19 Minutes to Live - Helicopter Combat in Vietnam

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19 Minutes to Live - Helicopter Combat in Vietnam Page 26

by Lew Jennings


  “The one trump card we still held was that the bad guys didn’t know that we were dry on ordnance. Plus, after all of the high explosives and steel that we had thrown at them and the fact that they weren’t banging away at us with their 12.7s, we let ourselves conclude that we had either killed them or had driven them underground, assuming that they had constructed underground tunnels, spider holes and other such earth-based fortifications as part of their decision to set up shop on our side of the DMZ.”

  “So, as the lead Cobra Aircraft Commander and the guy who should have made sure we had kept something in reserve, I ‘volunteered’ my front seat and me to make the BDA, while 26 in his Snake, 16 in his Scout and Assault 6 in the Huey maintained overwatch and acted in ‘threatening manners’. 26 could make gun runs as if he was going to dump more stuff on the ridge, and the Scout and the Huey had three guys with M60 machine guns in case they saw any movement on the ground as we flew the BDA. Small potatoes and flakey, but still…”

  “We decided to test the waters before diving in, so we made a fast run over the ridgeline. Then we made another one from a different direction over a different crossing point. The idea, of course, was to entice some trigger happy bad guy to pull the trigger, and hopefully miss, so that we would know if someone was still watching and still ready to fight.”

  “We ignored the fact that we were crossing the southern boundary line and flying into the DMZ itself. This was one of those moments when you did what you had to do, not stopping to ask permission, but not wanting to ask for forgiveness later either. No one said anything on the radios, and neither my front seat nor I scolded each other.”

  “Neither fly-over drew ground fire. On neither run did we see any bad guys, alive or dead. If we had killed them on the ridge, either we had blown them to smithereens (wherever that was) or someone had carried off the bodies, a thing that happened a lot if they had the manpower and the time. Of course, we didn’t know if they had enough of that either, just that they weren’t there.”

  “Then I saw it, a Chicom 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine gun still standing on its tripod with ammunition belt attached, all black and threatening and apparently unharmed. It was the first gun that had fired at us when the fight began. It was sitting smack dab in the center of a very narrow strip of the ridgeline spine at the point of highest elevation, surrounded mostly by brush, its three legs straddling a footpath that appeared to be well used.”

  “I wanted that gun! Somehow, I had to ‘capture’ that machine gun and take it back to Quang Tri with us. If we (note the ‘we’, even though my front seat did not realize that I had mentally included him in a scheme that would require him to exit the aircraft in bad guy land, unless he could talk me into doing it) could get that beauty to fit onto one of our open ammo bays.”

  “As I focused on the ‘trophy’ and noodled on how to make it mine, I mean ‘ours’, I reported my discovery to the Team over VHF, and flew closer to the prize, and lower, and slower, until there I was, hovering next to the object of my insane fascination, actually just above it, keeping my rotor blades out of the trees while trying to decide if I had enough room on the ridgeline for my skids.”

  “I needed seven feet of real estate to hold the width of my skids. Of course, seven feet was a spec number and didn’t allow for any margin at all. It didn’t matter because the footpath was not that wide anyway.”

  “I could always straddle the ridge, letting the skids find their footing on the slopes of the ridge while centering the spine between them, aligning the longitudinal axis of our Cobra with the long axis of the ridge. But there were complications with that idea, involving things that extend downward from the fuselage that don’t do well when jammed into the dirt, things like radio antennas and such.”

  “Landing perpendicular to the long axis of the ridge might work except we would need 53 feet of clearance from trees and other things just to fit us onto the ridgeline with main rotor and tail rotors spinning, absolutely no margin for error, but once again, it didn’t matter because we just did not have the space.”

  “Those SOBs had planted that gun in a pretty inaccessible spot, for a Cobra anyway. But the Scout! So much smaller, but no, that was out. If something happened to him while he was trying to grab that machine gun, nothing I could ever say or do could compensate.”

  “A grappling hook and rope?”

