***WAR STORIES***

Bill Kornitzer

Mission to Iran: Desert One

I first became involved with the Iran hostage rescue mission in the fall of 1979, while I was serving as the Deputy Director of Operations for the 437TH Military Airlift Wing at Charleston AFB, SC. The Wing Commander and I were briefed on a possible mission to Iran to secure the freedom of American hostages being held in Tehran. At this time Charleston’s C-141’s were providing domestic airlift support for the Army Ranger and Delta Force personnel who would be the main forces involved .with the mission.

In January 1980, I became Director of Operations.  Because of the number of people (hostages and their rescuers) to be extracted from Tehran had increased to approximately 330, the MAC Assistant Director of Operations made a rare visit to Charleston to personally brief me and our selected crews on an expanded role for our Wing. This number included 53 hostages, 120 in the Delta Force team, 100 Rangers and as many as 56 helicopter crew members that would have to be extracted out of Manzariyeh, Iran. This airfield was a few miles south of the American Embassy in Iran.

Training

In January 1980, we selected our most capable and highly qualified crew members to fly the mission. I personally briefed them on the importance of security and told them that I only wanted volunteers for this mission. As one would expect, I ended up with [number] highly motivated and capable crews. We started our blacked out landing training with night vision goggles (NVGs) at North Field, which was a small satellite base north of Charleston. This mission was very sensitive and its success hinged on total security. We took extraordinary efforts to keep this mission known only to the crew members involved and the people needed to support us. In fact I was not allowed to brief the Wing Commander on our specific role and I carried orders from the Commander of MAC that required the entire Command to support my request no questions asked, period!

After our training at North Field, we did more extensive training at an abandoned airfield in Florida. The crews were doing real well and getting used to NVGs. I then took our crews to an extensive training session at the Tonopah Range in the vicinity of Nellis AFB, Nevada. After this training, I declared our crews ready to perform low level flight operations in blacked out conditions, no radio calls; and using only NVGs to land in total darkness.  This was a first for MAC crew members in large jet aircraft. Of course, the MC-130 crews at Hurlburt Field were capable of doing this, and would be used to insert the Delta and Ranger Forces at the Desert One initial landing site.

Joint Training

After we were qualified to perform at night, we participated in numerous dress rehearsals with the MC-130, AC-130, KC-135 and RH-53 crews and the Delta and Ranger Forces. These exercises included mock surprise night assaults on active duty bases in the US and then departing before day break. These exercises were monitored by high ranking officers from Washington to insure we were capable of doing the tasked mission.  After we had successfully completed numerous exercises our Joint Task Force (JTF) Commander, Major General James B. Vaught, U.S. Army declared us ready to go and briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, after that, President Jimmy Carter.

Deployment

ON 18 April 1980 I was picked up at Charleston and flown to Andrews AFB in Washington. I departed Andrews AFB with General Vaught and the rest of the JTF staff. We arrived at Wadi Kena, Egypt, at 0230 AM on 20 April 1980. I was the COMALF [Commander of Airlift Forces] and all MAC resources supporting the mission were under my command, as directed by the MAC Commander, General Dutch Huyser. We set up schedules, met and briefed crews, and assigned aircraft for missions, etc. On the first day of deployment for the actual mission, I flew with my crews to serve as the MAC on-scene commander at Daharan, Saudi Arabia and then to move forward to the extraction area at Manzariyeh, Iran as the mission progressed.

During the period 20-22 April, all the forces that were to participate in the mission arrived. On the 23 and 24 April all the forces would start to move forward. The MC-130's, EC-130's [ fuel carriers], and Delta force would go to Masirah, Oman. These aircraft would all leave Oman on the 24th to meet up with the RH-53 helicopters at the Desert One site to refuel the RH-53s and transfer the Delta teams to the helicopters for their forward movement to the Tehran Area. I departed on the 24th for Daharan, Saudi Arabia. Our mission was to leave Daharan on the night of the 25th to arrive at Manzariyeh, Iran 10 minutes after the airfield was secured by the Ranger force. We would carry highly qualified medical personal, including surgeons, to treat the injured.

At Daharan, the Saudis would not let me offload anyone except crew members unless I let them inspect the aircraft. I refused, because we had weapons, secure radios, medics, Army personnel, etc. We were pretending this was a normal MAC mission into Daharan and nothing else.  A few of the crew members went with me to the hotel to set up our secure satellite radio to monitor the mission and to get our final orders, We were only there for a few hours when we got the word the mission had been aborted.  A minimum of six fully operational helicopters were needed to transport the Delta force to a holding area near Tehran in order to have a force deemed capable of success and only five helicopters were available out of the eight that departed the aircraft carrier the Nimitz in the Persian Gulf.

Shortly after we learned that there had been an accident between a RH-53 and a refueling C-130 at the Desert One site. There were eight deaths and numerous injuries. We were told to leave Daharan immediately and fly to Masirah to pick up and treat the injured. We did that and then brought the injured and the Delta Force back to Wadi Kena. The injured, including burn victims, were transferred to MAC Medevac aircraft and flown to Germany.

I stayed at Wadi Kena till late on the 26 of April, supervising the remaining MAC aircraft and crews as we loaded all remaining personnel and supplies and flew home.  I was awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal for my role in the operation.

Aftermath

This was a very disappointing outcome for all of us who had worked so long and hard to make it a success. It was devastating to lose eight crew members in an unfortunate accident and have to leave them behind.  One remarkable thing about this mission was the scope i.e. the distances and the amount of forces that had to be involved. It was also a tribute to every one that this vast operation was kept a secret.

Today

I later became the commander of all Air Force Special Operation forces at Hurlburt Field, Florida, as the 2ND Air Division Commander. Today Special Operations qualified aircrews and maintainers are better equipped and trained then we ever have been to conduct sensitive and highly covert missions.

Ed Leonard

Behind Barbed Wire: A POW’s Story

I arrived at Udorn RTAFB in early May, 1967, to fly A-1E and A1-H Skyraider with the 602nd Fighter Squadron (Commando).  I was to fly 247 combat missions during three consecutive tours and participated in the rescue of 18 aircrew members.  On May 31, 1968, going for number 19, I was shot down on a Search and Rescue effort for a Navy A-7 (Streetcar 304) flown by Kenny Fields. I ejected and, once safely on the ground, I got in a gun fight with three NVA soldiers.  I shot one for sure—3 AKs vs. one 357 seemed like a fair fight to me.  I had them outnumbered!  I got away and, after running most of the night, I climbed up a tree and hid there. 

On the third day, Kenny was finally rescued, but I was spotted and captured.  I was taken prisoner by a badly mauled North Vietnamese division dragging itself out of South Vietnam and moving northward through Laos following their defeat during the Tet Offensive.  This was a problem for both sides.  You see, we were not bombing Laos--we said so.  And Ho Chi Minh's army was not in Laos--he said so.  I was an embarrassment to both governments, a long way from home, and a bullet cost twelve cents.

After an initial interrogation, I was force marched each night for a week through bombed jungle.  At last I was herded into a cave where I spent the day.  At dusk, I was put on a truck, and was bolted, face-down, to the bed.  All night the truck would jar, bumble, and roll, side to side, fore and aft, and up and down, like a repetitiously interrupted corkscrew. After stumbling into the morning, we at last came to a halt several hundred yards off the road, under trees and camouflage netting.

Periodically, the truck would stop on the edge of a village.  I’d be off-loaded and my arms bound behind my back, then I’d be pulled by a noose about my neck through the village, through an inevitable gauntlet of angry villagers armed with clubs, jabbing sticks, and rocks, all whipped to a frenzy by a small band of political organizers.  Once through the village, I’d be put back on the truck, and once again we’d bumble and stumble through the night.

Near sundown each evening, the truck would start off again for another bone-jarring night along rough bomb-cratered roads and rocky stream-beds.  After a week, I was off-loaded on the edge of a broad valley and marched several miles across rice paddies to a wooded jungle rise.  Under the tree canopies were bamboo cages, containing American servicemen and civilians, a number of Canadians, and a German nurse.  I was placed in a bamboo cage removed from the others.

The second evening in camp, the other prisoners were taken out of their cages and moved out.  Shortly after, two guards opened my cage and motioned me out.  I was led down a trail and emerged on the edge of a large open field.  There was a small creek meandering to one side and I could see the others bathing in it.

My guards stopped me a short distance upstream from the others and indicated I was to wash.  The muddy water was waist deep and, after two weeks, I definitely needed a bath..  The sun had been down for some time, but the sky to the West was still slashed with bands of red and orange.

Even the guards appreciated the sight.  I turned my head at the gentle sound of gurgling water.  A head emerge from the murk:

"I'm Paul Montague, Captain, United States Marine Corps, the Senior Ranking Officer.  Who are you?"

"I'm Ed Leonard, Captain, U.S. Air Force."

"What's your date of rank?" he asked

"December '64".

As his head sank back into the water he said,

"Now you're the Senior Ranking Officer--you poor son-of-a-bitch."

I spent a total of three and a half years in solitary, during which I had many opportunities to reflect upon Paul's remark.  Our duty as prisoners was to escape, to resist all attempts by the enemy to exploit us for propaganda, and to give each other whatever help and comfort we were able to provide.  We had a tight organization in the camp.

Although told often there was no rank, whenever the enemy discovered our activities, the instigator and I would be called upon for some form of penitence--inevitably painful.

That autumn, we moved to Duong Khe, an old French military post some twenty miles outside Hanoi--our battlefield for the next two years.  The buildings were concrete with interior rooms of varying size.  If you've seen the movie "Papillion" with Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen, you've seen the place.  The French built them all over the world.  Here I was segregated from the others.  Those captured in Laos were held in a separate part of the camp--very ominous.  The others, mostly enlisted ranks, had been taken in South Vietnam.  In all, there were 87 enlisted, 12 officers, and 7 civilians. I was moved away from my enlisted men (78 soldiers and marines captured in South Vietnam and Cambodia during the Tet Offensive) about a year before release.  They put me in with seven others also captured in Laos.  We were called the LULUs, the Legendary Union of Laotian Unfortunates.

As a rule, the officers and senior NCOs were held in solitary, but, using the tap code, we were able to establish good communications between cells in the building within a few days, and within a few months, to the other buildings in camp.

One morning, eighteen months after arriving at Doung Khe, the door to my cell opened and Paul was lead in.  We were out of solitary!  For the next three days, we both talked steady streams, after that we started, occasionally, listening to each other.  Paul, a career Marine, was deeply concerned for his family; he had no way of knowing if his wife and children had been informed of his capture.  He would have been unhappy to learn he'd been killed in action.

Paul had already seen the depth of hurt prolonged separation had inflicted upon his daughter.  Some years before Vietnam he'd returned home from an eighteen month unaccompanied tour of duty in Korea.

He'd arrived on a Friday afternoon during the school year; had a wonderful reunion with his family.  Monday morning, at breakfast, his daughter, then in first grade, eagerly went to work on him.

"Daddy, will you meet me after school and walk me home?

"Sure, Pam, just tell me where."

Whereupon Pam produced a very detailed map, showing how to get to school, the main entrance, and a big red "X" next to the flag pole

"You won't forget, will you, Daddy?"

"No, Pam, I'll remember."

“Daddy, will you wear your uniform?"

"I really don't want..."

"Please, Daddy, Pulleesss..."

Shirley chimed in, "Wear it, Paul."

So it was settled, and Paul, in dress uniform, left the house shortly after three, arriving at the flag pole as the school bell rang and a horde of children disgorged from the front door.

But, no Pam.  Paul waited, impatiently at first, then a bit anxiously.  He checked his map...there was no mistaking the crayon drawing, he was where designated.

Finally, as the playground cleared of the initial wave, Pam appeared, accompanied by half a dozen of her little friends.  Spotting her father, she tossed her head triumphantly and marched directly toward him, her friends straggling sheepishly behind.  Arriving a short distance in front of Paul, she stopped, spun about, and putting her little fists to her hips, half shouted at the other children in a voice trembling with anger and pride:

 "You see, I do too have a Daddy!"

Imagine listening to Paul, a ragged, starved scarecrow of a man, sitting in the gloom of a prison cell telling me this story of his daughter, ten years earlier.  How must Pam have felt during her father’s Memorial Service?  Did she remember her defiant cry, "I do too have a Daddy!"?  (Paul was repatriated with me and now lives in Kansas with his wife, Shirley.) 

