19 Minutes to Live - Helicopter Combat in Vietnam

by Lew Jennings

  “Sir, I’m here on leave from flight school with orders to Vietnam. My father is gravely ill in the hospital at Letterman and is not expected to live much longer. I would like to delay my orders but don’t know what to do,” I explained.

  We spent the next 10 minutes or so discussing the situation, me describing my father’s diagnosis and condition, what ward he was in, where I was staying with family in San Jose and when I was supposed to report to Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento, California for my flight to Vietnam.

  He then looked over at the other Colonel. “Dan, would you ask Mr. Matthews to come over and show Mr. Jennings here our aircraft and facilities?”

  Then to me, “Jennings, you did the right thing coming down to see us. Mr. Matthews will show you around while I make a few calls. Report back here in about an hour.”

  I couldn’t believe it! Two Colonels and being treated like a fellow officer and no longer a boot or candidate in training. I must be dreaming!

  Mr. Matthews met me at Operations a few minutes later. He was a tall, gray haired, good-looking guy with a ready smile and an aura of professional authority.

  He was a CW4! That was the highest rank for a Warrant Officer in those days and I was immediately impressed. I was further impressed when I noticed he wore Master Army Aviator Wings. You don’t get to wear those until you have attained several thousand hours of flight time and at least 15 years of service. He immediately stuck out his hand, “Bob Matthews”.

  We strolled down the flight line at Crissy Field towards the Golden Gate Bridge rising majestically just off the end of the runway. To our left the Presidio rose steeply up the hill, with its many structures dating back to before World War II, housing the Headquarters for the 6th Army and many supporting units. In the center and towards the top of the rise was a beautiful Spanish style building that was the oldest building in San Francisco and now served as the Officers Club.

  “We have several missions and organizations we support here” Bob explained. “The primary mission is to support the Commanding General, Sixth Army. To fly the General, we have a nice UH-1 Huey with VIP package,” he gestured as we approached the first aircraft on the flight line.

  It was the most beautiful Huey I had ever seen, all polished and glistening in dark green and white. He pulled the sliding side door open to reveal a fully carpeted interior with plush leather seats and an array of radios in a pedestal mounted between the front seats. A nice ride for the Commanding General!

  He then gestured to another helicopter nearby. Also gleaming in the sunlight. It looked like a totally restored vintage helicopter right out of a museum. It was a huge thing with a big, bulbous nose with clamshell doors hanging on the front, a tiny cockpit way up in the air above the nose, a huge sliding door on the side, and the whole thing perched on two massive wheels and a tiny tail wheel below the tail rotor.

  “This is one of the few existing VH-34 Presidential Helicopters left,” Bob revealed. “It was used to support President Eisenhower back in the late 50’s. We now use it to support General of the Army Omar Bradley,” he continued as he opened the sliding door to reveal an exquisite VIP interior with carpeting, stuffed chairs, a couch and lace curtains over the windows.

  “This helicopter even has an autopilot and lots of back-up systems. It’s so heavy we can only take aboard about five people max.”

  General Bradley was the only 5-star general still living and his residence was down in Beverly Hills outside of Los Angeles.

  Even though retired, he was still supported by the Army and I heard an office and staff were maintained at his disposal in the Pentagon as well.

  Bob continued to show me the rest of the aircraft on the line which consisted of a few small twin-engine airplanes, an OH-23 Hiller helicopter with floats and two more conventional CH-34 cargo helicopters.

  “These CH-34’s are our work horses.” Bob continued. “They are equipped with floats as we fly across the Bay up to five times a day to pick up wounded at Travis Air Force Base coming in from Vietnam and transport them back here for treatment at Letterman.”

  Letterman Army Hospital I would learn was the largest military hospital on the West Coast and handled thousands of wounded returning from Vietnam for treatment.

  When we returned to Operations, the Executive Officer motioned me into the Commander’s office.

  “Sir, Mr. Jennings reporting,” I said as I came to attention and saluted.

