba as a search-and-rescue-helicopter pilot flying off the USS Boxer supporting the Marine Corps low-altitude photo missions flown over the Cuban missile sites. These photo flights were flown by VMCJ-2 of Cherry Point, North Carolina, and were flown from Key West, Florida. I flew along the Cuban coast, close in, as the marine jet photo-birds came in low over the missile sites. In the event one was shot down, my mission was to go in and get the pilot of the recce-bird. Therefore, this going into a hostile environment in Vietnam was not a completely new experience. The same feelings of the unknown were present.
As the KC-130 squeaked onto the runway at Da Nang Airfield, the warm air of Vietnam filled the aircraft. The lumbering transport rolled out and taxied to the west side of the field, where the U.S. Marine Corps helicopter squadrons were located. I saw Vietnamese air force T-28 aircraft loaded with bombs on the east side of the runway. There were also eight A-1 Skyraiders (also called ADs or SPADs). I had flown this aircraft out of Iwakuni, Japan, back in 1958 for a very short period, as they were being phased out of service. That was shortly after I had flown the T-28 aircraft in the Naval Flight Training Command. The AD was a very large, single-engine aircraft that could carry the bombload of a WWII four-engine B-17 bomber. I loved flying it, but it was unbelievably slow. Next to those Vietnamese aircraft were parked five U.S. Air Force F-102 jet fighter-interceptors. The F-102 Delta Dagger could climb to sixty thousand feet in about five minutes. The rest of the east side had a mixture of Vietnamesecivilian transports, including vintage U.S.-made C-47 Gooneybirds and DC-3 prop transports of the 1941 pioneer airline era.
After parking, we quickly exited the KC-130, and I was directed to the headquarters of detachment Marine Aircraft Group 16, called SHUFLY. I walked past the CH-34 helicopters of HMM-162 and of HMM-163, my very first assigned squadron of "Ridgerunners" in Japan in 1958. The dusty tents of their flight line indicated that it was a dirty and hot job for the mechanics. Looking over the helicopters, I saw that they were filled with dirt and sand. All of the Plexiglas windows were removed from the pilot's and passengers' compartments. M-60 machine guns, one on each side, hung out the open windows in the belly of the aircraft. The choppers did not resemble the slick, shiny, clean CH-34 helos that I had flown for three years in HMM-161 in Kaneohe, Hawaii. The CH-34 choppers had been redesignated UH-34D, meaning utility transport helicopter. Pilots and crews continued to use the two terms interchangeably. A few hundred feet behind the flight line of dusty tents, I saw several rows of brown stucco buildings with dark brown tile roofs. One of those buildings was the location of the group headquarters. The rest appeared to be the officers' living quarters. I stopped a second and thought. So this is home for the next thirteen months, away from my wife and children. Upon checking into the S-1, personnel, the major said to me, "Captain, General McCutcheon, the assistant wing commander, is now down here for a while. He plans to expand our operations. He read your background and told me to tell you to report to him upon your arrival."
"Where's the general?" I asked.
"He's in the officers' club. But first go ahead and get your living area. It's in building 3, across from here. After you drop your B-4 clothing bag, you can chase down the general."
I asked, "Major, why would the general want to see a lowly captain?"
The major replied, "As I said, the general read a copy of your officer's qualifications jacket. He reads the OQJs of all the pilots coming into the country to see their backgrounds. He saw that you had attended both the navy and Marine Corps supply schools, plus he saw that you had been an engineer as a civilian.He said he wants to talk to you about his plans to build a new airfield."
I thought, Hell, I came here to fly, not play engineer or supply officer.
I walked over to the rather nice, but dusty, row of stucco buildings and entered building 3. It must have been 120 degrees inside. The walls had green open shutters, but no breeze came through.
A young corporal wearing wrinkled, green utilities greeted me. I told him my name and he led me down the dark hallway to a small room. There were four folding cots with mosquito nets draped over them.
"Well, Captain, this is your new home, sir. As you've probably heard, this is an old French officers' living area. One night during the French Indochina War, every French officer sleeping here had his throat cut by the Viet Minh ... about forty officers died that night."
"Thanks a lot, corporal. You made my night. I'm sure I'll get a good night's sleep in that cot."
I dropped my B-4 bag and walked over to another, similar building, which had a sign over the double doorway that read "DETACHMENT MAG-16 FAR EAST JUNGLE FIGHTER OFFICERS' CLUB."
As I walked into what was obviously the officers' messing area for dining, combined with a bar, I couldn't miss the Southeast Asia overhead ceiling fans slowly turning the hot air around. It was like a scene from the old movies in the thirties with Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, in a sweating bar in Singapore or some other exotic place. It was extraordinary--bamboo chairs included.
The general was a thin, short man with piercing blue eyes. He had been a pioneer in helicopters with HMR-163, the "Ridgerunners," the first and only Marine Corps transport helicopter squadron in the Korean War. He was a lieutenant colonel during that so-called police action. They were the very first choppers to move combat troops in action and to fly day and night missions in combat. Their sister squadron, VMO-2, had light, fixed-wing Cessna observation aircraft, "Bird Dogs," for forward air control (FAC) for controlling attack bombers and also had a handfulof HO4S choppers for medical evacuations. Not many years later, the army began using helicopters for troop transportation and assault.
The general was seated at the bamboo bar with two colonels. His neatly starched utility cap, with its single brigadier general's star, sat to the side of his mixed drink.
As I approached the only three men in the bar, since it was only about 1500 in the afternoon, one of the colonels turned around and said, "What is it, Captain?"
"Sir, Major Plum in S-1 told me to report to the general right now."
The general swirled on his barstool and said, "Can I help you, Captain?"
"Well, sir, Major Plum said that you wanted to see me when I checked in from Hawaii. Because of my supply and engineering background."
"Yes, I sure do. Join us and have a drink--but mix your own. The bartender doesn't come aboard until 1600."
I went behind the bar and mixed a rum and Coke, while looking for ice cubes.
"Captain, we're lucky we flew in a small amount of booze and beer. But there is no ice here. There isn't ice anywhere in Da Nang that we know of yet," said the other colonel.
So I sat down with a warm rum and Coke in a room of about 120-degree heat, next to two colonels and a brigadier general, thinking, This sure is a strange way to get introduced to combat.
The general looked me in the eye and said, "We are planning to bring in our fighter and attack aircraft shortly to support our grunts, who will be coming in at that time. With the jets here, there simply will not be enough room here at Da Nang for our helicopters and eventual three jet squadrons. Therefore, we plan to build another airfield three miles east of here on China Beach, next to the South China Sea."
He got up, walked to the open window area facing east and pointed. "The airstrip will be located somewhere between that large green mountain on the north called Monkey Mountain and that solid brown-gray mountain called Marble Mountain on the south."
"Sir, with all due respect, what does this have to do with a captain who's a helicopter pilot?"
"Well, Captain, you have a supply background, and as a helicopter pilot you fully understand chopper operations, plus you have an engineering background. All of this is important to order supplies and coordinate with the Seabees to help me get that helicopter field built fast. Therefore, I had Major Plum assign you to Lt. Col. Tom Vaile's squadron, Marine Air Base Squadron 16. MABS-16 will have the task of working closely with Naval Construction Battalion 8--NCB-8--the Seabees who will build the actual cantonment and runway before we move three helicopter squadrons there."
"But General, I came down from the Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, 1st ANGLICO, in Hawaii where due to my grunting duties I only flew a couple of hops a month in a T-33 jet. I came down here expecting to fly a lot. If I get tied up with building an air base, I'll get very little combat flight experience. I need a flying billet in a flying squadron, not a base-support squadron, sir."
"I understand, Captain. But we're a small informal group here and we all must do what each of us knows best. In a few days the full MAG-16 group will be flown in here from Futema, Okinawa. We won't be a mere detachment of MAG-16 anymore. Included will be the group supply department and group supply officer. That supply department will handle the standard aviation and ground supply needs for all of the squadron. You will continue to draw on them for normal squadron supplies. But what I want you to do is to personally handle the unique requirements of supplies and materials to build a base. None of those supplies are in a normal air group supply system. The Seabees will do the actual construction, but I'll rely on your innovative capabilities to ensure that they get what they need and build what you, Lieutenant Colonel Vaile, and I feel is required for a full MAG helicopter airfield."
"But General, what about my flying?"
The general leaned downward to his flight equipment strewn on the floor. He reached for his flight helmet and handed it to me.
"Captain, due to my job these days, I don't have much time to fly. But a couple of times a week I go out on a routine helicopterresupply mission to carry ammunition to the ARVNs and bring back their wounded. Today was a routine flight, but coming back along the coast, in fact over Marble Mountain, some Viet Cong gave me a few bursts of AK-47 fire. I really didn't know it until something hit my helmet."
I looked at his helmet. A perfect round hole went through one side near the top and exited the opposite side. I looked in amazement at the helmet and then automatically at the general's sweating forehead and matted hair.
He laughed and said. "See, you'll get your flying along with combat experience."
Now I knew why he was having a warm drink before the end of the normal working day--if there was really going to be a normal working day here in this blast furnace of a country.
The general took back his helmet and said, "Captain, do your primary job first and fly anytime you want. I'll tell each squadron CO you can fly anytime you wish, in their aircraft. Fair enough?"
"Sir, I really want to go to a flying squadron, but what can I do?"
"Captain, if those pussyfootin' congressmen back in Washington run this war like they did in Korea, instead of allowing the military to do their thing, we'll be down here for years--and you'll have more flying than you'll really want. Now, go check in with Colonel Vaile, your new boss. He's been expecting you."
To say I was pissed off would be putting it mildly. I drifted across the compound to a cinder-block shed with a corrugated sheet-tin roof. The sign on the door read "co, MABS-16." The tin roof amplified the heat in the room. But it did not dampen the enthusiasm of Lieutenant Colonel Vaile. He greeted me and briefed me in much more detail about my assignment.
That night I didn't sleep a wink--between the ARVN artillery shooting to the west of Da Nang firing flares to light up the rural areas, mosquitoes buzzing all around outside my mosquito netting, tremendous heat with humidity, not being assigned to a flying squadron and the story that forty French officers died from having their throats slit right here where I was sleeping ...
The next morning the compound was alive. Helicopters were lifting off, dust flew about the area, and a mixture of marines inmarine utility uniforms, Australian bush hats, flight suits and an array of different shoulder-worn weapons greeted me in the mess hall. It really did look like a Far East jungle fighter group, rather than a U.S. Marine Corps air group. Most of the officers had grown fancy handlebar moustaches to add to the color of this strange, active group.
