Low Level Hell

by Hugh Mills

  This book is dedicated to the memory of the officers, noncommissioned officers, and troopers who died on the field of battle with Darkhorse in 1969. May they rest in peace.

  WOl James K. Ameigh, aeroscout pilot, 24 June.

  PFC William J. Brown, aerorifleman, 17 November.

  SGT Allen H. Caldwell, aerorifleman, 17 November.

  SP5 James L. Downing, aeroscout gunner, 6 November.

  SP4 August F. Hamilton, aerorifleman, 28 July.

  SP4 Eric T. Harshberger, aerolift crew chief, 1 November.

  PFC Michael H. Lawhon, aerorifleman, 11 August.

  SSG James R. Potter, aeroscout gunner, 11 September

  1LT Bruce S. Gibson, aeroscout pilot, 11 September

  SP4 James A. Slater, aeroscout gunner, 24 June.

  WOl Henry J. Vad, aeroscout pilot, 6 November.

  SGT James R. Woods, aerorifleman, 11 August.

  CONTENTS

  Foreword

  Chapter 1 Thunder Road

  Chapter 2 Silver Wings

  Chapter 3 Scouts

  Chapter 4 Darkhorse One Seven

  Chapter 5 Impact Award

  Chapter 6 FSB Gela

  Chapter 7 Where Is One Five?

  Chapter 8 Mad Charlie

  Chapter 9 The Crater

  Chapter 10 Cobra Down

  Chapter 11 Engine Out!

  Chapter 12 Hotdoggin' It

  Chapter 13 Bad Day for the ARPs

  Chapter 14 The Razorbacks

  Chapter 15 But Rod Was Rod

  Chapter 16 Tit for Tat

  Chapter 17 Courage

  Chapter 18 I Think We Won

  Chapter 19 Final Salute

  Postscript

  Glossary

  FOREWORD

  Ever since man began to create military forces, the role of the military scout has been an extremely dangerous one. Working out in front of friendly forces, he has been exposed continually to the enemy—the first to make contact, and usually outgunned and outnumbered.

  During the settlement of our country the scouts along the frontier laid their lives on the line daily. They played a major role in our development and are some of the true heroes of the times.

  With the advent of the balloon in the middle of the last century, aerial reconnaissance was born. Scouts in the Civil War observed enemy activities from these lofty perches. Then came the manned airplane, and the drone airplane followed.

  When the helicopter was introduced to the military inventory in the mid-twentieth century, the aeroscout technique was developed. It came into its own in the Vietnam War. Without taking anything away from the exploits of those brave men who gained fame in the early stages of our country's development, men such as Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, and Jim Bowie, the aeroscout achieved an effectiveness far superior to that of his forebears. Also, his exposure to the enemy was increased manyfold. Long hours of daily exposure to heavy ground fire, in often-marginal weather and over treacherous terrain, served to test the mettle of these brave young men.

  This book is an account of one man's experiences in the Vietnam War as an aeroscout pilot. Hugh Mills is eminently qualified to write such a story. He served two tours in Vietnam as an aeroscout pilot and was instrumental in developing many of the tactics and techniques employed by the aeroscouts, as well as improving upon some of the original concepts. During that time he was shot down sixteen times, wounded three times, and earned numerous decorations for valor, including three Silver Stars, four Distinguished Flying Crosses, and three Bronze Stars with V devices. He knows whereof he speaks.

  On my second tour in Vietnam it was my good fortune to be assigned as commander of the First Infantry Division, The Big Red One. Early on, the aeroscouts came to my attention. An extraordinary amount of enemy information being received at division headquarters came from this small unit. Naturally, I was somewhat skeptical. Compared with the volume and detail furnished by other intelligence-gathering agencies, it appeared that the aeroscouts might be overly imaginative. Accordingly, I set out to determine just who was doing what. I frequently over-flew aeroscout operations and monitored their communications from my command-and-control helicopter. It was quickly evident that these hardy souls were reliable, expert, and, above all, very brave. They were furnishing the lion's share of intelligence information because they had the knowledge, the will, and the guts to go out and get it.

