part0023

“What? What’s going on?” someone shouted.

“CO wants all pilots in the mess hall now with your flight gear. Briefing in fifteen minutes,” he hollered and was out the door to raise the next hooch. People were scrambling now to wake up, get dressed and find their gear.

Someone asked, “What time is it?”

“One thirty,” someone else answered. Expletives were muttered as we hurried out the door and noticed all the crews’ hooches had lights on and movement as well. At the mess hall, Major Saunders and the ops officer had the mission board and crew assignments posted as we all grabbed seats.

“Here’s the deal,” Major Saunders started off. “Intel says we’re going to get hit hard tonight in about an hour. We have to get all the aircraft out of here now. Yellow One is Captain Bechtold, and crew assignments are listed here. We have sixteen aircraft that need to launch, and quick. The flight will be trail formation, and we’re going to Bear Cat. Get to your aircraft and get them cranked ASAP. Maintenance platoon and company ground personnel will be your passengers. Get as many as you can on board as they’ll be without equipment, so maximize your loads. Now go!”

And with that, there was a mad dash out the door and through the company area to the aircraft. People from the maintenance platoon and company support were already getting to the aircraft in groups of eight to ten, which, without equipment, the aircraft should be able to handle. My crew chief was already at the aircraft and had the blades untied and passengers ready to load. My copilot and I were the last to arrive and conducted a very quick preflight, being assured by the crew chief that he had already done it. Good thing we had done a post-flight when we had come in only a couple of hours earlier. Not going to be much sleep tonight.

I had been flying Night Hunter, so I had night formation flying under my belt, but some of the aircraft commanders had not. Oh, this is going to be fun , I thought. The last time most of these guys had flown night formations was back at flight school, and that was a gaggle. Sarcastic bastard I was. As each aircraft came up to full power, each contacted Yellow One and reported ready. When the last was up, Yellow One notified everyone he was coming out and started moving. At the same time, each aircraft fell into place behind him, hovering to the runway. Lobo was also cranking, as were the Robin Hoods. That was about sixty aircraft all moving to the runway, and surprisingly it was done in a rather orderly fashion. Robin Hood was located along the runway, so they were the first to take the runway and were off, followed by us and then the Lobos. As each flight was off, we separated and headed for our respective destinations.

“Yellow One, Chalk Sixteen, all aircraft are up.”

“Roger, Flight, come up trail formation.”

And the formation began to take shape. My copilot, WO1 Fender, had not flown night formations, so I went into instructor mode and initially had the controls.

“Okay, Ron, we’re going to position ourselves slightly above the aircraft in front and maintain our one-rotor-blade distance.”

“Okay, but how do you know we’re only one rotor blade and not overlapping?” he asked. I could hear some apprehension in his voice.

“Notice his tail rotor hub and his exhaust?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“What we want to do is line up his tail rotor hub in the exhaust stack, and that’ll give us our position slightly above him. You don’t want to focus on his taillight, as that will put you on the same level as him and subject you to his rotor wash. The trick is to stay slightly above him. The guys behind us will be doing the same,” I said.

“Okay, but what about the distance?” he asked. I could still hear some apprehension in his voice. He was a new guy, and in flight school you did night formation flying, sort of, with at least two-rotor-blade separation but more like three.

“To judge your distance, watch his exhaust flame. If you can barely see it, you’re about the right distance. If you lose it, then you’re back too far, and if it’s bright, you’re too close. Just watch,” I added as I eased us into position above and behind the aircraft in front.

“Hey, Specialist Posey, what does it look like behind us?” I asked my crew chief.

“Sir, some are hanging close and others might as well be in another formation. The aircraft behind us is looking good, but there’s a gap between him and the next aircraft. Some of our passengers don’t look real happy, however. They best not puke in here or they’re cleaning it up,” he added.

“Yellow One, Chalk Sixteen, Flight is up, sort of.”

“Chalk Sixteen, what do you mean sort of?”