I started the day off conducting an in-depth inventory of the supply files with my four assigned supply personnel. This would lead to an actual physical sighting and counting of everything that MABS-16 rated. I had to determine what we actually had on hand by Table of Organization (T/O), or number of people, and the Table of Equipment (T/E), or actual items rated. What complicated it was that my SNCO (staff noncommissioned officer) Gunnery Sergeant Frey kept telling me that many of the items were still in Okinawa and were to be shipped to Vietnam. But exactly what was here and en route was not recorded precisely. I rated thousands of items, large and small. I rated 660 general-purpose personnel living and office tents. Records indicated that somewhere in the RVN there were 420. MABS-16 rated sixteen M-60 machine guns for perimeter defense. Only eight were recorded to be at Da Nang. Were the rest in Okinawa? I rated, and was told we had in the field here, six tactical-aircraft fuel-dispensing-system (TAFDS) units, to fuel the choppers at remote landing zones. I rated numerous mess-hall reefers (walk-in refrigerators for the mess halls), ice-flake machines, personnel shower units, Bay City cranes, trucks, jeeps, bulldozers, and 640 rifles and six hand-held .45-caliber machine guns--"grease guns."
It was so hot, about 125 degrees in the shade, that I could hardly think straight, let alone work. Like everyone else, I had to get five more shots in addition to the four given to me by medical in Hawaii. The plague was common. So they had one shot that they gave you in the ass cheek, just for the plague. The big decision was into which cheek did you want it? It was a large quantity of liquid antibiotics dispensed through a horrifyingly large needle and container. And the corpsman was right--you couldn't sit down for three days. So naturally, you couldn't fly for several days. The rule of thumb was that you needed five days in the country to acclimate to the weather and shots beforeclimbing into a cockpit. But by the second day, I was down at the squadrons telling them to schedule me for my area familiarization flights and missions to start after my five-day "grounding" time. The acclimation to a hot, humid climate was no fun. Everybody, all ranks, got the Da Nang "two trot." That is, by your second, third and fourth days in Nam, you frequently, throughout the day, took two steps and crapped in your pants. None of us knew if the runs were from the intense heat or the drinking water. Everybody suffered through the two or three days of accomplishing very little and staying fairly close to the latrines. According to my T/E, I rated eight portable four-hole latrines. I didn't relish the thought of having to walk around inventorying them, but I would have to, like every other piece of equipment that I owned.
I figured the first five days I'd inventory the records of supplies on paper. I then could get my first familiarization (FAM) flight of the combat area. After that, I could fly out to conduct the actual inventories of my TAFDS units, which were spread all over the I Corps area, plus my reefers, cooking equipment and tents up north at the Phu Bai Airfield. This would give me excuses for more flying--both normal supply missions for supporting the ARVN and my required inventory flights, including having to count weapons and sight weapons by serial numbers of our MABS-16 troops displaced at the Tam Ky city TAFDS landing zone (LZ) and Phu Bai.
On the fifth day I called operations at HMM-162 and was assured that I was indeed scheduled to fly as a copilot the next day. This would count as my area FAM flight. I had a 0500 brief and a launch time of 0615.
I was in the briefing tent at 0445 to make sure I had everything required for the early-morning launch. I drew my armor vest and armor torso girdle from the ready room tent, and produced my nice, clean, red and white helmet. The other pilots were quick to tell me that I should get my bright helmet painted green or black later that day, that it was too easy a target to sight in on. I carried, along with my other flight equipment from Hawaii, my normal orange flight suit. The other pilots were quick to point out that there was a small aviation supply section, separate from my own MABS supply, that carried a small amount of flightequipment, including flight suits that had originally been orange but had been dyed green. Apparently the local Da Nang Buddhist monks had been angry about American pilots wearing flight suits the same color as their orange religious robes, plus common sense of escape and evasion dictated green or brown flight suits in the event of being shot down in this jungle and rice paddie country.
I thought that my first FAM hop would be an area fly-around, like we did anywhere else in the world when we checked into a new geographical area. Not so here. Promptly at 0500, Captain May began briefing the four of us, two pilots and two copilots, for a two-plane mission.
"Gents, we start engines and engage rotor blades at 0605 and we launch at 0615 for a resupply flight to an ARVN-protected village very close in to Da Nang. The village of Quang Dai is located at coordinates nine-zero-one, five-nine-nine. Keep in mind that your current maps are French-made and the coordinates differ due to our shifting over period to developing our own maps. Every map is figured from Paris, not Greenwich, England. Study the terrain closely so we land at the correct village. The ninety-degree bend in the Song Vu Gia River is straight east from the vil we want to land in.
"I'll carry an internal load of medical supplies and an external hook load of concertina wire for compound security. Dash Two, you'll carry an internal load of M-14 carbine ammo, grenades, and mortar shells.
"We'll climb out on normal VFR"--visual flight rules--"to three thousand feet and remain en route at angels three. Directly over the village, I'll kiss you off and start a spiral descent straight down into the center of the village, hovering next to the vil water well in an opening big enough for only one chopper. You stay in orbit. I'll hover and release the barbed wire, then after they roll it out of the way, I'll land and my crew chief will kick out the medical supplies. Dash Two, your gunners cover me on my descent. When I climb back up in a spiral over the vil to three thousand feet, Dash Two, you leave your orbit and drop your load in the same zone. We're supposed to have a green smoke grenade go off at that landing zone as we fly over it, so it should be a piece of cake finding the landing zone.
"Weather is not a factor. It's clear as a bell. The LZ is considered secure. So we may only get some distant small-arms fire from around the vil.
"No matter what the mission develops into, bingo"--go home--"fuel state is 400 pounds.
"Emergencies are to be executed as per squadron standard operating procedures.
"Let's go to S-2 to get the intelligence briefing for the day."
At S-2 we received the codes to use for communications, codes which changed daily, and a briefing on what they thought was the ground-action situation of friendlies and bad guys.
Captain May then said, "Let's preflight the birds, kick the tires, and light the fires."
The pilots signed the "yellow sheet" maintenance forms to assume responsibility for the aircraft, as the copilots, myself included, began preflight inspections of the birds.
At exactly 0615, after Da Nang Airfield tower cleared us, we climbed north into the prevailing wind, turned right and then south along the "rivière de Tourane," or Da Nang River. As we continued our climb over Hoa Khue Dong village, I had a good look at the exact terrain where we were to soon build Da Nang East Airfield, just north of Marble Mountain. It was a vast stretch of sand. We leveled at three thousand feet and moved along at 120 knots, passing over Hill 55 toward our LZ. The countryside was beautiful. An occasional fire burned here and there, but generally it was a very peaceful scene. The terrain was flat and dotted with hundreds of villages and rice paddies. To our left was the blue-green South China Sea. To our right, or west, were small hills and then large dark purple mountains toward Laos. The pilot, in the left, or command, seat, pointed out to our left and said, "That is the city of Hoi An. We have a TAFDS fueling farm and fairly large LZ there. Highway 14, which we are about to cross, comes out of the western valleys and goes past Highway 1 right into Hoi An near the Song Cua Dai outlet, where these rivers spill into the South China Sea." We crossed Highway 14 and the lead chopper turned inland. We could see our objective, Quang Dai. Off to our left, at the village of Ky Lam, the only railroad ended abruptly due to a destroyed structural steel bridge. The railroad ran north and south along Highway1, but trains no longer ran in this embattled area. The VC destroyed all bridges and mined key road areas.
As we approached the vil, a green smoke grenade went off in the center of town and we saw that the wind blew from west to east, so we would land into the western breeze. No radio transmissions were exchanged, as my leader, Captain May, threw me a kiss and abruptly turned downward into a tight, descending spiral with his large, awkward external load hanging in trail. We orbited and it was quiet except for the wop-wop of the rotor blades.
Shortly, Dash One was back up in orbit and we went into a deep nose-down attitude, picking up 150 knots of speed, and spiraled to earth. I could see the ARVN troops around the outside of the village and about twenty of them below awaiting our delivery of ammo. At about fifty feet before touchdown the pilot in command quickly but smoothly pulled back on the cyclic, or stick, and pulled up on the collective as he opened his motorcyclelike throttle to increase engine RPM as the rotor blades began to slow. We went straight on in with a hard thud, no hovering like back in the States. Our gunners and crew chief passed the ammo to the small-statured ARVN troops. In a short few minutes, the crew chief said, "All clear; take 'er off, sir."
We climbed back up slowly, at ninety knots, in a similar spiral pattern, staying over the friendly-held village. That was it. My FAM hop and first mission. There was nothing to it--no firing at us, nothing. After we rendezvoused with Dash One, the command pilot said, "Here you are. You take us home on Dash One's wing."
I took the controls for the first time on this flight. It sure felt great to fly the machine again. We landed at Da Nang and debriefed the rather routine, uneventful flight. Since we did not get any hits on either chopper, nor did the ARVN ground forces report any hostile fire at us, operations did not give us credit for a combat mission. But it was a good FAM hop and I felt ready to be the command pilot on my next scheduled mission.
I returned in time for a late breakfast. I then went to my supply office and worked until 1930, going over the matériel and supply lists. The next morning, while standing outside my office and looking across the sandbagged wall through the barbed-wirefence, I watched the nearby Da Nang civilian residents going about their normal activities. As I stood there, just getting acquainted with their way of life, I noticed that at the end of one narrow alley, a small, frail Vietnamese woman stood against a building holding a large piece of wood, like a club. Gunnery Sergeant Frey came out of our hut and said, "Sir, I see you've spotted 'Whack 'em.'"
"Whack 'em?" I asked.
"Just watch the little old lady--give her some time. Pretty soon a dog or two will wander down that alley towards her."
Sure enough. It took about ten minutes of patience and a lone black mongrel came meandering down the alley. The little lady, peering around the corner of the end building, waited. As the dog came up to the corner, little ole Whack 'em whacked the hell out of the mutt with her club. The dog never knew what hit him.
Gunnery Sergeant Frey said, "Whack 'em just caught dinner. Dog is a Vietnamese delicacy. She averages about one dog every third day."
I realized then that we were indeed in a different country and had to learn a lot about the inhabitants' ways of doing things. That afternoon I got a haircut at a Vietnamese barber in a small screened-in porch. Sam, my barber, did a good job for my Marine Corps crewcut, but cut my neck too closely in the shave. It burned for the rest of the day as my sweat ran over the injured skin.
