Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  “I don’t doubt you, Sir, but as I said, my feeling is that the mission could muddy the waters and even get Helene killed. I’ll be going in alone.”

  “In that case, I don’t need to keep you any longer. Thank you for listening to me.”

  I left the office, surprised that he’d given up so easily. Then I walked over to what was left of our hangar. As I skirted the airfield, I could see the destruction wreaked by the communist assaults. Teams were out clearing the wreckage and the flightline was alive with air force personnel checking, arming and refuelling the aircraft. Fighters and helicopters flew off constantly, obviously the priority was to search and destroy the insurgents before they struck again.

  In the distance, I could see a flock of helicopters circling the outlying suburbs of Saigon, hunting for targets. One of them suddenly swooped down and I shuddered as the gunners started to fire, sweeping the ground below with a storm of bullets. They were over Cholon, Sophie was there with Lan and Nhu. My first mission had to be to get her out. When I reached the hangar, Emile and Joe were busy grinding away at a huge piece of wing. They waved a greeting and carried on, Ritter and Paul were inside, they had cleared a space to use as a temporary office, the desk was supported on a pile of old flight manuals where the blast had ripped off the legs.

  Ritter jumped up and slapped me on the back, “Hey, nice to see they let you out, they must be short of space over in the MACV cells.”

  Paul waited quietly, he knew there would be more to it than a simple release, there always was, it was the way of the military. They always wanted their pound of flesh.

  “I’ll tell you about it later, I need to take the Land Cruiser into Cholon to bring Sophie out, Lan and Nhu as well.”

  “Sure, I’ll come with you, Jurgen.”

  “I’ll come too, you might need some support,” Ritter called out.

  “What about Air America, I thought you were going over there to find work, what was the deal?”

  “It was no deal, they wanted us to sign long term exclusive contracts so we told them to go to hell. We’d sooner starve with our own airline than commit ourselves to them for the next three years.”

  “But we haven’t got an airline, we don’t own any aircraft.”

  “We’ve got one,” Ritter said. I laughed, the Cessna 172. Some airline.

  “Besides, Emile and Joe are repairing the DC-4, who knows, they may come up with another miracle.”

  I smiled. “We’re not in Lourdes, Ritter. This is Vietnam, miracles don’t happen. Only nightmares.”

  He ignored me and gathered weapons out of the cupboard, an M2 automatic carbine and three Colt automatic pistols in holsters. We strapped them on, Ritter hefted the M2 with some spare magazines and we went outside and climbed into the Land Cruiser. We drove out of the airfield and started on the road to Saigon, everywhere there was activity, mainly military but large numbers of bewildered Vietnamese flocking around, almost certainly bombed out of their homes and looking for a safe haven. But where was safe?

  In Vietnam during Tet it was supposedly a time of peace, a time for families to gather together to celebrate. Instead, they were living in a state of terror from the communist offensive and of course the inevitable American and ARVN response. I turned off onto the road to Cholon and immediately got stopped by a roadblock. An ARVN captain came out to speak to us.

  “The road is closed until further notice, Cholon is under attack and until we can clear it, no-one is allowed in.”

  I explained that my young daughter was in there, but he shook his head. “I am sorry, but my orders are clear, no one goes in, I am authorised to shoot anyone who tries to go past this checkpoint.”

  We argued back and forth for five minutes, but he wouldn’t budge an inch, he had orders and wouldn’t vary them for any reason. I felt like running the roadblock and calling his bluff, but if they opened fire on us it wouldn’t do anyone any good. Paul added weight to that argument.

  “We’ll have to turn around, Jurgen, we’ve been looking around and they’ve got an M60 set up across the road inside that old building, I think they’ll use it if you give them half a chance.”

  I turned the vehicle around and headed back to Tan Son Nhat.

  “What next?” Ritter asked. I suspected he was all for going back in with all guns blazing, the archetypal fighter pilot, but in the middle of a huge military action where the troops were obviously very trigger happy, it would have been a fatal move.

