Memories of a Monsoon Day
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
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Beneath a low ceiling of dense clouds, dusk settled fast. I looked out my hotel window at the muddy Mekong. Beyond the bank-full river, foreboding towers of limestone karst stood like sentinels guarding the Laotian city of Thakhek.
On 1 September 2000, the monsoon season continued to dominate the weather of Northeast Thailand. Some things had changed drastically from what I remembered from my combat tour as a Forward Air Controller (FAC). Thirty- three years earlier I had flown O-1 Bird Dogs from Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base eight miles west of the Mekong. The base was more widely known as NKP, the designator for the TACAN navigational radio at the airfield. Perhaps it is even more widely know by the more colorful nicknames of Naked Phantom and Naked Fanny.
Now I stood in my fourth-floor room in a luxury hotel on the southern outskirts of what had been the sleepy little town of Nakhon Phanom. In the old days I had over flown this very spot scores of times. We had been told to fly south of the town on our clandestine missions against the Ho Chi Minh Trail through central Laos. Were we fooling anyone? Not likely. I’m sure the Pathet Lao or North Vietnamese spotters at Thakhek reported every time they saw a pair of eastbound Bird Dogs angle higher into the Laotian skies.
A hundred yards beyond my hotel window, a huge red-and-white tower offered dramatic evidence of how times had changed. Power cables extended to a similar tower a mile away on the Laotian bank of the Mekong. The tower flirted with the ragged base of monsoon clouds, making a point of how high the tower was – and how close the overcast was to the ground and the river.
Back in the 1960s, we sometimes flew our Bird Dogs with reckless abandon, especially while returning from cheating death one more time in the deadly skies over the Trail. More than once I had cruised up the river with my Bird Dog’s tires fewer than ten feet above the brown water. Back then; we had no power lines to worry about.
Nevertheless, we weren’t without cares – and the setting beyond my hotel window was much like the middle of a dark afternoon I remembered in April 1967. That day, too, I likely had flown below the height of those power lines, but my reasons weren’t celebratory. I was merely try- ing to survive and to save my Bird Dog.
Morning dawned bright and clear on 15 April 1967 – just as had happened on most mornings during the two months and nine days I had lived at NKP. Through winter and early spring, the Northeast Monsoon brought mostly dry weather to the airfields of Thailand and to the Trail on the west side of the Annamite Mountains separating Laos from North Vietnam. NKP’s summer forecast included 80 inches of rain. Most would hit us in May through August when the winds of the Southwest Monsoon brought flooding deluges up from the Gulf of Thailand.
At noon, the skies remained virtually clear. My flight leader and I strapped on a pair of O-1 Bird Dogs, launched from NKP’s metal runway, and turned east. In a bird with a tail number of 932, I embarked as Nail 59 on my 59th combat mission, five of which had been into the fringes of the panhandle of North Vietnam.
If our combat missions out of NKP had been ranked on a score of 1 to 10 in regard to danger (with 10 being the most dangerous), this one started out as maybe a 2 or 3. No mission over the Ho Chi Minh Trail was a cakewalk. If your engine died over the Trail, you very likely were never coming home again – unless the brave crews in the Jolly Green Giant helicopters, escorted by Sandies in their heavily armed Skyraiders, got to you before the thousands of North Vietnamese did.
Our squadron had lost eight pilots over the Trail, including three in the first five weeks of 1967. Those losses were caused by antiaircraft fire and a mid-air collision between a Bird Dog and an F-105 Thunderchief. Our maintenance troops worked with great dedication through heat, high humidity, red dust, and monsoon rains. I never worried about an aircraft problem bringing me down. We crossed the Mekong just south of Nakhon Phanom (NKP) and headed southeast for Sector 16. Our destination’s claim to fame was in being the only sector in our operating area of Steel Tiger North that didn’t have a single known road. Two FACs flew over about once a month to make sure Sector 16 remained without motorable roads.
In the southeast corner of our area, Sector 16 was hardly more than a high-angle-smoke-rocket lob from the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Vietnam. When we reached that far corner 110 nautical miles from NKP, we would be four times closer to the U.S. Marine base at Khe Sanh, South Vietnam. Covey FACs of the 20th TASS flew their Bird Dogs from Khe Sanh to support the Marines and to direct air attacks in southern sectors of Steel Tiger.
