C-130E 64-0542 Haul On Call was delivered to the 314th TCW in February 1965 and served eight other units before being assigned to the 317th TAW at Pope AFB in 1978. It is now used by the Technical Training Centre, Sheppard AFB, Wichita Falls, Texas.
We left for Ubon RTAB, Thailand on a C-130 transport. All of the pilots were on board, lined up on portable seats that were attached to each side of the aircraft. They were made of aluminium tubes and red nylon straps, kind of like lawn furniture and were very uncomfortable. The backrests were vertical, making it impossible to recline. Every time the aircraft would turn, accelerate, or decelerate, we would all be pushed forward or against each other, the last man in the row bearing the brunt of the weight.
‘When we arrived, the C-130 pilot, who must have been a frustrated fighter pilot decided to pitch-out the Hercules and land like a fighter. He aligned the aircraft with the runway at fifteen hundred feet and when he reached the approach-end, made a fast 360 degree left turn, using about sixty degrees of bank, losing altitude during the turn. While still in a slight bank, the giant aircraft crunched down on one wheel and the pilot placed all four engines in reverse, stopping in about three thousand feet - less than the first half of the runway. He probably thought his manoeuvre would thrill the troops. It was a thrill all right. Most of us were thrown on the deck, completely out of our seatbelts and were probably lucky not to have been hurt. Welcome to Thailand. Our war had begun.
Memories Of Ubon Thailand: A Fighter Pilot’s Journal by Richard E. Hamilton
Two airlift operations were notable in 1968; the first, in April, was Operation ‘Delaware/Lam Son 216’, the air invasion of the A Shau Valley, one of the main North Việtnamese infiltration routes into the South. The A Shau Valley, west of Đà Nẵng /Huế and south of Khê Sanh was an old supply route and arms depot for the Việt Công and the North Việtnamese Army which the US had gone into and cleared out several times before. In early 1968 reports started coming in to indicate that new roads were being constructed in the A Shau Valley. Operation ‘Delaware’ started on 19 April to contest an enemy build-up in the A Shau Valley after preparatory B-52 and tactical bombings of PAVN anti-aircraft and troop positions. Troops of the 1st Cavalry Division were inserted into the north of A Shau Valley by helicopter, as the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division; the 3rd Regiment, 1st ARVN Division; and the 3rd ARVN Airborne Task Force provided the blocking force on the southeast fringe of the valley on both sides of Route 547 that lead to Huế. Poor weather and anti-aircraft fire made flying very dangerous. On the 25th the 1st Cavalry landed at the abandoned airstrip at A Lưới. For nine days, beginning on the 26 April, the C-130s flew 165 sorties, dropping 2,300 tons, most of it ammunition. Despite bad weather and Communist ground fire, the Hercules flew daily airdrops to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), the 101st Airborne Division and ARVN units at A Lưới. Ground radar was unavailable so the Hercules’ crews had to navigate up the cloud-filled valley using their radar and Doppler equipment, breaking out of the overcast just before visual release of their cargo.
C-130E 64-0542 Haul On Call was delivered to the 314th TCW in February 1965 and served eight other units before being assigned to the 317th TAW at Pope AFB in 1978. It is now used by the Technical Training Centre, Sheppard AFB, Wichita Falls, Texas.
Such was the urgency that the C-130s continued to fly during one period when the weather was so bad that it grounded even the helicopters. On 26 April C-130s from Cam Ranh Bay, Biên Hòa and Tân Sơn Nhứt dropped supplies to the troops on the A Lưới airstrip. The airdrops were made under a low overcast without the benefit of air strikes, which had been cancelled due to the low cloud. Seven C-130s were hit by ground fire during the first twenty airdrops but on the 21st mission as the C-130B 60-0298 in the 773rd TAS, 463rd TAW flown by Captain James J. McKinstry and Major John Lewis McDaniel from Tân Sơn Nhứt broke out through the cloud it was hit by .50 calibre and 37mm ground fire. The crew tried to jettison the load, which had caught fire in the cargo bay. The aircraft turned towards the airstrip to attempt a landing but it then hit some trees and crashed and exploded. All on board, including six crew and two USAF photographers were killed. No more airdrops were attempted at A Lưới on the 26th although they were resumed with more success the next day.
Captain John Dunn’s crew went to the officers’ club for dinner ‘and’ wrote Captain Bill Barry, who had deployed with members of the Wing to Tachikawa Air Base in February 1968, ‘that’s where we found out that the airdrop the next day was scheduled to be in the A Shau Valley. Supposedly, the VC in the valley were dug into spider holes on the approach to the runway/drop zone. The spider holes had hatched camouflaged covers so that they could not be seen from the air beforehand. The VC opened the holes up and emerged to fire at a plane as it came in for the drop at slow speed and low altitude.
A M551 Sheridan battle tank being landed using LAPES.
C-130B 61-0967 in the 774th TAS, which suffered an engine failure upon landing at Khê Sanh on Saturday 13th April 1968 and veered off the runway, striking cargo pallets and several vehicles before coming to rest. A fire then erupted.
‘We were up bright and early at 4:00 the next morning for the mission. In the briefing, we and seven other crews were told that we would be dropping CDS loads and heavy equipment in the morning and then return in the afternoon and drop again after C-123s had air landed other equipment. As a result of the damage done to the drop force the previous day, we would be escorted by fighters who were to provide ground attack capability to support us.
‘There would be a radar beacon on the drop zone to help us locate it and drop. The air force had an all-weather drop capability using such a beacon, in which the drop was made with a combination of a distance check mark at two miles as indicated on our airborne radar and a forward and cross-check countdown using the airborne Doppler. The other crews in the formation, which were all Pacific Air Force (PACAF) units, were told to use the allweather system if necessary to complete their drop. Because we were a TAC crew and not PACAF, we were told that we could only drop visually, even though we were also checked out in the all-weather procedures. We just hadn’t been checked out in them by PACAF.
‘As we were pre-flighting the aircraft and getting ready to take off, I paused to consider that I was now, after four years in this war, going to be involved in a combat airdrop in the face of hostile fire that in the past week had shot down one C-130 and damaged over ten. How in the hell did I get myself in this predicament?
‘Fortunately, there was not a long time within which one could contemplate such sentiments. We took off for the mission at 6:25 am and were the number two aircraft in a flight of eight. Each plane took off at fifteen minute increments from the one preceding it and flew north toward the drop zone. When we got close to the A Shau Valley, we made contact with the ALCE at Đà Nẵng. They told us that the valley was weathered in and that the radar beacon on the drop zone was not yet operational. All eight aircraft went into a holding pattern at 500-foot altitude intervals using a bearing and distance off the Đà Nẵng Tactical Air Navigation (TACAN) station.
‘After an hour in the holding pattern, Đà Nẵng informed us that weather in the valley was a broken undercast at drop altitude but that the beacon was now working and the formation was cleared for drops at five minute intervals. The first airplane called back that it was leaving its drop altitude and proceeding to air drop. Five minutes later, we did the same. As we descended toward the valley and the much lower drop altitude, I could see the escorting F-4 fighters far above us and off to the side. They had problems staying with us and providing any kind of covering fire due to our slow (130K) drop airspeed. It was the only view of them that any of us had for the rest of the day.
‘When we departed the orbit and began descending to airdrop altitude, we lost contact with Đà Nẵng; but we switched to another frequency and immediately got contact with the drop zone. My radar was in good condition and I shortly picked up the beacon, which we then used to establish our distance from the drop zone and heading into it. We had descended toward our 400-foot drop altitude above the terrain when the drop zone notified the first aircraft that its drop was half a mile beyond the DZ. Something was evidently wrong, as a CDS drop should be much closer to the desired point of impact than that.
The encirclement of Khê Sanh meant that there was no safe corridor for the transport aircraft to use for their approach. Any descent towards the airstrip attracted heavy fire from enemy weapons, ranging from infantry small arms up to 12.7mm heavy machine guns and larger calibre anti-aircraft cannon. In order to minimise the risks posed by these hazardous conditions, the transport crews perfected the manoeuvre that came to be known as the ‘Khê Sanh Approach’. [you prob won’t get the rest in] A standard landing approach towards a runway would consist of a constant, controlled descent at a shallow angle, but the surrounding hills and risk of enemy fire forced the crews to keep their large, comparatively unwieldy transports at a much higher level for longer in order to stay out of range of small-arms and present a smaller target to the larger-calibre weapons. Then, as the aircraft approached the end of the runway, the pilot would drop the nose and put the aircraft into a steep dive, levelling out only at the very last moment. From here, the pilot could either land or make a very low-level pass along the runway at an altitude of about five feet, dropping the supplies out of the open rear cargo doors along the way. The pilot would then pull up sharply at the far end of the runway and execute a steep climb out of the valley, helped by the fact that the plane was now much lighter, having deposited its load.
A near miss during Operation ‘Niagara’.
‘At 400 feet above ground level (agl), we were in and out of sparse, wispy clouds. It was now after 8:00 am; but due to the mountains surrounding the A Shau, dawn was just breaking. The clouds were thicker below drop altitude and we had only intermittent views of the ground as we approached the drop zone. At two minutes out from drop time, we were level and at drop altitude. We were also on centreline of the radar beacon and moving toward the two mile marker. The CDS load in the back had been unlocked for airdrop and the rear ramp and door were open. So far, we hadn’t seen any visual signs that might assist us in finding or identifying the DZ. We were in the clear at drop altitude, but below us there were still dense, scattered clouds. A dirt road appeared on the ground; but it was gone again, obscured by the clouds.
‘The marker beacon return appeared at the two mile distance on the radar. I turned the Doppler to the preset course and distance module for the airdrop and returned to looking out the window for the DZ. We were one minute from airdrop. I couldn’t see anything on the ground but broken clouds. No DZ. No panel marked impact point. Nothing.
‘The Doppler and the radar indicated that we had reached the desired drop position. I hacked my watch. We could still see nothing as the watch counted down in seconds. Just as the watch reached the point where I must call ‘Red Light’ to terminate the airdrop at the far end of the DZ, Ron Hardy called, ‘Do you see that smoke?’ I looked down and to the right of where he pointed. There was one wisp of coloured smoke among the broken wisps of cloud. ‘Green Light,’ I called. Out goes the load. The airplane, relieved of the several thousand pounds of cargo, surged upward as Daly began to gain altitude and turn to the escape heading.
Supplies dropped by C-130s drift towards men of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), 101st Airborne Division in the A Shau Valley in April 1968. For nine days beginning on 26 April the C-130s flew 165 sorties and dropped 2,300 tons, most of it ammunition. One Hercules was lost to NVA ground fire and four others received major battle damage. (US Army)
‘I went back to my desk to record the values I had used to estimate the drop and looked in the radar to see where we were, generally. Except for a small hole and a few returns in the centre of the scope, everything else was black. We were on a collision course with something.
‘I threw the radar range out from the five miles it had been set on for the drop to twenty. I turned the elevation of the radar up a degree or two. Normally, the elevation is set a degree or two below the nose of the aircraft. We were in a 100 degree turn from the drop heading, which was near 360 degrees north, to the planned escape heading of 260 degrees. When I reconfigured the radar, the first clear space that I saw on it was near 230 degrees. Everything else remained black, even though we were climbing as best we could. I immediately hit the interphone and said, ‘Joe, climb as quick as you can and turn to a heading of 210 degrees.’ It was evident from my voice tone that we were in deep kimshy, as the Koreans say.