The next morning, while eating breakfast, I got the word going around that the ARVN artillery caught a group of Viet Cong in the open to our west last night. Included with the twenty dead, armed VC was our own officers' barber, Sam. I thought, That son of a bitch shaved me yesterday with a straightedge. I never fully trusted a Vietnamese from that day on, particularly the barbers. How could one know who was VC; who was truly anticommunist?
Two days later I was able to get on the flight schedule again. I was assigned as an aircraft commander, but as a wingman in another two-plane supply mission. It was another routine mission, good weather all the way. The LZ was an old, triangular, French-built outpost, now run by the ARVN. It was just twelve miles northwest of Da Nang Airfield on a three-thousand-meter-highhill overlooking the Ca De Song River and a long valley called Elephant Valley.
We both landed on the outside of the fortress and as close to it as possible. We each had twenty ARVN troops and ammunition, and all was unloaded rapidly. As soon as we simultaneously lifted off, we began taking intense small-arms fire from our north, across the river. Our gunners on the north side, our right side of the chopper, began responding with their M-60s. The VC fire appeared to be coming from a small village, called Loc My, near a large sandbar. We quickly exited around the fortress and headed south, then climbed eastward for Da Nang.
We headed home, asking each other if anyone got hit or if the helo had any visible damage. I mentioned to my combat-experienced copilot, Lieutenant Carter, "I didn't see any ARVNs returning fire or giving us a base of fire on our climb out. Did you?"
"No, Captain. It's common for these guys way out in the defensive outposts not to fire at the VC. I think they don't want to get the VC pissed at them. Since the ARVN stay buttoned up and don't patrol from these outposts, they don't endanger the VC. The VC, on the other hand, don't bother the fortresses. We're the only guys who get shot at when we deliver supplies."
Upon our return to Da Nang, we could find only six bullet holes in the aft end of the starboard tail section.
The metal shop would put metal patches on the holes. No control surfaces or control cables were damaged. The second flight of mine in Nam was more than just flight time. It counted as a combat mission. It was logged as such in my flight logbook by the squadron's operations clerk.
The days ran by rapidly, each day warmer than the last. Things were happening quickly. I began flying to places like Tam Ky and Phu Bai, conducting inventories of my responsible equipment. I continued flying regular combat sorties as big events were forming. The 1st LAAM Battalion, a light-antiaircraft-missile battalion supplied with HAWK (homing-all-the-way kill) missiles was already located in the Da Nang area. The 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which included two battalion landing teams, BLT 1/9 and 3/9, had been afloat in the vicinity of Da Nang. Since January 1965, the 9th MEB had been aboard the Amphibious Task Force 76 flagship, the Mount McKinley, andaboard APA-45, the USS Henrico; AKA-106, the USS Union; and on LPD-2, the USS Vancouver. On March 8, 1965, they were ordered ashore. They landed at Red Beach, northwest of Da Nang. BLT 1/3 was flown in from Okinawa and joined the rest of the 9th MEB. Twenty-three additional helicopters were flown in from LPH-5, the USS Princeton, to add to the SHUFLY capabilities. We now had five thousand marines in the Da Nang area.
Most of our chopper missions, at this time, continued to be ammunition resupply and food for the ARVN outposts. The ARVN did not eat rations like us. Their food was live--so we flew chickens, ducks, pigs and even cows to their tightened-up enclaves of defense. We then began airlifting ARVN assault troops in company- and even battalion-size helo lifts. On one such ARVN operation, Quyet Thang, much resistance by the VC was encountered. It was an airlift using a total mix of twenty-six helos to lift 465 ARVN troops of the 5th Airborne Battalion. The lift was from Tam Ky in Quang Tin Province to an LZ twenty-five miles south of Da Nang.
The antiaircraft fire was intense. One UH-34D chopper was shot down. The pilot was wounded and the copilot died of wounds. The crew chief was also wounded. Five other choppers were damaged and limped back to Da Nang. Three lifts continued into the LZ, despite intense VC fire. Total Marine Corps casualties in this assault were two killed and nineteen wounded. My UH-34 chopper had twenty-two bullet holes to be patched. This alerted us to the fact that the VC were now heading for Da Nang in numbers. More marines were arriving, as I continued my flying of supply missions and organizing to assist in building an air group helicopter airfield near Marble Mountain.
President Johnson gave the go-ahead for a very limited series of air strikes against very selected targets in North Vietnam. The air campaign was called "Rolling Thunder." To offer the pilots of the air strikes into North Vietnam some search-and-rescue (SAR) helicopter support, our two squadrons at Da Nang ran SAR missions into North Vietnam. I volunteered for several of the night SAR missions so that I could get my daytime logistics work done. On one of these several trips up north, this is the way we did it.
As the pilot in command of a two-plane SAR flight, I briefed my other plane commander and our two copilots at 1600 in Da Nang. We launched northward, climbing out over the Da Nang Bay and the Hai Van Pass to Hue Phu Bai, our base south of the DMZ, 17th parallel, where HMM-161, the "Pineapple Squadron," from Hawaii was now stationed. We were briefed at Phu Bai by the HMM-161 crews that flew the daytime SAR missions across the DMZ. I knew most of the pilots, since that had been my last flying squadron in Hawaii in 1962 to 1964. One of my best friends, Capt. Bill Morse, had been killed in his UH-34 during the first night launch from an LPH off the shore of the city of Hue, during the Pineapple Squadron's movement into Vietnam from Hawaii.
We flew to a small city to the northwest, Quang Tri, near the DMZ or 17th parallel. There was a small airstrip near Quang Tri that had a few HMM-161 choppers and a couple of VMO-2 UH-1E gunships located in support of an ARVN operation going on. We refueled and then sat in the ready tent as it grew dark outside. At 2015, there was to be an air force strike against aircraft hangars at an airfield located to the west of the city of Vinh in North Vietnam. At 1915 we took off from Quang Tri and stayed on the deck at about three hundred feet of altitude, using slow cruise speed to minimize fuel consumption. At the low altitude, the radar-controlled antiaircraft guns in North Vietnam, above the Cau Viet River boundary, could not track us. We flew with running lights on dim, so only our wingman could make out the fuselage shape. I led the flight section out to the middle of the river. I then turned down the river to the east toward the South China Sea. If the North Vietnamese saw us, they would think we were patrolling the south side of the Cau Viet River or DMZ. When about eight miles east along the river, I abruptly turned north across the DMZ into North Vietnam, with my wingman stepped up above my port side. Heading 030 degrees, we increased our speed, remaining three hundred feet above the ground level (AGL). We maintained radio silence. It was a moonless night and I could not see any hills or mountains. The sparse number of villages in the area did have some fires inside and outside of their thatched-roof huts. This gave me a rough feel for the terrain. At exactly twenty minutes after takeoff,I climbed to two thousand feet indicated altitude, which according to my map and flight planning should have placed us at five hundred feet AGL over some mountains en route to the east coast. In ten minutes I turned to a heading of 360 degrees, since we should be crossing the beach, feet wet. This placed us in a position over the water in North Vietnamese territory ready for any aircraft limping homeward bound that might have to ditch up here. The flight path to get up there gave me maximum fuel time for loitering in the area.
At this time, both my wingman and I switched over to "Joy Ride" frequency, a newly established air-control coordinator. However, we maintained radio silence. I entered a holding orbit at two thousand feet with my wingman in a comfortable position, but at a distance far enough back to still allow him to see my dim fuselage running lights. We anchored there in a very dark, very quiet night, listening only to our flapping rotor blades. I could see the numerous villages lit up, forming the beachline. Unlike South Vietnam, the North had no enemy invaders, or so-called guerrillas, fighting there. After all, they were the invaders to the South. So the countryside was calm and dark without battle fires, in contrast to the night scenes in the South, where firefights and artillery glowed nightly.
Sure the limited air raids caused a little excitement in the North. But it's on the ground, face-to-face with your enemy, that you know you're really at war. Simply bombing without ground assault would not end this continual North Vietnamese attack against the South, I thought. Then, as an hour dragged by, in orbit, a loud clear voice over the earphones was heard, "This is Joy Ride, mission accomplished, you are clear to RTB. Thanks, out." RTB meant "return to base."
I clicked my UHF radio button on my cyclic twice. This indicated to Joy Ride that I heard his message and was complying. My wingman clicked his UHF radio transmitter, alerting me that he heard that we were cleared of our "SAR ANGEL" mission. Apparently the air force bombers did not receive any serious hits over Vinh. I maintained a low, 2,300 engine RPM and descended with my wingman in the chase position, leveling off at five hundred feet out over the water. Making sure that my radar altimeter was accurately measuring five hundred feet, I stayed feet-wet, orover the water, until I came across the large outlet of the Cau Viet River in the DMZ. I headed west up the river, staying in the middle of the river to minimize being shot at. I then turned southwest, went about eight miles up the river and picked up a TACAN (tactical air navigation) radial out of Phu Bai to help me locate Quang Tri Airfield in the dark night. I turned southwest toward Quang Tri. Just as I rolled level, with my wingman following, large bright green-orange balls of fire, in a steady stream, began crossing my helo nose about three hundred meters in front of me--pretty far ahead. Then a second string of a similar heavy line of tracers joined the first lethal line of fire. It was big stuff; not AK-47 or .50-caliber. It must have been 57-mm or 14.5 guns, coming from our right rear on the north side of the Cau Viet River.
Automatically, I dove for the deck and to the south side of the river. I glanced back to see if my wingman was still with me. He was. The steady stream of light continued to light up the darkness ahead.
"Lead, that's heavy fire out front. What the hell is it?" asked my wingman.
"Dash Two, it's the big antiaircraft stuff they throw up at our jet jocks. It's probably 57 Mike-Mike. We probably screwed them up. They saw our lights, dim as we have turned them down, and they thought we were jet aircraft. Good thing: they sure gave us a lotta lead time shooting way out in front. Now let's really fake 'em out. We'll slow to fifty knots and get on the deck, then we'll increase speed when very low. They won't be able to figure us out in the dark like this." I answered as my altimeter radar light warning came on to indicate I was now at fifty feet above the river.
As I leveled and was about to increase my airspeed, the large, glowing tracers quickly adjusted and moved directly in front of my Plexiglas windscreen. I abruptly turned left, away from the deadly fire.
"I'm hit ... hit hard, lead," my wingman shouted into my earphones. I kicked left rudder and looked to my port side. He wasn't shitting. The aft end of his chopper was fully ablaze.
"Okay, Dash Two, we're just about feet-dry on the south side of the river. Put your landing lights on and find an open spot toland. I'm easing back and doing the same. Landing lights coming on."