The over-riding emotion of prolonged imprisonment in solitary confinement is boredom.  The first time you are in solitary it takes roughly two weeks to establish a routine.  First thing in the morning is a prayer followed by some exercises then sitting on the floor letting the mind wander.  Boredom sets in and you walk inside the cell.  Keep your eyes on the crack under the door since you are required to sit on your mat and not move.  Any guard approaching will cause a slight shift in the light under the door giving you enough time to get to your rice mat and sit down.  Eyes on the crack quickly became a way of life.  With time various events are added.  The exercises quickly become the daily dozen.  Dozen indeed...it became fifteen.  And rather than one set in the morning it became fifteen sets of fifteen. 

The Morning Prayer became a church service with hymns and the Apostle’s Creed interspersed with bible passages memorized years before in Vacation Bible School.  After church, another set of the Daily Dozen.  The highlight of the morning was “The Count”.  How many days before Labor Day?  (Sing “I’ve been working on the Railroad”.)  Day’s till Suzanne’s Birthday?  (Sing “Happy Birthday to her”)  Day’s till Halloween? (Sing “Caspar the Friendly Ghost”)  Each holiday and family birthday had its song.  After The Count it was time to get the mail ready for delivery.  This had to be done in case the honey bucket detail—we called them the Pony Express or just simply the Ponies—arrived early.  After prepping the mail it was time for another set of the Daily Dozen.  Once this was done it was time for Story Hour.  Story Hour consisted of telling myself a story which I made up as I went along.  I particularly enjoyed the trials—I argued both sides and added evidence when my argument on one side or the other became thin.  I also ran a cattle spread—I’d spent some time with a Marine officer who grew up on a ranch and he gave me a few pointers.  Being a rancher was a delight, as I spent most of my time outdoors.  Winters on my ranch, especially the heavy snow, coincided with the hottest of days.  I was also a surgeon, but had to defend myself when I killed a couple of patients.   Then another set of the Daily Dozen. 

Story hour was usually interrupted by the approach of the Ponies.  A guard would unbolt my cell, open the 3” thick wooden plank door, point at my Honey Bucket, and grunt.  (The guards were not permitted to talk to us—they’d all read a Vietnamese translation of “The Great Escape—Americans were not to be trusted.)  I’d place the bucket outside and return to my cell.  The guard would shut me in and bolt the door.  Shortly thereafter eight of our junior enlisted would arrive with four Vietnamese guards.  The junior Vietnamese guard was tasked to inspect the inside of each bucket to insure we were not passing notes.           

Unless you were being punished, you were taken out to wash by the well twice a week.  This was a highly dangerous time since it was necessary to tend the message drops, both delivering mail and retrieving it.  After washing, you would wait for your first meal of the day, a watery soup and a small lump of wheat bread, usually containing rat feces.  Four summer months meant watercress soup.  The four fall months meant pumpkin soup and winter brought cabbage soup.   Variety was not part of the menu.  The guards would put out four bowls of soup and four pieces of bread.  I always hoped to be the last prisoner to retrieve the food.  Otherwise there was a moral dilemma.  One lump of bread always looked bigger, one bowl a bit fuller.  In fact, differences were infinitesimally small, if they existed at all.  A dent in the bottom of a bowl gave the illusion of fullness, an air bubble in the bread made it appear larger.  If I took the “larger” portion, I suffered shame for days.  If I took the smaller portion, the pains of starvation seemed trebled.  If I was last to collect the food, I avoided the moral issue until the next feeding.     

After the noon meal the guards would lock us in and then entire camp would sleep.  After the naps, I’d do another set of exercises followed by a walk until the evening feeding.  After the last feeding, we’d be locked down for the night, which meant another set of exercises and patriotic hour.  Patriotic hour consisted of singing the national anthem, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, singing the Air Force song, and reciting the Code of Conduct.  (Yes, I remembered it from freshman knowledge.  I was able to write it down and keep three copies in circulation in the camp.  I used rough brown toilet paper and blood for ink.)  More exercises were followed by evening church services, and then I’d sit quietly letting the mind drift wherever it wished to wander. 

All the while keeping an eye on the crack under the door.

I was doing a hundred finger-tip push-ups during each exercise period and fifteen periods a day.  After about three years I became curious to see how many pushups I could do in a day.  Slowly I built up to 2,700.  At that point I noticed I could no longer hold the spoon to feed myself soup.  I dropped back to 1,500 push-ups a day and was soon able to use a spoon again.  Such is the nature of boredom.

Occasionally I would be taken from my cell to either be read a very long, boring piece of propaganda or interrogated about some activity in the camp (these were inevitably painful affairs lasting several days...or weeks).  I bitterly resented these interruptions.  Didn’t they know I had things to do?  I would be out of sorts for days and sometimes weeks trying to reestablish my routine. 

In the summer of 1969, George McKnight and John Atterbury, prisoners in another camp, managed to escape; but were recaptured three days later.  During their punishment, Atterbury died a horrible, excruciating death.  The other camps had been notified of the escape and extreme security measures were instituted.  Intense and torturous interrogation of all Senior Ranking Officers in the various camps, along with those individuals identified as hard core resisters—those most likely to be involved in escape plans—resulted in a nightmarish, Kafka-like scenario. 

The North Vietnamese tortured to confirm their worst suspicions.  Driven beyond the ability to resist, prisoners "confessed" in order to end torture.  Truth was not a factor in that ugly equation.  Even when broken, you "confess" slowly, starting with "I was rude to the guards".  When that did not result in relief—you see how the torturer is teaching the prisoner what is wanted?  You  gradually increase your confession, first to stealing food, and then to communicating.   ...and finally, with time, you confess to an attempted escape.  This brings no relief.  "And now, we will forgive you, when you tell us with whom you were going to escape."   

The descent into pain and insanity is slow, a slow and excruciating immersion.  You find you are implicating fellow prisoners in an escape plan that doesn't exist.  How can you possibly come up with a satisfactory answer?  The solution here was provided by the worst fears of our captors.  You see, they had already decided which prisoners were most likely to be involved in an escape. 

Over the course of weeks of unending torture, through the fog of pain and insanity, each prisoner was taught which names were acceptable to the torturer.  This process resulted in identifying four of us. 

"And now, we will forgive you.....as soon as you tell us how you were going to escape."  The fog of insanity continued.  This time, our captors could not teach us the answer.  We were in separate locations, unable to communicate.  To end the torture, we had to confess to the same method.  The fog thickened.  We had all been broken weeks earlier, but the torture went on, seeking an answer which did not exist.  It as been repeated endlessly that at last the human spirit will reach bottom; how often do we hear "When they reach the bottom...."  There is no bottom.  There is no escape.  It was during this period that I would periodically be able to escape by floating up at the ceiling from which I could look down and watch what they were doing to my body down on the floor.  It was really disgusting.  The first time I floated to the ceiling I was curious, but when it happened again, I became indifferent to what the guards were doing.   Sometimes, when the guards were out of the room, my daughter, Tracy, would visit me.  She’d sit at my feet and softly say, “That’s alright, Daddy...that’s alright.”  I found this extremely comforting and I looked forward to her visits.

Ho Chi Minh died on September 3, 1969.  Administration of the POW camps was immediately transferred from civilian to military control.  Brutality and torture were immediately halted.  Food and water were restored and sleep was allowed.  Six months later, I was able to get to my feet without help from the guards.  It has been nearly forty years—and I still need to brace myself against a chair or corner as I stand.   

In the spring of 1971, the enlisted men and pilots who had been captured during Tet and now being held as POWs in Plantation Gardens were ushered outside one evening.  Fresh air and sunshine were a welcome treat, but the Americans watched with curiosity as the NVA guards rigged up a makeshift movie screen, draping a bed sheet over a clothesline.  They
were astounded to watch a 16 mm film of a long-haired young man with a long face, wearing medals on his fatigues as he testified before the Foreign Relations Committee that Americans had committed atrocities in Vietnam.  More than one POW stood open-mouthed in astonishment, shocked that a fellow American military man would say such things in
public, much less in front of Senator Fulbright's committee.  Officers and enlisted alike were furious that this punk, a young Navy man on active duty, would make up lies like that, sounding as though he were running for office and this was a political speech.  Surely, surely, he knew that his remarks would be pounced upon by the NVA and used in their propaganda!

I was the senior ranking officer at the Plantation Gardens and I realized something had to be done to prevent complete demoralization.  By now, all the POWs knew about the “Ducks”, thirteen other Americans kept separated from everyone else, who received special treatment because they were informers and collaborators.  In August of that year, I finally had the opportunity to address the issue, when I was standing outside my cell just as guards
brought the Ducks out, roughly fifty yards behind me.  I stood at attention, executed a smart about-face, and yelled that they were "to stop all forms of cooperation and collaboration with the enemy." My cellmates and I were quickly hustled into our cell, and a few minutes later guards came to get me.  I was beaten into unconsciousness, and when I finally came to, roughly three days later, I could not feel my body from the waist down.  This lack of sensation continued for a week, followed by searing, debilitating pain for several months afterward.  But my stand had its desired effect; five of the Ducks changed sides, much to the other POW's delight.  I was repeatedly beaten and accused of being a war criminal, and constantly reminded that a fellow active duty American military officer had testified to that fact. 

On February 12, 1973, after the signing of the cease-fire in January, the first contingent of our 143 American military and civilian POWs departed Hanoi’s Gia Lam Airport for the Philippines. During the following weeks, the remaining 444 were released.  The LULU’s, which Hanoi claimed were being held by the Laotian Communists, were among the last to be released.
 

It is perhaps in the ordination of Providence that we are taught the value of our liberties by the price we pay for them.

	Homecoming, 1973: Ed Leonard, his sister, Karen Ray, and their parents

 

Dave Wiest:

An HH-43F Story of Survival and Loss

In 1967, I was an HH-43F Rescue Crew Commander flying out of Bien Hoa.  On the last day of March, we got alerted about 2:00 AM that an F -100 inbound with zero hydraulic pressure. As we were scrambling with the fire suppression kit, we heard the radio traffic from his wing man saying “Emergency, F -100 on fire,” and calling for the pilot to punch out. We reconfigured for an off-base pickup and left for the coordinates given by the wing man. The site was about 10 miles northwest of the base. We flew there at 1500' and there were solid clouds below us. An AC-47 Dragon-ship was orbiting and we had two Huey gunships giving us immediate cover. We had communication with the pilot on the emergency frequency. He said he was okay and in a rubber tree plantation. From the topo map I knew the tree tops were at about 300' and I decided to make an instrument letdown. The Huey pilots were not IRF rated (Thank you, AF) so we would have to go down alone. I had my CP lean out his side of the Huskie and watch for tree tops while I started a circular orbit at a very slow rate of descent.

The Dragon-ship sought to be helpful and started dropping parachute flares. The trouble was that the flares were swinging back and forth under the parachutes and this caused an apparent horizon created by the flare light on the clouds, one that tilted up and down. This made it very difficult to concentrate on the instruments while trying to ignore what my peripheral vision was picking up – all very confusing. I called the Dragon-ship and had the flares stopped. Meanwhile we had gotten low enough that my CP could see leaves and we leveled off just under the clouds. We were greeted by ground-fire tracers. Our pickup could hear us, but neither he nor I was sure just where each other was. I told him I would flash my landing lights. (We were flying blacked out, no beacon or running lights) I flashed the lights very briefly and the sky lit up with more tracers. Some were aimed at us and some were between the VC and our forces. The pickup saw our light flash and gave us a relative bearing to him and, as we moved towards him, we saw his flashlight signal. I had the crew chief payout about 100' of hoist cable and coil it in the cabin door way. I didn't want to take the time to run the hoist cable down. I told him to drop it out with the forest penetrator as soon as we came to a hover over the target. The pickup got clear of where the cable would drop; we hovered and dropped the cable and the crew chief ran it down to ground level. The F -100 pilot got on the forest penetrator and as soon as he was in the clear of the trees, I climbed up and out of there. More ground fire. We reeled him in on the fly. We were lucky and took no hits. The pilot, Capt. David Lindberg, was okay and we climbed up through the clouds to 1500' and back to Bien Hoa. The irony was that some months later I would again find myself trying to rescue him at a crash site.

