Telshaw’s Tour
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
Having congratulated me on my promotion, in the same breath Turkey Joe told me I had been selected to go to Vietnam. One brigade of the 101st Airborne Division had been in Vietnam for some time, now they were sending the other two brigades. The liability of that extra set of wings I’d been wearing became obvious. There were no plans for an airborne assault but those jump wings still identified me as one of them. To keep its promise to the Army, the Air Force sent an ALO and a FAC with each battalion- sized unit, plus two ROMADs (Radio Operator, Maintenance man And Driver – I don’t think the term ROMAD had been coined until later but I have backed it in for the sake of brevity) and two MRC-107 jeeps. These jeeps were specially equipped with a High Frequency radio plus three or four other radios for communicating with the ground troops and the fighters. The HF radios were so powerful you could talk to people in the states all the way from Vietnam. About twenty of us along with about twenty ROMADs were sent to Fort Campbell to get acquainted with our new friends for a short time, then the ALOs and FACs went on to Hurlburt field in Florida where we would get checked out in the O-1 Bird Dog. Our ROMADS would stay and move with the 101st. After that, we went to the Philippines for jungle survival school and then on to Can Tho, South Vietnam for theater indoctrination. The latter consisted of six or eight actual FAC missions in the company of an instructor where we learned how to control fighters and how to put a smoke rocket where we wanted it.
The notion of a FAC on the ground controlling air strikes from the jungles and rice paddies of South Vietnam died at the very beginning of air operations there; The FAC simply had to be in the air, and the little Cessna O-1 was well suited for this. It normally carried eight 2.75 smoke rockets, and one or two people. For a little protection, a piece of 1⁄2 inch boilerplate was welded under the seats. Flares for night operations could also be carried. I gained a lot of respect for the little bird dog; it looked flimsy but was in fact quite sturdy and you could shoot it full of holes and probably not bring it down. I had no desire to test that theory, but later on I did.
On one occasion, I had stopped at Lam Son, not far from Bien Hoa to pick up some beer. I loaded up five cases when a frantic Army engineer type approached me that he needed a ride to Song Be. He then produced a fair sized water pump that weighed nearly a hundred pounds that he would carry on his lap. So there I was, with a two hundred pound guy with a hundred pound pump in the back seat and five cases of beer that had to go on top of the radios behind the back seat. I was in the habit of using half flaps for take-off just to save wear and tear on the tires. But this time, half flaps were the only reason it flew at all. We grunted and strained all the way up to three thousand feet where I thought I would try raising the flaps, but much to my chagrin, it simply wouldn’t fly. When I tried to maintain my altitude, the overweight tail just fell out from under us and all my airspeed went away. So I put the flaps partway down again and flew all the way to Song Be with half flaps, where I set her down as gently as I could. My crew chiefs couldn’t believe I had carried such a load all the way from Lam Son.
Providing close air support for the Army was an enormously complex and expensive undertaking. Not only did it require all the FACs, ALOs, ROMADs and their equipment, there were also Direct Air Support Centers (DASC), and Tactical Air Support Squadrons (TASS). It was the job of the DASC to see that the airplanes with the heavy firepower went where they were needed most. The TASS took care of maintaining the O-1s and other FAC equipment plus all the administrative requirements of the personnel involved. So even though many of us were attached to Army units, and in fact lived with them, we still belonged to an Air Force squadron.
After finishing up with theater indoctrination at Can Tho I was ready to go out and fight the war. But when I checked in at the 19th TASS at Bien Hoa Air Base, the 101st troops were just arriving (right there at Bien Hoa) and it would be some time before they would be assigned to an Area of Operations (AO) and see any combat; I would just be in the way. The ops officer at 19th TASS solved that problem for me; I could go up to Song Be, in Phouc Long province and be a province FAC supporting Special Forces (Green Berets) and when the 101st needed me, I would be diverted to their AO.
