‘There was no aerial port to talk to, but eventually a guy with a forklift came out and offloaded our five pallets of ‘Class A’. So far so good and we started engines to leave this godforsaken place. Unfortunately, when we tried to start our #1 engine, its starter shaft sheared off. Bad. There were no maintenance facilities so we shut down the other engines so our flight engineer, Bruno Fronzaglio could climb up and remove the broken starter. There were no maintenance stands, so he found an empty pallet and got the forklift driver to lift him and the pallet up to the #1 engine. He still couldn’t reach the starter so he found a ladder and extended it up from the pallet. From this rickety perch he removed the offending starter, buttoned up the engine and climbed back down.
‘So now what? One of our four engines would not start and we were on our own, but C-130s were uniquely designed to work around such problems in remote locations. We still had some good options available: 1, ‘Buddy start’: Pull up very close behind another C-130; allow their propwash to turn the dead prop until it could run on its own. I did this for another C-130 a few weeks earlier and it worked fine. But we had no buddy here. 2. Windmill taxi start. This involves charging down the runway on three engines until you’re going fast enough that the airflow starts turning the dead prop. Cram on the brakes and allow the engine to come up to speed. Be sure to do this before reaching the end of the runway. 2. 3-engine takeoff: Too often this is followed by a crash so it is not recommended.
‘A windmill taxi start was the best option available to us and I’d done one a few months ago at Đà Nẵng, so I felt ready. We started up our three good engines, but before we reached the runway another C-130 unexpectedly arrived! This was especially good news because he could give us a buddy start. So we called him up on the radio and he agreed to give us a ‘buddy start’ before offloading his ‘Class A’.
‘Getting a ‘buddy start’ is a very sensory experience; full of sight, sound and movement. First you pull up close behind the other C-130 - really close - so close that their ramp and duckbutt fills your field of vision. The flight deck of your bird needs to be under the tail of the other bird if you want it to work the first time. As the other pilot advances his throttles to max, the noise and the turbulence increases until you’re bouncing around like you were in a thunderstorm. Now you’re watching that dead #1 prop waiting for it to turn. Come on, turn! Now it begins to slowly rotate - not even enough to register on the tach, but it is moving. Slowly turning and... WHUMPWHUMP! I could feel the concussion more than hear it mortar rounds!
Engine maintenance at Phú Cat Air Base. (Robert D. Young)
‘Talk about a sitting duck - not a good time to be sitting under the tail of another C-130 carrying ten tons of ‘Class A’. The prop was accelerating imperceptibly - it takes over a minute to come up to speed this way. Then the tower called telling us to clear the runway. I was wondering when the next round would hit, but I was staying put until the engine was running. So were our buddies.
‘The prop was slowly accelerating now. Tower called again for us to clear the runway so they could launch a T-28 to hose down the bad guys. Eventually the engine was turning fast enough that it was time to add fuel. Now the tower was calling frantically - clear for takeoff, clear for takeoff. Finally the engine was accelerating on its own power, so we thanked our buddies and said we were on our own. As they released the brakes I expected them to take off, but instead they turned off at the taxiway! I was pretty surprised - I didn’t think it was a good idea to hang around while the field was under attack. But there was no time for questions or contemplation so I called for the before-takeoff checklist. Even before they cleared the runway the tower was calling clear to take off, clear to take off. I released the brakes, put the power to max and began rolling for a downwind takeoff. Longest minute of my life. We flew feet wet back to Tân Sơn Nhứt expecting to get the starter replaced and take another load to Phnom Penh. Anticlimax: no starter was available so we terminated early.
‘On 29 January things were picking up at Det One. No scheduled pax runs - all combat essential frags. Fourteen (!) additional crews rotated in from CCK the day before. A week earlier we were mostly flying scheduled passenger runs between large airfields in Việtnam - crews couldn’t even get enough short-field missions to complete needed check rides. Suddenly there were many more crews and everyone was flying combat essential (high priority) missions into small airfields. In this round-the-clock push we carried Việtnamese troops and equipment north for ‘Lam Son 719’. GI’s and routine cargo still needed to move between large airfields like Đà Nẵng, Cam Ranh Bay, Tân Sơn Nhứt and Biên Hỏa so Military Airlift Command brought in C-141s to help. Khê Sanh was the staging area for the ‘Lam Son 719’ invasion because it was just ten miles from Laos. Its 3,200 feet runway was ready for use February 15th. For some reason the USAF always called it Ham Ngai. There was a continuous stream of C-130s flying in and out, so artillery-free corridors were arranged with the army to avoid friendly-fire accidents. These corridors also helped smooth out the air traffic. The inbound corridor was from Huế to the southeast and the outbound corridor was to Quảng Tri to the northeast.