  “I checked with Assault 6, just in case someone on his bird had had the forethought to bring such a useful tool.”

  “He wanted to know why I wanted such a thing. I hesitated to tell him, but only for a second.”

  “I tried to explain how we had an opportunity to reduce the enemy’s ability to wage war, but my explanation sounded weak even as I tried to fabricate it. If I couldn’t convince myself that it was a good idea, how could I ever convince him? Even if he did have the grappling hook and a rope thick enough and long enough, I doubted that he would have been reckless enough to sit at a hover in his UH-1H, presenting the bad guys with a fairly large and stationary target, while one of his crew tried to grapple the 12.7 and then either drag it aboard or secure it on the rope for a ride down to the valley floor. Plus what if it had a round chambered and something we did triggered it?”

  “Belatedly, I arrived at the door marked ‘It Ain’t Gonna Happen’ and resigned myself to the fact that someone else would have to capture the machine gun, or maybe we could use Artillery or TAC air ‘snake and nape’ to blow it and burn it.”

  “Then I glanced at the fuel gauge and saw that we were approaching ‘bingo’ state, that point in the mission where we had to depart the mission area while we had enough fuel to get back to Base, Quang Tri.”

  “Reluctantly, I maneuvered our Cobra so that I could dive off of the ridgeline and follow its slope toward the valley floor back into South Vietnam, accelerating into forward flight in the process. With a final visual check of the area surrounding us and seeing no one pointing a weapon at us, I increased collective pitch and pushed gently forward on the cyclic.”

  “27 coming out,” I called to the Team on VHF.”

  “As if she was ready to call it a day herself, our Cobra smoothly transitioned from a low hover into flight and away we went, skimming at tree top level down the long slope until our airspeed passed 100 KIAS. I may have clenched my teeth just a bit as I waited to see if that 12.7 was going to stitch my backside with GBOFs. Easing back on the cyclic while maintaining our takeoff power setting, we rapidly climbed through the altitudes vulnerable to ground fire and rejoined our flight, talking with Assault 6 as we took our position behind our Scout.”

  “While I had been focused on my NVA disarmament action, 6 had coordinated a replacement team to relieve us, and there they were, coming up from the southeast. After a mission handoff over VHF that stressed the fact that two 12.7mm machine guns had been on the ridgeline and that at least one of them was still standing, and yes, somehow the second gun had escaped total destruction as well but at least it appeared damaged, we departed the AO for the return flight to Quang Tri, leaving a second heavy Hunter-Killer team to develop the situation.”

  “Actually, the situation got a lot more complex after we left. Turns out the NVA had moved into that area with intent to stay a while. They did indeed have underground ‘facilities’ established, and the men and equipment to go with them. Things got very interesting in the days that followed, but that is a story for another day.”

  “Oh, later on I talked with the NCO who was riding as Assault 16’s Observer. When I asked if he had heard my radio calls to break right, he acknowledged that he had but that 16 had not. Seems that 16 was talking to the NCO over the intercom about all of the things that he was seeing down below them as they flew along and that he either had the toggle switch for the VHF radio flipped down or the volume of the radio turned down to the point where he did not hear the radio traffic, when he had his intercom ICS switch keyed and was talking.”

  “I asked him if he knew how close he had been to finding out about th
e afterlife, and he looked at me and nodded. His face reflected that not only did he know how close he had come, but that he might have gotten a glimpse through the pearly gates. Then he volunteered that he knew they were in ‘trouble’ when he saw a rocket fly by his empty doorway. Since his seat was on the left side of the cockpit, I knew exactly which rocket he had seen, as I had watched the same rocket go sliding by him.”

  “I didn’t ask him if the rocket was flying in slow motion as it passed him, but I did ask how closely it had passed.”

  "Almost close enough to touch," was his answer and then he spread out the three fingers and thumb of his right hand in a four-pronged gesture, 'and those fins in the back were all open like this'."