One of the FACs from Song Be (there were two or three) flew down in his bird dog to pick me up and lead me by the hand into my new world. Song Be is around 60 miles north of Bien Hoa, near the Cambodian border. On the way he gave me a guided tour of the area. There were several of the Special Forces “A” camps, and there were large areas that had once been cleared and were slowly being reclaimed by the jungle, and there were a couple of old rubber plantations. Of these, one had been completely ravaged with not a building left standing. Another had been more elegant with stately mansions and a large water tower lying on its side like a broken martini glass. All kinds of vegetation had begun the slow but unchallenged process of reclamation. I could see numerous footpaths winding around here and there but no other signs of recent human activity. There were roads that had not seen a vehicle for years and large areas of brown that told of our defoliation program to rob the Viet Cong (VC) and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) of the cover that had made them invisible. The roads that were heavily traveled were under the jungle and were seldom seen as they carefully avoided open areas; these were the southern extensions of the Ho Chi Minh trail. All progress in this country had been reversed years ago and all that was left in the countryside were walls with no roof and bamboo shelters.
But Song Be was in better shape. The provincial capital building was intact with its four-sided, pointed roof of French design and a wide mile- long thoroughfare leading up to it. There was a white stripe down its centerline and it served as our runway. In better times, Song Be had been a vacation spot where the rich and famous came to hunt wild tigers and elephants. Now, the small area occupied by the Army Special Forces and the FACs and ROMADs was defined by sandbags, barbed wire and claymore mines within which our living quarters were humble, but quite adequate. And of course there was a parking area for our three or four bird dogs. The only prominent terrain features were the Song Be River that circled around almost three sides of the compound and on the south side a single mountain peak that was visible for fifty miles on a clear day. On the west side of the little mountain was the Phouc Long Airfield where the US forces were operating. I was completely amazed at how they operated, and how we operated in the same general area without ever talking to each other. Miraculously, it seemed that we were never in each other’s way. Each group seemed to have their own ideas about what was going on and were not interested in what anyone else was doing. Even their FACs stayed clear of us. Song Be was not bad; and if I were to spend my entire tour here, I wouldn’t mind. For a while, it looked like I might.
The FAC was an important part of the Vietnam War. Their skills were highly valued and respected and some of their exploits were legendary. Most of the time it didn’t seem like there was anything going on in Phouc Long province so we would fly Visual Reconnaissance (VR) missions monitoring our radios so that our services would be available if needed. These hours spent over the province reinforced our familiarity with it and we developed a sixth sense, noting the subtle changes that would indicate the presence or passing of an enemy force. Quite frequently when doing VR, you would happen upon the black pajama types or the faded green uniforms of the NVA. We were not supposed to be doing VR below 1,500 feet and we were provided with a pair of binoculars, but I could never see anything but a blur with the glasses. I reasoned that if you didn’t make repeated passes over the bad guys, they would not be inclined to expose themselves just to get a shot at you. If on the other hand you gave them any indication that you had spotted them, look out. FACs caused the bad guys a lot of grief and to shoot you down was seen as a major achievement, so if you gave them a shot that was hard to miss, you should not be surprised if they took it.
On those occasions when I caught bad guys in the open, I would just keep droning along until I was well out of their view. I would note the coordinates and call my ROMAD with a request for an immediate air strike; “Troops in the open” would give it a pretty good priority and he would call the DASC with my request. At some level, in this case at the provincial level, someone from the South Vietnamese military would have to pass judgment on each strike request and note his approval, or otherwise. If the target was approved and fighters were available and my priority was high enough I would be notified in a few minutes and a rendezvous between the FAC and the fighters would be arranged. The fighters would be considerably higher than the FAC, but if you could reference your position to a common terrain feature, they could usually spot the white tops of your wings and would have you rock your wings to confirm. First, you needed to know what ordnance had been sent and of course what kind of airplanes you were FACing, then you would brief the pilots on whatever you could tell them about their “target”. If the bad guys were proceeding along a trail, you would of course want to have your fighters do their runs in the same direction, as most errors in weapons delivery occur long or short, and the weapons effects usually favor a target that is long. I would have my fighters stay high while I maneuvered my bird dog into a position from where I could roll into a dive and mark the target with one of my smoke rockets.
