Chapter Three
The Last Flight of The ‘Stray Goose’
Colonel John Gargus, USAF (Ret)
During the course of our lives we experience events whose vivid memories remain undiminished in spite of the passage of time. My unforgettable event is the loss of eleven fellow crewmembers who failed to return from their mission over North Việtnam on 29 December 1967. They flew in a ‘Stray Goose’ Combat Talon MC-130E that belonged to Detachment 1 of the 314th TAW based at Nha Trang Air Base in South Việtnam. I was one of the three mission planners who charted the route for this tragic flight. S-01 crew, commanded by Captain Edwin N. Osborne, was tasked to fly it. It was a challenging mission that consisted of two air drops. The first one was a high altitude leaflet drop over the Red River [Sông Hồng] west of Hànôi and the second one a low level resupply drop on the other side of the mountains east of Điện Biên Phủ.
Before ‘Romeo Charlie’ 64-0547 took off, I walked through its inside length touching the lined up cardboard boxes that were secured to the floor mounted skateboard rails. They were filled with millions of propaganda leaflets that would be freed from the boxes once they ripped open after rolling off the exit ramp. After them were two palletized resupply bundles. After I exited the crew door, loadmaster James Williams closed it giving me thumbs up. We witnessed an orderly engine start and watched them taxi out to the end of the runway. From our vantage point, we saw the aircraft take off and disappear into the darkness over the South China Sea.
Three hours later, we, the flight planners, returned to our Detachment’s Operations Office to monitor the aircraft’s flight progress. All went well. Leaflets were gone and Gene Clapper, radio operator, sent a two Morse Code letter message signifying that the drop was successfully completed. The aircraft was back in a terrain following configuration, flying at 230 knots, headed westwards through the mountains. Then they would turn south for a drop of two ‘notional’ resupply bundles before exiting from North Việtnam.
John Gargus was born on 18 June 1934 in Velka Poloma, Czechoslovakia and escaped at the age of fifteen with the assistance of his parents in 1949 when the Communists pulled the country behind the Iron Curtain, to join his grandmother in the United States. He served in the Military Airlift Command as a navigator, then as an instructor in AFROTC. He went to Việtnam as a member of Special Operations and served in that field of operations for seven years in various units at home and in Europe. He is the author of The Son Tay Raid: American POWs in Vietnam Were Not Forgotten (Texas A&M University Military History Series).
Our whole detachment celebrated Christmas 1967 in the courtyard of Nha Trang’s Roman Catholic Cathedral with Christian Boy and Girl Scouts and their parents. Detachment 1 of the 314th Tactical Airlift Wing1 was based at Nha Trang Air Base, bounded on the north by Ninh Hoà district, on the south by Cam Ranh town and on the west by Diên Khánh District with six eleven-member crews and four MC-130E Combat Talon I aircraft. These were equipped with terrain following radar, Fulton Recovery System and an array of passive electronic countermeasures. They were painted with special dark green paint that significantly reduced their reflected radar energy and because of their overall appearance they were affectionately called the ‘Blackbirds’. They provided Military Advisory Command-Studies and Observations Group (MAC-SOG) with dedicated airlift during daytime and conducted highly classified, clandestine missions at night. These night missions were called ‘combat missions’ even though we never intended to engage in what would certainly be a one sided battle with the enemy. The only arms we carried were our survival .38 calibre pistols. We relied on our low level terrain following capability, the element of surprise and experienced airmanship to fly wherever tasked over North Việtnam.
‘When we returned to our hotel after the festivities, Major Roy Thompson, a C-130 navigator, came by to tell me that First Flight Operations had a classified message tasking us with our next combat mission. He wanted to know if I was interested in going with him to review it. I was eager to see what it was all about, so we hopped into our jeep and drove to the Việtnamese side of the base where we shared our secure mission planning and communications facilities with our sister unit designated ‘First Flight’; another SOG air asset flying C-123s with some very interesting crewmembers. First Flight cargo specialists assembled all our airdrop packages, rigged all our parachutes and even loaded the cargo for our combat missions. We were to trust their methods and procedures no matter how weird or foreign the resulting drop configurations looked to our loadmasters.