  During the monsoon season they flew at times when even the native ducks were grounded. When they suspected enemy presence but could not observe any signs, they deliberately and routinely exposed themselves to hostile fire by dropping through “holes” in the jungle canopy to hover at ground level and look under the trees. They invited someone to shoot at them. Anyone who has heard the snap of bullets flying by his head, or has experienced the shattering sound of enemy fire slamming into the fuselage of an aircraft, can appreciate the kind of courage it takes to invite such action.

  The point to be made here is that although this book may appear to be a novel with historical background, it is not. Neither is it a self-serving attempt on the part of Hugh Mills to appear as a hero. It is a factual account of a group of extraordinarily valiant young men who fought as aeroscouts in the Vietnam War. All who read it should be extremely grateful to them.

  A. E. Milloy

  Major General, U.S. Army, Retired

  CHAPTER 1

  THUNDER ROAD

  South Vietnam, July 1969

  “Phu Loi tower, this is Darkhorse One Six. I've got a hunter-killer team on the cav pad. North departure to Lai Khe.”

  “Roger, Darkhorse One Six flight of two. You're cleared to hover.”

  Cobra pilot Dean Sinor (Three One) and I were heading up to Thunder Road to provide aerial cover to a heavy northbound supply convoy. A scout and gun team ran ahead of convoys coming out of Lai Khe to run a low-level inspection of the entire road up to An Loc. Even though dismounted engineer and infantry swept the highway for mines every morning at first light, this stretch of road had proved highly susceptible to ambush attack.

  With Sinor at altitude, I put my Loach down low and slow, to pick up anything out of place on or along the road. It was possible for the enemy to get in and plant a few mines between the time it was swept by the engineers and the arrival of the convoy. Early in the morning, once the highway had been swept by the engineers, civilian traffic was always bustling along Thunder Road—motorcycles, mopeds, carts, Cushman-type vehicles, little buses, and small trucks. But never before the U.S. Army had cleared the road for mines. It was far too dangerous.

  Working about a mile ahead of the convoy, I headed straight down the highway, banked to the east, then back south to check the cleared area on the column's right flank. I cut west over the last vehicle and headed back north to check out the left side of the convoy, creating a boxlike search pattern.

  On my first run back along the east side of the road, I saw evidence of recent heavy foot traffic, enough to make me feel very uneasy. I didn't see any enemy, so I headed across the tail end of the convoy to make my run back north on the west flank.

  As I got about six hundred yards out ahead of the column, I picked up heavy foot trails again. There wasn't any good reason for people to have been out in the Rome-plowed area next to the highway, so I decided to follow one of the trails to see where it took me. It led to a drainage ditch that stretched for nearly a mile—right along the side of the highway! But, again, not a single person in sight.

  Circling over the area, I keyed the intercom to my crew chief. “Parker, do you see anything? Something's damned screwy about this. What do you make of it?”

  “Don't see anything but footprints, Lieutenant. Not a soul, sir!”

  About that time I made a sharp turn over a thick clump of tall gras
s on the west side of the road near the drainage ditch, about ten feet from the side of the highway. Not more than four to five feet below me, I glimpsed a slight movement and something dark lying on the ground.

  “Son of a bitch, Jim! Did you see that?” I hollered into the intercom.

  I hauled the Loach around to hover right above the spot. Then Parker and I saw the two dark brown eyes staring up at us from a hole dug into the ground under an area of pushed-up dirt created by the Rome plow months before.

  Without me saying a word, Jim Parker opened up. I winced at the explosion of the M-60 right behind my head. The enemy soldier jerked violently and slumped over in his hole.

  I got on the radio to Sinor. “Three One, One Six. We got a dink. The gunner shot a dink dug into the grass up under a Rome plow mound, not more than ten feet off the west side of the highway. I think they're all over the place—up close, not in the jungle! They've dug in spider holes right on top of the convoy!”

  The head of the convoy was just seconds away at this point, heading right into an ambush. Sinor immediately called the convoy commander on FM.