Crossing the heavily defended Route 911 about seventy nautical miles from NKP was the mission’s only real challenge. We flew a maneuvering flight path across the road at six thousand-five hundred feet, then pressed on a bit lower. Studying the jungles through binoculars, we spotted trails here and there, but they likely were from water buffalo or maybe an occasional elephant. Tens of thousands of North Vietnamese hiked through Sector 16 on their way to join the reported civil war in South Vietnam. However, they stayed under the cover of jungle trees that towered a couple of hundred feet high with maybe two more layers of foliage beneath. While flying those tranquil skies over seemingly pristine jungle, you had no feeling that war was a nearby neighbor.
The tranquility was broken by a call from a controller aboard the Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Center orbiting in a C-130 high over Laos or Thailand.
“Attention all Nail aircraft, this is Cricket. Be advised, NKP is forecasting thunderstorms within ten nautical miles of the field between thirteen- hundred and sixteen-hundred hours.”
I checked my watch: 1325—almost a half- hour into the forecast period.
Before coming to Thailand, I’d flown as a copilot in C-141 jet transports on worldwide transport missions. I’d learned a healthy respect for rapidly changing weather, especially in parts of the world where weathermen had few nearby reporting sites to depend on.
“Cricket, Nail Five-nine, can you get us a check on NKP’s current weather?”
“Standby, Nail.”
A few minutes later, my question was answered. “Nail Five-nine, Cricket. NKP is reporting a thunderstorm over the airfield at this time.”
Guess the weatherman can’t miss with that forecast. I looked west. The skies appeared about as clear as those we’d flown through an hour earlier. On our interplane frequency, the lieutenant flying lead as Nail 56 asked, “What do you think, Five-nine?”
I checked the fuel gauges in the wing roots in the upper corners of the cockpit. The tank currently feeding the engine showed closer to empty than I expected. I’d burned from the other tank for the first thirty minutes of the flight, so it still had something more than an hour’s worth of fuel left. NKP was something more than an hour away. We’d already seen all there was to see in Sector 16.
“I’m a little low on gas, Five-six. I think we’d better head for home.”
He turned west. I told Cricket we were leaving Sector 16 for NKP. When we reached Route 911, I was still more concerned about getting across the road than about weather ahead. Piles of cumulus clouds were building up from maybe 5,000 feet. Soon it was obvious we wouldn’t be going over them. Even in an aircraft designed to fly only in good weather, I was satisfied that enough clear air still abounded between and below the clouds.
In another twenty miles we started winding through aerial canyons between steep puffy walls of white. I flew S-turns, bouncing off clouds on one side then crossing to the other. Through my overhead windows I saw bright blue way, way up there. Life was great.
In minutes, the white canyon became a box canyon as the clouds rushed in to take over the clear air. I looked back. The clouds behind us had closed in, as well.
“What do you think, Five-nine?”
Checking my map against what I had last seen, I knew we were in good shape as far as terrain and enemy gunners were concerned. The thirty-mile-long ridgeline we called the Big Rooster Tail was to our left, and we were nearing the low end of it. We were near the Little Rooster Tail and the Three Ships. Even those three taller outcroppings of karst were no real threat if the cloud bases were as high as they had been ten minutes earlier. The fifty miles between us and NKP had no terrain as high as those red-and- white towers would be thirty years later.
“We might as well go under.”
“We sure can’t go over.”
I looked up. The blue sky was gone. Pure white had become dirty gray as towering stratocumulus clouds blotted away the afternoon sunshine. We dived down – and down. The cloud bases were maybe fifteen hundred feet above the ground and sinking by the minute. The world below had no similarity to the bright beauty of an hour earlier. No patches of sunshine even dared penetrate. Ahead torrents of rain appeared like ill-spaced columns trying to hold up the clouds. The clouds were winning. We were driven lower to stay beneath the solid ceiling.
With maybe thirty miles to go, we flew about 700 feet above the meadows and dikes on the rice fields. Patches of jungle abounded but remained well below us. We couldn’t avoid the rain any longer. I saw Five-six pull his windows closed. Mine had been closed for a while. The heavy rain leaked in around the windshield and dripped off the instrument panel on my legs. One fuel tank was empty. The needle on the other bounced as the turbulent air jostled the Bird Dog. The needle was closer to the red E than I was happy with. I flew in closer to keep Nail 56 in sight in the downpour.
