Chapter 13
Hover Holes
W
O1 Mike Roberts drew the lucky straw for this day and met me at his aircraft after he got a mission brief. We were going back up to Quan Loi to fly resupply for one of the infantry battalions, and any other missions they had for us. Start-up and departure were typical and routine for me at this point. Mike got our clearances and let me handle the aircraft. We went into Quan Loi just long enough to refuel the aircraft and fly out to the firebase that had been inserted two days before in the location that Mr. Lucus and I had reconned with the brigade commander.
Since that recon, the Fifth of the Seventh Cavalry had been inserted and was finding trails, cache sites and some activity. It was reported that there were .51-cal antiaircraft guns in the area. So it was NVA forces and not the VC. That changed things a bit. The NVA knew how to shoot at helicopters.
Arriving at the firebase, we were directed to the log pad and shut down to get a brief from the battalion S-3 air. When we entered the TOC, the battalion commander was waiting for us.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Ready for some work?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Mr. Roberts answered. “Beats sitting on our asses all day.”
“I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that today. Each of our companies needs a backhaul this morning and a resupply this afternoon. I may want to take up about midday and have a look-see. That okay?” the battalion commander asked.
“Sir, we work for you until you release us. What you want, we will attempt to accommodate.”
“Good. The S-3 air will give you the locations and frequencies for each unit. They should be loading your aircraft with the first load now, so the sooner you get started, the better. If you need anything, call us.”
“Thank you, sir.” And he was out the door. The S-3 air gave us the unit locations and call signs, which I plotted and wrote down on a separate piece of paper. As he was wrapping up friendly information, Mike asked the enemy situation.
“Oh, yeah. As of two days ago, a chopper took fire at this location from AK-47s.” David looked at me as the S-3 air continued. I just nodded. “We caught four gooks coming down a trail here yesterday and found a cache site here. Last night, one of our ambushes blew Claymores on some people, but no bodies were found, only blood trails and scattered equipment. They estimated the group to be fifty people. Don’t know if they were NVA or VC. We have found some .51-cal antiaircraft guns southeast of An Loc, but nothing in this area so far. That’s about it.”
“Okay, then, we’ll get out and cranked. We’ll do the companies in order starting with A Company, if that’s okay,” Mike indicated.
“Yeah, that’ll work. I’ll let them know you’re coming so they’ll be ready for you.” The S-3 air picked up a radio handset.
Mike and I walked back to the aircraft and saw that it had a light load of some ammo. Morning missions usually meant picking up empty water and marmite cans from the night before and taking ammo in for the day ahead. As we started the aircraft, Dave asked, “Have you done any hover holes yet?”
“Just down around Long Binh, which I understand isn’t much compared to this area,” I replied.
“You’re about to experience the scariest thing about flying in Vietnam,” Mike said with a resigned voice.
“Scarier than formation flying?” I asked. I would come to regret that comment.
“What, you don’t like formation flying?” Mike shot me a look.
“I’m just not that comfortable with it,” I offered. I was unknowingly digging myself a hole.
“Who have you flown with in formation?” he asked.
“With Lou a couple of times and Bob Leach a couple of times.”
“Lou’s one of the best to learn from for formations. How did it go?” he asked as picked up to a hover, checking his power.
“Okay, I guess. Learned a lot.”
“Well, you’re about to get another lesson. Always check your hover power when going into hover holes. On this one with only a light load, it’s no problem, but this afternoon it’ll be hot and we’ll be loaded to the max. You don’t want to be over a hole and run out of power and pedal at the same time. I’ll take us in the first time and you have it the second time,” Mike said.
Our crew responded accordingly.
“Clear left.”
“Clear right.”
“Guns up.”
Since the Third Brigade had arrived in this province, a healthy respect for what the enemy could do had been developed. As soon as we were airborne, our crew chief and door gunner were looking of telltale tracer fire, especially the .51-cal rounds. Unlike US ammo, which used a red tracer round, the NVA used a green tracer round. Both were easy to spot, especially when it was heading for you. It sort of looked like a ping-pong ball on fire in daylight and a basketball on fire at night; at least, that was what your mind’s eye saw. Flying at ninety knots, if the enemy was shooting directly at you, they were probably going to miss as you would be past the point of aim. However, if they were aiming in front of you, then you were going to fly right into the round and your day would be ruined.
As we gained altitude over the firebase, Mike had me crank in the frequency for the first unit on the FM radio, and I gave them a call.
“Alpha Six, Chicken-man One-Seven, over.”
“Chicken-man One-Seven, Alpha Six India, go ahead.”
“Alpha Six, Chicken-man inbound to your location. Pop smoke.”
“Chicken-man, smoke out.”
Slowly out of the jungle, a small yellow cloud began to form, but I saw no landing zone or place to set down.
