Legend

by Eric Blehm

  —

  GREYHOUND FOUR’S pilots and crew were watching the approach of what they assumed was the American-led team dressed in their NVA-disguise uniforms when Mousseau and O’Connor took aim and dropped the lead NVA soldier. In response, the remaining five NVA raised their AK-47s and charged, opening fire on the helicopter. Gunner Wessel leveled his M60 at the group, their bodies flung backward thirty yards from the aircraft.

  Wright ordered Mousseau to try to signal the helicopter with a mirror. If that didn’t work, they would risk a grenade of red-and-green smoke in front of their position. As O’Connor flipped switches on the radio, holding the antenna overhead, cursing, and praying for a signal, Wright tapped him on the shoulder and pointed across the clearing.

  Within the tree line, a column of some thirty NVA was rapidly nearing the helicopter.

  —

  MAD DOG One, mortally wounded and hemorrhaging—oil, hydraulic fluid, and fuel spraying out over the jungle—continued flying west, farther into Cambodia. Curry fought the gunship’s controls to gain altitude and mileage, willing it into a bank that would bring the helicopter back on an eastern bearing. At the same time he scanned the ground below for a place to set down. There was the Ho Chi Minh Trail with its stream of enemy trucks, the PZ he’d just been shot out of, and the green of the jungle. So much green.

  Alone in the backseat with the dead gunner, Swisher, Jones gripped his M60, acutely aware of the unnatural sounds of the laboring aircraft. He kept glancing down at Swisher on the floor—his closed eyes, the speck of blood in the middle of his forehead, and that perfect vertical crack down the center of his helmet. Out the window, the horizon receded while the gunship shook, rattled, and fought to gain altitude—two hundred feet, three hundred, four hundred; from hell to purgatory they climbed. They were no longer taking fire, but this was dangerous air, low enough to be reached by enemy small-arms ground fire and high enough to be spotted and tracked by anybody looking up.

  And then there was a very distinct quiet of an engine suddenly stopping. “Hang on,” Curry said calmly over the intercom. “We’re going down.”

  Curry had managed to gain enough altitude that he could initiate the helicopter’s version of a glide, autorotating so that its blades can catch the wind as it falls like a rock; if the pilot is able to conjure up the necessary “glide,” a powerless helicopter can land without certain death to all those on board.

  This is something all the pilots had done during training over a big clearing or a runway, but not over solid jungle full of enemy forces. Jones, who felt as if his stomach was pressing up against his tonsils, could make out plenty of them through the trees below as they fell. He also caught a glimpse of a bomb crater, and then Curry flared from his autorotation glide and hit hard on the skids, landing in a postage stamp–size clearing. Somehow, he had brought them down in a barely visible speck that would have been hard to hit with full power.

  Jones went to unlatch his M60, then realized he had spent his last bullets on the pass over the PZ. Grabbing his rucksack, which held grenades, a couple of C rations, and extra ammo for his M16, he jumped from Mad Dog One and hurried to the front of the helicopter to help Curry and his copilot, David Brown, both with .38s in their holsters, carry Swisher.

  As Jones leaned over the body, Swisher opened his eyes, startling all three men. What appeared to be a bullet hole was actually a small gouge from shrapnel, Jones realized, as he examined Swisher’s head. The impact of the shrapnel had split his helmet and knocked him out cold. Though awake, he was dazed, looking around blankly while Jones and Brown carried him from the wreckage of the helicopter to the bomb crater some twenty yards away and settled inside its berm. There they waited, scanning the green around them for NVA while Curry called in a report over his emergency radio. A second later their wingman, Grant in Mad Dog Two, swooped overhead, marking the spot but passing them by, not wanting to further alert the enemy to the location of the downed aircraft.

  —

  GREYHOUND Four—turbines still whining at full power, M60 barrels still hot—sat in the grassy PZ, empty except for the six dead NVA soldiers to its right. Inside, the pilots and crew were electric with post-firefight adrenaline and feeling uncomfortably exposed without gunship support; per standard operating procedure, Mad Dog Two’s pilot, Michael Grant, had chased after Mad Dog One as soon as he saw it was in trouble, while his copilot, Chief Warrant Officer Ron Radke, attempted to reach them on the radio.

