From the Hornets to the Crusaders

My plan here had been to tell the tale in a chronological order from my arrival in Vietnam to my departure (DEROS). I have violated that rule on a couple of occasions because, well, I could. For the most part I will continue along that road, but sometimes will either jump forward or fall backward to cover an interesting tale.

It was in March that the command staff, meaning the company commanders and the battalion commander realized that there was a problem looming on the horizon. The Crusaders, that is, the 187^th Assault Helicopter Company, would see many of its senior pilots, meaning the aircraft commanders, rotating home in a short time. To avoid that, some of the pilots were moved around. I was one of those.

I was told that I would be moving up to the Crusaders from the Hornets and by moving up, I mean going from a point about thirty miles from Saigon to Tay Ninh, which was closer to Cambodia and a little farther north.

I arrived there without much in the way of fan fair. I had packed my duffle bag, stuffed some other, person items in a satchel, climbed into the back of a Huey, and was flown to Tay Ninh. I really don’t remember much about that but I must have reported to the company commander and was assigned to the first platoon.

The Crusader's Officers Club. Notice the sign on the right that suggests that if you

wear your hat in the club, you must buy the bar a round of drinks. I point this out because 

it is a rule that is routinely ignored on those TV shows that feature an officer's club. 

Because I was now a new guy, not in Vietnam, just to the unit, I was again a Peter Pilot, meaning that I wasn’t an aircraft commander. I flew with the first platoon’s ACs on a number of occasions and again, don’t remember much about that. One of the ACs was a heavy smoker and had a habit of engaging the forced trim on the cyclic. That meant that if you let go of it, for whatever reason, it would return to the position that put the aircraft in a climbing right turn. The theory, I think, was that if the pilot who had actual control of the aircraft was suddenly incapable of flying it, the helicopter would not quickly spin out of control, but would enter a shallow climb, giving the surviving pilot a chance to grab the controls.

It also meant that you had to fight the cyclic the whole time because it wanted to enter that climbing turn. Rather than slight pressure to move the cyclic, it required a little more effort. I thought of it as annoying. It made the task more difficult and I know of no case in which using the forced trim in that fashion saved anything. I did find a way to defeat it so that flying wasn’t as strenuous as it had been.

The first platoon had a scheduling board and the platoon leader would put up the aircraft assignments for the next day on that board including which AC and pilot in which aircraft. One day, after about a week or so, I checked the board and didn’t see my name in the pilot slot. I thought I had the next day off and as I turned, I though that I did see my name. I looked back and found that I was assigned as the AC of Spare Two.

Each day two “spare” aircraft were assigned. Spare One, would be pre-flighted and ready to go if needed. If the flight was staging somewhere away from Tay Ninh and there was an airfield or location closer to the area of the day’s operations, Spare One, would locate there. If not needed, when the flight was released, Spare One returned to Tay Ninh if it had flown anywhere else.

Spare Two was the aircraft that would replace Spare One, if Spare One was called up to take a slot in the flight. In other words, it was fairly unlikely that Spare Two would be flying and all you had to do was remain in the company area, sleeping, reading, playing cards or whatever in case you had to replace Spare One. It wasn’t much of an assignment, but then I was now the AC of Spare Two for the next day.

There had been no announcement that I was now an AC. No one said a word to me about it. No ceremony, such as we had had at the Hornets when I was made an AC there. Just my name on the scheduling board in the left-hand slot for the AC rather than the right-hand slot for the pilot.

Of course, the next day, my name moved up and I was assigned to one of the chalk positions in the flight.  I don’t remember where it was because, I don’t remember if we had the lead or trail part of the flight, and I don’t remember if I was assigned an aircraft in the middle of those positions.

I do remember that I was assigned an aircraft, and if it was available, then that was the aircraft I would fly. If it wasn’t, then I would fly another, such as the one that I blew up on a land mine. And I had a crew, or rather, there was a crew chief and door gunner assigned to my aircraft as well. We all flew together most of the time.

For a little bit of foreshadowing, which we’ll get to later, their plan to prevent a number of the ACs leaving the company about the same didn’t work out.

  

Bunker Duty - Part One

Moving back to Cu Chi and my first few months in Vietnam as a “Peter Pilot,” I learned that there were some duties that were detailed to those of us who had yet become aircraft commanders. One of those was bunker duty, which meant that as one of the junior officers, I would be detailed to the bunker line for an overnight stay. I believe I was, as were most of us who had gone to flight school, wholly unprepared for this, which, of course, made no difference.

I first learned of this extra duty when my platoon leader met me on the flight line after a full day of duty. He opened the door on my side of the aircraft and asked, “What were you doing flying today?”

I gave the simple answer. “I was scheduled.”

He contradicted that by saying, “No, you weren’t. You were supposed to be down today because you are assigned as the bunker duty officer.”

