Rolling Thunder
Page 24
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1830 Hours Local, 26 January 1966
F-100 Flightline, Bien Hoa Air Base
Republic of Vietnam
Court taxied his F-100F into the revetment, obeying hand signals from his crew chief, Sgt. Fred Maddux. The roar and hiss of the jet engine reverberated through the enclosed space as he swung the plane around to face outward. The scoop nose bobbed as he braked the big fighter to a halt, stopcocked the throttle, and raised the canopy in quick flowing motions brought about by long practice. Hearing returned to normal as the J-57 engine spooled down. Maddux quickly slung two pairs of yellow wooden chocks around the main wheels then hung a ten-foot ladder to the front left cockpit ledge.
The blue flight line van used to transport pilots to and from their airplanes was parked outside. Charmaine and the two PIO officers stepped out and walked over to the F-100 containing the two Bannisters. The lieutenant colonel was smiling as the captain walked around pointing his camera up to the cockpit snapping pictures. Both wore fatigues, Charmaine was still in her red mini and tee shirt. She noticed Court in the front cockpit looked grim and remote as he handed his helmet to the crew chief on the ladder and started to dismount. Shawn, looking down at them from the height of his cockpit in the rear, removed his helmet, held his famous grin and a thumbs up signal as the captain took several shots of the pose before the crew chief helped him unstrap. He climbed down and posed for several more pictures in his G-suit with his helmet cradled under his left arm, jaw set, legs spread aggressively, still wearing his survival vest, parachute, and webbed belt with pistol.
Court thought his half-brother looked exactly as their father, Silk Screen Sam, had looked in a movie about Korean war fighter pilots. Even the PIO captain thought Shawn looked recruiting-poster perfect. Around the edges of the revetment, envying Maddux, neighboring crew chiefs were gathered busily shooting pictures of the event. They quickly dispersed as the line chief's flight line van approached.
When he had a moment to himself, Shawn turned his body away to unzip his G-suit and tuck the well-used barf bag in a flight suit pocket. Court, signing off the maintenance book for Maddux signifying the airplane had no mechanical problems, caught sight of Shawn's maneuver and grinned. Shawn flashed him a look of hatred as intense as a muzzle flash from a rifle. Taken aback, Court handed the book to the crew chief and walked over to his half-brother. His jaw had the same set as that of Shawn's earlier pose. Charmaine, sensing trouble, chattered to the others about her seeing the airplane. They were happy to accommodate her.
"Sorry about your getting sick, Shawn," Court said in a voice more angry than sorry. "That was a combat flight, and those were all standard maneuvers."
"Not that last part when you went rolling down the highway," Shawn said.
"That was to show you what you thought was an overturned bus was actually a shot up Army track."
"That was a bus, and it was shot up obviously by the Army, and those civilians you murdered were from that bus. I saw it. I know."
"Your pictures will show I'm right," Court said, jabbing his thumb at the camera hanging around Shawn's neck.
"I doubt if they'll turn out. It was too dark, it was a bad angle, and you were too fast."
"I was too fast," Court all but shouted. "What on God's green earth are you thinking of? I had pulled it back, way back, almost too slow, just so you could see better."
"And I'm telling you," Shawn said, "I saw the civilians and I saw the bus. I don't think the pictures will turn out. But I tell you, you napalmed eleven civilians."
Court couldn't help reviewing the gunsight images of the eleven running figures on the screen just behind his eyes. With a jolt he remembered he hadn't seen any weapons and if they had any, they weren't shooting them at him. He had gotten them from behind.
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," Court grated as he turned for the flight line van.
0215 Hours Local, 27 January 1966
531st Tactical Fighter Squadron
Bien Hoa Air Base, Republic of Vietnam
At a few hours past midnight, the air was cool, and held the faint aroma of faraway flowers. The darkness was broken by isolated lightning flashes. The distant roar of a jet engine strapped down at the test stand huffed and chuffed as the mechanic slammed the throttle back and forth checking for compressor stalls.
The squadron maintenance and ordnance men were still up preparing their airplanes for pre-dawn takeoffs. Three F-100s had holes requiring several days down time for the RAM (Rapid Aircraft Maintenance) team to repair. Two had holes toward the aft section easily patched by aluminite. One plane, the hanger queen, was still out for hydraulic leaks. Of the eighteen airplanes owned by the squadron, the remaining fourteen would be ready by 0500 hours. Crew chiefs in oil-stained tee shirts and faded fatigue pants snatched brief moments of sleep in their revetments, alongside their airplanes, heads resting on field jackets scrunched against tool boxes.