‘This day I flew two combat essential missions up to Quảng Tri, thirteen miles from the DMZ. We delivered trucks and jeeps and trailers and Việtnamese troops who didn’t even know their destination. C-130 operations were all about bringing passengers and cargo into small airfields like Quảng Tri and that’s when aircraft commanders were tested. A few weeks earlier two C-130 instructor pilots from CCK went off the end of its 3,500 feet runway. My first approach was in daylight but the weather was bad. Radar was unavailable so I shot an ADF non-precision approach. We broke through the overcast and got the field in sight about 30 seconds before touchdown. Piece of cake.
‘The second time we arrived at night - more challenging because there are fewer visual cues for a short-field landing. And this time the Det One safety officer was riding along, looking over my shoulder. We had to hold for 40 minutes over the Quảng Tri ADF because the weather was still bad - low ceiling, low visibility and drizzle. At least the radar was back up, so I shot a ground controlled approach. We broke out of the overcast at about 600 feet and I planted the airplane firmly onto the runway. Night-time, lousy weather, combat essential, short field, near the DMZ. That’s when AC’s earn their pay.
‘I arose at 0200 on the morning of 1 February after attempting to sleep several hours. We showed at 02:30 and finally blocked out at 0600 due to some maintenance and loading delays. We combatloaded a Việtnamese battle unit (130 troops with all their gear). Our destination was Đông Hà, a newly-activated airfield eleven miles from the DMZ. Flying that close to North Việtnam was not comfortable. Speaking of comfort, our C-130E could carry up to 92 passengers in bucket seats attached to the airplane’s sides and to stanchions down the centre of the cargo compartment, so passengers travelled sideways. This helped passengers get to know each other better because they sit knee-to knee and during takeoffs and landings they lean against each other. But combat loading did not offer such luxuries as seats. The loadmaster rolled in five empty 463L pallets, covering the whole cargo floor. Next he stretched cargo tie-down straps across the pallets, acting as 7 foot-wide seat belts. Theoretically everyone would sit in rows facing forward and slip their legs under the straps so they have lap belts - uncomfortable but organized. In an actual combat environment it was both uncomfortable and disorganized. Commercial air travel is more comfortable for passengers on a bad day than it is for C-130 passengers on a good day. And this was a bad day. The loadmaster opened the rear cargo door and lowered the ramp so the troops could enter carrying all their weapons and equipment. They were instructed to walk forward as far as they could and keep standing. As the airplane filled up they were told to move farther forward and pack in. When no more troops could stand on the five pallets the loadmaster closed the ramp, the troops sat down and we took off for Đông Hà.
C-130s on the ramp at Nakhon Phanom AFB, Thailand
in 1972. (Robert D. Young)
‘There was a traffic overload at Đông Hà so I ended up holding for over an hour. When I finally got my turn, I shot a GCA approach and the landing went well. But with all that holding we didn’t have enough gas to make it back to Tân Sơn Nhứt. All the C-130s were in the same situation and most stopped at Đà Nẵng for fuel, resulting in extensive delays there. Phù Cát [17.7 miles northwest of Qui Nhơn in Bình Định Province] was another 120 miles beyond Đà Nẵng so I opted to go there and avoid the delays. We had just enough fuel for one approach and I was watching the fuel gauges closely. When we landed I shut down the outboards immediately - I didn’t want to run out of fuel before we were parked. Close. All this messing around put us ten hours into our crew day, so I told mother there was no way we could make it up and back again in four more hours, so they terminated us. I’m just as glad. I was pretty tired.
