C-130 Hercules

by Martin W Bowman

  ‘On the first approach, we let down over the ocean in the dark and flew south, 90 degrees off the heading of the Tuy Hòa runway. At 1,000 feet, we couldn’t see anything on shore because the rain and cloud layer had blocked out all light. Twenty-five seconds after the radar showed me that we were abeam the river we turned to the runway heading. I corrected the heading to make up for drift, which read out on the Doppler above my desk. We then descended at 150 feet per mile, hoping to break out of the clouds in time to see and line up with the runway. On the first attempt, we didn’t break out by the time we hit our minimums at 500 feet. We began our go-around turn and suddenly, off to the right, we could see three lights or flare pots set up on the extremities of a barely visible runway. Two lights marked the approach end and the last light sat in the middle of the runway’s far end.

  ‘We climbed back up to 1,000 feet and proceeded out over the ocean and repeated our approach pattern. This time we turned twenty seconds after passing the river on radar. We hit 600 feet altitude and suddenly broke out of the clouds and rain. In front of us, in good visibility were the three lights perfectly aligned but as we moved in closer, the lights begin to shift. Suddenly the three evenly spaced lights were now bunched to the right. We weren’t lined up and the light at the far end moved toward the light at the right front. We now initiated another missed approach. Three lights of approximately equal size and intensity can take on numerous designs and undergo rapid shifts if you are not lined up exactly with them. We all knew this from having practiced numerous night paradrops where the drop zone was marked by the same light pattern as the Tuy Hòa airbase. But we had just learned the lesson again in the rain and fog.

  ‘Our next approach followed the same pattern, except we turned at 23 seconds past the river. Now we broke out again at 600 feet, but this time we could clearly see that we had lined up with the runway. Again we were on the ground after an hour in the air on what would normally have been a 20 minute flight. The army rapidly unloaded the ammunition pallets. Artillery was firing just off to the side of the parking area as we turned back on the runway and proceeded back to An Khê. It again took two tries to get on the runway at An Khê due to the low cloud base and the lack of any nighttime approach aid except our own radar.

  ‘At 1:15 in the morning, we took off with another load of ammunition. As we approached Tuy Hòa from over the ocean, we could see that the rain had stopped and the cloud layer had thinned out and lifted. We proceeded in and landed visually with no further problems, using the three marking lights as our landing reference. The army was still firing artillery off as we unloaded, but the pace was much reduced from the previous landing. After fifteen minutes on the ground, we were unloaded and back in the air.

  ‘An hour later we landed at Tân Sơn Nhứt and called it a night at 2:30 in the morning. The combination of the bad weather at both landing sites and the lack of any reliable approach aid other than our own radar made this an interesting and hairy night of flying. Each night-time approach was hazardous. We could have all used a drink before turning in; but the club was closed, so it was back to the Globe for an attempt at a night’s sleep. ‘That evening we were again airborne at 9:30 and shuttled with cargo between An Khê, Đà Nẵng and Chu Lai. We got back into Saïgon at 5:00 in the morning. On landing we were told that our crew had been submitted for a medal citation to each receive a DFC for the previous night’s flights into An Khê and Tuy Hòa.

  ‘That was the second DFC I was recommended for. I never got either one.’12

  By the summer of 1966 PACAF’s permanently assigned C-130 strength stood at twelve squadrons and this reached a peak of fifteen units early in 1968 with three deployed TAC squadrons on TDY tours. Thus in February 1968 a total of ninety-six C-130s were stationed in Việtnam: the huge port complex at Cam Ranh Bay was home to fifty-one C-130As and -Es; Tân Sơn Nhứt accommodated twenty-seven C-130Bs; Tuy Hòa had ten C-130Es; and Nha Trang, eight C-130Es. By the end of 1971 only five C-130 squadrons remained in the Pacific, although the VNAF airlift force operated two squadrons. Two squadrons were equipped with C-130As just before the 1973 ceasefire.