If it hadn’t been for boot leg weapons, I would not be able to tell this story. While at Bien Hoa, I tried to get Rescue to issue us 45s instead of the aircrew-issue S&W 38s but they wouldn’t hear of it. The S&W was a fine gun, but in those days we didn’t have speed loaders. Can you imagine trying to reload a revolver while running through the jungle? Then there was our boss, who was afraid of having a live round under the hammer, even though I showed him how the firing pin was blocked when the hammer was down. And then, they said we couldn’t have the gun loaded until we were flying across the field boundary on an off-base mission. That was from headquarters in Saigon.

On the 21^st of May, as usual, at 6 pm the alert crew brought the M-16s in from the alert bird and put them on a rifle rack in the alert shack. Unfortunately, the alert shack was air conditioned and the rifle rack was open to the room. Anyway, about an hour later we got a scramble for an F-100 that went in about ten miles west of the base. We were later to learn that the pilot was our friend, Capt. David Lindberg. We found the spot of the crash; it was in a clump of 50 or so acres of woods. I had four Huey gunships (Heavy fire team) for cover and though to myself that this was going to be one of the safest runs yet. The Huey Fire Team told me the area was secure. The F-100 went down in one leg of an L shaped clearing and as I made a pass at 1000’ over the site I picked the other leg as an emergency autorotation site. On my third pass at 1000’ we could see the pilot’s chute on the ground near the crash with the pilot’s dingy. Another pass at 500’ and we failed to locate the ejection seat or pick up a beeper. I went to a hover, at about 100’, and the PJ was getting ready to go down on the hoist to check out the chute to see if the pilot was under it.  Suddenly, an observer in another Army helicopter saw some VC step out of the woods and start firing at us from our rear. They were unable to communicate with us because they had different radios. We couldn’t hear the warning because our frequencies didn’t match.

We took a number of small arms rounds, AK-47 probably, and I noticed that my needles were separating. There is a gauge with a rotor rpm and engine rpm needle. My rotor rpm needle was falling even though the engine rpm was fine. I turned 120 to my right and autorotated into the other leg of the clearing. While this was going on I felt a “slap” on my neck which I though was the mechanic in the back of the aircraft hitting me to tell me to get out of there. (It turned out to be a bullet fragment that hit me).

Once on the ground I shut her down and told the crew to run for a ditch a few yard in front of us. We all made the ditch and came under fire. We started shooting back and all our M-16s jammed after a few rounds. So out came our other guns. The crew chief had a 45 Grease gun he got from an Army buddy, the PJ had a 45, I had a Browning 9mm, and my co-pilot used his issue 38. With the gunships blazing away--and all the ground fire--you could hardly hear yourself think. I had had the radio shop rig my emergency radio to plug into my flight helmet so at least I could hear the radio. A Huey (Tomahawk 18) got into the clearing behind us and we made it out of there. We took a lot a fire and just made it over the trees. When the Army pilot dropped us at Bien Hoa he was some pissed as it was a brand new bird and now had a bunch of holes in it. It took two cases of scotch to sooth him.

My helicopter was fine, just needed a new engine. Some rounds had got in over the armor plating and wiped out my turbine buckets, so the engine ran fine but didn’t produce any power. By now it was late in the afternoon and the light was going fast. They couldn’t secure the area and get a left ‘copter in to get it out, so they called in an air strike to destroy it. They shot the hell out of it but because of self sealing fuel tanks it wouldn’t explode. So they called in artillery and blew it up so Charlie wouldn’t get any use of it.

Meanwhile, we were sent to the Flight Surgeon for an after action physical – required after being shot down. We were told to pile out clothes in the corner. I was concerned because of all the non-issued weapons, handguns, grenades and stuff and asked the doc not to look too closely at the pile. He laughed and told me he wasn’t looking at that, but at us. The PJ had taken a round in his thumb and I had a piece in my neck, but other than that we were fine and patted on the back and sent back to duty.

I was awarded the Silver Star for the rescue of Capt. Lindberg and the DFC for the second attempt.

Jerry de la Cruz

Vietnam

            In December, 1967 I was assigned to Bien Hoa AB, South Vietnam and to report to the 510^th TFS, The Buzzards of Bien Hoa.  I was fortunate in being able to hone my F-100 flying skills at Myrtle Beach before being sent into combat.  I had known that I would eventually be sent to Vietnam and I felt confident and ready for the fray.

             I had been in country once before on a quick TDY to Phan Rang AB when I ferried an F-100 to the Wing there.  While there, I had a few combat missions in the back seat just for the experience. The most exciting part of that trip for me was landing and taking off on the temporary runway made up of steel plates over uneven ground.  The plates weren’t joined together so water collected under the plates when it rained would shoot up as geysers between gaps in the plates when the F-100s were taking off or on their landing rolls.  Also the plates were coated with some sort of substance to provide better traction.  This coating worked fine when it was dry.  Unfortunately, after a rain, the coating produced a slippery surface nearly akin to ice.

         After arriving inBien Hoa, my new squadron mates eagerly welcomed me into the squadron and I was soon provided with my hootch (living quarters) in the squadron’s living area.  Another friendly face was Leon Goodson’s.  Goody wasn’t in the 510^th, but was flying for one of our sister squadrons, the 90^th TFS.  I was also greeted that night with a fire fight on the base perimeter followed shortly thereafter by the tremendous explosions of a rocket attack.  I assumed my reputation had preceded me, but I learned that these nightly occurrences happened regularly and were not arranged on my behalf.

             I soon learned the quickest route to the nearest shelters.  Also, I learned to tell the difference between the sound of an AK-47 and the M-16.  The AK-47s went bam, bam bam, bam.  The M-16s went berrrp and that was it.  We had army artillery units on the base also, so they added to the cacophony.  I was told a “boom-swish” noise was an outgoing round and okay, but that a “swish-boom” noise was not okay and to run like hell.  I never heard anything but booms, however.

            The Viet Cong were deadly in their rocket attacks and we were unfortunate to have suffered many casualties.  The rockets were not accurate, but they were launched in such numbers that over time we suffered direct hits on our tower, our chapel, and various other buildings.  In one terrible night, the VC put a rocket into the entrance of one of the bunkers killing 24 personnel. 

            Our enlisted personnel had a difficult time of it.  The Air Force built regular air base style two-story barracks as if we were back in the States.  When the sirens went off warning us of incoming rockets, guys were breaking their legs running down the stairs trying to get to the shelters.  Purple Hearts were not awarded for these injuries.  Our First Sergeant’s hair turned white and then he started losing his hair during his tour.

            Bien Hoa was an exciting place to be in 1968.  It had one runway and handled 100,000 take-offs and landings each month.  There were fighters of all descriptions, troop carriers, Forward Air Controllers (FACs), helicopters, commercial airliners, and cargo birds.  We had the Air Force, Army, Vietnamese Air Force and civilians operating at the same time.  Our control tower personnel handled all this with professionalism and aplomb.  They controlled all of these aircraft operating at different speeds and patterns, and contended with airfield damage and numerous emergency landings, sometimes while under attack.  To watch these controllers at work was an amazing experience.  I stood in awe of their capabilities.

            I soon became well acquainted with our squadron bar room.  All of the pilots carved their name in the bar during their tour.  One of the names I spotted was Mike Hyde.  I knew Mike was killed in Vietnam, but didn’t know the circumstances, or the fact that he was a Buzzard.  I recently learned from George Elsea, who was in Vietnam when Mike died, that Mike was killed performing a napalm pass on 8 December 1966.  [Webmaster note: This paragraph has been changed from its original version based upon newer, more reliable information regarding Mike's death.]

            My checkout went very quickly and I was soon flying missions and standing alert.  Our missions were almost entirely in the Three and Four Corps areas, the most southern part of Vietnam.  Our missions included Close Air Support where we had troops in contact with the enemy or knew of enemy locations, Interdiction where we bombed enemy supplies and supply lines, and Escort Duty for both Army convoys and Ranch Hand missions (which I will describe later).

            The majority of our missions were pre-planned.  The 7^th Air Force Tactical Air Control Center in Saigon would allocate fighters to the different Direct Air Support Centers, (DASCs), located throughout the country in accordance to the requests of the various Army units.  The fighter wings were issued fragmentary orders (frags) a day ahead which told the wings which aircraft were to go where, with what ordinance and at what time.  With few exceptions, we would fly in two-ship formations.  After a pre-planned take-off, our flights would contact the DASC and then be handed over to  a Combat Reporting Center, CRC, who in turn would give us directions to rendezvous with a FAC.  After making positive visual contact with the FAC, the FAC would brief us on exactly what and where the target was and any other information that would be useful to us.  He would then mark the target with a white phosperous rocket and give us directions on where to deliver our ordinance relative to his mark.  We would proceed with the attack, get a bomb damage assessment report from the FAC telling us the results of our strike when we finished and head home.  Returning to base we would look each other over to see if we had suffered any battle damage.  On some of our flights, it seemed that all we did was put some holes in the ground.  Others resulted in huge secondary explosions and towering clouds of smoke when we hit supply areas.  When we supported Army units on the ground we got estimates on how many casualties we inflicted on the enemy.  I dispatched many enemy combatants to the hereafter during my tour.  We had a target rich environment in Three and Four Corps.

            We also flew what were called immediate air strikes.  For these missions we stood on alert.  Our wing kept two flights of two aircraft on thirty-minute alert to be used for those dire situations when the Army needed immediate support for a troops-in-contact situation, or some target popped up and there was an immediate opportunity to do some damage.  These missions were generally more exciting than our pre-planned sorties.

            I found standing alert in F-100s much different from my experience in the Deuce.

In the air defense role, our interceptors were cocked at the end of the runway and we were drilled into being able to start and take-off in the shortest amount of time possible.  We were on a five-minute alert status, but in reality we regularly were airborne within two minutes.  All of our strap-in, start, taxi and take-off procedures were so well drilled into us that we could do these actions automatically and in our sleep.  Many times, while on alert in the Deuce, I would find myself waking up while climbing out at night after an active scramble.  That was always uncomfortable.

            Our F-100 alert birds were cocked and ready to start, but our alert hanger was in the middle of the base.  When the klaxon sounded, there wasn’t a mad rush to the aircraft, but a slow leisurely donning of our G-suits and a saunter out the aircraft before starting.  Of course we had to stop at the arming shack before taking the runway to charge our guns and pull the safety pins from our ordinance.  While all of our pre-planned missions were flown during the day, many of our alert sorties came at night.  With the slower pace of getting airborne, I was more awake before take-offs.  This was somewhat offset by the thrill of knowing that we would be dropping ordinance at night under the light of flares. 

            On Christmas day, 1967, we were standing down for a Christmas truce.  I was on alert duty, but we weren’t expecting any action.  Towards evening, The Viet Cong decided that the truce was over and attacked several of our ground positions and we were scrambled.  After rendezvousing with the FAC, we were told that our target was a gun emplacement.  The FAC couldn’t locate the gun exactly but had a general idea where it was and put out a smoke rocket.  It was getting dark when my lead made his first pass on the suspected location.  As he dropped his ordinance on the smoke and was pulling out, the VC gunner opened up with his weapon.  He obviously had no idea where the F-100 was as he spun his weapon in a 360 angle firing the whole time.  The reason I knew this is because he lit up like a Ferris Wheel at night by firing his weapon in a bicycle-wheel pattern. The spokes were exactly centered on the gun’s position.  I don’t know if he was firing tracers or if I was just seeing exhausting gases from his weapon.  Regardless, it was a striking sight. Having pinpointed his location, my pass put him out of commission.           

            The rocket attacks did not abate during the new year and we were constantly busy flying our alert and fragged sorties.  As the end of the month approached, we were told that Vietnam would celebrate its traditional New Year, Tet, with its customary truce.  Our attitude was “yeah, sure” and we expected to have similar results as our Christmas experience.

            We did stand down. But as the day passed on we were getting reports of heavy enemy activity in the area.  We were in our quarters and rushed to the flight line on our motorcycles (we all had Hondas) expecting to suit up and launch.  I found it strange to see South Vietnamese Army troops crouching in the ditches along the road on the way to our squadron operations building.  We arrived at the building and were immediately told to get back to our quarters, get our flack jackets, steel helmets and M-16s (all of these items were issued to pilots when they reported to the Wing) and proceed to the adjacent Army unit who had a large personnel-defensive reveted area.  We were being infiltrated by a large enemy force and they were closing in on the base and the squadron operations area.   We raced back to our hooches and understood why the Vietnamese troops were in the ditches.  I wish that they had told us before we rushed over.