  “Back to the hangar, I’ll try and contact Lan by telephone and find out her situation, maybe she get them out of there.”

  We returned to the hangar, but when I tried to call the number it was unobtainable. I got the operator and she informed me that all lines to Cholon were down again. We sat around for an hour, talking about the almost insurmountable problem. Besides, there was little to do at the airfield until Emile and Joe had finished rebuilding the DC-4. Suddenly, I had the answer.

  “If I can’t get Sophie out of Cholon, I’m going looking for Helene. I’m going to Cu Chi, where that ARVN officer said that she was probably being held If she’s there, I’ll find her.”

  Ritter was ablaze with enthusiasm. “When do we leave?”

  “I’m leaving right now, my friend. There’s nothing left for me to do here, so it’s time to go somewhere where I can be useful.”

  Cu Chi was about thirty miles away, we could be there in an hour. I had no idea where to start when reached the area but at least I could make some enquiries, traditionally the local headman would be a good place to start. I wasn’t blind to the difficulties, I wasn’t expecting him to sell out the Viet Cong, indeed, he was probably Viet Cong himself. But if I could open some sort of communication with him, it may lead to information about Helene. Maybe we could trade.

  “I’m coming with you,” Ritter said firmly. “It’s dangerous country in the Triangle, you’ll need me to watch your back.”

  “I’m in,” Paul added. “Let’s do it, we can at least see how the land lies and be back here by tonight.”

  “It’s appreciated, my friends, thank you. Let’s go.”

  We loaded up the Land Cruiser with supplies, food, water, fuel and most importantly, weapons. We took an M2 and a Colt automatic each, with plenty of spare ammunition. Ritter rummaged in a box and came up with half a dozen grenades, Russian military pattern. He saw me looking at them.

  “Liberated from the VC, my friend. Their owner had no further use for them.”

  We drove out of Tan Son Nhat and headed west towards Cu Chi. Within a mile we ran into yet another checkpoint, this time it was manned by U.S. troops.

  “Sorry, Sir,” a pimply looking corporal said to me through the open driver’s window. “Orders from General Westmoreland himself, no one is allowed along this road during the emergency, you’ll have to turn around.”

  “Corporal, this is ridiculous, I have to get to Cu Chi, now let me pass.”

  A lieutenant came across and joined us. “Sir, let me make this clear. The communists are using this as a major supply artery for their attacks on Saigon. Our gunships are patrolling and shooting everything that moves, so there’s no question of anyone being allowed to go up that road.”

  A helicopter gunship was a convincing argument. I nodded, “Understood, Lieutenant.”

  I turned the Toyota around and headed back to Tan Son Nhat. Our freedom of action was gone, the two places I needed to reach for my family, Cholon and Cu Chi were both out of bounds. I parked at the side of the hangar and Paul and I sat in the sun while Ritter went inside and found a long lost bottle of Jack Daniels. He passed it around while we swapped ideas about getting to Cu Chi. Then I told them about Westmoreland and his assassination squad.

  “It could help,” Paul said thoughtfully. “If they took out the main man it would certainly discourage the others, it would be a major blow to them.”

  “Paul, for God’s sake, when has targeting the enemy generals ever achieved anything?”

  “What about Yamamo
to?” Ritter asked.

  Operation Vengeance was carried out to kill Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on April 18th 1943, during the Solomon Islands campaign in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. Yamamoto, Commander of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was killed on Bougainville Island when his transport bomber aircraft was shot down by U.S. Army fighter aircraft, operating from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. The mission of the U.S. aircraft was specifically to kill Yamamoto and was based on United States Navy intelligence on Yamamoto's travel plans in the Solomon Islands area. The death of Yamamoto reportedly damaged the morale of Japanese naval personnel and was described by Samuel Eliot Morison as being considered the equivalent of a major defeat in battle.

  “So you think that killing Phuc would achieve the same thing, crush their morale, and give the Americans and ARVN a boost? He’s not exactly Yamamoto, is he, no Giap?”

  “Jurgen, it may help and at worst it certainly couldn’t do any harm. If that’s the price for getting the American military on our side to locate Helene, it could be worthwhile. It’s a win-win.”

