Chapter 27
Almost Home

I got through the first week after Thanksgiving flying Night Hunter Killer again and checking some of the newer copilots out on the mission. Bob Hope was going to be in Lai Khe for a show, but I was too tired to walk over and see it. I needed some sleep before going back out for the next mission that night. We were working in the Song Be region almost exclusively now, supporting the Third Brigade. The first week of December, I got pulled off Night Hunter Killer and was back to flying days. I drew a sniffer mission.

The flight ops clerk woke me at 0500 hours for a 0600 hours launch. Something didn’t feel right. I had a weight on my shoulders, it felt like. I felt like I had the day Johnson had been hit.

“Hey, Linam, the aircraft in good shape?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How do the guns look?” I asked Diedrich.

“They’re good, sir. I replaced feed trays last night and trigger housings as well. Ammo is clean as I just opened the cans. You feel all right, Mr. Cory?” he asked.

“No, I don’t. I just got a feeling. It’s nothing. Let’s crank and get going.”

Bruce Sinkey was my copilot and we were flying in an area that had low vegetation and rice paddies along the river basin. Rice paddies weren’t common up here as the jungle was thick hardwood trees for the most part. The Song Be River meandered through the area. About twenty minutes’ flying time northeast of Song Be proper was an old Special Forces camp known as Bu Gia Map. This camp had been attacked and abandoned back in early 1966, along with a Special Forces camp at Bu Dop, and no one had been back. Both had abandoned dirt runways, and Bu Dop even had the remains of a couple of C-130 transport aircraft that had been hit with mortar rounds during the siege. While flying Night Hawk missions, we had noticed some lights up at Bu Gia Map but didn’t have authority to go there on those missions as both camps were right on the Cambodian border. The camp was located at the maximum range of eight-inch artillery and outside the range of the 105 mm howitzer or the 175 mm howitzer, both of which had a faster rate of fire than the eight-inch howitzer. The first run of the day turned up nothing. No people, no monkeys, nothing. Since the Song Be River came down from the camp, I sat down with the sniffer team when we came back to refuel and eat.

“Hey, guys. Since we didn’t get any hits in this area, what say we fly the road going to Bu Gia Map and see if we can find something up there?” I asked as we opened a case of C-rations for a morning snack.

“I don’t know, Mr. Cory. We’ve never been up there, and it’s really outside our box,” the team leader mumbled.

“Yeah, but we’re not getting anything down here. If we go up there and get some hits, then we will have accomplished something. And if we don’t get any hits, then we just don’t say anything to anyone.”

“Where is Bu Gia Map?” he asked.

I pulled out the map and showed him where a dirt road had once existed that went from Song Be northeast to Bu Gia Map.

“Well, the bottom part of the road is in our area. We could run that again, I suppose,” mumbled the team leader.

“We sure could,” I agreed, thinking that once we were heading that way, well, who knows?

“Okay, let’s run this area around the road.” He pointed at the top portion in our box.

“You got it. Let’s load up.”

We started working the road moving northeast. The road was in the chin bubble, and Linam and Diedrich were on the guns as we were only low-level and sixty knots airspeed. At first we got nothing, and I continued to fly us north.

As we approached the end of the box, the team leader cried, “Max Mark,” and the crew opened fire. Nothing came back at us. I told Lobo to hold off shooting.

“Chicken-man One-Niner, Lobo Three-Eight, over.”

“Go ahead, Lobo.”

“Where you going, Chicken-man? Are we out of the box?”

“Ah, Lobo Three-Eight, as we got nothing in the portion of the box but something right here at the top, I thought we’d move up a bit and see if we can pick something up.”

“Roger, Chicken-man. Lobo is climbing to fifteen hundred feet. Got you covered. Out.”

Lobo wanted to stay out of .51-cal range but still be able to cover us. I could see that coming, but he didn’t object, and so we pressed forward. We hit a couple of more “Max Mark” indicators but took no fire, so Lobo didn’t roll hot. Following on the map while Bruce flew, I could see we were approaching the old camp, which was on the south end of the runway at Bu Gia Map. To the west was a narrow valley about five hundred feet below the old Special Forces camp and runway. I told Bruce to drop into the valley and run it to the north, thinking we might catch someone harvesting rice. The valley was empty. As we reached the end, I said, “I have the aircraft. Take a break.”

“You have the aircraft.” And Bruce pulled out a cigarette.

“Okay, we’re heading back. We’ll go over the camp and follow the road back south.”

Coming around the end of the valley, I climbed up the ridge and popped up looking south right down the runway. On the left, Specialist Linam started shooting. The sniffer team leader let loose with a 40 mm round. Under the bamboo canopy on the edge of the runway was a regular village of NVA soldiers lying around. Some were in uniform, some lying in hammocks, some cooking chow. Tables were made out of bamboo, as were chairs. They were totally surprised, as were we.

“Lobo, on my left in the bamboo. Fire!” I screamed as I increased power and airspeed rapidly, staying low to the ground. I had never seen so many enemy soldiers before. As soon as I spoke, 2.75-inch rockets were slamming into the bamboo as NVA troops ran and dove for cover. Lobo was firing ripple effect, automatically launching twenty-eight rockets with just one pull of the trigger and punching the target. Then his minigun opened on the tree line on my left as we were hauling ass out down the runway. As we cleared the abandoned SF camp and runway, we stayed low-level until we were confident that we could climb to altitude and not get hit by a .51-cal machine gun. But something wasn’t right in the feel of the aircraft. The cyclic felt stiff and was getting stiffer.