‘Our ‘combat missions’ were generated at SOG headquarters in Sàigòn. They ranged from quite ordinary to some bizarre airdrop operations. Thus, we would drop teams of infiltrators behind enemy lines and then resupply them periodically with all their needs. At times we would drop specially rigged personnel parachutes without infiltrators and imaginatively assembled resupply loads to convince the enemy that we had teams operating in this or that area. Sometimes our air dropped loads were rigged to fall apart in the air or be booby trapped for the NVA soldiers on the ground. And, of course, there were psychological operations consisting of high altitude leaflet drops and low altitude çwas now busy in the kitchen making sure that everything was going on schedule for our big evening meal. We were hosting the American officers of First Flight and borrowed their gourmet cook to assist our own very capable Chinese kitchen staff. Captain Gerald Van Buren, our Officers Open Mess steward, had already done his job. He made sure that all needed kitchen supplies were either procured in the Sàigòn Commissary, or that they were obtained from his various contacts at Special Forces operating locations. We would trade with the Special Forces outposts on almost every visit to their remote sites. We would trade San Miguel beer, obtained on our visits to Taiwan or to the Philippines, for crates of fresh vegetables grown in their neighbouring Montagnard villages. Charlie Claxton was aspiring to replace Gerald Van Buren as the mess steward when Gerry completed his one-year tour in Việtnam.
MC-130E ‘Stray Goose’ ‘Combat Talon I’ 64-0547 ‘Romeo Charlie’ of the 314th TAW taking off on a mission. (John Gargus)
‘That evening we had what must have been the best feast of our Việtnam tour. We all complimented our kitchen staff and Charlie Claxton and Gerald Van Buren for their superb performance. Our rooftop bar activity that night was somewhat subdued; Most of us retreated to our rooms early to make audiotapes for our families. We all owed special thanks to our wives for making our Việtnamese Christmas as good as it could have been. All the sweets, toys and clothing for the Cathedral party and gift dispensing visits to several local orphanages were sent to us by our wellorganized wives. They enlisted support of their local Chambers of Commerce for donations of clothing, candy and gifts and arranged with the USAF for shipment of assembled goods by opportune C-130 airlift. We were proud of them for their contribution to this civic action effort. Sorting of donated clothing became a major undertaking which took us several days to complete. We sized and sorted the clothing in the hot unventilated upstairs storage rooms of our operations building. Sergeant Jim Williams spent countless hours helping me in my capacity as the unit’s Civic Action Officer. He took charge in keeping the effort going when some other volunteers gave up because of uncomfortable heat and troublesome clothing lint and dust in our improvised Santa’s work shop. It was he who recruited Staff Sergeant Ed Darcy to help us until the clothing was finally sorted, boxed and labelled for distribution. During the festivities in the cathedral courtyard, both of these young men displayed great enthusiasm in playing games with the Scouts. We all had a great time. Christmas spirit and joy overcame all language and age barriers.
‘Early next morning Roy Thompson, John Lewis and I settled down in our secure planning room where we drew out the route and prepared master charts for the crew that was going to fly the mission. Our master charts would be used the next day by the mission crewmembers who would study them and customize them for their own personal use.
‘The entire f
light would take about eight hours. It would follow our often-repeated high-level route from Nha Trang to the Skyline beacon in Laos. There the ‘Blackbird’ would descend to a terrain following altitude and fly a short zigzagging route toward the first leaflet drop area. Then, after a ‘short look’ (rapid climb to high altitude, quick drop and rapid descent), the aircraft would resume terrain following through the low level resupply drop and return to the Skyline beacon. From that point the aircraft would continue back home at normal cruising altitude.
