Surprised at Being Alive: An Accidental Helicopter Pilot in Vietnam and Beyond

by Robert F. Curtis

  “That looked like a rocket,” I remarked to my copilot. then I saw more flashes and as I looked away from the hillside and toward Vandergrift, I could see the result of the 122 MM Soviet Katyusha rockets as they impacted around the base, red flashes turning quickly into black smoke above their impact point. I quickly added power and put the Chinook into a climb as I turned away from Vandergrift. As I orbited at 6,000 feet to the east of Vandergrift, I could also see helicopters that had shut down for the night already turning up as quickly as they could, blades turning to a blur as the rotors reached speed. In less than two minutes from the first rocket impact, the first of the helicopters was lifting off to get clear of the incoming fire. Fortunately, the rockets were as inaccurate as the mortars because the NVA could not use the proper launchers, so all the helos got off without being hit. Over the squadron FM radio frequency came the call for all of us to return to Phu Bai. All those helicopters in the relatively small area of Vandergrift were just too tempting a target. We would leave Liftmaster Pad early the next morning to join the fight.

  The next morning after taking off before sunrise, eight Chinooks from Playtex flew into Khe Sanh per the revised plan. We all shut down for a mass mission brief by 101st Division Intel for the at least one hundred other aircrews that would support the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) troops as they crossed the border into Laos. There were so many aircraft involved in the mission that only the aircraft commanders went to the briefing. Copilots would stay with the aircraft and have them “cocked,” ready for immediate start, in the event of a scramble takeoff like the one at Vandergrift the night before.

  We knew our individual missions, but the general commanding the operation wanted us to know the situation on the ground. For once, we would have an overview of what the situation was. Intel briefed us that the NVA had this division here, this regiment here, and that division there. these were not VC guerillas; these were regular NVA troops, probably over 20,000 strong. they were equipped as Soviet divisions of the 1950’s had been, complete with tanks and artillery. They had light machine guns, heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft machine guns, anti-aircraft artillery in 37mm and 61mm. We could expect fierce contact. As the Intel officer spoke and pointed to the enemy positions on the large area map, I never saw so many pilots go so quiet before or since.

  When the briefing was over I returned to my Chinook. My crew of four gathered around, curious about what had been said. Rather than tell them immediately, I just said, “Eat your lunch right now.”

  “But, sir,” my flight engineer replied, “we’ve only got one bag lunch and no C-rats and it’s going to be a long day.”

  “Trust me,” I said, “Eat it right now.” My reasoning was that we would quite probably be shot down. If we survived, it might be a very long time before we could get back to friendly lines and get more food. Better to eat it now than lose it in the crash. As we ate, I spread out my map on the cabin deck and told them what Intel had told me. They were very quiet as I talked. The door gunner quickly finished his lunch and started re-checking the M-60D machine guns on each door.

  At launch time, all eight Chinooks were ready to go. One after the other we lifted off, moved over to the PZ, picked up our loads and flew into Laos in trail formation, one Chinook following the other at about two minute intervals. Nothing happened that day, nothing at all. It could have been a mission at Fort Rucker back in Alabama. the NVA just watched. They wanted to see what we were going to do. The second day they watched too.

  On the third day, the shit hit the fan. In the following six weeks of the operation, 107 helicopters were destroyed and another 600 were damaged. Some units had nearly all new pilots and aircraft at the end, but our resources were so deep in 1971 that even with those losses, there were still 600 helicopters engaged when Lam Son 719 ended.

  Now, three weeks after that first briefing, we were taking an ARVN artillery battery 21 miles into Laos, our furthest out firebase yet. By now Khe Sanh had so many helicopters, around 300–400 at any given moment, that we Chinooks had been told to land at another base closer to the border, Fire Support Base (FSB) Airborne, to keep real estate on Khe Sanh free.

  I was not supposed to be flying because the next day I was scheduled to go on two week’s leave back to the states. After my flight with the Air America pilot, I walked from the airbase out into town to the North West Orient Airline office and booked my flight from Da Nang to Saigon and then on to Nashville, Tennessee, for 5 march 1971. the war showed no signs of ending and we did not know if any big operations were coming up, so there was no objection to my going from anyone in my chain of command. Even with the chaos of Lam Son 719, no one objected to my going. The war was going to continue and I would be pulling more than my share when I got back anyway.

