Rolling Thunder

by Mark Berent

CHAPTER FOUR

  1612651430Z DEC

  FM 3RD TACFTRWG BIEN HOA AB RVN

  TO RUEDHQA/CSAF//RUWHNF/DEP TIG USAF NORTON AFB CALIF

  RUHLKM/CINCPACAF\RUMSAL/7TH AF TAN SON NHUT AB RVN

  C O N F I D E N T I A L 3SA 04281 DEC

  : and you and you and you and is FOUO SPECIAL HANDLING REQUIRED.

  A. 16 DEC, 1330H, PACAF, 7AF, 3TFW, BIEN HOA AB, 531TFS

  B. TWO (2) F-100D'S, SN 56-3437, 56-3405

  C. 1) AUSTIN, PAUL W., MAJOR, FR46L57, FLIGHT LEAD, CALLSIGN RAMROD FOUR ZERO (40), ACFT 437; 2) BANNISTER, COURTLAND EdM., CAPT, FV3021953, NR 2, CALLSIGN RAMROD FOUR ONE (41), ACFT 405.

  D. 1.) LOCATION LOC NINH XT 486687, WAR ZONE D, RVN, PILOT AUSTIN MIA/PD/BNR, ACFT 437 DESTROYED DIRECT RESULT GRND FIRE.

  2.) LOCATION BIEN HOA AB RVN, APPROACH END TO RUNWAY 27, PILOT BANNISTER (WIA), ACFT 405 CLASS 26 INDIRECT RESULT GRND FIRE.

  E. 1.) FAC COPPERHEAD ZERO THREE (O1-E) AND RAMROD FOUR ONE REPORT UNUSUALLY HEAVY GROUND FIRE FROM MULTIPLE QUAD 12.7MM ZSU-4 SITES. LEAD SITE XT 458587 USED TRACERS TO DIRECT OTHER NON-TRACER SITES.

  2.) RAMROD 40 NOT OBSERVED BY C03 AND RR41 TAKING HITS. NO RADIO TRANSMISSIONS HEARD FROM RR40 AFTER RR40 CALLED ROLLING IN ON TARGET.

  3.) WEATHER NO FACTOR (BRKN OVERCST 18M, CLEAR, 10 PLUS VIZ). F. SURVIVING PILOT (BANNISTER) STATEMENT TO FOLLOW IAW AFM 127-1. FLYING EVALUATION BOARD NOT APPLICABLE.

  G. ITEMS G THROUGH X FOLLOWING IN ROUTINE CLASS TWX.

  Y. JONES, K.L., MAJ., WG FLYING SAFETY OFF REPORTING.

  0730 Hours Local, 18 December 1965

  Headquarters, 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing

  Bien Hoa Air Base, Republic of Vietnam

  Captain Courtland Esclaremonde de Montségur Bannister, face a bit battered, cuts shielded by two flesh colored bandaids, sat on a steel gray metal chair facing the standard issue USAF gray steel desk of Major K. L. Jones, 3rd TFW Flying Safety Officer. Jones was con­sidered a "good guy." He had gone through the Accident Invest­igation School at USC, he took his job seriously, and he didn't automatically look for pilot error in his investigations. Jones was a Reservist with 19 years active duty and had been passed over for LC twice. He was 45, had no big screw-up's on his record, but it was simply that the USAF didn't promote many reserve majors to lieutenant colonel. The promotion boards had to save the few slots available for officers of the Regular Air Force, at least that was the rumored excuse. Jones knew he'd be flushed at 20 years of total service, but he still did his job. He flew the F-100 in an admin slot assigned to the 90th squadron on combat sorties about once a week.

  It was 0730 on a Saturday looming hot and humid. Both Jones' and Bannister's flight suits were already darkening with sweat. A tech sergeant prepared to record the conver­sation and statements on a Sony reel-to-reel tape recorder set on the edge of Jones' desk. The microphone was pointed between the two officers. The sergeant monitored the volume control, trying not to look interested in what was to follow. Jones looked up at Bannister and began to quote the flying safety manual from memory.

  "Captain Bannister," he said in a tone formal for the machine but belied by the pleasant look on his face, "be advised the purpose of this investigation into the crash and subsequent death of Major Paul W. Austin is not to obtain evidence for use in disciplinary action, or for determining liability or line of duty status, or for use before a flying evaluation board. Do you understand that?" After Bannister said he did, Jones asked him if he would be so kind as to answer from the card he handed him, the questions about his name, rank, and ex­per­ience level. "Be further advised your statements are considered to be voluntary. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Do you have any questions?"

