19 Minutes to Live - Helicopter Combat in Vietnam

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19 Minutes to Live - Helicopter Combat in Vietnam Page 20

by Lew Jennings


  “Watching my Scout bird grow larger and larger as he flew closer and closer, I saw that he was going to pass me off to the east. I pulled John’s flares and launcher out of my pocket and quickly screwed one of the metal bodied flares into the launcher, making sure that the firing pin was set back against its spring in its safety notch, just enough rearward that it would not contact the flare’s primer as I tightened the connection. I kept one eye on my Scout and one eye on the flare launcher as I completed my task.”

  “With the flare screwed in all the way and with my thumb on the firing pin release knob, I pointed the flare toward the Scout. I could see the Pilot and his Observer now, the Pilot through the right cockpit doorway since he was flying without doors installed, and the Observer through the left side windscreen. Both of them were looking down and around, their heads moving back and forth as they visually searched for us. I was reminded that they had no idea where we were and that they were retracing our previous flight path, the one we had taken after departing Rendezvous.”

  “I started to release the firing pin on the launcher, but stopped. I needed to aim the flare so that its little rocket motor would drive it across the flight path of the Scout. Having never fired one of the flares before, as this was Air Force standard issue and I was an Army Pilot, I wasn’t sure what to expect when the flare launched and flew. How big would the visual signature be, I wondered, with no way of knowing until I fired the first flare. So be it. Launch that sucker!”

  “With a bang, the flare launched and flew true, straight and normal, I guess. It went where I had pointed and it glowed red as it went right across the nose of the Scout, only neither of the guys saw it. They were still looking down and the flare crossed their flight path above their line of sight. At least I thought that is what happened, because as I waited for a reaction to my flare, I was surprised and disappointed that there was no reaction. None at all.”

  “One flare down and six to go. John and I now had exactly the same number of rounds left to fight the fight in case any of the bad guys, who had probably been watching us corkscrew into the jungle, decided to come find us before our friends did.”

  “I unscrewed the spent flare case and inserted a new one, working as quickly as I could while maintaining my perch in the top of the tree. Fortunately, I had fired the first flare while the Scout bird was still short of our position, but if I didn’t hurry, he might fly past me before I could fire another flare. At the time, I wasn’t even thinking about the C&C bird. I was totally focused on my Scout as he was supposed to be the eyes of the Pink Team.”

  “Again, I was ready to release the firing pin when I suddenly realized that if the Scout saw the red projectile flying past his cockpit, he might think it was a tracer and instinctively have the Observer return fire with his M60 machine gun or maybe he would turn into the direction from which the tracer came and light it up with his mini-gun. Neither possibility was encouraging, but neither was the thought of being lost in the jungle, missing in action, spending the night in the boonies, especially with John and his broken jaw.”

  “I launched another flare into the air, aimed a little lower than the first one but still across the front of the Scout bird as it continued toward our position. Same results, which is to say, no results. Neither crewmember indicated that they saw the flare fly by their nose.”

  “A couple more flares fired at different heights relative to the Scout’s altitude and line of flight failed to signal anything except maybe my frustration, but I still had flares left and I knew I wouldn’t get any points for saving them.”

  “Again, I hurriedly removed an empty flare casing and installed a new one.”

  “Again, I aimed the flare at the Scout, except this time I aimed the flare AT the Scout, directly at the Pilot as he sat in his seat doing his job trying to find us.”

  “I added a touch of lead to account for his velocity. I didn’t actually want to hit him but I figured that even if I did, there wouldn’t be enough energy to harm him, especially since he was wearing his helmet and chicken plate.”

  “With fingers mentally crossed, I fired and the flare flew directly at the Scout bird. I couldn’t tell exactly, due to the range and angle, where the flare ended up. Whether it flew through the rear compartment of the Scout or maybe hit the fuselage or not, I couldn’t see. For sure though it did not hit the Pilot. He did nothing to indicate that the flare came anywhere near him or that he saw it.”