“Alpha Six, I have Mellow Yellow smoke.”
“Roger, Chicken-man, we’re ready for you. Empty water cans and two pax.”
“Roger, Alpha Six.”
I was really wondering where we were going to land this thing when, passing over the smoke directly, I saw a hole in the jungle with a soldier standing in the middle of it. It wasn’t really a hole in the ground but a circular area devoid of any trees or vegetation and a few stumps indicating that at one time it had looked like the rest of the jungle. It wasn’t much bigger than the rotor width of the aircraft, however.
“I have the PZ, and from the looks of the smoke, the wind is coming from the east, so we’ll circle around and make final to the east,” Mike said as he took the aircraft around twice, each time coming lower and lower but never cutting back on speed until he made his final turn to the east and heading to the PZ. He came to a deceleration and hovered over the hole at three hundred feet and maybe ten feet above the trees.
I looked down through the chin bubble, and this grunt was standing right below us with his arms out to his sides and waving us to come down. At this point, the crew started clearing our tail rotor, and we started down. I was watching the main rotor on my side to see that we didn’t hit a tree limb.
“Hold,” came the crew chief. “Tail right. Hold. Clear down. Clear left.” This conversation continued as we slowly lowered the aircraft three hundred feet to the bottom. Whoever had the controls concentrated on maintaining his position and following the commands of the other three crew members, who were attempting to watch the tail rotor and main rotor, preventing a tree strike. We were all hoping that the grunts were watching to make sure we didn’t take any fire, because at this point, we were sitting ducks! As we touched down, the ammo was kicked off and exchanged for thirty empty water cans and two soldiers that had all their equipment and huge smiles. They were going home, it appeared, as they were waving to those left behind.
When ready, the crew gave us the all clear to ascend, and the entire process was repeated in reverse. As we broke over the top of the trees, Mike lowered the nose and pulled in maximum power to accelerate as quickly as possible while staying at treetop level in a contour flight mode. Contour flight was flying as fast as you could while flying just above and following the folds of the terrain. We would be doing a lot of that in the future, especially on single-ship missions. Not so much on formations, I would come to find out. Once we had our speed, Mike turned the aircraft over to me and called Alpha Six.
“Alpha Six, Chicken-man One-Seven.”
“Roger, Chicken-man, that’s all we got for you today.”
“Roger, Chicken-man’s back to higher. Have a good day. Out.”
When we arrived back at the log pad, the next load was waiting to go out, and it was about the same except it had a major and a staff sergeant who did not look happy. The major told the staff sergeant to pick up his gear and get on the aircraft, which he was reluctant to do, finally throwing his rucksack on the aircraft.
“Hey, Mr. Roberts, this staff sergeant isn’t real happy about getting on this aircraft. He’s giving the major a raft of shit,” the crew chief indicated.
“Is his weapon loaded?” Roberts asked, turning around to see what was going on.
“No magazine in it, no, sir,” came the response.
“Okay, just keep an eye on him and let me know if he’s starting something,” Mike said.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it. You just fly the aircraft. Let’s go as soon as that NCO is on,” Mike directed me.
“He’s on, Mr. Cory,” said the crew chief.
I pulled up to a hover. The NCO started to move to the door, but the major grabbed him by the back of his load-bearing equipment harness and put his ass on the floor. I pulled in the rest of the power and we headed out to Bravo Company’s location. Mike made the calls, and soon we saw a puff of yellow smoke slowly and gently drifting from the trees. But this time, there was no neatly cut hole in the jungle canopy but an honest-to-goodness bomb crater. As we passed over it, another soldier was standing in the middle with his arms raised. I started assessing the conditions. With the light wind, almost none, really, I was thinking of making my approach to the east and told Mike that.
“Look at the trees around that hole. Note how the ones on the north side are lower than the ones on the west side. There’s probably a ridge that they’re on, making the north side lower than the western side. We have almost no wind, so that won’t be a factor. Make your approach north to south over the lower trees, and when you come to a hover, pedal turn to the east. We have plenty of power with this light of a load,” he instructed me, and I obeyed.
As I came in over the northern edge of the PZ, I had decelerated all forward motion to a slow walk and came to a stop as I executed a slow pedal turn to the east. All the while, I was watching my power and the tip of the rotor blade in front. I wasn’t looking down, nor was I looking sideways. My eyes were glued to the front of that rotor tip and I couldn’t really tell how close I was to the tips of tree limbs. We were at two hundred and forty feet, and I had a death grip on the controls.
“Clear to come down right.”
“Clear left.”
“Clear front.”
“Stop. Bring the tail right. Stop,” I was instructed.
“Clear down right.”
“Clear down left.”
“Clear front.”
I started easing off the power again.
“Stop. Slide right,” came the command. I eased the controls to inch the aircraft to the right.