  "No, Sir." Bannister had been sitting with his hands on his knees. When Jones started talking he moved back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, then leaned forward to take the 3 by 5 card handed to him. The tech sergeant pointed the mike toward Bannister.

  "I am Courtland Bannister," he began in a low but firm voice, "Captain, FV3021953, 531st Tac Fighter Squadron, 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing, 30 years old, a senior pilot with about 2300 total flying hours, 2100 jet, over 600 in the F-100, 60 or so hours combat. I have flown 38 combat missions in SEA in the F-100 and am qualified as a flight leader. I do hereby make the following voluntary statement."

  Having answered the questions for Jones, Bannister handed the card back to him, then pulled a folded piece of note paper from his left breast pocket and began to read what he had penciled down earlier that morning.

  "At approximately 1245 local time on 16 December I was cleared in on my third ordnance pass (Mk-82 500lb bomb) when I heard the FAC, Copperhead Zero Three, call my leader, Ramrod Four Zero, several times. When he received no reply he told me to finish my pass wet (drop my bomb), then orbit high and dry while he recce-ed the target area. As I pulled off I observed a column of greasy black smoke and red flames of the size usually associated with a jet fighter crash. The smoke was to the south of the target area and north of the Michelin rubber plantation. I told Copperhead Zero Three what I was going to do and flew over to take a look. He cleared me to orbit the crash site but to stay above small arms fire. I orbited the site and confirmed it was the remains of an F-100. Neither Copper­head Zero Three nor I saw a parachute. We didn't hear any beeper or survival radio."

  Bannister stopped his recital, folded the paper, and looked up at Jones. "I know Austin is...ah, has bought it."

  "Why do you say that? He could have ejected at low altitude and you or the FAC didn't see the chute."

  "I went down and looked. The ejection seat fired on airplane impact. Austin was still in it. I saw him, it, laying just outside the fireball."

  "How could you see that well from 4500 feet?"

  "I went down on the deck. Later, when a helicopter went to get the body, it was gone. So was the ejection seat."

  Jones looked at Bannister for a moment, then turned the mike toward himself and signed off with the time and date. He motioned the tech sergeant to shut off the machine, then told him to go get a cup of coffee. The tech left the room as quietly as he could.

  "Court, the FAC told you to stay clear of small arms. Is that when you got hit?"

  Court sat straight up. "Yeah. You want to investigate that too? I busted the bird up bringing it in." Bannister was trying to keep the defensive feeling he had out of his voice though there was no reason to be defensive about his crash landing. He could as easily have bailed out of his damaged F-100, in fact that was probably the smarter thing to do, and no one would have said a word. Instead, he tried to save it and wound up laying a pile of smoking junk on the Bien Hoa runway.

  Major Jones stood up and walked to the window in his room in Wing Headquarters overlooking the flight line and, in the distance, Runway 27. "No," he said, "the report on your airplane has gone out as a Class 26 due to ground fire. Your Ops Officer might press it, but I'm not. I hear he's pretty upset losing Austin especially since he's the son of a three-star general."

  Bannister checked the impulse to tell Jones that Major Harold L. Rawson was already pressing it. But he had no difficulty not telling Jones that Austin really augered in because he rolled in low and slow on his second pass, and hit the ground because he couldn't pull out in time. Austin busted his ass due to pure pilot error and Bannister didn't want to pass that information around. What the hell, Bannister had about decided while flying his shotup airplane back from the mission, why let Austin's wife and the kids know their old man had splattered himself all over the field of glory because he screwed up. At the time, Bannister had become so preoccupied getting his own bird back home he didn't really come to the decision to cover Austin's error until Rawson started acting such a horse's ass about losing Austin. So he had decided to report the crash as a combat loss, not a pilot induced accident.

  "Anything else you want to tell me?" Jones said as he rewound the Sony.

  Bannister had a feeling Jones didn't want to
go any deeper, if in fact he suspected anything. Paul Austin wasn't known as the world's greatest fighter pilot by any means. But it's better to buy the farm defending your country against the Godless communist hordes than simply bust your ass like a second lieutenant first time on the gunnery range at Nellis because you stupidly asked for more than your airplane could aerodynamically deliver. In terms of airplanes and pilots, the first was a heroic combat loss, the second a flying safety violation reflecting great discredit on the USAF in general and the deceased's immediate chain of command in particular.

  As a pilot on flight leader status flying with a known weak pilot (Austin had gained his time in MAC flying cargo planes, he hadn't been upside down since pilot training), Bannister had paid close attention to Austin's attack pattern; but he didn't catch him in time on that last pass to say, "Roll out, level off, abort the pass." Instead, Austin had rolled in so close behind Bannister that by the time Bannister had pulled off target and jinked away from the ground fire up to the downwind, he had only time enough to see Austin's F-100 slam into the ground in an extraordinary nose-high attitude. As an officer true to his oath, Bannister was torn between strict compliance with telling the truth and the desire to save Austin's family a lot of anguish.