‘Slowly, as if every second were an eternity, we climbed and turned. At last, after what seemed like a millennium, the clear space on the radar began to expand. Now I called for a heading of 200. The clear area was growing greater by the minute as we turned toward it. Relieved, I pulled my head out of the rubber cover that surrounded the radar scope and looked up into the cockpit. Weiss was sitting, turned 90 degrees in his engineer’s seat and looking at me with eyes as wide and white as giant sized dollars. Following his eyes, I looked out the cockpit window behind Ron Hardy’s seat. The cloud layer was now below us and straight ahead and on all sides just below was nothing but dense treetops and forest. The right wing looked as if it was 50 feet or so above the top of the jungle and the lateral distance to the jungle also appeared to be 50 feet. Individual leaves and branches of trees could be seen as we turned away from and above a mountainside. We had just missed becoming a permanent navigation aid on the mountain.
‘We flew back to Cam Ranh and landed at 10:35. They had questions about our drop and indicated that it landed long or far beyond, the drop zone. Joe and I testified to the weather conditions and what had happened from our point of view. Ron Hardy swore to everything that we said. Nothing was said as to what happened to the drops of the planes behind us. There had been no reports of aircraft damage or firing from the morning drops. Father Charley had moved out of his spider holes on the approach, or the morning weather had kept him from seeing us as much as it kept us from seeing the DZ.
‘We got new information (weight and chutes) about the load that we were going to drop in the afternoon. Again it was a CDS load, but the weather forecast for the second drop was different from that expected for the morning. We went back to the airplane and got ready for our next sortie. For the afternoon drop, we were again number two in a drop formation of eight C-130s. But ahead of us in use of the A Shau DZ and runway were ten C-123s which were to land and offload palletized cargo. Once the runway was cleared of the C-123s and their loads, we would be cleared to airdrop our CDS.
‘We left Cam Ranh at 25 minutes after noon and proceeded to the orbit point off Đà Nẵng. When we got there, we were directed by the Đà Nẵng ALCE to once again get into orbit with the remainder of the C-130 force and hold with 500-foot separation until cleared to begin dropping. The weather in the valley had deteriorated, even from the broken conditions which had existed in the morning. The C-123s had not been able to land at the scheduled times. When they did begin to land, the third aircraft landed and blew a tyre on the runway. That put a stop to all further landing attempts while a ground crew tried to locate and put a new tyre on the damaged aircraft.
‘We stayed in orbit for an hour. The damaged C-123 was still on the runway down in the valley. Whether they were having trouble getting the load off the aircraft and then changing the tyre or just changing the tyre, we had no idea. We could talk to the Đà Nẵng ALCE, but not to the army in the A Shau. The ALCE could relay anything we had to say to the army and vice-versa, but we could not all communicate with each other. The weather in orbit was broken. We were in and out of clouds 50 percent of the time. The other 50 percent, it was clear at our altitude and for a thousand or so feet below; but below that it was completely undercast.
‘Suddenly, as we turned one corner of the orbit, out of the clouds came an army Flying Crane (CH54) helicopter. He was exactly at our altitude and turned broadside to us. He was there five seconds and probably never saw us; then he disappeared into the clouds and was gone. Ron Hardy immediately contacted Đà Nẵng to tell them that our orbit had been penetrated by a giant helicopter. ‘Roger’ came the reply. ‘Be advised we have no contact with them.’ ‘Roger,’ Hardy shot back. ‘Hope we don’t either.’
A C-130 drops supplies to US Marines at Khê Sanh in April 1968. (USAF)
‘As our second hour in orbit arrived, several of the other C-130s began to call Đà Nẵng and we all could listen in on the conversations. Some of them had heavy equipment loads rather than CDS and thus had different weights and fuel loads than we did. One said that if we didn’t get drop clearance soon he would have to return to Cam Ranh or Đà Nẵng to refuel. The remainder of the C-123s vacated their orbit and returned home due to low fuel. Their part of the mission was over. The ALCE listened to all the comments and said little except that they would pass them on; they weren’t in charge of the airdrop, they were merely its message relay. Although some officer in the C-130s may have outranked anyone else in the formation, neither he nor anyone else was designated in command of the formation.
‘My radar was still working well and from our orbit I had a very good radar picture of the A Shau Valley below. The north and west of the valley were bounded by steep and relatively high karst mountains that rose steeply from the valley floor. As the afternoon wore on, I could see clouds form behind those mountains and slowly build over them. By the third hour in orbit, it was becoming clear that the cloud formations were building and merging and slowly moving over the mountains and into the valley itself. Đà Nẵng ALCE was told of this impending weather, but again it could do nothing more than pass on the message.
On Tuesday 18 April 1968 C-130E 63-7775 of Detachment 1 in the 374th TAW at Tân Sơn Nhứt flown by Captain Donald B. ‘Doc’ Jensen was hit by automatic weapons fire west of An Lộc on approach to An Lôc at 200 feet as it climbed to commence the final run in to drop its load of ammunition to South Việtnamese troops. The FAC was unaware of their mission and told them where to drop their load, by way of an unsecure radio transmission, which could have been picked up by the NVA. They were supposed to follow a B-52 bombing mission, which would have kept the NVA quiet, but they were not told whether that the mission had ever taken place and a two-fighter escort the plane should have had, to protect it from the inevitable heavy ground fire they would attract, failed to materialise. The C-130’s starboard wing caught fire and the load had to be jettisoned. Jensen headed south in the hope of reaching Tân Sơn Nhứt but he had to crash-land the aircraft in a swamp near Lai Khê where all the crew were recovered by Army helicopters.
On 26 April 1968 C-130E 64-0548 commanded by Captain Joseph L. Hannah departed Đà Nẵng Air Base with 14,616 lbs of empty sandbags at 1245 hours for Khê Sanh to perform a free fall Container Delivery drop. Due to rapid fluctuations of the weather during the day, Hannah selected to remain under control of Huế Approach Control and Khê Sanh GCA until visual, then proceed with drop at west end of runway 28. After the arrival of the aircraft, the first GCA was broken off at 7 miles and 4,000 feet due to weather going below minimum. Hannah was cleared to hold at 6,000 feet. After holding approximately 30 minutes, he was advised the weather was improving and was asked if he wished to perform another GCA. Hannah accepted the GCA and was proceeding with a normal GCA until ½ mile from touchdown when asked if he had drop zone in sight. He replied negative. Hannah was told the course was straight ahead (he was slightly below glide path) and shortly thereafter advised he was over end of runway and was asked did he have the drop zone in sight. There was no reply. 64-0548 had impacted about 150 feet short of the approach end of the runway, bounced and slid 800 feet down the runway. The aircraft was completely destroyed by impact and fire. Six of the seven crew sustained fatal injuries and Hannah sustained minor injury.
‘Shortly thereafter, ALCE called and said that the airdrop was cancelled and we should return to Cam Ranh. It had begun to rain in the valley. Nothing further was said of the C-123. As one C-130 left orbit for the return, he called into ALCE and let them know that the entire effort with regard to A Shau had been ‘a Goddamned disaster.’
‘Roger. Copy,’ was the reply. We landed at Cam Ranh at 4:25 and went to dinner and back to our rooms. We hadn’t been shot at or hit, but the day had been a long and unrewarding experience nonetheless.’
The 1st Cavalry Division commander during Operation ‘Delaware/Lam Son 216’ described the Hercules effort as ‘one of the most magnificent displays of airmanship that I have ever seen.’ A rebuilt A Lưới airstrip received its first transport aircraft on 2 May and before heavy rains turned it to mud on the 11th, USAF Caribous, C-123s and C-130s made 113 landings, more than half by the Hercules.
Members of the 101st Airborne Division being evacuated aboard a USAF C-130 at Pham Thiết Air Base, a coastal port city in Southeast Việtnam.
Equally spectacular was the evacuation of the extremely remote US Special Forces camp (designated A-105J) at Khâm Đức. This mountain post was situated on a narrow plain surrounded by dense forest and the Annamite Mountains, 55 miles west of Chu Lai. The camp had been occupied by US and ARVN Special Forces since September 1963. By the spring of 1968 it was the last remaining border camp in Military Region 1 still in American hands. The camp’s only contact with the main operating bases was by air and had an airstrip that could take C-123s and C-130s. Five miles to the south was a small forward operating base at Ngoc Tavak defended by just over 100 men. In the early hours of 10 May the outpost was attacked by an NVA infantry battalion using mortars and rockets. Fierce fighting continued as night turned into day and two Marine Corps CH-46s were lost attempting to extract the survivors. The North Việtnamese also began a simultaneous mortar attack on Khâm Đức. Reinforcements were brought in by helicopter throughout the 11th despite enemy fire and low-lying fog. The enemy assault intensified in the early-hours of the 12th and the perimeter defences were soon overrun. A massive enemy assault on the main compound started around noon but this was thwarted by accurate and devastating air strikes. However, it became obvious that the situation was hopeless and the decision was taken to evacuate the camp by helicopter and transport aircraft. At first General Westmoreland had decided to reinforce and hold Khâm Đức. Later in the day, it was decided to abandon the base and use tactical transport planes to land and take the forces there to safety. In the confusion caused by the surprise attack on the base and the complete change in the US Air Force mission to save and then evacuate the camp, chaos reigned. Air strikes went ahead as the first C-130 landed during the morning: it received heavy battle damage and left hurriedly, carrying only three soldiers, fuel streaming from holes and tyres ripped to shreds.
In the afternoon C-130A 65-0548 in the 21st TAS, 374th TAW from Naha Air Base on Okinawa, temporarily deployed to Cam Ranh Bay piloted by Lieutenant Colonel John R. Delmore was hit repeatedly by small arms fire as it was landing at Khan Duc. The linkage to the power levers on all four engines was damaged and the engines could not be throttled back for the landing so Delmore had to feather all four props so he could set the aircraft down on Khâm Đức’s runway. With the brakes shot out the aircraft veered off to one side of the runway, struck the wreckage of the Chinook that had been shot down earlier and came to rest with its nose stuck in the earth. Twenty minutes later a Marine Corps CH-46 evacuated all five crew out of Khâm Đức. C-130B 60-0297 in the 773rd TAS, 463 TAW temporarily based at Tân Sơn Nhứt and flown by Major Bernard Ludwig Bucher with a crew of six was one of the last aircraft to fly out of Khâm Đức. The aircraft, which was crammed with an estimated 150 Việtnamese irregular troops and their dependants, took several hits and a few minutes later an FAC pilot who was airborne in the vicinity reported that the Hercules had exploded in mid-air and crashed into a ravine about one mile from the camp. Although it was not possible to reach the wreckage the aircraft was completely burnt out and there was no chance of any survivors. Captain Warren Robert Orr, 5th Special Forces Group also died.1
Captain Bill Barry, whose C-130 had taken off from Cam Ranh and carried palletized cargo to Đà Nẵng and spent two hours waiting for directions as to where to go next was not especially looking forward to flying into Khâm Đức in the face of NVA troops, ‘who clearly surrounded the place and would have been firing directly on us in any further evacuation flights at that point in the afternoon. Finally, at 11:20 in the morning, we were told to return to Cam Ranh and await further orders. We landed at Cam Ranh an hour and ten minutes later and were informed that we were now the number two alert crew for dispatch to Khâm Đức in support of the evacuation mission. We sat for about two hours and then were told to go into crew rest. One crew from our deployed squadron at Tachikawa was new to the theatre and was tasked to take a three-man combat control team (CCT) into Khâm Đức to coordinate the original reinforcement order. Their airplane required maintenance after they were tasked and it wasn’t until later that they finally took off with the CCT aboard. By this time, the camp had been ordered to evacuate, but the C-130 crew did not know it. They landed at Khâm Đức and the CCT drove off the ramp of their plane in a jeep. For all intents and purposes, the CCT were now trapped on a base that everyone else thought had been evacuated. Once the situation became clear to aircraft in the area, a C-123 Provider flown by Lieutenant Colonel Joe Jackson landed in the face of intense enemy fire and took the CCT out again.’2
It was not until 1630 hours in the afternoon that three C-130s succeeded in evacuating the last of the garrison. Of 1,500 survivors at Khâm Đức, the Air Force succeeded in bringing out more than 500, almost all of them just before the outpost was overrun.