  “Have a seat Lew,” he replied as he motioned me to a chair in front of his desk.

  “Dan, would you ask Mr. Mathews to join us as well?” he asked.

  When Bob entered the office a moment later, the Colonel directed his attention to me.

  “I’m really sorry to hear about your father’s condition. You’re not to worry about your orders to Vietnam for the time being. You belong to me. You are now assigned to the 6th Army Flight Detachment on Compassionate Reassignment until further notice. Bob will help you with your new assignment and qualification in our aircraft so we can put you to work. I also want you to keep me posted on your father’s condition. Welcome aboard.”

  With that he stood up and came around to shake my hand. Dan the Executive Officer and Bob also shook my hand and welcomed me aboard. I was shaking with relief as tears welled in my eyes. All I could muster was barely a whispered, “Thank you, Sir.”

  The next few weeks were a flurry of activity as I received qualification training in all the helicopters there at Crissy Field and settled into my new assignment flying support missions for Headquarters 6th Army and medical evacuations back and forth to Travis Air Force Base and spending quality time with Dad in the hospital every day.

  My father, Wilson Jennings, was born in Paris, Tennessee on August 13, 1915. He had four brothers; Frank, Johnny, Robert (Bobby) and James. He also had two sisters; Betty Lou and Grace.

  Johnny, Robert, and James served with distinction in the Marine Corps, although James tragically died at age 19 in a drowning accident while on deployment in Panama.

  Johnny stayed in the Marine Corps for over 20 years and retired as a Major and went on to a career in the defense industry in San Diego. His wife Flora founded the California Ballet Company there. Daughter Marlene became a ballet star and daughter Maxine still runs the Company today along with granddaughter Clarissa.

  My uncle Johnny and I became very close when I was stationed in San Diego with the Navy late in my Army career. I was honored to give the eulogy at his passing in 1988.

  Brother Bobby finished his initial tour of duty in the Marine Corps in the ‘50s and became hugely successful in the trucking industry in Los Angeles after several years of adventures in Alaska.

  I went to live with Uncle Bobby for a while right out of High School and drove trucks in the LA area. I have many fond memories of times spent with Uncle Bobby. He retired back to Kentucky near his sister Betty Lou. He passed in 1994 and is survived by his wife Esther.

  While at the Presidio, my sister Gail and I spent many hours with Dad as his condition worsened over the ensuing weeks and months. He passed peacefully at Letterman on November 20, 1968.

  My father had insisted that he be cremated and that there be no elaborate ceremonies, funeral or burial, so I flew out over Monterey Bay where I scattered his ashes off the beautiful coast of Santa Cruz.

  Then I headed to Travis Air Force Base for my flight to “Disneyland East for Adults”, Vietnam.

  Sikorsky VH-34 Presidential Helicopter with Float Kits

  CHAPTER TEN

  VIETNAM

  Vietnam lies along the eastern edge of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia, surrounded by the Gulf of Tonkin and South China Sea on its eastern shore, with China to the north and Laos and Cambodia to the west.

  The country is nearly a thousand miles long, from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in the south to Hanoi in the north and is less than 50 miles across at its narrowest point, near the old demilitarized zone north of Hue. It’s a subtropical region, starting in the south at ju
st 8 degrees above the equator to nearly 25 degrees at the far north.

  It is a beautiful country with vast rice paddies and picturesque villages in the Mekong River Delta of the south. Gorgeous beaches with crystal-clear water line the coast. The rolling hills, lakes and mountains of the central highlands and the steep jungles and mountains of the A Shau Valley are stunning, as are the great plains of Khe Sanh and the Red River Delta in the far north, home to Hanoi and Haiphong.

  Vietnam Highlands

  Fishing Nets in the Mekong Delta Region

  Vietnam’s history goes back thousands of years, however, our involvement can only be traced back to the late 1800s when France invaded and occupied that region of Southeast Asia for over 50 years. The French established their control of Vietnam and renamed it French Indochina in 1887. Laos and Cambodia were added in 1893.

