Tall Tail
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
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I arrived at Tan Son Nuht on February 2, 1966. After an in country briefing I caught a flight on an Army C-7 Caribou to Binh Thuy in the IV Corps area of the Delta. My assignment was to be the ALO/FAC with a MACV team at Rach Gia. After an in country refresher flight I was ready to go to Rach Gia but from all appearances there was no one to take me there. While waiting I was able to weasel a ride on an F-100 fragged mission. We bombed a tree line along one of the canals south of the airfield. Quite interesting. The FAC gave 100% ordnance on target.
I finally caught another Caribou flight to Rach Gia. We landed at some unsecured airstrip. Fortunately there was a Vietnamese guard who got me to a field telephone and I was able to contact the TOC at Rach Gia. My ROMAD (Radio Operator/Maintenance And Driver) and airplane mechanic came out to pick me up. I met Captain Lewis the resident FAC and the MACV team commander, an Army Colonel.
I was to get a combat indoctrination that very day. A Swift boat in the Gulf of Siam was in distress. They had spotted a Viet Cong flag on a pole in the water. The USN Ensign in command, instead of shooting the flag down, decided that the thing to do was capture the flag. The VC had an explosive device in place and detonated it right under the 50 cal gun tub on the Swift. A Kien Giang (Vietnamese Navy) junk (engine driven, but with two masts) had picked off the Ensign and the radio operator plus a WIA crewman, who subsequently expired on the junk. The gunner was killed instantly. We (the Army L-19 pilot, Lt. Norman Savarre was with me) got airborne, located the junk and steered a Dustoff helicopter to it. A lot of skillful flying by the helicopter pilot enabled them to pick the Americans off the junk and get them to a field hospital. It took two days to salvage the Swift boat. All the time Tactical Air Support was being used to suppress the VC fire from the shore and small islands next to it. The Ensign was court marshaled.
In forty-three days of activity in country. I flew forty-six sorties. None as exciting as letting fuel tanks run dry. The first time was when I rolled over to mark a target and the high wing went dry and the engine quit. I told the fighters
to hold while I switched fuel tanks. The engine caught almost immediately. The second time was when I was with an Army supported ARVN operation. I was putting in armed Hueys on a VC encampment prior to the Special Forces and their Vietnamese counter parts attacking. I became so engrossed in marking hooches in the tree line and watching folks run that on about my third pass the engine quit. I was probably less than 100 feet above the ground. I immediately switched fuel tanks and the engine did not fire up! I had plenty of airspeed but was using it up fast. I had to lower the nose and was beginning to comprehend just how tall elephant grass is, when the engine caught and I was able to pull off without further incident.
The only other stupid thing I did was to fly into the bamboo on the edge of a rice paddy. I let an Army sergeant talk me into taking him to an area where they had taken a lot of fire the previous day. He wanted to exact revenge from the air, since they had been forced to run from the area in their jeep without so much as firing a shot. We trolled around looking for any signs of activity. Finally a suspect dashed from a hooch with some kind of weapon. I circled and made a run on him with the Sergeant shooting at him with his M-79 grenade launcher. On our second pass the guy broke from the tree line and took off across the rice paddies. I became so engrossed in tracking the guy and trying to get closer that I didn’t see the bamboo hedgerow coming up. I yanked back on the stick and just nipped the tops of the trees as far as I could determine, since there was no indication of an impact. I pulled up so hard that my helmet visor came down by itself and the helmet completely covered my eyes. What a surprise. The only comment from my crew chief was why did I have the green stuff in the landing gear?
During this time I was asked if I wanted to volunteer for a different sort of mission – Project Cricket at Nakhon Phanom Thailand (NKP). I already knew what it was even though the DASC couldn’t tell me. We had already heard that a FAC had been in a mid-air with an F-105. I found out it was Karl Worst, a classmate from Hurlburt. He was the first person I met in country that I knew. The day of the incident was March 2, 1966. The mid-air collision took place below Mugia Pass where the road turned eastbound. On March 26 I had to take Capt Lewis to Saigon for needed medical attention. I dropped him off on the ramp and was flying back to Rach Gia when I decided that I should pick up our mail at a small Army strip outside Can Tho. When I landed on the Pierced Steel Planking (PSP) airstrip I applied brakes to turn off the runway and found out I didn’t have any stopping power. Some where along the cruise flight back home some lucky gunners’ projectile had hit the brake line and as a result my tour in Southeast Asia became much more interesting.