If all this were done without spooking the bad guys into the next county, we might just get lucky and put some kill on them. We didn’t have any smart bombs in those days, just dumb bombs, dumb rockets and dumb napalm. Consequently, accuracy could be greatly enhanced by getting as close to the target as safety would allow. Once the fighters were “ammo minus”, they were anxious to know about the fruits of their labor and the FAC’s Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) would be payday. All too often you would have made a lot of noise, knocked down a lot of trees, or burned them, but could see no evidence of having inflicted casualties. For the sake of longevity, it was not wise to hang around the impact area too long while trying to get a BDA. “One hundred percent of ordnance on target” was not an uncommon BDA. The fighter jocks, especially the ones with the big egos found it hard to believe when their efforts had been irrelevant and there was pressure for the FAC to conjure up a few KBAs (Killed By Air) just to make everyone feel good since in this war, “body count” was all important.
In every province in Vietnam there were Americans and South Vietnamese pouring over maps identifying potential targets. These were mostly ”suspected enemy troop concentrations,” “marshaling areas,” or what have you. The resulting target lists were sent up the chain of command ending up at the fighter squadrons where actual sorties were scheduled against them. That meant that at any given time, loaded airplanes would be in the air and available to support active ground engagements, “troops in contact”, if needed. The FACs would get the same target information and all too often would end up in control of attacks against these “suspected” targets. In those cases, “one hundred percent of ordnance expended in the target area” would be an appropriate BDA. And then some genius came up with the “sky spot” method of attack. A radar facility would give the fighter jocks a radar controlled approach to a release point, so now these “suspected” targets could be attacked in all kinds of weather or at night. The vision was that our enemies would have bombs falling out of the sky without warning, anytime day or night. A horrendous “crump”, heard at Song Be in the middle of the night would often be followed up next day by a requirement to fly out to a set of coordinates and do a BDA on a strike that I hadn’t controlled. It was not unusual for the target coordinates to bear no evidence of having been struck.
Yet another task for the FAC was to control the “Trail Dust” missions. Giant C-123 provider aircraft were rigged for crop dusting to spray the jungle with Agent Orange that would kill all vegetation for a year or more and would uncover the enemy’s favorite routes and encampments. The C-123s had no sophisticated navigation equipment and once they were down on the treetops, they couldn’t come within a half-mile of a set of coordinates. They usually came in threes and sometimes as many as eight. The FAC’s job was to mark the starting point with a large puff of white smoke at the right time, so the lumbering monsters could steer towards it on the proper heading.
Higher up, a flight of fighters would be orbiting and although my bird dog could not keep up, I would attempt to follow the big airplanes. Each of the big airplanes had a person standing at the back door on each side. If and when enemy fire was encountered, they would toss a smoke grenade that would spew smoke for several minutes. That would identify a target for me and I would in turn identify it to the fighters who would beat up the jungle in hopes of killing someone. In almost every case, someone with a good imagination would toss a smoke grenade and the rest was automatic. I hesitate to criticize, though, because those C-123s received more than their share of bullet holes that were not imaginary. The best missions of all were “troops in contact”. Here was an opportunity to rip your knickers, or to be a hero. Troops in contact usually gave you all the priority you needed to get whatever was available in the way of firepower. But here in Phouc Long province, we were supporting ARVN troops with Green Beret leadership and their enthusiasm for combat seemed to be lacking. So there were not many of these, and when we got one, it was usually at night; hence the term “nightmare”. Puff the Magic Dragon (an old C-47 with a 7.62 minigun and lots of flares) would circle the target area to provide illumination. Beneath him in the eerie light of the flares, I would attempt to locate the bad guys who were usually on a line perpendicular to a string of tracers and on the receiving end of the tracers. From that I could put a smoke rocket where I thought the bad guys were and get the good guys to verify my conclusion. And then I would attempt to point this all out to the fighter jocks so they could dump some bombs, napalm, or 20 millimeter on the now pinpointed bad guys. If that wouldn’t give you gray hair you must have nerves of steel. This went on and on; I thought the Hun (F-100) drivers would never run out of ammo. And when it was finally over, I couldn’t see enough to give them a decent BDA. I didn’t get many of these. I didn’t need many.
