‘Now the loadmaster undid any excess chains not likely to be needed in flight. This was in anticipation of jettisoning the load and would reduce the time necessary for undoing all of the remaining chains and then jettisoning first the trailer and then the truck. For 10 or 15 minutes, we monitored the sputtering engine and then, as suddenly as it had begun acting up, it stopped and everything was normal. By that time, we were much closer to final landing at Cam Ranh. Before long the loadmaster reconnected the chains to ensure both vehicles were secured prior to landing. Suddenly, over the interphone, Gross said, ‘Hey, guess what just showed up in the back of that truck we were ready to jettison?’
Quagmire conditions at a churned up landing strip in Việtnam after repeated rains and constant use by TAC C-130s.
‘We couldn’t imagine, so the reply was a simple, ‘What?’
‘There are six guys we didn’t know about sleeping in it’ he said.’
The only major US combat parachute assault of the war took place on 22 February 1967 at the start of Operation ‘Junction City’ when twenty-two US battalions and four ARVN battalions were airdropped in Tây Ninh and bordering provinces. Thirteen Hercules carried 846 paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade from Biên Hòa and dropped them in the drop zone at Katum near the border with Cambodia. Almost thirty minutes later, ten C-130s dropped the brigade’s equipment, returning in the early afternoon to carry out further cargo drops; five C-130s were hit, but they suffered no serious damage. Next day 38 Hercules flew resupply sorties and these continued for the next five days, during which daily drops averaged 100 tons. By late March, during the final stages of the operation, the C-130s carried out airdrops to a ‘floating brigade’, using drop-zone locations which the ground unit provided by radio. By the time ‘Junction City’ finished, 1,700 tons of supplies and munitions had been airdropped by the Hercules.
On four other occasions during 1967-68 small teams of US advisers from the 5th Special Forces Group were parachuted in, along with 300 to 500 Việtnamese paratroopers. Each C-130 could carry eighty fully-equipped paratroops that were dropped in two forty-man sticks. In November 1967 C-130s lifted the 173rd Airborne Brigade to Đắk Tô in 250 sorties; they also kept them supplied in the Central Highlands with more than 5,000 tons of cargo, deposited on the 4,200 feet asphalt strip during the three weeks of heavy fighting that ensued. After three weeks of heavy fighting the US 4th Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade forced the NVA to retire, leaving many casualties on both sides. Having noted the pattern of early morning arrivals of C-130s at Đắk Tô, on 15 November the North Việtnamese waited until three Hercules were sitting on the parking ramp before firing ten rockets into the area. Two C-130Es (62-1865 and 63-7827) of the 776th TAS were hit and soon engulfed in flames. A third aircraft was backed out of the way of the inferno by Captain Joseph K. Glenn and Sergeant Joseph F. Mack during a lull in the attack and a fourth aircraft, which had landed moments before the first rounds exploded, took off again rapidly. The attack also destroyed 17.000 gallons of fuel and over 1,300 tons of ordnance when the ammunition dump was hit by artillery. The airfield was closed for two days and when it re-opened only one C-130 was permitted on the ground at a time. Glenn and Mack were awarded the Silver Star and Distinguished Flying Cross for their actions.
Motorised US Army forces and their equipment await boarding of 345th TAS, 314th TAW C-130Es.
For three months in 1968 transports were called upon to keep the remote outpost at Khê Sanh supplied and in fulfilling this requirement the Hercules made one of its most famous contributions in South-East Asia. Located ten miles from the Laotian border and sixteen miles south of the DMZ, Khê Sanh was to become one of the Việtnam War’s most controversial battles. Manned initially in 1962 by the US Army, it had become, in 1967, a major Marine Corps base from which search-and-destroy operations were mounted to control Communist infiltrations. The first C-130 to land at Khê Sanh, on 17 February 1966, was piloted by Captain John Dunn of the 463rd Tactical Airlift Wing, as was recalled by his navigator First Lieutenant Bill Barry:
‘On this day, we were going to fly a base inspection mission with no load on the airplane. John Dunn got to be a spectator for the day as the in-country wing commander took over the piloting, accompanied by a flight examiner who was going to give him his semi-annual flight check during the day’s flying. Our first stop was a new field in the North of Việtnam called Khê Sanh. As we flew upcountry towards Khê Sanh we could see that there were many fires raging everywhere. At first we thought that they might have been the result of air strikes; but gradually it became clear that Việtnamese farmers were clearing their fields by burning off the ground cover.