‘Next day we had a 0945 show - quite civilized - but we had some problems with brakes and antiskid, but got it resolved. So I leaped off for Đông Hà and this time there was no holding. I even made a pretty good max effort landing. The antiskid circuit breaker on one wheel popped out so we planned to get that fixed at Tân Sơn Nhứt. As I later learned at Khê Sanh, it’s unwise to land at short fields without antiskid. We couldn’t get it fixed.
‘On 4 February the Marilyn Monroe foldout at the nav station had been replaced by the latest Playboy ‘playmate’ and the frag called for two round trips to Biên Hỏa and Đông Hà. We were flying the Red Rabbit, which was the best aircraft in the fleet and easy to spot on the ramp - on its crew door steps was a red silhouette of the Playboy bunny. The navigator’s station had the centrefold of the Playboy ‘playmate’ of the month under a sheet of plexiglas. But the best thing about that airplane was that everything worked! I think its tail number was 64-17680. When I flew the Red Rabbit I could expect to finish all the legs of my frag and bring everyone home without breaking down somewhere. The crew chief did an amazing job. (While I was at CCK he was promoted to staff sergeant - well deserved). We actually completed our whole frag!
‘On 17 February we flew several trips to Katum. It was pretty remote - in the fish hook area about four miles from Cambodia. The VC operated freely back and forth across the border bringing weapons large and small to shoot at big targets like C-130s. To make the VC easier to spot, the USAF defoliated the nearby jungle with ‘Agent Orange’. Katum was known as a hot spot for hostile fire. A couple of years earlier the VC hit a C-130 on departure there and they crash landed at nearby Tay Ninh. Katum’s runway was shorter than most - 3,000 feet of red dirt treated with Peneprime to keep the dust down. The soil there is called laterite and it is red because of the high concentration of iron. Army helicopters operating out of there needed fuel and it was too hazardous to send tank trucks through ‘Indian Country’ so we brought it to them. These flights were called ‘bladder birds’. Sometimes we brought the fuel in 2 foot diameter round bladders called ‘elephant balls’, which could be rolled if necessary. But usually we carried the fuel in two 18 foot lozenge-shaped bladders and pumped the fuel out to trucks at the destination.
‘The airplane’s landing weight determined the length of its landing roll, which was quite limited at small fields like Katum. Based on the field length we calculated our maximum rollout and from that we determined how many tons of fuel we could bring in. ‘Normal’ short field landing criteria are different from ‘combat essential’ landing criteria. If your mission was high priority (combat essential), thinner safety margins were acceptable. Max gross weight for normal short field landings was calculated assuming two props in reverse and two in ground idle. For combat essential missions we calculated the landing rollout assuming all four in reverse. This increased the allowable gross weight (and the possibility of going off the far end of the runway if something went wrong).
‘Our last sortie to Katum, on 22 February, turned out to be kind of interesting. On the first two sorties John Roohms was giving another pilot an initial SEA check. Stace rode along on both to log some time to put him closer to upgrading from copilot to AC. I rode out on the first shuttle just to scope out the situation. After sitting out the second one I flew the third mission.
‘We dealt with friendly fire and hostile fire daily. As we approached the field on that third flight we monitored the radio frequency for ‘Tailpipe Alpha’. ‘Tailpipe’ was the call sign for the combat control team - the first USAF guys into a remote airfield like Katum. They coordinated airlift operations at the field, acting as control tower where there was no tower and aerial port where there was no aerial port. ‘Tailpipe Alpha’ reported that there were incoming rounds but no damage yet so we orbited nearby and talked with ‘Alpha’ and ‘Hilda’. They told us that it was all clear and the runway was OK. Meanwhile the good guys at several nearby Fire Support Bases had cranked up their artillery and begun shooting back. One of these FSBs was located at the approach end of the runway.
