Welcome to Vietnam
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
I arrived at DaNang in late March 1966 and reported in. The heat was stifling and I had sweated continuously since arriving in country. The Commander, 20th TASS told me that, after a local checkout, I would be assigned to the out-of- country mission. My duty station would be Khe Sanh and I would be flying over the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. To a new guy, all of that was about as clear as mud.
Finally, the 20th put me in the air on a local check out in the O-1E. My big checkout was two rides. The first was to see if I could fly and the second to see if I could mark a target and control fighters. As it turned out, that second ride was my check ride. Interestingly, the staneval pilot had a broken right wrist, complete with a cast. It seems a couple of days earlier there was a little fight in the officers’ club.
I got the standard issue for a FAC: jungle fatigues, boots, 38 pistol, M-16, a map, pencils, etc. The next day I launched in an O-1 towards Khe Sanh.
I received a hearty welcome at Khe Sanh. About a week before I arrived, Dave Holmes was shot down in the vicinity of Tchepone, which was a major point of infiltration of troops and supplies from North Vietnam down through Laos and back into South Vietnam. On one of my first missions over Laos, Dave Holmes’ O-1 could easily be spotted on a long sandbar beside the river. It appeared to sustain some damage, but from all appearances, Dave had landed the aircraft. To my knowledge, Dave was never heard from again.
Dave Farrow was the site commander at Khe Sanh. He really had his act together. All the guys at Khe Sanh were highly motivated and a great bunch to work with in the Tiger Hound area over Laos. There was Dan Packard, a true-blue fighter jock. He had a long handlebar mustache, a ready grin and the ability to teach us non-fighter jocks the tactics and techniques that would keep us alive. Jesse Couch was a great guy, but really hung it out lots of times when not necessary. He loved to troll for ground fire and then kill guns with lots of tactical airstrikes. We generally kept five Hound Dog FACs on station most of the time. Fredrick (I can’t remember his first name) was short and left about a week or so after I arrived. Along came John Hanna as replacement for Fredrick. John had a mixed aircraft background, like a lot of us. It wasn’t long before Couch had gotten his airplane shot up pretty badly (again), so the site commander had him shipped south to hopefully keep him alive. Ray Giggler replaced Jesse Couch. He was a SAC product, and did a fine job as a FAC.
In the meantime, we were killing lots of trucks on the Ho Chi Minh trail. We were also discussing tactics, which allowed us to interdict supplies and troops without getting chopped up by NVA guns. They had some nasty stuff, especially around Tchepone and Saravane, and certain positions where choke points occurred along the roads. Mostly we encountered small arms and single .50 cal. But, they also had quad- 50s, 37 mm, and ZPU 23s. I don’t recall the exact date, but I believe it was around the middle of May 1966, when we got a call from our Hillsboro control that Hound Dog 50, our Boss, was down. We lost an extraordinary aviator and friend.
After Dave Farrow was lost, a Major Robert Smyth came aboard as the site commander. Dave was our second lost FAC in a little more than a month. So, as we sat in our underground bunker, drinking a little Scotch, playing cards and solving the world’s problems, we had some very serious discussions about our ability to stay alive and carry out the assigned mission. We were having good success at finding and killing trucks and supplies. But, we did not have the means to stop them at night. There were AC-47 gun ship missions at night as well as some B-57 night missions. But it was difficult to get feedback on the success of these night missions.
I don’t recall the exact date, but believe it was toward the end of May, when Hillsboro called to say that Dan Packard had taken a hit in the leg and was climbing for altitude. I terminated my strike mission and started toward Dan’s last known position. I located smoke and the aircraft wreckage, but no chute or radio calls. I recovered at Khe Sanh; the plane was refueled and armed. Major Bob Smyth with Ray Giggler in the rear seat took off to see if Dan might have survived. They made a number of passes over the area and encountered intense quad-50 fire. The rear window was shot out, the right rocket pod was cut loose and dangling, and the anti-collision light was shot off. They could not locate any sign of Dan. We launched another FAC and he got fighers and took out the guns. Rescue later recovered Dan’s body. Again, we lost a true patriot and a fellow aviator.
Losing three out of five Hound Dog FACs in about a two and one-half month period didn’t sound like good odds to survive for a year and go home. We really started refining our tactics, using a combination of a higher altitude, kill any gun that shoots at you, more jinking, and common sense to avoid the known big guns.
About mid-July 1966, the Brass decided that we needed to stop the flow of troops and supplies flowing through the DMZ. We Hound Dogs, flying from Khe Sanh, Kontum and Kham Duc were selected since we were more experienced. Thus, we started flying missions over the DMZ to about 30 miles into North Vietnam. Our tactical call sign became COVEY, the same call sign now used by all FACs flying out-of-country missions.
Added Note: I Arrived in Vietnam in March 1966. I first flew from Khe Sanh as Hound Dog 56, then to Dong Ha to fly into North Vietnam as Covey 62. After 80 missions over North Vietnam, the brass pulled us so that we would not have our tours curtailed under the “fighter rules,” and get to go home with a 100 missions over the north. We were rewarded by getting to choose where to fly our remaining time in country. I chose to fly from Kontum. Supposedly it was quiet on the trail, they had an O-Club, tennis courts, some females around, etc. But, like a lot of stories, things started heating up in that tri-border area. From Kontum we also flew over Laos and North Vietnam. In the end, we did get a couple of months of tour curtailment.