Shot Down

 

The 269^th Combat Aviation Battalion was made up of two combat assault helicopter companies; 116^th AHC (Hornets) and the 187^th AHC (Crusaders), as well as a Chinook transportation company, the 242^nd (Muleskinners). There were other units assigned and then reassigned to other units before I arrived in Vietnam. While I was in country there were only the three companies. The area of operations (AO) ranged from near the southern border of II Corps, all of III Corps, and deep into IV Corps. It all depended on the missions, the units and where there was a need for helicopter support.

I had been an aircraft commander long enough that I was no longer assigned to the middle of the flight. I had been deemed competent and others were now flying in Chalk Three or Chalk Eight. On this mission, to extract the Mike Force from the mountains near Song Be Special Forces Camp, I was in Chalk Four. There had been no reports of the enemy in the immediate area. Contact had been broken, and it was time to return the Mike Force to Song Be. In other words, we weren’t expecting much in enemy fire, if any at all.

Song Be Special Forces Camp. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle

We flew over the camp, toward the mountains and up over the ridge line. We were flying Delta Model Hueys, which were weak compared to the Hotel Models flown by the Crusaders.  That meant we didn’t have the power that the H-Models had and we were now operating at a higher-than-normal altitude in high humidity, not to mention a nearly full fuel load, all of which made things even more problematic.

We crossed the ridge line and began the approach to the PZ. It was a crappy PZ, studded with broken tress, brushes, and other debris that could be sucked up in the rotor wash the penetrate the rotor disk, damaging the blades. It was the only place large enough for us to get into as a flight and one that had a defensible perimeter.

The gunships led us in and then buzzed around the periphery of the flight, searching for the enemy. As we touched down, it became clear that the enemy hadn’t completely disengaged. One side of the PZ erupted in small arms fire. I couldn’t see the muzzle flashes, but I could hear the AKs and the .30 caliber machine guns.

Trail said, “You’re down with ten.”

As the firing picked up the Mike Force soldiers began to crawl over one another to board the helicopters. Mortars began to explode with a distinctive crump. I saw a fountain of dirt off the right, at the edge of the PZ, too far to do any real damage to the flight. There were others falling around.

The gunships rolled in, first with mini guns and then 2.75-inch rockets. There was now more smoke and clouds of dirt and dust to the right.

Over the radio I could hear the ground mission commander giving orders to the Green Berets with the Vietnamese, directing the fire. The air mission commander was attempting to coordinate the suppression with the gunships. Our door guns, for the most part, were silent. Friendlies in the line of fire.

Trail said, “Lead, you’re loaded.

“On the go.”

Lead lifted off and began to climb out, turning the left as soon as he was clear of the trees, climbing up and over the ridge.

Chalk Two wasn’t quite as lucky. He was overloaded and under powered. He broke right, down the slope, picking up speed in a slight dive so that he could climb out and turn left.

Chalk Three apparently had no trouble and followed Lead to the left.

It was now my turn and as I climbed over the trees, we were hit with enemy fire. I could feel the rounds striking the aircraft. I was losing power. I watched as the rotor speed fell and the engine RPM wound down. I pushed the collective down. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make it over the ridge. I didn’t have the power. I thought that I would follow Chalk Two, diving away to the right but couldn’t see him.

One of the enemy rounds stuck the bundle of wires for the commo. The Fox Mike began to cycle with a tuning squeal that went on and on blocking me ability to talk to the flight. I could hear nothing on the Fox Mike except that squeal, but the Uniform was still working.

I slipped down in the seat slightly. There was a two-inch gap between the top of the armored seat and the bottom of my helmet. I was trying to cover that gap.

Over the radio I heard someone say, “The AC’s dead. The ACs dead.”

Hornet Six asked, “Who’s going down?”

I reached over and turned off the Fox Mike to stop the noise. I was looking for the aircraft that was going down because I wanted to land near him for the mutual support. I couldn’t see anyone in front of me. I was unaware of what was happening with the rest of the flight. Over the radio I could hear the gunfire. It kept increasing in volume.

I said, “Four trying to gain rotor RPM,”

There was the ripping sound of the mini guns from the gunships. I couldn’t hear any mortars falling.  I was now far enough from the PZ, that those explosions were lost in all the firing.

I heard, “Lead you’re off with ten. Fire Received.

“Who took fire?”

Someone, I don’t know who, said, “Everyone.”

“Chalk Four. What’s your status?”

I glanced at the engine instruments again. They had crept back into the green during the dive. The rotor speed had recovered and the engine was operating at full RPM. I turned to the left, pulled in some pitch and began to climb out, to get over the ridge line.

Once I cleared the ridge, I rolled over, again diving slightly, to build up the rotor RPM again. I knew that we were getting close to the Special Forces camp. I could tell that we weren’t going to quite make it. I was still losing altitude and now had no real way to recover it. The engine was losing RPM. The engine must have taken a round or two.

I landed about a klick short of the Special Forces camp. I didn’t think we’d make it to their airstrip, and I didn’t want to attempt a low altitude autorotation. Landing under power is always better. Besides, we were far enough away from the PZ and basically under the protection of the Special Forces camp, that it made sense.

Chalk Five touched down about fifty yards behind me. I thought he was there to pick us up, but that wasn’t the case. When he approached me, he said, “I thought you were leaking fuel. I could smell the JP-4 but the bottom of my aircraft looks like Niagara Falls.”

About that time a couple of vehicles from the Special Forces camp arrived. The two sergeants looked over the damage to the aircraft. One of them traced a bullet that had hit the side of my aircraft and traveled up, into the engine. He opened the access panel and found part of the bullet embedded in the engine which explained the power loss. He dug it out, examined it and asked, “Can I have this?”

