by Eric Meyer
Wheeler and Westmoreland exchanged glances, it was what they had expected, but they had hoped for more.
“Secondly, I’m going to re-start bombing operations on the North, limited targets only.”
McNamara’s face fell. “Mr President, is that wise? Since when had bombing ever won a war? Surely we should be looking at negotiation for a solution, not bombing.”
“And get an agreement like we had before the Tet offensive, Robert? Wasn’t that a mutual ceasefire for the period of the holiday?”
“Bombing will not bring this war to an end, Sir. It never has and it never will,” McNamara said, shaking his head.
“That’s as maybe, but that’s the way I intend to go, I think it’s got a good chance of bringing them to the negotiating table.”
“I don’t agree,” McNamara said. “I think it’s the worst move we could make. It could ruin your re-election chances, Mr President, the American people could see it as just another way to prolong the war and vote against you just to put a stop to it.”
“I’m not planning to seek another term, Robert. I’ve had enough, I plan to retire from politics when this term is ended.”
They all looked horrified. All owed part, at least, of their positions of power to President Johnson.
“That would be a crying shame, Mr President, you’ve had a very successful presidency,” Wheeler said hurriedly.
Johnson gave him a scathing look. “Well, some may agree with you, Earle. I hope a lot of people appreciate the efforts I’ve made, but too many things have happened, the Vietnam War, the country in uproar, protestors, draft dodgers, shootings, riots. It’s time for a change, so I’m standing down at the end of my term.”
“And the bombing?” McNamara asked again.
“As I said, Robert. We resume the bombing and try to get the North to the negotiating table. Maybe this time it will work.”
He sat back and indicated that the meeting was over. They got up, all with mixed and different emotions.
Whether for or against the war, one thing was for sure. It wasn’t over yet, not by a mile.
CHAPTER 9
‘We discovered in that depressing, hellish place where death was our constant companion that we loved each other. We killed for each other, we died for each other and we wept for each other. And in time we came to love each other as brothers. In battle our world shrank to the man on our left and the man on our right and the enemy all around. We held each other's lives in our hands and we learned to share our fears, our hopes, our dreams as readily as we shared what little else good came our way.’
General Hal Moore
Ritter took the right hand seat, fuming slightly that he had to fly as co-pilot. He considered himself the leading authority on all things to do with aircraft and felt that the only place for him in an aircraft was the pilot’s seat. Paul sat on the jump seat at the back of the cockpit, smiling at his discomfort. But I guessed most of it was for show, he was a good man to have around, if a little arrogant, but I understood that most of us Germans were considered that way. So perhaps it was forgivable in Ritter’s case if he was a little bit more so around aircraft. We’d managed to retrieve our old tail number, SS1, although technically it was SGN-SS1. The SS1 was some local’s nod to my origins during the Second World War when I’d fought in the SS, rising to the rank of Sturmbannfuhrer. I heard the tower give us clearance, Ritter throttled up and released the brakes and we hurtled down the runway, just behind a Phantom F-4 that took off ahead of us. We could smell the kerosene as he hit his afterburners for a military take-off, shooting almost vertically into the sky and disappearing into the cloudbase. Our take off was more leisurely, the wheels came up and we started gaining height. The aircraft flew like a dream, we circled Saigon twice and then I handed over to Ritter to land her. We were back in business. When we landed and taxied to the hangar, Helene was waiting holding Sophie’s hand.
“Jurgen, we’ve found a bungalow, midway between Tan Son Nhat and the city centre, it’s perfect. I want you to come and take a look.”
I nodded to her. Ritter and Paul were climbing out of the DC-4.
“I want to go and look at a place that Helene has found, would you go and put us on the board at MACV as available for operations, we could do with some contracts to get us moving again. I’ll see you later.”