‘In planning our terrain following routes, we always tried to stay away from populated areas, selecting prominent radar return targets for turning points and navigational instrument updates. A unique feature of our terrain following flights was that we flew at controlled ground speeds rather than constant airspeeds. Our aircraft was equipped with the APQ-115 terrain following radar that used aircraft’s speed over the ground in its computations for maintaining desired altitude above the ground. Typically, we flew at 500 feet above the ground during daytime and at 1,000 feet at night. Flights over uneven terrain required continuous throttle adjustments to maintain our standard 230-knot ground speed (265 mph). The pilots had a Doppler ground speed indicator that they monitored incessantly. The pilot (left seat) had an APQ-115 screen, which in one display mode traced the terrain directly ahead of the aircraft and in another, cross scan mode, painted the terrain 20 degrees left and right of the projected ground track. Radar navigator had a third mode option for map reading. This one gave him a 45-degree left and right view of the aircraft’s projected track, but when the radar was in this mode, the terrain following input used by the pilot was disabled. Flying in the left seat was very strenuous. For all practical purposes it was like flying sustained instrument landing system (ILS). ‘Blackbird’ pilots had to fly the attitude director indicator’s (ADI’s) pitch bar which received commands based on radar terrain returns and Doppler ground speed. They had to monitor their radar scope for visual terrain signals and manipulate engine throttles to maintain the desired ground speed. During daytime, well-placed cockpit windows allowed the pilot to verify approaching terrain, but on a dark night, this was impossible. One could not fix his eyes to the outside through the ever-present glare of the cockpit’s amber lights and not lose focus on the instruments by which he had to fly. For that reason it became our standard practice to have the First Pilot fly in the left seat and have the Aircraft Commander sit on the right. This was the only way he could command his eleven-member crew. He could not take time away from the instruments to focus on even a routine inflight problem.
‘Terrain following combined with special navigational and flying techniques would get us to where we needed to go, but our ultimate survivability over North Việtnam depended on the skills of our Electronic Warfare Officers (EWOs). At that time, North Việtnam had the most formidable air defence system in the history of air warfare. It is true that their radars were not of the latest state-of-the-art, but they were effectively used by operators who had gained considerable skills with them. The same could be said about the AAA and SAM crews. Their tours of duty were not limited to one year like ours. They were at home defending their families against the most advanced American war machines for as long as their war lasted. So these Soviet-made radars, which were first introduced in Eastern Europe, were now being combat tested. The US intelligence had appropriate nicknames for all of them. Thus we confronted ‘Bar Locks’ (Soviet P-35M acquisition radar for incoming aircraft) and ‘Spoon Rests’ (for longrange early warning), ‘Fan Song’ (for SA-2 surface to air missiles (SAMs) and ‘Fire Cans’ (SON-9 radar which controlled 57mm and 100m anti-aircraft artillery (AAA).2 Our knowledge of the locations of these radars, combined with our low level tactics, would get us into most target areas without detection. Once detected, however, it became the EWO’s job to analyze the threats these radars posed. If all radars were in the locations we plotted on our charts, we would be able to fly through their scanning ranges and stay away from the effective ranges of missiles or artillery they controlled. During mission planning, the EWO would prepare a scenario which would tell him at which point of flight and from which direction each radar scan would illuminate our aircraft. If he detected radars not plotted on his chart and the received signal strength was stronger, indicating a closer proximity to our flight track, he would have to direct the pilots to get us out of there.
‘By monitoring his state of the art instruments, he could tell whether the enemy radars were in routine mode or were focused on his aircraft in sector scans with added height finders that would help them to acquire aircraft’s track, speed and altitude. The missile and AAA crews needed all this information before they could zero in on our aircraft’s position and fire. In addition, with SAM’s ‘Fan Song’ radar, he could tell when the radar pulse recurrence frequency changed to forecast an imminent missile launch. All that required good eyes to monitor several visual displays and good hearing to discern distinct chirping audio signals radar propagated. In a concentrated radar signal area, such as our aircraft would enter upon its climb to drop altitude, the EWO would receive welcomed assistance from the crew radio operator who shared his instrument console and sat on his left. All our radio operators became very adept EWO assistants.