II DASC sent a jeep to pick me up and leave a maintenance troop to fix the brake line. When I got to the base I was informed to forget about the aircraft that I had been flying and they would have a new ship ready for me in the morning. I was one step ahead of them and asked if my transfer orders were already typed up. They were! The next morning I pre-flighted the O-1F and returned to Rach Gia to get my gear and inform the MACV team they would be without a FAC until Capt Lewis returned.
I loaded up only the munitions I thought would be safe to fly with on my new assignment. This meant giving up my Willie Pete grenades. These things made excellent bombs when dropped from about 300 ft above the ground. They appeared to explode just before contact with the ground. I did put on board a case of M-16 tracer rounds. I was really glad I did this, as I was to find out at NKP, no such ammo was available. I had a .30 cal ammo can with around 40 extra clips for reloading. Tracers were very useful for aiming when loaded every third round. At NKP I had to go to three rounds per clip in order to conserve the supply. As I will explain later I utilized the only gun I had in several interesting situations.
On March 27, I arrived at Tan Son Nhut for a departure briefing. There I met with Dick Strong, Bill Tilton and Jim Korminick. We departed there on March 31 in a four-ship gaggle to NKP. When we got to DaNang we stayed there overnight. Big party night, with the first steak I had eaten since departing the States. We then flew westward just below the DMZ, over the city/airfield of Tchepone and on to NKP.
I may not be correct, but I seem to recall that our arrival brought Det 3 of the 505th Tactical Air Support Group to a total of 11 personnel. As I also recall we were not exactly warmly welcomed. Even though we brought our own aircraft, the guys already in place considered the operation their own. As in any outfit, it meant a shuffle of duties and responsibilities. In command was Captain Harry Pawlak however, Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Louie” Johnston was later assigned as the first commander.
The operations area of Operation Cricket was from Nape Pass (somewhere north of Mugia) south along the western border of Laos to Tchepone. There was nothing much to distinguish the area. A few abandoned villages, dirt roads, jungle and karst. Every Gombey and Nail that flew in these early days was to become very familiar with every feature of this terrain. Every mission (daytime) while I was there was flown two-ship, with a high and low airplane in order to provide mutual support during visual recon and while conducting air strikes.
I flew my indoctrination flight the next day with Jack Taylor, a classmate from Hurlburt. The day we arrived a truck park with over forty vehicles ranging from 18-wheelers to fuel wagons had been uncovered and strikes were still in progress the next day. I was totally impressed by the sight of all this mayhem. During the flight we put in a Thud flight (F-105s), and afterward a lot of tracers appeared to be coming from one area. They were so random it was obvious that it wasn’t guns. It turned out to be a truckload of AAA ammunition cooking off rounds as it burned.
I have sadly misplaced my daily log of activity so this record will be from a memory that was about 25 years after the events transpired. All attempts will be made to keep the recollections factual. This is the second attempt at recording the events and is in many ways different from earlier recollections due to reuniting with fellow Gombey/Nails at the mother of all FAC reunions in the September of 2000.
I do remember that my log listed 81 wheeled vehicles and two bulldozers as first finds. Maybe not all were destroyed but they were certainly struck when air power became available to a Gombey/Nail FAC.
Around April 12th, Captain Joe Brown arrived at NKP. We had been close during training at Hurlburt, even though he was in the class following mine. I remember he flew as my high man on his first flight after orientation. We were both getting familiar with the area. The main purpose of this flight was to familiarize us with the trail and conduct Visual Recon. Neither of us paid much attention to our exact location at any given time, probably because we were so unfamiliar with the area and we were really just checking out the activity below us. I remember seeing trellises covering side trails off the main track. There were camouflaged buildings under the trees and trellises. We flew up a valley with several collapsed towers that appeared to have been supports for a power line at one time. Upon our return to NKP and during our debriefing we were told that the collapsed towers were the remains of an overhead tramway that once went through Mu Gia Pass. We flew up and back down the pass at the prescribed 1,500 feet or less without incident. One week later on April 19, Joe was shot down at the entrance to the pass. Over 80 active guns were spotted during the rescue attempt. When a Sandy (A-1) was lost, the rescue attempt was called off. The joint efforts of the DIA and other agencies resulted in the recovery of Joe Brown’s remains sometime in the 1990s.