“Yellow One, we have a couple of gaps of three to four rotor separation, it looks like. But everyone except one is in position above the next. Someone is having problems, it appears,” Chalk Sixteen added.

“Yellow One, Chalk Twelve.”

“Go ahead, Twelve.”

“Yellow One, that’s me. I put my newbie on the controls and he’s learning. We’ll get there.”

“Roger, Twelve.”

Chalk Twelve had a very old aircraft commander who was about to rotate home. To his credit, it was very good of him to let the newbie take the controls. We didn’t fly night formations very often, but when the opportunity to learn came along, we took it. The night was calm, so turbulence didn’t play havoc with us, and the weather was good, so no rain showers. In the distance, we could see the lights of Bear Cat, and Yellow One set us up for a long final approach.

“Flight, Yellow One. We will land and hover off the runway to the right. There’s an open field there and we’ll occupy it for the night. Shut down and get some sleep. We’ll refuel in the morning before we head home.”

Coming into the field, each aircraft came to a hover and set down. Specialist Posey got out and opened my door while Specialist Quillin, my door gunner, opened Ron’s door. As soon as the main rotor stopped, Specialist Posey had it tied down, and out came his hammock, which he proceeded to string up under the tail boom and climb in. Damn, I have to get one of those for myself , I thought, but he was the crew chief and staked out his sleeping area first. Our passengers just lay down on the ground or inside the aircraft. Chicken plates made horrible pillows, but I staked out a spot on the ground under the aircraft.

Intel didn’t get it right, as Lai Khe didn’t get hit that night. Instead, it got pounded with rockets and mortars the next night, once we returned. Some aircraft were hit and one was lost completely with a direct hit. One of Lobo’s aircraft took a direct hit as well. We’d suspected as much, as all the hooch maids had left that day at about 1500. They’d said nothing directly but had given plenty of indications that we’d best be on our toes for what was coming. We were used to receiving a couple of rockets or mortar rounds three or four times a week at night, but not like this.

In hindsight, this exercise prepared us for upcoming events.

“Wake up! Mission brief in thirty minutes in the mess hall,” screamed the ops clerk as he ran through the hooch. As we were all light sleepers now because of the rocket attacks, everyone was up immediately and scrambling to get dressed.

“What time is it?” someone asked.

“Zero two thirty. What the hell now?” responded Mike George as we were all heading out the door. Over in the crew chief and door gunner hooches, lights were on and everyone was moving with a lot of hollering. Entering the mess hall, Major Saunders and the ops officer were posting crew assignments and tail numbers.

“Okay, get in and get seated,” directed the major. Once we settled down, he began the mission brief.

“Firebases Jamie, Grant, and Joy all got hit about an hour ago by at least a regiment-size force at each one.” Worried looks were exchanged amongst the pilots. “Division has ordered an operation to place two companies in a blocking position north of Grant to foil a withdrawal of the remnants of the regiment in that area or to reinforce Grant if necessary. Our mission is to pick up one rifle company at this location”—he pointed at the map—“and insert them three klicks north of Grant in this location. I will be Yellow One and this will be a twelve-ship lift with two turns. Those of you not in the lift will go to Quan Loi and fly resupply to each firebase and backhaul wounded.” He paused while we absorbed his words.

“Now the bad news—there will be no artillery fire on the insertion. Division does not want the gooks to know we’ve landed in this location, so artillery support will be on call but not fired unless absolutely necessary. In addition, there was concern that an artillery prep would obscure the LZ with smoke and make it more difficult for us to land. The good news is that a recon team is at the LZ and reports no activity. I will be in contact with them on our approach. It is now zero three hundred and we launch in twenty minutes. Get your crew assignments and get out there. Crew chiefs and gunners are at the aircraft now.” With that, we all departed as ACs already knew which aircraft they were flying and right seaters had studied the board while the major was talking.

Arriving at the aircraft, we saw that the guns had been mounted and preflight was complete. Posey and Quillin were on top of their game. Mr. Fender was my copilot again for this mission, and he began his start-up procedure as soon as we were all strapped in. We were flying Chalk Four of the twelve-ship lift.