I joined Helene and Sophie and climbed into our Land Cruiser. We drove into the city and threaded our way past the checkpoints and over the occasional piles of rubble that still littered the ground. We arrived at the point she directed us to and got out of the vehicle. The bungalow stood in its own grounds of about half an acre, very spacious. It was surrounded by a high wall and the entry was through a solid looking iron gate, my first impression was that it would be easily defended. On the roof was a kind of lookout tower with a widow’s walk in front of it. That would be ideal for a sentry or for an observation point if trouble flared in the city. Not if, but when it occurred!
“I like it, I think we could be very happy here,” I said to her.
“But you haven’t seen inside. It’s because it’s a bit like a fortress, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “That’s true, but bear in mind if you don’t survive to live in it, you’re not going to enjoy it.”
“That’s a sobering thought, Jurgen. Let’s hope that the communists will give up now that they’ve been beaten so resoundingly.”
“They’re still fighting in Cholon, not too far from here. Hue is still besieged and Khe Sanh is under daily attack. I’m afraid it’s not all over.”
She was about to reply when I looked across the road, the barrel of a machine gun was pointed towards us.
“Get inside the gate and wait, I need to check something out,” I said to her quietly. I went across the road carefully, drew my Colt automatic and peered around the corner at the machine gun position. But I needn’t have worried, the gunner was dead, a victim of the Battle for Saigon. I heard a noise and whirled around but it was only Helene, who had brought Sophie with her.
“For God’s sake, keep Sophie away from this,” I said to her angrily.
She blanched, but not at my words. She’d caught sight of the dead body and the face that we both recognised. It was Lan. Fortunately, she had Sophie’s face buried against her shoulder.
“I thought Lan was going back to the North.”
“So did I,” I said grimly. I looked down at her body, then I spotted the manacles on her ankles, the other end was fastened to the steel support of the machine gun. Helene saw it too.
“My God, Jurgen, she’s chained to the gun.”
“Yes, they obviously forced her to do it, the chains were to make sure she didn’t try and run.”
There had been several reports recently where American and ARVN soldiers found PAVN Viet Cong and People’s Army of North Vietnam soldiers chained to fifty calibre machine guns, to ensure that they weren’t tempted to run away from the battle. It was also used for punishment details, the unfortunate soldier would be given the opportunity to redeem themselves by fighting bravely during a battle, albeit without any choice in the matter.
We walked back to the bungalow and entered through the gate, there was no back gate I was pleased to note. I wondered about a pair of dogs to patrol the grounds, they would give warning if anyone tried to infiltrate, whether robbers or Viet Cong guerrillas. The bungalow itself was light and spacious, there were four bedrooms on the ground floor and a huge bedroom on the first floor under the eaves that looked out onto the widow’s walk. I went and looked out, if necessary an escape would be possible if we had a rope ladder stowed somewhere handy. A hidden ladder would help us to get out of the grounds over the wall. It was dismal having to think in such terms, but my family had suffered enough. We couldn’t stop the war, but we could do our best to prevent it from destroying us utterly, as it had with so many families in Vietnam.
“We’ll take it, if you’re happy,” I said. “I’ll contact the military to get that body and machine gun mo
ved out later today.”
It was already ‘that body’. Not Lan, the pretty Vietnamese who had run our business operation so well. It was just another bloody casualty of the war. Another dead body amongst so many thousands. And we were alive.
I dropped Helene and Sophie at the real estate agency to tie up the details and arrange for staff. We’d need a cook and a cleaner as well as a gardener to do the place justice, it was so large. They were to go back to the hotel until it was ready to move into, I drove back through the wearisome checkpoints to the airfield. Ritter was hopping up and down with excitement, as he so often was. A pair of trucks were unloading dozens of cartons into the doorway of the DC-4, where Paul was supervising them being stowed.
“Jurgen, thank Christ you’re back. We’re got a job, a cargo to leave as soon as possible.”
“That’s great news, my friend. Where to?”
“Hue. It’s an easy one, in and out.”
“But Hue is still under siege, there’s a lot of shooting still going on.”