  “Not for the ones that get killed in the attempt,” I said wryly.

  “Nor for Phuc,” Ritter added.

  Maybe it was the stress, but Paul, who never, ever made a joke about anything, said, “Fuck Phuc.”

  We were both taken aback for a moment, maybe it was the whiskey. Then we all burst out laughing, soon we were literally rolling around the grass, saying ‘Fuck Phuc.’ That’s where we were when Captain Edwards, Westmoreland’s aide, arrived in a jeep. He looked on astonished. “It’s a private joke, Captain,” I explained.

  “Right. I came from the General, he wants to know if you have had a change of heart.”

  They knew of course that the roadblocks would drive me right into their waiting arms.

  “Tell the General he’s won, I’ll do it.”

  “All three of us, Jurgen, if you’re going hunting for Helene we’re with you,” Paul said.

  Ritter nodded. “That’s right, you go nowhere without us.”

  “There you go, Captain, you’ve got no less than three veterans of the Indochina war to guide your team in.”

  “Er, I think the General just wants you, Sir.”

  “And I don’t want any part of it, but we all have to make compromises, don’t we?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I’ll tell the General.”

  He climbed back into the jeep and drove off.

  We got a message during the afternoon that we were to present ourselves at a building near to MACV at 0800 hours the following morning, when we would be briefed. The soldier drove away and that was when the rockets hit. Multiple strikes smashed into the airfield and hit some of the buildings near the control tower. Two aircraft were hit and the whole place erupted into chaos as alarms sounded and troops, who thought the worst was over, grabbed weapons and helmets and dashed out to deal with the attack. The VC had a heavy machine gun set up outside the perimeter wire and bullets slashed across the runway, causing personnel to run and duck for cover. There was little we could do, we sheltered in the trench with Emile and Joe to wait it out, praying that this time they would avoid hitting our area. They were making good progress on rebuilding the one DC-4, but any further devastation would finish us for good. They did avoid us, although the headquarters area and the terminal were suffering badly. Then their infantry attacked, another of the mass, frontal attacks that they had begun to employ during the Tet series of offensives. There must have been two hundred of them pouring across the airfield about half a mile from us. Once again the ARVN and U.S. infantry and marines poured out to meet them, some running to take up defensive positions between the advancing enemy and the precious aircraft that once again were scrambling to take off.

  This time the communists were completely out of luck. There was a flight of troop carrying Hueys inbound, protected by two of the new Cobra gunships. The Hueys banked away to find a safe landing area and the gunships began to seek out their targets. All that was left for the troops on the ground was to stand and watch as the Cobras went to work.

  The miniguns were 7.62 mm, multi-barrel heavy machine guns with a high rate of fire, around four thousand rounds per minute using Gatling-style rotating barrels with an external power source. In effect they were a modern development of the nineteenth century Gatling gun that had proved to be so devastating, but these were not hand cranked. Fed by massively long belts of ammunition, they could keep up their deadly rate of fire until the ammunition ran out. While the helicopters hovered, they poured fire on the Viet Cong below. Some guerillas tried to fire back, but the Cobras stayed high and difficult to hit whilst the miniguns devastated the enemy below. It lasted less than three minutes, by which time the entire attacking force had been wiped out. All that was left was for the defenders to check the corpses to see if any had survived the literal storm of bullets. I doubted there would be many alive to tell the tale. Paul and I went over to the MACV compound to see if any of the people we knew had been hit. We were directed to the infirmary, where Captain Edwards was being heavily bandaged, he’d suffered when a rocket hit a wall behind which he was sheltering, bringing down the brickwork on top of him.

  “That’s bad luck, Captain,” I said. “Next time, try to find a stronger wall.”

  He was at least able to grin. “I hear you, Hoffman.”

  I was about to reply when there was a shouted, ‘Tenshun’, and Westmoreland himself came in to look in on the casualties. He saw me and Paul.

  “You guys, are you busy?”