Inside the squadron, Court, Jim Monaghan, Derham, and Serge Demski, the new CO, had finished planning tactics for the next day. Seventh Air Force had reaffirmed their standing frag order to provide on call whatever air they could as needed for the anticipated breakout by the armored column and to cover the search by the 195th for the missing China Boys.
Monaghan talked about what might have happened to his Mike Force team. He said the 195th had failed to make good their original time commitment from Alert status, but would have search helicopters over the LZ at first light. Monaghan said that General Dupuy had personally fired the brigade commander because of the foul-up.
Besides the 531st being on alert for the coming activities in the War Zone C area, other USAF squadrons in South Vietnam would be tasked by the Frag Order, already being tapped out on secure teletype, to provide air at specified times. In accordance with this new method of supplying dedicated close air support, they had set up the flying schedule, who would lead, who would fly wing, what ordnance mix would be best, and what tactics to use if a Dash-K came up again.
Finished, they sat back on folding chairs around the map table. A radio was tuned to the Spooky gunship channel as he orbited War Zone C shooting as required for Troop A while listening for a possible call from the missing China Boy. The muted crackle of his voice talking to a Rover ground station they couldn't hear sounded in the loudspeaker from time to time. There was silence in the squadron. Cigarette smoke drifted slowly from overflowing ashtrays. None of the men had had a chance to clean up or shave and probably wouldn't before first light. Any more of this, Lieutenant Colonel Demski had said, and our flight suits can walk to the laundry by themselves. They didn't have anything more to do, but were loath to leave the radio that might bring good news. Or bad.
The sound of a jeep roused them from their reverie. Phil Travers walked in with Toby Parker in tow.
"Got a few things for you guys," he said as he rolled open a greasy khaki blanket spilling assorted SKS rifles and AK-47 assault rifles on the floor. Mixed with them were torn pieces of black pajamas, some stained with blood. "Present from General Dupuy's A Troop guys for the good works you done today." The broad smile on Travers's face didn't mask his exhausted appearance; his red hair was dirty and matted to his head, and he had dark rings under his eyes.
"This is Toby Parker, a shit hot FAC," he said, pointing to Parker who didn't look any better. The upper portion of both men's clothes, Travers's flight suit and Parker's fatigues, were crusted white with dried sweat. Unlike the F-100 that had an air conditioning system able to cool a three-room house, air conditioning in the tiny O-1E consisted of whatever outside air was rammed through two small scoops or a propped open side window panel.
Noticing the raised eyebrows, Travers continued, "Toby has been flying with me for the last six missions. Half the time you hear his voice taking your lineup or giving you your BDA. He was 7th's courier to Loc Ninh, but that's on hold for a while."
Toby Parker shook hands all around. His infectious grin eked out return sm
iles and howdys. Monaghan grinned back asking him if his landings had improved any since they met at the dirt strip at the Loc Ninh SF camp a few days earlier.
"You bet they have," Travers answered for him. "And in about three hours he'll be making a backseat takeoff because that's when we go back on station. And would you be so kind, Sergeant Monaghan, to make us a sketch of the LZ that China Boy is trying to get to." Monaghan sketched it out for him and reaffirmed the coordinates on the map Travers held out.
"Thanks," Travers said, "and excuse us while we go to the trailer to log some Zs." He and Parker made a copy of the flying schedule, "Just to see who we'll be talking to," he said. After they left, Demski and Derham said it was that time, told Court his relief would be in shortly and that, as the schedule showed, he wasn't flying until 1400 hours so rack in late. The two senior officers, who had air conditioned cubicles, seemed to have forgotten captains and below slept in Bien Hoa huts sun-heated in the morning so bad that beyond nine o'clock sleep was an impossible dream.
Shawn Bannister was in his small room in the trailer reserved for visiting field grade officers. He sat hunched over a portable typewriter, chin on fists, as he studied the text in front of him. He wore only gold colored silk briefs. In the pool of light from the desk lamp lay his notebook and a flask of brandy. Next to them smoke curled from a cigarette in an ashtray. The fan noise of the air conditioner had long since blended into the background. Moving finally, and making a sound deep in his throat, Shawn stabbed the cigarette out in short, angry strokes and resumed typing, banging the keys as if they were little round bugs that needed to be squashed. `Pandemonium Prevents Rescue,' he titled his piece.
Charmaine, in the room next to his, was long since asleep. The VIP quarters had been provided by the 3rd Tac Fighter Wing PIO officer, the rheumy LC who, after one desultory pass at Charmaine, retired to his own quarters for the night. Charmaine and Shawn had spent the evening at the NCO Club sipping weak drinks and talking with the troops. Charmaine had been extra engaging as she tried to get over her anger at Court's remaining in the squadron. She danced with practically every man in the club and did two solo numbers to the Tijuana Brass on the club's tape machine.