  Bannister had decided to forego ruining Austin's official reputation as a combat pilot in the United States Air Force and maybe shaming his kids for life. Equally impor­tant, Court knew that no pilot's wife wants to live with the knowledge her husband is dead due to his own inept hand­ling of an airplane she probably hated in the first place. Better to let her direct her grief-spun anger at the faceless enemy.

  Bannister stood up. "No, Sir," he said, bending over to fish his blue flight cap from his bottom right leg pocket, "I have nothing more."

  "I'll have this transcribed," Jones said indicating the tape, "stop around tomorrow and sign it."

  "Do I meet an FEB?" Bannister asked.

  "No Flying Evaluation Board," said Jones. "Your airplane is a combat loss, not an accident. By the way, I read the Intel wrapup last night. I saw what you said about the Loc Ninh buildup. How heavy is it really and what do you think it's all about?"

  "I'm not sure what it's all about," Bannister said, "maybe an attack on the Loc Ninh Special Forces camp, maybe a new permanent VC base camp, maybe an attempt to cut off Route 13. But it was the first time that 12.7s have come up in this area so it must mean something."

  "Very interesting," Jones said, standing up. "Well, Court, good luck and take care. Don't be a magnet ass," he added, waving Bannister out, "see you around. Oh yeah, almost forgot, Merry Christmas."

  Bannister nodded, thanked him, said yessir, and left for his squadron area at the flight line. He had been told by Major Bob Derham, the assistant Ops Officer of the 531st Squadron, to report to Rawson immediately after his appointment with Jones.

  The 1964-65 almost panic escalation of USAF air operations in Vietnam required the immediate construction of eleven new air bases and the expansion of eight existing air bases to support combat operations. Quarters and mess halls had to be built to house and feed the troops. Runways had to be lengthened or constructed to launch airplanes sometimes loaded so heavily they rolled along nearly two miles of concrete before gaining enough speed to get airborne. An interim logistical effort, coded Project Bitterwine, shipped $82 million dollars worth of packages providing instant airbase. A food service package, for example, contained all the equipment needed to outfit and operate a base mess hall.

  The Bitterwine concept had air base buildup proceed in three steps. First, Gray Eagle kits contained housekeeping equip­ment to support 4,400 people in tent facilities were deliv­ered to a new base. Next phase called for temporary struct­ures such as inflatable shelters and prefab buildings to replace the Gray Eagle installation. In the third and final phase, civilian contractors completed runway construction and built permanent operational and support facilities.

  There were special military organizations to undertake construction and repair of air base facilities during the first two phases of Bitterwine. One such was the Base Engineering Emergency Force, or Prime Beef, as the acronym-loving USAF named it. Prime Beef was in the middle of Bitterwine Phase Two, the transition from tents to wooden huts for the USAF personnel at Bien Hoa.

  Bien Hoa Air Base, named after the medium sized village next to it, had been a small, sleepy Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) Base, built, French style, of tin roofed, thick-walled barracks for the enlisted troops and villa-like houses with wrought iron grillwork and red tiled roofs for the officers. The VNAF used these facilities, which were rundown and tenement-crowded, while the USAF Prime Beef teams built what became known as Bien Hoa huts for the USAF people. The Bien Hoa huts were frame one-story buildings with corrugated tin roofs, wood floors, and wooden side louvers, like oversized venetian blinds, outside the screened sides. Both officer and airman, though not under the same tin roof, used these huts, sleeping on G.I. cots covered with muslin mosquito netting. Though considered rough accommodations by new guys, the old heads knew they were far better than the Grey Eagle dirt-floor tent kits used by the teams of American advisors to the VNAF a few years earlier. Farm Gate, Jungle Jim, and Dirty Thirty were code names for these early USAF troops in Vietnam who came to advise the VNAF, then wound up flying many, almost too many, combat missions as U.S. participation escalated.

  The building housing the operations, administration, and personal equipment of the 531st Tactical Fighter Squadron was an old French-built concrete warehouse hastily refurbished. Pacific Architects and Engineers (PA&E) would soon build new ops buildings, quarters for the pilots and airmen and a second, parallel 10,000-foot runway, but it would be months before footings were poured. Meanwhile, white and brown dust stirred up by the giant yellow earth movers drifted and settled over the base like dried smog. Inside the squad­ron ops building wooden plywood partitions mounted on frames of two-by-fours had been set in place, light bulbs hung suspen­ded from the rafters; and large floor fans stand­ing six feet tall were stationed in each "room" to move the humid air. The floor was concrete, old and chipped. Crates and battered olive drab filing cabinets lined the bare plywood walls. There was no lounge where the pilots could relax with a cold soda.