As I slowed to forty knots in a nose-high landing attitude and pulled back beside my burning wingman, I also watched the greenish tracers from the two firing guns falling well short of our rear now. We were safe from the big guns, but we had a hell of a problem with Dash Two.
Right in front of us was a large open area with tall elephant grass surrounded by thick tall trees.
"Dash Two, take it straight in ahead. I'll land to your right. Get your crew the hell out of it. Your whole rear fuselage is burning like hell."
"Roger, One. I'm landing. My crew chief says nobody is hurt in my belly, but he can't get the fire out with the extinguisher."
We both touched down simultaneously. I watched my wingman reach up and throw his rotor-brake handle on. The whole grassy field area was lit up from his burning chopper. The large white word "MARINES" stood out against the green fuselage in the brightened area as the flames and sparks ate at the fuselage from tail pylon to mid-aircraft. The two gunners and crew chief were out and running toward my aircraft's left troop compartment doorway. The copilot was now on the ground, as the pilot was climbing down the left side of the chopper. There was no time for the gunners to unhook their M-60 machine guns.
While I waited and watched for my wingman and his crew to run from their burning helicopter, I called Joy Ride and Phu Bai DASC (direct air support center) to keep them informed of our situation, in the event that we all needed help.
In what seemed like an eternity, the pilot finally jumped into our belly.
"Lift off, sir," shouted my crew chief down below me.
I twisted on the throttle, pulled up on the collective and pushed forward on the cyclic. My chopper rose and nosed forward. As we cleared the tall thick trees to our south, we were again in total blackness with the burning helo well behind us. My eyes adjusted to the total darkness of the night as I scanned my instruments. The aircraft increased speed past 120 knots. My readjusted night vision was interrupted by a flash of brightness from our rear. Dash Two's aircraft had blown up and lit up the sky. It suredidn't take long for the magnesium tail section to burn to the fuel tanks located under the center of the fuselage.
As I kept the collective full up, increasing the rotor blades' pitch, with maximum throttle, I climbed at a two-thousand-foot-per-minute rate of climb, as shown on the indicator. Passing through 1,500 feet of altitude, reddish orange glowing streaks arched through the black night from directly under my nose. I felt three distinctive hits somewhere in the aircraft.
"How you doing down there, Sarge?" I asked my crew chief.
"We got a couple of rounds, but I don't see any internal damage down here. Nobody is hit, sir."
As we passed through 2,500 feet, the green, glowing tracers arched and fell behind and below us. We were out of small-arms-fire range.
I switched from the Phu Bai TACAN channel to the Quang Tri TACAN frequency, and my TACAN needle swung immediately to Quang Tri. I turned twenty degrees right, putting the TACAN needle on the nose of my aircraft.
"Okay, guys, we're heading for Quang Tri to refuel and look over the bird for battle damage. Anybody hurt down below?"
"No sir. Everybody is fine down here," replied my crew chief.
"I don't know if those were VC shots at us on this side of the river, or ARVN shots. Possibly the ARVN thought we were North Vietnamese in Russian Hound helicopters crossing south of the DMZ. I guess we'll never know who fired those small arms," I spoke to all listening on my intercom in my aircraft.
"Captain, it doesn't matter who the hell fired them if you get one in the head," replied my salty copilot.
"You bet. I have Quang Tri in sight now. Let's get Dash Two's people checked over carefully by the Quang Tri flight surgeon, as we refuel the bird before heading to Da Nang," I responded for all to hear.
We landed and refueled, and the flight surgeon at Quang Tri determined that all five crew members of my downed wingman's aircraft were in good condition to return to Da Nang base.
The two-hour flight back to Da Nang went swiftly and soon we crossed the Hai Van mountain pass and peninsula. We saw the lights of Da Nang city, northeast of the field, and I switched to Da Nang DASC which was located on the top of MonkeyMountain. DASC responded to our check-in with, "Good job, choppers. We thought both of you were shot down just south of the DMZ. Good to see you make it back. The air force Thuds out of Ubon, Thailand, did their thing up there and fortunately didn't need you tonight. Sorry you lost a bird. But we're sure glad you're bringing the crew back with you."
"Good night, DASC," I responded and switched to Da Nang tower, as I started our descent over the blackened Vung Da Nang, or Bay of Da Nang.
"Da Nang tower, this is Smokey One at five hundred feet due north, feet wet, for landing marine side. Over."
"Smokey One, understand single helo, cleared to land. Stay west of runway one-eight right, we have a Viet commercial inbound two miles behind you, over."
"Roger that, Smokey One out."
As we crossed Red Beach, I could make out the dimly lit rows of the notorious whorehouses along the dirt road, near the beach. The women working in these houses, we heard, were French women, blondes, redheads, and brunettes and some black French women; not Vietnamese women. I could now easily see all the people, including marines on liberty, walking the streets of downtown Da Nang, despite the late hour. We landed, switched to a ground-control frequency and taxied into the SHUFLY parking apron, where our other "Dogs" (our affectionate name for our UH-34 troop-carrying choppers) were parked. It had been a very long day--or rather, night. It had been eleven hours since we had taken off on this SAR mission. The tenseness of knowing we were flying into North Vietnam at low altitude gave way to the initial relief that none of the air force jets were hit in their raid. Now, complete relief, coupled with exhaustion, set in as I reached up to pull the rotor-brake handle, after disengaging the engine from the rotor-blade system by rapidly snapping the engine throttle to idle, thus disengaging the clutch. It was 0215. Da Nang city was still going full blast; Da Nang Airfield was dead silent. In just a few short hours, we all would be up again with the sun, doing normal jobs.
The next few days had us watching the 9th MEB move more marines ashore from ships that were anchored in the Da Nang Harbor. BLT 2/3 came across Red Beach, as we watchedVMFA-531, an all-weather jet fighter/attack squadron of F-4 Phantoms, arrive at Da Nang field. They flew in from Atsugi, Japan, and were the first fixed-wing marine squadron to arrive in 1965. With the arrival of the commanding general of the 9th MEB from off the flagship Mount McKinley, the headquarters of Regimental Landing Team 3--RLT 3--landed. The commander of RLT 3, with his BLTs 2/3 and 3/4, set up a defense perimeter around our Da Nang Airfield and around the airstrip way up north at Phu Bai. We now had a full marine air group, making us MAG-16--we were not simply a detachment of MAG-16 anymore. And soon, more jet fixed-wing aircraft would be coming to our crowded airbase at Da Nang.
The CGFMFPAC (commanding general, Fleet Marine Forces, Pacific), Gen. Victor Krulak, located in Hawaii, had recommended a Marine Corps expeditionary airfield be built about sixty miles south of Da Nang, on the coast. The communists had a buildup there. Their Viet Cong base at Do Xa was located in the Annamite Mountains about sixty miles inland. They had a supply route from those mountains, through the jungle eastward across some flat, sandy land, and across Route 1 to the beach in the vicinity of villages Am Son, Hai Ninh, and Long Binh, inland from Dung Quat Bay. The CGFMFPAC personally came out from Hawaii and selected the site for the airfield. Since there was no name for the specific sand dune area, he named it after his own name in Chinese mandarin characters: "Chu Lai."
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara approved the building of Chu Lai Airfield, and the marines decided to send in three jet squadrons and three reinforced battalions.
ARVN 2nd Division units combined with Da Nang-based marines of K Company, 3/9, secured the area at Chu Lai, and on May 7, 1965, the elements of BLT 1/4 and BLT 2/4 landed across the beach. HMM-161, the Pineapple Squadron from Phu Bai, flew in many of the troops from the LPH USS Princeton, and other ships. HMM-161 had been flying all day and needed some help. Our SHUFLY operations section received the request for some additional choppers. So I flew a UH-34D Dog chopper in a four-plane division to Chu Lai to assist. It was a sixty-mile flight down to Chu Lai, passing Hoi An and Tam Ky cities enroute. All day we flew uneventful short hops from Chu Lai to the ships, bringing in troops, ammunition, rations, and water.
We returned that night to Da Nang exhausted, sandy, and knowing where Chu Lai now was. It had been a full eight hours and fifteen minutes of actual helo flying time and hard work--a long, sweaty day. During the twenty or so sortie flights that day, none of us came under VC fire and therefore none of the flying that was recorded in our logbooks was logged as combat-missions. It was logged as just routine support flying. The 9th MEB was deactivated and the III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF) was formed to absorb the full marine division and full marine air wing. The III MAF, with headquarters at Da Nang and under the command of marine general Lewis W. Walt, had to operate under a unique, touchy set of circumstances. Since the marines were only guests of the Vietnamese by request to be there, they could not command or direct ground or air operations against the VC. Coordinated advice is about what it amounted to. The initial ground activities primarily consisted of a perimeter of defense around Da Nang while we flew ARVN resupply missions out to the boondocks.
Then as our 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, expanded to the high ground to the northwest near Le My hamlet, the ground units began running into VC resistance. As the marines expanded, I flew many missions carrying external loads of concertina (i.e., barbed wire). On these flights, I could see the defensive wire going up over the nearby countryside to protect against VC night attacks, which had begun to increase. Despite intense heat and humidity, the Seabee construction crews of NMCB-10 and the marines of MABS-12 constructed the SATS (short airfield for tactical support) at Chu Lai. We pilots from MAG-16 at Da Nang continued to fly sorties in support of ground units at Chu Lai during this period. These eight-hour flying days in the heat and blowing sand put a maintenance strain on our ground crews and our beloved Dogs.
On June 1, 1965, the first flight of tactical fixed-wing aircraft arrived overhead at Chu Lai. A division of four A-4 Skyhawks from VMA-225 arrived from Cubi Point, Philippines. Several hours later, VMA-311, also with Douglas A-4s, arrived at Chu Lai. The ARVNs requested close-air-support strikes that veryday. VMA-225, operating from the new aluminum runway and taxiway, and using catapults and arresting gear at Chu Lai Airfield, flew their first combat missions.
It was now mid-June 1965 and unbearably hot. My wife was writing letters telling me how the two children were doing and that our new '65 Mustang was running beautifully. I wrote her letters requesting cigars, since we had no post exchange yet, nor did the air force across the Da Nang Airfield from us. She wanted me to quit smoking, so I didn't get cigars in the mail. Instead, she sent me salami, which sweated wet in the over one-hundred-degree heat, but was a real treat at night with a warm can of beer. The warm beer was sure to get us "fighting mad."