             The ground fire was intense and all around us.  As evening fell flares were constantly being fired off over head.  I didn’t care for the situation at all.  I came over to Vietnam to fly.  I didn’t expect to be engaging the enemy in hand-to-hand combat or even at close quarters.  Nonetheless, I had my weapon and I was prepared to fire on anyone that came close to our defensive position.  Happily, the action wasn’t near us.

            The firing and explosions were intense and continued on throughout the night, but slowed as dawn approached.  At daylight we were told we could get out of the defensive revetment as Bien Hoa had been secured, thanks to the efforts of both our Air Force Air Police and Army attack helicopters.  We were soon to hear an amazing tale.

            During the evening the VC has successfully infiltrated the base and controlled the runway and had entered the revetments where our birds were parked.  An outpost manned by the Air Police was in the direct route of the infiltration and slowed many of the enemy with unbelievably heroic action.  The outpost was an old structure built by the French along a natural approach to Bien Hoa.  They kept firing on the infiltrators causing a huge number of casualties until they were nearly out of ammunition.  Knowing of their plight, some brave Air Police in a jeep with guns blazing drove to the outpost directly through the throng of enemy surrounding the outpost to deliver more ammunition.  It was a tremendous feat of bravery.  Daybreak revealed the carnage on the enemy that these brave warriors accomplished.

            From captured VC we learned that they were equipped with satchel charges and were instructed to throw the satchels into the intake of the F-100.  They were briefed on what the F-100 looked like with its gaping intake maw in the exact front of the aircraft.

After successfully getting into the revetments, these guys came upon the F-102s which were in the first row of revetments.  They became confused because there was only a pointy front end and no opening in the front of the aircraft in which to throw their charges.  They retreated in confusion as the Army was mounting a counter-attack.  The VC didn’t get a chance to return.  We were lucky in that they were in a position to do a lot of damage, but were unable to do so due to their stupidity.

            By mid-morning we were back in business.  We sustained little damage and the enemy had suffered great losses.   Crews were collecting bodies all over the place.  A crew chief chalked up a capture when a VC who was hiding in a drainage pipe came out and surrendered to the passing unarmed airman.  I don’t know whether he got any award.

            We were rushing to get back into the game.  There was a lot of action going on both in the country side and in the cities.  The Army was screaming for air support.  Our aircraft were inspected for any damage and prepared for missions.  I had already been scheduled for runway control officer duty.  This meant that I had to go out to the shack at the approach end of the runway to monitor our Wing’s take-offs and landings.  It was a necessary duty that was rotated among the pilots and it was my turn to go.  I suddenly realized that the shack was in an area that was earlier under the control of the VC.  The building was a two-story affair with the radios and other equipment on the second level.  I was wondering if the building had been cleared of VC.  I didn’t want to look like a wimp and ask for an escort, but decided that I would go out there with my flack jacket, helmet, and M-16 at the ready.  I drove out to the site and cocked my weapon.  My heart was pounding as I climbed the stairs as I didn’t know what to expect.  I leaped on to the second floor like John Wayne ready to fire at any thing that moved.  Nothing was out of the ordinary.  What a relief.

            For the next several weeks we were constantly in the air, mostly on immediate sorties.  I was flying three missions a day off the alert pad during this extremely hectic period.  Most of the missions were in support of Army units in contact with the enemy.  These missions were the most challenging and the most rewarding.  On these missions we had to have exact knowledge of the location of the friendlies and the enemy.  Our approaches had to be carefully planned.  Ideally we would never make a pass or a pull out over our own troops.  The nature of fire fights, however, did not always allow us to avoid this situation.  Nobody wanted to endanger our own troops with a misplaced round.  I never worried about a short round, but I always feared having a bomb hang up for an instant, thereby having it go long over the intended target.  That was the challenge.  The reward was saving our own in threatening situations. 

             The closest I ever had to place ordinance next to friendly troops was on a sortie where we had already delivered our weapons and were returning to base.  We still had our 20MM cannon available.  We were directed by the Control and Reporting Center to immediately rendezvous with another FAC to provide support to a downed Army helicopter.  We were lucky enough to be in the area and quickly were on scene.  The FAC briefed us on the situation.  The helicopter was in large cleared area lying on its side.  The crew was about 50 meters away in a ditch along side a road, really no more than a cart path, but easily defined from the air.  The enemy was on the other side of the road in another ditch firing at the downed crew.   I could see exactly the positions of the friendlies and the enemy, but this was too close for comfort.  The Circular Error Probable (the area in which half of the rounds would fall even if delivered under exact parameters) of our guns was larger than the area occupied by both sides.  Even off-setting my aiming point by a goodly distance could put our troops in danger.  My wingman was fairly new in theater so I told him not to make any passes.  I elected to forgo our regular parameters for attack, 30 degree dive angle and firing at 1500 ft., and instead do a modified attack similar to a napalm delivery, i.e., straight and level at 50 ft.  I would do a slight dive at the end and try to fire at about 500 ft, aiming slightly off the target away from the friendlies.   I did not want a stray round to land on the other side of the road.  If nothing else I would scare the daylights out of them.  I came roaring in, nearly spearing the bad guys with my pitot tube and gave a short burst of my guns.  Of course I didn’t hit anything firing at a nearly level position, but my tactic worked.  As I was pulling off, the FAC excitedly radioed that the VC were running for their lives back to a tree line a couple of hundred meters back.  I didn’t cause any casualties, but the VC were routed.  I asked if we could spray the tree line, but we were called off.  As I was circling overhead getting ready to make a pass, Army attack helicopters arrived on scene to take care of things. That was an exciting mission.

            Another mission that we flew was support of the C-123 Ranch Hands on their defoliating missions.  The Ranch Hand squadron was stationed at Bien Hoa.  Bob Fischer was one of their pilots.  Their mission consisted of flying at squadron strength practically at line abreast, straight and level, as fast as they could go (unfortunately that was very slow), almost at tree top level spraying Agent Orange on suspected Viet Cong locations, hide-outs, trails and supply dumps.  Our escort duties were to fly along side their route dropping white phosphorous cluster bomblets ahead of the formation of C-123s.  We would drop these at a higher level than the Ranch Hands were flying and parallel to their route.  The bomblets would ignite while still in the air and produce a thick white cloud as they fell.  The idea was that this would provide a smoke screen for the vulnerable C-123s, at least from the side.  In addition we would strafe and bomb suspected VC strong points along the route ahead of the Ranch Hands. The theory being that this would get the VC to keep their heads down as the C-123s flew over.  The start and stop points had to be known ahead of time and the timing for the release of the Willy Pete and the strafing runs had to be closely coordinated.  The fighters had the easy part of this mission.  We were fast and maneuverable.  The Ranch Hands, as described earlier, flew low, slow, and straight.  They would fly their position in formation no matter how much ground fire they were taking or how many times they were actually hit during the mission.  The smoke screen we provided shielded the Ranch Hands from the side, but offered no cover directly in front of or underneath them.  The strafing runs probably only alerted the VC that the C-123s were coming and to cock their weapons.

            In my 200 combat sorties that I flew, I received battle damage (hits) on five sorties.  My wing man was hit on five other sorties.  One of the C-123s belonging to the Ranch Hands was nicknamed Patches.  This airplane had been hit over 300 times.  Every C-123 had a goodly number of patches covering battle damage.  This is what the Ranch Hand crews endured during these missions.  They were some of the bravest men I knew.  They never aborted a mission because of too much enemy fire.  They never turned back because the mission was too hard or too dangerous.  They took their licks while flying in a most vulnerable manner.  They are deserving of the highest honors and I stand in admiration of them.  I have the same respect for the cargo crews who delivered their loads under the most dangerous conditions and had no ability to shoot back.

            Only one of the hits that I took caused any serious major damage.  The rest were minor in nature.  Our procedures required us to declare an emergency any time we were hit.  On one of these sorties, to add insult to injury, not only did I have to declare an emergency, but I was then told that I was number three in the emergency pattern.

            Virtually everyone in the 510^th was hit at one time or another, sometimes with tragic consequences.  During the year that I was there, we lost two pilots killed in action from ground fire.  Two others were forced to bail out and were rescued.  We had no POWs taken.  Of these four pilots, three had Academy connections.  Jim Brinkman who was killed was a fine young pilot from the class of 62.  Our other fatality was Rock Shane.  Rock was one of our football coaches when I played freshman football in 1956.

            One of the pilots who was shot down and dramatically rescued was Ron Fogleman, class of ‘63.  Ron went down in an extremely dangerous area under the control of the VC.  An Army Cobra, an attack helicopter, was in the area and the pilot followed Ron as he descended.  The copter pilot set down close to the downed airman.  The Cobra has only two seats in its cockpit so there is no room for passengers.  The pilot leaped out, opened a gun bay door and threw out an ammunition canister.  Ron was stuffed inside and with the door hanging open and with nothing holding Ron in other than a big pucker, the Cobra quickly took off and brought Ron to safety.   The future chief of staff was a lucky man that day.   The Air Force was served well during his tenure and I am very proud to say that he was once my wingman.

            As December neared I was getting more and more anxious to get home.  Being apart from Betty and our two small children was the most terrible experience of my life.  I wanted to be with them again.  I also wanted to know where we would be going next.

I got a call from our personnel center.  Out of the blue, I learned that I would be going on a consecutive overseas tour to England.  I was to be on exchange with the Royal Air Force flying the Electric Lighting somewhere in Scotland. 

             I was shocked.  I knew there was an exchange program, but I never even thought about being part of it.  I had no idea how these positions were filled, but I was very excited about the prospect of flying the Lightning.  I was familiar with the bird.  It was the hottest aircraft in the RAF.  It was a Mach 2+ single-seat fighter.  Faster than the F-4, but with the maneuverability of a true dog fighter.  It had a unique design of two over and under engines.  The aircraft carried so little fuel that even the ailerons were designed to carry a bit of fuel in them.  They flew a lot of missions intercepting and escorting Soviet Bear bombers flying over the North Sea.  Their sorties were sometimes only 30 minutes, but it would be a thrilling 30 minutes.

            What a high.  I was going home to my family at last and on to new adventures with the RAF.

George E. Luck

My SEA War

In 1968-69, I served as a test pilot in the Directorate of Flight Test at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH.  One of my projects was to fly a B-57 test bed airplane in the development of a new IR sensor for the RF-4C.  Another project was to fly and evaluate the prototype B-57G with a low light level television sensor.  Both programs involved many nights on the Eglin AFB photo resolution range; and both programs were successful and were deployed to SEA.

During the summer of 1969, I was assigned to the 609^th Special Operations Squadron (SOS) (call sign: Nimrod) as a pilot to fly the Douglas A-26 Counter Invader.  The two- month crew training was conducted at Hurlbert Field at Ft. Walton Beach, FL.  Hurlbert was the home of Air Force Special Operations.  After transition flying, formation and dive bomb, skip bomb, rocket and strafe patterns, we switched to night operations.  First striking above the flares, then attacking under the flares and finally attacking in total darkness using Navy sea markers.

I arrived in Nakhom Phanom RTAFB Thailand.  Our mission was to interdict the trail complex in Laos and to provide air support for the Royal Lao Forces in their fight against the Pathet Lao and NVA.  After two months of night operations, the A-26s were de-activated along with the B-57s, F-100s and U-10s.  Ten of the A-26s were flown to Tucson, AZ for storage; the remaining five were given to the VNAF.  I led a flight of three on the ferry trip back to the bone yard.  We flew the old Pan Am Clipper route: Bangkok, Clark, Anderson, Wake, Midway, Hickham, McClelland and D-M. 

The crew members were then up for grabs – I took an assignment in the 56^th Special Operations Wing as a flying safety officer.  This assignment required me to check out in another airplane.  For me, it was the Douglas A-1 Skyraider.  I was attached to the 602 SOS (call sign: Firefly).  During my check flight on my fifth A-1 mission, I was shot down by ground fire over the Plain of Jars in northern Laos.  I got to ride the Stanley Aviation’s Yankee rocket extraction system.  It worked like a charm.  My right seater and instructor was shot and critically wounded as he parachuted down.  After an hour on the Plain, we were rescued by two Air America helicopter crews.  I completed the assignment flying 80 combat missions and investigating numerous accidents and incidents.  When I arrived at NKP, we had 100 Skyraiders, but after one year, we had lost 40, and after two more years, the numbers dwindled down to only a handful.