On one occasion I was flying with Ken Millay, just below Mu Gia. Ken went off for a tour up the pass and I was orbiting as high man, when I saw a flash of light. It turned out to be a glint on a truck windshield that caught the sun just right. This turned out to be the first convoy I was to discover. We used two Canberras and were able to confirm seven trucks destroyed just on the roadway. The Canberras set them on fire with guns and then proceeded to put out the fires with accurate bombs!
Initially we worked the entire area without assigned areas or fragged missions. We were given RLAF (Royal Laotian Air Force) approved targets as free strike areas. The initial Gombeys had already blown these targets away, so usually air strikes were put on known storage areas, bridges or trucks that were available.
The Rules of Engagement stated that we could not put a strike in more than 300 feet from the numbered road. If any other target was discovered, permission had to be obtained through Ambassador Sullivan. This sometimes took 45 minutes plus. This was time to run out of fuel or for the target to disappear in the trees. Finally, we were able to strike any target that was along the road, except for the Lao village near Chokepoint Bravo, which lasted until hostile ground fire from it caused its demise.
We obtained much of our information on movement of trucks and truck parks from Tiger Teams that had been inserted on the ground to monitor the traffic. I am sure at the time these teams did not officially exist since they were composed of mercenaries from Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. We often flew with a Thai or Lao in the back seat carrying a PRC-25 (Portable FM radio) to talk to the guys on the ground. I remember an occasion when one of the teams was mistakenly “rescued”. This team had come out into the open and was spotted by the FAC. He did not have an interpreter, so when they waved at him, he assumed they needed extraction from the area. They were extracted since their position was compromised. They spent a few days at NKP with us. These were the type of guys you would not want to meet in a dark alley!
Fortunately for us the operation began during the dry season. There was a drawback since the Lao in the hill country were slash and burn farmers. The smoke and haze were so thick from their fires that there were times when we flew with less than a mile visibility.
During April our Tiger teams (mercenary trail watchers/Lao, Thai, and Cambodian) reported that there was activity in the mountains to the east of Mu Gia Pass. They could hear the blasting as the NVA was building a new route (912), which despite our efforts to smash the head of the road they kept on coming. I don’t know if a count was kept of bulldozers, trucks and graders destroyed. It was here that we got a real handle on the determination of the NVA to keep their supply lines open and their commitment to the effort of occupying South Vietnam.
As this was transpiring, several of us formed a tactics committee in order to better organize our efforts and form a plan that would enable us to make more effective use of the limited and restricted air strike capability we had. Most of our strike aircraft were weather diverts or as was sometimes the case, we had a much better target than the fragged mission of the preplanned fighter/bomber flight. We came up with a plan of making choke points at places where their was no choice for the NVA to go except through these passages in the karst ridges.
Our first points were designated Alpha and Bravo. These were to be followed by Charlie and Delta. “The chokes” worked good at first, but as time progressed we dropped so much bomb tonnage on them that they became wide spots on the trail. They were effective for tracking since any time the choke was bombed more karst was crushed and truck tracks were easily discerned.
One of my notable experiences was while flying somewhat lower than I should have been when a 500 pound delayed fused bomb went off just as I went by. I didn’t get hit but I was close enough for the concussion to rock the Bird Dog.