C-130E of the 50th TAS/314th TAW boarding troops at Đà Nẵng Air Base.
‘The evacuation of Khâm Đức was complete and no more crews were needed for that action’ wrote Captain Bill Barry. ‘After a day spent sitting in the cockpit in the heat of Đà Nẵng and Cam Ranh, once we were released from alert I literally skipped off the plane and made for the officers’ club, an early dinner and a goodly number of drinks. Khâm Đức was a cardinal example of the ‘fog of war’ principle. It began with a surprise enemy action, went through two exactly opposite command decisions as to how to respond and, with messed up communications, resulted in both heroism and tragedy. By the time it was over, Khâm Đức cost losses of two C-130s, an A-l Skyraider and five helicopters.’
That night US aircraft bombed and strafed the camp’s new occupants. Despite the loss of the camp, the evacuation of Khâm Đức stands out as one the most heroic episodes in the history of the war in Việtnam.
On 18 May Captain Bill Barry left Tachikawa as the navigator on a rapidly configured crew, all of whom had previously spent a thirteen month tour in Southeast Asia. ‘We proceeded across the Pacific in a somewhat random manner. We flew as a deadhead crew to Mactan where we picked up a C-130B that was going back to the US for major maintenance and inspection. Our route home was from Mactan to Clark to ‘CCK’ [Ching Chuang Kang Air Base] in Taiwan and then to Midway Island and McClellan AFB in California. From McClellan, I flew home on a commercial jet. My last tour in support of the Việtnam War was over.’3
In May 1966 Hercules aircraft were employed in an operation to destroy the giant Long Biên or Ham Rong (‘Dragon’s Jaw’) road and rail bridge over the Sông Mã River, three miles north of Thanh Hòa, the capital of Annam Province, in North Việtnam’s bloody ‘Iron Triangle’ (Hảiphòng, Hànôi and Thanh Hòa). The 540 feet long, 56 feet wide, Chinese-engineered cantilever bridge, which stood 50 feet above the river, was a replacement for the original French-built Bridge destroyed by the Việt Minh in 1945, blown up by simply loading two locomotives with explosives and running them together in the middle of the bridge. The new bridge, completed in 1964, had two steel through-truss spans which rested in the centre on a massive reinforced concrete pier sixteen feet in diameter and on concrete abutments at the other ends. Hills on both sides of the river provided solid bracing for the structure. Between 1965 and 1972 eight concrete piers were added near the approaches to give additional resistance to bomb damage. A onemetre gauge single railway track ran down the 12 foot wide centre and 22 foot wide concrete highways were cantilevered on each side. This giant would prove to be one of the single most challenging targets for American air power in Việtnam. It had first captured the attention of the US planners in March 1965 when the decision to interdict the North Việtnamese rail system south of the 20th Parallel led immediately to the 3 April strike against the bridge. This and the repeated strikes by USAF and USN fighter-bombers, ended in failure and with the loss of sixteen USAF pilots alone.
The Air Force decided to try mass-focusing the energy of certain high explosive weapons against the stubborn structure using two specially modified C-130E aircraft in the 314th Troop Carrier Wing to drop the weapon, a rather large, pancake-shaped bomb 8 feet in diameter, 2.5 feet thick and weighing 5,000lb. The USAF had undertaken a special project in late 1965 to develop a method of conducting a stand-off attack against bridges in North Việtnam, many of which were heavily protected by anti-aircraft artillery. The primary target of such an operation was the Thanh Hòa rail bridge about nine miles upstream from the mouth of the Sông Mã River in northern Việtnam, one of the longest of the region, rising in the northwest. It flows south-eastward through Laos for about fifty miles, cutting gorges through uplands to reach the plains region at which northern Việtnam begins to narrow. The river enters the Gulf of Tonkin, 65 miles south of Hànôi, after a course of 250 miles. Like the Red River to the north, it has an irregular regime with maximum flow toward the end of the summer. The Ma River delta differs, however, from that of the Red River because of its narrowness and the presence of sandy soil.
In September 1965 the Air Force Armament Laboratory (AFATL) undertook development of a floating mine, that could be dropped in the river away from the bridge and detonate when it came into contact with it. As part of Project 1559, also known as ‘Carolina Moon’, AFATL’s Technology Branch designed a mine with a 6-foot diameter and an approximate weight of 4,000lbs, of which half was explosive in a focused warhead. The weapon would be dropped from either a C-123 or C-130 aircraft and would feature two 64-foot parachutes to retard its fall. The mine would have two fuses. One of these was modified from that used on the CIM-10 Bomarc surface to air missile. The other was an infrared optical fuse. The radar fuse had a cone of 70 degrees, while the optical fuse had a cone of 3 degrees. Work began on fabricating the weapons in October 1965. The steel mine casings were fabricated at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, an Atomic Energy Commission facility operated by Union Carbide. AFATL’s Targets Division designed and built the optical fuses and the safe-and-arm assembly with parts fabrication by a local contractor. The US Army’s Picatinny Arsenal modified thirty BOMARC fuses and the Air Proving Ground Center assembled the weapons.
10 February 1968 - USMC KC-130F BuNo149813 of VMGR-152 piloted by CWO Henry Wilefang, which was delivering 115/145 avgas to Khê Sanh when it was riddled by .50-calibre machine gun fire during its final seconds in the air and skidded the length of the runway in a fireball when the fuel bladders on board were set alight and the airframe burned out on the runway, killing one crewman and five passengers. A bullet also struck the cockpit and one of the engines caught fire. Struggling to reach them - and to clear the runway - rescue teams fought the holocaust with foam. One rescuer had to be saved when overcome by smoke. Rescuers edged their fire trucks directly against the flaming plane, aiming high-pressure foam at the inferno’s heart. They ignored the danger of the other fuel tanks bursting into geysers of burning aviation fuels. The fire chief without even a mask, had tried to enter the cabin, but its roof collapsed just ahead of him. It had been hopeless from the start. Finally, the rescue team chief, never having found time to put on his mask, stood exhausted by the hulk of the plane and helpless tears streaked down his face. (David Douglas Duncan)
In the end, twenty live weapons and another ten inert items were produced at a cost of $600,000, in addition to wages for personnel working on the project. The final design had a weight of 3,750lbs, a maximum width of 96 inches and a maximum height of 31.5 inches. In November 1965 preparations were made for testing of the assembled weapons at Eglin Air Force Base. During the tests 75 drops were made into water to develop a working rigging design and dropping procedure. The mine’s sensors were tested separately in dummy mines against a bridge and the boom of a floating crane. The safe-arm device was found to be successful. No full destruction test of the weapon was conducted at Eglin because of lack of suitable facilities. Test data theoretically estimated an equivalent 1 kiloton blast effect approximately 20-30 feet above the weapon.
Following the tests, an initial operation plan was developed on 28 February 1966. TAWC analyzed the proposed operation and concluded that the chances of success were small because the mines, when dropped far enough upstream to avoid effective anti-aircraft defences, would, run aground. Alternative proposals were said, however, to apparently offer a lesser chance of success and TAWC was directed by Headquarters, USAF to develop an operation plan to support the project. On 4 April TAWC published OPLAN 155, ‘Carolina Moon’ in which two crews (a primary and an alternate) would be trained to conduct the operation using two C-130E aircraft provided by TAC, including one equipped with the AN/APN-161 Ka-Band radar system. The aircraft (64-0513 and 64-0511; the first aircraft being equipped with the specialized radar) were provided by Ninth Air Force. Between 11 April and 15 May Major Richard T. Renners and crew and Major Thomas Franklin Case and crew in the 62nd Troop Carrier Squadron trained at Eglin for the operation. Training included three hours of mission orientation, forty hours of weapon system training, 24 hours of target study, 24 hours of mission planning, 25 hours of day mission training and lastly fifty hours of night mission training. The last two segments involved two and seven weapon drops respectively and the two crews completed a total of fourteen drops.
The two crews and their aircraft deployed to Đà Nẵng Air Base on or about 19 May where they received additional target information and participated in final selection of the mission profile. On 20 May Pacific Air Forces ordered the execution of Operation ‘Carolina Moon’ by Seventh Air Force. The first mission was conducted on 29/30 May. Both aircraft were sortied, with the second acting as an airborne spare. The C-130s flew very low to evade radar along a 43-mile route - which meant they were vulnerable to enemy attack for about seventeen minutes - and dropped the bombs, which floated down the Sông Mã River until they passed under the ‘Dragon’s Jaw’, where sensors in the bombs would detect the metal of the bridge structure and cause them to detonate.
Cargo ground crew girls clowning at left side paratrooper door (aft of the wing) of the C-130 at Tân Sơn Nhứt AB, Saïgon in 1972. Note the four mounts at left side of photo for a JATO (Jet Assisted Takeoff) system. The jets would be ignited for a short time during takeoff, propelling the C-130 into the air supposedly and incredibly in as little as a few hundred feet. (Robert D.Young)
After the first aircraft successfully reached the mouth of the Sông Mã River, the second aircraft was recalled. The first aircraft flew at 100 feet AGL toward the target, with the planned release point of 12,000 feet short of the Thanh Hòa Bridge. A proviso had been inserted into the frag order that said that if the anti-aircraft fire was light the aircraft could continue another 5,000 feet, releasing the weapon 7,000 feet short of the span. The aircraft received light fire and proceeded to the 7,000 foot release point, popping up to 400 feet AGL for thirty seconds prior to the release. After releasing five weapons, the aircraft returned to the previous altitude and departed the area. A flight of four F-4C aircraft were tasked to conduct a diversionary strike fifteen miles south of the bridge as well. Both the C-130E aircraft and the F-4C flight reported heavy anti-aircraft fire in the vicinity of the bridge during the operation. The crew of the C-130E reported that the mission had been a success, but subsequent bomb damage assessment showed no damage to the bridge.
Concerns about appropriate river flow rate and about compromising the objectives of the operation led to the decision to launch a second strike on the night immediately following, on 31 May/1 June. The ingress route was changed for the second mission, but the final run remained the same. Because the slow-moving C-130Es would need protection, F-4C Phantoms of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing at Ubon would fly a diversionary attack to the south, using flares and bombs on the highway just before the C-130E was to drop its ordnance. The F-4Cs were to enter their target area at 300 feet attack at 50 feet and pull off the target back to 300 feet for subsequent attacks. Additionally, an EB-66 was tasked to jam the radar in the area during the attack period. The first C-130E was to be flown by Major Richard T. Renners and the second by Major Thomas Franklin Case who had been deployed to Việtnam only two weeks before. Ten mass focus weapons were provided, allowing for a second mission should the first fail to accomplish the desired results. Last minute changes to coincide with up-to-late intelligence included one that would be very significant. Renners felt that the aircraft was tough enough to survive moderate AAA hits and gain enough altitude should hail-out be necessary. Case agreed that the aircraft could take hits, but considered that the low-level flight would preclude a controlled bail-out. In view of these conflicting philosophies and the fact that either parachutes or flak vests could be worn, but not both, Renners decided that his crew would wear parachutes and stack their flak vests on the floor of the aircraft, whereas Case decided that his crew would wear only flak vests and store the parachutes.