We now had Marine Aircraft Group 12 (MAG-12) with five fixed-wing jet squadrons, and MAG-16 with five helicopter squadrons, in the Republic of Vietnam. As the summer heat intensified, so did the ground battles. The marines began to squeeze the Viet Cong and they were fighting back. Our 4th Marines had killed 147 VC, but sustained four marine KIAs and twenty-three wounded. The VC increased their nightly probes against the ARVN forces and our USMC outposts.
Since our airfield was considered secure and nothing unsafe had ever happened in the city of Da Nang from the time when the Americans arrived, liberty was still available for the marines in the city, if you had the strength after a long flight mission to go into town for the only cold beer around.
I was assigned to a two-plane VIP mission to fly General Thi, Vietnamese I Corps tactical zone commander, from his Da Nang headquarters, inside the city, to a meeting well south of Da Nang, near Hoi An. I was flying in the left seat of the UH-34 helo and Maj. Jerry Kitter was the pilot in the right copilot's seat. After picking up the general, we flew at a safe altitude to near Hoi An city and landed in a village which appeared to be heavily patrolled by ARVN troops. We dropped the general off and both choppers climbed northward, homeward bound.
Major Kitter relaxed as we climbed through one thousand feet of altitude for three thousand feet. Over the FM radio transmitter, I told our wingman, Dash Two, to take the flight lead home. I slid our chopper back and stepped up on Dash Two, as Dash Two accelerated and the pilot in its left seat lightly tappedhis helmet to say that he had command of the two-plane formation. Just as we settled into the wingman's stepped-up formation slot, while still in a turning climb, I felt a breeze, or slight vibration, just below my nose. In fact, the breeze tickled my nostril hairs. Immediately, Major Kitter slumped forward onto the cyclic stick, causing the chopper to nose-dive. I pulled hard on the stick and kicked left rudder pedal to prevent our rotor blades from hitting the other helo's blades. I was still in a dive as I released the inertial reel of my shoulder straps and reached over to pull Jerry away from the stick. As I did so, I saw the blood rushing from his face--and there was a hell of a lot of blood. Just then Jerry shook his head, his eyes widened, and he put his left gloved hand up to touch his face. For a brief second, I thought he had been killed, until he moved. I thought he took one in the head. But apparently the round that zinged past my nose from the open cockpit window hit Jerry and had only stunned him. However, with all the blood gushing from the left side of his face, I couldn't tell how badly he was hurt.
"Major, you okay? Shall I put her down here?" He didn't answer me. He probably didn't know if he was okay or not. I leveled the helo as Major Kitter moved a little more, wiping some of the bright red blood from his face.
My headset earphones then crackled, "Dash One, where are you?" asked Dash Two, who had just taken the lead.
"I'm down behind you at seven o'clock. Jerry has been hit in the face. I'm trying to determine the seriousness of it, over."
"Roger that. I'm rejoining you as Dash Two and I'll follow along to see what happens."
At that moment, my crew chief, Corporal Feathers, poked his head up behind and below our copilot's seat. He crawled up a little more from the troop compartment.
"What should we do, Captain? Should we land and try to help him ourselves?" Corporal Feathers asked.
I responded, talking over the FM radio transmitter so that both my wingman and my internal crew could all hear at the same time, "We're coming up soon on Hill 55. We just crossed Highway 14. We could land at our arty site on 55 and hope that there's a medic near the LZ. Now, Corporal Feathers, try to get up here a little more. I'll unbuckle the major, you get his legs, andI'll help with his upper body. As we lift, your two gunners can lift up on the seat and help pull the major down to the belly. He's starting to pass out from loss of blood. As soon as you get him into the belly, stuff your flight gloves into his facial wound and stop that fuckin' bleeding."
I was about three minutes out from Hill 55, and I hesitated. If Jerry bleeds to death because no medic is right close to the LZ at 55, or if I pass Hill 55 for Da Nang and he doesn't make it, I'll never forgive myself, either way.
"I'm heading straight for Charlie Med at Da Nang, Dash Two, we can't land anywhere around this badman's country other than Hill 55 and I'm not sure at this point if they have a medic near the LZ."
"Roger, One. I've looked your aircraft over for damage. Don't see any. That must have been a stray round that hit the major."
We quickly passed over Hill 55 and I motioned to Dash Two to switch UHF frequencies.
"Da Nang DASC, this is Carrier Pigeon One, inbound with two to Charlie Med with one WIA pilot in Dash One. Facial wound, heavy bleeding, three minutes out. Please tell Charlie Med. Over."
"Carrier Pigeon One, DASC reads you. We're calling Charlie Med now to have the meat wagon at their LZ for you. You are cleared down to three hundred feet west of Da Nang Airfield, inside of Freedom Hill. Call departing Charlie Med for pancake. Good luck with your crew member, over."
"Roger, DASC. Pigeon out."
I flew straight into Charlie Med, as my wingman orbited at three hundred feet. Charlie Med had an H-shaped grouping of old metal Quonset huts that had been shipped down from Okinawa with the medical battalion of the 3rd Marine Division. It was getting to be a busier and busier hospital every day. As the corpsmen approached my chopper on the ground from the right, I couldn't see them lifting Major Kitter into the litter. However, I vibrated on the ground long enough for me to see him hauled away from the chopper and out of the large white circled area which had a large red cross painted on it for the hospital LZ identification. When he was carried through the screened door of the emergency room Quonset hut, I lifted the chopper, trying tominimize blowing sand and dust over the tents of the corpsmen's and doctors' living cantonment.
I returned to the MAG-16 parking apron in about five minutes, still wondering how badly wounded Major Kitter had been. I planned to go visit him that night.
However, about five hours later, when leaving my logistics tent, guess who was heading my way? It was Major Kitter. I gave him a quick salute and a strong handshake.
"What the hell! I thought you bought the farm," I blurted happily.
"Are you kidding? And miss all of the fun in this tropical paradise?"
I looked over his face. He only had a patch on his left cheek, about a one inch square. Both eyes were puffed and black and blue.
"Bob, I sure as hell was lucky. The bullet just grazed me and cut out a curved chunk of cheek skin. But it felt like Joe Louis punched me out. They simply stitched me up and patched it. So I'm all ready for flight status again."
"If we can say getting hit in the face with a baseball bat is lucky, I suppose so."
Early that evening, I got word that more of my supplies had arrived by ship at Da Nang Harbor. So my troops and I set off with our six-by (six by six--six wheel and six-wheel drive) trucks and hauled boxes from the beach to the base that night.
More tents were in this shipment, and I really needed them badly. Several additional generators for our MABS engineer, Maj. Jack Bates, and water buffalo were included, along with boxes of that all-important toilet paper, helmets, canteens, pots and pans, and mobile, heated shower units.
On June 15, 1965, General Westmoreland, commander of the United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (COMUSMACV), in Saigon, gave our commanding general of III MAF, Maj. Gen. Lew Walt, permission to begin search-and-destroy operations near our defensive enclaves. He allowed this, provided that these ground operations assisted in the defense of the base. The 3rd Marine Division began aggressive patrolling, expanding the tactical area of responsibility (TAOR). They immediately found a VC camp just to the west of Da Nang. Thecamp was large enough to support about two hundred VC before the marines destroyed it. The VC--probably all local villagers nearby--could not be found. On June 21, squads of 2/3 were attacked by VC, and they killed four VC and captured two VC women. One marine was killed. The next day, just south of Da Nang Airfield, the VC attacked a small outpost of C Company, 1/3. The marines killed two VC without suffering any casualties. Each day activities of both VC and our marines escalated around Da Nang. The increased firefights and activities resulted in more medevacs flown by myself. Finally, the CG III MAF requested permission to bring in his remaining 3rd Marine Division battalions that still remained on Okinawa. The VC, at this time, were still concentrating attacks against the ARVN, not against us. The VC late-spring offensive against the 1st Battalion, 51st ARVN Regiment, near Ba Gai, twenty miles south from Chu Lai, resulted in 392 South Vietnamese deaths.
During this period, it was commonly observed that the Viet Cong were being reinforced by uniformed North Vietnamese regulars coming down through numerous branchings of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.
However, our patrols were really not going far enough south and east of the airfield. Our actual defensive position remained inside the airfield perimeter. CG III MAF had requested permission from General Thi, the I Corps Vietnamese commander, to establish some defensive positions to the south and east outside of the airfield perimeters. However, General Thi had responded by saying that he wanted the population of Da Nang to get used to seeing the marine presence in the area first, before moving the marines into the rural areas.
The heat made it difficult for the helicopters to lift heavy loads, due to what is called high-altitude density--thin air. I was scheduled to fly an assault lift coordinated by a ground sweep into the immediate valley to our southwest. The villages in this valley were fairly large, and there were about forty villages up the valley to the Song Thuy River outlet from the large western mountains towards Laos. The valley was called Happy Valley. I had flown over the villages here at a very low altitude at least twenty times. Each time the flight crew would discuss the simple fact that in all of these villages, Viet Cong flags, of red and blue with a gold star,fluttered over numerous thatched-roof houses. It was obvious that the VC had controlled this valley and all the villagers in it for some time before we ever arrived. Yet it was only six to ten miles away from Da Nang and very close to the ARVN I Corps command. Had the ARVN just ignored this controlled territory so close in to one of its major cities? Was it contested some years ago? Or was it an arrangement between VC leaders, General Thi of I Corps, and even the mayor of Da Nang? As a matter of fact, when we went on liberty nights to Da Nang, rumors were abundant that the VC from these villages in Happy Valley, villages such as Cam Ne, Phuc Thuan, Hoa Khuong, Phuc Hung and Vien Kien, were in on liberty right along with us in the same bars! Who knows? They possibly could have been there with us, especially Saturday nights, when Da Nang city was packed with ARVNs, civilians, U.S. Marines and U.S. Air Force personnel.
At dawn we loaded up the troops, and in three divisions of four choppers each, launched from the Da Nang Airfield in a straight shot to high ground just to the west of the village of Dong Lai, on the western end of Happy Valley. Simultaneously, ground-moving elements moved up the valley from the east near Xom Dao. This pincer movement trapped many hard-core Viet Cong throughout the numerous villages, and raging battles began almost instantly. As I shuttled more troops in over the valley, firefights were everywhere. On my fifth trip, I began bringing out wounded, and then more wounded. It was apparent that the Vietnamese I Corps commander did not tell us the extent of the large unit of VC in this valley. General Thi had to have known this. As the fighting raged on, our F-4 attack bombers were taking off beside us as we were loading troops at Da Nang, making a quick turn westward and dropping bombs almost immediately. Their ground crews and ours could easily see all the smoke of the battle, and the bombs falling from the Phantoms, so close to the airfield. At midafternoon, I was refueling at the fuel pits at the northeast corner of the airfield when a runner came up to the side of the aircraft.
