Smokey

 

In the Hornets, Smokey was a UH-1C, which was assigned to the gun platoon, known as the Stingers. It was set up with a ring near the turbine’s exhaust so that it could inject oil into the hot flames. This produced a thick cloud of blue-gray, whitish smoke that could conceal the flight from enemy bunkers and fire. Smokey would fly along the perimeter of the LZ, slowly, so that he could lay down the smoke screen. It could be quite effective.

I was assigned to the Second Platoon, known as the Wasps. I had a rare day down while most of the pilots were out on missions. There came a point where I was flying nearly every day, but now, at that point, we had nearly a full complement of pilots, so that we were treated to a day off now and then.

I happened to be in Hornet Operations, a big bunker dug into the ground and covered with a thick layer of sandbags and PSP. You had to walk down a long flight of stairs to enter and, best of all, it was air conditioned. That encouraged us to review various documents and manuals.

The call came through that they needed Smokey. The infantry unit had approached a tree line and as the point entered it, he was shot, as was the man behind him. The rest of the soldiers had taken cover, but they were unable to advance to rescue the wounded men. Smokey could cover them as they ran in, grabbed the two wounded soldiers and got back out.

Since I was in Operations, I said that I would take Smokey. We needed a second pilot, and one of the gun team was available. I rad to my hootch, grabbed my weapon and my helmet and ran back out, across the road and into the Hornet’s Nest. I met the other pilot and we ran to the Smoke Ship.

Once we had the engine cranked and the radios operating, we got in touch with the C&C, flown, I believe by Hornet Six, that is the company commander. He directed us to the firefight.

As we approached, we were briefed on the situation and what the Ground Mission Commander, the lieutenant colonel or colonel in the backseat of the C&C wanted us to do. He was, of course, in touch with the company commander on the ground.

The gunships were working over the trees where the enemy bunkers were but I think that was just to keep their heads down. It’s tough to peak out with a minigun hosing down the area or 2.75-inch rockets are impacting around you.

We could see the situation on the ground. We could see some of the tracers coming out of the trees and we had a good idea where the wounded me were. We dove for the trees and as we did, C&C said, “Smokey, you’re not smoking.”

At that instant I hit the button to active the system and we started to created the smoke screen. I could hear the firing all around us, including our door gunners working the area. I felt, through the floor, the enemy rounds hitting the aircraft and thought I could hear them tearing through the thin metal of the cockpit.

Soldiers in a cloud created by Smokey.

We made pedal turns over the bunker area, putting down a very thick cloud of smoke. We finally turned and climbed out, ready to make another run when we learned that the two soldiers had been rescued. The after-action report said:

As the advance element moved forward they were taken under intense enemy fire. The pointman was hit and fell about 10 meters inside the treeline. The second man was also hit and fell at the treeline. The remaining men were pinned down. The air mission commander decided to use the smoke ship to cover the troops. On his first pass the ship received intense enemy automatic weapons fire. He did a pedal turn and made another smoke run. Because of the thick screen, the infantry men were able to recover their wounded and withdraw to better positions. Later there became a need for resupply. Again he made several runs. Because of the smoke, the enemy was unable to bring accurate fire on the resupply ship. During the final extraction he once again made several smoke runs. This kept the enemy from making any hits on the infantrymen or helicopters.

I confess here that I don’t remember much about what else happened. When released, we flew back to Cu Chi, filled out the paperwork, and headed over to the club for a drink. Yeah, I was still 19, but that made no difference here. I was an officer assigned to an aviation unit and had participated in a somewhat hairy rescue of two soldiers. If I wanted a beer or a bourbon, no one cared.

All I really remember at this point was as I walked into the club, someone said, “I can’t believe you did that.”

His surprise was only that I was not a member of the Stingers but was a member of the Wasps.

Night Mission - Aftermath

 When we arrived by at Cu Chi, and had refueled, we had been told to stand by in the Hornet’s Nest, our revetment area on the airfield. That meant sitting around the aircraft, in the dark, waiting for ordered. It wasn’t long before we were told to stand by in the company area, which was across the road. I think the reason was that we could respond from the company area just as fast as we could to orders passed from aircraft to aircraft in the Nest.

The dark area at right center is The Hornet's Nest. Across the road in the center is the
Hornet's Company area. The hootchs to the left at the enlisted soldiers and the NCO quarters. 
In the center right, beyond the wooden fence and open area are the officer quarters. The dark
material is called petaprime and was sprayed over the roads and in the Nest to hold down the
dust during the dry season. More about petaprime later.

We hadn’t been in the company very long when the order came to stand down. We were through for the night. The obvious reason was that we’d been so badly shot up that we couldn’t come up with enough helicopters to fill out the flight with a gun team. True, some of the damage was little more than bullets through the rotor blades, but the aircraft couldn’t fly until the blades had been replaced. We had operationally ceased to exist.

In the company area, there wasn’t a lot of talking. Most just sat staring, though I was a little bit elated having survived the night. Had the club been open, I might have had a drink or two, though it was something like three or four in the morning. Somehow, I ended up in one of the rooms occupied by one of the Stingers. The Stingers were the Hornet gun teams. They even had cards printed that said, “Have Gunship. Will Travel. Wire Stingers, Cu Chi.”

Almost as if to get the conversation started, one of the slick pilots said, “Hell, I can’t believe we were ordered to go around. We would have been better off to land. We were nearly on the ground and then Six said, ‘Go around.’”

“Maybe that was the most brilliant thing said in this war. Maybe we would have been really chopped up.”

This triggered a discussion like those I would participate in college a couple of years later. The gunship pilot, who was older than me, and might have been older than most the pilots, who was, at most 23, said, “You have to look at the overall picture.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He took a pull at his cigarette and said, “I just mean that we came out ahead. If I got killed, I would be ahead. I’ve killed the VC and the NVA but they can only kill me once so that I win, in the long run. There is no way they can catch up.”

“That’s messed up, man.”

“You guys are missing the point. Don’t you see? In this war, hell, in all wars, the point is to kill more of them than they kill of you. It’s all about attrition, and in that game, I win.”

I’m not sure where this discussion would have gone from there, but the company commander entered the hootch. He didn’t look as if he’d just had the company shot out from under him. He looked as if he was fresh from the shower in a clean and pressed uniform. We all looked as if we’d been through the wringer, which, from one point of view we had.

He stood looking at us for a moment and then said, “We’re down tomorrow. We need to repair the damaged aircraft. Need everyone out in the Nest by, say, ten.” He turned and left without another word.

That seemed rather anticlimactic, but what the hell, it meant we didn’t have to get up early. That was about the only benefit that I could see.