  In Greyhound Four, Specialist 4 Gary Land and Robert Wessel, crew chief and right-door gunner, guarded their flanks and searched for the B-56 team while Armstrong and his copilot, Warrant Officer James Fussell, scanned in front of the aircraft. Armstrong’s grip—slick with sweat—was closed tightly on the controls, ready to pull pitch and exit at a moment’s notice.

  “Where the hell are they?” Armstrong said aloud into his microphone. The slick had been on the ground too long already. He asked if anyone could see a panel—a bright orange-colored fabric square used to identify U.S. and allied forces. “Smoke?” came his voice over the radio. “Anything?”

  “Negative,” Land and Wessel reported back. The glint from the opposite side of the clearing, where Mousseau was working his signal mirror, was not visible to them. Nor was the large group of NVA moving in at the helicopter’s twelve o’clock.

  Thirty seconds more, Armstrong told himself. He counted down as he tried to reach the FAC for a situation report on the team. Had they been killed? Were they lying low? Were they on the run and ready to burst from the trees any second? He didn’t want to leave them, but he had to get some sort of signal, ETA, or radio contact ASAP.

  —

  WATCHING THE NVA column press forward, Wright waited a full minute before he was certain the aircraft commander had not received his communication to get the slick the hell out of there. A hundred yards was too far to run to the helicopter; the risk was too great that his team would get cut down halfway through.

  Wright tried the slick’s crew on the radio one last time. Nothing. He ordered Mousseau to fire a light anti-tank weapon into the NVA column; the rocket-like projectile streamed across the clearing while Wright and O’Connor pumped out grenades from handheld launchers, lighting up the distant tree line with a series of explosions.

  The NVA broke loose from the jungle and charged the front and right side of the helicopter. To the left of Greyhound Four, another cluster of enemy soldiers charged out from where they had been lying in wait.

  Unarmed except for the .38 revolver he kept strapped to his thigh, Fussell could only watch the attack from his copilot seat inside the helicopter. He heard the spray of enemy bullets hitting the slick and the hammering automatic fire of dual M60s as crew chief Land on the left and door gunner Wessel on the right opened fire, targeting the lead NVA. At his feet, green-colored movement under the nose bubble caught his eye. A soldier was trying to aim his AK-47 upward into the cockpit, but the space between the ground and the helicopter was too short. Fussell shot down through the glass, feeling the kick of the revolver three times as he yelled into his mic, “Let’s go! Let’s Go! Let’s go!” Armstrong was already bringing Greyhound Four off the ground.

  Glancing back into the rear of the helicopter, Fussell saw Land working his M60, laying down fire into what appeared to be dozens of green uniforms rushing from the trees through the grass, bayonets fixed on their AK-47s. The crackling thunder of the incoming and outgoing weapon reports and rounds was deafening. NVA bodies were flung haphazardly in the grass—several with their faces torn off by the 7.62 mm bullets—but the charge was relentless.

  It took a moment for the sudden buzz in Fussell’s ears to register as silence from behind him. Both gunners had stopped firing. Pushing against his seat restraints, Fussell lifted up and looked over his left shoulder. He could see Land sprawled behind his gun, his boot blown open, revealing the raw meat that had been his foot. Blood pooled on the fl
oor from a severed artery farther up his leg. Over his right shoulder, he glimpsed Wessel pulling himself back up to his gun. His cheek and neck were ripped open, his jaw hanging loose, dripping blood.

  A higher-pitched tat-tat-tat joined the enemy fire as James Calvey—the Special Forces medic who was bellyman on the flight—grabbed his carbine and pumped rounds into the chests of two NVA soldiers a few feet away from climbing on board. Though severely injured, Land managed to pull his legs back up into what little cover the open doors of the helicopter afforded. He manned his weapon and rejoined the firefight while Calvey applied a compression bandage and tourniquet to his leg to stop the bleeding.

