Chapter 33
The Ides of March

O ps woke me at 0430 hours in the morning so I could launch early. Something wasn’t feeling right about the missions, and I asked Lovelace and Peters if everything was in order.

“You feeling okay, Mr. Cory?” Lovelace asked.

“Yeah,” I lied. “Why?”

“We’ve heard about you and your feelings. Every time you’ve had one, your aircraft has taken hits. You sure you’re okay?”

“Okay, I’ll be honest. I got a feeling about today. It’s nothing. Superstition,” I said.

After a thorough preflight and crew brief, we were off and got up to Song Be for the morning briefing. When I walked in, the brigade commander was there and asked where the flight leader was at.

“Sir, I’m flight leader today,” I told him.

“Well, are congratulations or condolences in order, Mr. Cory?”

“Depends on how I do today, sir.”

“I’m not worried about it. You’ve been flying long enough and worked this area enough to know what’s what. Three, get on with it.” The S-3 took over the morning brief and I was taking notes. After the brief, the S-2 intelligence officer came over.

“Hey, Mr. Cory, let me go over a couple of other things. We have indications that some antiaircraft .51-cals may be in this area, which you may want to consider in your flight planning.” Ya think so? He pointed at the map. “In addition, we have some indications that the gooks are moving down from the north in this area and towards the last LZ you’ll be inserting into. I hope to have more concrete intel later today on that.” He had been pointing these locations out on the map, and I jotted them down as well.

Getting into the air, we did a high recon of the three LZs and PZs, and I made my decisions on formations, direction of landings and checkpoints. The flight joined up with me as I was refueling at Song Be, and we departed for the first mission. All went well and it was routine. The second mission went off equally well.

“Rattler Six, Chicken-man One-Niner, over.”

“Chicken-man One-Niner, Rattler Six India, go ahead.”

“Rattler Six, Chicken-man inbound for pickup. Six pax per aircraft, and I have six aircraft. Staggered right formation.”

The ground commander already knew this information, but I thought it was best just to confirm it. No need for confusion on the PZ in case someone didn’t get the word. Rattler Six was talking not only to me but also his battalion commander, who was in a command-and-control aircraft at twenty-five hundred feet with the artillery fire coordinator on board as well. As we were coming out of the PZ, I received an H minus six time hack and the artillery began impacting on the LZ. At ninety knots airspeed, we would hit the H minus two checkpoint right on time, and we did. At H minus two, a white phosphorous round impacted on the LZ, indicating the artillery was done shooting and the Cobras were cleared to roll hot. At H minus one, the door gunners opened fire, concentrating on the tree line. As we touched down, the grunts started off the aircraft. That was when a sledgehammer hit the side of the aircraft, one, two times, and then I lost count. The engine started winding down. The rotor rpm immediately started dropping as the engine rpm went to zero.

“We’re taking fire!” screamed Peters. It was on his side of the aircraft, and it was concentrated on our engine. His gun was ripping through ammunition.

“Get out!” I yelled. And we began un-assing the aircraft. Chalk Two was leading the rest of the flight out. We were now on the ground with the grunts. Peters was on his M60 machine gun until I told him to get down. No need for him to sit in the gunner’s position and be a target. To his credit, he did and took his gun with him, dragging ammo as well. Specialist Lovelace was doing the same. The Cobras were coming around for a second pass and using the remaining rockets and 40 mm ammo that they had. Rattler Six was on the ground next to me and began calling for artillery support. As the second flight came into view, the artillery silenced the antiaircraft gun that had worked us over as well as the small-arms fire that was coming from the trees. We remained in the LZ until the third lift and jumped on an aircraft to get out. Already the battalion commander had notified brigade that an aircraft was down in the LZ. A recovery team was getting ready to come get the aircraft and fly it back to Lai Khe under a CH-47. A new engine would be installed that night, and that aircraft would be flying in the morning, hopefully.

Flying back, Lovelace turned to me. “Damn, Mr. Cory, you’re psychic with your feelings.”

I said nothing as it was starting to bother me that each time I woke with the feeling, the day ended badly.

Two days later, the Ides of March were upon us. It started out as a stand-down day for me, until the ops clerk came into my room.

“Mr. Cory, they need to crank and get up to Song Be. Your crew is already getting the aircraft ready.”

“Okay, what happened?”

