Cambodian Interlude
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
My first mission of the new year was flown 2 January 1971. Jerry Dufresne and I were scheduled to fly a routine Rustic mission to Cambodia. The Rustic mission was different from the Covey mission in that it provided American air power to support the Cambodians against the Communists. When we abruptly pulled out later, many of those we supported and who had put their faith in us were massacred in the events that came to be described in books and motion pictures as “The Killing Fields.”
We were doing close air support and needed to closely coordinate with the Cambodians on the ground who were much more fluent in French than in English. Jerry was a French-speaking radar technician who had been working elsewhere in Vietnam when 7th AF “requested” he accept reassignment to fly as an interpreter. He accepted, as did many other French-speaking enlisted men who were located throughout Vietnam, and reassigned to the Rustic operation. I think a lot of them came from Cajun country in Louisiana.
We launched early in tail number 67-14626 (the OV-10 now in the Memorial Air Park at Hurlburt Field) and headed west. It was a quiet morning until Jerry told me that he had the smell of very hot electrical wire in the back cockpit. Becoming pedestrians in Cambodia wasn’t on our list of things to do that day so I headed to Phnom Penh. A few radio calls alerted others to our problem and then I turned the electricity off as we headed to the airport.
Once on the ground I was faced with an interesting problem. The Cambodians were very friendly toward Americans, and the stories of their hospitality were many. The idea of staying over for a day or two, therefore, had considerable merit. Nevertheless, for all kinds of political reasons, it was a major “no-no” for an American to be on the ground in Cambodia. For that reason, I reluctantly decided to try and fix the problem and get back to Bien Hoa as quickly as I could.
As I mentioned in my previous article, I had been a flight test engineer before entering the Air Force, and had been flying maintenance test hops in Vietnam, so I was pretty sure I knew right where I’d find the melted wires. However, when I looked I couldn’t find anything wrong. The smell had cleared so I decided to turn the generators back on long enough to charge the batteries. Phnom Penh didn’t have a 28-volt start cart for the OV-10, so if we couldn’t start on batteries we would be really stuck. We were just about ready to give it a go, when we got a message from 7th Air Force. It said not to depart until a crew chief looked at the plane. What a deal, stuck in Phnom Penh!
Since it seemed we would be there for a while, the Cambodian Air Force guys borrowed their colonel’s old Mercedes and took us downtown. We fed the royal white elephants and did some other fun stuff – all the while trying to look like something other than American pilots in our flight suits, GI sunglasses, and crew cuts. We had given our secret codes, survival vests, and guns to the Cambodians to hold – probably another “no-no.” We finally ended up in a souvenir shop, where it seemed the Cambodians were bent on buying us one of everything in the place. Not wanting to seem greedy, I suggested one item that they could purchase for us. Then we did an illegal exchange of a US $20 bill for some local currency and bought a few other things. While we were in the shop two Cambodian Army guys that we knew from one of their coordination visits to Bien Hoa showed up. The next question; what did we want for lunch? We were offered French, Chinese, and just about anything else we wanted, but since Cambodia was not on our regular itinerary, I asked for Cambodian food.
We were soon off to a nice restaurant and about to be seated in the main dining room when we were whisked to a back room. Here we met many Cambodians who probably owed their lives to the Rustic operation. Even though I had only been with the Rustic operation for about a month it didn’t matter, we were instantly honored guests. We were offered drinks and I took orange juice because I was sure that I’d be flying back shortly. I cleared Jerry for brandy and soda. I told him that I’d make sure he was strapped in. I figured that he would sober up when I punched him out if we had to go (the seats were set so that if the pilot went, the passenger went, sometimes without time for a discussion or warning, four tenths of a second before him). We spent a pleasant few hours just talking. I even found a few Cambodian pilots who had been trained at Williams AFB and who spoke English.
All the while the group grew larger, eventually including a former province chief who was now a cabinet minister. Finally we left the back room and headed for lunch. The main dining room was now all ours and it was arranged in a banquet “T.” The cabinet minister took the center position, I was to his right, Jerry to his left and we were flanked by colonels and then in descending order by rank to the corporals. Lunch was all local food starting with dried fish and green mangos, snake and turtle salad, raw tortoise eggs (of which I ate three after nearly gagging on the first one), and lobster soup. Toasts accompanied all the courses. Then they gave both Jerry and me more gifts.
About the time lunch was over Lieutenant Colonel Dick Wood arrived from Bien Hoa with a crew chief to rescue us from our “terrible predicament.” Given that Dick was a lieutenant colonel and I was only a first lieutenant, we went through another round of gifts and a toast with very expensive champagne, of which I did participate. I may be crazy, but I’m not so stupid as to pass up a glass of fine champagne.
Finally Dick dragged us out of the party. On the ride back to the airport he pumped me for the story. I told him what happened and said that I would take my broken plane and if anything happened I’d just kill the electrical power and jump on his wing for the trip back to Bien Hoa. Dick made a command decision and said that he would take the broken plane, which was okay with Jerry and me. We arrived at the airport to find that the crew chief couldn’t find anything wrong. I strapped them both into my aircraft and Jerry and I headed for Dick’s OV-10.
I carefully strapped Jerry in the back seat. While starting Dick’s OV-10 I noticed that the boost pump light on #1 engine wouldn’t go out as it normally should. 7th Air Force had a rule that we weren’t supposed to fly broken airplanes, and the boost pump pressure problem certainly qualified the airplane as broken. After a few radio calls we were told to stay in Phnom Penh. The bottom line is that we didn’t get back until 3 January and the Cambodian’s reputation for hospitality was confirmed.
Returning to Bien Hoa we didn’t get a hero’s welcome and in fact I was in double trouble. First, although our stay-over had been directed by 7th Air Force, at least in some quarters, it took on the proportions of an “international incident.” The second major penalty was a really bad case of “tourista.” All in all I’d say it was worth it. Shortly after the incident my services as a Rustic at Bien Hoa were deemed “no longer required,” and I was sent back to the Coveys at DaNang.