  KC-130F BuNo148892 of VMGR-152. This Hercules was delivered to the USMC in May 1961. In around 1975 it was transferred to VMGR-234 at NAS Glenview, Illinois. In January 1994 it was transferred to VMGRT-253 at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina. In October 1997 it was permanently withdrawn from use and in November it went to the Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base at Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas and used as a maintenance trainer.

  During the spring and summer of 1966 the 1st Brigade, 101st ‘Screaming Eagles’ Airborne Division, was transported on five occasions by the C-130s; each deployment involved 200 Hercules lifts and each operation was mainly resupplied by air. Operation ‘Birmingham’ was a four-week air deployment into Tây Ninh province beginning on 24 April in which the C-130s flew fifty-six sorties into the 4,600 feet airstrip, delivering supplies and munitions around the clock. (At the same time they also supplier, the airborne brigade at Nhơn Co.) By the time ‘Birmingham’ ended on 17 May, the C-130s and C-123s had flown almost 1,001 sorties and delivered nearly 10,000 tons of cargo for the 1st Cavalry Division.

  The USMC also played a part in airlift operations. By July 1966 the road network north of Đà Nẵng was in a state of disrepair - though in any event, Communist activity had made transport by convoy extremely hazardous, while port facilities and ail fields near the DMZ were poor. Therefore the only way to resupply the marines in country was by air. USMC KC-130Fs backed up by USAF Hercules, flew more than 250 lifts into a red dirt strip at Đông Hà . Further C-130 flights to the area delivered large quantities of materials and PSP steel matting and the airstrip was later resurfaced; a second all-weather strip we opened at Quảng Tri.

  In late June 1966 Captain John Dunn’s crew were nearly halfway through their assigned thirteen month tour. ‘On 27 June’ wrote navigator Bill Barry ‘we were up at 3:00 in the morning and again took the crew vehicle to the base. Same routine as the day before, but this time the airplane worked and we were off to the small runway at Sông Bé and another Army ‘search-and-destroy’ operation. Sông Bé is forty miles North of Saïgon. The bare runway with no parking area sat just adjacent to a 200 foot mountain in an otherwise flat plain. Lộc Ninh is fifteen miles due west of Sông Bé and both sit within ten miles of the Cambodian border.

  South Việtnamese troops leaving a battle zone after landing in C-130E 63-7883. This aircraft was delivered to MAC in June 1964.

  South Việtnamese troops milling around C-130A 56-0489. This Hercules was delivered in May 1957 and after service in TAC was allocated to the SVAF in November 1972. It was one of many aircraft captured by the NVA in April 1975.

  ‘All day we made seven shuttles between the two sites, hauling army troops and equipment in rapid onload/offload operations where the troops and vehicles rolled on and off through the rear ramp and door while our engines were running. It was hot and dusty and the aircraft’s broken air conditioner would not have been of any use on the short flights anyway. Halfway through the day we returned to Tân Sơn Nhứt for fuel and an hour on the ground. We finally landed back at Tân Sơn Nhứt for good at 10:30 that night. We logged five and a half hours of flying time in an eighteen and a half hour day with twelve separate individual sorties flown.

  ‘The variety of loads that we were carrying was in some ways funny and in others amazing. Probably only the C-130 could safely accommodate them all and that is in spite of the many errors and miscalculations that kept them from having any kind of ‘ordinary.’ Largely for these reasons, the Tactical Airlift mission and its crews became known as ‘trash hauls and trash haulers’ since, like garbage men in the states, they would haul anyone and anything.

  ‘When we picked up a load from the army, it was their responsibility to identify the load and correctly indicate its weight and contents. Many army loads included large metal Conex containers, which they used to store everything from ammunition to the personal belongings
of units which were moving or going into the field. We were used to moving the containers to storage areas or to the deploying unit’s next location.

  ‘Many, many times the loading data for the containers gave an incorrect weight for them. On other occasions the weight was given for an empty container when in fact the container was loaded to the fullest with something or other. Sometimes it became apparent that the container was mislabelled when the forklift putting it on the aircraft had trouble lifting the listed weight. At other times, several palletized containers might be loaded and each of them would weigh more than listed, but not enough to, individually, indicate that something was wrong.