  “Then he added, ‘When I saw that, I yelled at the Captain and pushed the stick to the right. He looked at me and then out his door at another rocket that was passing his side. I think we both heard you tell us to break to the right. The next thing I knew, we were up on our right side and then diving for the trees. I was holding on’.”

  “Thankfully, both rockets had passed their helicopter before they decided to make their break, otherwise ...”

  GBOFS!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I’M HIT!

  It was January 2, 1970. Only days to go on my short timer’s calendar to catch my freedom bird back to the good old US of A. We had been flying out of Quang Tri way up north, conducting reconnaissance missions all along the DMZ to the Khe Sanh plain and west to the Laotian border in an area called the Salient, a parrot’s beak shaped area of the border that was a main ingress point for NVA forces coming down from North Vietnam.

  Nearly every day for a week now, we had been finding small elements of enemy forces along a major trail that came in from Laos near the old QL-9 highway and meandered south towards the A Shau valley. Most of the enemy forces we were engaging appeared to be engineers improving the trail in groups of 3 to 5 soldiers with mostly small arms weapons, AK-47 assault rifles.

  Eddy Joiner and I were coming back in the late afternoon from a mission way out there, when Eddy in his Scout bird spotted some smoke rising from a grassy knoll off to our right.

  “Hey 23, 11. Check out that smoke up on the hill at our 2 o’clock.” Eddy called. “Let’s check it out,” as he dove towards the ground and started bobbing and weaving towards the smoke. I already had all my systems armed and finger resting on the firing button for the rockets as I warned my front seat gunner to get ready for action.

  As Eddy approached the smoke, he called out the dreaded words: “TAKING FIRE! TAKING FIRE! THEY’RE IN THE OPEN ALL OVER THE PLACE! TAKING FIRE!” as he broke left.

  My front seat gunner instantly laid down fire from the turret-mounted Gatling gun at 2,000 rounds per minute as he covered Eddy’s escape, while I waited half a second for Eddy to clear and started firing my 17-pound high explosive warhead rockets, then breaking off to the left as well so I wouldn’t overfly the target and maybe get blasted at close range.

  “There must be at least a Company (40-50) of bad guys down there,” Eddy called when he was clear. “They were cooking food and scattered throughout the area in the elephant grass,” he further explained. “You have any nails on board today?” he asked.

  “Sure do,” I replied.

  “Nails” is a slang term we used to describe our flechette rockets. These rockets were especially effective against enemy troops in the open and not under protective cover, just like in this situation.

  The flechette rocket warhead contained 2,200 20-grain steel flechettes that looked like tiny steel darts about an inch long. The flechettes were packed into the warhead side by side, one facing forward, one facing aft. The result was that when fired, the rocket would head to the target and as it got close, the warhead would explode, sending the forward half of flechettes immediately towards the target area. Those facing aft would be delayed a nano-second while they turned around to streamline into the wind, providing a one-two punch of thousands of nails.

  The flechette rocket was also a “wide area” weapon. The flechettes dispersed over an elongated area that could cover the size of a football field depending on the distance to the target.

  I had 14 flechette rockets on board in the two outboard 7-shot pods. I called to Eddy to stay well clear as I set up for the rocket run at quite a distance and low slant angle to the target. The bad guys continued firing at us trying desperately to knock us out of the air, as I slowly fired one pair at a time, expending all 14 rockets and covering the entire hill with 30,800 nails. I’m sure I killed a lot of enemy soldiers that day. A hell of a way to die, but we had gotten away unharmed for the moment.

  It was just the two of us, a long way from friendlies and getting dark, so we didn’t stick around to try and do a battle damage assessment or the proverbial body count. We headed back to Quang Tri as darkness fell and called in our report so others in the night, like the Air Force “Spookys”, could take over.

  The next morning it was up early to head back out to The Salient and see if more enemy activity was in store for us. Anticipating trouble after our encounter with the large enemy force the previous evening, the Boss had assembled a heavy team of two Cobras, two Scouts and him in his C&C Huey.

  We were still nearly ten miles away when we started seeing a sight we simply could not comprehend. The “trail” coming in from Laos we had been reconning for the last week was now clearly visible as a doggone highway!