  On the evening of 3 March, the Ops O said to me, “Since you’re going to be off for three weeks how about you fly tomorrow and give someone else a rest?” I readily agreed and now was headed into Laos again on 4 March.

  As had become the routine, we had taken off before daylight from Phu Bai to get to Khe Sanh in time to get the mission briefing. We did not have to refuel at Khe Sanh because we had taken on enough extra the night before to cover the flight time from Phu Bai, so we flew directly to FSB Airborne and shut down. The operations officer from the 159th Assault Support Helicopter Battalion (ASHB), our next higher headquarters, was already there waiting for us.

  The first mission of the day was simple: insert an artillery battery into the new firebase so that it could provide fire to cover the ARVNs operating further out as they tried to cut the Ho Chi minh trail. The brief was also simple—pick up the guns and ammo, fly to LZ and set them down where the ground guides direct. If you get shot down, try to land at this spot or this spot or this spot. If you see one of your brother aircraft go down, do not attempt to rescue them. The mission must be completed as planned. No one will come to get you until the mission is over, but it shouldn’t be too long. After that first mission, we would all be given individual tasks that did not require all eight aircraft at once.

  We would take all eight 105 howitzers in the ARVN artillery unit in one lift. Each load would be mounted on a double sling, with the lower load the ammunition and the upper the 105 howitzers. When we came over the load, the gun and its ammunition would be sitting side by side. We would hookup the sling, climb straight up until the upper load, the howitzer, was off the ground and then slide over until the gun was directly over the ammo. We would then lift higher until the second, lower load was off the ground. When we arrived at the LZ, we would sit the lower load, the ammo, down first and then slide to the side to set the gun down next to the ammo. The idea was that the crew would be able to bring the gun into action almost immediately. Sometimes the gun crew would get onboard the helicopter before we picked up the load and ride to the LZ with us. When they rode with us, we would put the ammo down, the gun down, and then land and let them out to commence firing. This time they did not need to ride because they were already there, having been flown in by Hueys earlier to prepare the gun positions before the howitzers arrived.

  I was to be Chalk 2 (Chalk is an Army term indicating your position in a formation flight. Chalk 2 is the next aircraft behind the lead) in the flight of eight Chinooks. We lifted off one by one at about two minute intervals. I could see lead picking up his load as I headed inbound, but just as I was about to start my approach, a flight of Hueys crossed in front of me and I had to turn away. The Chinook that was originally supposed to be Chalk 3 became Chalk 2 and moved in to take my load to keep the process moving smoothly. I became Chalk 3 and, in turn, picked up the gun and ammo that was supposed to be his load. Lead flew in a wide circle to the east of the border as he climbed to an initial 4,000 feet. We all fell in behind him in a very loose trail formation, climbing to match his altitude. When lead saw the last aircraft pick up its load, he turned toward Laos with the seven of us following.

  Laos did not look any different from Vietnam. Both were jungle, with
mountains on each side of QL9. Around Khe Sanh, both sides of the border were equally scared by bomb and artillery craters. Even so, it seemed as if the air inside the Chinook changed when we crossed the invisible line between the two countries. The gunners became visibly tenser, as they looked out over the barrels of their m60D machine guns. In every aircraft, the pilot not at the controls moved his hands closer to the cyclic and collective so that, should the other pilot be killed, he could take over instantly. Everyone onboard looked around more intently even though the odds of seeing the NVA were very small. The NVA were good at using camouflage and the forest hid them completely. They knew all too well that what can be seen can be killed, like a Chinook flying at 90 knots with a double sling load beneath it.