I looked it over. I thought it was just part of an armor piecing round. Nothing special about it, but the sergeant wanted it. I said, “Sure.”

The rest of the flight had landed on the airstrip outside the camp and were taking off again, heading back to pick up the rest of the Mike Force. That went off with only a little enemy fire and just a couple of mortars. In and out quickly. I don’t think anyone took any hits.

My crew, and that of Chalk Five, rode back to the Special Forces camp. The members of the Mike Force walked. It wasn’t all that far for them.

I don’t remember how we all got back to Cu Chi, but will assume that we rode back in one of the slicks. At the debriefing that night, I don’t remember any of this coming up, except that I was told to be a little quicker on the radio. I mentioned that the Fox Mike had been shot out so that I couldn’t make the normal radio calls until I switched over to the Uniform.

The question came up about who had said that the AC was dead. Turned out it was my co-pilot. He’d seen me slump down in the seat and thought that I had been hit. I looked at him and said, “But I was flying the aircraft. Why didn’t you take the controls?”

He said, “You seemed to know what you were doing.”

That brought a laugh from the other pilots because that made no sense.

At that point the SIX (meaning, of course, the company commander whose call sign was Hornet 6) moved on to other issues.

Interlude - Part One

 

I not sure if these interludes are something of interest here but I find that as I watch programs that deal with the military, I see errors that would be easily corrected if those creating the programs knew what they were doing. I’ve run into two examples in the last couple of days and thought that I would mention them. These observations are based on my military experiences, which, I think are relevant here.

First, I saw that The West Wing was available on HBOMax and since I have enjoyed other Arron Sorkin shows, I thought I’d see how this one went. The secretary to the President (Martin Sheen, if you must know), Mrs. Laningham, was not in a Christmas mood. She was asked about that and told a rather sad tale. It seems that her twin sons had been killed in Da Nang, and I’m not sure if it was at Christmas time or not. I only know, based on the story it was in 1970.

She mentioned that they had been in medical school and were preparing to be doctors. I say it this way because I don’t know if they had graduated or were in their residency, or what exactly their status was. Anyway, they received notice that they were about to be drafted and although they could have gotten student deferments as so many others did (like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump to name but two). These young men wanted to serve and they became medics. So, they deployed to Da Nang and were apparently killed together.

I say hogwash… History tells us that this wouldn’t have happened. During the Civil War, a mother, Lydia Bixby received a letter of condolence from President Lincoln about the loss of her five sons in the war. History suggests that two of them, and possibly three, survived the war. No matter here because Lincoln believed, and history suggested, all five had been lost. The government did nothing to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

In 1876, George Custer rode to the Little Bighorn with his brothers Tom and Boston, his brother-in-law James Calhoun (married to Custer’s sister Margaret) and his nephew Audie Reed. All five were killed in the battle. An article in a newspaper noted that the “unhappy Mrs. Calhoun” had lost a husband, three brothers and a nephew in the fight. It was worst loss by a single family at the time.

Fast forward to World War II. The five Sullivan brothers, from Waterloo, Iowa, joined the Navy after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They required, before enlistment, that they serve together, a request that was granted. All five were killed when their ship was sunk in the Solomon Islands. This resulted in a prohibition of allowing brothers or family members from serving together in a combat environment.

Fast forward to August 1968, and my graduation from flight school. You might wonder about the relevance of that but there is a reason here. Every member of the class received orders to Vietnam with a single exception. We had two brothers in that class. I don’t remember if they were twins or just brothers, but one got orders for Vietnam and the other got orders for Germany. At the end of the year, the brother who had gone to Germany would probably receive orders for Vietnam. In other words, the Army prohibited sending both brothers to Vietnam at the same time.

Yes, I know that National Guard units that deployed to Iraq often had family members serving together. This could be siblings, spouses, or parents and children. Most of those units were in combat support roles as opposed to direct combat but the fact remains that they were deployed together. However, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were rules that prevented this sort of thing from happening and the units discussed on the show were active duty as opposed to National Guard.

The second annoyance was an episode of Jag. An American fighter pilot fired on what he thought was an enemy position. He said that he had seen tracers fired up at him twice and on the second time, he engaged, killing three members of the Coalition. The pilot was court martialed for a variety of reasons, none of which are important here.

Here’s what I know. American, and by extension, Coalition Forces, used red tracers. In Vietnam, the bad guys used green and white tracers. When the pilot was fired on and saw red tracers, that should have alerted him to the fact the soldiers on the ground were friendlies. And, we learned, in the show, that they weren’t shooting at the pilot, but at a target that was part of an exercise (again, apropos of nothing, but an exercise using live ammunition in a combat zone?)

Tracers at night. Photo courtesy of USMC.

Yes, I know that an enemy might be using captured weapons and ammunition which would have put the red tracers into the weapons, but that would be extremely rare. Yes, while in Vietnam I did have an AK-47, which had been captured, but I also had an M-2 carbine with the red tracers.

The point here is that the red tracers should have given the pilot a reason to suspect that it was a friendly unit. And I do know that tracers looked awfully big at night even if they weren’t coming close. While in Iraq, I had one magazine loaded with all tracers because I knew of the psychological effect of those tracers when engaged in suppressive five as opposed to pin point targeting.

Sure, these are little things but they do show the lack of understanding of the military and they miss the little inside things that would lend greater credibility to their stories. I just thought I would mention these things because, well, I wanted to.