  Many resistance movements against the French occupation occurred over the ensuing years.

  The initial uprisings were carried out by former officers of the feudal courts and Mandarin dynasties, while others were conducted by local peasants. However, all lacked modern weaponry and were effectively suppressed by the French.

  During the 1920s and 1930s more radical movements emerged, backed by Vietnamese leaders based in China. Communist influence also increased with the establishment of the Vietnamese Communist Party (CPV). And Ho Chi Minh emerged as a prominent political figure and Communist leader in China in 1941. He would become a hero to his followers in Vietnam and a nemesis to the French and we Americans.

  Born 19 May 1890 in the Vietnamese village of Hoang Tru, Ho studied Confucian teachings as a child and became proficient in Chinese writing. He attended High School in the ancient capital city of Hue (which includes the distinguished graduates; General Vo Nguyen Giap and North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong). Ho then traveled the world while working on ships for several years; to France in 1911, the United States 1912-13 and again in 1917-18, to the United Kingdom in 1913 and 1919 and France again in 1919-1923.

  It was during this last period in France that Ho joined a group of Vietnamese nationalists who had been publishing newspaper articles advocating for Vietnamese independence. He attempted to petition the Western powers at the Versailles Peace talks after World War I to recognize the civil rights of the Vietnamese people and end French Colonial rule.

  Although the group failed to gain consideration at Versailles, Ho became a symbol of the anti-Colonial movement at home in Vietnam.

  Ho traveled to Moscow in 1923 where he met Lenin. He attended the University of the Toilers of the East, received formal training in Marxism and the techniques of agitation, participated in the 5th Comintern Conference and became a member of the Comintern's Southeast Asia Bureau.

  From Moscow he went to Canton, China in November 1924. For several years he organized and taught youth education classes there and gave socialist lectures to young Vietnamese revolutionaries at the Whampoa Military Academy, whose members would later give rise to the pro-communist movement in Vietnam.

  Ho was forced to flee China three years later in 1927 when Chiang Kai-shek, an influential member of the Kuomintang (KMT) Chinese National Party and close ally of Sun Yat-sen, led a successful coup in 1926, purging communist elements of the military. Chiang Kai-shek became Commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy, subsequently succeeding Sun Yat-sen as leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party.

  Chiang Kai-shek continued further military actions against communist party activists in the Shanghai Massacre of 1927, solidifying his leadership of the country and suppressing communist uprisings.

  Ho Chi Minh fled China that year and returned to Moscow. He returned to China in 1938 as an advisor to Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist army that would later force Chiang Kai-shek’s government into exile on Taiwan.

  In 1940 Japan successfully invaded and occupied French Indochina, keeping the Vichy French Colonial government in place to maintain control under direction of the Japanese.

  That same year Ho Chi Minh made his way south from China and re-entered Vietnam again for the first time in 30 years.

  Once there, Ho took advantage of the Japanese invasion to piece together a coalition of Nationalist and Communist Vietnamese he called the Viet Minh. Under his leadership the Viet Minh created a 10,000-man guerilla force known as the “Men in Black” that battled the Japanese in the jungles of Vietnam with much success.

  Ho became celebrated as the leading Vietnamese nationalist and ironically became an ally of the United States against the Japanese. "I was a Communist," he said then, "but I am no longer one. I am a member of the Vietnamese family, nothing else." Aided by the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Ho would conduct many successful military operations against the Vichy French and Japanese occupation forces during World War II.

  Support for the Viet Minh guerilla force also grew substantially due to the famine of 1944-45, caused by both natural and man-made disasters. Severe flooding reduced rice production and the occupying Japanese used much of it to feed the troops and supply fuel for the vehicles. Many thousands of Vietnamese peasants died as a result.