  The pilots' flight gear hung from big smooth hooks welded to two-inch metal pipe racks that supported their parachutes, helmets, and flight bags holding knee boards, maps, and other paraphernalia. Suspended next to the parachutes were green mesh survival vests the pilots wore to carry emergency rations, (split C rats), survival equipment (fish hook, four each; signal mirror, one each; day-night flares, two each; and so on for 16 more items) and the most important piece of survival equipment a pilot could tote; his Urk-Ten (AN/URC-10) survival radio. About the size of a pocket book, the battery-powered radio gave a downed pilot the means to talk to his orbiting flight members and, hopefully, to a rescue helicopter. The Urk Ten transmitted and received on 243.0 megacycles, known as Guard channel, which all airplanes with UHF kept tuned in for emergency use. The USAF called that frequency Navy Common. The Navy jocks said it was Air Force Common. The Marines could not have cared less.

  Bannister passed by the PE room and went to the counter in front of the flying schedule board. He looked up. Coiled around the rafters was six feet of green Rock Python snake. Looped twice around a 2x4 cross piece for stability, it had lowered its head down to a position where it could watch the traffic coming and going in the squadron. The rectangular head and jaws were roughly the size of a cigarette carton. Its rubbery tongue was constantly flicking in and out. The snake had been a gift from a FAC.

  "Hey guys," Beaver 72 from the Mekong Delta down in IV Corps said one day as he walked in and placed a large cardboard box on the Ops counter. "I brought you a present." Beaver 72 had brought presents before. He would fly his tiny O-1E up from the south to Bien Hoa where his parent organization, the 504th TASG (Tactical Air Support Group), would work over his plane. Earlier presents from grateful Vietnamese commanders include
d VC flags (sometimes real), or captured AK-47 assault rifles, and other battle memor­abilia. The 531st had been proud to display these trophies on their walls.

  Beaver 72 had assumed an expression of benign altruism as the pilots gathered around, wondering what was in the box. "My God," one had whispered to another, "you don't think he has brought in some heads, do you?" One of the pilots opened the box and peered in. He didn't peer long.

  "GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY!" he bellowed as he went straight up and back about four feet.

  Stunned, the rest of the pilots froze in place as a very large snake head rose majestically from the box and calmly surveyed the stupefied onlookers.

  As any fighter jock knew, snakes were slimy creatures that could poison you, eat you, twist your bones, crush you at their leisure, or plain give you the willies for days. That's what Lieutenant Dan Freeman said. Lieutenant Fairchild, a farm lad, knew better. But of course he had never seen anything larger than a bull snake. That was enough. Fairchild, Douglas T., was promptly appointed Snake Control Officer by the Squadron Commander, Peter White. By unanimous opinion, the squadron named the snake Ramrod. More precisely, Ramrod S. (for Strange) McNamara.

  To be on the safe side, the Snake Control Officer and his cronies built Ramrod a cage that would probably have held King Kong in his wildest frenzy. After eating all the rats and mice provided him and graduating to larger food, Ramrod outgrew his cage and was allowed to roam the squadron. He had the whole area to glide around in; under counters, along the molding high up, hanging from the rafters. It was his place. It was a bit discon­certing, however, for a visitor fresh to the squadron to have three or four feet of inquisitive snake, tongue darting, suddenly hang from the rafters to check him out. Rawson hated this and always entered the squadron in a sideways skedaddle to dodge Ramrod's attention.

  To eat, Ramrod could unhinge his jaws to swallow an object the size of a chicken or a duck, which he did every two weeks as the pilots fed him. He would then sleep for several days (usually under the Ops counter), awaken, deposit a large, white, odorless plaster-of-Paris-like lump, and shed his skin. The pilots would carry Ramrod by slinging him around their necks like an old flapper-style fur boa. Ramrod would wrap his tail around their chest for stability then position his head up and out facing forward from over the pilot's right shoulder. He would track and flick his forked tongue at whatever they passed.

  Rawson's fear and hatred of the snake was becoming more evident every day, but as yet he hadn't done anything about it.

