As you may have gathered by now, aircraft of various kinds played an important part in our lives in Viet Nam. They were our ace-in-the-air in combating the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops, as well as keeping us well supplied.
Fixed wing aircraft gave us the capability to deliver supplies either by landing the craft or by parachute, as was the case for a long time at Dak Pek. They also provided us with rapid transportation of individuals and units over great distances between areas served by airstrips. They allowed us to make relatively long reconnaissance flights, and served as platforms for the occasional Psychological Operations loudspeaker or leaflet mission. Then there were the Puff the Magic Dragon AC-47s and the Specter AC-130s that delivered withering curtains of fire up close and personal. Last, but by no means least, forward air controllers, or FACs, provided the link between ground forces and the Air Force, Navy, and Marine aircraft that delivered ordnance in support of ground troops. On one occasion at Dak Pek, a C123 cargo plane engaged in a supply drop agreed to serve as a FAC for one of our patrols that was in a fire fight. We didn’t have the capability to talk to a flight of A1-Es that were overhead, but he could, and did. I’ll bet he is still telling that story to his grandchildren, just as I do.
Helicopters were just as important, and shared some of the same missions as fixed wing aircraft. They were able to land in any camp, and in postage-size LZs to deliver troops and supplies, and to perform medical evacuation missions. They were great for reconnaissance, command and control and liaison missions.
I didn’t get to meet many fixed wing pilots, but one who stands out in my mind was an Air Force FAC assigned to Kontum. I was the B team operations officer, and the Air Force colonel who was our FAC was quartered in the adjacent compound. It was late summer of 1966, and we were putting in a new SF camp at Dak Seang, about half way between Dak To and Dak Pek. On the appointed day, the A team took their CIDG troops out of Dak To by helicopter and landed at the virgin camp site. They immediately began to dig in and cut bamboo to clear fields of fire. The B team commander was concerned about their security, because the fledgling camp was extremely vulnerable until substantial fortifications could be constructed. The first night was the most critical time. It was prearranged that the team on the ground would make hourly commo checks so we could be sure they were OK.
Things went well until about 2000, when the scheduled commo check was not made. The commo sergeant summoned me to the communications shack, where we tried everything we could think of to raise them on the radio. We had Dak To and Dak Pek call them, thinking they might have a weak radio battery. No luck there, either. We began to theorize that they might have been attacked, and the first round knocked out their radio. I finally decided to ask the FAC for his recommendations. He immediately volunteered to fly up in his O-1 to check it out. I told him if he was going, I’d go with him. I desperately wanted to make sure the team was all right, and if not, get them help right away.
The O-1 was a small, two passenger single engine puddle jumper. Those of you who are familiar with it know that it has few instruments. Air speed indicator, altimeter, artificial horizon, compass and engine gauges are all there are. Night flying in those things was chancy at best, but on this night, there was a high layer of clouds obscuring the stars, and lots of low clouds and fog.
We took off from the Kontum airfield, climbed through the low clouds, and headed north toward the camp site. It was black up there. I recognized that we had a problem when the pilot asked me to look sharp out the window to see if I could see the ground. We flew a compass heading for what we figured would be the distance to put us over the camp. We tried calling them on several radio frequencies to no avail. We looked carefully, but didn’t see any tracers or explosions. After 30 minutes or so of circling about, we weren’t sure we were still close to the camp. We asked Dak Pek and Dak To to fire illuminating rounds from their mortars so we could better fix our position. We could see the ones from Dak To, but not the ones from Dak Pek--there were too many clouds in that direction. I even tried dropping hand grenades out of the window, hoping that the sound of an air burst would attract some signal from the camp. Still nothing. We finally decided that we had no other option but to return to Kontum while we still had enough fuel.
That was great in theory, but we now had to find Kontum, then the airport. In the hour and a half or so since our departure, fog and low clouds had settled all over that part of the highlands. Even Pleiku was socked in. We were just able to see the loom of the lights of Kontum through the low clouds, but after 30 minutes or so, the FAC began to inquire about another airfield: Qui Nhon on the coast, perhaps. Just about that time, he saw the runway lights through a hole in the clouds. Without taking time to tell me what he was going to do, the pilot flipped us upside down and dove through the hole. I think my stomach was still several hundred feet above us when he finally yanked back on the stick. We found ourselves right over the end of the strip. He plopped it down hard, and we both let out a great sigh of relief as he taxied to his mooring.
At 0700 next morning, after a very anxious night of radio-sitting, Dak Seang came up loud and clear for a radio check. It seems that they were all so tired that they had just sort of fallen asleep. That was one of the times that I would gladly have popped a fellow SF guy in the snot locker, had I had the chance.