Leaflet dropping from the rear of the Hercules. (John Gargus)
The lost aircraft and the ‘Stray Goose’ insignia. (John Gargus)
‘Blackbird’s EWOs also had the capability to detect and disrupt an attack by a MiG interceptor. Using passive electronic techniques, they could confuse a MiG long enough to enable their aircraft to escape into a hilly terrain where the interceptor’s radar became ineffective and the pursuing pilot risked flying into the ground.
First, by monitoring aural and visual signals, they could tell that ground control intercept radar was tracking their ‘Blackbird’ and most likely vectoring a MiG for an attack from the rear. Once the EWO picked up the interceptor’s radar, he could play with the target a pursuing pilot would see on his radarscope. By manipulating the radar echoes reflected from the ‘Blackbird’ to the interceptor’s radar he could offset the pilot’s target to the left or right. Then just as the MiG was ready to fire, he would call for a sharp break away from the established aircraft heading, causing the interceptor to miss his radar target. After the first missed pass the GCI site and the interceptor pilot would get smarter and come around for another pass. In the meantime our ‘Blackbird’ would make a rapid descent to the treetop level and get lost in the ground clutter where the airborne radar could not find it. The interceptor would have to abort the chase or risk flying into the ground.
‘In addition, ‘Blackbird’s EWOs could dispense highly reflective chaff, which would instantly paint a brighter and larger target than the aircraft. With all that equipment and our special training, we had what we needed to conduct gutsy, but safe operations in the hostile skies of North Việtnam. No one expected a large, slow and unarmed transport aircraft to operate in the same North Việtnamese air space, which proved to be so challenging to the most advanced high performance aircraft in the US inventory.
‘Our success rate over the enemy territory was commendable. Many of our low level missions through the North Việtnamese air space went undetected. Some were tracked during portions of their flight, but always succeeded in avoiding AAA fire. A few had to abort their high altitude leaflet drops when a missile control radar locked on to them and the EWO detected a frequency shift, which signalled an imminent SA-2 missile launch. They always managed to break their radar lock on during a rapid roller coaster dive down to the minimum safe altitude. Fewer still experienced a MiG chase with an airborne radar lock on. Our EWOs always saved the night for us. Consequently, it didn’t take long for the ‘Blackbird’ crews to develop a due respect for the skills of their EWOs.
‘Two months before, in mid October, our S-05 crew’s EWO, John Lewis, defeated three passes of an interceptor that jumped upon us just off the coast near the Hảiphòng harbour. We were dro
pping pre-tuned radios to the local fishermen. Pursued, we flew as low and as fast as we could, shaking and bouncing on the air currents our aircraft stirred off the otherwise calm sea water. When John called ‘Break Left’, we had to pop up a few feet in order to avoid dipping the left wing into the water. Our Ops Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Hines, flew with us that night. It was daylight when we landed at Nha Trang. The wings and the fuselage of our ‘Blackbird’ were white with salt. John Lewis may still hold the ‘Combat Talon’ record for besting a pursuing fighter pilot three times on a single ‘combat mission’.
‘Our first problem on the 29 December mission would be the early warning radar at Nà Sản in Sơn La Province. We had to stay as low and as far south of its range as possible in order to avoid detection while crossing into North Việtnam. Once inside North Việtnam we had to get to the east side of the central mountains and stay out of range of wellplaced AAA and SAM sites along the Red River Valley. We tried to avoid getting picked up and tracked by the multitude of radars associated with those anti-aircraft weapons. These radars by themselves could not hurt us but would alert AAA and SAM crews for possible action if we came within range of their weapons. Our best scenario was to have no radar track us until we began our rapid climb to 30,000+ feet for the leaflet drop. We knew that once our aircraft got to 9-10,000 feet, all available radars would come up and keep our EWO extremely busy. If the enemy did not respond with a launch of interceptors, the leaflet drop would be completed and the aircraft would resume low level terrain following and proceed westward just south of the China border along the 22nd parallel until reaching the Black River Valley. There a southbound turn would be made. Then staying in the mountains along the west side of the river, the second airdrop would be executed NW of the Na San early warning radar.
C-130 Hercules Page 8