I called Cricket to get an update on the weather.
“Be advised, NKP has thunderstorms over and around the airfield.”
The winds he gave were variable and gusty and generally about ninety degrees off the runway heading. We pressed on and flew our Bird Dogs lower. We had no other real option. The military airfield at NKP had one real runway, 15/33. The surface was PSP (Perforated Steel Planking), with maybe 6,000 feet of these interlocked planks. At about that time, the civil engineers of Red Horse had closed the runway to replace it with new and improved metal matting. The runway reopened on 3 May, so I believe we were operating off the parallel taxiway on 15 April. Either way, we weren’t going to keep our O-1s on the runway or the narrower taxiway if the winds were that bad when we reached the field. (Two months later on 14 June, I hydroplaned uncontrollably in another Bird Dog until two wheels were off the left side of the new metal runway on a day that had much less wind and rain.)
Since the big fighter bases at Ubon and Udorn were well beyond the fuel we had left, two alternatives remained. At the insistence of the operational commanders at NKP, Red Horse had bulldozed out some trees off the south end of the main runway. This short, narrow, flat space was dubbed Runway 6/24. It was more akin to airstrips many FACs flew their Bird Dogs from in South Vietnam. On a dry sunny day, the runway barely met our minimal standards. With a couple of hours of a monsoon downpour on that dirt strip, I assumed it already had turned into a dangerous combination of mud and puddles. At least the crosswind would be markedly less if we tried landing on Runway 24. Our other nearby option was what we called “Downtown NKP International” on the western outskirts of town. The flat, dirt field didn’t have any trees to run into. However, a well-worn path angled across the landing area so we always kept a good look out for people and water buffalo when we practiced landings there. The runway heading was similar to NKP’s main runway, so we would be fighting similar crosswinds. The main difference was we’d be starting out in the mud instead of sliding over metal for a few seconds before being blown off into the mud.
In a few minutes we could make out the long wide ribbon of the Mekong. I suppose it was its monsoon muddy brown. Beneath clouds stacked miles high, however, a blurry sameness had replaced all normal colors. Now we flew our Bird Dogs beneath a 200-300 foot ceiling in visibility of about a quarter mile, or so, in continuous moderate to heavy rain. FACs in Southeast Asia tended to live or die based on map-reading skills. Once the river was in sight, navigation became the least of our problems even though we were flying under conditions demanding Instrument Flight Rules back in the states.
Reaching the river, we turned right and started for the town of Nakhom Phanom to know when to turn west again. I gave our normal exit call.
“Cricket, Nails Five-nine and Five-six are crossing the fence.”
“Roger, Nails. You’re cleared to tower.” He undoubtedly marked us off a list of aircraft he was keeping track of over Central Laos.
At twelve miles out, we were beyond the control of the men in the tower. However, they were the next controllers interested in us returning to their airspace. I checked us in with the tower hoping for a better weather report. I didn’t get one.
The tower controller closed with, “Say your intentions, Five-nine.”
That truly was a Damned-if-I-know moment, and that may very well have been what I said. I’m sure Five-six and I parlayed on interplane. I had enough fuel to get to NKP, but I had no idea where else I could get to.
“Five-nine, Tower. Be advised two Nails diverted to Mukdahan about an hour ago.”
“Where?” I had no idea where Mukdahan was?
“Mukdahan’ s a radar site about fifty miles south of NKP.”
I unfolded my map to the bottom part I never looked at. Just above the bottom edge, I found the town of Mukdahan on the west side of the Mekong. A little blue circle suggested an airfield was there – somewhere.
“You got enough gas, Five-nine?” came over interplane.
“Maybe. I don’t see any good options here.”
Five-six reversed course, and I followed. “NKP Tower, Nails Five-nine and Five-six will give Mukdahan a try and see if I’ve got enough fuel.”
“Roger, Five-nine. Are you declaring an emergency?”
“We’re pretty much flying in emergency conditions if we can’t find a place to get on the ground, so I guess so.”
“Roger, understand Nails Five-nine and Five- six declaring an emergency at this time. We’ll pass the word to Mukdahan. Can we be of any further assistance?”
“Negative, Tower. Thanks for your help.”