Renners and his crew, including navigators Captain Norman G. Clanton and 1st Lieutenant William ‘Rocky’ Edmondson, departed Đà Nẵng at 00.25 hours and headed north under radio silence. Although the Hercules met no resistance at the beginning of its approach, heavy - though fortunately, inaccurate - ground fire was encountered after it was too late to turn back. The five weapons were dropped successfully in the river and Renners made for the safety of the Gulf of Tonkin. The operation had gone flawlessly and the Hercules escaped unharmed thanks, in part, to the diversionary attack by the two Phantoms and jamming of North Việtnamese radar by the RB-66. Both F-4s returned to Thailand unscathed. Unfortunately the excitement of the C-130 crew was short-lived, because post-strike reconnaissance photos taken at dawn showed that there was no noticeable damage to the bridge, nor was any trace of the bombs found indicating either that the bombs had not detonated or they had not exploded in the right position. A second mission was therefore planned for the night of 31 May.
The plan for Major Case’s crew was basically the same, with the exception of a minor time change and a slight modification to the flight route. A crew change was made when Case asked 1st Lieutenant ‘Rocky’ Edmondson, the navigator from the previous night’s mission, to go along on this one because of his experience gained on the first ‘pancake bomb’ mission. C-130E 64-0511 departed Đà Nẵng at 01.10 hours and the two F-4s again flew as a diversion for the Hercules strike. At 0850 Seventh Air Force reported that an F-4C had been lost south of the Thanh Hòa Bridge and that this was one of the aircraft involved in a second diversionary strike related to ‘Carolina Moon’. One of the two F-4C’s backseaters (63-76640) was 38-year old Major Dayton William Ragland, a top USAF fighter pilot during the Korean War and the veteran of many missions in ‘MiG Alley’.4 Having flown 97 combat missions in Việtnam, Ragland was about ready to be rotated back to the US, but agreed to fly in the back seat of the 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron F-4C piloted by 25-year old 1st Lieutenant Ned Raymond Herrold from New Brunswick, New Jersey to give the younger man more combat flight time while he operated the sophisticated technical navigational and bombing equipment. The two Phantoms left Thailand and headed for the area south of the ‘Dragon’, flying at times only 50 feet above the ground. At about two minutes prior to the scheduled C-130 drop time, the F-4Cs were in the midst of creating the diversion when crew members saw AA fire and a large ground flash in the vicinity of the bridge and it was assumed that the aircraft had either been shot down or had flown into the ground or the river. No trace of the aircraft or its crew was discovered despite several reconnaissance missions. During the F-4C attack, Herrold and Ragland’s jet was hit: on its final pass the damaged Phantom did not pull up, but went out to sea, continuing nearly five miles off shore before exploding. The two crew may have ejected before the explosion because a search-and-rescue aircraft discovered a dinghy in the water the following day.
AC-130E 69-6573 of the 16th SOS shows the results of a deadly new threat, the man-portable SA-7 surface-to-air missile, which on 13 May 1972 hit the tail just above the ramp on the port side and fragments punched large holes on the starboard side. Ken Felty was injured in this missile strike and the aircraft landed safely. It was repaired and returned to combat for the Easter Offensive in Viêtnam. [Ken Felty]
At 1103 Seventh Air Force reported that the ‘Carolina Moon’ C-130E (64-0511) was missing. The members of the diversionary strike (call sign ‘Neon’) reported that they had witnessed heavy anti-aircraft fire in the vicinity of the Thanh Hòa Bridge at around 0200 during their mission, followed by a large ground flash. The ‘Carolina Moon’ C-130E was never heard from again, but it was unofficially believed that it had arrived in the target area and had been shot down. The official time of loss was set at 1812 on 31 May. Seventh Air Force reported that ‘Carolina Moon’ had concluded on 1 June following the loss of one of the aircraft and its crew. Interrogation of a North Việtnam torpedo boat crewman some time later reportedly contained information about the first ‘Carolina Moon’ mission. The individual reportedly admitted to having seen a US aircraft drop five objects into the river near the Thanh Hòa Bridge and that four of the five devices had detonated. In April 1986 and February 1987 the remains of Case and two of his crew were returned to the US. Herrold and Ragland are among the 2,303 Americans still listed as ‘unaccounted for’ in South-East Asia.
By 1967 almost 700 sorties had been flown against the bridge, at a cost of 104 crewmen shot down over an area 75 square miles around the ‘Dragon’. In March that year the US Navy attacked the charmed bridge with new ‘Walleye’ missiles but failed to knock out the structure despite three direct hits. The spans were finally brought down on 13 May 1972 by laser-guided ‘smart’ bombs dropped by F-4Ds of the 8th TFW. Unfortunately, by then the Communists had built several other back-up routes around the bridge and so the flow of supplies across the Ma River was not seriously affected.
From 1968, under Project ‘Commando Vault’, C-130s were used to drop 5-ton (10,000lb) M-121 and 7.5-ton (15,000lb) BLU-82 - Bomb Live Unit - weapons to blast out helicopter landing zones about 260 feet in diameter in jungle areas. Air Force Systems Command and the US Army cooperated closely to develop a method whereby these large bombs could be dropped from both the C-130 and the US Army CH-54 Tarhe helicopter (after an 18th-century chief of the Wyandot Indian tribe whose nickname was ‘The Crane’). The ‘Big Blue’ was first dropped operationally from a Hercules on 23 March using a delivery technique similar to that used to unleash the M-120, though a ‘daisy cutter’ fuse-extending rod ensured that the block-buster detonated at a height of 4 feet above the ground. The first tests involving both types of aircraft proved so successful that late in 1968 operational deployment in South-East Asia took place, the Hercules ‘bomber’ being assigned to the 463rd Tactical Airlift Wing. In Việtnam, approach to the designated release point was made easier by using signals from the MSQ-77 ground radar sites.
The Hercules could carry two palletized weapons in the hold and given that a single M-121 bomb was capable of clearing an area about 200 feet in diameter, more than enough for a helicopter to land safely, the C-130A and C-130E therefore had the advantage over the C-54, being able to create two clearings per mission and over greater distances. Invariably, Hercules bomb delivery was made by the parachute extraction method described earlier, usually from about 7,000 feet; stabilizing parachutes were deployed to lower the weapons to the ground. After a lull in operations during the winter months, the 463rd TAW resumed ‘Commando Vault’ operations in March.
C-130s often operated from rough and ready airstrips during the war in SE Asia.
A series of military operations were conducted in eastern Cambodia by the US and the Republic of Việtnam from 29 April to 22 July 1970. Thirteen major operations were conducted during the Cambodian Campaign (also known as the Cambodian Incursion) by the ARVN and US forces between 1 May and 30 June. After the Incursion, in which 463rd Wing crews played a large role, President Richard Nixon began withdrawing troops from South Việtnam as he had promised during the 1968 presidential campaign. Several C-130 units were slated for deactivation, including the 463rd. The 29th TAS was the first to go; it deactivated in August 1970 and its personnel transferred to the other squadrons. The 463rd Wing survived for another year. The wing inactivated on 31 December 1971. The 774th Tactical Airlift Squadron remained active at Clark until mid-1972.
By spring 1970 there were more than 450 American PoWs in North Việtnam and another 970 American servicemen who were missing in action. Some of the PoWs had been imprisoned over 2,000 days, longer than any serviceman had ever spent in captivity in any war in America’s history. Furthermore, Intelligence reports told of appalling conditions, brutality, torture and even death. In May reconnaissance photographs revealed the existence of two prison camps west of Hànôi. At Son Tây, 23 miles from Hànôi, one photograph identified a large ‘K’ - a code for ‘come get us; drawn in the dirt. at the other camp at Ấp Lò Vôi about thirty miles west of Hànôi another photo showed the letters ‘SAR’ (Search and Rescue), apparently spelled out by prisoners’ laundry and an arrow with the number ‘8’. Reconnaissance photos taken by SR-71 aircraft revealed that Son Tây ‘was active’. The camp itself was open and surrounded by rice paddies. In close proximity was the 12th NVA Regiment totalling about 12,000 troops. Also nearby was an artillery school, a supply depot and an air defence installation. Five hundred yards further south was another compound called the ‘secondary school’ which was an administration centre, housing 45 guards. To make matters worse, Phúc Yên AB in Vĩnh Phúc Province was only twenty miles northeast of Son Tây. The heavy monsoon downpours prohibited the raid until finally, November was selected because the moon would be high enough over the horizon for good visibility but low enough to obscure the enemy’s vision.
A USAF C-130B in the 774th TAS, 463rd TAW offloading supplies in Việtnam.
Twenty-four primary and five backup crew personnel, all ‘Stray Goose’/’Combat Spear’ veterans detached from 7th SOS (‘Combat Arrow’) and 1st SOW (‘Combat Knife’) developed helicopter-fixed wing formation procedures for low level night missions and jointly trained with selected Special Forces volunteers at Eglin AFB. Between the end of August and 28 September ‘Talon’, helicopter and A-1 Skyraider crews supervised by ‘Combat Talon’ Programme Manager Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin N. Kraljev rehearsed the flight profile in terrain-following missions over southern Alabama, flying 368 sorties that totalled more than 1,000 hours. A month of intensive joint training with the Special Forces rescue force followed at a replica of the prison camp. In early November the task force deployed to Takhli RTAF Base, Thailand.
The 24 primary crew members, a 7th SOS MC-130 ‘Combat Talon’ crew (‘Cherry 01’) under Major Irl L. ‘Leon’ Franklin and a 1st SOW crew (‘Cherry 02’) commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Albert P. ‘Friday’ Blosch, conducted the mission. John Gargus5 participated in the air operations planning for the Son Tây raid and then flew as the lead navigator of ‘Cherry 02’ that led three ‘Jolly Greens’ on the mission (‘Cherry 02’ led another three - a total of one HH-3 ‘Banana’ and five ‘Apple’ HH-53s). In total, 116 aircraft from seven airbases and three aircraft carriers comprised the total force under the command of Brigadier General LeRoy J. Manor. The air element (primary force) included five HH-53s, one HH-3, two MC-130 Combat Talons and five A-1Es.
Dr. Joe Cataldo issued sleeping pills. At 2200 hours the men boarded a C-130 and left Takhli for Udorn where helicopters were waiting. Upon landing at Udorn the men transferred to three of the helicopters, carefully rechecking all the equipment that had been deemed necessary for the mission that lay ahead. At 2318 hours the first helo launched; at 2325 hours the last helo launched. They were led by two HC-130 refuellers en-route to an air refuelling area over Northern Laos. Bill Kornitzer, Aircraft Commander of the lead HC-130, ‘Lime One’ recalls ‘Our mission was to launch from Udorn, join up with the six helicopters and lead them to the North Việtnam border. After joining up we refuelled the five HH-53s and the HH-3. This was done in total silence without any incidents. The HH-3 stayed close behind our left wing in order to maintain the speed required by the rest of formation. After leaving the helicopters for their final assault, we immediately returned to Udorn for refuelling. We were to refuel as soon as possible and return to the Northern Laos area to provide air refuelling and search and rescue support as needed.’
C-130A-45-LM 57-0460 of the South Việtnamese Air Force at Tân Sơn Nhứt near Sàigòn in 1972. The aircraft served with the VNAF from October 1972 to April 1975. During the fall of Sàigòn, it was flown from Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base to Singapore, carrying about 350 Việtnamese. Returning to USAF service in August 1975 it was assigned to the 16th Special Operations Squadron (SOS) at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base; then used by the USAF Air National Guard for many years before being retired in 1989. Today this aircraft is part of the National Air and Space Museum, given its historic past.