Song Be was more or less a headquarters for the five or six Special Forces “A” camps in Phouc Long Province. These camps each had a dirt strip where, when I had nothing better to do, I could land and shoot the breeze with the camp commander, usually a senior lieutenant or a young captain and his troops. I could always plan on a meal or a cold beer and they were thrilled to get to talk to someone from the world. On some occasions I would be approached before I took off from Song Be to deliver the mail to each of the A camps. This made me even more popular.
Just a couple of miles north of Dong Xoai there were two small round lakes that seemed to be no more than about two or three feet deep. Early in the morning, two beautiful wild elephants could be seen standing out in one of the lakes giving themselves a bath. I could easily kill one of these and if I had the manpower, I could retrieve four beautiful wastebaskets and two beautiful ivory tusks. I discussed this possibility with the A camp commander at Dong Xoai and he agreed that we could get this done but we had to have a day or two that we were both uncommitted. I had become quite deadly with my smoke rockets and I had no doubt that I could hit an elephant. Happily we never got it done and the next time I tried to visit Dong Xoai, right after TET (1968) my friend was gone and all the GIs and the ARVN troops were gone; the camp had been overrun. I was getting comfortable at Song Be but I knew it was too good to last. I had no idea what was going on with the 101st; nobody else seemed to know either, but they hadn’t called for me and that was fine. Then a few days after Tet, I got the word I had been requested “by name” to rejoin the 101st. I wasn’t sure who in the 101st knew me well enough for the “by name” request; maybe it was supposed to flatter me. Whatever the case, they owned me and I had no recourse. The second brigade of the 101st along with a brigade of the 1st Cavalry Air Mobile Division was up in I Corps, clear up at the northern end of the country. The bad guys had gone on a rampage and it was time to get serious. I left Song Be for Bien Hoa, and then got on a herky bird (a C-130 Hercules transport) to DaNang where I checked in to the 20th TASS. The 1st Cav had the most urgent need so I flew up to Landing Zone (LZ) Betty at Quang Tri with one of their FACs. This was a whole ‘nuther world from Song Be! LZ Betty was the headquarters for the Air Cav Brigade. It looked like it might have been an old French fortress with lots of buildings that the Cav had thrown canvas over where the roofs had once been. It was February and the weather was terrible; low clouds, bone chilling cold, and rain. My first night there was one to remember; I was invited to share the “officer’s quarters” with members of the brigade staff in an old building that had enough floor space for at least thirty bunks. The bunks that were in there were something else. Each bunk was completely surrounded with sandbags. On each end, the sandbags were nearly four feet high with giant timbers, about 6”x8” running the length of the bunk about a foot and a half above the mattress, with sandbags stacked on top of the timbers. About six of these took up all the space that was available. In what little space was left I set up my folding canvas cot and sleeping bag and spent a mostly sleepless night. Early next morning I was sent on a mission to support 1st Cav troops who were engaged with bad guys not far from Betty and not far from the beach. The weather was around three hundred feet and two or three miles visibility at best and the wind was 20 to 30 knots.
You really wouldn’t even want to fly in this kind of weather much less try to put in an air strike. But the troops wanted air support in a big way and we had no choice but to try. My fighters were a couple of Huns from Tuy Hoa loaded with snakes and napes. This was the preferred ordnance for what we needed to do. Snakes (snake eyes) were high drag bombs that came as 250 pounders, 500 pounders or 750 pounders. These were fairly new to our arsenal. The tail of the bombs had four wide sections that were hinged at the very end and wrapped around the bomb until they separated from the airplane; then a metal strap that held them closed was released, allowing the four arms to extend rearward and outward with a speedbrake effect, slowing the bomb dramatically. When it hit the ground the airplane that had dropped it would be well out of the way. Good accuracy could be achieved as they could be dropped from very low altitude. Nape was just a short name for napalm. And each Hun carried eight hundred rounds of 20 mil- limeter ammo for its four cannons. Each cannon would fire 1,500 rounds per minute giving the Hun a 6,000 round per minute capability. Each round of HEI (High Explosive Incendiary) was a miniature bomb by itself.