“Stop. Clear down right.”
“Clear down left.”
“Clear down front.”
This continued until I felt the skids touch the ground. Immediately the ammo was kicked out, but the staff sergeant wasn’t moving. The major was talking to him, but he just sat there with a pissed-off look.
“Mr. Roberts, I think we have a no-go with this staff sergeant. He’s refusing to get off the aircraft,” the crew chief said.
Sure enough, the major pulled out a card and started reading him his rights. Somebody was going to be facing a court-martial. The major took his weapon and made him put on a seat belt as the empty water cans and mail sacks were tossed on board. Once everything was on, the ground guide gave a thumbs-up.
As in our descent, I had to stop and move the aircraft to clear some tree limbs before I could continue. As we cleared the last of the trees, I pulled in full power and nosed the aircraft over to build speed and stay at contour level. I liked this contour flying, recalling someone telling me to watch out for the occasional limb that would be higher than all the others and attempt to smack the aircraft. Mike finally reached over and took the controls. I pried my fingers from their death grip on the controls.
“You need to relax,” he told me. “For your first hover hole, you did good, but that was an easy one. You’re going to get some that, when you get to the bottom, you won’t be able to see much of the sky above you through the overlapping canopy. You have to trust your crew to keep you cleared.”
“Mr. Cory, was that your first hover hole?” asked the gunner. I knew what was coming.
“Yeah, and I’m buying the beer tonight.”
“All right, you’re learning fast, Mr. C,” chimed in the crew chief. Maybe I needed to take more than fifty dollars a month in pay and put less in the bank, I thought.
When we reached the log pad, a first sergeant was standing there and took the staff sergeant and weapon from the major. Together they escorted the staff sergeant to the TOC as we were loaded for our next run. Mike was taking us in and I was working the radios. This wasn’t bad, as it was a small clearing about twice the size of the aircraft with about two feet of water covering it. We kicked off the ammo and they tossed in what needed to go back and we departed.
We had been flying for about an hour and a half, so Mike asked that we go back to Quan Loi to refuel. They wanted us to stop at the log pad before we went as they had pax to get back. Mike gave me the controls, and as I made the approach, I saw the two homeward-bound soldiers standing there, along with one major, one first sergeant and one staff sergeant with no weapon. As they loaded, the major talked to Mike. He wanted to go to the brigade pad before we went into refuel and have us pick them up when we were done.
When we landed at the brigade pad, there were two MPs with a pickup truck waiting and a jeep. The homeward-bound grunts were loaded into the jeep. The major and NCOs climbed into the truck with the MPs. We moved to refuel and were told to shut down when we got back to the pad. It was getting along towards lunch, so no tears from us.
We arrived back at the aircraft from lunch, and the major and first sergeant were just walking up. Loading the aircraft, we returned to the firebase and shut down, waiting for the afternoon missions. With nothing to do, the crew chief and door gunner decided to amuse themselves. Ant mounds were very plentiful, as well as ant holes, with an army of ants going and coming into each. The crew chief began pulling the heads off bullets and pouring the powder down the holes. After the hole was sufficiently full of powder, a cigarette was placed next to the hole. At first, nothing happened. Then the powder caught and began burning. In the confined space of the hole, it spewed forth like the tail end of a rocket, kicking burnt ants out. The bigger the hole, the more crispy ants came forth. It became a game of how many ants you could cook. Boredom has a way of making the mind creative. Finally word came that the units were ready for resupply, and supplies that had been sitting next to the pad were loaded. The first load was thirty full water cans. I started the aircraft while Mike worked the radios. He took the controls once we were at full power and I took over the comms.
Mike brought us to a three-foot hover and checked his power. Once he was satisfied, we accelerated forward and headed for the first location. As the units had moved during the day, each PZ was new and the location was passed to us over the radio as we were airborne. Coming up on Charlie Company’s location, we called for smoke and it came drifting up through the canopy. No wind was indicated, and Mike took us in, coming to a hover over the bomb crater clearing. Again, the crew cleared him down, careful not to tap any tree limbs.
Coming out was a reverse of going in. Flying back, he gave me the controls for the next return trip. We would be going back into the same hole. Once loaded and returning, I went over what I was going to do as I was going to make a different approach to a final, but as we were heavy, I had to use what wind we had. As I came to a hover over the hole, the crew went into overdrive and talked me down. At times like this, you just thought about moving a control because you were moving the aircraft inches in many cases or pivoting the aircraft several degrees to move the tail boom away from a potential tree strike. By the time I came out and cleared the trees, my fatigues were soaked with perspiration. This would keep up for another three hours, with a break to Quan Loi for fuel. When we were finally released, it was getting dark as we headed back to the Chicken Coop. I was mentally drained and physically worn out.