The Battle of Hue had been one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War. As far as I knew, the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry had mounted a counterattack to retake the city, but the fighting was vicious and bloody. The Citadel, the old centre of the city, was reported as still being in communist hands.
“Ritter, isn’t that a bit of a hot one for our first job after losing two aircraft? We still haven’t taken delivery of the leased DC-4, if anything happens to this one we’re out of business again.”
His face took on a sober expression. “I know, Jurgen. I was trying to put a brave face on it. MACV called us to HQ while you were away, the cargo is food, they’re desperate up there, people are starving. They made it quite clear that this contract was not going to be an option for us. I’m sorry.”
They never changed, the military. They used what they wanted, people, soldiers, materials, chewed you up and when they were finished spit you out. But living in Vietnam and running an airline was never going to be easy.
“You’re taking her up there?” I asked him.
“Yes, I’ve already filed the flight plan. Jurgen, it needs all three of us for this job.”
“Can’t Paul go as co-pilot, you don’t need me?”
“Not as a pilot, no. But we need every gun we’ve got, my friend, who knows what we’re going to find up there, or even on the way. You and Paul are the craziest soldiers I’ve ever seen in action, just one sight of you and the enemy turns and runs.”
I smiled. If only it were true. But he was right, we needed to pack as much firepower as we could take.
I managed to get through to Helene at the hotel and told her we were leaving to take a cargo to Hue.
“Jurgen, isn’t Hue a dangerous place at the moment?”
“As is all of Vietnam, my darling. Just take care of Sophie and yourself, I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow.”
I put the phone down and went to get my weapon, the M2 assault rifle. I already had my Colt Automatic in a holster on my belt. I checked the M2, put ten loaded clips into a backpack and went out to stow them on the aircraft. I swung into the cockpit, past the piles of cartons that were loaded into the cabin area and opened the steel cabinet where we kept our weapons on board. Paul’s M2 was already there, with a bag of clips. The third weapon was there too, but Ritter had left his trust M2 and brought along a Thompson M1A1. I’d no idea where he got it from, but it was heavy firepower, a .45 calibre bullet and he had it loaded with the longer, thirty round clip. There was a bag of spare clips hanging on the hook next to it. Well, if we did need heavy firepower, the Thompson would certainly give us something of an edge.
Finally the cargo was aboard. We closed the door and started the engines, then waited for clearance from the tower. I looked out of the window, a squadron of F-105 Thunderchiefs were on the tarmac, waiting to go. There was a huge barrage of noise as they throttled up for takeoff, at maximum power they seemed to leap forward and almost jump off the runway, then banked steeply for form up in a V shaped group for their flight North.
The Republic F-105 Thunderchief was a supersonic fighter-bomber used by the United States Air Force increasingly for Wild Weasel missions, suppressing enemy flak and missile sites just prior to bombing raids. The Mach 2 capable F-105 was also used extensively in the bombing of North Vietnam. These were the two-seat F-105F, so they would be bound for a Wild Weasel mission. Armed with sensors and electronic jamming equipment, together with AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missiles and conventional bombs, the F-105s were a formidable fighter bomber, wherever they were used to prepare a path for the bombers. The last of them disappeared into the sky and we got the order to proceed.
Ritter took pleasure in executing a flawless take-off as usual. Paul had the right hand seat this time and I took on the duties of navigator. In fact, this meant there was little to be done, the air route to Hue was one we’d travelled many times before. Any problems we hit were likely to be during or after the landing, depending on the strength of the enemy forces. We flew high, almost at our ceiling of twenty two thousand feet. Small arms ground fire was an increasing problem and not one we cared to encounter. Twice, fingers of machine gun fire reached up towards us, but we were well out of their range. Anti aircraft artillery was another problem that was increasing as the guerrillas got more and more support and ordnance down the Ho Chi Minh trail, the network of paths that ran along the border between Vietnam and its adjoining neighbours.