I switched radios. “Cricket, Nail Five-nine back with you. We can’t get into NKP and are headed to Mukdahan. Can you get us a frequency for Mukdahan?”
Cricket gave me a frequency, and I set it in.
“Mukdahan, Mukdahan, Nail Five-nine and Five-six are about forty miles north on your freq.”
“Roger, Nails. Understand you’re in emergency conditions.”
“Roger, that. What’s your present weather?”
“Roger, Nail. Mukdahan currently has thunderstorms overhead and in all quadrants.”
“Any chance of improvement very soon.”
“Negative. We don’t expect any change over the next hour. Say intentions.”
“What do you think, Five-nine?” came over interplane.
“Doesn’t sound any better than NKP. If we’re going to crash, we might as well be among friends.”
“Roger.”
Five-six banked around and headed up the Mekong. I followed. “Mukdahan, thanks for your assistance. We’re going to head back up to NKP.”
“Roger, Nails. Let us know if we can be of further assistance.”
“Thanks. Switching.”
“NKP Tower, Nail Five-nine. Mukdahan’ s just as bad. We’re headed back your way. What’s your current weather?”
I listened and heard only one significant change. The winds had gotten worse. I looked at the bouncing needle on the fuel gauge and switched to interplane. “We’ll never stay on the runway. I think we’d better head for Mukdahan while I still have some gas.”
Five-six turned south for the second time.
“NKP Tower, Nail Five-nine. We’re going to have to try Mukdahan again.”
“Roger, Nail. Let us know if we can do anything else for you.”
“Thanks, Tower. How about passing our status to Twenty-Third Ops.”
“Roger.”
“Thanks. Switching back to Mukdahan.”
I knew we’d made our final U-turn on this flight. “Mukdahan, Nail Five-nine, we can’t get into NKP, so we’re coming your way. What are your current winds and runway heading.”?
“Roger, Nail. Mukdahan has a large grass field that favors landings to the northeast. Current winds are gusty and variable in direction as thunderstorms pass over.”
By now I was pretty much numb to bad news. “Thank you, Mukdahan. Where abouts are you?” “The town of Mukdahan is on the Thailand side of the Mekong across from Savannaket. We’re just west of the town. Fly down the Mekong until you see Savannakhet, then turn west and look for
a green field by a lake.”
Suddenly navigation was back in the mix with our Bird Dogs at a couple of hundred feet and a quarter mile visibility. We didn’t have a detailed map like we routinely used over the Trail to pinpoint targets. In almost any other USAF aircraft, I would have changed a setting on my radar transponder and let the radar controller guide me to him. The 1950s-era O-1 had no radar transponder. The radar return from a tiny O-1 was minimal on a good day. Beneath thunderstorms, we didn’t even make good clutter on the radar screens.
I suggested that Five-six fly down the middle of the river, and I’d stay over the east bank. If the heavy rains caused us to miss Savannakhet, it was going to be a little like sailing over the edge of the world as we flew beyond the edge of the map.
For the next few minutes we flew quietly through the monsoon. The bouncing needle on the fuel gauge was driving the flight toward some sort of finality. I looked below for roads I might land on. None. Laos wasn’t a land of paved interstates. I could barely make out objects on the Thailand side.
Intermittently I could see a road along the river, but if the engine quit due to fuel starvation, I’d never glide across into the wind from two hundred feet.
Finally objects more solid than huts started emerging ahead. I saw tin roofs that would have reflected brightly if there had been any sun.
“Savannakhet, at twelve o’clock, about level,” I said on interplane.
“Roger.” Five-six banked for the Thai side of the river.
“Mukdahan, Nails Five-nine and Five-six are at Savannakhet turning inbound to you.”
“Roger, Nail. We have spotters outside listening for you.”
Crossing the west bank of the Mekong was a little like leaving a security blanket behind. I looked for a lake and a green field. Nothing looked green in the darkness of mid-afternoon.
“I’ve got the lake at ten o’clock low,” Five-six said. I spotted the circular lake and tried to pick out the grass field.
“Nail, our spotters hear aircraft to our north.”
“Roger, Mukdahan. We have the lake and are setting up for a landing to the northeast.”
Five-six already was descending in a base turn over the lake. I whipped through my landing checklist and followed. The fuel gauge didn’t show enough to count.
