Night Nail and the Hunter/Killer Team
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
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The night Nail O-1Fs were painted a flat black with metal cones to shield the lights from enemy gunners below, but necessary for the “killer” part of the hunter/killer team to be able to keep the FAC in sight while working the trail. The O-1 had a crew of two; pilot in front and scope operator (hereafter referred to as Scope) in the back, equipped with a light amplification device known as the starlight scope. Both pilot and Scope were qualified night pilots and would serve as either pilot or Scope, usually alternating positions when assigned together. Later in the year Forward Air Navigators (FANs) would be assigned for the Scope duties.
Zorro was a T-28 Trojan with beefed up wings and hard points to carry ordnance, usually nape, cluster bomb units, and/or white phosphorous. The bird also had guns. Zorro would work with the FAC and was our primary truck/gun killer.
Nimrod was an A-26, son of a B-26, but with beefed up wings. Nimrod was better armed with the same type of weapons as Zorro but lots more of them, including six 50 cal machine guns in the nose. He also had his own Scope on board.
Night operations began with a briefing at TUOC (Tactical Unit Operations Center). In attendance were the WX briefer, Intel and the crews of Nail, Zorro and Nimrod. After the briefing the crews checked out their personal weapons and ammo, picked up coffee and donuts, preflighted the A/C. (As an interesting sidelight whoever was Scope for the night bought the coffee, carried the heavy ammo can and encased scope. Scope was slave, Pilot was king! The next night was for getting even!)
The Nail launched ten minutes prior to the other two birds. The reason being that Nail was considerably slower than the killers (at about 80kts) and the trail was 50-70 miles away. After the killers launched they would beat the Nail to the assigned area, and since the Nail had no navigation gear (the killers did) and radar couldn’t see us, we would give them a hold-down and they would vector us for the join-up. Once joined Zorro would fly above us and Nimrod would move up or down the trail, using his own Scope to look for prey, but always remaining in radio contact... should we find the mother lode!
With Zorro flying off of and above us, he would give us an approximate position on the trail and we would verify the position. Once we began to work the trail Scope verbally directing the pilot “slight left, 30 left (bank), hard right” etc., we would move where the scope sent us... looking for trucks or indicators of truck traffic.
Light was very important to both hunter and prey. With good moonlight the trucks could move without lights but the scope could see the unlit trucks. With poor light the trucks would be required to use dim lights, mounted underneath the truck, to illuminate reflectors that were placed on both sides of the road, allowing them to stay in he middle. That “parking” light was a beacon to the scope, so we still had a slight advantage.
Once trucks were found, light dictated our attack options. Low light meant we had to light the area with a parachute flare, mark the truck(s) with a 2.75” smoke rocket, confirm that Zorro was ready for the attack, loiter above the truck, and allow the attack to take place below us, or get the hell out of the way while keeping visual contact. Great light meant that we could talk Zorro into visual contact and let him do what he was designed to do. All situations occurred somewhere between poor and great light so tactics varied between those two extremes.
Once the attack began (often sooner but never later) the guns would come up to defend the area. During the year I was there the guns were 12.7 (seldom), 14.5 (often), 23 and 37 mm anti-aircraft weapons (always). The 12.7 and 14.5 mm were just big bullets but the 23 and 37s were flak (exploding shells). The next statement may not be accurate but after 35 years it’s the way I remember it—The 23s came up in groups of seven and the 37s were clips of three. Although the 37 shells actually came up much faster, they appeared to “float up”. The 23s were the scariest as they appeared to be “sprinters” and were on you before you knew it.
The great nights would occur when a convoy could be found on a restricted area of the Trail (where they could not leave the road)...Nail and Zorro would try to kill or disable the lead and tail mover, boxing in the rest of the convoy, then calling Nimrod to come to the fires and mop-up.