“Mike, can I have one of your cigarettes?” I asked, reaching for the pack before he could answer.
“I thought you didn’t smoke,” he said.
“I don’t,” I responded as I inhaled and started to relax.
Arriving back at the company area, Mike and I headed to the mess hall for some chow. Taking a table with Lou and another warrant, we were discussing the day’s activities when Captain Bullock came in with another RLO, a first lieutenant. Approaching the table next to us, where two other RLOs were already seated, Captain Bullock began with introductions.
“This is Lieutenant Weed,” he said, indicating the new pilot.
LT Weed was tall and lanky, with long blond hair reminding me of a California surfer, which he claimed he was during his introduction. We didn’t pay much attention until someone asked him for his first name. “Richard,” was his response.
Lou couldn’t let that one go. Looking at the four of us, he said, probably loud enough to be heard by the group, “Lieutenant Dick Weed.”
We couldn’t keep it in—all three of us were in hysterics. Lou maintained a straight face, standing up and turning to Lieutenant Dick Weed to introduce himself.
“Welcome, sir, I’m Lou Price. DEROSing back to the States next month,” he said and left the mess hall.
Lieutenant Dick Weed was in Vietnam on his first tour, and he would prove to be a cocky guy. If he wasn’t in charge of something, he tried to make himself in charge and on more than one occasion was put in his place by a flight leader or an aircraft commander. He arrived in the unit before I made aircraft commander, so I was fortunate enough never to fly with him.
That night, with a beer in hand, I went to find someplace to be alone and think. I went to the most secluded spot we had, the top of the bunker. Except I found I wasn’t alone for very long. As I was sitting there contemplating life, Bill Hess dragged himself up but stopped as soon as he realized that this seat was already taken.
“Come on up, Bill. Hope you brought your own beer. I’m not sharing,” I told him.
“Brought my own. How’s your day?” he asked.
“A lot better than yours, evidently. I understand you and Lou had an active day,” I stated.
“It got a bit tense. Have you seen anything like this since you’ve been here?” he asked.
“Hell no. I only got here a couple of days ahead of you—what, two weeks? And then sat on my ass for a week, waiting to get a check ride,” I said with disappointment in my voice. “I feel like I haven’t done shit here,” I added.
“Well, I hope this isn’t the norm. Lou said it wasn’t.” He took a long pull.
“What happened? Lou didn’t say much when he came in.”
“We had a log mission today, and en route to the battalion, they call us and tell us they have a unit in serious contact and need us there ASAP. When we land, they inform us that the company is in heavy contact, needs an ammo resupply, but they have no LZ. They want us to take it in by sling load! Lou agrees and they get it ready.” Pausing, he took another drink.
“When it’s ready, Lou moves over the load and they hook it up and we start up and up and up. The sling is a hundred feet long. When it’s taut, we stop because it’s too heavy and we had a full load of fuel. Lou’s pulling the guts out of the bird, but we aren’t going any higher, so he starts dragging the load over the ground. At first, we’re going so slow with this thing banging along on the ground. Finally we get up enough speed with this anchor that transitional lift kicks in and we start rising. But as we get higher and the load is swinging wildly under us at about a forty-five-degree angle, we can see it swinging past the damn chin bubbles! The aircraft’s getting pulled all over the place, and Lou says to release it. We have got to drop this thing before it drags us down. He can’t, because his electronic release isn’t working. I step on the manual release and it isn’t working either. What the fuck!” He took another drink and pulled out a cigarette.
After a puff, he continued. “This thing isn’t going to release and is only getting worse. Lou finally gets this thing under control, and I still don’t know how he did it.” I made a mental note to ask Lou about this.
Bill continued, “As we get close to the unit, I call for smoke, because at this point I’m only a radio operator with Lou flying. When we see the smoke, we also see that there’s no LZ, not even a bomb crater. As we make our approach, the load is snapping tree limbs and steadies pretty much, which is good, but here we are two hundred feet in the air with this load hanging under us as Lou starts lowering us down to the point where I’m eyeball to eyeball with a damn monkey in the treetop. Lou tells me to release the load, and it ain’t going anywhere. The grunts want to cut the load down on the bottom, but that would leave us with the sling flying up into the main or tail rotor. The gooks have started shooting at us and they’re on my side. I tell Lou and he tells me not to worry, right seaters are expendable! I’m attempting to hide behind my seat and the door gunner, Leonard, is shooting. The solution—the crew chief, Grossman, climbs out and hangs under the aircraft in his monkey harness and cuts the sling with a machete. He’s still hanging there when Lou pulls up and out of there. Lou is putting him in for an Air Medal for Valor. He saved our asses.”
As I took another drink, I told Bill he was lucky he was flying with Lou. I hoped I would be as lucky. I was; I never flew a sling load mission my whole time in-country.