  But they would have to work to kill us while we were en route to the new firebase. As we headed toward Laos, we were steadily climbing to get above small arms range. We kept going until we were past light machine gun range too, but a helicopter cannot fly high enough to avoid anti-air-craft fire from m-1939 37mm and/or the S-60 60mm guns. Our only counter to these weapons was to tune our NDB (Non-Directional Beacon, a homing radio that allows the pilot to fly to a navigation beacon or a commercial Am radio station) to the lowest band and lowest frequency. If the NVA used the Soviet radar that came with these weapons, you would hear a “buzzzz, buzz” sound over the Automatic Direction Finder (ADF) radio. While this did not mean they were tracing you, it did mean that they were painting you on their scope. Upon hearing the sounds, we were to change altitude and airspeed immediately. We were told that the radars were very good in azimuth, but poor in determining range.

  That was the theory anyway …

  The NVA tried not to use the radar, though. They didn’t use it because we had jets in the air constantly over the battle area that could detect and lock onto the radar signal. As soon as they did, a homing beam-rider missile would be on its way to take the radar out. The NVA could counter that by moving the radar away from the gun, but that made it easier for our aircraft to see their position. So, instead of using radar, they aimed the guns by sight. Both the m-1939 and the S-60 fired a five-round clip and had a practical rate of fire of around 60 rounds per minute, any one round more than enough to take out a Chinook flying at 90 knots. Or any other helicopter, for that matter …

  Picture a WWII movie: the B-17s and B-24s are on a thousand-plane raid on some German target. As they approach the coast of France, they see the flak boxes start to appear in front of them, puffs of black smoke marking each shell burst. The Germans are not aiming at individual aircraft, instead they are shooting within a defined space that the bombers must fly through. The shells are set to explode at a given altitude and send their shrapnel out to shred the bomber’s aluminum skin and take it out of the sky. The aircrews see the flak, but fly on anyway because the mission must be done. If they are hit, they have multiple engines, and if they are too badly damaged, they have parachutes.

  Now picture Laos in 1971. Your helicopter is so slow: it is for all intents and purposes stopped in the sky, at least to the NVA gunner. There is no need for a flak box, they have all the time they need to aim at individual aircraft. Besides, their logistics system is no match for the one the German’s had. Every round of ammunition must be carried down the Ho Chi minh trail, under attack from our aircraft the entire time so they must not waste them. The NVA do not have the capability the German’s had to determine the altitude their targets are flying, so they guess when they set the shells, if they don’t have proximity fuses. When the gunners fire, the helicopter crews see the flak, just as their fathers and uncles did over France and Germany, but their helicopters are a frail collection of single-point failures, anyone of which can bring it down out of control or tear it apart in flight. The helicopter crews don’t have parachutes …

  We continued to climb until we reached 6,000 feet, about 4,000 feet above the valley floor where QL9 ran. An AK-47’s 7.62mm round could not hit us at this altitude, nor could a 12.7mm machine gun round. Well, 4,000 feet is past the tracer burnout range of a 12.7 but the bullet keeps coming for a while after that. Of course if they weren’t shooting from the valley floor, but from the hills on each side, we would be well within range. If they had a 14.7mm heavy machine gun, we would be within range wherever they were shooting from, likewise from the 37mm and 60mm.

  Lam Son 719 was a surreal time for helicopter aircrews. Back at Fort Wolters and Fort Rucker when we were learning to fly, we occasionally would see a massed flight of helicopters, but here the crewmen were constantly calling, “Flight of 12 Hueys at 3 o’clock crossing right to left,” “Flight of four Cobras 8 o’clock and passing on the left,” “Flight of six Hueys at 11 o’clock,” “Chinook with an external Huey at 2 o’clock.” there were more helicopters in the air than any of us had ever seen at one time, with more on the ground waiting for their next mission and still more in the fuel pits or waiting for fuel. Today was no exception, with helicopters streaming to and from Laos, to and from the lowlands, headed out to mountaintops to drop off observers, bring food or ammo—helicopters everywhere.

  March 4, 1971, was not a calm day on the radios. On the guard (emergency) channel someone’s aircraft was being shot down and the pilot was screaming “mayday, mayday, mayday.” Also on guard, a flight of B-52’s was calling “Arc light, arc light, arc light,” followed by the lat/long where they were dropping their 500 pounders. Everyone had to know where the bombs were going to come down because the shock wave alone would take your helicopter out of the sky if you were too close. On regular radio channel, someone was talking to a flight of helicopters, giving directions and not getting a reply because they were on Playtex’s frequency, not their own. On the fox mike, the Pathfinders on the firebase with the ARVN artillery unit were calling out instructions to helicopters as they brought the loads in. At least my crew was quiet on the intercom.