  “The Scout flew past us heading further south and I considered firing another flare in case the C&C bird might see it, but I didn’t. He was still to our north flying toward us and I would have been firing it toward his nose or straight up into the air. While the flare would be visible to me, I doubted it would be visible to Assault 6 or his crew.”

  “Suddenly a burst of automatic weapons fire ripped off over to our east. It did not sound like US fire, in fact, it sounded like an AK-47. I didn’t see tracers but the sound seemed like the weapon was oriented to the north or northwest, and given that we were in a jungle and that the sound was clear and sharp, it seemed like the weapon was pointed upward. Don’t know why, but that is the impression I had as I listened to the burst; only one, then silence. Maybe a single 30 round magazine. Don’t know the who or the why or the target, but at the time, I remember wishing that I had my M2 with its 30 round banana magazines and that John had more than six cartridges. A dozen fragmentation grenades would have been nice as well!”

  “I looked to the south and saw the Scout turning to his right. He was making a 180° turn and coming back!”

  “Somewhere along the way, one of the crew apparently saw our crash site. Suddenly, I could see them both gesturing and pointing at an area over to our west, about where I thought we had left our Cobra.”

  “I came out of that tree like it was a greased pole without limbs. Telling John that the Scout had spotted our wreckage, I helped him to his feet and the two of us hurriedly made our way through the underbrush to the crash site. When we arrived, and stepped out of the trees, the Scout was hovering overhead already. The crew saw us. We saw them. John and I waved. They waved. We were suddenly happy campers.”

  “It occurred to me days later that before John and I walked out of the jungle, the Scout crew must have thought we were still in the wreckage since it was belly up to them and the cockpits were obscured from their view. I wished I had a recording of the radio traffic before and after their discovery that we were still among the living.”

  “The Observer signaled us to move to the west. Turns out we had crashed just to the east of Highway 548 which was a dirt road that ran north to south through the A Shau valley, hooking up to the Ho Chi Minh trail as it came into South Vietnam from Laos. They wanted us to reach the road so that they could land and pick us up.”

  “Following the Scout as he continued to hover over our heads as we moved away from the crash site, we eventually reached the edge of the jungle. When we broke out of the brush onto Highway 548, as predicted, the Scout landed so that we could climb on board. I indicated that I wanted the left front seat, the Observer’s position, and he got out and climbed into the back of the OH-6 along with John. I strapped into the front seat and seconds later we were airborne. As we climbed to altitude and started a turn to the east, I advised Assault18 that we had had automatic weapons fire to the east of our crash site. He adjusted his flight path to avoid the area I was indicating by pointing through his windscreen.”

  “I don’t remember the specific radio conversation with Assault 6 as we flew out of the valley that day, or the cockpit chatter during the 30-minute flight back to the 18th Surgical Hospital at Camp Evans where our Scout dropped John and me off. I do know that we were both grateful for the rescue and disappointed that we had left a relatively new AH-1G Cobra upside down in the A Shau Valley.”

  “As a side note, at the time we crashed that day, our Cobra was the first and only air-conditioned Cobra received by A Troop. It was a totally new helicopter, fresh from Bell Textron
and having that air conditioner was like winning the lottery.”

  “Riding in that air-conditioned Cobra was a wonderful relief from the heat and humidity of South East Asia. The AC could get so cold that, with the 100% humidity, it would spit tiny snow balls at you from the air ducts along the edges of our instrument panels, a feature that we liked to show off to our fellow aviators in their non-air conditioned UH-1s, OH-6s, and AH-1s as we flew alongside them and profiled with our visors down and big grins on our faces, complaining that we were afraid we were going to get frostbite.”

  “Oh, did I mention that the AC blew cold air through our seat cushions? Yes, a whole new meaning to the term ‘frosted balls’.”

  “Now I had gone and demolished the primo bird in our fleet of Snakes. Not a way to win friends but fortunately they were a forgiving bunch of Aviation Brothers.”

  “Someone once said that any landing that you could walk away from was a good landing, especially if it was a crash landing. Maybe so or maybe not.”

  “Regardless, it turned out to be a hell of a September day.”