‘These artillery bases had no radio communication on VHF or UHF aviation frequencies; instead they had their own FM frequencies. C-130s had been retrofitted with an FM radio at the navigator’s station so we could communicate with them and stay clear of their fire. This day as usual the navigator talked with them to ensure that they held their fire while we landed right over them. And as usual they said they would. I was concentrating on my short final approach when I saw puffs of white smoke coming up from the FSB! They were firing their Howitzers again and we were flying right into their fire! I immediately dodged to the right and broke off the approach. I climbed back up and orbited nearby while the nav chewed them out for not passing the word to the guys firing the guns. Once they had really halted their fire we landed uneventfully and firmly. We pumped out our fuel, flew on to Bình Thúy, then back to Tân Sơn Nhứt. In a similar situation three years earlier, a Caribou was shot down by friendly artillery on short final to Đức Phổ.7
‘In early February, we were told of a campaign that was to start soon up north and we would be sending aircraft and support personnel to Đà Nẵng, which was to be the staging area for the Laos incursion - ‘Lam Son 719/Operation Dewey Canyon II’. After some delays, we finally made it to Đà Nẵng in mid February and set up our support shop area in a corner of the Aerial Port squadron facilities. The support personnel contingent numbered between seventy and ninety men split up working twelve hour shifts. We brought two spare engines and two spare props with us, along with tyres, avionics equipment, tools, etc. Finding room for us to bed down was a problem and we were scattered around in different barracks on the opposite side of the airfield from ‘Gunfighter Village’. We were trash hauler types and the jet jocks didn’t want anything to do with us.
‘Flying was continuous from pre-dawn to the late evening, most missions consisting of troop transport, fuel, munitions and medevac. We had a policy to have all line maintenance accomplished by 0200 hours. The reasoning was that most rocket and mortar attacks occurred between 0200 and 0400 hours. The demand on the support troops to keep the aircraft mission ready was unbelievable. Spare parts became a concern and there were times we ‘bartered’ with the Marine Corps C-130 wing for starters and instruments.
C-130E baking in midday sun on the ramp at Phú Cat located along the South China Sea in Central Việtnam in 1971 with coastal hills and blossoming thunderstorms in the background. One crewmember is seated on the ground in the shade of the wing; while parked on the ramp the inside of the aircraft was like an oven with temperatures well over 100 degrees. Same heat was true during taxi and takeoff as the air conditioning was ineffective until after lift-off when engines really got going to provide the AC energy. To the rear of the plane a tractor fork lift is moving a large pallet of cargo into position for loading. (Robert D. Young)
‘About a week after we arrived in Đà Nẵng, on 24 February, the first stop on my frag schedule was Khê Sanh. After reading the airfield folder and being briefed on the corridor procedures and talking with other crew members I ex
pected it to be pretty hairy. We first blocked out with a load of ARVN troops, cases of vegetables, coops of chickens and two pigs - when I got on the airplane I thought that smell was familiar! However, as we taxied out ‘Sàigòn Tea’ (TSN ALCE) told us to return and take over another mission of a higher (Combat Essential) priority. So we and our troops and chickens and pigs taxied back in and parked. We flew an empty airplane down to Vũng Tàu and picked up a fire engine. Because of our destination I had the loadmaster put additional chains on it, which he didn’t appreciate (sorry, Steve). Khê Sanh was actually a piece of cake. The aluminium matting runway was quite good, the corridors in and out went smoothly, the GCA went smoothly and I even made a good landing. I was glad to be able to take Colonel Rogers his mail from Det One too - I sure know how much receiving or not receiving those letters can mean.
‘We rarely had our courage tested. Others did. During ‘Lam Son 719’, eleven C-130Bs were temporarily stationed at Đà Nẵng. Their mission was to fly loads into Khê Sanh. Đà Nẵng was nicknamed ‘Rocket City’ because it was subject to such frequent rocket attacks. On 24 February the workload was heavier than normal. Aircraft 61-2642 was parked on the ramp about 75 yards from the Aerial Port squadron facilities. It was already loaded with munitions for the first mission in the morning. Repairs to number one and two engines were delayed while waiting for parts. The decision was made to off load 2642 and move the load to another aircraft. This gave us more time for repairs and engine maintenance run checks, while still trying to clear the line maintenance by 0200. We overshot that by 40 minutes, but all write-ups on all aircraft were cleared and we settled down in our shop area for some serious card playing and warm Cokes. Roughly ten minutes into the game a thunderous explosion threw us all to the floor; followed in quick succession by at least a dozen more explosions. We were under a rocket attack! The air raid sirens were blaring and all power and lights were shut off. The floor rumbled from the impact of incoming rounds and none of us had our flak jackets or helmets. In fact, they were still locked up in a conex container behind the Aerial Port.
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