  Just after we crossed the border, we could see the tracers coming up at the two aircraft in front of us, green and soft in the morning sky. They were coming from the valley floor, but we had no Cobras or Huey gunships with us to provide fire suppression, so all we could do was fly on at 90 knots with our howitzers and ammo swinging below us. My crew could see that the tracers were coming at us too, but in the cockpit we couldn’t see anything except the glowing, growing green dots coming up at the leading helicopters, a string of green beads coming up from the darker green forest. We said not a word—nothing to say.

  The ADF started “buzz, buzz, buzzzz.”

  The aircraft shuddered, a huge hole appeared in my windshield right in front of me, and I was hit by something in the face, on my neck, on my right upper arm and I slammed back into the seat.

  Then the ICS added to the noise of the radios.

  “SIR, SIR, Are you alright SIR, SIR,” my right door gunner screamed over the ICS. He had been looking up through the cockpit when the 12.7mm round came through. He saw the hole appear and saw me jerk backwards in my seat. He was sure that it hit me squarely in the face.

  I knew that something had hit me, but there was no pain, not yet anyway. I did an involuntary “full and free” check, like we did with the flight controls before starting the engines to make sure all my parts were still working—arms, hands, feet—all there, all still working. The aircraft was still under control too, cyclic, thrust, and rudders all functioning normally, but then there was hot red fluid hitting the top of my helmet and running down my back. Red fluid is hydraulic fluid. Without hydraulics, the flight boost systems, the flight controls lock and you sit helpless until the aircraft impacts the ground or comes apart in flight.

  After I wiped the broken Plexiglas off my helmet visor, I realized that if I had not had the visor down, the sharp fragments of glass and steel would have blinded me. Both my pilot and I were staring hard at the master caution panel, the big square panel of small lights on the dash, one light for every critical system, with caution lights that tell you a system is failing or is out of limits—but none were lit. Chinook
s have two flight boost systems. Though the pressure gauges that sat side by side are within normal limits, the red fluid was hitting me on the head and back. Then the master caution light, the big one on the top of the dash, came on along with the smaller capsule light marked “Hyd #1,” and the number 1 flight boost gauge dropped to zero, and the red fluid kept coming out on top of my helmet. Is boost #2 also hit and bleeding the last of its fluid too? How long until the flight controls lock?

  As I saw the gauge go to zero pressure, and squeezing with my right index finger on the trigger switch, I yelled into the ICS, “I’m going to pickle, I’m going to pickle” (slang for jettison the load), but I was squeezing the ICS switch so hard I was transmitting over the radio, adding to all the other voices on the radios. I was trying to tell my flight engineer to get away from the cargo hook so it would not swing up and hit him in the face when the load fell away, but he could not hear me. He saw the tracers coming through the hellhole and at the same time, saw a flak burst just below our aircraft, very near the load of ammo. When the aircraft rocked as I flinched from the bullet through the windshield, he knew we were being hit. He immediately jumped up from the stretcher he had been laying on to work the load and ran to the rear of the aircraft to check the aft transmission area for damage. As he jumped up, he inadvertently unplugged his helmet long cord and could no longer hear the ICS. But then it would not have mattered even if he had been plugged in, because I was transmitting, not talking over the ICS and he never listened to the radios.

  When the flight engineer did not reply immediately, I pushed the pickle button anyway. We could not get down quickly with the load under us. The hook opened and the howitzer and ammunition fell away from 4,000 feet above the ground. As the hook opened, I could feel the helicopter shudder and begin to climb rapidly as 8,000 pounds of weight on the aircraft was removed. To get on the ground as soon as possible, I pushed the thrust all the way down to enter autorotation and shoved the nose over so far that the trees below filled the windshield. If the controls locked, it wouldn’t matter if we were in a dive, it would just shorten the time we had to think about it before we died.