“The chokes” also gave me the closest call (head up and locked!) I had during the tour. We were fragged to locate a bulldozer the Nimrods (B-26) had seen during the night but it immediately got off the trail and hid. We should have known better than to hunt for the bulldozer since the valley from Alpha to Bravo was overcast at around 1,100 feet. But this intrepid aviator (low man that morning) pressed on and continued the search. The bulldozer tracks were easy to find and I located the bulldozer in a grove of trees just above Bravo. This FAC, instead of being content with reporting the success of finding the bulldozer and waiting until the weather cleared for someone to hit the bulldozer, decided to fly up the valley to Alpha just to see if possibly some trucks had also hidden in the trees due to the Nimrod mission. I was probably only a quarter mile from Alpha when I saw this NVA troop off my right wing, on the hillside. He was looking straight at me with his right arm raised in the air. When he dropped it the whole world exploded. It sounded just like hailstones pounding on a tin roof, except the tin was the O-1. I swear I was close enough to hear the breeches on those 23 mm weapons open and close. Instinctively I followed a tactic I must have discussed with Rich Strong. I had set partial flaps in order to make tighter turns. For this mission and several others I had a combat photographer in the back seat. The O-1 did not like the added weight of a passenger. Making a 60 degree bank turn with added weight of a rear seat passenger reduced the flight capabability of the O-1F; it often would result in getting on the stall bubble if you didn’t have at least a partial flap setting. In one move I raised the flaps, jammed the mixture, prop, and throttle as far forward as they would go and initiated a diving left turn down to the trail. The softball size red balls of fire went away and I was not hit again. A 23 mm round doesn’t seem to make such a big hole going in but leaves a big exit. I determined the aircraft was OK, and like a dummy, I continued the mission until fuel reserve time and RTBd (Return to Base). Came close to an Article 15.
On one occasion between Alpha and Bravo, on the last flight of the day, just as dusk was setting in I decided it was time to toss a few smoke grenades into the parallel ridges valley. I must have flushed at least three companies of NVA troops that were just settling in for the night. Cricket could not find anything airborne to strike. I hated to see these guys go on since they definitely weren’t out there for their health. But I had them running in every direction!
Later on in the October time frame I was with Marty Enkelton when we found a force of what appeared 300 to 500 little brown men in khaki colored uniforms. This was the same situation; dusk, last flight out for the day and these troops were out in the open. They were near the twin peaks just moving down the trail. We were fortunate to get of flight of four F-104s (Starfighters!) with 500 pounders and gun. We know we inflicted substantial damage but there were still a lot of little guys with AK-47s that kept us from getting any good BDA. We lost radio contact with number four, and to this day, I must assume he pulled off of a pass and returned to base due to radio failure. It was subsequently confirmed that he did make it back to base.
Lee Harley went down on 18 May. I flew on that day but was already in the house when he was hit. With him was Andre Guillet. The SAR was unable to locate the crash site. To this day none of us involved in attempts to repatriate Lee and Andy can pinpoint the exact location. Many stories abound however, Lee was cut off in mid- transmission while talking to Cricket (ABCCC). The NVA had beepers, which they turned off and on sporadically. They also changed location rapidly and would never come up voice. They did this every time they got an aircraft down in the area. We began to call the valley above Ban LaBoy Harley’s Valley after this incident in memory of Lee. This downing was the third FAC I had gone through training with at Hurlburt who had been shot down in the Cricket area. It made one want to attack and destroy guns, however we were briefed that these were not our primary targets; we were to just locate them, debrief them and stay away from the hot areas.
Those NVA cats were good at camouflage. Until you had seen several emplacements it was difficult to discern a newly installed gun position from an old one. The giveaway was foliage the appeared to be out of place. Also, the shadows were often a giveaway. You had to stay aware and know what you were looking for.
On one occasion below Ban Laboy I located eight camouflaged 23 mm patterns of six guns each. Six times eight equals firepower from 48 gun pits deployed so as to provide fire from all quadrants. I don’t know if the trap was to get a FAC or try to get a strike aircraft. Instead of trying to find out, I was fortunate enough to have Cricket provide a flight of two Canberras with white phosphorous and fragmentation bombs. I was able to brief the flight and provide a mark while they were still out of range of the gomers hearing and sight. I had them come in on the deck and lay down the frags on their first pass. We then finished up with the Willie Petes. The flight took ground fire but did not report any hits. My BDA was from a discreet distance with an estimate of at least two thirds of the guns wiped out. The only problem with actions such as this was the surviving gunners were now much wiser and blooded and harder to locate the next time.