‘It took us two hours to get in the vicinity of Khê Sanh. The weather was clear and we could easily make out this laterite strip that ran east to west on the top of a low plateau. To the east was a large valley that sat several hundred feet lower than the airstrip. To the west and quite close to the strip, was a forested mountain range that rose steeply.
‘We had the coordinates of the strip and several radio frequencies that were supposed to allow us to talk to the people on the ground. But the frequencies were wrong or their radios were broken or turned off, because we couldn’t talk to anyone. We could see people alongside the runway with a few vehicles and they waved to us as we flew by; but we couldn’t talk to them.
‘The purpose of our visit was to ascertain that this strip was suitable for C-130B operations and we couldn’t do that without landing. Since we couldn’t talk to anyone, we weren’t sure of how long the runway was. The two pilots guessed about it and I tried to figure it out roughly by timing our passage down the runway in the air and then mathematically combining the time and our ground speed as indicated on our Doppler. At best, we were operating on a big estimate; but we all agreed the runway was between 3 and 4,000 feet long. Plenty of length for an empty C-130B. Still, we weren’t quite sure.
‘Colonel David Lewis, who was flying the plane, decided to minimize any errors in our calculations. When a C-130 lands, the pilot puts the turbo props into reverse shortly after the plane is solidly on the ground and the pilot is sure of being in control of the landing, thus slowing the aircraft in conjunction with the brakes. In this instance, Lewis reversed the props while we were still 3 to 5 feet off the ground. What followed was the hardest landing I ever sat through. We stopped flying and crashed into the ground vertically. All of us were slammed into our seats. We easily stopped within the length of the runway. We were the first C-130 into Khê Sanh; but we wouldn’t be the last. (Others claim they had been in Khê Sanh earlier, but those claims may relate to C-130As or Marine C-130s, which might have conducted their own base inspection in a similar fashion.)
‘We turned around on the runway and then taxied back to meet the base personnel who had been watching us. They hastened to tell us that they had been sure the runway was long enough, but had to wait for a verification flight (which was us) to prove it. While they and Colonel Lewis discussed the base’s qualifications, I set off on a tour of the runway and the base. There wasn’t much to the base. A single storey operations building adjoined the runway at about the midpoint and that was about it. The remainder of the plateau on which the runway sat had been cleared and stood out in the blazing red laterite and clay which marked much of Việtnam. I walked to the eastern end of the runway and stood on the edge of the plateau. Several hundred feet below was nothing but dense green jungle. After a few minutes of looking at it and out into the vast valley beyond, I began to think about what kind of target I made to anyone on the forest floor below. Standing on the brink of the steep bank and with the clear blue sky behind me, I could be a chip shot for someone like a Việt Công lurking below. With that in mind, I stepped back and retreated to the airplane.
‘We stayed at Khê Sanh for 45 minutes. Colonel Lewis agreed with the base residents that it was suitable for C-130 ops, but he cautioned that they needed to add overruns to both ends of the runway and put
taxi stripes down for the parking area. We took off to the west and proceeded to another new airstrip north of Biên Hòa. We only overflew the second place, however, as the runway was still being worked on, the approaches had to be cleared of trees and there were vehicles all over the strip and its parking area. At this location we did have contact with the ground personnel over an established radio frequency so that all these suggested changes were passed on verbally.’14
Late in 1967 a prolonged Hercules airdrop supported operations and airstrip construction at Khê Sanh. By January 1968 6,000 marines were holed up at Khê Sanh and they were entirely dependent on resupply by air. The situation bore comparison to the Việt Minh’s three-month siege of Điện Biên Phủ in the war with France from 1946-54. Điện Biên Phủ had been defended by 16,000 troops, but the French had nowhere near the air support that was available to the defenders of Khê Sanh and this had resulted in its loss. Furthermore, the loss of Điện Biên Phủ had led directly to total French defeat in Indo-China - so if, militarily, history was not to be repeated then the Marines had to be kept supplied. Operation ‘Niagara’ involved a series of air strikes, together with a planned succession of resupply flights and was put into effect to keep the beleaguered ‘grunts’ in business during the long siege.