  All this culminated in the “August General Uprising” on August 14, 1945, when the Viet Minh seized control of all of Vietnam from the French occupation forces after the Japanese had surrendered.

  Ho Chi Minh declared independence for the newly established Democratic Republic of Vietnam and was declared Premier of the new Republic headquartered in Hanoi, however, the new government was not recognized by any other countries, including the United States.

  Unbeknownst to Ho, Vietnam’s immediate future had already been decided by President Truman, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin as part of the Potsdam Agreement, ending the war with Japan.

  The Potsdam Agreement stipulated that the northern half of Vietnam would be occupied temporarily by National Chinese forces to accept the surrender and removal of Japanese occupiers, while the southern half would initially be controlled by the British and then turned over to the French.

  French forces arrived on British ships to retake control of Saigon while 200,000 troops from Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China arrived in Hanoi to accept the surrender of the Japanese occupiers of Indochina.

  The French also moved into the north in an agreement with the Chinese when they departed.

  Ho Chi Minh’s newly formed government was under intense pressure and sought an agreement with France to allow Vietnam to be an autonomous, independent state in the French Union. The French went along with the agreement to facilitate removal of the Chinese and signed it on 6 March 1946.

  Both Ho Chi Minh and his college classmate and General of the Army Vo Nguyen Giap continued tenuous negotiations with the French, however the agreement quickly broke down. The tense situation escalated dramatically on 23 October 1946 when the French bombarded Haiphong killing 6,000 Vietnamese and wounding another 14,000.

  Ho Chi Minh concluded that France had no intention of allowing Vietnam independence and declared war against the French Union on 19 December 1946, signaling the beginning of the First Indochina War that would rage on for seven years.

  In February of 1950, with the French blockade of the northern border successfully removed by the Viet Minh, the Soviet Union formally recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Ho traveled to Moscow where he met with Stalin and Mao Zedong and China agreed to recognize and provide support to the Viet Minh as well.

  With weapons, supplies and training provided by the communist Chinese and Soviet Union, the Viet Minh, under the command of Vo Nguyen Giap, wreaked havoc on the French occupation forces.

  French forces were spread out all over Indochina fighting the Viet Minh in what was becoming a protracted, unpopular war.

  In December 1953, French General Henri Navarre established a large sprawling garrison way out at the western border of Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu to disrupt Viet Minh supplies lines south through Laos.

  Viet Minh General Giap decided to attack the garrison and sta
rted covertly preparing the battlefield. While conducting a series of diversionary attacks, Giap placed covered and concealed artillery in the surrounding hills, employed Soviet antiaircraft weapons to disrupt resupply of the French garrison and built a series of camouflaged trenches and tunnels encircling the French forces.

  When Navarre finally realized he was surrounded and called for help, US advisors recommended the use of tactical nuclear weapons while others called for strategic bombing to scatter Viet Minh forces. US President Eisenhower refused to intervene however, without agreement by the British and other Western allies. British Prime Minister Churchill declined, citing the on-going peace negotiations in Geneva. No support for the French at Dien Ben Phu was forthcoming.

  Giap launched an intense 54-day offensive on 13 March 1954, defeating French positions one after another until the entire garrison was over run. The French garrison Commander, General De Castries, was captured in his bunker. French artillery Commander, Colonel Piroth, committed suicide by hand grenade. French casualties totaled over 2,200 men dead, 5,600 wounded and 11,721 taken prisoner.

  The French forces surrendered on 7 May 1954 and the following day the French government announced that it intended to withdraw from Vietnam completely. Two months later, on July 21, 1954 the Geneva Accords were signed by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, France, People's Republic of China, Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. The State of Vietnam in the south and its ally the United States were not signatories.

  The Geneva Accords stipulated that a demarcation line and a 6-mile wide demilitarized zone would be drawn at the 17th parallel. French forces would regroup to the south and Viet Minh forces to the north of the demarcation line. There would be free movement of the population across the zone for 300 days. Neither zone was to join a military alliance or seek military reinforcement.