My only other deliberate guns position attack was with two Navy A-1s after they had hit and set on fire a POL dump for me. As I was hanging- out taking pictures of the fire and making a decision as to where to put the rest of the A-1’s ordnance, for some reason I scanned out my left side and was surprised to see six tree trunks actively tracking me. It was a reason to pucker, which I did. I made a quick decision to ignore them since I suspect they had been tracking me on my previous passes. They were probably waiting for the A-1s to leave and then were going to go for the FAC. I asked lead if he wanted to take on some gun positions and of course the reply was, “Where are they?” I figured that instead of a mark, I would talk them into the gun positions. The guns were on top of a knoll just off the trail, and since there were only two little hills, I briefed their location and was assured the lead had the right hill. But I failed to really do a good job of briefing since the other hill had six empty (and easy to spot) gun pits on top of it. The A-1s went to about 3,000 feet and came down vertically in trail. Lead hosed, to my amazement and dismay, the empty guns positions! The NVA gunners never fired a shot, I called two off and re-briefed lead that the target was the knoll to the left that did not have gun pits showing. This time when he came down and opened fire it was as if it was the Fourth-of-July. It was hard to tell who had the most firepower, but it appeared that more tracers were going up than were coming down. This FAC was thinking “What have I got these guys into?” and “I’m sure they are going to be shot down.” Lead pulled off and reported he wasn’t hit as did two, however, two said he never saw the guns but had put his fire in the pits. On the second pass there was nowhere near the fire going up as was coming down. On the third pass only one gun was firing and it was silenced. I gave the BDA as 18 KBA and six 23 mm weapons out of action. I often wondered if those gunners were as dedicated as it appeared or if they had no choice except to remain at their weapons and give their lives. I’m sure the NVA archives must reveal how these men were able to stay in place in light of the certain demise that could result.
I used my issue M-16 quite often since I had become used to this tactic during my short tour in South Vietnam. I fired left handed with the gun butt on my chin. I used a ratio of one-to- three on tracers until my supply of tracers ran low (I had tracers that I brought from in country) and I had to go to one every five. I loaded 19 rounds to a magazine and carried around 40 magazines in ammo cans. A tracer bullet loads up (fouls) an automatic rifle in short order, so cleaning the weapon after almost every flight was a requirement. In Vietnam I had to clean my own weapon. At NKP there was a personal equipment section to accomplish this task. I did fire many rounds. The weapon was effective once I determined lead and aim with the aid of the tracers. I routinely harassed the road watchers in their towers along the trail. I don’t think I ever hit one and I am unaware if they ever scored a hit on me. It was a great diversion when I couldn’t find a good air strike target. On one occasion just after the end of the monsoon season, I came upon a repair gang of seven individuals filling a gap in the main trail or road. I made a low pass and fired a magazine to let them know they should be somewhere else. These individuals then ran to a burned out truck on the side of the road. I assumed they were going there to hide. On the next pass I was greeted with seven guys on the ground shooting back with their AK-47s. I wasn’t about to back off now and was determined to get a hit since they were so willing to put up a fight. The air-to-ground and ground-to-air battle began. I must have been getting close with my fire because on each subsequent pass they would duck into the bushes then run out and run when I fired at them. In the meantime I had called Cricket and obtained a flight of two Thuds with 750s. I probably chased these guys along the trail for over a quarter of a mile until the Thuds arrived overhead. It was a beautiful clear day and I was able to talk the flight lead to the last place I saw the gomers duck into cover. One pass was the F-105s customary drop scenario and then off to home base. Everything was right on the spot I wanted it. They got a perfect center of the road crater (which was never filled, they just drove around it) and since I couldn’t get the bad guys to show again, I gave them seven KBA.
Dick Strong has reminded me of the time we caught two or three trucks on the Bravo bypass. The drivers jumped from the trucks as soon as we spotted them. Dick and I took turns making passes at them with our M-16s until we got our strike aircraft. For some reason, every time they hid and we fired at that spot they came out and ran further. Couldn’t quite understand why they did not go deeper in the trees along the road. Before I left in December they had solved the problem of air strike shelters along the trail by building bunkers along the road. In some sections they appeared at regular fifty-yard intervals.
In June the A-26Js arrived, their call sign was Nimrod. Their mission was night time interdiction over the trail. I volunteered to fly orientation day missions with them. I was fortunate to get to fly with Joe Kittenger. I flew three missions and we bombed and strafed every thing I had wanted to strike before but didn’t get fighter/bombers for. We hit storage areas and tried to find trucks. These missions gave those of us who flew with the Nimrods a feel for the difficulty the strike aircraft experience in locating the specific target the FAC wanted to hit. Of the three fights I flew with Joe, two of them eventually ended up in my Form 5. It shows missions on 21st and 22nd of June. We lost Tom Wolfe and the crew he was with in Harleys’ Valley on June 28th. For some reason they took on a 23 mm gun site and went in almost on the trail. There were no survivors.