Final evacuation of the Khê Sanh base complex on 1 July 1968. North Viêtnamese gunners, who were controlled by always-moving ridge top observers, rarely missed hitting something or someone, with every salvo fired. So the 26th Marines lived like prairie dogs, in and out of their vast colony of bunkers. On tough days five or six 122mm rockets hurtled in every minute. It took a special sort of man to stand quietly during such an attack while guiding other men to cover.
On board ‘Apple Two’, Jay Stayer recalls: ‘Just as we had practiced, the formation lead HC-130P refueller aircraft, ‘Lime One’, got off on time, as did the rest of us, the HH-3 ‘Banana’ and five ‘Apple’ HH-53s. We routinely fell into the seven ship formation, three helicopters stacking high on each side of the leading HC-130 at about 1,500 feet AGL. There was a partial moon and some clouds that we climbed through, when suddenly the call came to ‘break, ‘break, ‘break!’, indicating that someone had lost sight of the formation lead and we were to execute the formation break-up procedure. Each helicopter turned to a predetermined heading and climbed to a predetermined altitude for one minute and then returned to the original landing. The effect was a very widely separated formation, each helicopter 500 feet above the other and at varying distances away from the lead HC-130. I could see other members of the formation flying in and out of the clouds and I thought we had blown the mission we had hardly started. Apparently a strange plane had almost flown through the formation and someone had called the lost contact procedure to avoid a mid-air collision. As it turned out, planning for such possible events and the training for such resulted in a rather routine formation break and with a subsequent rejoin being completed successfully. In the meantime, we had all topped off our fuel tanks from the lead HC-130 and had quite deftly exchanged formation leads from him to the just-arrived, blacked-out C-130 with all the fancy electronic gear.’
Happily, the weather in the refuelling area was clear. All refuellings were accomplished without difficulty. All six helos then joined formation with an MC-130 Combat Talon for the low altitude flight toward North Việtnam. The area over Laos is a mountainous area requiring precise navigation by the MC-130 crew.
In the meantime the five A-1s had departed Nakhon Phanom and joined formation with the second MC-130 Combat Talon. This formation was in close proximity of the MC-130/helo flight. All were en-route at low altitude for Son Tay. Close air support was the job of the A-1s because they were ideally suited. They had long endurance capability, carried a big load of ordnance and their relatively low speed permitted small orbits which would keep them close by overhead should assistance be needed on short notice.
Ten F-4s had taken off from Ubon to provide a MiG air patrol and five F-105 Wild Weasels had launched from Korat to provide protection from the SAM sites. The F-4s and F-105s would be flying at a high altitude providing cover over the general area and would not interfere in any way with the primary force.
The Navy force launched on time with a total of 59 sorties. As the primary force reached the Laos/North Việtnam border, the enemy radar’s became aware of the Navy force coming from over the Tonkin Gulf. The diversionary raid was having the desired effects. The presence of the Navy on enemy radar caused near panic conditions within the North Việtnamese defence centres. It became obvious that the North Việtnamese total concern was directed eastward. the raiding force, coming from the west, in effect had a free ride.
Meanwhile, in ‘Apple Two’, as Jay Strayer vividly remembers - ‘Tension was building up by this time, as we neared the IP for the final approach to the camp. I had done most of the flying up to this point and Jack Allison took over the controls for the final phase. I in turn picked up the navigation duties during this critical phase of the mission. As we had rehearsed so many times, the lead C-130 led us over the last mountain range and down to 500 feet above the ground. At the IP they, along with ‘Apple Four’ and ‘Five’ popped up to 1,500 feet to fly directly for the camp. A single radio transmission with the last vector heading to the camp was made by the C-130’s navigator and we continued on, maintaining a disciplined radio silence. Now we were only four - ‘Apple Three’ in the lead with the HH-3, ‘Apple’s One’ and ‘Two’ following in trail, with 45-second separations between.’
Upon reaching the IP (Initial Point) the MC-130 climbed to 1,500 feet. The 130’s mission at this point was to drop flares over the prison. Helos 4 and 5 were to provide a backup and were to drop flares should the C-130 flares not be effective. The flares worked as intended. The helos made a left turn and proceeded to a pre-selected landing area which was on an island in a large lake. There they would wait, hopefully to be called to move to Son Tay to pick up some PoWs. The C-130 made a right turn and dropped fire fight simulators (deception) and napalm to create a fire as an anchor point for the A-1s. The C-130 then left the area for an orbit point over Northern Laos. Immediately after the flares illuminated the prison compound HH-53 ‘Apple Three’, under the command of Marty Donohue, flew low over the prison firing at the guard towers with his Gatling machine guns. The plan called for neutralizing the guard towers to eliminate that potential source of enemy opposition. Immediately following Donohue’s pass the HH-3, carrying a 14-man assault force, landed in a relatively small space inside the prison walls. So far all was going strictly according to plan and precisely on time.
The landing was a hard one, but successful. Simultaneous with the landing of the assault force, HH-53s ‘Apple One’ and ‘Two’ were landed opposite the south side and immediately fanned out and conducted a search of all the buildings in search of Americans and to prevent reinforcements from interfering in any way with the rescue effort. Warner Britton in ‘Apple One’ saw the flares dropped by the C-130 ignite and was impressed by the surrealistic appearance of the illuminated landscape. Jack Allison, in the holding area, recalls - ‘Sitting in the holding area waiting to be recalled to pick up the PoWs and ground forces, ‘Apple’ flight was treated to a spectacular fireworks display. Fourteen to sixteen SAMs were fired at the F-105 ‘Wild Weasel’ aircraft, although one was at such a low angle, one of the departing helicopters took evasive action. One SAM was observed to explode and spray fuel over ‘Firebird Three’. The aircraft descended in a ball of fire and appeared to be a loss. However the fire blew out and the crew continued with the mission. Another SAM exploded near ‘Firebird Five’, inflicting damage to his flight controls and fuel system. The crew later bailed out over the Plaine des Jarres and were picked up at first light by ‘Apple Four’ and ‘Five’.
While all the helicopters were engaged with the compound and A-1s, which had arrived with the second C-130, were ‘doing their thing’. The entire camp was searched. All North Việtnamese forces were annihilated and the devastatingly disappointing discovery was made that there were no Americans at the camp. The coded message ‘Negative Items’ - was transmitted to Brigadier General Manor’s command post at Udorn. Manor met a dejected force of raiders. ‘They were disappointed because our hopes of returning with POWs were dashed. We had failed. This thoroughly dedicated group expressed the belief we should return the next night and search for the POWs. For many reasons, this could not be done.’
Prior to the raid all 65 prisoners had been moved to another camp at Đồng Hới about fifteen miles east of Sơn Tây, apparently due to the proximity of the camp to a river thought likely to flood.6
In the spring of 1970 Alan Baker transitioned from C-141 co-pilot to C-130 aircraft commander and arrived at CCK’s 776th Tactical Airlift Squadron in the summer. ‘Việtnam lacked maintenance facilities so the C-130 airplanes and crews were officially stationed in Taiwan at Ching Chuang Kang Air Base [formerly Kung Kuan Air Base] or CCK as it was more popularly known; and Clark AB in the Philippines. I was 24 years old and I’d just been promoted to captain. I was eager to start flying in Việtnam and was simultaneously scared shitless. At boondock airfields C-130s were considered ‘mortar magnets’ because they made such a nice target for bad guys with mortars outside the perimeter fence. GI’s liked getting mail and supplies, but did not like the mortar rounds we attracted.
He wrote hundreds of letters to his thengirlfriend Gloria. ‘On 5 August I flew on the last leg of the day; a pax (passenger) run from Đà Nẵng to Tân Sơn Nhứt. As I was starting the #4 engine, the starter button didn’t pop out at 70% like it was supposed to. So I pulled it out at 72% to make sure that the starter disengaged. (If the starter remained engaged until the engine reached full speed it would probably fly apart - don’t want that.) So we shut the other engines down, deplaned our pax and the engineer spent about an hour removing the starter shaft. We buttoned everything up, cranked the three good engines and taxied out for a ‘windmill’ taxi start. Using those three good engines I accelerated down the runway to 100 knots then crammed on the brakes (fortunately Đà Nẵng had a nice long runway). The 100-knot airflow got the prop of the dead engine turning enough for the engine to sustain itself - sort of an air start on the runway. I taxied back in, picked up our pax with all four engines running, got a crew duty day extension and leaped off for TSN. Piece of cake. I wonder what the pax thought of all this it was probably not a confidence-builder.
‘To get checked out as an aircraft commander I needed short field landings. On 15 August I rode along with a 50th Squadron crew as an auxiliary crew member on a ‘bladder bird’ to deliver 30,000lb of JP4 for helicopters flying out of Sông Bé. In May 1965 the fortified capital of Phước Long Province had seen a major action between the Việt Công and Army of the Republic of Việtnam (ARVN) which had resulted in the city being retaken by the end of the second day of combat. ‘The trip meant no stick time but there are always things to learn. When we got overhead Sông Bé there was a solid overcast and no instrument approaches available, so we returned to Biên Hỏa to wait it out. After a rain storm the weather at Sông Bé improved, but its 3,400 foot aluminium runway was now too wet to land at this heavy weight. So we offloaded 15,000lbs of JP4 at Biên Hỏa and then pressed on to Sông Bé. After some diligent searching we found a hole in the overcast and then made a normal ‘firm’ landing. We offloaded the JP4 and cranked up, but the starter button for the #4 engine didn’t pop out (just like a week earlier at Đà Nẵng) so the engineer pulled the starter out while the rest of the crew sampled army chow. Sông Bé’s runway was too short for a windmill taxi start (which involves charging down the runway on three engines until you’re going fast enough that the airflow starts turning the dead prop) so we waited until another C-130 landed and requested a ‘buddy start’ (also called a ‘blow job’). We pulled up behind him on the runway with about 5 feet tailto-nose clearance. He set his power to max on all four engines and his propwash caused us to rock and roll. It took three attempts to get our #4 prop turning fast enough for the engine to sustain itself, then it took two minutes to accelerate to normal speed.’
C-130A A97-206 (57-0499) of 36 Squadron RAAF on arrival at Sàigòn (Tân Sòn Nhứt) in 1969.
Australian MPs on the line at Tân Sòn Nhứt in May 1968. (Stan Middleton).
‘On 13 October I was finally scheduled for an instrument check flight on a round-trip to Việtnam - we called such a trip an ‘out-and-back’. Our orders were to fly to Biên Hỏa and return. In addition to being a check ride, it was my first trip as the aircraft commander and my first flight with my own crew, so I was pumped! The flight engineer was also getting a check ride and after our previous mechanical problems we were paying especially close attention to the airplane’s condition. The airplane checked out just fine so we cranked it up.
‘We taxied out and the engineer brought the outboard engines up to normal ground idle, which sped up the airplane a bit. I applied the brakes to slow us down and nothing happened! I tried the brakes a second time and still got no braking. So I told the co-pilot to turn on the auxiliary hydraulic pump and select emergency brakes. Those worked! (If this had happened while we were landing on a short field we would have been in trouble.) We tried normal brakes again and they worked very erratically, so we switched back to emergency brakes and taxied back in. We picked up some maintenance guys and did a taxi check. This time the brakes worked just fine! We never found out what went wrong, but since everything was working again we pressed on out to the runway.
‘At CCK the military there was on a high state of alert, ready to go to war at any moment. Before we reached the runway, the Chinese scrambled their F-104s and in a rush to take off, one taxied under our right wing!