“Five-six is on the go. I’ve tossed out a smoke.”
The other Bird Dog was climbing toward the clouds. I saw the smoke canister arcing downward gushing red smoke. It hit the grass. Smoke continued spewing toward the east suggesting a pretty good left quartering tailwind.
I didn’t care which way the wind was blowing. I planned to fly my Bird Dog onto the ground while I still had fuel to keep the propeller turning. Lining up on short final over the lake, I saw that the grass indeed had some green to it. The field has a pretty good up-slope as well. Beyond, two (I believe) white radomes stood against the rainy horizon. I suppose I should have noticed them earlier, but my attention had been rather focused, and no one had mentioned that the radar site naturally had radomes. The shoreline passed a few feet beneath me, and I leveled off, letting the airspeed bleed down while the ground came up to meet me. In a few more seconds, the wheels touched, and I yanked off the power. When satisfied that the Bird Dog didn’t want to fly anymore, I pulled the stick all the way back to help make sure the combination of wet grass and tailwind wouldn’t put the O-1 on its nose.
Moments later, I added power to get out of Five-six’s way and to get up the hill to the buildings and to where two other O-1s sat in the grass.
Young airmen were out with their ponchos whipping wildly in the windswept rain. They were drenched as they struggled to help me and to secure my bird to the ground. Five-six pulled in alongside.
We logged 3+20. During my combat tour, I logged a couple of four-hour flights in the O-1, but none had so much maneuvering down on the deck. We had managed to land two Bird Dogs on a grass strip in weather conditions below minimums for me to bring in one of my all-weather C-141s on an instrument approach using an ILS (Instrument Landing System) with a full GCA backup. And of course on that soggy April day, we didn’t make it down safely without the help of a lot of other Americans who cared that we were airborne and in trouble.
Epilogue
Looking out the hotel window thirty-three years later, the only things missing were the torrential downpours – and the exhilaration that comes with putting your life on the line. In the latter part of those thirty years, I began writing about the War in SEA on behalf of brothers who never returned with the rest of us. My fact-based novel, “A Certain Brotherhood”, includes a fictional account of the flight on 15 April 1967.
A new veterans’ organization called the TLC Brotherhood formed, as a result of veterans reading A Certain Brotherhood. This group is made up primarily of veterans who served in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. The camaraderie has helped many of these veterans develop a newfound sense of pride in their service in SEA. The TLCB also supports several humanitarian projects in Thailand (orphanage, blind school, etc.) through the VFW’s Udorn Memorial Post 10249 and helps a number of schools in the area around Nakhon Phanom. In memory of our fallen brothers who did not return with us, we help many in need. Some of our projects are documented in the Assistance Section of the website of the TLC Brotherhood. http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org/
A letter I received in July 2000 provides its own epilogue to the Bird Dog mission of 15 April 1967.
Col. Butler:
I just finished reading “A Certain Brotherhood” and would like to thank you for a thrilling return trip back to the land along the Mekong. As a young Airman First Class radar operator I was stationed at a Tactical Control Radar Site (VIKING) near Mukdahan, Thailand in 1966-1967. My primary job was Tactical Flight Follow, and my Controller Number was Viking 28. I can clearly recall the day you and several other O-1s had to recover at our site across from Savannakhet during one of the most fierce monsoon storms of the year.
I remember working in the rain with several other men getting airplanes tied down and sand bags piled on the wings to keep them from blowing away. After looking at your picture in the book, I can vividly remember you climbing out of your plane and heading for shelter from the storm. I think that effort was one of the best displays of teamwork I have ever experienced.
I so enjoyed being able to relive the air strikes, rescues, and heroism that we all experienced during those crazy days. For a while, I was sitting in front of a radarscope again. A VHF radio screaming in my left ear, a UHF frequency screaming in my right. Fighters crying for a tanker. Nimrod with a hung five hundred pounder. Air America looking for a vector to a Lima Site. LampLighter calling for anything with ordnance and expressing his dismay with an F-4 pilot that pulled off target on the wrong heading and scorched the paint on his nose ...
To this day, I still find that many people have no idea of the activity that took place in Laos. Without great books such as this one, many would never know. Thank you again for a fantastic book.
JAMES T. HARROD, SMSGT, USAF, RETIRED