“Flight, this is Yellow One, coming out.” And with that, he picked up and moved to the runway, followed by each chalk in sequence. Over in the Snake Pit, Lobo was also cranking up four aircraft that would escort us. As each aircraft came out, they called Yellow One to let him know his flight was up.

“One, this is Two, you are clear to take off.”

“Flight, this is One, come up trail.” We had assumed this would be the formation as it was the easiest to fly at night. As most things in a lift were done by standard operating procedures, SOP, little communications and directions were necessary. As we departed, Chalk Three provided artillery clearance.

As we attained our altitude of two thousand feet, we could see three separate fire fights in the distance even though all three firebases were ten to twenty klicks to the north, and about nine klicks apart. Tracer rounds in green and red crisscrossed the night sky, along with flares being dropped from an unseen helicopter from our sister company, lighting up the firebases and impacting artillery on the perimeter of each base, either from our guns or the NVA mortars. I thought it must be hell right now on those firebases.

Mr. Fender had learned well the other night and was holding a good position on the aircraft in front of us. Our navigation lights were on but we had turned them down to low intensity, not wishing to give someone on the ground a target.

“Flight, this is One. Starting our approach to the PZ.” With that, Yellow One began our descent. On our previous night formation, we were landing on a lighted airfield; this time we were landing to a black hole.

“I got it,” I said as I reached for the controls.

“You have the aircraft,” Mr. Fender said with some enthusiasm. “Dan, do you have a cigarette?” he asked.

“Afraid not. I don’t smoke.”

“Hey, I got some smokes, Mr. Fender,” Quillin said as he moved up and handed his pack of cigarettes to him along with a lighter. “Keep them up here.” Sitting in the door gunner or crew chief position made it difficult for them to smoke due to the wind, so they only smoked in the cargo area out of the wind. Mr. Fender lit up right away.

As we approached the PZ, we slowed our airspeed based on the aircraft in front of us and reduced our altitude. Crossing over the trees into the PZ we began to see small lights marking the position of each group of soldiers to pick up. We quickly loaded and with a call from Chalk Twelve were lifting off.

Almost as soon as we lifted off, Yellow One came up on the net. “Flight, this is One. The recon elements say that there’s no activity around the LZ so there will be no artillery prep and no suppressive fire going in unless we take fire. Be sure your crews know this. We do not want to tip our hand on this. Eight minutes to touchdown.”

“Mr. Cory, did I just hear the major correctly? No suppressive fire or artillery prep?” asked Posey.

“Yeah, I sort of forgot to tell you guys that. He’s talking to a recon team in the LZ and we don’t want the gooks to know we’re putting these guys in there. So unless we’re taking fire, there will be no shooting. Understood? Pass that on to the grunts so they understand as well,” I instructed Posey. He was not smiling.

As our altitude decreased into the darkness below, I said, “Okay, guys, heads up. Watch for small saplings in the LZ as well as stumps and logs. Last thing we need is a tail rotor strike.” Clearing the trees surrounding the LZ, we decelerated and touched down in a large clearing. The grunts were out in record time and we were out of there.

The insertions went off almost perfectly. It became obvious that everyone’s night formation flying ability had improved considerably with these two hours of additional practice. We took no fire and arrived back at Lai Khe just in time for breakfast and received our missions for the day. The fact that we were off at 0300 hours made no difference. Missions still had to be executed. It was going to be a long day. This made me start to wonder. We were over here attempting to help the Vietnamese people maintain their freedoms, and the best they could do for us was to leave work early. Several small things had happened in the past couple of months that were making me reconsider why I was here. Cambodia and Laos had fallen to the Communists, and South Vietnam appeared to be next. How much further could they go in taking over Southeast Asia? But why should I care, as it appeared the local populace didn’t care? Of what value was Vietnam to US interests? These questions began to eat at me, and the lack of appreciation I was seeing from the locals didn’t help me reach any answers.