‘We were carrying 21 tons of fresh vegetables for the troops in Việtnam. To avoid refuelling in Việtnam we also carried enough fuel for the roundtrip; 18 tons. At this heavy weight we made a very slow climb out and could only reach 18,000 feet - below the preferred altitude for this route. But the trip to Biên Hỏa was uneventful and I made a really good GCA (ground-controlled radar approach) and a grease job landing. I hoped this impressed the check pilot.
‘After a Biên Hỏa ‘heartburn hamburger’ I returned to the airplane to return to CCK. But meanwhile the plane had been loaded with two passengers and five pallets of cargo whose destination was Cam Ranh Bay! Strange. So I called up ‘Herman Billy’ (call sign for the CCK command post) and asked what was going on. They told me that while in Việtnam I was under the control of the Việtnam command post (call sign ‘Hilda’ - the airlift control centre at Tân Sơn Nhứt). Apparently someone at ‘Hilda’ had decided we could make a little stop at Cam Ranh Bay on our way back to Taiwan! OK, whatever...
‘So we flew TAC VFR (visual flight rules in the clouds with radar flight-following) to Cam Ranh Bay, where I flew a very good VFR approach and landing. I filed a new flight plan to CCK because the original one was only good for returning directly from Biên Hỏa. I made a disappointing ILS (instrument landing system) approach and landing at CCK. So after doing well all day long I ended my check ride on a down note. But at my check ride debriefing the flight examiner had only praise for my flying and my crew management. Hurray!
‘En route the monsoon season in Việtnam made flying tough. Every day there was rain, overcast and low visibility, which made it nearly impossible to get from airport to airport using Visual Flight Rules (VFR). So we used other means. In Việtnam the civil en route air traffic controllers didn’t have radar. Instead, Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) was done the pre-radar way based on aircraft reporting over various navigation aids. This meant that very few aircraft could fly IFR in the same airspace at the same time, so IFR departure delays of up to four hours were typical. But the Air Force didn’t wait for civil aviation rules in Việtnam. Instead, we used ‘Tactical’ Visual Flight Rules using visual flight rules in instrument meteorological conditions. If this sounds like an oxymoron, it was!
During ‘Lam Son 719’ in 1971 when eleven C-130Bs were temporarily stationed at Đà Nẵng to fly loads into Khê Sanh, C-130B 61-2642 was destroyed on the ground in an early morning rocket attack on Sunday 21st February by a 122 mm rocket which went into the fuselage, which also damaged others nearby. Đà Nẵng was nicknamed ‘Rocket City’ because it was subject to such frequent rocket attacks. The only salvageable part of 642 was its tail, which was reused on an AC-130. The quick action of the men of the 15th Aerial Port Squadron kept this attack from becoming a disaster. Luckily, 642 was the only bird on the ramp that was not loaded with Class A explosives bound for Khê Sanh next morning and it had no flight or ground personnel inside.
KC-130F Bu150688 of VMGR-152 at Đông Hà combat base in Việtnam in 1969.
The Air Force GCI (Ground Control Interception) guys had radar. In good weather they used radar to direct air attacks on specific locations. In bad weather they did advisory radar flight following for guys like us flying TAC VFR. There were GCI sites in Sàigòn (call sign ‘Paris’), Buôn Ma Thuột (call sign ‘Pyramid’), Nha Trang (call sign ‘Port Call’), Đà Nẵng (call sign ‘Panama’), Bình Thủy (call sign ‘Paddy’) and others. The good news was that the GCI controllers’ radar could see aircraft quite effectively in the weather. The bad news was that the controllers didn’t have information about all flights. And their radar had no information about what altitude the traffic was using. ‘Panama’ might call us and advise, ‘Fast mover northbound at your 12 o’clock, two miles, non-beacon.’ This meant that there was an unknown jet directly ahead of us with no transponder information. It may have been thousands of feet above or below us, but we couldn’t tell, so we had to take immediate evasive action.
‘Theoretically, IFR-assigned altitudes provided vertical separation between IFR and VFR (and TAC VFR) traffic so long as you were in level flight. Aircraft flying IFR were assigned altitudes at thousands of feet, e.g. 4,000 feet (flight level 40). VFR and TAC VFR rules said to fly at thousands of feet plus 500, e.g. 4,500 feet. (In the weather Army helicopters made up their own convention, flying at altitudes of thousands of feet plus 250 feet, e.g. 4,250 feet, which they called flight level 42.5.) When flying TAC VFR, I tried to find a cruise altitude above 10,000 feet, which was above most helicopters, unpressurized aircraft and piston-engine aircraft. All in all TAC VFR was an effective but risky method of getting from place to place in the weather.
‘Approach and landing at the destination was a whole different ball game. Most airports had published instrument approaches that gave us a path to descend safely in the clouds to a specified minimum altitude. If at minimums we had the runway in sight, we could land. If we couldn’t land safely, we followed the published missed approach procedure and climbed out again. Large airfields had precision approaches that allowed us to fly down to 200 feet or even 100 feet in the clouds. At medium-sized airfields we could use radio navigation aids to descend to about 500 feet above the ground. Small fields typically had no navigation aids.
‘On 6 November the weather was lousy that day and as soon as we departed Tân Sơn Nhứt, departure control told us that the field was now closed because the ceiling was below landing minimums (100 feet). At nearby Biên Hỏa we picked up eighty Marines who had arrived in Việtnam just the day before. They were replacement troops for one organization, so this was considered a ‘unit move’. That meant that they didn’t get to enjoy our luxurious bucket seats. Instead they were ‘combat-loaded’ onto pallets with tie-down straps for seat belts. I believe this was to welcome them to the combat zone and help them make their brand-new jungle fatigues look less brand new.
‘We flew TAC VFR to Chu Lai, where approach control eventually picked us up on radar. They gave us a GCA (radar ground-controlled approach) so we had precision radar guidance all the way down. We broke out of the cloud layer at about 250 feet, but unfortunately they hadn’t aligned us with the runway and we couldn’t make a safe landing from that position. So we followed the missed approach procedure and climbed back into the clouds. This down-and-back-up stuff was probably pretty disconcerting to our green-bean passengers, who had probably never done a goaround or missed approach before. But we’d done it hundreds of times and it was pretty routine.
‘We told approach control how they had aligned us so they could adjust on the next try. The weather had apparently gotten worse, because this time we descended in the overcast all the way to minimums - 200 feet above the ground. We couldn’t see anything but clouds, so we went missed approach again. We gave up on landing at Chu Lai so we called up our Airlift Control Center and asked where we they wanted us to take our passengers. They told us to go to Cam Ranh Bay. So that day our passengers flew with us 300 miles up to Chu Lai, endured two missed approaches, then flew 200 miles back down to Cam Ranh Bay. Maybe you could call that 100 miles of progress - welcome to Việtnam, guys!
‘And this brings me to a related issue: optimistic weather observations. We could not make an instrument approach if the weather was below minimums for that approach. For example, if the cloud ceiling was at 200 feet, it wouldn’t make sense to start an approach that had a minimum descent altitude of 300 feet. But when the weather was really bad and approach controllers were really busy, they had a temptation to fudge the numbers a little. For example...That day we returned from Cam Ranh Bay to Tân Sơn Nhứt and the weather was still bad there. Approach control called it a 300-feet-overcast so they gave us a non-precision approach, which allowed us to descend to 300 feet above the ground and didn’t require a radar controller. At 300 feet we were still in the clouds so we had to go missed approach. Obviously the ceiling was well below 300 feet. Next they revised the weather observation down to 200 feet overcast and gave us a precision GCA down to 100 feet. At 100 feet above the ground we still didn’t see any runway so we went missed approach again. Obviously the ceiling was well below 200 feet. On the third try we broke out of the weather at 100 feet above the ground and landed OK. Whew! Can you imagine an airline doing this?
C-130 crew moments before take-off for an airdrop at An Lộc.
‘Whatever else, it’s the GI’s inalienable right to complain. On 4 December it was the last day of my in-country shuttle and my airplane had been given the 67/2 configuration - 67 passenger seats and two baggage pallets. It was a bad configuration for Việtnam because passengers brought little baggage and really only one baggage pallet was needed. 67/2 also packed the passengers more tightly together, eliminated rear ladders for passenger entry, moved the centre of gravity too far forward and reduced our capacity to 67 pax. Departing Tân Sơn Nhứt our pax were Việtnamese and it took a half hour to explain that we were going to take only sixty-seven of their seventy troops to Cam Ranh Bay.
‘At Cam Ranh Bay passenger service couldn’t find our scheduled passengers for Biên Hỏa (!) so they gave us some space-available pax whose destination was Tân Sơn Nhứt. Our onboard radar died as we taxied out, so we taxied back in to get it fixed. While the radar man began his work, pax service found our scheduled troops! They were packed in like sardines and it was so uncomfortable that after an hour two passengers got off. Our radar wasn’t fixable, so I checked the weather closely and decided to press on. Departing Cam Ranh Bay IFR in the soup, departure control told us we had traffic at 12 o’clock, two miles and converging. Then he said he couldn’t vector us clear because we had not yet reached his minimum vectoring altitude! We were on course for a mid-air collision, needed a little advice on which way to turn and his rule book said not to give any! So I made a sharp 45-degreebank turn and hoped for the best. I evaded the traffic, the controller and the artillery and climbed up to 14,000 feet to be above the weather. Then the air conditioning crapped out, so we swam in our sweat for a while.
‘Descending into Biên Hỏa there was more artillery to avoid and more bad weather. The co-pilot saw some perimeter lights and told approach control that we had the field in sight. To approach control that meant we were in visual conditions and didn’t need their services anymore, so they handed us off to the tower. Unfortunately the lights he saw were not Biên Hỏa’s so we didn’t really have the field in sight. I spiralled down, spotted Biên Hỏa through a hole in the clouds and sneaked in underneath them. But on base leg the overcast was too low to fly under. To stay out of the clouds I had to turn onto final approach prematurely. I cut the power to idle, but we still crossed the runway threshold hot and high. Since Biên Hỏa had a 10,000 foot runway, I landed 5,000 feet long with plenty of runway left over. I think 5,000 feet long was my personal record.)
‘In January 1971 the war was in the wind down stage, but the 834th was still hauling supplies to various areas in-country. Most missions were the ‘bladder bird’ variety, but we also flew a few ‘Daisy Cutter’ and med-evac missions. On 23 January we loaded up our pax for Huế and Đà Nẵng. Meanwhile the loadmaster found hydraulic fluid leaking from the aux system pressure transmitter behind the right side seats. There’s also a direct-reading gauge so we just capped off the line for the remote gauge. It probably did not instill confidence as the passengers watched the hydraulics man working on our leaky plumbing. But with that taken care of, we started engines and taxied out. Before the first takeoff of the day I ran up the engines to full speed to verify that all was well in that department. Unfortunately the tachometer showed that the #4 prop was fluctuating badly. Uh oh. C-130 engines are supposed to run at a constant speed - only the angle of the propeller blades should vary. We called maintenance and taxied back in. The passengers remained onboard while the prop man worked on #4. He said it was all fixed so I taxied out and ran it up again. The fluctuation was better, but still out of limits so we taxied back in again. Sigh. Again they tweaked #4 and again we taxied out. When I ran it up again, the prop was still fluctuating, but within limits. I still had a hinky feeling about #4 but not liking the airplane wasn’t a good enough reason not to fly it. So I took off. On climb out #4 confirmed my hinky feeling. The fluctuation got much worse - now three times the max allowable. If a prop fluctuates too wildly, it can decouple from the engine. And if the prop goes out of control it can leave its usual position on the wing and crash into the fuselage or another prop. Would not want that. So we climbed up to traffic pattern altitude, ran the engine shutdown checklist and feathered #4. That stopped the engine from turning and set the prop to its maximum blade angle so it had the least wind resistance.