My next assignment was to Test Ops at Edwards.  I was the project pilot for the RC-135U.  It had phase array radar antennas on the nose, tail and each wing tip.  It was to be used for triangulating SAM radar sites in SEA.

Ralph Lalime: SEA Phantom Tales

My tour of duty with the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron (Triple Nickel) began in September 1968 when I arrived at Udorn RTAFB in Northern Thailand. One hundred and eighty missions later (27 over NVN, 150 over Laos, and 3 into SVN) in September of 1969 my bride, Darlene, and I flew home together out of Bangkok on a commercial contract airplane. Thank you, Sgt Brown. These are a few anecdotal events that occurred that year.

I lucked out the first day I arrived at the "Nickel" when I immediately got into a two-man hooch with air conditioning and a telephone. That night at the big Squadron party I learned the party was a goodbye celebration for the guy who had gotten shot down and quickly picked up that same day.  It was his room that I had moved into.   A few days later Hanoi Hannah welcomed Capt Lalime to Udorn on the radio saying "When the rice is tall Udorn will fall"

My first combat mission was a two-ship night sortie to Zan San in southern North Vietnam.  The intelligence briefing scared the heck out of me with all the AAA they said was in that area, but It was a standard road cut along a mountain road.  I got in trouble with my lead when I made more passes than he had briefed, but I saw no AAA and had to get the bombs off.  From then on, most missions were exciting, but mostly routine: brief, take off, refuel on a tanker, go to target area, return to tanker and then back to Udorn.

DonThurman

DonThurman arrived in the Squadron some months later. Since he was a test pilot school graduate, he picked up the extra duty as squadron maintenance test pilot.  He checked me out as a maintenance test pilot to help with the workload. We made every test run go past Mach 2 to make sure the aircraft were war worthy for our squadron. The Triple Nickel had already shot down more MIGs than any other squadron in SEA and we boasted that we were "the  largest distributor of MIG parts in SEA." 

Don started flying a new mission using the F-4D as a “fast FAC.”  Since Udorn had two fighter squadrons and two recce squadrons, the wing intelligence center had a large overlay photographic map such that you could look at everything with 3D glasses and see what was there within the past 12 hours.  I was a mission lead so Don Thurman devised a scheme whereby we would identify three current targets on the photo map calling them Tgt. A, Tgt. B, and Tgt. C (clever, eh!). Don would take off while I was briefing my flight and walking them through the photo map targets. When I joined up on the tanker, I would check in with Don on a different frequency and he would tell me which of our cleverly designated targets were still there. Then he would go over to the ABCCC and tell them he had some good targets. I would separately go to ABCCC and tell them my flight's ordnance and availability.  Of course we had briefed the targets given to us by the HQ, but they were usually what we called "tree parks" and ABCCC would always release us to Don.  Upon leaving the tanker we would rendezvous with Don and he would either clear us on to the target or lead us to it. Having studied the exact picture on the map that morning, we all could clearly identify and destroy the targets.  Over a period of a couple of months we were getting really good bomb damage assessments (BDA).  I even had one guy from the other fighter squadron come up to me one day to ask how I was getting such good BDA! 

Of course it wasn't always smooth. One day my aircraft (nicknamed 'LUV") was loaded with two air-to-ground "Bullpup" missiles. I had flown film simulations, firing and hand guiding these missiles. but I had never actually fired one.  Today was the day--and Don Thurman was my FAC.  We flew out to a big cave which was an ammunition storage facility. I rolled in, lined up, and pickled the AGM. I expected it to ignite and come off like a rocket, but instead it came out to my left then went above my canopy and it looked like I was flying close trail formation with it coming down the chute!  Finally it lit up and moved in front of me, but I was not able to control it that well and it hit on the left front of the cave.  My good buddy Don called out "Ralph if you can't do any better than that take the other one home and don't hit anything on the way!"  I'm telling you if I had to fly that whole airplane into that cave to get that stupid missile inside I would have!  Fortunately the second missile came off like a rocket and I flew it right into the cave. Nice explosion. I still had to buy Don the beer that night.

Greg Boyington

         Darlene and I had been married less than a year when I went to the war flying out of Thailand so Darlene came on over and lived in Bangkok .  I was able to get down to visit her in Bangkok for a weekend almost every month. She came up to Udorn three or four times.  Each time was interesting. One of these times, I invited some of the Academy guys from the 555th to get together for dinner with her at an Thai restaurant in downtown Udorn.  Unfortunately on that very day we had lost another wonderful pilot named San Francisco. He had been shot down over southern North Vietnam and although an F100 FAC had established voice contact with him, we were denied permission from the White House (Johnson) to go in and pick him up. That was the last we ever heard of him.  Naturally, this loss created a strained mood at our dinner, but after numerous bottles of Singha beer, we mellowed out.  About that time, the music that came on was "I left my heart in San Francisco".  We all went silent for a while then Don Thurman said "He was a great guy" and we drank a toast to him. Some of the guys there were Don, Greg Boyington, John Vickery, Joe Morgan, maybe Nick Kehoe and at least one other.

          After dinner, Greg said we should race in samlar (a three wheeled pedicab pedaled by a Thai ... similar to a rickshaw) to the corner bar and the last person there would buy the beer.  Well, Boyington cheated... He put his little driver in the passenger seat and pedaled the samlar himself!  After that beer, we went home glad that only one of us was going to have an early flight next morning.  That one was Greg and it was a dozy of a mission!  Greg and J.R. Alley were flying a two ship Ho Chi Min trail interdiction mission.  The weather was bad with solid clouds from about 4000 ft up to 20000 ft.  Greg and J.R. flying below the clouds came across a fantastic target with multiple trucks and supplies. The NVN were taking full advantage of the cloud cover.  The trouble was that the ordnance Greg and J.R. had on board were all Cluster Bomb Units (CBU's) with radar fusing set to about 7,000 ft. That meant they had to drop the bombs above that altitude.  So JR with Greg on his wing went back out and then came back and visually approaching the target at high speed they pulled straight up and pickled as they climbed above the fusing altitude while they were in the clouds!    Shortly thereafter a recce bird came through taking pictures of what turned out to be the completely destroyed target.  The awards and decorations officer in the squadron put Greg and JR in for a DFC for this mission. but it didn't make it.  For years after that mission, Greg claimed he didn't remember it but he does remember winning the samlar race!

Napalm

         One night, my ordnance load included two large bombs filled with napalm.  The target area was southern North Vietnam near Ban Phen Op. It was a mountainous (karst) valley.  When we arrived there every 37MM AAA in the valley was shooting at us. It was rather impressive, with all the orange streams of fire flowing up into the dark sky.  I rolled in and dropped one can of nape on one of the gun positions. It was startling-- the napalm hit that position, but it struck high up on the karst, so the blazing napalm flowed down, down, down the hill like a giant fiery waterfall!  Every gun in the valley stopped firing.  When I tried to drop my second can of napalm, it hung up on one lug. I tried everything to get it off but to no avail. On the way home, I was nervous about having to land with a hung bomb and when my wingman came up to look me over with a flashlight he said it was hanging so far down that I should consider bailing out. 

Now I was more than nervous as I envisioned myself flaming along the runway when I touched down.  As we approached Udorn I encouraged my back seater, Dick Baldwin (a great guy to fly with), to eject. He replied "Hell you're having a hard enough time flying this thing with me, no telling what will happen to you if I leave!"  As we were coming across the threshold of the runway I slowly, slowly reduced the throttles to try to make a smooth landing. I was wondering why we hadn't touched yet when Baldy said "I think we are on the ground". I chopped the throttles and sure enough we were on landing roll out and still not on fire.  As we turned off the runway and stopped, we could see the crash trucks   and there were six or seven firefighters and maintenance guys running towards us. When the crash truck spot lights came on and illuminated us, ALL of the guys running towards us stopped and started running away!  By now, Baldy is standing on the wing next to my cockpit saying "are you coming or not?"  He always had a way with words.

Jim Carder and the mountain top

         It was a clear day over Laos.  I was flying Number 4 on Jim Carder's wing. Our four-ship was committed against munitions storage inside a cave at the bottom of a short mountain.  The problem was there were gun (37MM) emplacements near the top of the hill. There was only one way to approach the cave and we were exposed to the AAA during the entire time.  The sky was full of "cotton candy" (that's what 37mm looks like in the daylight).  With the constant circular pattern we were flying to make our attacks, it was obvious to me that one of us was going to take a hit.  This was also one of the few times Darlene was in Udorn visiting me and I started thinking about how bad it would be for her if I got shot down today. Thinking this way, I actually hung up and floated turning base to final attack.  The "cotton candy" woke me from my reverie and I realized I was setting myself up -- so I'd better pay attention. We weren't doing that well with the slick 500 lb bombs we had on board.  With us flying a straight final, totally focused on the cave entrance, the gunner at the top of the hill had a distinct advantage. The ducks in a pond metaphor comes to mind.  On our next time around, Jim extended his downwind quite a ways out. Flying behind him in the pattern, I couldn't figure out what he was doing.  I should point out here that Jim Carder was one of the best combat pilots in the squadron and I flew with him every chance I could.  When I saw him turn final at a much lower altitude I realized he was going to try to slide a low bomb into the cave.  Lot of danger was associated with that maneuver so, I opted to provide cover for him as well as I could. I stayed above and behind him and made my pass obviously against the gun emplacement.  This drew the gunner's attention away from Jim and he accomplished the impossible by getting his bombs into the cave. I'm pretty sure I actually got the AAA gunner at the same time.  A couple of seconds after we pulled out of our dives, the top of the mountain blew off like a volcano! 

         One night, Jim and I (plus Baldy of course) were tasked with a harassment sortie. At about 2:00 AM we would fly in 3 mile trail at 20,000 ft over a sequence of targets using our ground radar to drop bombs on the targets.  This went well with Baldy doing a great job on the radar.  HQ gave us the exact same mission the following night; same altitude, same targets, same sequence.  We weren't comfortable with this because the NVN were not stupid and we thought they could figure out where we were heading after the first drop, however we gave it a try.  Sure enough as we approached the third target a huge white flash lit up the sky near Jim flying three miles ahead of me.  It was 100mm AAA.  Big guns with altitude capability.  Jim called it out to me, but we were on the final minute of our bomb run and Baldy had a solid lock on the target so we pressed on.  Fortunately nothing hit us.  HQ fell in love with this mission and Jim and I were committed against the same three targets the third night in a row.  During our briefing, Jim and I decided to vary things a bit. After takeoff we split up and flew the target sequence in opposite directions at different altitudes. All went very well and then we rejoined and came back to base together, not telling anyone we had split up.  We finally convinced HQ not to do that same mission again for a while.

My dumbest stunt

         It was a night mission over Southern NVN. Our FAC was either a C-123 or C-119 driver and he sounded very nervous. It was probably one of his first combat missions.  The target area was crowded with the FAC, my two-ship and another fighter flight all at around 20,000 ft.  The other flight was just finishing, so we held at altitude. All of a sudden, the FAC called out that somebody just went by him near his altitude. We actually were a couple of thousand above him, but he sounded so nervous I said it was probably us and I would put my wing lights on so he could see us. I was getting a little too complacent at this point in my tour.  Here I am, mind you, over North Vietnam on a combat mission with my lights on. Everyone in the world could see me, but I was high enough.  Shortly thereafter we were cleared onto the target, marked by a burning log on the dark ground.   As I started my roll in, three 37mm guns started firing at me. As I was coming down the chute (final attack run) these guns were firing from my front, my left and my right.  Thinking they couldn't see me I was impressed with how accurate they were getting.  By the time I released my bombs and started our pullout I realized they could see me and Baldy called out "your lights are on!".  Now I'm going about 500 knots, jinking, pulling "g's" and trying to reach behind me to find the light switch.  The ground gunners really had me. I broke right and a white flash went off; I broke back left and another white flash!  I forgot the switch, rolled out lit the Afterburner and looked like a space launch going straight up!  After several exciting/scary/puckering seconds I was above the 37mm's max altitude. When I rolled out I was breathing very hard.  Then the FAC who was watching my great show asked "Are you all right?"  I was so angry that I asked Baldy to reply. Baldy, always Mr. Cool, said, "Ah, rog".