  “Post Script: Several days later I learned that John was Medevaced out of country due to his jaw injury. We never flew together again. Considering how things worked out, he probably thought that was a good thing. I heard years later that he had left the Service and had become a Minister. I wondered if our experience on the floor of the A Shau Valley had anything to do with his ‘conversion’ from a life-loving, sometimes-rowdy, always joking Army Helicopter Pilot to a man of the Lord.”

  “Oh, remember my M2 carbine, S&W revolver, camera etc.? Well, the Pilot of Assault 6’s UH-1, I think it was Ed Bobilya, found all of that stuff in the creek under my cockpit when he and the Old Man landed to take a look at the aircraft before they blew everything in place. All of my personal items had fallen out of the cockpit and into the water. Being the kind, thoughtful Aviator Brother that he was, he recovered everything and then cleaned it, including my Pentax Spotmatic 35mm SLR camera. When I returned to the Troop after a short stay at the 18th Surg, he presented me with the items explaining that he was sorry but the film in the camera was lost to the water, but that the shutter seemed to have dried out OK. Even my guns were clean and oiled. Wherever he is today, I hope God has blessed him for his kindness way back then.”

  “By the way, he was the guy who actually shut down the engine of my Cobra. Throttle closed, fuel off, battery off. I am sure that engine was happy to finally go to sleep. It had given its all to keep us in the air that day, but it couldn’t do it by itself.” Mike concluded.

  David Walls and Mike Talton, Assault 27.

  Lew Jennings, Assault 23, Takin’ A Break while.

  Mike Ryan, Assault 18, makes coffee!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MAI LOC

  As the monsoon season dragged on into winter, A Troop left the A Shau on 29 September to begin conducting operations up near the demilitarized zone or DMZ at a Special Forces camp called Mai Loc. We staged our Loaches and Cobras there, as well as our Hueys and the Blue Platoon of Infantry. It was a dirt strip with a small Special Forces camp enclosed with rows of concertina wire.

  Our missions varied from day to day at Mai Loc. Reconnaissance missions out on the Khe Sanh plain to the Laotian border. Search missions of the craggy cliffs, caves and mountainous terrain along the DMZ. And Ready Reaction Force for downed aircraft.

  We had limited logistical support at Mai Loc and used more extensive support facilities at the former Marine base at Quang Tri about 20 minutes away for rearming, refueling and maintenance.

  It was the fall of 1969. General Westmoreland was back in Washington D.C. as the Army Chief of Staff. General Creighton Abrams had replaced Westmoreland as Commander, Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV).

  The Marines had been moved south and most of the famous bases and sights of past bloody battles in northern I Corps had been abandoned; Khe Sanh, Vandergrift, Rockpile, Carol and others.

  Lyndon Johnson was gone. The bombing of North Vietnam had been halted. Nixon was President. US force reduction had started. Peace talks were underway in Paris.

  That did not for a second deter the NVA from continuing to build up their forces and prepare for further offensive operations in the south.

  Now it was our turn to detect and try to stop their infiltration across the DMZ from the north and Laos from the west, as the III Marine Amphibious Forces and Army’s 1st Cavalry Division had done the year before.

  We were a relatively tiny force with a huge mission and little support. “If you ain’t Cav you ain’t shit,” as the saying goes. “Out Front” was our motto and here we were, out front again. Just as we liked it.

  Captain Don McGurk had taken over command of the Blues from Lou Herrick several months earlier. Calm, reserved and focused would describe Don. He was a true professional and courageous beyond belief.

  It was 9 October 1969. We had been up at Mai Loc just a week or two. Don and the Blues were camped with an Infantry Battalion from the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne inside a temporary perimeter they had established across the dirt runway from the Special Forces camp. The Blues had received a mission to conduct a search and destroy patrol in the mountainous area of the DMZ. The troops gathered for the Mission Brief while the helicopter crews manned the Hueys that would be used to insert them in a landing zone just south of the DMZ, at the base of the mountains.

  The Hueys cranked up, the troops loaded aboard, our Cobras were ready along with our Scout birds, as we all checked in on the radio and took off as one in a formation of 11; six Hueys, two Cobras, two Scouts and our new Boss, Major Tom Trombley, in the Command and Control (C&C) Huey. Trombley had taken over the Command of the Troop from Curtin back in late July.