  ‘The same could be said for many of the army trucks, jeeps and trailers that we loaded and carried. Our loadmaster planned each load according to the listed weights so that the airplane maintained the best centre of gravity for performing according to standards for both flying and takeoff and landing. When the actual load was widely off from what was listed, the aircraft would either tilt on its tail or give indications of sinking on its front nose wheel. Many times we had to raise our legs to get in the crew door on the steps which should have been resting comfortably on the ground. On occasion I’ve even had to physically climb up the steps to get in the door. Thank God the C-130 handled so well and was so forgiving. ‘One load that we had was a five pallet shipment of army boots packed in large cardboard boxes. The boxes were oversize commercial moving containers about four feet square by five feet high. They were stacked two high and tied down so that twenty or so boxes were on each pallet. The pallets had been sitting in the Tân Sơn Nhứt cargo storage hangar for some time. Once we were in-flight carrying the boots to an army base, several of the boxes collapsed inward or caved in. Some were completely empty and others had half a load of boots in them. Between their original destination and our flight to their final one, they had been looted. I doubt if the whole load had more than one-quarter of the number of boots in it that we cited on the loading document.

  ‘Another time, our load was the cannon barrels for 155mm or 175mm guns. Each of the guns sat on two wooden frames, which they fit into on each end of the gun. They were palletized on three interlocked pallets and secured to individual pallets by metal bands running over the wooden frames. Carl figured out the proper loading for them as far as the plane’s centre of gravity was concerned. They were long and heavy and with the loading end larger than the firing end, an unusual load. When the loading crew pushed the triple palleted guns onto the aircraft, the metal band on the rear pallet of one of the guns broke when crossing the point where the rollers on the rear door of the plane met the body. The long narrow end of the gun pivoted upward, held in place only by the metal band on the opposite wooden frame, which was on the first pallet inside the aircraft. As the gun barrel swung upward, it stopped just short of going through the ceiling of the aircraft.

  ‘Another load to be avoided was a plane full of Việtnamese troops when they were ‘combat loaded’ Usually when we carried troops or passengers of any sort, they were seated in nylon strap seats which folded down from the side walls of the C-130 or were secured by ceiling mounted stanchions and straps. But when we carried Việtnamese troops in combat gear, we usually put five pallets on the floor rollers and stretched nylon straps across them secured to the sidewalls. By doing this, we could get twice as many troops on board (more than 150 versus 92 seated) as we could by giving them individual seats. When this mass of humanity got onboard, however, if someone needed to go to the rear of the aircraft for any reason he had to wade through them in-flight. That was not a pleasant experience, since our allies, the Việtnamese, liked to goose, fondle and sexually stroke male flyers in that atmosphere. They also shared an Asian affinity for holding hands when there were two males together in close proximity. ‘During the conflict the C-130 carried a variety of loads under all sorts of conditions, from normal operations as well as emergency introduction and extraction missions in the face of combat, poor weather and sometimes both. During 1965 and 1966 some of the passenger and troop carrying runs included chickens and little potbellied pigs. Later in the war, when the Việtnamese organized a loading organization and the issuance of flight passes, creatures such as these were no longer seen. The all time champion animal load, however, has got to be the elephants. A small Việtnamese village somewhere in I Corps up near Đà Nẵng had a lumbering operation as their main industry and they used elephants to do their hauling. Somehow or other, deliberately by the Việt Công or as the accidental result of firing, all of the local elephants were killed and the village was left without a livelihood. Enter the US Civil Affairs folks, who saw restoring the village to prosperity as one means of winning the hearts and minds of the people. The elephants were slated to return and the C-130 was chosen to deliver them.’

  John Steinbeck over Việtnam in a helicopter while reporting the war in 1967.

  HC-130P refuelling a HH-53B over North Việtnam.

  A C-130 making a LAPES drop in Việtnam.