The Ho Chi Minh trail was a logistical system that ran from North Vietnam to the South through the neighbouring kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. The system provided massive support for the enemy incursion in the form of manpower and materiel. The end result for us was the possibility of any and every weapon available to the communists eventually showing up here in the South. There were also rumours that the communists were getting access to man portable missile systems, which would be next to impossible for us to counter. The only way to deal with that was to put it out of our minds, if such a sophisticated weapon was ever launched against us we were in serious trouble. A lumbering civilian transport would find it difficult to evade a fast, agile ground launched missile.
When we reached Hue we were ordered to maintain a holding circle in the sky above the airfield. The reason soon became obvious. Pillars of smoke littered the city and the airfield itself had obviously just been the site of a major attack. The tarmac was littered with debris and a bulldozer was shunting wreckage to one side while teams of men were clearly visible with shovels, filling in the unmistakable holes caused by exploding mortar shells. I was leaning against Ritter’s seat to look out of the window.
“Ritter, what was that you said, ‘an easy one, in and out’?”
He shrugged. “I could have been mistaken, Jurgen. But at least it’s all over, we weren’t here when the battle was going on.”
“If the battle was still on I think I would have parachuted you in with that fancy new Thompson sub-machine gun to sort them out.”
“So you like my new toy, Jurgen?”
“Provided it does the job, I don’t care which gun you use. I understand they’re very solid and reliable, so it should be ideal if we run into any trouble.”
By the appearance of the airfield, it could become useful sooner rather than later. Although the attack had clearly ended, the Citadel was still alive with explosions, jets of smoke and flame spurting into the air marking their location. Clearly the enemy were not too far away, I prayed that we might get ourselves and our newly repaired aircraft out of here without any damage. It took another twenty minutes while we circled lazily. Then the tower radioed our clearance and Ritter banked the aircraft into the approach, dropped the wheels and settled the DC-4 onto the tarmac for a landing. It should have been a text book landing, but the strip was still pockmarked and rutted with small amounts of debris and we bumped and lurched along until we slowed almost to a stop. The marshaller was guiding us to our unloading point with his bat-shaped wands and we edged towards it, and t
hen came to a stop. I ran back and opened the cabin doors and dropped the ladder. A gang of Vietnamese were waiting to unload the cartons onto a nearby lorry, two climbed up and started throwing the boxes out to their men. Ritter and Paul came out to watch and the pile of cartons gradually shrank in the cabin as they were offloaded. They had taken off about three-quarters of the load when the first salvo of machine gun bullets whistled overhead. The workmen scattered for cover, the three of us went into the cockpit and took out our weapons.
“I’ll get the engines started,” Paul shouted. “We might need to get off in a hurry.”
Back in the cabin, the unloading process had ground to a halt. We looked at each other, there was nothing else for it. Ritter jumped down to the ground, his gun slung over his back and waited while I threw the cartons down to him one by one. The airport was peppered with gunfire from assault rifles and machine guns. The occasional grenade exploded, but thankfully they were not using mortars.
The work proceeded slowly, it was hot and heavy in the humidity of Hue. Paul had the engines ticking over, we had to be ready to take off at a moment’s notice. If the Viet Cong attacked, the only place for us was in the air. He came back and helped us unload, leaving the cockpit unattended. It speeded up the process and we soon had the last carton unloaded and the cabin empty. The supervisor was still cowering in the cover of one of the trucks so I went over to speak to him.
“We’ve finished the unloading, I want you to sign the paperwork.”
He looked at it dismissively. “I cannot sign that, the load has not been checked.” While he spoke his eyes were darting around the airfield, watching carefully for any increase in enemy activity.
“Very well, you’d better come and check it over. Come on over.”
I started dragging him towards the stack of cartons, as we reached it a heavy machine gun opened up nearby, it wasn’t aimed at us and there was no immediate threat, but the Vietnamese threw himself flat to the concrete.