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.

Night Mission - Part One

 

(Disclaimer: While I am trying to make each of these stories accurate, I must note that these memories are over fifty years old. I am reporting, for the most part, what I remember of these events. So far, they have been short, and given the topics, true. Now, I take on a somewhat longer piece. It is a night mission and I do have some very clear memories of what happened. But there are some facets of this tale that I simply do not remember. However, only a few years after I returned from Vietnam, I wrote some stories for a magazine named Combat Illustrated. The story of the night mission is in it and there are things in it that I do not remember. Having read it over now, my memory is refreshed. I didn’t remember a briefing in the officers’ club, but given the article, I do, sort of remember it. Yes, we did have the philosophical discussion after the mission. The other thing is I believe that this is a mixture of two different night missions. I can’t be sure of that, but it seems that some of the details happened on another night with a different company. Having said all this, the essential elements of the story are true… and some of the names have been changed because it seemed like the thing to do at the time.)

We were called to an evening meeting in the officer’s club, something that had not happened before. True, we held meetings there, often to discuss the day’s missions and what we could do to improve on our flight operations. This was different. We were being briefed on the mission that would be held later, after midnight, and it was expected that there would be contact.

We were told that intelligence had learned that the VC would be moving into a village at sunset to recruit men and steal rice, though they called it a collection of taxes. We would land just after 0100 hours (1 a.m.) in the attempt to catch them in the act. Another company would insert the blocking force about five minutes after we landed and still another company would insert a second such force. It was hoped that the VC would try to escape and run into one of the blocking forces and if they chose to fight, the combat could get very rough for those in the village.

One of the first things I noticed as the meeting broke up was that the aircraft commanders were drawing M-16s from supply. Normally, this would have outraged the supply officer, but tonight he said nothing about it. When I went out to pre-flight the aircraft, I saw that both the crew chief and the door gunner had M-16s and that there were piles of ammunition under their seats. The crew chief even had an M-79 grenade launcher. I don’t know where he got that.

The AC showed up with several boxes of .38 ammo for our pistols and he had survival kits and survival radios. He opened one of the kits and pulled out a large piece of cloth that had an American flag with writing under it. He told me, “This is a blood chit. In nine different languages and a variety of dialects it tells the locals that the American government will pay a thousand bucks for your safe return. Inside there is money and gold. I had to sign for these so I want them back.”

Being something of a smartass, and being that I was only 19, I asked, “What happens if those people can’t read.”

“Then your are well and truly screwed.”

I picked up a box of the .38 ammo, opened it, and then shoved the single cartridges into the loops of my Old West style gun belt. (You can see it in the first picture on this blog).

As I was finishing that, the AC spread the map out on the cargo compartment floor and using his flashlight, with the red lens in place, showed me the LZs as they had been planned, the location of the village, and the shortest distance to the evac hospitals. He told me that for minor wounds, head for Dau Tieng and Cu Chi for more serious injuries. He also made sure that I knew the radio frequency, which was good for all the hospitals… 62.05. All this was something that hadn’t been done before.

When the AC finished, the crew chief asked if it was going to be that rough. The AC said that he didn’t know. He just wanted to be sure that each of us knew what to do in case he was hit. He said, “I’m just making sure that we’re all prepared.”

We waited for about twenty minutes and then climbed into the cockpit for engine start. As soon as we were cranked and ready, the AC switched our intercom system to “private” so that he could talk to me without the crew chief or the door gunner listening. He said that it was going to be rougher than he had let on. We were in trail which meant that there was a good possibility that we would take some heavy fire.

He then said that we were going to do things differently. After we reached the IP, he wanted my hands on the controls. Not near them as we did under normal circumstances, but actually on the controls. That would give me a better chance to take control if necessary, especially as we neared the ground. He also said that as we made the final run in to turn off the rotating target, his name for the rotating beacon on the aircraft. Since we were trail, there was no one behind us. This gave us a little better chance to avoid some enemy fire. I was also on the “guard” frequency, the UHF channel that would broadcast to every other aircraft in the area, in case we needed help quickly.

Hornet helicopters lined up for an upcoming mission. This was the night mission
described here. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

Rather than line up on the assault strip for takeoff, we lined up on the active runway. We formed a heavy right formation and when we got to the PZ, the troops were lined up that way. It was better than the staggered trail that was strung out behind lead.

Since the soldiers couldn’t throw smoke at night, they were using small strobe lights. That looked like the muzzle flashes. On landing we used the landing lights but the searchlights were off. Once we touched down, those lights went out. We didn’t want to set the grass and other vegetation on fire.

As soon as the soldiers were on board, the crew chief said, “We’re loaded.”

I glanced into the cargo compartment. They were all American soldiers. I knew that without looking. Americans always went in if there was a possibility of contact. If the contact was light, then they would be reinforced with ARVN. If it was really hot, the reinforcements would be American.

The AC told the crew chief to tell the soldiers to unass the aircraft as quickly as possible. He replied, quietly, “They know.”

We sat in the PZ, the minutes building slowly. C and C was coordinating with the flare ship and the other companies. Because the target was a village, there would be no arty prep. Once we were airborne, we would head directly to the LZ, hoping that the VC would have little to no warning.

Lead finally announced, “On the go.”

As we broke ground, the AC said, “This one is for real, so let’s be alert.”