At that point I shrugged and said, “One of the pilots was sick. I happened to be in Operations. I was told to get my gear.”

The platoon leader said that it couldn’t be helped now. I was to get over to battalion operations as quickly as possible. To prove that it was something that needed to be done quickly, I was told to take on of the jeeps. Normally, we just walked, but now, it was imperative that I get to battalion as quickly as I could so I was given a jeep.

It wasn’t all that hard to find battalion operations. I found the operations officer sitting in his office which was paneled in plywood that had been scorched with a touch to bring out the grain of the wood. There was even carpet on the floor. I knocked on the door and he called, “Come in.”

I entered and saw that he was a captain but had no nametag or wings. He tossed his pencil down, stared and then said, nastily, “Where in the hell have you been?”

“Flying.”

“Flying?”

I said, simply, “That’s right.”

“You were supposed to be here an hour ago.”

“The flight just got released. No one said a word to me about that until the flight was released.”

“And that’s your excuse?”

“No excuse. Just fact.”

He sat there as if he couldn’t believe what I had said. He picked up his pencil and made a note. Finally, he said, “Tonight, you’ll in the officer in charge of our section of the bunker line. You’ll have to be there by 1830. After dark no one is supposed to approach without proper ID.”

He went on with the instructions but I didn’t get most of it. To him it was routine but to me it was all new. I was trained as an aviator and not an infantry officer. I knew my job as a pilot but didn’t have all that much training in the infantry. True, we’d all be through basic training but it was, after all, basic training. We had spent two weeks on the rifle range learning the Army method of shooting, and we had all thrown grenades. We’d been through physical training, basic hand-to-hand, care and maintenance of the M-14 (which were no longer the standard weapon which was now the M-16) and were taught some other basic skills. But, like many of the others, I knew I wasn’t going on to advanced infantry training. I was scheduled for flight school.

When he finally wound down and asked, “Any questions,” I wasn’t clever enough to escape at that point. I said, “I wonder if it is a good idea that I have this duty tonight after flying all day…”

He broke in. “There is a war on, you know?” His voice dripped with sarcasm.

He was sitting in his air-conditioned office with carpeted floor and probably only worried about a stray mortar round once in a great while. Not really the same thing as sitting in the cockpit of a Huey as the windshield disintegrated. Maybe that was his problem. He wasn’t getting out in the war… or maybe he was guilty about his position that protected him from the real danger while the rest of us were out flying around South Vietnam.

Anyway, I said, “I had heard.”

He just said, “You’re dismissed.”

I left the battalion, drove back to the company area and had just enough time to draw an M-16 from supply, borrow another pistol for some reason and round up my steel pot. I learned that the duty officer always had a jeep. I found the sergeant of the guard whose whole job was to be the NCOIC of the bunker line. He knew what it was all about and if I learned nothing from watching all those war movies as a kid (though I was only 19 here), it was to listen to the old hand sergeants who knew all the tricks.

We drove out to the bunker line, with him giving me directions. I was delighted to see a duster parked next to our section. This was a truck with a quad fifty mounted on the rear. I figured if they lit up the bunker line with that, it would be a real deterrent for any enemy assault.

We were on the northern side of the perimeter, facing an open area that extended for what looked like miles. No real cover, except for a low marshy area just outside the last strand of concertina. There was a bridge over part of it but that wasn’t my responsibility. It was flanked by two bunkers with M-60 machine guns and a M-2 .50. Being young, I wanted a chance to blow up the bridge if there was an attack, but the enemy could probably get through the swamp without too much trouble. The bridge was for wheeled vehicles.

Near the center of our section of the line was the command bunker. Our bunkers ran to the right and the left and the soldiers were already there. Some of them had brought lawn chairs and they were sitting there watching the sun go down. They all pulled the duty regularly as well. If there was someone on the line who didn’t know what he was doing, it was me.

The bunker line on a Fire Support Base. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

Before it could get dark, I walked up and down the line and tried to get some idea of the lay of the land. I couldn’t see an advantage for the enemy to attack our section of the bunker line. The ground was too open and there were other avenues of attack that provided them with cover until they hit the first strands of concertina.

I was shown where all the detonators for the claymores were and told the firing sequence in the event of attack. The sergeant pointed out where the claymores were hidden and that someone had checked them just that morning. Somewhere along the line, they found the claymores had been turned back toward the bunkers one day, so it was routine to check them.

Once I had talked to the soldiers, seen the bunkers, and listened to what they had to say, there wasn’t much else to do, except wait to make the first sitrep.

When I finished the report, I saw one of the soldiers standing there. He said, “Sir, we have a problem. There’s a break in the landline and the only way to trace it is to go out, in front of our bunker. None of us wanted to be in front of the bunker without telling everyone we were out there.”

I knew then it was going to be a long night.