Shawn Bannister had been extra genial with the men as he tried to gather more behind the scenes information particularly as pertained to his half-brother. What he learned was that not much was known about Court except he kept his peace, didn't give his crew chief a hard time (few pilots did), and what the hell did he want to know for, anyhow?
Court Bannister and Monaghan sacked out in the squadron. They didn't sleep well as radio speakers mumbled and crackled through the night with bleedovers from frequencies carrying farther than normal in the night air over Vietnam. They heard snatches of calls to and from various radar sites; Hillsboro, Paddy, and Peacock. Spooky's call to the missing men repeated every half hour was particularly poignant, "China Boy, China Boy, if you read come up Fox Mike."
1000 Hours Local, 27 January 1966
Trailer of Captain Philip Travers
Bien Hoa Air Base, Republic of Vietnam
By ten in the morning, the full heat of the sun was starting to press down on the flightline. Already, the Wing had launched and recovered 28 F-100 sorties. Some had been preplanned for support down in the Delta, but most were for the anticipated punch-out and link-up of the Rover armored track column. Travers and Parker had flown one mission, and were on the ground getting a late breakfast of C- Rations at Travers's trailer before launching for their second go at War Zone C at 1200. Travers explained how Parker's takeoffs that morning had really been bad, but safe. Privately he was even more impressed with the lieutenant's innate ability to control an airplane. Maybe he had once sailed boats, or something, maybe rode horses, he mused.
"Hey, Parker, you ever sail boats or jump horses or anything like that?"
Parker looked surprised. "Yeah, both."
"A lot? Did you do it a lot?"
"Well, yeah, I did. More horses than boats, though." Toby Parker didn't want to come right out and say that he cleaned up in all Star Class sailboat races when he was ten, or that he had ridden with the Woodsford Hunt in Virginia where he had grown up. He remembered how proud he was the day he turned 18 and received his colors and was able to don the scarlet Pinque coat and top hat to ride as a full member, not a junior anymore, with the Hunt.
Sergeant Germaine came in and handed Travers a package wrapped in Vietnamese newspaper.
"Thanks for picking that up for me, Dan." He flipped it to Parker.
"Here, you might as well suit up proper."
Toby unwrapped the package and held up a tailored flight suit. On the name tag was printed his name, rank, and the words `Super FAC.'
"Just a little something I had made up for you downtown Bien Hoa. You've earned it." Travers bit down on a C-rat cracker. Sergeant Germaine went out to prep the O-1E with the lagging tongue with fuel and Willy Pete marking rockets for the next sortie. Toby Parker was without words.
Bannister and Monaghan munched C-Rats in the squadron. They had splashed water on their faces to wake up and gone without shaves after they finally gave up trying to sleep at 0530 hours. The F-100 pilots assigned to War Zone Charley Three made several nose-holding “peeyew” remarks as they were briefed by the two men.
With the exception of China Boy, the briefing was good news. Rover had recovered their dead, salvaged what parts they could from wrecked tracks, and were roaring and clanking along Route 13 estimating linkup with the main unit about noon. Monaghan overheard Slingshot Chief himself orbiting the site, wisely letting the ground commanders make the battle decisions, and reporting the good news to Slingshot Base. The 195th had observation helicopters up searching for China Boy while gunships and troop ships were on ground alert, minutes away at the helicopter Snake Pit in Bien Hoa. This arrangement had been made by the new brigade commander the minute he received General Dupuy's affirmation of his appointment the night before.
By 1400 hours it was all over. Task Force Rover of the 1st Division had all its tracks together and was churning south back to base camp escorted by Copperhead Zero Nine, flying lazy figure eights overhead. Travers and Parker, low on fuel, made one final pass over the battle site confirming BDA for the last flight of F-100s they had controlled. They still had one Willy Pete in its rack.
"Ramrod," Travers transmitted, "you got a hundred percent ordnance within 60 meters, 50 percent ordnance within 20 meters. Good job, guys."
"What the hell kind of a BDA was that?" Parker asked from the back seat, holding the airplane in a neat orbit at 1500 feet.
"That's when there was nothing to hit anymore but you gotta ‘X’ in the squares. The guys had to expend because they were low on fuel and didn't want to drop unexpended ordnance over the jettison area. They can't land with all that crap hanging under their wings, it might come off and ruin somebody's day," Travers said. "Let's make a run on the China Boy LZ on our way back to base. It's not that far out of our way."
"Okay," Parker agreed and turned to the heading. He started to say something about the low fuel level but thought better of it. They had a twenty minute reserve and the weather didn't look too bad.