Karl Richter regularly came to NKP on his down days to fly with the Gombey FACs. Karl was a legendary F-105 pilot, and an Air Force Academy Graduate who was later shot down on his 198th combat sortie. He was killed during his SAR. He was such a regular that we assigned him the call sign Gombey 69. He probably flew at least two missions every day he was with us. He flew one memorable mission with me up Route 912 into North Vietnam. We found five trucks pulled to the side of the trail, trying to hide under the trees. I asked Karl if he wanted to use his M-16 for some aerial gunnery from the back seat. Since I carried all those clips of ammo I told him he could shoot at the trucks until we got our strike aircraft. I then concentrated in getting lined up so he would have a clear chance to shoot at the trucks. We made the first pass at a decently low altitude. I heard Karl firing the M-16 very clearly as we made the pass. I pulled up and for some reason made the identical pass at the trucks again. There was more automatic fire from the back seat. We did it again. For some reason I looked back at Karl and saw that he was busily using his survival knife on his gun. I asked him what the problem was and got the reply, “This thing jammed as soon as I started firing it.” AK-47 ground fire sure sounds like the M-16 when you think it’s the weapon being fired from the back seat! We finally got a flight of four F-105s with the usual 750 pounders. Lead dropped on the side of the mountain, short. Two, three and four followed suit. Karl got it all on 8 mm film.
We did some really dumb things. Ken Millay shot a touch-and-go landing at Tchepone. I decided I would do a follow up and made my approach from a high overhead. Just as I got to about 50 feet I recalled the Swift boat incident and could just envision a bomb placed in the runway wired to a detonator to get the next O-1 that did a follow up touch-and-go landing. I chickened out, fire-walled the throttle and did a quick exit
I was flying treetop recon one day and as I came into a clear area there was a 37 mm gun attached to a truck. Lounging on the barrel of the gun was a NVN gunner apparently napping or watching for a target. I wheeled around and by the time I came back over the clearing the truck and gun had disappeared.
I did FAC some Ranch Hand missions. The only ground fire was small arms. Someone picked the right days, as I never encountered heavy AAA on any spray mission. The spraying did a nice job of revealing the bypasses, fuel storage and places where trucks had been hidden.
I do not recall the time frame, however I briefed at the TOC one bright day and there waiting was a Captain from 7th AF who stated he was there to give me a Stan-Eval ride. I told him that it would be meaningless because I received an evaluation ride every day I flew by the guys protecting the trail. He insisted that he was to fly with me, so I went through the checklist and even tried to fly the fragged mission. I decided I would give the head shed evaluator a grand tour of Mu Gia Pass even though I wasn’t fragged for that sector. It was the first and only time I wore a parachute during my entire tour! I dimly recall flying at somewhere over 2,500 feet. We found some gun positions, and I passed him my camera to record them. Somehow the focus got off infinity and none of the pictures turned out good enough to make out the guns. There were several trucks parked in revetments along the roadway and I finally got a two ship Thud flight to hit them. Had a good mark and a highly visible target. They made a one pass dump as usual. One perfect road cut. To this day I don’t know what this evaluator told his command upon return, since I was not debriefed nor did I ever see a record of a Stan-Eval flight.
I would like to claim credit for two truck kills. The first was a flatbed 18-wheeler that was not loaded. I put my WP under the flatbed part. The other was a truck that had gotten too close to a crater and had rolled on its side. I could not get any strike aircraft so I decided to get it myself. It was in a cleared area so I decided to make my firing pass as close to the deck as possible. I waited until the last second to fire the rocket, and when I did, I was so close I flew through the smoke before I could pull up. It was just one of those foolish actions that could have had serious consequences.
There are other stories that others may recall better than me. Charlie Lutz, who never walked anywhere if he could get his hands on the wheel of Colonel Johnston’s jeep. Charlie shot off a pen flare one evening from the backside of our hooches. Caused a base alert and some hard feelings from some of the personnel involved in it. I believe to this day that no one ever discovered or knew what had happened except the Nails. Charlie and his wife visited with us in Biloxi after he completed his tour. He brought me a Cricket mug and a nameplate I had ordered just before I rotated. I was saddened to learn at the FAC reunion that Charlie had taken his final flight.