The NVA first attacked in the pre-dawn hours of 21 January. Eight days later, a thirty-six hour ceasefire for the Tet religious holiday began - but NVA and Việt Công activity almost immediately brought it to an end. On the 31st, just two days before the Tet offensive, the Communists launched massive ground attacks throughout South Việtnam. Many cities were attacked, including Huế, which was overrun. NVA troops stormed the A Shau valley and renewed their attack on the American outpost at Khê Sanh.
First operating independently, marine combat aircraft, transports and helicopters, with effective support by Navy and Air Force aircraft (including B-52s), mounted a major effort to help repel the Communist assault; during ‘Niagara’ 100,000 tons of bombs were dropped by all US aircraft. VMGR-152 operated four KC-130Fs out of Đà Nẵng AB, together with a single aircraft detached from VMGR-352, primarily to refuel USN and USMC combat aircraft and to fly flare-dropping sorties. On 10 February 1968 the USMC lost the first C-130 in the operation when KC-130F BuNo 149813 of VMGR-152, MAG-15 was hit in the cockpit and fuselage several times by .50 calibre gunfire as it approached the airfield. The aircraft was carrying a load of flamethrowers and several large rubber bladders full of jet fuel for the Marine’s turbineengined helicopters. The No.3 engine caught fire and a fuel bladder was ruptured and trailed burning fuel. Despite extensive smoke and flames the aircraft touched down normally but then burst into flames as the fuel bladders exploded. The pilot and co-pilot escaped through the cockpit windows after they turned the aircraft off the runway and firefighters rescued another occupant before fire consumed the aircraft. Eight of the eleven men on board the aircraft were killed and Lance Corporal Ferren died of his injuries on 1 March. One of the passengers who was killed was Colonel C. E. Peterson from the 1st MAW headquarters. Two days after this incident the Seventh Air Force prohibited landings by C-130s at Khê Sanh although the prohibition was lifted briefly towards the end of the month. Henry Wildfang was awarded his fifth DFC for his skill in landing the aircraft at Khê Sanh.15
‘Grunts’ on the move as a C-130 lands on the runway.
Clearing up the debris after a Việt Công attack on an air base in Viêtnam.
On 8 March all Marine aircraft and their air control system came under the command of General William Wallace Momyer USAF. For seventy-one during which the weather was nearly a bad and the fighting intensive, the ports and helicopters flew in supplies from Đà Nẵng - only thirty minutes’ flying time away - to Khê Sanh and brought out casualties (when the siege was lifted on 6 April American losses included 200 dead and 600 wounded). Between 21 January and 8 April the Air Force transports delivered 2,400 tons of cargo to Khê Sanh. A staggering 92 per cent of the total tonnage lifted was carried by the Hercules in 496 drops and 67 extractions, delivering 3,558 tons of cargo and depositing another 7,826 tons in 273 landings.
When the runway at Khê Sanh was weathered in the C-130s, C-123s and C-7s made aerial drops of cargo with the help of ground-controlled radardirected approaches to the drop zones. Potentially the transports were an easy target for Communist small-arms fire, Triple-A and shoulder-launched missiles, so normal approach procedures were often abandoned in favour of what became known as the ‘Khê Sanh approach’. In this, each in-bound transport remained at height as long as it could, then the pilot put the nose down into a near-vertical dive and flared out to land on the runway at the last possible moment. Thanks almost entirely to the extensive airborne resupply and the huge volume of tactical and strategic support, the garrison held out. Flying 1,128 missions between 21 January and 8 April, the USAF C-130s (who flew 74 per cent of these), the C-123s (24 per cent) and the C-7s (1 per cent) delivered 12,430 tons of cargo to Khê Sanh.16 The lifting of the Khê Sanh siege was a victory for the Americans and was due almost entirely to the massive air effort. In contrast, the Tet offensive was a tactical disaster for the Communists; Khê Sanh on its own cost the NVA and Việt Công an estimated 10,000 casualties. But the propaganda effect of the Khê Sanh siege was far greater than they could have ever imagined. The press and television reportage accorded the Communists a strength they did not have, fanning the flames of the anti-war lobby in the US and causing public opinion to turn against the continued prosecution of the war. It led in March 1968 to the cessation of all bombing north of the 20th Parallel, a move that was meant to be a sign of conciliation but one which was interpreted as weakness by the Communists. As a result only stalemate was achieved and the war dragged on.