“Lobo, Chicken-man One-Niner, over.”

“Chicken-man, Lobo, that was awesome.” The excitement in his voice was noticeable.

“Lobo Three-Eight, we have a problem,” I said, the concern in my voice equally obvious. “My cyclic is stiffening up. I may have to put it down.”

“Roger. Let me know what I can do.”

“Linam, the cyclic is getting stiff. What causes this?” Linam was climbing from behind his gun and grabbing tools. We were at one thousand feet, flying straight and level. The master caution light and caution panel didn’t indicate anything wrong, such as a hydraulics leak.

“Don’t change course or move anything, Mr. Cory, until I can check it out.” And he started opening up the floor panels. All the flight controls were push-pull tubes in the UH-1H, and they were all located under the floor panels of the aircraft, going back to the transmission well, where they turned upward to the rotor head. Only the tail rotor was operated by a cable attached at some point to the push-pull tubes. Linam had the panels up and was looking below.

“Mr. Cory, we have a problem. The housing for the push-pull tube is shot away, and each time you move the cyclic control, it’s binding the rods.”

“Can you fix it?” I was surprised at how calm I sounded when I was shitting bricks here.

“No, sir. I could hold the tubes up, but then I would be flying the aircraft from here,” he said.

“Well, what do you suggest?”

“Slowly descend and find a clear area that we can do a running landing into. You might be able to raise the nose, but it will be a one-time move, not to be countered by attempting to lower the nose.”

Okay, I can do this . Running landings were practiced, and the further south I flew, the better the terrain for this. A runway would be nice, but the closest was Song Be, and it was laid out east to west whereas I was flying north to south. That ain’t going to work.

“Guys, start looking for an open area.”

“What about the road?” Bruce said. He was now on his third cigarette since I had taken the controls. Damn, he better save a couple of me , I thought. In the distance, we could see a straight stretch, but the trees were close and the sides were lined with bamboo.

“It’s going to have to do. I want everyone up forward and seat belts on. Linam, make sure everyone is strapped in tight.” I explained to Lobo what we were going to do. He started making a mayday call for me, and right away I heard other aircraft responding to the call. He was giving my location and condition. We were approaching the north end of the box, and the road was in front of me as I slowly lowered the collective. Our descent began, but the airspeed remained the same, ninety knots. As we got lower, John pointed out, “We’re going to be taking some tree limbs out.”

“Nothing we can do about it now.”

“Chicken-man One-Niner, Lobo Three-Eight, over.”

“Go, Lobo.”

“Chicken-man, I’m expended, but Blue Max has two aircraft about five minutes out to cover you. I’ll remain on station until they contact you.”

“Roger.”

“Chicken-man One-Niner, Chicken-man One-Six, over.” It was Mike George.

“Talk to him,” I told Bruce.

“Chicken-man One-Six, Chicken-man One-Niner, go.”

“Hey, got yourself in a fine mess this time. I have you in sight and will stand by. You get that thing stopped and get your ass over to my ship. I’m going to land right behind you. You got that?”

“Affirmative, Chicken-man One-Six,” John came back.

As I got to treetop level with the road under the chin bubble, I started easing the nose up. Slowly the airspeed began to bleed off. Eighty knots; seventy knots; sixty knots; and our speed continued to drop. We were slapping the tops of bamboo stalks now—twenty knots. Bamboo stalks were breaking and I could feel the main rotor buffeting as we hit thicker vegetation. I just didn’t want to know what kind of vegetation at this point. Just don’t let us hit a hardwood tree trunk and rip the rotor head off. At twenty knots, the skids touched the ground and we were sliding along, steering with the pedals to maintain a straight line. Broken bamboo was whirling about as if it was in a tornado. As the aircraft came to a stop, I was shutting the engine down while Linam and Diedrich had the guns in hand, with belts of ammo in their arms, and we were un-assing the aircraft as Mike landed right behind me. He didn’t worry about tree limbs. One look at my rotor blades told him that I’d cleared out everything for him as if a giant lawn mower had passed over the bamboo field.

As Mike flew us back to Song Be, Diedrich asked the question that I knew was coming. “Hey, Mr. Sinkey, was that your first time shot down?”

Bruce walked into it. “Yeah, I’ve only been country a couple of months.”

“Thank you, sir, you’re buying the beer tonight.” I considered if I should speak up as it was my first as well. Then Mike spoke up. “Hey, Cory, that’s your first too, isn’t it? There will be lots of free beer tonight, guys.” I started to protest, but to no avail.

Blue Max had taken up a station over us and informed us that they would remain there until a recovery team was inserted from First Battalion, Ninth Cavalry. My aircraft was flown out a couple of hours later under a CH-47. One lone AK-47 round had hit the bottom of the aircraft. Oh, UH-1Hs could be such fragile things.

Back at the brigade TOC, I had to explain what had happened. When I was done, there was a long pause from the brigade commander. “What made you go up there, Mr. Cory?”

“Sir, I was seeing stuff up there on Night Hunter and thought it would be worth a look.”

“And was it?” he asked.

“I think so, sir. You’ve got a major concentration up there just relaxing.”

“I do too. Three,” he said, meaning the S-3 operations officer, “let’s get an air strike up there and see if we can’t get a LRRS team in that area. Thanks, Mr. Cory. You have a ride home?”

“Yes, sir.”

With that, my crew and I climbed into Mike’s aircraft and went home. Feelings would not leave me.