Mission recollections.
I remember a fragged mission to Barthemeley Pass. I had a back seat Thai or Lao officer with me. We went up to the pass and found no evidence of vehicular traffic, however it was evident the footpaths were being used. On the way back to NKP we observed trenches and gun pits somewhere to the south and west of the pass. A search of the area revealed several well-concealed buildings on the side of a karst ridge. My back- seater contacted his control and confirmed it was not a friendly endeavor. He obtained permission for an airstrike, provided we could find available resources. While waiting for Cricket to find some fighters to put on the target I decided it was time to take some pictures of the show. For some reason I had been flying with the left window shut. Now, the real reason this flight stands out is because I had placed my Cannon 35 mm on the window ledge. I opened the window without checking for the camera. When I went to look for the camera to take pictures of the airstrike it was gone! Not my first contribution to uncle Ho, since I had already lost a Cross pen that flapped out of my flight suit and into the hands of whomever. Had a great airstrike with two A-1s. Burned the buildings with lots of good secondary explosions.
During our initial days of operation, I came across a bridge that the NVA had camouflaged by pulling trees over it and putting up a trellis in an attempt to hide it. I don’t know why, since it was obvious that a bridge was needed. I got two Navy A-1s that blew the bridge away and effectively cut the trail for a few hours. The NVA engineers just filled the river up with rock and bamboo tubing and created a ford.
One of my bulldozer kills at Choke Point Alpha stands out. It was pretty well hidden against a karst outcrop. It was covered with bamboo and even dug in somewhat. But that clump of bamboo wasn’t there yesterday! I was fortunate to get two F-105’s on their way back home with guns and fuel. Since the target was pretty obvious and I could not find any guns in the area I cleared the flight lead to go after the dozer as he saw fit. He came in at a low angle strafe and was all over the bulldozer. The only problem was a dozer is made of steel and tracers were ricocheting every which way. Lead pulled off abruptly claiming they were being shot at. I informed him that he was seeing his own tracers, and that he had completely covered the earthmover.
I don’t know how many other Cricket FACs remember the Pathet Lao observer/gunner that was positioned on the karst ridge at the demarcation line of the Royal Laotians and Pathet Lao. We couldn’t put an airstrike on him because he was too far from the trail and we were never able to get Royal Lao T-28s to find the outpost. He was always taking pot shots at us with his AK-47. The occasion I remember was when Tom Wolfe was low man and on our return we decided to over fly the gunner. This time he was lucky and nailed Tom in his left wing tank. I can verify that we did not have self-sealing tanks at that time, since the hit started an immediate vapor trail from the wing. I had the tower get a fire truck to meet Tom at the end of the runway. I remember that because there was a hole in the aircraft that they could see, the firemen finally realized then that the little birds were on a dangerous mission. It should be noted that at this time we officially were not there and we were not to tell anyone we were. When did NKP get a tower?
There are probably more events hidden in the recesses of my brain, however at this time they are quiet. I remember two going home events. The first was when we decided it was time to break up Ken Millay’s party at the NCO club that a strange event took place. You had to use a plank to cross a ditch leaving the clubhouse. If I remember right, Ken fell off the bridge into the klong and the rest of us used him as a means of keeping our feet dry as we crossed the water! The second event transpired as follows. My own DEROS was to be the 24th of December. My last flight was the 17th and Ops wouldn’t let me go out again. I don’t remember how I passed the time but I got to the Bangkok terminal on the morning of the 24th and was going to be home by Christmas! But while waiting for the flight out I began to have excruciating back pain. Soon it was so bad I was sweating a river and could barely sit still. Then I started to pass blood in my urine! Finally a Master Sergeant seeing my discomfort and pain convinced me to let him call for an ambulance and get me to the AF side of the airport to a Flight Surgeon. By this time it was not so important that I make my flight as it was to get rid of the pain. The Sergeant got the ambulance for me and I was examined by a doctor who explained I was passing a kidney stone and would have to go to the Army field hospital near Bangkok (I wish I had gotten the name of the sergeant who helped me that day. He proved that the NCO is the backbone of the services). After an overnight stay in the hospital I passed the stone, was released, spent another night in Bangkok and caught a flight home the following day. Kudos to the Air Force as they kept my wife informed of the situation.