So here I was, in terrible weather over unfamiliar terrain getting ready to support troops I’d never seen against troops whose whereabouts I was not sure. My greatest fear was that I would allow our firepower to come to bear on our own troops. My second greatest fear was that I would run into something trying to maneuver in such a small space. Running into something did not exclude these fighters that would be traveling at over four hundred knots as opposed to my 85 knots. I had contacted the friendly troops and had developed a pretty good idea of who was where and when I came in contact with my Huns I was able to explain the target and my ground rules: “Nobody drops anything without my specific clearance on every pass.” Identifying the target with smoke rockets was extremely difficult with this wind. Five seconds after firing my rocket, the smoke had nearly dissipated and had moved far from where I had put it.
“If there is any doubt about your target, don’t drop; we can dump it in the ocean if we have to.” Miraculously, we found each other, found the bad guys, avoided the good guys, didn’t hit each other, and got bombs, napalm and 20 mm all over the bad guys. We must have done some good because the good guys were happy and I was ready for a martini. This was not fun and I really believed I had survived the very worst and that it could only get better from here.
For the next few days, the weather was even worse; it was so nasty that good guys and bad guys alike seemed to have lost interest in warfare. After that first night, three of us FACs put up a small hex tent where we could stay dry and we procured a tiny kerosene stove made mostly for cooking. We didn’t have any kerosene, but with a #10 coffee can we could drain off a quart of jet fuel from one of the many Huey helicopters parked nearby. Jet fuel was a lot like kerosene and it worked quite well in our little stove, giving us some much needed warmth.
The bad guys were never far from our camp and every night they would lob a few mortars into our midst. The way these Cav troops were bunkered in there was very little danger to them, and three FACs who thought they were bullet proof were probably the only ones at risk. All night long we would hear the occasional “crump” of exploding mortar rounds followed by a “thank you, Lord” from our unprotected tent. There was also a “thud” that I thought I could feel as well as hear but I dismissed it thinking it was probably a far off artillery round or whatever. Next morning, we all counted our blessings when less than ten feet from our tent we found the tail of a live mortar round sticking out of the ground that had failed to detonate. Filling and stacking sandbags now seemed a worthwhile activity.
It only took a few nights at LZ Betty for the three of us to decide that two were more than enough. DaNang Air Base was not that far away and there were some pretty decent facilities there. So we drew straws and I got to be the first to go. At the BOQ office at DaNang I learned that their air-conditioned units stayed full most of the time, but they had some older screened-in buildings where I could get a bunk whenever I wanted. A dry bunk with springs and a mattress and clean sheets I got from the office, and a shower – all within walking distance of the Officer’s club! What could be better than that? And what an absolute joy it was to have Beefeaters Gin on the rocks and a delicious steak with a baked potato after all the C rations I had eaten. The bar was swarming with FACs from all over the area; war stories and all the current rumors filled the air. I ran into my long time friend, George Varner, there; he was walking around almost in a daze as he had been in the old walled city of Hue when the bad guys took over most of it. George got a close up look at ground combat there and considered himself lucky to be alive. I knew the feeling. Spending every third night at DaNang became a tradition and no one ever questioned any of us.
And just getting there was part of the fun. Flying along in reduced visibility under clouds that were only two or three hundred feet above the water was full of thrills. The beach was the primary navigational aid for me and everyone else. It was nothing to meet one or several Hueys head on, and not unusual to be overtaken by them; the bird dog is one slow airplane; not even able to keep up with the Huey. CH-47 Chinooks would also eat your lunch. Unless you enjoyed flying through an artillery barrage, the trip to DaNang and back was primarily over water.