"Captain, Colonel Vaile wants you at your supply office. The squadron here has a replacement pilot for you."
I saw the other pilot coming out of the helo. I had to go by the flight-line tent to fill in my flight time flown on that specificaircraft maintenance form, and then trudged up to meet with Lieutenant Colonel Vaile. When I arrived at my office area, my four personnel were scurrying about moving tents from my storage area to a truck.
"Captain, I pulled you off the flight because I need you to set up a small medical camp right here," said the calm Tom Vaile.
I responded, "What's going on, Colonel?"
"Hell, you ought to know. You've been flying up Happy Valley all morning. The battalions are getting so many casualties that Charlie Med can't house them all. So the III MAF told us to break out our extra tents."
So the rest of the afternoon we set up twelve general-purpose tents and I stood back and watched our choppers, including the same one that I flew that morning, serial number 148109, landing nearby with our wounded.
The message was brought home quickly: Charlie the Gooner will fight us and fight us nose to nose, when he has to.


The next morning I was scheduled to fly mortar rounds and small arms ammunition to a village called Phu Ha. It was a self-defense village with only the villagers and a handful of ARVNs defending themselves. The village had a large, deep moat around it. Inside the moat were hundreds of sharpened bamboo shoots called punji sticks. I landed inside the village with my wingman. The villagers clustered around unloading the ammo. There was some activity going on along the nearby river. I asked some villagers what was happening, but they couldn't understand English. An ARVN lieutenant came by and told me in rough English that the VC had somehow worked through the defense perimeter, captured the village chief and schoolteacher, and chopped their heads off beside the river. I walked farther over toward the river and sure enough there were two headless bodies lying in the weeds. The families wept beside them. This had been a common communist activity here for years. They killed the village elders, leaders or mayor, schoolteachers and Christian missionaries. Having eliminated the village's leadership, the Viet Cong then could better intimidate the villagers to gain their support. Ho Chi Minh's tactics followed age-old communist doctrines--just as the tactics of Che Guevara and FidelCastro had in Cuba not too many years before. Fish swim in the water; guerrillas live off the land with the rural inhabitants' forced support. The supply lines from North Vietnam were long. The VC needed the countryside's food and support. And I was convinced that at this point in history, the VC owned, by force, most of the countryside.
I flew back to Da Nang feeling that I had just witnessed a few more humans killed by the philosophy of communism exported by the Soviet Union. After all, Ho Chi Minh (Nguyen Ai Quoc) and Mao Tse-tung of China both attended revolutionary school training in Moscow in 1923. All of that seemed like distant history, but right now it was present-day, ruthless butchery and reality. These communists keep up with their motto: "The end justifies the means."
That night I sat in our officers' club drinking a warm mixed drink. (We still had not found out where to get ice.) I sat next to a Vietnamese major who had been invited into the bar after a nearby meeting. He and I talked a little and I asked him what the ARVN officers thought should be done now that the Americans were here?
He answered, "Most of us feel that you should supply us with the latest weapons, and train us to defend our homes and families. Then, as we better defend ourselves, use your airpower and amphibious capabilities to invade the North. With most of the North Vietnamese forces dispersed along the main supply channels to the South, you could capture Hanoi and Haiphong. Without the support of the North, the Viet Cong would wither on the vine, and we could reunite the country as a free country."
The next day, Capt. Walt Gilk, from HMM-161, flew in from Phu Bai and asked me for some dearly needed tents for their Phu Bai living cantonment. I had not received anywhere near my remaining required tents to build Marble Mountain Airfield. However, I couldn't let my old squadron down, so I gave him twenty general-purpose tents, while sweating out the shortages that I might confront in the near future.
That evening, I again sat down exhausted at the end of the officers' club bar. Shortly afterwards, two familiar lieutenants from 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO) walked in. They immediately recognized me as the former commanderof the 2nd Platoon, 1st ANGLICO, where I spent fourteen months in Hawaii, after my flying tour at HMM-161 in that state. They quickly told me that they had been sent down directly from Camp Smith in Hawaii to live in the villages south of Da Nang and offer U.S. naval gunfire control to the ARVNs and village self-defense forces. They had a real horror story to tell. Almost nightly, they said, the VC attacked their villages and killed women and children to impart fear upon the villagers. Captain Hayes, from their platoon, had been living in the house of the village elder, or chief, at Phu Ha. The other night the VC attacked the village, and while the siege took place, they got into the village elder's hut, shot the hell out of the captain and dragged off the village chief.
The last they heard was that the captain was so badly shot up he may lose the use of one arm. They didn't know what had happened to the village chief. Since this had been the same village I had been to just the morning before, I filled them in on the headless village chief and schoolteacher. We parted that evening. I never saw them again and later often wondered if they survived out there in those villages.
On the evening of June 30, 1965, six of us officers decided to go into the city of Da Nang for the purpose of having a sayonara party for two who had put their thirteen months "in country" and were leaving for the "real world" the next day. After we had our two jeep drivers drop us off in the middle of town, we proceeded first to dine in high fashion in a large Vietnamese boat restaurant on the Tourane River. Naturally, we drank French wines and ate long thin French bread, along with excellent French food. After that, we barhopped and expressed our envy of the two who were leaving MABS-16 for home. At around midnight, Steve Reno, Dutch Harris, Frank Brown and myself had a four-pedicab race home the three miles to Da Nang Airfield. The little, skinny Vietnamese pedaled the bicycle-borne rickshaws at a surprising speed as we laughed and drank beer, half in the bag. The fact that we were drunk dulled for us the rampant rumors in the Da Nang area that all of the pedicab pedalers were VC. I'm not sure if I pulled down my mosquito net when I hit that cot in our Da Nang French quarters--it was truly a crash landing.
It seemed like I had just passed out when I was awakened by a sickening boomp, boomp, boomp. I jumped up and looked eastward out of my open window area. There were mortars falling on the air force and Vietnamese side of the runway. I glanced at my wristwatch. It was 0130, exactly. I grabbed my pilot's .38-caliber pistol and bandolier of ammo, and ran out of the hut wearing only skivvy shorts. Many of us gathered, standing in awe as the unexpected took place--incoming tracer fire could be seen coming from the southeastern perimeter. This was the area on our south that the South Vietnamese were responsible for. Within minutes there was a small amount of small-arms gunfire on the airport parking apron. Seconds later explosions erupted. It was obvious that right across two taxiways and a runway from where we stood, our U.S. Air Force planes were exploding. Soon several more tracers were seen coming from the southeast, and all went quiet as six aircraft burned, lighting up the entire east side of the flight line. As I walked over toward the wing G-3 operations hut, I heard our artillery firing and then soon began seeing impacts out in the rice paddies southeast of the airfield. I again glanced at my watch--it was now 0200 on July 1, 1965. Maj. Sam Foss, who had flown with me in HMM-161 for two years in Hawaii, rushed by me. Major Foss had been assigned to G-3 and must have had some information.
"What happened, Major?" I asked
"The VC mortared the air force side, near the F-100s, and got through the wire and threw satchel charges at the aircraft. It looks like the F-102s and the C-130s got the satchel charges. That's all I know at the present."
Soon, all was quiet on the eastern front and I remembered to pull down my mosquito net. By evening of the next day, July 1, more information became available. A sweep by our marines did not find the so-called sappers. However, the ARVNs captured a North Vietnamese intelligence officer. He had been wounded during the sapper attack. He belonged to the 3rd Battalion, 18th Regiment of the North Vietnamese army. He filled them in on the details of the attack.
The attack force consisted of an eighty-five-man Viet Cong special operations company, reinforced by thirteen North Vietnamese sappers and a mortar company. The thirteen NVA sappersdug a tunnel under the South Vietnamese defensive wire, got inside, and ten of them reached the aircraft. They destroyed one F-102 and two C-130s and damaged two F-102s and one C-130. No South Vietnamese were reported injured, but two U.S. Marines were wounded responding to the action across the airfield.
Finally, on July 20, 1965, General Thi gave permission to General Walt to expand our defense boundary. Ocassionally, I received a newspaper from home. On the front page of the Washington Post was a U.S. Marine with a lighted cigarette lighter. The picture showed him holding the flame up to the edge of a grass shack, or "hootch," of a village. It mentioned that the marines had swept Cam Ne and the valley and had burned the village down. It sure made the U.S. Marines look bad. However, nowhere in the news article did it tell the whole story of the sweep up Happy Valley, the hundreds of VC who lived there, and the resistance and battles that gave our marines those heavy casualties that had me putting up tents for our wounded, or any perspective of the facts. I soon concluded our own "free press" was our enemy also.
Prior to this sighting of the news article, I would often succumb to the pleas of the AP and UPI news photographers to fly on combat missions. I often let them climb aboard my UH-34D, if there was room, and took one along. I never did that again. I simply hated them. I even kicked one physically from the belly of my helo one morning, after my crew chief twice told him to get off of my aircraft and the newsman insisted on going. More and more such false-impression stories were running off of our presses back Stateside, but even worse from UPI in Paris. The slanted news media gave a fine impression of the VC, never mentioned that the North Vietnamese were there in the South, and made the ARVNs and Americans look like the bad guys. Occasionally you would read that the North Vietnamese government denied that there were any North Vietnamese regular army units operating in South Vietnam. Some of the news correspondents saw NVA when I did. Why didn't they take pictures of that proof and get it published? Why wasn't there a newspaper picture showing that NVA intelligence officer that had been captured after that raid on our Da Nang Airfield on July 1? Themany news reporters at Da Nang reported worldwide the damage we had received.


With the establishment of the III MAF command and the attack by the VC sappers on the air force inside of Da Nang Airfield, liberty in Da Nang was curtailed. Only people like myself, who conducted supply purchases, were allowed into Da Nang. Of course, there were many Americans right in the city, such as the Seabees, who had a compound there, an army logistics group, and the navy offloading their ships in the city.
On July 23, I was assigned to fly a two-plane mission to transport rations, water, and ammunition to a marine company that was conducting search-and-destroy operations well south of Da Nang, near Dong Ha. It was routine until I orbited at three thousand feet over the company.
"Red Goose, this is Bald Eagle approaching with two, over."
"Bald Eagle, this is Red Goose Actual." Actual meant that the speaker was not the radio operator, but the actual company commander. "We're pinned down here with most of my troopers caught in open rice paddies. It's a bad scene for choppers to land here. But I need the ammunition. I'm firing a green flare. Let me know if you sight me."
