The Most Demanding Mission I Ever Flew
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
I went on alert the night of 19 July with a young pilot named Don Watson. We were scrambled for the second time that night at about 0200. The mission was in support of a SF Camp about 100 miles north. It was called Bu Dop. I was given a frequency and a FAC to contact. If memory serves, it was Viper 05.
We launched with a load of two 500 pound bombs, extended range tanks, and rocket pods. Each pod held 19 2.75-inch FFARs. It was a beautiful, clear night, and as soon as we launched I could see flare light from the target area. We contacted Paris Control and were cleared immediately to the FAC. He was controlling a strike. When there was a break, I checked in and he advised us to proceed to the target area and hold high. We covered the distance in a short time and set up a racetrack at 20,000 feet. There was a C-123, call sign Smokey, dropping flares, one on each pass, over the target. I could see the Camp clearly, and I could even make out an A-1 delivering napalm. It looked like an easy target. A clear night under flares should be a piece of cake for us.
As the A-1s departed, the FAC advised us that he was low on fuel, was being relieved by Viper 07, and that we were to stand by for him. As we loitered, I noticed low clouds beginning to form. The Camp was getting harder to see through the thin deck. As I watched, the deck thickened, and the flares only illuminated the top of the clouds.
In about 15 minutes, Viper 07, who I later learned was Hal Halbower, checked in. He told us that the Camp was under heavy attack, and that the enemy was on the perimeter fences. He gave us target information and said that there were a number of enemy machine guns firing into the Camp from a treeline on the opposite side of the Camp from the runway. Our target was the gun positions.
By then I was very concerned because the clouds appeared to be right on the ground. Hal said the bases were at about 500 feet, but added that the Camp needed help badly. I can remember my mind set. My greatest fear was not being able to get to the target. I knew that my bombs were useless because there was no way to get release parameters, and they couldn’t be used close to friendlies. I turned on my sight and left it caged. The pipper was the correct setting for strafe, and the bottom diamond, which could be adjusted, was in the ballpark for rockets in a normal 30 degree dive angle release. I set up the armament switches so that the trigger was hot for guns, and the bomb button was hot for rockets. I told Don to stay high and that I was going to try to get under the deck. Fuel was never a problem. The top of the deck reflected the flare light, which decreased with distance. Out to the west, the ground was black which indicated that there were no clouds there yet. I descended to the west until I was over dark ground, then turned back to the target, still descending. I got as low as I thought I could, but could not see anything but the gray edge of the low clouds. I tried to move just under them, but found myself in solid clouds as soon as I got there. I immediately pulled up and went back west. At this point I remember thinking quite clearly, and in a complete sentence, “I am probably going to die tonight.” I told myself that I was either going to get to the target or die. That sounds like “bar talk,” but it isn’t; it is exactly what I thought to myself then. As I approached the cloud deck again, I willed myself to get lower than I wanted to go and after a flicker of clouds, found myself in a sort of surrealistic world of shades of gray. It was black below me. I remember trying to lift my butt from the seat because I felt as though I was about to hit the trees or something else. I headed for the area of most light, but it was all vague and indistinct. Then suddenly I saw the Camp quite clearly about a quarter of a mile off to one side. I could see its triangular shape, and one or two buildings near the outer perimeter burning. It was too far off to the side to attack, and the Camp was gone from view in less than ten seconds. It was hazy and smoky underneath.
I made a careful turn under the haze, trying to hold altitude by reference to the slight differential in the horizon. I tried to go out far enough that I could return directly to the Camp. Again I saw it at the last minute, but it was too far off to the other side. I kept saying to the FAC, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” On my fourth try I finally flew right over the Camp, but going the wrong direction – that is, from the runway side. This time I flew on heading, straight and level until I broke out of the cloud deck. Then I did a crop duster type of whifferdill turn, and did my best to end up going on the same flight path but in the reverse direction toward the Camp. I looked for the Camp, and suddenly there it was, dead ahead, and I could see just well enough. I rolled into a ninety-degree bank to the right, aiming at the left side of the tree line just beyond the runway. I was in about a one-degree dive angle because that was all the space I had. I fired my left rocket pod and immediately pushed the bomb button again for the right one. For about half a second, I could see nothing but the brilliant, dazzling flashes of the 38 rocket motors burning in my windscreen. Then I could see again. I placed the pipper on the tree line and held down the trigger, walking the fire of my four M-39 cannons along the line. When I felt that I was about to hit the ground, I snapped the wings level and pulled up hard. Almost immediately I was through the cloud deck into the clear night
again. Hal came up and said the guys on the ground reported the machine guns had stopped firing. I felt very good. I cleared Don in. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have. What he was able to do, I don’t know. In a short time, he said he was clear of the target. I don’t know if he even got to fire his guns. He was killed a week or so later and Hal never told me. I told Hal that it was too much for jets, and to get some A-1s on the target. Hal later told me there had been eight machine guns firing into
the Camp, and that they never resumed fire. We also had a letter from an Army Colonel Frink, in which he said that our action “sustained the position.” That made me feel good. Poor Don never saw the letter.
Editor’s note: The FAC Viper 07, Hal Halbower, was killed in action in Hau Nghia Province on 2 January 1966.