  Calvey moved to Wessel, who had been shot through the neck but stayed on his gun; he pushed Calvey away as he attempted to bandage the wound. Picking up his M-4 carbine, Calvey began providing suppressive fire. He was alternating between the right and left doors when a bullet hit his elbow, traveled up his arm, and exited behind his shoulder. After quickly checking his wound, Calvey continued to fire, taking out the lead elements of the relentless enemy charge.

  Another flash of motion drew Fussell’s attention forward just in time for him to shoot the NVA behind the bayonet-fixed AK-47 coming through the side window. To his left, Armstrong leaned forward in his armored seat, then sat back upright, blood pouring from under his flight helmet and down his forehead and neck.

  Fussell gripped the controls, but they jerked in his hands.

  “I got it!” Armstrong barked. The tail boom drifted lazily, nose pointing toward the tree line to the southwest. The controls felt heavy to Armstrong—like when a car loses its power steering—and he fought them for every inch of slow, steady, vertical climb. For the past few minutes he had been concentrating so fiercely on getting the helicopter launched that he had barely heard the gunfire or seen the attacking enemy. He knew from the initial kicks he’d felt on their descent into the clearing that their hydraulics had been shot out. He didn’t realize, however, that he’d been shot in the back of the head. He was unaware of the blood that soaked his shoulders and restraining straps, or of the fact that Fussell was poised, ready to take over the second Armstrong succumbed to his injury.

  The turbines labored and the rotors beat at the thick, humid air. Brass bullet casings rained from both sides of the helicopter as the wounded door gunners blasted away at the NVA, who were firing on full automatic up into the belly of the aircraft. Seventy-five feet up, the ground fire became so intense that Armstrong could no longer wait for the blue-sky horizon; he plowed forward into the wall of green near the treetops, branches disintegrating as the slick’s main rotor cut a channel. At any moment an old-growth hardwood limb could drop the aircraft from the sky.

  Fussell was shocked to find himself eye to eye with an NVA soldier who was more than a hundred feet off the ground in a tree stand, or nest, mounted with what looked like a heavy-caliber machine gun. The man likewise seemed shocked, frozen into paralysis by the sudden appearance of the helicopter tearing apart the jungle in front of him. If he opened fire at all, it was after Greyhound Four passed his position.

  An instant later, the slick broke through the canopy and raced away, a mist of finely chopped leaves, vines, and branches drifting down in its wake. That was when Armstrong realized that he was seeing his instrument panel through a narrowing tunnel, and then he was seeing double and felt, for the first time, not quite right.

  “Take the controls,” he said to Fussell. “I can’t focus.”

  Tightening his grip, Fussell set his course east, back to South Vietnam. “What’s your heading?” Armstrong asked, rubbing his eyes to try to clear his vision. His hands came away covered in blood. Out the front of the Greyhound, the horizon looked different. Am I in shock? he wondered, peering at the pancake-flat jungle beneath him. He wasn’t picking up the landmarks he’d noted on the way in. No, not shock. Just confused. Something isn’t right.

  The radio finally came back to life and Fussell was able to broadcast their SITREP, situation report: “My AC [aircraft commander] and entire crew are wounded; hydraulics are out. I’m coming in.”

  Unbeknownst to Fussell, the magnetic compass had been damaged. They weren’t heading east; they were flying due west—deeper into Cambodia.

  Roy Benavidez, age seven, First Communion in Cuero (front row, fourth from left). Benavidez Family Archives

  Roy’s grandfather, Salvador Benavidez.