O-1s were not the most powerful aircraft in the inventory. Some of them had been turned over to the Vietnamese. At Dak Pek, a Vietnamese O-1 showed up one day unannounced, but that was not unusual. He had come to transport back to Kontum a couple of mechanics who had been working on an old bulldozer located in camp. We were aware of the airplane’s impending departure when we heard the plane crank up, and wandered down to watch the takeoff. Our strip was only about 1300 feet, so we expected that he would taxi to the far end of the strip before starting his takeoff run. He didn’t. He turned around just over half way down the strip and gunned it. We were concerned about his ability to get off in that distance. We became more alarmed as we saw his front wheels come off the ground, while the tail wheel stayed glued to the ground with full down elevator. That means he was doing his best to get the tail off the ground, but he didn’t make it. He ran out of strip, banged into the ground, and flipped upside down over the bluff into the river about 50 feet below.
We raced down the track to the river and to the airplane. It was smoking, but not on fire. The pilot was pinned into his seat by the instrument panel, and the two mechanics were tangled in the rear seat. A 4th Infantry Division soldier who was training us on the 105mm howitzers arrived first. Ignoring the danger of fire and explosion, he ripped off the door and extracted the pilot, and helped get the mechanics out. To our amazement and consternation, we discovered that each of the mechanics had a huge toolbox with him. The plane, which is designed for only two people, was grossly overloaded, and might not have gotten off even if the pilot had used the entire runway.
By chance, there were two Huey choppers on the chopper pad at the time. It was obvious that the injured Vietnamese pilot and passengers needed immediate hospitalization if they were to have a chance to survive. We threw them on the choppers that departed immediately for the hospital in Pleiku. We never heard if any of them survived.
I recommended the 4th Division soldier, whose name I regrettably cannot remember, for the Soldier’s Medal. I had no way of knowing if he ever got it.
Another airplane had a problem on the Dak Pek airstrip while I was there. The caribou manufactured by De Havilland of Canada was a cargo plane flown by the Army in those days. It had two big piston engines mounted on its high wing, and had an amazing short takeoff and landing capability. One day about noon, one landed. Or rather, it tried to land. It got on the ground all right, but during the rollout, it swerved to the right and nosed over into the ditch alongside the runway. No one was injured, but when the pilot and copilot got out, they were in a heated argument about just who had been steering. As I recall, each seemed to think the other was, or at least should have been.
The next day, another caribou arrived with mechanics, tools, and spare parts. About three days later, the repaired aircraft took off under its own power.
Enough about fixed wing stuff. We were more concerned with helicopters, and incidentally, their crews. One day a Huey brought a visiting team of VIPs to Dak Pek for a coordinating session. The chopper crew headed for the team house and a cool drink of water while the passengers went to the operations center for their meeting. As the crews sat at our dining table, they asked for a drink of water.
Drinking water was not a problem for us, but it took a bit of doing. We had a device into which you could pour river water, and after several minutes of pumping, you got a cup or two of water as clear as vodka. Now it is important for you to keep that in mind.
One my team members was in the team house, and went to the refrigerator to get some water for the crew. The water was kept in the refrigerator in--you guessed it--vodka bottles. The sergeant made a slight error and picked up a bottle of real vodka and poured 4 glasses full. The door gunner made a face when he tasted it, and asked the sergeant if he could have something else. When the team member smelled the glass, he realized his mistake, and turned to the other crew members to recover their glasses. Too late--the last of the vodka was disappearing at that moment with no further complaints.
That is one time I was glad not to be flying out by chopper.
On another occasion while I was at Dak Pek, I had a close call in a helicopter. We were planning a patrol in an area that we seldom visited, and I wanted to make a reconnaissance before inserting the team. The B team sent a Huey up for my use. We flew south down the valley for a while, then turned slowly west. The reason we turned slowly is that we were in the mountains, and we had to fly over a high ridge to get into the target valley. The ridge top was a huge beautiful pasture-like field. We cleared the ridge by about 50 feet as we crossed it. Just as we were crossing the ridge, I looked out the left door. To my chagrin, I was looking directly at an NVA soldier who was not more than a hundred yards away. He was very carefully aiming his SKS assault rifle directly at the chopper and shooting, it seemed, directly at me. I could see the muzzle flash and hear the muzzle blast. I had on a seat belt and was sitting on a flak jacket. I quickly discovered that I couldn’t get the flak jacket out from under me while I was still belted in.
The left door gunner was deeply absorbed in his comic book, and was annoyed when I knocked a knot on his head trying to get his attention. It was over very quickly. I finally remembered that I had on a headset, and got the pilot’s attention. We banked around and hosed down the area with machine gun fire, but we didn’t see the NVA troop, or any of his buddies. Luckily the chopper had been doing a hundred knots or so, and the NVA troop was aiming directly at the chopper rather than leading it a few feet. We could easily have had a different outcome to that encounter.
Author’s Note: In August, 2010, I received an email that included comments by a former C123 pilot who flew in Viet Nam. I contacted him and he put me in touch with the C123 pilot who flew the FAC mission noted above. I was surprised to learn from him that C123 pilots had flown several FAC missions for other camps.
Copyright 2010
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