“Not sure, sir. The old man called and said to get you up there ASAP.”

“Okay.” I picked my gear up and headed to the flight line. The crew had everything ready to go, so off we went, not knowing what was in store for us. As we proceeded, I called Chicken-man Six for instructions.

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

“One-Niner, Six, go ahead.”

“Six, One-Niner is off Lai Khe for Song Be. Over.”

“Roger, meet me at the tower. Shut down after you refuel and I’ll brief you. Six out.”

Sort of surprised me that he didn’t give me a mission brief en route to Song Be, but he was the CO and could do as he liked.

After we arrived and refueled the aircraft, I hovered over and shut the aircraft down. He was already there waiting for me. Even before the rotor blade stopped, he motioned for me to get out. Letting my copilot finish the shutdown, I got out and approached him. He didn’t look happy.

“You got something for me, sir?” I asked. He motioned for me to follow him.

“Yeah, I have a job for you to do. No one else needs to do this.” We continued to walk across the firebase and entered the first aid/medical tent. The CO asked a medic, “Where is he?”

“Out back, sir.”

We stepped out the back of the tent, where there was another GP Large tent with the sides rolled up. Inside, four empty cots were set up. Mr. Fender sat on one of them, a bandage on his knee. Lying the ground in front of him was a black vinyl bag, commonly referred to as a body bag. Bob Young was occupying the bag.

“Are you okay, Ron?” the CO asked, placing his hand on Ron’s shoulder.

“I will be, sir,” Ron responded. I just stood there.

“What happened?” the major asked.

Still staring at the black bag, Ron started to explain. “We got a call that Sinkey’s bird was down with a transmission chip light. Bob was called to take a look at it. When he heard Sinkey was needed for a lift, Bob volunteered us to take Sinkey’s place. We called Flight Lead, and he told us to take Chalk Three position and said that Flight Lead would meet us at LZ Ann.

Once all six aircraft were assembled at LZ Ann, Yellow One started his mission brief. We had ten sorties, so we would do two turns. These are ARVNs, so we were taking eight grunts in each lift. Formation was staggered left. The bad news was that it was only a three-ship LZ, so we went in with a two-minute separation between Three and Four.” Ron paused and took a deep breath.

“Lobo’s two Cobras were on our flanks. As artillery and door gunner suppression was used, the only aircraft to take fire on the insertion was Yellow One. The operation was moving smoothly for the first lift and the second, Chalk Four and Five. The grunts were fanning out on the LZ. As the first three aircraft on the second turn began to take off, out of the tree line—boom! An RPG rocket streaked toward us, striking the left front side through plexiglass and exploding on the front of transmission wall, blowing the crew chief and door gunner out of the aircraft. Because of our armored seats, Bob and I weren’t seriously hit, although his leg was messed up and some bone fragments hit me.”

Ron raised his arm with a bandage wrapped around his forearm. He went on to explain, “The aircraft dropped five feet as

hydraulic fluid and transmission oil sprayed everyone. Bob immediately reached over and cut off the fuel flow switch. I flipped off the battery switch and we started to get out of the aircraft.” Taking another deep breath, Ron continued.

“Lobo had been in position above the flight to see the round as it was fired and rolled in with rockets, impacting the point of origin. I used the door jettison handle and the door flew open. I literally dove out the door to the ground and low-crawled as fast as I could away from the aircraft and into a bomb crater. Bob jumped out as well. I lost sight of him as I was in the bomb crater. After some time, I found out Bob hadn’t made it but was killed sometime after he left the aircraft. After about thirty minutes, Lieutenant Hicks returned to the LZ and picked us up. That’s about it, sir.”

“Okay, well, you fly back with Cory.” Turning to me, he said, “Dan, take Bob to Phuoc Vinh. You know where the graves registration pad is, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been there a few times over the last six months.”

“When you’ve dropped off Bob, take Ron back to the Chicken Coop.” Taking me aside, away from Ron, he added, “There’s a bottle of scotch in my hooch cabinet. Give him some and stay with him.”

“Yes, sir. Will do.” We all took that one hard, considering that from January of ’69 until the loss of Hanna and YA, we hadn’t lost a crew in combat, and now in the last five months we had lost three crews and had several wounded. Sinkey took it very hard as Bob Young had been his roommate. The NVA were stepping up their game.