  OSS Deer Team members pose with Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap near Hanoi, Vietnam, August 1945. (Left to right, standing) Lieutenant René Défourneaux, Ho Chi Minh, Major Allison Thomas, Giap, Private First Class Henry Prunier and Private First Class Paul Hoagland. (Front row kneeling) Staff Sergeant Lawrence Vogt and Sergeant Aaron Squires. U.S. Army Photo

  Roy, age eleven, El Campo Elementary School. Benavidez Family Archives

  Roy, age fifteen as a migrant worker. Benavidez Family Archives

  Art Haddock (Mr. Haddock), Roy’s boss at the Firestone tire store, El Campo, Texas. Haddock Family Archives

  Private Benavidez, age nineteen, Fort Ord, California. Benavidez Family Archives

  Roy, military police school, Fort Gordon, Georgia, 1958. Benavidez Family Archives

  Uncle Nicholas and Aunt Alexandria, Roy’s adoptive parents, at Roy and Lala’s wedding. Benavidez Family Archives

  Roy and Lala were married on June 7, 1959. Benavidez Family Archives

  Roy, with his trousers “bloused” into his boots, a tradition allowed only to Airborne-qualified soldiers. Benavidez Family Archives

  Airborne qualified, Roy at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 1959. Benavidez Family Archives

  Roy descending into the Sicily Drop Zone at Fort Bragg during training (center). U.S. Army Photo

  The helicopter was to Vietnam what the jeep was to World War II. U.S. Army Photo

  First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Prince Sihanouk on her November 1967 visit to Cambodia. Don Kirk Photo

  Welcome to Project Sigma, Detachment B-56, at Ho Ngoc Tao. Nick Godano Photo

  Warrant Officer Larry McKibben next to his 162nd Assault Helicopter Company (Vultures) slick. McKibben Family Archives

  One of the 240th Assault Helicopter Company “Greyhound” slicks, whose motto was “Go Greyhound and leave the flying to us.” Yurman Family Archives

  Major James Reid, the man who organized Operation Vesuvius. Reid Family Archives

  Larry McKibben carrying the rotor blade that had been shot through. McKibben Family Archives

  Specialist 4 Brian O’Connor atop Nui Ba Ra (“White Virgin Mountain”). O’Connor Family Archives

  First Lieutenant Al Yurman flying the C&C Greyhound slick. Yurman Family Archives

  Specialist 4 Michael Craig, Greyhound Three crew chief. Craig Family Archives

  First Lieutenant Fred Jones, the launch officer for the May 2, 1968, mission. Jones Family Archives

  A Greyhound slick on a mission. Yurman Family Archives

  11

  DANIEL BOONE TACTICAL EMERGENCY

  AS GREYHOUND FOUR lifted off under fire, the B-56 team moved a few yards deeper into the jungle.

  The CIDG held security in a tight perimeter while Wright pulled his American teammates into a huddle to plan for an alternative extraction. Tuan crept over to inform them that the two CIDG guarding the north-northwest rear of the perimeter had heard heavy-vehicle movement—possibly tanks or armored vehicles—from the west and north, the direction of the main road and the smaller cart path.

  Known for his nerves-of-steel calm, a skeptical Wright suspected the CIDG were perhaps hearing things. He radioed for confirmation from Tornow. By the time the report from the air came back, the men could hear commands being shouted from NVA units to the west, south, and southeast moving in through the forest.

  Wright whispered to O’Connor, Mousseau, and Tuan that the CIDG had been right about the vehicles. “The b
ig shit is coming,” Wright said. “But we still have time before they get here…another extraction team is coming in with gunships.”

  If the extraction failed, they would have to try to outrun the enemy by heading east, the one direction from which they had heard nothing. Of course, the quiet alley through the jungle could be a beckoning ambush. This deep behind enemy lines, was evasion a solution or was it simply prolonging the inevitable? These NVA troops would employ tracking dogs and their superior numbers to locate the team. And if they were captured…“That wasn’t an option,” says O’Connor. “There was an understanding, we’d each fight to our last bullet.”

  The four men agreed that the only alternative was to make themselves highly visible to their helicopter extraction teams so there was no confusion as to their location. The team would also have to maintain at least some cover and concealment from the NVA—and secure the PZ, defending both their position and the slicks as they landed.

  The two thickets of trees located toward the center of the clearing offered a possible solution. They provided some protection, and the large anthill within one offered more. Their position could allow door gunners to send cover fire into the jungle on either side of the clearing as the helicopters landed in the twenty yards between the two thickets—as well as rocket fire or 40 mm grenades from the gunships, keeping the enemy’s head down long enough for the team to board.