A Tale of Three Fizzles: USAF Firebombing in SVN by TonyBurshnick and others

Much of the war in Vietnam was characterized by the strategic principle of “Making it up as we go along.”  The following story starts with an e-mail from Tony Burshnick.

FIRE IN THE BOI LOI WOODS.

Northwest of Ben Hoiu Air Base was a jungle area that was supposedly infested with Viet Cong who made attacks on both the base and the area around Saigon. They tried to bomb them out with the B-52s but it wasn't working. So the leaders decided to kill all the vegetation using AGENT ORANGE. For weeks the C-123 spray birds dumped tons of the Agent on the area. When the vegetation rotted and dried the decision was made to set it on fire. We brought all the C-123s in Viet Nam to Ton Son Nhut. Each plane was then loaded with eight wooden pallets each containing four fifty gallon drums of fuel oil or gasoline. In between the four oil drums was stuffed a five thousand candle-power flare that was taped to the drums. The lanyard to set the flare off was connected to the line normally used by paratroopers to pull the chute lanyard. We took off, leveled at 1000 feet, and formed into probably twenty flights of three ships in trail.

            Starting at the South east corner of Boi Loi we started to drop the flare-triggered fuel drums by pushing half of the pallets out the C-123's ramp while flying East to West. It took that flare about thirty seconds to burn through the fuel drum and set it on fire.  Fighter pilots would probably call that napalm. Then the formation circled around to the North and when it was abreast of the starting point we turned South and started another line of fire with the rest of our fire load. This created a tremendous venturi effect and soon the entire area was ablaze. It probably took us an hour to take off and start the fire and another hour to recover all the C-123s. I can remember that we had a big Post Beer Party planned. I was drinking my first beer and half the formation was still in the landing pattern. But shortly thereafter we were all on the ground and having a great party. Then we noticed dark clouds building above the blazing area. In no time at all we created one of the biggest thunderstorms I had ever seen in Viet Nam. You guessed it. The storm pretty much put the fire out. True story. The base weather officer had the audacity to tell us that if we asked him for advice he would have told us we would only create a storm. Isn't hindsight great???

This story triggered the following response from Bill Goodyear:

The story about "FIRE IN THE BOI LOI WOODS," in your message, reminds me of February 1966 when Denis Walsh and I did the same thing as part of a fifty B-52 raid from Guam.  The mission was called "Pink Rose II."  The forest service had placed oil drums in the target area and we dropped a full load of incendiary bombs, the same type used on Japan during WWII.  The target area was ten miles side and ten miles long.  After all bombers had cleared the area we made a slow 180 degree turn back to the east.  There was a large fire, a big column of black smoke, and after we left the country a big thunderstorm, which put out the fire.  Same result as was created by the C-123s.

Then Doug Reckenthaler comes on line.

Ditto: 36 ship C-130 formation, each with 44 barrels and thermite grenades in each.  Operation "Burn Brae" (I guess named after the dinner theater out in MD). As I recall (I was the airlift command briefer for the morning briefs at 7th AF in Saigon at the time of the C-130 op), these occurred during the handoff from Momyer to Brown, and Brown did not like the operation so it was closed down.   At 71, my memory may fail me (this was in 1968), but I think Brown was sensitive to the political aspect. 

Ron Patchett

Ron Patchett: Flying F-105’s over Hanoi

My wartime experiences were centered upon the conflict in South East Asia in the years of 1967-68. In early 1967 I was flying F-102s in Alaska and as pilots rotated out they were sent to SEA in varying capacities.  As a relatively junior Capt I gladly jumped at a chance to fly F-105's rather than being stuck in the back seat of an F-4, or worse yet, sent to a Headquarters.
 

After 6 months RTU at McConnell AFB, Kansas I was assigned to the 355^th Wing at Takhli, Thailand and became a member of the 333^rd TFS. By agreement between the US and Thai governments, the F-105s stationed in Thailand (Takhli and Korat) were not allowed to expend ordinance in SVN – of course we “didn't” expend ordinance in Laos or Cambodia either. Be that as it may when more air resources were required, the rules went out the window.

During my 7 months at Takhli I flew 104 combat missions (100 missions in North Vietnam). Most of these 100 were to Route Pack VI (downtown Hanoi and it's environs). The odd 4 combat missions were in SVN in support of the Marines and Army Special Forces at Khe Sanh during the siege.

Although there was probably nothing routine about “going downtown,” here is what one could expect on a typical Route Pack VI mission out of Takhli:

An F-105 Mission to Hanoi

An early morning Force mission to the Hanoi area was not a spur of the moment tasking. The Frag order from 7^th AF Hqs. containing the targets, primary and secondary, and the tasked units would arrive late in the afternoon the day before the mission. The Wing Force Commander would be chosen and he would complete the overall mission planning of routes, times, weapon loads, etc. Those assigned to fly the mission would have an early supper and try to get to bed early and get some rest.

Alarm clocks would go off around 0200 in order to gather at Wing Hqs about 0215 for the Force Commander's briefing. In attendance would be all the F-105 strike pilots, the F-105 Weasel pilots (SAM suppression) and representatives from the B-66s (standoff jammers), the KC-135 Tankers, Wing Intel and Wing Weather. During the briefing the Execute or Cancel order would come in from 7^th AF.

The briefing would breakup about 0300 with the members going to their respective squadron areas for the detailed flight briefings. Those who felt like eating would do so at about 0400. The B-66s and KC-135s would commence their takeoffs at about this time. F-105 pilots would suit-up at about 0430, proceed to the aircraft for preflight, startup and takeoff in flights of four from about 0500 to 0530.

There would be six flights of four F-105 aircraft (two flights of Weasels and four flights of strike aircraft) converging on six tankers. There would also be four flights of F-4 MiGCAP (MiG suppression) from Ubon or Udorn on other tankers. When we joined up with our tanker, each of the four aircraft in the flight would cycle through very briefly and take on a small amount of fuel to ensure the refueling system was operating properly. Then the Flight would fly formation with the tanker as it flew the assigned racetrack pattern – the Force Commander in the lead flight on the first tanker and the other five in-trail.

When the Flight Lead determined it was the appropriate time the Flight would cycle through and take on a full load of fuel. It would probably take less than five minutes on the boom, but it could seem like forever if it was rough, the tanker was flying in and out of weather or if because of weather the high altitude tanker was unable to maintain a high airspeed – an F-105 Thud with full bomb load had considerable difficulty refueling at lower airspeeds. There were times during the monsoons when we had to refuel on high altitude, slow flying tankers when we had such a high angle of attack that we actually had to utilize minimum afterburner just to hang onto the boom. Just prior to drop-off the flight would cycle through for the third time for a quick top off so all aircraft would have approximately the same amount of fuel and be as close to full as possible.

If everything worked as planned, the drop-off would take place on time and at the Northern end of the tanker track up over Central Laos. From there we would head for Lima Site 85 – the clandestine TACAN built on a high karst in Northern Laos just outside NVN. Here we would update our Inertial Nav Systems, join up with two flights of our MiG CAP (they would fly high cover over the Force while the other two flights were roamers – positioning themselves between any threat and the Force) and send the two flights of Weasels out in front of the Force to search out the SAMs as they became a threat to the Force.

We would normally continue our NVN ingress considerably to the west to stay over the mountains as long as possible. We would be flying at 550 kts and between 12,000 and 17,000 ft. As we crossed the Black River and Red River valleys we would swing around from the Northwest and down a mountain ridge, which became known to US forces as Thud Ridge. This ridge, which pointed like an arrow at Hanoi, was steep enough that the North Vietnamese couldn't locate SAMs or guns there and provided some protection until we broke out over the Red River valley about 50 nm NW of Hanoi. (Of interest, and great frustration to US pilots, was the fact that the main NVN MiG base sat just at the end of Thud Ridge and we would frequently see MiGs taking off to position themselves to attempt an attack during our egress, but our Rules of Engagement said we couldn't attack the base or the MiGs until they became a threat. Late in 1967 the RoE changed and we did hit the base a number of times.)

As we broke out over the river valley the SAMs and guns would become very active. The SAM site radars were attacked by the Weasels and any actual SAM launches called out to the Force. If a SAM launch could be acquired visually, evasion was usually not extremely difficult. It was those launched from behind or up through a mid-level cloud deck that caused the majority of the SAM losses. Of the guns, only the 85mm and 100mm were effective at our ingress altitudes. Their gun laying radars were also attacked by the Weasels, so they usually put up barrage-type patterns that we could evade until we got to the target area and needed to stabilize as we set up for the roll-in.

At the target the Force Commander would set up the first flight to initiate the roll-in. The aircraft in the first flight would normally each carry six CBUs (Cluster Bomb Units) that were used for flak suppression. Each aircraft would be assigned one quadrant around the target. As you rolled in at a 45 degree dive angle there was no doubt in your mind where the guns were firing from and they became the aim point for your quadrant. Each CBU had hundreds of bomblets – some timed for air burst, some for ground burst and some delayed – all intended to cause havoc amongst the gunners and prevent their concentration on the strike aircraft to follow.

The strike aircraft would follow the Force Commander and roll-in by flight. The strike aircraft weapons would depend on the target. If it was an area target like a rail yard they would each carry six 750 lb bombs – if it was a hardened target like a bridge they would each carry two 3000 lb bombs. Like the Force Commander they would dive at a 45 degree angle, 550 kts and at 8000 ft with the piper at the proper aimpoint, offset for predicted wind, would release their bombs and start their pull out. They would pull at least 4 g’s in order to have completed pull out by 4000 ft – the altitude at which the smaller caliber guns with their high rates of fire became effective. As soon as the nose came above the horizon it would be light the burner and haul a** out of the target area and back to Thud Ridge – usually supersonic.

Once back over Thud Ridge the flights would rejoin, check one another over for battle damage and head back toward the tankers. It was vital during this phase of the mission to not relax too much for at this time the MiG CAP could not cover the spread out flights and there was always the threat of being bounced by MiGs.

Back at the tankers, it was a small drink for just enough fuel to get home. Recovery at our home base, Takhli, usually required a total mission time of 4 to 5 hours – though one time we had a pilot down on Thud Ridge and flew support for the rescue forces requiring a mission time of over 8 hours. I lost track of how many times I refueled that mission.

After shut down, the first stop would be a maintenance debrief followed by an Intel debrief. We were usually done by 1100, would go get a bite to eat, get a short nap and then start to get ready for the next day if we were on the schedule.

I am particularly proud of the fact that during the latter portion of my tour I was one of a very few number of Captains selected to be a Force Commander – combat lead for the entire wing mission of 24 aircraft going to Route Pack VI.

Tale of a Nighttime Lover:

One night about 0130 all the pilots not on the early morning schedule were pulled out of bed and sent to Sq Ops. They were looking for 8 pilots that had not spent more than about an hour in the Stag Bar that night. The old Doolie philosophy of not having to answer any question not directed specifically at you, didn't register after being so rudely roused and I volunteered I had only had one beer. I was immediately Flight Lead of the first flight - “Get out to the aircraft, get airborne and you'll be briefed on the radio by ABCCC (Airborne Command & Control Center).”

“What do you mean get airborne – don't you realize it's dark out there – I'm an F-105 pilot, a daytime fighter and a nighttime lover!!!!” My protestations got me nowhere and I was airborne by about 0215. Now you've got to understand, the extent of my nighttime flying in the previous 4 months had been all of about 30 minutes for each early mission takeoff and flight toward the tanker. By the time we got to the tanker it was always getting light. It was not to be so this night! ABCCC told us we would hit a tanker and then be directed to a Sky Spot (radar directed weapons release) at an undisclosed location.