‘This was my first ‘opportunity’ to feather an engine and make a three-engine landing, but I’d practiced it many times so I wasn’t worried. But when our passengers saw our #4 prop come to a stop, it probably did not add to their confidence in air travel. I declared an emergency, flew the Tân Sơn Nhứt traffic pattern and returned for a smooth landing. ‘It is better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground.’ I told maintenance that they needed to really fix that airplane and that we had flown it all we were going to that day. There were no more flyable airplanes available so we were done for the day. After three trips to the runway and one trip around the traffic pattern our passengers were a bit tired and cranky. We couldn’t give them complimentary drinks so we sent them back to the aerial port where they had started hours earlier.
‘Our destination on 30 January was classified: Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The airfield had been attacked a week earlier - here’s a newspaper article about it. But the runway was apparently OK again so we loaded up ten tons of ‘Class A’ (explosives) and took to the skies. As the crow flies, it was just 110 miles from Sàigòn to Phnom Penh, but between the two were restricted areas where bombs fell. To avoid ground fire, traffic and artillery we frequently flew ‘feet wet’- parallel to the coastline. So from Sàigòn we flew south across the Mekong Delta until we reached the South China Sea, then around the southern tip of Việtnam and up the Gulf of Thailand into Cambodia, about an hour’s flying time. I mentioned that this day’s flying might be interesting and indeed it was. We flew less than two hours but when I landed and turned off the runway I was amazed at what a scene of destruction the place was - collapsed hangars, burned out buildings, burned out passenger terminal, burned out control tower. Spooky and deserted. The only thing moving was a T-28 taxiing down the runway with its crew chiefs taking a ride.
‘There was no aerial port to talk to, but eventually a guy with a forklift came out and offloaded our five pallets of ‘Class A’. So far so good and we started engines to leave this godforsaken place. Unfortunately, when we tried to start our #1 engine, its starter shaft sheared off. Bad. There were no maintenance facilities so we shut down the other engines so our flight engineer, Bruno Fronzaglio could climb up and remove the broken starter. There were no maintenance stands, so he found an empty pallet and got the forklift driver to lift him and the pallet up to the #1 engine. He still couldn’t reach the starter so he found a ladder and extended it up from the pallet. From this rickety perch he removed the offending starter, buttoned up the engine and climbed back down.
‘So now what? One of our four engines would not start and we were on our own, but C-130s were uniquely designed to work around such problems in remote locations. We still had some good options available: 1, ‘Buddy start’: Pull up very close behind another C-130; allow their propwash to turn the dead prop until it could run on its own. I did this for another C-130 a few weeks earlier and it worked fine. But we had no buddy here. 2. Windmill taxi start. This involves charging down the runway on three engines until you’re going fast enough that the airflow starts turning the dead prop. Cram on the brakes and allow the engine to come up to speed. Be sure to do this before reaching the end of the runway. 2. 3-engine takeoff: Too often this is followed by a crash so it is not recommended.
‘A windmill taxi start was the best option available to us and I’d done one a few months ago at Đà Nẵng, so I felt ready. We started up our three good engines, but before we reached the runway another C-130 unexpectedly arrived! This was especially good news because he could give us a buddy start. So we called him up on the radio and he agreed to give us a ‘buddy start’ before offloading his ‘Class A’.
‘Getting a ‘buddy start’ is a very sensory experience; full of sight, sound and movement. First you pull up close behind the other C-130 - really close - so close that their ramp and duckbutt fills your field of vision. The flight deck of your bird needs to be under the tail of the other bird if you want it to work the first time. As the other pilot advances his throttles to max, the noise and the turbulence increases until you’re bouncing around like you were in a thunderstorm. Now you’re watching that dead #1 prop waiting for it to turn. Come on, turn! Now it begins to slowly rotate - not even enough to register on the tach, but it is moving. Slowly turning and... WHUMPWHUMP! I could feel the concussion more than hear it mortar rounds!
Engine maintenance at Phú Cat Air Base. (Robert D. Young)
‘Talk about a sitting duck - not a good time to be sitting under the tail of another C-130 carrying ten tons of ‘Class A’. The prop was accelerating imperceptibly - it takes over a minute to come up to speed this way. Then the tower called telling us to clear the runway. I was wondering when the next round would hit, but I was staying put until the engine was running. So were our buddies.
‘The prop was slowly accelerating now. Tower called again for us to clear the runway so they could launch a T-28 to hose down the bad guys. Eventually the engine was turning fast enough that it was time to add fuel. Now the tower was calling frantically - clear for takeoff, clear for takeoff. Finally the engine was accelerating on its own power, so we thanked our buddies and said we were on our own. As they released the brakes I expected them to take off, but instead they turned off at the taxiway! I was pretty surprised - I didn’t think it was a good idea to hang around while the field was under attack. But there was no time for questions or contemplation so I called for the before-takeoff checklist. Even before they cleared the runway the tower was calling clear to take off, clear to take off. I released the brakes, put the power to max and began rolling for a downwind takeoff. Longest minute of my life. We flew feet wet back to Tân Sơn Nhứt expecting to get the starter replaced and take another load to Phnom Penh. Anticlimax: no starter was available so we terminated early.
‘On 29 January things were picking up at Det One. No scheduled pax runs - all combat essential frags. Fourteen (!) additional crews rotated in from CCK the day before. A week earlier we were mostly flying scheduled passenger runs between large airfields in Việtnam - crews couldn’t even get enough short-field missions to complete needed check rides. Suddenly there were many more crews and everyone was flying combat essential (high priority) missions into small airfields. In this round-the-clock push we carried Việtnamese troops and equipment north for ‘Lam Son 719’. GI’s and routine cargo still needed to move between large airfields like Đà Nẵng, Cam Ranh Bay, Tân Sơn Nhứt and Biên Hỏa so Military Airlift Command brought in C-141s to help. Khê Sanh was the staging area for the ‘Lam Son 719’ invasion because it was just ten miles from Laos. Its 3,200 feet runway was ready for use February 15th. For some reason the USAF always called it Ham Ngai. There was a continuous stream of C-130s flying in and out, so artillery-free corridors were arranged with the army to avoid friendly-fire accidents. These corridors also helped smooth out the air traffic. The inbound corridor was from Huế to the southeast and the outbound corridor was to Quảng Tri to the northeast.
‘This day I flew two combat essential missions up to Quảng Tri, thirteen miles from the DMZ. We delivered trucks and jeeps and trailers and Việtnamese troops who didn’t even know their destination. C-130 operations were all about bringing passengers and cargo into small airfields like Quảng Tri and that’s when aircraft commanders were tested. A few weeks earlier two C-130 instructor pilots from CCK went off the end of its 3,500 feet runway. My first approach was in daylight but the weather was bad. Radar was unavailable so I shot an ADF non-precision approach. We broke through the overcast and got the field in sight about 30 seconds before touchdown. Piece of cake.
‘The second time we arrived at night - more challenging because there are fewer visual cues for a short-field landing. And this time the Det One safety officer was riding along, looking over my shoulder. We had to hold for 40 minutes over the Quảng Tri ADF because the weather was still bad - low ceiling, low visibility and drizzle. At least the radar was back up, so I shot a ground controlled approach. We broke out of the overcast at about 600 feet and I planted the airplane firmly onto the runway. Night-time, lousy weather, combat essential, short field, near the DMZ. That’s when AC’s earn their pay.
‘I arose at 0200 on the morning of 1 February after attempting to sleep several hours. We showed at 02:30 and finally blocked out at 0600 due to some maintenance and loading delays. We combatloaded a Việtnamese battle unit (130 troops with all their gear). Our destination was Đông Hà, a newly-activated airfield eleven miles from the DMZ. Flying that close to North Việtnam was not comfortable. Speaking of comfort, our C-130E could carry up to 92 passengers in bucket seats attached to the airplane’s sides and to stanchions down the centre of the cargo compartment, so passengers travelled sideways. This helped passengers get to know each other better because they sit knee-to knee and during takeoffs and landings they lean against each other. But combat loading did not offer such luxuries as seats. The loadmaster rolled in five empty 463L pallets, covering the whole cargo floor. Next he stretched cargo tie-down straps across the pallets, acting as 7 foot-wide seat belts. Theoretically everyone would sit in rows facing forward and slip their legs under the straps so they have lap belts - uncomfortable but organized. In an actual combat environment it was both uncomfortable and disorganized. Commercial air travel is more comfortable for passengers on a bad day than it is for C-130 passengers on a good day. And this was a bad day. The loadmaster opened the rear cargo door and lowered the ramp so the troops could enter carrying all their weapons and equipment. They were instructed to walk forward as far as they could and keep standing. As the airplane filled up they were told to move farther forward and pack in. When no more troops could stand on the five pallets the loadmaster closed the ramp, the troops sat down and we took off for Đông Hà.
C-130s on the ramp at Nakhon Phanom AFB, Thailand in 1972. (Robert D. Young)
‘There was a traffic overload at Đông Hà so I ended up holding for over an hour. When I finally got my turn, I shot a GCA approach and the landing went well. But with all that holding we didn’t have enough gas to make it back to Tân Sơn Nhứt. All the C-130s were in the same situation and most stopped at Đà Nẵng for fuel, resulting in extensive delays there. Phù Cát [17.7 miles northwest of Qui Nhơn in Bình Định Province] was another 120 miles beyond Đà Nẵng so I opted to go there and avoid the delays. We had just enough fuel for one approach and I was watching the fuel gauges closely. When we landed I shut down the outboards immediately - I didn’t want to run out of fuel before we were parked. Close. All this messing around put us ten hours into our crew day, so I told mother there was no way we could make it up and back again in four more hours, so they terminated us. I’m just as glad. I was pretty tired.
‘Next day we had a 0945 show - quite civilized - but we had some problems with brakes and antiskid, but got it resolved. So I leaped off for Đông Hà and this time there was no holding. I even made a pretty good max effort landing. The antiskid circuit breaker on one wheel popped out so we planned to get that fixed at Tân Sơn Nhứt. As I later learned at Khê Sanh, it’s unwise to land at short fields without antiskid. We couldn’t get it fixed.
‘On 4 February the Marilyn Monroe foldout at the nav station had been replaced by the latest Playboy ‘playmate’ and the frag called for two round trips to Biên Hỏa and Đông Hà. We were flying the Red Rabbit, which was the best aircraft in the fleet and easy to spot on the ramp - on its crew door steps was a red silhouette of the Playboy bunny. The navigator’s station had the centrefold of the Playboy ‘playmate’ of the month under a sheet of plexiglas. But the best thing about that airplane was that everything worked! I think its tail number was 64-17680. When I flew the Red Rabbit I could expect to finish all the legs of my frag and bring everyone home without breaking down somewhere. The crew chief did an amazing job. (While I was at CCK he was promoted to staff sergeant - well deserved). We actually completed our whole frag!
‘On 17 February we flew several trips to Katum. It was pretty remote - in the fish hook area about four miles from Cambodia. The VC operated freely back and forth across the border bringing weapons large and small to shoot at big targets like C-130s. To make the VC easier to spot, the USAF defoliated the nearby jungle with ‘Agent Orange’. Katum was known as a hot spot for hostile fire. A couple of years earlier the VC hit a C-130 on departure there and they crash landed at nearby Tay Ninh. Katum’s runway was shorter than most - 3,000 feet of red dirt treated with Peneprime to keep the dust down. The soil there is called laterite and it is red because of the high concentration of iron. Army helicopters operating out of there needed fuel and it was too hazardous to send tank trucks through ‘Indian Country’ so we brought it to them. These flights were called ‘bladder birds’. Sometimes we brought the fuel in 2 foot diameter round bladders called ‘elephant balls’, which could be rolled if necessary. But usually we carried the fuel in two 18 foot lozenge-shaped bladders and pumped the fuel out to trucks at the destination.