  Major Trombley came over the radio. “This is Assault 6. Obviously, something has happened overnight and looks to be very dangerous. Are you all ready to continue the mission?” he asked. Each of us called back in the affirmative, as we continued to approach the road.

  The two Scouts dove for the dirt, bobbing and weaving down the new road as me and the other Cobra stayed close behind covering them. The Scouts started chattering over the radio in awe of what they were seeing. Huge tire tracks like Russian assault vehicles and thousands of footprints were visible as what had been a well-camouflaged trail up until now, had been laid bare. The enemy had apparently crossed over the border from Laos during the night in force. Maybe by the thousands! We cautiously continued following the road, waiting to be attacked at any second. Until we reached the end of the road, finding nothing.

  “6, 11, we don’t see any people or vehicles. Should we head back up the road?” Eddy asked the Boss.

  “Okay everyone, let’s be alert. We know they’re around here somewhere. 11, let’s start heading back up the road and widen our recon on both sides,” Trombley directed.

  Sure enough, they were all around us as Eddy called out a minute later; “TAKING FIRE! TAKING FIRE! THEY’RE ALONG THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE ROAD AT THE BASE OF THE HILL WITH TRUCKS CAMOUFLAGED UNDER THE TREES!” We immediately started laying in rockets and mini-gun fire, as the Scouts lobbed Willy Pete white phosphorous grenades to mark the target and broke away. It seemed like we were taking fire from all directions.

  The Boss had already called for backup in the form of a Forward Air Controller (FAC) that was high overhead ready to direct in Navy, Marine and Air Force fighter jets. He called to say he would have fighters inbound in a few minutes loaded with “Snake and Nape” (high explosive 250 or 500 pound bombs and Napalm liquid gas canisters). We continued to shoot more rockets and mini-gun as the Scouts cleared the target and then we all stood off a half mile or so away to watch the fighters come in on their bombing runs.

  The smoke from the white phosphorous grenades was dissipating by then, so we told the FAC to tell the jets to simply aim their bombs at a lone tree on top of a small knoll, because the trucks and bad guys were hidden in camouflaged fighting positions at the base of the knoll, about 50 yards east of the tree.

  The fighter jet guys, God bless ‘em, screamed down from the heavens, still on oxygen, and dropped their loads, hoping to come within a football field off the target, so we were totally amazed when the first fighter on the first run dropping Napalm actually hit the tree instead of the bad guys. The re
st of the bomb runs hit the intended target area though, as we prepared to go back in.

  As soon as the fighters broke off and we headed back in, all of us started taking heavy fire. The C&C bird called in that he had been hit and had taken a round through the floor.

  I was already setting up for another gun run when a bullet blasted though the Plexiglas canopy of my cockpit, just inches from my face, slamming into my instrument panel. Pieces of Plexiglas hit me, slicing across my lower cheek. Luckily, I had my helmet visor down or some really serious damage would have been done to my stunning good looks!

  My engine instruments were jumping around. My rotor rpm was way too high. I instantly thought maybe we were experiencing engine governor failure or worse. Without thinking, I instinctively reduced rotor rpm with a toggle switch on the collective. The RPM gauge still indicated it was too high, but the aircraft was starting to wobble as if the rotor blades were going too slow. Things were turning to shit in a hand basket quick.

  “I’M HIT! I’M HIT! THIS IS 23, I’M HIT!” I shouted over the radio.

  We were some 30 miles or more from the nearest friendlies and into some really serious doo doo. The CO’s bird had been hit, the Scouts were still taking fire and now, for the first time in my tour and only days to go on my short timer calendar, I had taken a round through the cockpit and appeared to be in serious trouble.

  We all broke off from the fight and the team gathered around me for the flight back to Quang Tri. I was uncertain how much longer I could keep the Cobra flying. My Copilot, Stan Shearin, and I started assessing the damage and going through emergency procedures while continuing to provide updates to the rest of the team over the radio.

 

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