  We in the Cobras and Scouts flew out in front of the formation. It took just 15 minutes or so to get to the landing zone. The Scouts went in first to check for any enemy activity in the immediate vicinity of the LZ and mark it with colored smoke grenades for the inbound Hueys as the two Cobras circled on either side in a race track pattern to cover insertion of the troops.

  The LZ was cold and the troops established a hasty defense as they exited the Hueys and the aircraft departed the area. The Cobras and Scouts continued aerial reconnaissance of the surrounding area as Don and his Platoon Sergeant led the patrol towards the base of the mountain to begin their reconnaissance mission.

  “We came upon an area of high cliffs with several cave entrances, maybe four or five at the base of the cliffs,” Don McGurk recalled.

  “From the base, there was a slope of about 50 or 60 yards, covered in large boulders and various upright and felled trees. At the bottom of the slope was a path and adjacent to that was a dry creek bed or ravine,” he explained.

  “I left two Squads in the ravine to cover our approach to the caves and led the remainder of the Blues up the slope to the first cave entrance on the left. When we arrived at that entrance we stepped in and looked around but did not explore back into the cave. I left two men at the cave entrance to cover our backs as the rest of us moved along the base to look into the remainder of the cave entrances.”

  “About the third cave down, all hell broke loose. The Squads in the ravine were firing up to the cave entrances, tree branches were breaking and rounds were zinging off boulders.”

  “My RTO (Radio Telephone Operator) was crouched next to me. The PRC-47 radio crackled with the sounds of the guys calling and warning us the NVA were coming out of cave entrances behind us.”

  “I ordered all the men with me to move down the slope immediately to the ravine while I radioed for air support,” he continued. “The enemy had gotten up on the cliffs and were lobbing hand grenades down on us as we moved. Luckily the shrapnel from the exploding grenades was deflected by the many rather large boulders on the slope.”

  “After getting to the ravine I was told that one of the two men left at the first cave entrance was KIA. I called again for air support, however no one responded to my call. I
later found out that all the aircraft were back at Quang Tri refueling and no one had relieved the Pink Teams on station to provide continuous coverage.”

  “I took my RTO and one other trooper and climbed back up the slope to the two troopers at the first cave entrance to see what was going on for myself and support my troopers. It was true, Leon Trecinski had been killed. We each grabbed an arm or a leg and carried him down to the ravine. By the time we were all back in the ravine and preparing for some type of enemy attack, the aircraft had returned, fired up the area and got the bad guys off our backs. Leon was airlifted out and the remainder of us were then extracted and returned to Base Camp.”

  Lew here again. We all felt the pain of Leon’s death and resolved to do a better job for our heroes carrying a rucksack and a rifle, as Don continued his story.

  “Less than a week later I received orders to return to the caves with the Blues and an additional aircraft full of engineers,” he related. “Higher Headquarters wanted the engineers to blow the cave entrances.”

  “We went back, all was quiet and the majority of the Blues remained in the ravine to cover the engineers moving up to the entrances. They placed their explosives, returned to the ravine and detonated the dynamite or C-4. After the smoke cleared there was nothing, no sign of any damage at all.”

  “The engineers went to go back up the slope and about halfway, there was a delayed reaction from the explosions as very large chunks of rock started falling from the cliff and rolling down the slope. Those engineers moved pretty fast down that slope back to the ravine. They agreed with me there was not much more we could do here and we called for extraction. We had no more dealings with those caves but we all had lasting memories of the NVA tossing grenades down on us and losing Leon.”

  As usual, Don was on the last bird out of the LZ.

  We continued to fly out of Mai Loc the rest of October. It was wet and rainy with low clouds across the Khe Sanh plain. The higher ground to the south and the mountains of the DMZ to the north were nearly always obscured by clouds. We ran into small pockets of enemy troops, usually engineers out improving roads and trails. No major enemy activity though, as they seemed to be hindered by the bad weather as much as we were.

 

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