‘The airplane’s landing weight determined the length of its landing roll, which was quite limited at small fields like Katum. Based on the field length we calculated our maximum rollout and from that we determined how many tons of fuel we could bring in. ‘Normal’ short field landing criteria are different from ‘combat essential’ landing criteria. If your mission was high priority (combat essential), thinner safety margins were acceptable. Max gross weight for normal short field landings was calculated assuming two props in reverse and two in ground idle. For combat essential missions we calculated the landing rollout assuming all four in reverse. This increased the allowable gross weight (and the possibility of going off the far end of the runway if something went wrong).
‘Our last sortie to Katum, on 22 February, turned out to be kind of interesting. On the first two sorties John Roohms was giving another pilot an initial SEA check. Stace rode along on both to log some time to put him closer to upgrading from copilot to AC. I rode out on the first shuttle just to scope out the situation. After sitting out the second one I flew the third mission.
‘We dealt with friendly fire and hostile fire daily. As we approached the field on that third flight we monitored the radio frequency for ‘Tailpipe Alpha’. ‘Tailpipe’ was the call sign for the combat control team - the first USAF guys into a remote airfield like Katum. They coordinated airlift operations at the field, acting as control tower where there was no tower and aerial port where there was no aerial port. ‘Tailpipe Alpha’ reported that there were incoming rounds but no damage yet so we orbited nearby and talked with ‘Alpha’ and ‘Hilda’. They told us that it was all clear and the runway was OK. Meanwhile the good guys at several nearby Fire Support Bases had cranked up their artillery and begun shooting back. One of these FSBs was located at the approach end of the runway.
‘These artillery bases had no radio communication on VHF or UHF aviation frequencies; instead they had their own FM frequencies. C-130s had been retrofitted with an FM radio at the navigator’s station so we could communicate with them and stay clear of their fire. This day as usual the navigator talked with them to ensure that they held their fire while we landed right over them. And as usual they said they would. I was concentrating on my short final approach when I saw puffs of white smoke coming up from the FSB! They were firing their Howitzers again and we were flying right into their fire! I immediately dodged to the right and broke off the approach. I climbed back up and orbited nearby while the nav chewed them out for not passing the word to the guys firing the guns. Once they had really halted their fire we landed uneventfully and firmly. We pumped out our fuel, flew on to Bình Thúy, then back to Tân Sơn Nhứt. In a similar situation three years earlier, a Caribou was shot down by friendly artillery on short final to Đức Phổ.7
‘In early February, we were told of a campaign that was to start soon up north and we would be sending aircraft and support personnel to Đà Nẵng, which was to be the staging area for the Laos incursion - ‘Lam Son 719/Operation Dewey Canyon II’. After some delays, we finally made it to Đà Nẵng in mid February and set up our support shop area in a corner of the Aerial Port squadron facilities. The support personnel contingent numbered between seventy and ninety men split up working twelve hour shifts. We brought two spare engines and two spare props with us, along with tyres, avionics equipment, tools, etc. Finding room for us to bed down was a problem and we were scattered around in different barracks on the opposite side of the airfield from ‘Gunfighter Village’. We were trash hauler types and the jet jocks didn’t want anything to do with us.
‘Flying was continuous from pre-dawn to the late evening, most missions consisting of troop transport, fuel, munitions and medevac. We had a policy to have all line maintenance accomplished by 0200 hours. The reasoning was that most rocket and mortar attacks occurred between 0200 and 0400 hours. The demand on the support troops to keep the aircraft mission ready was unbelievable. Spare parts became a concern and there were times we ‘bartered’ with the Marine Corps C-130 wing for starters and instruments.
C-130E baking in midday sun on the ramp at Phú Cat located along the South China Sea in Central Việtnam in 1971 with coastal hills and blossoming thunderstorms in the background. One crewmember is seated on the ground in the shade of the wing; while parked on the ramp the inside of the aircraft was like an oven with temperatures well over 100 degrees. Same heat was true during taxi and takeoff as the air conditioning was ineffective until after lift-off when engines really got going to provide the AC energy. To the rear of the plane a tractor fork lift is moving a large pallet of cargo into position for loading. (Robert D. Young)
‘About a week after we arrived in Đà Nẵng, on 24 February, the first stop on my frag schedule was Khê Sanh. After reading the airfield folder and being briefed on the corridor procedures and talking with other crew members I expected it to be pretty hairy. We first blocked out with a load of ARVN troops, cases of vegetables, coops of chickens and two pigs - when I got on the airplane I thought that smell was familiar! However, as we taxied out ‘Sàigòn Tea’ (TSN ALCE) told us to return and take over another mission of a higher (Combat Essential) priority. So we and our troops and chickens and pigs taxied back in and parked. We flew an empty airplane down to Vũng Tàu and picked up a fire engine. Because of our destination I had the loadmaster put additional chains on it, which he didn’t appreciate (sorry, Steve). Khê Sanh was actually a piece of cake. The aluminium matting runway was quite good, the corridors in and out went smoothly, the GCA went smoothly and I even made a good landing. I was glad to be able to take Colonel Rogers his mail from Det One too - I sure know how much receiving or not receiving those letters can mean.
‘We rarely had our courage tested. Others did. During ‘Lam Son 719’, eleven C-130Bs were temporarily stationed at Đà Nẵng. Their mission was to fly loads into Khê Sanh. Đà Nẵng was nicknamed ‘Rocket City’ because it was subject to such frequent rocket attacks. On 24 February the workload was heavier than normal. Aircraft 61-2642 was parked on the ramp about 75 yards from the Aerial Port squadron facilities. It was already loaded with munitions for the first mission in the morning. Repairs to number one and two engines were delayed while waiting for parts. The decision was made to off load 2642 and move the load to another aircraft. This gave us more time for repairs and engine maintenance run checks, while still trying to clear the line maintenance by 0200. We overshot that by 40 minutes, but all write-ups on all aircraft were cleared and we settled down in our shop area for some serious card playing and warm Cokes. Roughly ten minutes into the game a thunderous explosion threw us all to the floor; followed in quick succession by at least a dozen more explosions. We were under a rocket attack! The air raid sirens were blaring and all power and lights were shut off. The floor rumbled from the impact of incoming rounds and none of us had our flak jackets or helmets. In fact, they were still locked up in a conex container behind the Aerial Port.
Captain James Theis, a young enlisted air freighter at the 15th Aerial Port working seven nights a week recalled that night.
‘I was one of a few guys on break in the line shack about 150 feet from that unfortunate bird. We heard the rocket’s whish a split second before it hit the plane on the top part of the left wing. Needless to say we hit the floor first then hit the road briefly before running back at full tilt. Despite the inferno, I personally can attest to the sheer and unrecognized bravery of many Air Freighters that night. One guy grabbed the fuel line next to the plane to make sure the fire didn’t spread to the fuel system, one moved the fuel pumper away, one grabbed the large extinguisher and started trying to control the fire and one went around back to check for personnel. Others grabbed forklifts and yanked the ammo from the adjacent planes as we did not know if the burning plane was loaded or not and, as far as we knew, it could blow at any moment. The fire was awfully hot but it didn’t blow up as can be seen in the pictures. None of us were trained to do any of those things yet it all seemed a perfectly choreographed play, well rehearsed and acted. Yes, it was a tough night. The rocket on the C-130 was only one of several that landed near the 15th APS that night. We were lucky that no one was injured and that the damage wasn’t worse. Most men cannot remember or they do not have an event that changes them from being a boy to a man. I do.’
‘It was over as fast as it started’ says Alan Baker. ‘We scrambled outside and found the fire department already on scene spraying foam on aircraft 2642. It sustained a direct hit in the APU compartment, forward of the left main gear, by a 122mm rocket. The explosion ripped off all of the port wing outboard of number two engine. The resulting fire was so intense that half the length of the prop blades on number two, were melted off. The centre section of the aircraft buckled in the main spar area and the weight of the aircraft caused it to tilt and lean to the right. Four other aircraft were damaged along with some ground power equipment, one of which was a power cart that also received a direct hit and left a crater in the ramp seven feet wide and three feet deep. Luckily, there were no injuries to anyone in our detachment and only minor injuries elsewhere on base. Our ‘off the line by 0200’ policy worked that night. Given the trajectory of the rocket that impacted the aircraft, had it fallen short there would have been many casualties. Also, if the munitions had still been loaded, damage would have been much more extensive.
‘The only salvageable part of 642 was its tail, which was reused on an AC-130. The quick action of the men of the 15th Aerial Port Squadron kept this attack from becoming a disaster. Luckily, 642 was the only bird on the ramp that was not loaded with ‘Class A’ explosives bound for Khê Sanh next morning and it had no flight or ground personnel inside.
‘During the next week our ‘off duty time’ was spent trying to salvage as much as possible from the other engines. We needed the spare parts. Eventually, a crane was brought in and the aircraft was dismantled in sections, loaded on a flatbed truck and hauled away.
‘On 25 February we were s’pozed to carry a 35,000lb forklift to Khê Sanh but decided not to because it was just too heavy. Loadmaster Steve Hank reported that this two-axle 35,000lb forklift was way over the 13,000lb single axle weight limitation on the floor. So after considerable hassle with various colonels, majors and captains we took drums of Peneprime instead. Landing at Huế a warning light told us that the antiskid system was inoperative on one main wheel but I decided to press on to Khê Sanh anyway. At Khê Sanh one wheel locked up and scrubbed a big bald spot into the tyre as it dragged its way down the runway (we can at least say we’ve left our mark at Khê Sanh!) We could have flown it out that way, but there was a spare available, so flight engineer Bruno Fronzaglio changed the tyre. (Sorry, Bruno.)
Captain William Caldwell (born 20 August 1943 in Illinois) whose crew on Saturday 15th April 1972 of Lieutenant John Hering, co-pilot; Lieutenant Richard A. Lenz, navigator; T/Sgt Jon Sanders, flight engineer and loadmasters T/Sgt Charlie Shaub and A1C Dave McAleece attempted to airdrop ammunition to surrounded SVN troops at An Lôc. While approaching the drop zone ‘Spare 617’ received heavy enemy ground fire that killed Sanders and wounded Hering and Lenz, damaged two engines, ruptured a bleed air duct in the cargo compartment and set the ammunition on fire. Shaub jettisoned the cargo pallets, which exploded in midair. Despite receiving severe burns from the hot air escaping the damaged air bleed duct he extinguished a fire in the cargo compartment. Caldwell decided to head for Tân Sơn Nhứt AB, which had the best medical facilities. His engineer dead and his co-pilot wounded, Caldwell closed the damaged bleed air duct and he shut down the two damaged engines. The landing gear would not come down and the wounded and badly burned Shaub directed McAleece as he hand-cranked the landing gear down using the emergency extension system. Though a third engine lost power Caldwell landed safely. He received the AFC. Charlie Shaub was nominated for the MoH for his role in saving the aircraft, but the recommendation was downgraded to an AFC. Shaub also received the William H. Pitsenbarger award for heroism from the AF Sergeants Association. Colonel Caldwell retired from the Air Force on 1 October 1993. C-130E 62-1787 eventually returned to the US to the 314th Tactical Airlift Wing at Little Rock, Arkansas and then served with several ANG squadrons before being added to the Smithsonian’s collection on 18 August 2011.