"Red Goose, I see your flare. Is that you up on that paddy dike north of the large rice paddies?"
"Eagle, that's affirmative. My men are laying out a red LZ panel for you to see where to land. Over."
"I've got the LZ panel on the top of the dike. I also see your men lying out in that paddy to the south. I see gun muzzle flashes from the treeline along the south end of the paddy. There's a village on the other side of the treeline. Looks empty, except for the VC firing from the treeline."
"Roger, Eagle. I've called my battalion for reinforcements and artillery support, but it'll be a while. Do you think you can land on this dike?"
"Red Goose, I don't know if I can fit my bird on that narrow dike. But right now, you need more ammo, Lieutenant. You've got to get those guys the hell out of that rice paddy. I'm calling Da Nang DASC to see if there's any attack aircraft in the area."
"Roger that, Eagle."
"Da Nang DASC, this is Bald Eagle on flight zero-five, over."
"Bald Eagle, go ahead, loud and clear. This is DASC."
"DASC, if you have some loaded fixed-wing within thirty miles of Da Nang, I have friendlies in contact and pinned down. I'm an experienced FAC and can run some close air support on the VC to even out the situation here."
"Bald Eagle, that is affirmative, we have a section of two F-8s with four five-hundred-pound bombs each, plus 20-Mike-Mike guns. Where are you from Da Nang TACAN?"
"I'm on the one-niner-zero at one-six miles from Da Nang."
"Roger. You will have a flight, 'Rooster,' checking in with you shortly. Go to TAC three."
On my radio, I called the lieutenant on the ground. "Red Goose, I've got some marine F-8s coming in shortly. Hang in there."
"Eagle, understood some stovepipes coming in. I'll notify my battalion so that they coordinate with the artillery we requested."
I switched my UHF radio to 275.5 megahertz, which was Tactical Air Control net three. I looked down, directly over the VC-held village. I couldn't see anyone in the hamlet. However, I could see crackles of muzzle flashes, looking like the Fourth of July fireworks going off along the darkened depths of a heavily vegetated treeline.
Just then I heard over my UHF receiver, "Bald Eagle, Rooster flight up."
"Roger Rooster, what is angels and ordnance lineup?"
"Rooster has flight of two F-8s with four Delta one Alpha and guns. We're at twenty thousand on the Da Nang one-four-zero for the one-niner-zero, sixteen. Ready to copy mission, over."
"Rooster, this is Eagle. I have a treeline with VC laying down a heavy base of fire at friendlies pinned down in open rice paddy. Enemy-held treeline is at coordinates Alpha Tango niner-eight and six-five-three. Treeline runs west to east for about thirty meters. I'll mark with hand-held red smoke grenade. Request two bombs each on first pass and we'll adjust from there. I want a zero-niner run-in with a right-hand pullout. Call rolling in hot. Give me a four-second interval between aircraft. Read back, over."
Rooster read back the specifics correctly and reported passing down through clouds at five thousand feet descending for an orbit at four thousand feet.
"Rooster, I'm with wingman in left-handed orbit at three thousand to the north of target. As soon as I sight you, I'll roll in from the east along the treeline and drop my smoke. My wingman will roll in from the west and we'll return to our orbit to the north."
"Eagle, Rooster at four. I don't see you yet."
"Rooster, I've got your smoke trail. Now I have you both. I'm at your four o'clock low. Keep your orbit to the right. We're going in with smoke mark now."
"Eagle Two, you swing around to the west and only come in after I make a smoke drop coming from the east. That'll have us coming in from two different directions with less exposure from the gooners."
"Roger that, Eagle One."
As I flew in from the east to the west, I stayed to the north of the treeline, just out in front of our pinned-down troops. My port-side M-60 machine gun was blasting away at the treeline as the other gunner threw out a red smoke grenade while we passed over the hedgerow at about a hundred feet. As I pulled right, my wingman came in from the west in the opposite direction, dropped his red smoke grenade, while firing, and we joined up over the friendly LZ to the north at three thousand feet.
"Do you have our red smoke, Rooster?"
"That's affirmative. We have a good sighting of the treeline, but can't make out the friendlies in the paddies."
"Okay, Rooster, on your next orbit you are cleared to commence attack on the treeline. Drop on the treeline between the two red smokes: drop first pair closest to the western smoke. We'll then walk up the treeline eastward."
"Roger Eagle, Rooster One rolling in hot, I have the treeline."
"Continue Rooster One."
"Okay Rooster One, I have you wings level, lined up. You are cleared hot."
"I have two away, Rooster One. Rooster Two, cleared for roll-in. Make your drop thirty meters at twelve o'clock from Dash One's hits."
"Eagle, Rooster One off target."
"Rooster Two, I have you lined up. You are cleared hot."
"Roger Eagle, Rooster Two, cleared hot."
"Rooster Two, I have two drops."
"Eagle, Rooster Two off."
"Rooster One. Move your drops up about another fifty meters twelve o'clock from Dash Two's hits. You're cleared hot."
"Roger Eagle, Rooster One, cleared hot."
Rooster One dropped perfectly on the hedgerow, followed by his wingman. All bombs were gone.
"Okay, Rooster One, you are cleared for two runs each with your 20-Mike guns, over."
"Roger Eagle, I'm in hot."
"Eagle Dash Two, this is Eagle. Remain at three thousand feet, I'm going into the LZ. As soon as I lift off, commence your approach on the same LZ panel on the dike."
"Roger Eagle."
I descended in a dive and flared nose-high near the bottom. As I approached I realized that I could not fit the whole UH-34 chopper on the dike. I chose to place the right tire on the LZ panel, leaving the right side with its doorway on the dike and the rest of the chopper hovering out over the paddy. It was a hover with one wheel down, as my crew chief kicked out the ammo. As they were unloading, I looked across the flat rice paddy as the marine F-8 Crusaders were still strafing the treeline with their guns blazing. The marines who were pinned down were now charging, with fixed bayonets, across the last quarter of the distance from paddy to hedgerow.
"Eagle, this is Rooster One flight off target, winchester. Can you give me a BDA?"
"Rooster. Thanks a lot. You sure helped the lieutenant down here. Our grunts are now taking that treeline. I can't see anything from here on the ground, but I'm sure you killed a few. The only BDA I can give you is fifty meters of treeline destroyed with undetermined enemy in it."
"Roger, Eagle. Will you give that BDA to Da Nang DASC on your way home?"
"I sure will, Rooster. See you at the bar later. Out."
I lifted off and my wingman repeated the one-wheel landing onthe LZ cloth panel. The company commander thanked us a few times over the Fox Mike radio and we climbed for home. After landing and while postflighting the aircraft, we counted only three small-caliber hits in the lower aft part of the fuselage. The metal shop would quickly put a metal patch on the holes and the bird would be ready for a night mission.
The next day, I took a jeep and drove from Da Nang Airfield through the southern edges of Da Nang city, across the Da Nang River bridge at Binh Thuan to the sandy beach area across a dog-patch hamlet of Hoa Khue Dong. The Seabees were already out on the sand under the burning sun, with their surveying equipment. This is where the Da Nang East Airfield would be built.
Marble Mountain, to our immediate south, rose much taller than what it appeared to be from Da Nang and from the air. Working with the Seabees as they laid in a pierced-steel runway, I began to work on the layout of the base. I drove back and forth the eight miles through the outskirts of Da Nang daily, passing villages that were rumored to be under Viet Cong control. The U.S. 9th Marines were now moving about in this area from Monkey Mountain south to Marble Mountain. Our grunts of the 9th Marines had pushed southwest of the perimeter of Da Nang Airfield, running into heavy VC resistance at Duong Son and Cam Ne. The 3rd Marines conducted Operation Blastout south of Cam Ne. The marines, for the first time, came across fortified VC villages in several hamlets. They learned the dangers of the VC punji sticks, Malayan whips, fighting spider holes and mazes of interconnecting tunnels between the hootches, as well as between villages. A CBS television crew was along at Cam Ne, and despite the viciousness of the Viet Cong defensive booby traps, CBS reported in its Stateside news that there was practically no resistance. Yet notwithstanding this statement, four U.S. Marines had somehow been wounded.
In the meantime, restraint directives continued to pass down to CG III MAF from Washington, and Saigon, and from the local ARVN command. As a result of restraint pressure, rules of engagement were published and posted in our pilots' ready tents. "Do not fire unless fired upon," and so forth. I initially thought that was a logical approach to the unknown, until one day oneof my gunners was killed while we were in an approach to what was known as a hot zone. After we received a hail of Russian AK-47 incoming, my remaining gunner fired back as I touched down in a cloud of dust. I believe that might have been the turning point of my perspective of this unknown war lost in the jungles of Southeast Asia. From then on, I realized that the only good communist is a dead communist. I swore that if I ever had to return to this battleground again, it would be with my own fingers on a gun trigger, not sitting elevated in an assault transport helicopter getting shot at.
Several days later, while on a routine resupply mission in the vicinity of Cam Ne village, we heard an urgent call for a medevac. Since we were right in the area, we called Da Nang DASC and told them that we would pick up the wounded. This freed DASC from having to dispatch UH-1E medevac helos from VMO-2 at Da Nang. As I landed next to the Yen River, I saw several wounded being hauled out to my chopper. Leaning out my window, I noticed two marines who appeared dead. To my shock, one of the dead was Master Sergeant Navine, my old platoon sergeant from my Naval Aviation Flight School days in Pensacola, Florida. His open utility jacket exposed a gaping wound in the middle of his chest. His piercing blue eyes, which once stared me to the dirt on the old grinder drill field, stared straight upward to the blue sky. He appeared tranquil--as if all of this turmoil was now over. It was--for him. The Navine Machine had stopped. I flew the wounded to Charlie Med and then flew the two KIA to the morgue located in the northeast corner of Da Nang Airfield. It was a large, morbid-looking, sheet-metal building with large refrigerators. Here they kept the bodies of the Americans prior to flying them home. Two morgue workers carried body bags out to my aircraft and I bade good-bye to a "real marine" who once taught me my left foot from my right. I muttered, "Semper Fi, Sarge."
My crew chief in the belly of my UH-34 chopper asked, "What was that, Captain?"
"Nothing, Corporal, nothing. I just hate to see good marines die when our congressmen don't understand what really is happening in the world and therefore never support our president'sstand against communism. I guess they are waiting for these guys to start working over Central America and Mexico."
"Roger that, sir."