  The minute the convoy commander got the word that the enemy was close to him, I knew he would order all convoy weapons to open up on both sides of the highway, and woe be to the Loach pilot who was out there when all that ordnance started to go off.

  Three One knew it too. “Get the hell out of there, One Six,” he yelled. “Get up to altitude, NOW!”

  But which way can I go? I thought. No time to get any altitude. And I can't go parallel to the convoy, or I'll make myself a tailor-made flank shot for every gun—ours and theirs. So I pulled the hardest right turn I could, made a 180-degree arc, and headed back south again—right on top of the northbound convoy. I figured the safest place for a Loach at that moment was five feet off the tops of those trucks, where hot rounds would least likely be crisscrossing.

  I barely made it on top of the convoy when all hell broke loose. The enemy, now fully alerted by Parker's shooting of the soldier in the spider hole, sprung its ambush. They pushed aside the overhead camouflage and rose up out of their holes, guns blazing. At point-blank range, they opened up into the convoy with everything they had: AK-47s, RPGs, grenades, SGMs. The column simultaneously let go with their machine guns, 90mm cannon firing canister rounds, and every other weapon carried on the vehicles in the* convoy. It was like one giant, sustained explosion. Bullets flew everywhere. Deafening noise erupted. Smoke and flying debris engulfed the entire convoy. And there, in the midst of that sudden hell, were Parker and me flying at antenna level, straight down the back of the convoy, trying our best to stay out of the way of both enemy and friendly fire.

  As the convoy charged north, we flew south, blistering along at well over one hundred knots, Parker working with his M-60 from the right side of the aircraft. His tracers were impacting on the spider holes as we ripped past, his targets not more than ten to twenty yards from his muzzle. We were so low that if someone had reached up out of a truck or tank turret, they probably could have caught our skid.

  Suddenly, not more than a hundred yards to my front, a five-thousand-gallon tanker truck took a direct RPG hit, and the diesel fuel it was carrying exploded like a nuclear bomb. Sheets of flame, parts of the truck, smoke, and dust shot up, momentarily blinding me. The little OH-6 lurched violently with the shock of the explosion, as though a giant unseen fist had landed a smashing blow to the nose of the aircraft.

  I jerked aft as hard as I could on the cyclic and yanked in a load of collective. The resulting g's nearly sent my buttocks through the armor plate in the bottom of my seat. I don't know how Parker was able to hang on.

  As the fast-reacting Loach wrenched up over the eruption, I said silently, “God bless this helicopter!” then yelled to Sinor over UHF: “Three One, One Six. I'm coming up to altitude. We're OK, but that was close! You're cleared in. I'm out of the way. Hit the tree line to the west of the convoy.”

  The battle between Charlie and the convoy continued with ferocity. Shortly after the tanker truck exploded, a five-ton rig near the middle of the convoy was hit. It was loaded with ammunition—enough to knock everything around it off the road. Then a tank went up, its turret flying into the air fifteen to twenty feet, turning a somersault, and crashing back down.

  The convoy's intent was to continue moving north as fast as it could, and it managed to do just that. If a vehicle was hit, the driver made every attempt to get it off the road under its own power. If it was hit too badly to move itself out of the way, the driver behind rammed it and pushed it off. The key was to break free of the killing zone and accelerate out of the ambush area, while pumping all possible fire into the ambushers to gain fire superiority.

  The enemy's RPGs did the most damage. Once a vehicle was disabled with rocket fire, the automatic weapons would open up. Charlie had prepared well; he was hitting hard from a position of advantage.

  When the enemy had lost the element of surprise and the defenders began to gain the firepower advantage, the enemy troops usually would attempt to break contact and fade into the jungle before an organized pursuit could be launched. With this in mind, I keyed Sinor as he pulled out of his rocket and minigun run along the western line. “Three One, let's cut off the avenue of retreat. Work up some artillery and give us two brackets of artillery fire on both sides of the road running north and south. We'll pin them against the highway with no back door.”