  As Bannister walked past Ramrod, he saw Rawson behind the counter checking a buck sergeant who was printing with a black grease pencil some sortie info on the scheduling board. "MERRY CHRISTMAS" was blocked across the top of the board in red grease pencil. The buck wore fatigues, Rawson wore an obviously tailored flight suit. Tailoring was cheap and easy to come by in Vietnam, and a few pilots had this done to get rid of the baggy look. Officially designated as Coverall, Flying, Man's, K-2B, they were made of cotton and had thirteen zippers, all guaranteed to rust shut while the green bag rotted off the hapless wearer's torso in a jungle survival situation. The K-2Bs were not flame proof. The Navy was starting to get flame proof Nomex flight suits and so were Army helicopter pilots. For obscure bureau­cratic reasons, the USAF didn't have a contract yet.

  The wreath around the star over Rawson's pilot wings showed he had been flying at least 15 years and was a command pilot.

  Rawson motioned Bannister into the small room next to the ops counter and took a seat behind his gray steel desk, twin of all USAF desks in the world. Bannister stood in front. Rawson's pale blue eyes meandered over his desk top before looking up at Bannister. When he did, it was only for a second before his eyes began wandering around the tiny room as if searching for an elusive shadow, or a being that was not quite visible. Rawson plucked an expandable pointer-pen from his left sleeve pocket and began tapping it on some papers neatly stacked in front of him. Finally he spoke.

  "I want to know, how did it happen?" he asked in a tight voice. "General Austin will be calling me and I've got to have an answer." Rawson's eyes never made contact with those of Bannister, which were supposed to be fixed at a spot about six inches over his superior officer's head, but instead were following Rawson's roving eyes. He hesitated, then answered.

  "As I said in my official report to Major Jones at Wing, Austin was hit and went in. I saw him on the ground, outside the fireball."

  Rawson stood up. "You mean he was still alive?" His eyes alighted for an instant on Bannister.

  "No, Sir, dead. In his seat. It must have fired on impact. An SF (Special Forces) team on an Army helicopter tried to recover the body later but it and the seat were gone."

  "Why didn't you call out the ground fire? Why didn't you warn him? Didn't the FAC tell you there was heavy ground fire? Is there any chance he was still alive in the seat?" Rawson asked, eyes chasing shadows with renewed vigor.

  Bannister had abandoned his position of quasi-attention and had put his hands on his hips when the questions started. When they finished he answered only the last one. "No chance, Major. He and the seat were all crumbled and rolled up."

  "Wait a minute," Rawson said, eyes widened and fixed for an instant, "how did you see all this detail? How low did you go?"

  "Not very, enough to see what I could." Hell, Bannister thought to himself, I suppose I should have said I had field glasses, but I didn't. He knew what was coming. Several F-100s had been lost recently by pilots flying too low and slamming into the ground or mushing through trees as well as picking up lots of holes from ground fire. The word was out from 7th: Stay above 1500 feet out of small arms range. Or, if the VC don't get you, I will, implied the directive from Commander, 7th Air Force, Tan Son Nhut AB, RVN.

  As the operations officer of the 531st, Rawson had his neck on the line to ensure the squadron pilots carried out orders from above. If too many squadron jocks violated the regs and got too many holes, the Ops Officer would get tagged with supervisory error and never gain command of a squadron. Between that reality of USAF life and the fact that Austin's father, LtGen Robert L."Tex" Austin, Deputy Chief of Staff, Plans and Operations in the Pentagon, would be ringing up via the hotline in Wing Headquarters, Bannister knew Rawson was on the verge of panic.

  "Did you go under 1500 feet?" Rawson asked.

  "Can't say. Didn't look at my altimeter," Bannister said. Of course he hadn't looked at his altimeter, he had buzzed and orbited the crash site so low and slow he didn't dare put his head in the cockpit.

  "Bannister, that's crap, and you know it," Rawson all but shouted, pointer-pen tapping frantically. "You know, you're a little too independent. You think you're something special." The pencil tapped faster. "Well, I'll tell you you're not. You're just a Hollywood showboat and those useless Army parachute wings prove it. There's no reason for an Air Force pilot to have Army jump wings. You go off base running around with those Army thugs, maybe you impress them, but not me. So I know you went under 1500 feet." Rawson paused for breath. "I'll tell you something, effective immediately your flight lead orders are rescinded. You will fly nothing but wing from now on."

  Eyes steady on Bannister for an instant, Rawson acted as if he expected a retort or an outburst. Instead, Bannister came to attention, Yessired, saluted and, without waiting for it to be returned, did an about face and headed for the door. "Bannister," Rawson yelled after him, mustache twitching. Bannister stopped, executed a precise about face, and waited expectantly.

  "You didn't wait for my salute." He stood up. "You're looking for trouble, Bannister, and I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to put you on every nasty detail and extra duty that comes up."

  Court Bannister said "Yessir" again, held a salute until Rawson, surprised, returned it, then went out the door.