There were times during the day under certain visibility conditions that it was hard to pick up the tanker. This night over eastern Laos, with no moon, a high thin overcast and no ground lights, there was no problem picking up the tanker – it was lite up like a Christmas tree. I had had one night refueling during F-105 upgrade and that had been at least six months before – I was not looking forward to this. The Boomer cleared me in to the contact position – a little rough on the stick and throttle, but not bad - “Contact, taking on fuel”. About that time the KC-135 reached the northern end of it's race track and started a left hand turn – still not bad, I was hanging in there – then for some unexplained reason the damn KC pilot “rolled inverted”!! A very quick glance down at my instruments confirmed I had a severe case of vertigo. I told the Boomer not to let go of me until we were straight and level. After what seemed like an hour, the KC pilot finally called straight and level – I snuck a few glances at my instruments and the world turned right side up again. It doesn't sound like much when you are reading it, but let me tell you, living it was one of the more memorable events in my life. The rest of the mission was anti-climactic, except for the fact that our Inertial Navigation System said we were over northern South Vietnam.

Thirty years later, I was talking to the Dock Master at the marina where I kept my boat and learned he was a Special Forces grunt that had been at a hilltop artillery support fire base just outside the Khe Sanh perimeter during the siege. I told him the story of the Sky Spot to the area and he said they received numerous unseen nighttime fighter air support deliveries that hit the NVN just outside their perimeter and held them at bay until the daylight when they could get direct support aircraft in.  Could it be….?.

A Meeting of Friends

After finishing my 100 missions over NVN in 1968, I didn't get to go home as was usually the case. Instead, because I was an experienced Force Commander, I was sent to 7^th AF Hqs as an Out-Country Staff Officer. One of my tasks was the Hqs liaison for the introduction into Vietnam of Paveway, one of the earliest laser guided munitions. While there we planned a Special Mission and I was sent to Thailand to brief the participating units on their roles in that operation.

While at Nakhon Phanom I met up with classmate Ed Leonard. We had a great chat at the O'Club, especially about his job of flying the venerable A-1 Skyraider. He related how much he enjoyed the Firefly mission – A-1 attack along the Ho Chi Minh trail, but how vulnerable he felt during the Sandy (Search and Rescue) missions. We parted, agreeing to see one another again soon.

Shortly after returning to 7^th Hqs in May '68 I heard of a Navy A-7 pilot having been shot down in the Tchepone area. The Hqs followed the Rescue Operation closely during the three days and two nights before the Navy pilot was successfully picked up. The cost was large however – six US aircraft were lost during the rescue operation. I was greatly saddened to hear that Ed piloted Sandy 7, one of the six aircraft, and that he had not been recovered. It would be 5 long years before he was released by the North Vietnamese.

For actions during my duties at Takhli I was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross w/2olc and the Air Medal w/11olc. For my actions at the Hqs I received the Bronze Star.

Les Hobgood

 Traveling to Southeast Asia for Fun and Profit

In early 1963, I was a First Lieutenant Crew Dog in the 40^th MAS (Military Airlift Squadron) flying C-135s out of McGuire AFB, New Jersey.  They kept talking about Operation Jungle Jim around the O’Club and in the squadron operations area, so when I finally caught on, I was afraid that little war in Indochina might not last long enough for me to get in it.  I had been volunteering for every assignment rumor that would take me out of the C-135 and into a smaller more maneuverable combat aircraft.  After one of the trips back from a west run in May 1963, I got word that my prayers were answered. 

When God wants to punish you, he answers your prayers.

 I was being assigned to a new start up unit, the 19^th Tactical Air Support Squadron, at Bien Hoa Air Base, South Viet Nam flying O-1s.  What the hell was an O-1?   Oh, an L-19 Bird Dog, now I knew.  My first reaction was hot dam, I’m outta here!  Then the realization sunk in.  All these years I had trained and yearned for combat and now here it comes... a guy could get killed out there.  What the hell, they can kill you, but they can’t eat you.  Live fast, die young and make a good looking corpse.  All that hype wasn’t quite as cute now.   

Blew out of Travis for Clark (no time for snake school... immediate need for pilots it Viet Nam) and then Saigon Operationally, the first thing I found out was ... we had no planes.   They were on the boat somewhere and scheduled to be assembled by Air Viet Nam once they reached Saigon. 

The planes did arrive, were assembled and Major Dooley, the Operations Officer, was sent to Saigon on August 7, 1963, to pick up the first O-1D and fly it back.  This was the variable pitched prop model and no one was checked out in it.  After what must have been an interesting conversation with the top brass (us lieutenants were never privy to these discussions, only the results), Major Dooley was finally declared the resident check pilot and hence the pick up and check out guy.   I flew with him the next day for 35 minutes and was declared fully qualified from both seats.  I took a few local orientation flights to get familiar with the area.  That’s where two of us were given a plane for the day and instructed not to break it or lose it to ground fire.  Don Wolfswinkle and I did have a tester when the throttle linkage malfunctioned at altitude and we could not advance the power once we reduced it.  We were lucky to find this out at altitude, so we managed the remaining throttle position to get us to Bien Hoa before we pulled it all the way back to idle.  It did entail a long shallow decent and a little sweat time. 

The rocket tubes finally arrived, were attached to the wings and we got to shoot rockets for qualification on September 12, 1963.  The 19^th TASS was then declared operational, the VNAF Observers climbed in the back seat and we started flying missions for real.  Our Rules of Engagement were simple.  The VNAF Observer was directing the strikes and we, the USAF Pilots, were only Advisors, so somewhere in every strike mission we had to preface the strike advise with “the VNAF Observer advises you hit the smoke... or somewhere near it”.  

On September 21, I flew my first mission with VNAF Lieutenant Le Van Trouc and it was the beginning of a lasting relationship.  I spent time in his home, met his wife and family and even have 8mm movies of the visits.  On another mission in the delta where we had landed at Muc Hoa and were headed for lunch at the Province Chiefs home, we passed some beer can huts with families eking out a living ... he noted that the reason he fights the Viet Cong is so his children will not have to live like that.   I lost track of him in all the confusion of the war ending and I can only believe the worst of his fate. 

The tradition, as short as it was, was to let you have the day off on your birthday.  When mine came up on October 1, 1963, I requested the toughest mission on the FRAG list.  Captain Don Curtin was the scheduling officer and woke me at 0430 to make an early takeoff and first light landing at Tay Ninh for a multiple mission briefing.  On my 27^th birthday, I flew five combat missions in Tay Ninh Province.   Proving once again that it doesn’t take much jaw work to overtax your dorsal surface.  I did contend that I was safer in the air than I was on the ground, and that’s why I flew so much. 

Toward the end of October, I got to go TDY to Soc Trang and fly delta missions.  It was a lot simpler to navigate and you could see the VC better.  Soc Trang was an Army helicopter base that had a complement of H-19s to transport ARVAN troops to and from the battle area.  We flew cover enroute, scouted the landing areas, hung around to direct fire if resistance was encountered and generally shuttled messages.  On the 1^st of November, Dick Whitesides and I were fragged to Bac Lieu for staging of some sort, but we had just landed when we were ordered back to Soc Trang at all good speed.  The coup in Saigon had started and we had to be in an American compound till the outcome was decided.  The Diem regime was ousted and the generals took over.  On November 3^rd, I was fragged to Ca Mau to pick up a Colonel Nhon and deliver him to Bac Lieu.  He was promoted quickly to General and went on to the ARVAN Staff in Saigon.

On November 6, 1963, I committed the cardinal sin of FACing and lived to relate the tale.  Lt. Trouc and I were fragged to Bac Lieu in support of a search and destroy mission with the ARVAN.  The ground element was running four APCs full of infantry troops and a command jeep to see if they could stir up any targets.  Our job was to get out in front and watch for ambush or terrain problems.  The US Army had an O-1 out there too as additional liaison.  There was a flight of two B-26s with a full compliment of napalm, hundred pounders and 50 Caliber loitering at about 5,000 feet just in case we needed them.  Right away the Army O-1 reported suspicious activity and asked me to confirm personnel quickly evacuating a village.  They had hidden in the rice paddies just along a tree line and I came in to take a look.  It only took one pass to confirm the personnel were old women and children.  No real threat and I kinda felt good that we skirted them and the ARVAN didn’t start shooting at them. 

About 20 minutes later, the Army O-1 reported some more suspicious movement that appeared to be armed VC heading for a rice paddy.  With the previous sighting of suspicious personnel fresh in my mind, I sort of assumed the same results... old women and children.  We passed over the suspect rice paddy and didn’t see a thing.  The Army O-1 pilot assured me that we were over the right spot, so we dropped down to about 500 feet and took another look.  I didn’t see anything, but Lt. Trouc said he saw what looked like a foot sticking out of the rice.  Well now, then we commit the sin... we dropped down to less than 50 feet to make a third pass over the invisible unidentified personnel.  That enticed them to  stand up, identify themselves and started shooting just as I was about 50 meters away  at less than 50 feet above the ground and headed straight for all 25, or so, of them.  Enough bar talk and hangar flying had prepared me not to immediately pull up and turn away.  All that would do is present me as a larger and slower target.  The engine and battery in front of me gave me a little more protection, but not much comfort.  Now I am at full throttle going right through the middle of them with Lt. Trouc yelling “they shoot, they shoot” and all I could say was “no shit, no shit”.   You could see those guys up close and personal as we imitated a VC skeet flying by.  The O-1 was even painted “clay pigeon” gray at that time.  It was so close that I could see the empty shells ejecting from the chambers of their weapons and long streaks of flame and smoke belching out the muzzles.  No whites of the eyes.  The rounds slammed into the paddy dikes and splattered mud all over the side of the plane... then maybe that was Trouc and I leaving a trail.  We passed through that shooting gallery and never took a hit. 

A couple of hundred meters and a tree line later I pulled up to reaquire the now hostile target and marked ‘em with a Willie Pete (white phosphorous) rocket.  I was “calmly” communicating (more like squealing and hollering on the radio) with the two B-26s on CAP inviting them to come on down, join in and hit my smoke.  They did and by that time the VC were on the run trying to get out of the rice paddy and into a better defensive position.  The first pass was napalm by both B-26s and it caught most of the VC still in the paddy.  Then each 26 expended their load of 100 pounders and about 1500 rounds of 50 cal into the remaining runners.  In between each pass by the 26s, Lt. Trouc was standing up in the back seat and firing his M-1 Carbine out the left rear window of our O-1.  The expended shells were hitting me in the back of the head and you guessed it, one of them went down the collar of my flight suit.  It was hot and caused immediate concern.  It did take a couple of seconds to figure out what the discomfort was, but I felt a whole lot better when I discovered I wasn’t shot.  The whole time Lt. Trouc is shooting, he’s yelling “number ten VC  ... number ten VC” at his targets.  Later, I asked why, and he replied “they couldn’t even hit us when we were that close and that slow  ... they were number ten gunners”.   I personally was glad they were not more accurate.  The jeep and APCs soon arrived and took charge of the situation.  Out of the thousands of VC, OK maybe 25, which had us surrounded in that paddy, they only found about 11 bodies or parts thereof.  The rest of the day was just your routine tourist run over South Viet Nam.  On the way back to Bac Lieu, we saw a wedding procession making its way along the paddy dikes to a small village.  All that bombing and shooting didn’t seem to bother them.  When we finally touched down back at Soc Trang, Lt. Trouc and I had logged 4 combat missions and flown 7 hours and 25 minutes.  After that day, I never crossed another unidentified target again on a third pass.   I did however get low and stay low on numerous times thereafter.

I did, from time to time, amaze myself with my own luck and blind natural skills.  On November 25, 1963, Lt. Duc and I were flying Combat Observation (looking for targets in all the wrong places-an idea for a song copied later by a Country and Western singer) out of Kien Giang in the Mekong Delta Area.  This particular day, we were armed with four colored smoke rockets and a sack full of Willie Pete marking grenades.  Smoke grenades were not one of our favorite marking devices since they had to be delivered at close quarters with the target and if one was dropped in the cockpit after arming, it could get dicey.  We spied a small recently constructed huch on the bank of a canal with a couple of sampans were on the bank and one appeared to have automatic weapons on board.  A closer look at the huch revealed radio antenna protruding through the thatched roof.  Duc gets on the air and asks if the ARVN have any activity there.  None.  All of a sudden, black pajamed VC show up and unload automatic weapon fire in our direction.  How did I know they were VC?  They were shooting at me... that was the first and most positive form of identification.  We called for air.  No air.  We called for artillery.  Same answer.  We watched as they packed up the goodies and put ‘em in the sampans.  We discuss our dilemma and decided we needed to at least mark the target.  One sampan is already under way and the other is being loaded by the last departee.  Lt. Duc holds the grenade outside the aircraft and arms it.  There’s a reason for that.  I roll in for a marking pass.  The last departee makes a bee line for the huch and dives in.  Having calculated windage, altitude, azimuth and airspeed, I call for Duc to release the grenade.  It obediently follows the VC into the huch and explodes, blowing out the walls and erupting into a white fireball fueled by munitions still in the structure.  Lt. Duc was duly impressed with my attack skills and I was absolutely dumbfounded.  Log entry “sited VC command post, destroyed same.”  That was not my last KIA.