  Moments later artillery began to pound down, blocking any enemy effort to disengage at the highway and make an escape to the jungle. Adding to the enemy's problems, fast movers (USAF close air support) were called in to put down bombs and napalm all along the tree line on both sides of the highway. Then the APCs that had stayed behind the convoy were poised to sweep the Rome-plowed area and mop up the ambush survivors.

  Parker and I had to return to Lai Khe to rearm and refuel; while we were on the ground it soon became evident that everybody out there—the armor, artillery, close air support, the Cobra—had the situation in hand. Working in close support on the flanks, they had knocked out virtually all resistance. The enemy was badly decimated and the survivors were trying to make it back to their base camps.

  Several hours later the ambushed convoy made it to Quan Loi. We had six or eight vehicles destroyed and many more damaged in the brief, fierce battle.

  With the convoy gone and the shooting over, our local security forces situated near the site of the ambush were preparing to sweep through the area to check on enemy dead. They needed me back on station to scout out ahead of the ACAVs and provide cover. Once back at the contact area, I radioed Sinor, who was still orbiting over the ambush point, and told him that I was going down out of altitude to make a pass over the Rome-plowed corridor on the west side of Thunder Road. Then I would work my way over to the tree line to see if any enemy might have made it to the jungle.

  I made my first pass from south to north right down on the deck ten to fifteen yards out from the highway. After completing that pass, I keyed Sinor with a report. “OK, Thirty-one, this is One Six. I don't know how bad the convoy got hurt, but we really nailed their asses down here. I see forty to fifty bodies strewn around, many body parts, numerous blood trails and drag marks. Looks like the remnants of the enemy force moved off to the tree line on the west, dragging along as many of their KIA and wounded as possible. But they've left a lot of dead and a lot of equipment.”

  After several more passes up and down the Rome-plowed area, I moved over to the trees and began to look for trails of the enemy retreating into the jungle. I was about three hundred yards deep into the tree line, right at the area where our Thunder II base camp was located, when I heard what sounded like a quick, sharp explosion. Suddenly my aircraft became almost uncontrollable. The vibration was so extreme that I couldn't control the ship up or down. I knew I had been hit, undoubtedly in the rotor system.

  I fought to control the Loach, which seemed on the verge of shaking itself right out of the sky. I tried to acce
lerate and found that made the ship all the harder to control. So I decelerated and immediately began looking for a spot to put the bird down.

  There was a line of nipa palm trees just north of Thunder II and I could just see beyond it. With my eyes jerking from the violent vibrations of the aircraft, I could barely make out a fairly open rice paddy—the size of a small golf course—just over the nipa palm line.

  I yelled into UHF, “One Six is hit, we're hit. We're going down!” I pointed the nose toward the rice paddy and prepared to enter auto-rotation just as soon as we cleared the trees. The engine sounded so awful that I thought the whole damned thing was either going to explode or shake itself apart before I could get the ship over the tree line.

  Seeing our bird wallowing through the air, and having heard me screaming over the radio, the front-seater of Sinor's Cobra came up on VHF: “Twelve o'clock … twelve o'clock … the open field … the rice paddy. Go for it… go for it, One Six!” He had obviously spotted the same hole in the jungle.

  With only about forty feet of altitude, I had decided to autorotate in because I wasn't sure I still had a functioning engine. This was no time to have it seize up and bind the transmission. I wanted to be able to control the aircraft as I hit the water in the flooded rice paddy.

  Jim Parker hadn't said a word through all of this. I grabbed a quick glance over my right shoulder and saw him leaning half out of the aircraft, looking ahead as if he was trying to help me find a place to put down. I didn't have to tell him that we were in trouble, but, as superfluous as it was, I managed to key the intercom and say, “Hang on, Jimbo, we're going to hit hard!”

  Autorotation was working. I had rolled off the throttle, reduced the collective to the bottom pitch setting, and come aft with the cyclic. The result was a deceleration with the nose up and the forward motion and mass of the aircraft building up RPMs in the rotor system. This allowed me to better control the aircraft as it settled into the rice paddy. The skids sliced through the water and sank to the mud floor of the paddy, and the bottom of the fuselage smacked into the water like a ton of bricks. Spray and mud flew everywhere.