Rescue of Bengal 505 Alpha
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
The A-6 went down in one of he hottest segments of the Ho Chi Minh Trail – in Laos between the Tchepone area and the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Several aircraft had recently been shot down by AAA near there, and the AAA was our first concern, because Bengal 505A was in a box surrounded by heavily defended roads with overlapping AAA coverage. He was within range of two surface-to-air (SAM) sites, less than five minutes from a North Vietnamese MiG base – and there was a low, solid cloud deck over the area.
The experienced Jolly Green pilots concluded that it would be impossible to get him out unless we neutralized the AAA. I decided to fly the rescue force above the clouds to the site, let down, make the pick-up, then climb back on top and depart. The 7th Air Force vetoed this plan and stipulated that the HH-53s would hold in a relatively safe area until the Sandys could locate the survivor and suppress the AAA. We went in high on the afternoon of 10 April – two Jolly Greens, two Nail FACs in OV-10s, HC-130 King personnel, four Sandys, plus F-105 “Iron Hand” aircraft with Shrike anti-radiation missiles for the SAM sites and an F-4 MiG combat air parol to hold off any air-to-air threat. Upon arrival in the rescue area, I asked an F-4 “Fast FAC” to locate Smith. After trying to talk me onto him, the F-4 flew low over the position and popped up out of the clouds in front of me. I left my wingman on top and descended through the overcast. I broke out at about 1,100 feet in a valley – with clouds obscuring the tops of several hills in the area – I’d been lucky. Smith was on a long, flat ridge covered with dense jungle. I flew toward him, and my wingman told me that heavy A A A air bursts were trailing me. The Sandys spent 30 minutes trying to silence the AAA before we called off the rescue for the day. Back home, I decided to try to get Major Smith to move away from the heavily defended area. The enemy was too close for him to move, however, and he had dug in near a tree.
On 11 April, the cloud layer began breaking up, the FACs and fighters worked over the AAA, and we shifted to a low-level approach. Then the clouds moved in and we postponed again. Two Sandys dropped “crowd-control” powder that apparently spooked the NVA who were looking for Smith. An intelligence source intercepted radio instructions to the NVA in the area to withhold fire until a rescue was attempted – after which they would attempt to shoot down the slow-moving SAR forces.
We tried again on 12 April. After confirming Smith’s position, I made several low-altitude, low-speed passes along the planned helicopter route – trolling for AAA. On the third pass, gun positions on both sides of the intended route opened fire. I saw tracers criss-crossing over the canopy and felt hits in both wings. All four Sandys immediately attacked the gun positions. More trolling revealed other gun positions, so we postponed the rescue once again to let the FACs and fighters attack the AAA.
On 13 April, the FACs and fighters went at it once more, and the SAR forces headed in at low altitude. Two F-105s fired Shrike missiles when the SAM sites turned on their radars. Four additional Sandys were along to beef up the rescue force; they preceded the main rescue force, dropping a string of white phosphorous bombs to the north, south, and west of Smith and creating a curtain of smoke about 300 feet high between him and the roads. The four Sandys escorting the Jolly Green helicopter dropped white phosphorous cluster bomb units (CBU) across the east end of the rescue area completing the curtain of smoke around the survivor, and also dropped high-explosive CBU on gun emplacements along the ingress/egress route. Then they escorted the Jolly Green helicopter from the holding point to the survivor. I knew where Smith was but could not actually see him. In an effort to help his crew members spot the survivor, and to the consternation of his hoist operator, the Jolly Green pilot hovered so low that the rotor blades were chopping off tree tops. Then the hoist operator spotted Smith, began winching him in, and the four Sandys rolled in to deliver non-stop fire against the NVA on the ground. We took a lot of ground fire on the way out and the Sandys were called on several times to attack AAA positions.