Chapter 2 Endnotes
1 A national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó on 19 May 1941.
2 Kung Kuan Air Base was renamed Ching Chuan Kang Air Base on 20 March 1966 in memory of ROC Army General Qiu Qingquan and was thereafter known throughout the theatre by its initials, CCK.
3 The two C-130As lost (55-0039 and 55-0042) were from the 817th TCS during one of the first Communist successes against US airfields at the major port and jet-capable airfield at Đà Nẵng in Quảng Nam Province when the Việt Công (VC), equipped with mortars and light artillery, landed by sea and proceeded to destroy eight aircraft.
4 Samuel E. McGowan flew in the 93rd Bomb Group in the 8th Air Force out of Hardwick, England in WW2. Sam’s uncle Delmar D. McGowan started out in the 492nd but went to another group when it was broken up.
5 Nùng (pronounced as noong) are an ethnic minority in Việtnam whose language belongs to the Central Tai branch of the Tai-Kadai language family.
6 The camp was established in October 1963 by the US Army Special Forces 25 miles south of Pleiku city and less than 20 miles from the Cambodia border in the Central Highlands of Việtnam. Plei Me was one of many Special Forces camps scattered around the Central Highlands and charged with gaining and maintaining the support of the Montagnards for the South Việtnamese war effort and gathering intelligence about the infiltration into South Việtnam of North Việtnamese soldiers along the Hồ Chi Minh trail. In 1965 the camp was manned by more than 400 CIDG soldiers - local Montagnard irregulars, mostly members of the Jarai ethnic group. Many of them had families living just outside the camp. Twelve American soldiers from the 5th Special Forces Group and 14th Army of the Republic of Việtnam Special Forces assisted and advised the Montagnards. At the time of the attack on Plei Me about 300 Montagnards, the fourteen Việtnamese and ten Americans were inside the camp, the others were on patrol or stationed at nearby listening posts. The camp itself was under the control and command of II Corps Command.
7 The Plei Mei siege was followed by a larger battle in the Ia Drang Valley further to the west near the Cambodian border.
8 A Trash Hauler in Vietnam; Memoir of Four Tactical Airlift Tours, 1965-1968 by Bill Barry (McFarland & Company Inc 2008).
9 A Trash Hauler in Vietnam; Memoir of Four Tactical Airlift Tours, 1965-1968.
10 Dudley and Brant were both awarded the DFC. A short time later, Dudley’s C-130 crew and a number of other transport pilots perfected this drop off method on numerous occasions while supplying the beleaguered Marines under siege by the North Việtnamese Army (NVA) and the VC at their base at Khê Sanh near the Demilitarized Zone. After returning from Việtnam in 1969, Dudley went to work at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico testing Maverick missiles.
11 Vietnam Air Losses by Chris Hobson.
12 A Trash Hauler in Vietnam; Memoir of Four Tactical Airlift Tours, 1965-1968.
13 Between December 1966 and May 1967, Steinbeck wrote 86 stories for the newspaper. Those columns - collected in a book by the University of Virginia Press titled Steinbeck in Vietnam - were the last work to be published during Steinbeck’s lifetime.
14 Following a two month return to the States to finalize personal affairs and returning to the Philippines in February 1966 he spent a 13 month tour flying 10 to 14 day deployments in Việtnam from a remote home base at Mactan Island in the southern Philippines. Barry’s primary base of operations in Việtnam during this period was at Tân Sơn Nhầt Airport in Sàigòn. He completed this tour in February 1967 and he was promoted to captain a month later. A Trash Hauler in Vietnam; Memoir of Four Tactical Airlift Tours, 1965-1968.
15 Vietnam Air Losses by Chris Hobson (Midland Publishing 2001).
16 The only other recorded loss of a Hercules was just after the Khê Sanh operation, on 13 April, when 61-0967, a TAC C-130B in the 774th Tactical Airlift Squadron, 463rd TAW suffered an engine failure as it was landing at Khê Sanh and suddenly veered off the runway. The aircraft hit six recently dropped pallets, still containing cargo and then continued into a truck and a forklift vehicle before coming to a halt and bursting into flames. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair but all seven crew were rescued, although a civilian who was on board later died of his injuries. Vietnam Air Losses by Chris Hobson (Midland Publishing 2001).
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