There were more good days than bad in Viet Nam, but December 20, 1963, pegs the fun meter to maximum negative.  I flew with Lt. Duy on a river boat escort west of Ca Mau. The boats got in a firefight and we helped out with Lobo Flight, two T-28s. They took out one hut and four san pans.  The navy reported the enemy was neutralized, but they did not go ashore to check out casualties.  All this was just a “ho hum” day until Lt. Duy and I RTBd at Soc Trang for the debrief at the alert trailer.  Don Mollicone, United States Naval Academy 1960  and Bill Coley, Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College 1960 were hanging around the trailer since they had dropped into SCT to trade out one of our airplanes that needed scheduled maintenance  back at Bien Hoa.   Don and I had gone through pilot training at Laredo and I met his fiancée (became wife) at graduation in September 1961.  We formed the Don & Les Desk Manufacturing Company at Bien Hoa and built several desks out of packing crates and moving pallets.  The cost to the purchaser varied from a bottle of Cherry Herring to a couple of beers at the bar.  A modest cost for such a functional piece of furniture.  Bill was a new guy that took a lot of heat for being a graduate of Texas A&M.  They departed the trailer and headed for the plane for preflight and takeoff.  The departure of an O-1 is not an event to draw a crowd, so we started for the bar.  About the time we got beer in hand at the O’Club, all hell broke loose with ambulance and emergency vehicle response.  We took off on foot in hot pursuit to find the O-1 in a ball against the side of a drainage ditch at the departure end of the runway.  Both Don and Billy were killed on impact and I arrived on scene just in time to assist in the unpleasant task of extracting the bodies.

 The account of the incident that I remember was given by the Army tower operator who cleared them for take off and observed the aircraft make an abrupt pull up after lift off and start a turn away from the field.  The engine seemed to quit and the aircraft stalled in a nose high attitude.  The plane impacted the ground still inside the airfield perimeter, skidded across a drainage ditch and slammed into the wall of the ditch on the other side.  Investigation of the incident revealed that both wing tanks were near empty of fuel.  Remembering the O-1 fuel gage set up, that was primitive at best, the full mark and the empty mark were right together, separated by a little peg on each circular dial.  Right of the peg was empty -- left of the peg was full (as I remember anyhow). The gages were mounted into the wing tanks on either side and displayed into the cockpit just above the windows.   At a quick glance, the gages could appear to read full when the tank was really empty –that’s why the preflight check list calls for a visual fuel check through the filler caps on top of each wing.  The theory was that there was obviously enough fuel to start, taxi and take off, but the abrupt pull up maneuver uncovered the electrical fuel pumps in the tanks and the engine quit from fuel starvation.  Not a fun day at all.

One young Lieutenant in the 19^th TASS used his idle time (that should have been more usefully spent at the bar) to decorate the local landscape with humorous signs and drawings.

Background The huches (ten-man open living dormitories) were wooden structures sided with screen fabric and covered with wooden louvered shutters that could be raised for ventilation in good weather and lowered during inclement periods to keep the inside dry. This was the highest possible measure of human comfort available to combat aircrews in Southeast Asia during 1963.  To keep the rains from flooding the floors of the huches, a small drainage ditch was cut around the parameter of the structure and redirected the monsoon rains to a larger ditch that led to a nearby canal.  As water collected in these small ditches, amphibious and insect life developed.  The frog was the most vocally apparent during the night and would croak mightily just a meter or so from your bunk.  Misquotes also thrived in the small ditch.  The frogs only saving grace was that they consumed misquotes, the constant bane of huch living.  During this time there was the Air Force re-labeling campaign to use the word “aerospace” in every moniker possible.  Examples... Aerospace Power Unit (APU) which supplied starting and prestarting electricity to the aircraft.  Aerospace News which was a movie short about Air Force Units and Programs.

 Story... One evening we were sitting outside the huch telling lies when one of the less verbose mused “I guess I’ll have to ship my rod and reel home”... to which we all gave deep thought and one brave soul replied “what the hell for” to which he gestured toward the corner of the huch where the louvered wall of the huch and the ditch joined.  There posted inconspicuously at the edge of the ditch was a small “NO FISHING” sign.

There was also an “Aerospace Garbage” sign pasted on the side of the dumpster at the theater.  Then after an evening of singing and drinking, some of us were chastised for keeping some of the more senior personnel awake.  A sign was posted on the O’Club door “No loud singing or Fun allowed”.  Similar signs continued to appear all through the tour, or at least while Lt. Miles Kaspar was still there.

Delivering the newspaper is not normally an airborne maneuver! I’m not even sure it’s at all recommended.  It just so happened that Major Don Schell, one of our senior officers in the 19^th TASS, had a brother in the ARVAN Special Forces compound near Tay Ninh and he didn’t get mail but once a month.  Don worked out a scheme with his brother to have newspapers delivered by any FAC that happened by there on an almost weekly basis.  The plan was for Don to call ahead and let his brother know we were on the way.  The week’s worth of papers from the Stars and Stripes collected around the compound at Bien Hoa was usually supplemented by near current copies of the New York Times and any other media rag available.  This rolled up into a tidy delivery package.  The supplemental papers were rolled up on the outside of the package mostly for protection, but it usually weighed out at approximately 10 pounds.  The procedure was for the FAC to buzz the compound to alert the folks of the impending delivery.  The VNAF Observer was in charge of dumping the package out the rear window at the command of the FAC.  Well I got to deliver the papers on what turned out to be the last informal paper drop.  We buzzed the compound and curious onlookers peered up and cleared an area in the open center of the triangular fort.  On the next approach, I alerted the Observer that we were approaching the drop area.  He mistook the preparatory command as the command of execution and released the 10 pound package.  Turned out to be a short round and penetrated the very center of a hutch on the fort perimeter.  The “package” went clear through the hutch and came out the other side in an explosion of paper that looked a lot like chicken feathers being blown out of a large floor fan.  Needless to say, the occupants of the hutch vacated the structure in a hurry and extended digital gestures in our direction.  The good news was that no one was hurt; bad news was there would be no more airborne delivery of the news.   

Hepatitis was supposedly running ramped in the theater so the Flight Surgeon asked the Group Commander to order all pilots not on the schedule that day to report to the dispensary for the dreaded hepatitis shot.  That gamugloblin put a knot on your butt the size of half a baseball... and it did hurt.  Well I’m standing in line at the Flight Surgeons when I get a yell from Operations just down the hall that I had a phone call from Saigon.  I gladly gave up my place in line and took the call.  It was Lt. Anthony H. Long, a past roommate from Camelot, Class of 60 classmate and damn good friend.  He was at Tan Son Nhut with a C-135 crew on an Ops Stop and had a couple of hours to kill.  I remembered one of the mornings briefed Frags was an Admin run to Saigon to drop off sensitive reports for 2^nd Air Division.  A quick trade of green stamps with the assigned FAC and I’m off to TSN in a trusty O-1.  Delivered the package and then taxied on over to the MAC parking area on the ramp.  Found Tony and we hooted and hollered for a while.  Told lies and in the process, a sort of plan developed.  Those O-1s didn’t have a hobbsmeter and no one would know if we flew a local.  He piled in the back and off we went for a local tour.  To impress Tony on the “up close and personal” brand of flying we did in the 19^th TASS, I kept it low and fast... well at least 95 MPH or so. We trolled the Mekong River buzzing boats in the harbor and then went upriver looking for trouble.  Yep... found it in no time at all.  Took some ground fire from some agitated folks in black pajamas.  Now since I didn’t have a VNAF Observer, no marking devices and no real reason for being there, those VC only received digital response.

As the time went on in Viet Nam, I recorded less and less in my makeshift logbook.  It got down to takeoff and landing times, aircraft number, observers name and date.  After almost 40 years, the memories are hard to jog.  I’m just glad I took the notes I did.  My last two combat missions in Viet Nam were logged on July 27, 1964, each one hour long. Don’t have a clue what I was doing or why.  As of that date, I had flown 508 combat missions, logged over 750 hours of flight time and hadn’t taken a single hit.  The 19^th TASS was in the process of turning over all our O-1s to the VNAF since we were winning the war and the South Vietnamese were going the do it on their own now.  I do know that I left for the land of the big BX on August 2, 1964, after a 24 hour mechanical delay in Saigon.  The first paper I picked up in California a few days later related the satchel bombing of the Caravelle Hotel in Saigon the evening of August 2, 1964.  That was where we spent the night on August 1^st due to the mechanical.  My luck continued.  There was also some unrelated story about some North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacking a US Navy ship out in the Gulf Of Tonkin.       

I may not have learned much in this world, but one truth seems to keep constant and that is my perception of reality is not always the same as other folks interpretation of the same piece of reality.

Charlie Diver

 Dropping10,000 and 15,000 Pound Bombs in Viet Nam

During late1969 and early 1970, I was a navigator on the only operational C-130 crew to be dropping 10, 000 and 15,000 pound bombs in Viet Nam. Our crew was in the 772 TAS of the 463^rd TAW. As I understand it, the M121, 10,000 lb. bomb, was developed for the B-36, but never used. Consequently they had been retained in storage. The idea to drop them from B-52’s in Viet Nam was circulated, but the cost of putting fins on to stabilize them during the drop proved to be to costly—and that project was dropped. The idea to drop them with a stabilizing parachute out of the back of a C-130 surfaced and became a reality. The program was named Commando Vault.

In late ’69, crews of the 772 TAS would load one ortwo M121s  in a special C-130. The aircraft was deemed special because the rails, the part of the 130 that the pallets slid in/on for loading and unloading, were specially aligned to make sure one or both bombs would go smoothly out of the back of the cargo door and not get hung up during exit. The M121 had a steel casing about 1.5 inches thick and upon impact/detonation, would destroy anything in a large radius around the point of impact. Initially, the bombs were used for clearing the jungle for immediately usable helicopter landing zones, and success would be measured in two ways: firstly, the location of the impact in relation to where the impact was requested, and secondly, the number of helicopters that could land there immediately.  After a drop, normal calls were a ‘PI’, Point of Impact (exactly where it was wanted), and ‘that will be a two shipper and with a bit of chainsaw, a three shipper’-meaning two helicopters could land immediately and with a little bit of chainsaw action, a third helicopter could be on the ground at the same time the first two were offloading.

When dropping the M121, the C-130 flew at an altitude of 5-6000 feet above ground, and was guided to a drop point by ground radar-similar to a Ground Controlled Approach, except maintaining an altitude. The air position drop point was determined by taking an offset from the Point of Impact, and applying the forward travel of the bomb from release and the offset from the wind effect from ground to drop altitude. As navigator, I would determine the offset and call it into the ground radar, which would apply it to the PI, and the pilot would fly the headings given by the radar at the predetermined airspeed/altitude. At the drop point the Loadmaster would release the bomb, hopefully it would sail out the back of the aircraft and not get hung up, and the rest would be history.

Initially, the bombs were used for helicopter landing zones, but later, other targets were designated, and many of these targets would have a secondary explosion associated with our bomb(s). We went through the M-121s too quickly for my money, and in early 1970, were using the BLU-82, a newly-manufactured 15,000 pound bomb. This was more like a propane tank, thin skinned, but with half again the explosive mixture-of propane and TNT-I believe. It was thought the added explosive would make for bigger landing zones and areas of destruction, but without the thick steel casing that the M-121 had, the BLU-82 did not perform as well as the smaller bomb in clearing the thick jungle. The C-130 could carry two BLU-82s from a weight perspective, but we never did carry two for a drop, due to center of gravity considerations.

The accuracy of the Commando Vault program was extremely good, with mountain tops a specialty, where 5-10 meters one way or another would mean the drop was completely unsuccessful.

Eventually, in the spring of 1970 other crews from the 29^th, 773^rd and 774^th TASs of the 463^rd TAW were checked out in this procedure, so there was at least one bomb qualified crew ‘in country’ at any given time.