  We shook our heads. He led us to a quiet corner. “Good, listen. The mission is on hold for a few days. In the meantime I need you to fly an aircraft out to Khe Sanh for me, they’ve been hit pretty hard up there and we’re still short on pilots. You up to it?”

  He obviously considered he had me bought, body and soul. “Yes, General,” I replied. Paul nodded.

  “Good. Don’t get hurt before that other thing, but we need you on this one for now. Major,” he said to an anxious officer trailing him, “take these guys out to the flightline and get them checked out on that waiting Provider.”

  So we were press ganged back into service with the U.S. military. As we walked after the Major, I tried to recall what I knew about that particular aircraft, I had certainly never flown one.

  The first prototype 123 made its flight on October 14th 1949, powered by two 2,200 horsepower piston engines. The aircraft was reported to be very manoeuvrable at low speeds, which made the powered version an excellent tactical transport. It featured high-mounted wings and tail surfaces on a pod-type fuselage which made for easy rear-end, unobstructed on and off loading. Because of its powerful engines, it showed superior ability to operate in short field landings and take offs. It could carry sixty-one fully equipped troops for assault or evacuate fifty patients on litters plus six attendants. The full-section rear ramp door made this an ideal aircraft for support of airborne operations from the 1950s into the current Vietnam theatre of operations. The C-123s were often used as transports for paratroopers. In Vietnam it had become an all purpose tactical aircraft often working with Special Forces. The C-123 was the primary aircraft used in the spraying of the jungle with a defoliating agent to clear vegetation to help stop enemy troop movements. Some had two small jet engines added to their outer wings to give them improved takeoff performance from short runways. In 1966, some models, including this aircraft, were fitted with auxiliary powerplants in a pylon-mounted 2,850 lbs. thrust GE J-85 turbojet outboard of each engine. These were for emergency use. Some were converted to become the C-123K which had underwing auxiliary jets, a few others the C-123H equipped with wing tip jets.

  Khe Sanh was in trouble, deep trouble. Like Dien Bien Phu before, the communists had brought heavy weapons to bear on the all important supply airfield. Under attack since before the Tet offensive had started, Khe Sanh relied upon the airfield for its vital supplies lifeline. Cut off from that lifeline, Khe Sanh would fall. The only way t
o keep it alive was by sending in constant supply aircraft and the C123 Provider was proving to be the most suitable. The runway at Khe Sanh was pitted with holes from mortar shells that had smashed its surface during the attacks. In addition, the enemy gunners, North Vietnamese regulars, had dug in anti aircraft machine guns to pepper the outgoing cargo aircraft whenever they could. Hence the C123s, that could use their auxiliary rockets to get off the runway in an incredibly short distance, avoiding the enemy ground fire.

  The Major led us out to where the aircraft was parked. Two ground crew were working at the fuselage, riveting over a hole that appeared to have been created during the recent attack. I saw the blood spattered around it and on the concrete. The Major saw my look.

  “Yeah, the pilot and co-pilot were checking around the aircraft when the rocket hit, blasted a hole in the side but no other damage.”

  “What about the aircrew?”

  He shook his head. Poor devils, I thought, psyched up and prepared for the gauntlet of Khe Sanh and mown down before they even got off the ground. Then a civilian came out of the doorway, followed by two soldiers. Abe Woltz and two men I recognised behind him, Joe Russo and Jack Bond, both Special Forces Master Sergeants. Paul and I had shared a mission with these three men five years before, they were tough and efficient, men to rely on in a jam.

  “You’re flying with us to Khe Sanh?” I asked them, surprised.

  “Yeah, we’re waiting for the go on the next mission, so the General suggested we ride shotgun with you on this one,” Bond laughed.

  They hadn’t really changed five years after the mission that took us in and out of North Vietnam. Maybe one or two more lines on their faces, perhaps the eyes a little more distant as they looked back on a procession of battles and the bloody casualties that always resulted.

  “That’s good news, get on board, we’re going straight out.”

  The Chief Engineer, the master sergeant responsible for the aircraft on the ground, came across for a word.