  John Steinbeck the famous novelist and WWII reporter had been asked in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson to visit South Viêtnam and report to him personally on US operations. (Steinbeck’s third wife, Elaine and Lady Bird Johnson had been friends at college and the Steinbecks were frequent visitors to the White House.) Steinbeck was reluctant to go to Viêtnam on behalf of the president, but when the Long Island daily Newsday suggested that he travel throughout Southeast Asia as a roving reporter, he accepted. By that time, his two sons were serving in the Army.13In January 1967 Steinbeck took a ride in a C-130 and wrote about it.

  ‘Did you know that the airport at Saigon is the busiest in the world, that it has more traffic than O’Hare field in Chicago and much more than Kennedy in New York - Well it’s true. We stood around - maybe ten thousand of us all looking like overdone biscuits until our plane was called. It was not a pretty ship this USAF C-130. Its rear end opens and it looks like an anopheles mosquito but into this huge anal orifice can be loaded anything smaller than a church and even that would go in if it had a folding steeple. For passengers, the C-130 lacks a hominess. Four rows of bucket seats extending lengthwise into infinity. You lean back against cargo slings and tangle your feet in a maze of cordage and cables.

  ‘Before we took off a towering sergeant (I guess) whipped us with a loud speaker. First he told us the dismal things that could happen to our new home by ground fire, lightning or just bad luck. He said that if any of these things did happen he would tell us later what to do about it. Finally he came to the subject nearest his heart. He said there was dreadful weather ahead. He asked each of us to reach down the paper bag above and put it in our laps and if we felt queasy for God’s sake not to miss the bag because he had to clean it up and the hundred plus of us could make him unhappy. After a few more intimations of disaster he signed off on the loud speaker and the monster ship took off in a series of leaps like a Calaveras County frog.

  ‘Once airborne, I got invited to the cockpit where I had a fine view of the country and merciful cup of black scalding coffee. They gave me earphones so I could hear directions for avoiding ground fire and the even more dangerous hazard of our own artillery. The flight was as smooth as an unruffled pond. And when we landed at Pleiku I asked the God-like sergeant why he had talked about rough weather.

  ‘Well, it’s the Viets,’ he said. ‘They have delicate stomachs and some of them are first flights. If I tell them to expect the worst and it isn’t, they’re so relieved that they don’t get sick. And you know I do have to clean up and sometimes it’s just awful’.

  On 3 February 1967 Captain John Dunn’s crew hauled cargo to Pleiku, Đà Nẵng, Huế, Đà Nẵng again, Cam Ranh Bay and then back to Tân Sơn Nhứt. ‘On the leg between Đà Nẵng and Cam Ranh Bay’ wrote Bill Barry ‘we experienced fluctuations on one of the engines. The load taken on at Đà Nẵng consisted of fifteen manifested army passengers, a large army truck and a small trailer which the truck towed behind. Both the truck and the
trailer were filled with duffel bags and assorted other cargo.

  ‘The army had filled out the cargo sheet for the flight and that included the weight of the load and the names and weight of all the passengers. Because we were going home to Saïgon from Cam Ranh we took the maximum gasoline load out of Đà Nẵng so we would not have to fill up again. The flight from Đà Nẵng to Cam Ranh usually ran about seventy minutes from takeoff to landing and the route was almost entirely over water.

  ‘The day was bright and sunny and we were 30 minutes or so into the flight when we lost an engine. Accordingly, we lost some altitude and airspeed after shutting the engine down and feathering the propeller to reduce its wind drag. Almost as soon as that was done, another engine on the opposite side began to act up and looked as if it too would have to be shut down. That was when the engineer calculated that with the remainder of our fuel load and the weight of the truck and trailer in the rear, we could not stay airborne on two engines if we did shut the second one down.

  ‘The plan immediately became to jettison the truck and trailer as soon as possible in the event the second engine was lost. By regulation, all of the manifested passengers sat forward of the truck. That is, they were seated right behind the crew cabin and fire wall in the rear of the cargo hold. The truck and its rear end full of cargo came next and then the trailer, which was chained down on the ramp. Together with the rear cargo door, this formed the sealed rear of the aircraft. The truck had been driven onto the aircraft and would exit backward out the rear end in the event of jettisoning. Both the truck and the trailer were chained down to the floor and ramp.