On one trip down there when the weather was particularly stinko I had groped my way through the rain and fog and was within just a couple miles of DaNang. I had tuned in to the tower frequency and was painfully aware that there was no chatter on the frequency. I wondered if my radio had failed. So I called the tower asking for landing instructions. They replied “Rash 28, be advised we are below minimums and the field is closed.” “Roger tower, which runway would you use if you were open?” No answer. I’m not sure anymore, but I think it was runway 18 that they used most of the time. The beach ran perpendicular to the runway at the north end and if I could find the beach I could find the runway because it was right there.
“Rash 28, did you copy? DaNang is below minimums and the field is closed.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I replied.
“I suggest you proceed to your alternate.”
“I have no alternate, I am not IFR equipped and I need to get down. Would it bother you too much if I just went ahead and landed at your airport if I can find it?”
I had picked up the beach and I could see lights flashing from the strobes. As I flew over the strobe lights, I could see runway lights on both sides so I eased it on down. When I could see concrete on both sides, I was home free. In the brief period of silence following my last transmission I had landed, cleared the runway and was parking when tower called,
“Rash 28, what is your position and say your intentions?”
“ I’m right here at your place and I’m heading for the bar.”
“Roger, Rash 28, welcome to DaNang.”
When the weather was good, DaNang and Bien Hoa were said to be the busiest airports in the world. They had parallel runways and would use one for landings and one for departures.
One day we had fifteen airplanes waiting to leave; they cleared several bird dogs on at mid-field, C-123s behind them, A-1s behind them, C- 130 s next, and finally about six F-4 Phantoms.
“Cleared for take-off in turn,” from the tower.
The bird dogs being the first were obligated to turn as soon as possible and get out of the way. And it was only a few minutes before they were doing the same trick all over again.
Flying back to LZ Betty from DaNang, we would contact our ROMAD when we were within thirty or forty miles. If our services were required we could be available. One day, south of Hue Phu Bai I was cruising past a hill that was around 700 feet high when I noticed some bad guys on top of it. There were six of them in some old foxholes that were grown over with fairly tall grass. They were cowering down in the foxholes trying to get under the grass so I wouldn’t see them.
They didn’t seem to have anything but their rifles from what I could tell. The clouds were just above the top of the hill and an air attack would have been okay, but I thought I’d let the fire support coordinator make the choice. I told my ROMAD the situation and asked him to check with the Army guy and see what he wanted to do. These guys didn’t seem to be much of a threat but they were in a good spot to coordinate mortar and rocket fire. In any case, the Army guy had to get clearance from the Vietnamese to attack this hilltop.
They put me in touch with “Blaster”, a fire- base nearby. While I had never adjusted artillery before, we had had a short course in it when we were at Hurlburt Field. I would have a go at being a forward artillery observer. I contacted Blaster and gave them the coordinates of the hilltop. They sounded as if they had not had anything worthwhile to do all day. I had a general idea of where they were and when their first round fell short, I had them add fifty meters. The second round landed long and to the left, but drawing a line between the two gave me a better idea of from where they were shooting.
“Down ten, right ten”
The third round landed squarely in the center of the hilltop.
“Let ‘er rip.”
They have other terminology for a salvo but I didn’t know what it was and it didn’t seem to matter. “Let ‘er rip” worked fine and about six rounds landed, all but one on the top of the hill. I wanted to go in for a closer look, but if these guys were still alive they wouldn’t be very sociable.
“Do it again,” I told Blaster, “and again, and again”.
I thought they were all dead when a Huey came out of nowhere and landed right on top of the hill. One of the bad guys stood up and was immediately done in by the door gunner. Two GIs got out of the chopper and picked up their rifles and pitched their bloody carcasses off the steep side of the hill.
“Good job, FAC,” was the comment from the Huey, and they were gone. I got all teary- eyed trying to deal with my conscience over that little episode, but this is war, and this is my job. I thought about their mothers and their fathers and how they could never know what ever happened to their boys. Those poor guys were a long way from home and probably didn’t want to be there any more than I wanted them there. They could have easily just run down the hill and dispersed but instead they just stayed there and died.