The next morning I got the word that my TAFDS units at Tam Ky had been blown up by sappers. So I had to break out a new fueling system and we flew it down to Tam Ky. This attack upon our choppers' refueling station indicated for the first time that the helicopters were beginning to get to the Viet Cong.
The 7th Marines now arrived. I was flying a mission in support of the 4th Marines in a two-day operation called Operation Thunderbolt. It was a battalion operation about twenty miles south of Chu Lai. Most of our lifts consisted of delivering cans of water and lifting our U.S. Marine heat casualties. It must have been 120 degrees with high humidity. I emptied my own two canteens of water early in my flight sorties. I returned to my Da Nang parking apron late in the afternoon. As I disengaged the clutch, shut down my engine, and applied the rotor brake, I saw our Catholic chaplain, Father Roland, waiting for us. He was always asking for chopper rides into the heat of battle, so I thought that he would be asking for a flight to the action down at Chu Lai. However, he called me aside from the rest of my crew as we were kicking off our heavy, totally sweated armor suits.
"What can I do for you, Chaplain?" I asked above the noise of the airfield. He looked serious, as he put his hand on my drenched shoulder. "We just got a message from the Red Cross. Your father died. I'm sorry. Your family has requested you return for the funeral."
I stood there in the heat, with dirt and dust flying about me from a taxiing helo and a thunderous roar in my ears as two MAG-11 F-4Bs climbed out to the north.
Above all the noise and turmoil of this busy airfield, the chaplain shouted, "We have your emergency-leave orders cut. You're scheduled on a C-130 flight out to Okinawa at 1800 tonight."
At 1700 I was standing at the C-130 flight line with B-4 bag in hand. The C-130 was not going to take off until 1830. I stood there watching the mechanics working hard at preparing Col. John Bing's MAG-16 helicopters of HMM-261 and HMM-361 squadrons for the next day. Col. Tom O'Donnel was to take command of MAG-16 from Colonel Bing, first thing in themorning. It was quiet at Da Nang Airfield now, as the sun set just above the dark, tall mountains to our west near Laos. Too many thoughts passed through my mind to convey. I wondered how my mother was taking my father's death. I wondered what exact day my dad died. I wondered what my father had thought of my being here in some small war in a country that he never heard of, a country that was eleven thousand miles away from the coal mines of Pennsylvania. I thought of some of his World War I stories from his experiences in battles, such as the battle of Argonne in France. Was there a thread of relationship from his war forty-seven years ago? Was there a link of rationalization between these conflicts so many years apart? Or was it simply man's continual survival among man, generation after generation? My deep inner reflection and simple question--what am I doing here?--gave way to the barking of the crew chief of the C-130 from VMGR-152, the marine transport refueler squadron.
"Load 'em up. We're going home," he shouted.
The flight to Okinawa seemed long in the darkness. This was a free, space-available flight for me on emergency orders. I would have to pay my own commercial flight passage from Okinawa to Pennsylvania. Or I could try to catch an emergency flight seat on any military plane, if there were any going back east. We landed at Kadena Air Force Base and I soon found out that there were no military flights to Japan that night. I barely had time to purchase a commercial ticket on Japan Airlines and a change over to Pan Am for San Francisco. We were soon en route to Japan. While in the rear of the aircraft drinking a cup of water, the pilot of the JAL aircraft slapped me on the back. To my amazement, it was Kugo Setsuo. Kugo, while an ensign in the Japanese navy, had gone through the Pensacola, Florida, U.S. Naval Aviation Flight School course with me. Additionally, I had once in 1958 flown across Tokyo Bay to visit him. He had been serving as a helicopter pilot for the Japanese navy at Kizarazu.
Kugo asked me where I was going, and I told him. He gave me his condolences and we discussed our various career paths and families, before he returned to his pilot's compartment.
Hours later I felt that we had entered a holding pattern and figured we must be holding at altitude near Tokyo. The weatherlooked bad outside, so I assumed that there were delays at Tokyo International. Moments later Kugo came back, found me belted in and said, "What flight do you have a ticket on out of Tokyo International?"
"Pan Am flight 075."
"I will call my JAL dispatcher on our company frequency and check 075's departure status. We are held up here due to showers that are slowing departures and arrivals."
"Thanks, Kugo."
Moments later, Kugo was back telling me that all was cleared as requested.
After a bumpy, rain-swept approach, the lights of Tokyo International runway could be seen as we made a gentle descending turn inbound westward across the bay, and the large cities of Tokyo and Yokohama merged ahead.
While taxing in, the stewardess came to me to tell me that the captain said that I should get up and make my way to the rear door with my hand-carry. I glanced out the window and the large Pan Am 707 was parked ahead, lights flashing in the rainswept taxiway. I saw a ground handling truck parked next to the 707. As our JAL plane stopped, the stewardess opened the door, and Flight Captain Kugo shook my hand amidst the noise and pelting rain. He shouted, "Sayonara." To my surprise, the efficient Japanese ground handlers had somehow found my B-4 bag, which fortunately had my name stenciled on it in a large Marine Corps traditional manner. They had opened our JAL baggage compartment and using flashlights they dug through tons of bags to find mine. In the rain the broadly smiling Japanese gave me my bag, and I ran the one hundred feet to PA075 and up the step ladder that they gladly extended. I was shown to an empty seat, as the other passengers were wondering what was going on.
Hours later, at twenty-nine thousand feet over the blue Pacific Ocean, I thought: I still don't know what date my father died. Can I beat the race with the sun on time to make his burial?
Arriving at San Francisco International, I promptly called my wife.
"Eleanor, I'm in San Francisco, I'll be home in hours. When is the funeral?"
She responded, "It was yesterday."
Dejectedly, I said, "I'll call you from wherever I land on the East Coast. Give my love to the children and tell my mother I'm on my way home."
I went into the airport bar and had a few drinks. I missed the burial and that was what the race against time had been all about. It occurred to me that I might as well call Travis Air Force Base, about sixty miles north of San Francisco, to see if they had any space-available flights bound for the East Coast.
It turned out that Travis AFB had a C-121 going to McGuire AFB, New Jersey. Now that time was no longer of the essence, why pay for an airline ticket? I caught a bus to Travis and checked in with the navy air traffic coordinating officer in the air force terminal. The plane was scheduled for McGuire Air Force Base, but had to fly diagonally across the country down to Little Rock, Arkansas, to drop off four air force colonels. Then it would head directly for Jersey, after refueling.
We arrived at Little Rock Air Force Base at 0730. I was in the small terminal coffee shop sipping a coffee when all hell broke loose. A muffled explosion sounded somewhere on the base and people soon were scurrying about--outside and inside the terminal. Air police (AP) vans and jeeps were flashing their lights as they scurried by from the main gate. Nobody inside the terminal seemed to know what was going on.
Then the terminal loudspeaker announced, "There has been a serious accident in one of the intercontinental ballistic missile silos. All personnel are immediately restricted to the base. No person is allowed to leave by surface or air. There does not appear to be a fear of any nuclear detonation. Please keep calm as the investigation proceeds. We will keep you posted. Stay in the vicinity of the terminal. Please do not call out this classified information over the phones."
There was dead silence inside the terminal. Outside, sirens screamed, vehicles sped by. I walked out the front door and saw some black smoke rising about a half mile away. Many vehicles were heading in that direction. There was nothing else to see. I walked back into the terminal and called Eleanor. As the long-distance connection system took time, I thought: If I were an irresponsible news reporter, I'd now be calling this sensational, but dangerously confidential, information in to my editor to geta scoop--regardless of what it meant for national security. I told my wife that I was stuck in Little Rock due to transportation problems and that I would call her later.
About four hours later, while sitting in the terminal, I witnessed numerous air force small Learjet-type aircraft arriving, one after the other. I never saw so many generals, air force or otherwise, anywhere. I suppose they were a mixture of missile men and Washington brass. We heard in the terminal that the explosion of the missile in the silo threw the nuclear warhead across the base, with no nuclear detonation, of course. Two hours later, the loudspeaker announced, "All personnel are free to continue on your way. Travel off the base is now permitted. Do not approach the out-of-bounds areas marked by the AP."
I checked with the air force transport section, and the C-121 crew that I had flown in with had canceled the flight to McGuire AFB. I caught a cab to Little Rock National and flew to Newark, New Jersey, commercially.
The next day, under the humid heat of Pennsylvania's August, I stood next to my father's grave. An American Legion stand stood in the fresh soil, holding a fluttering American flag. I felt badly about missing his burial by a day and a half.
Later that day, I felt worse. My brother Bill related to me that he had called the duty officer in Headquarters Marine Corps on the previous Friday night to inform him of my father's death and ascertain how I could get home from Vietnam. The duty officer said that he would send a message out to my unit in Vietnam. However, it was the responsibility of the American Red Cross to send authenticated requests to the military command of military relatives' deceased immediate family members. Since it was after 1700 on Friday evening in Washington, D.C., and since the Red Cross was not the military, the Red Cross did not work weekends. Accordingly, the Red Cross would not verify, nor would it send an authenticating message through the Red Cross network to the Da Nang Red Cross unit, until Monday morning. The two days lost in the Red Cross passing the information that ultimately was handed to me by our chaplain at Da Nang were the two days that I needed to make the burial. The funeral director had told my family that the heat of the summer precluded keepingthe body more than the extra day he already had retained it while awaiting my arrival.
My other brother then related his experience with the Red Cross. He bitterly told me how they operated at his airfield, sixty miles outside of London during WWII. He said that as they returned in their battered B-17s to the airfield, and as the flight crews walked en route to their debriefings, three mobile stands operated along the taxiway. One stand had tea and crumpets. It was the British RAF support kitchen. The tea and crumpets were free, paid for by the British government. The second stand was the American Red Cross. It served coffee and doughnuts to the exhausted flyers. The coffee cost a nickel and so did the doughnuts. The third service stand was another coffee and doughnut mobile kitchen. This stand also gave the coffee and doughnuts free. It was the Salvation Army's.
My next several days were a transition period to very peaceful life. The entire population around me did not know of the violence that I had experienced just hours ago, nor did they care. I really wondered if it was worth going back to the war zone for these people. Nobody seemed interested, except my close relatives and family.
My wife and two children had moved not long before from an apartment to a home in North Plainfield, New Jersey. The new place kept me quite busy. I was glad to be there to help them get settled. It helped me block out the inevitable anguish that I knew would be upon us when, too soon, I would have to leave my family and return to my unit in Vietnam.
Copyright © 1992 by Col. Bob Stoffey.