The Butterflies Were Unique

submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson


My story begins when I was a Technical Sergeant and assigned, early in 1963, to the U.S.A.F. Counterinsurgency Forces, as a Combat Control Team member. My specialty was as an Air Traffic Controller within the team made up of Air Traffic Controllers and Ground Radio Repair Technicians. My early FAC experience on the Eglin AFB reservation included learning and developing procedures to guide fighter aircraft to targets from ground positions. We also flew with strike aircraft and worked range control during ordnance delivery. In our minds, all this training with the Air Commandos was to give us versatility on future missions.
Early in 1966 I was deployed TDY with Lieutenant Robert McCullough and Airman Andre Guillet to NKP, Thailand, under project Lucky Tiger. We started flying with the O-1s using the call sign Gombey. We were learning routes and targets within the panhandle of Laos. This was in preparation for what we assumed would be our operational area, in Laos, interdicting the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But in early May 1966 Captain Harley, with Airman Guillet aboard, was shot down near Ban Karai Pass. They were not recovered. This put a temporary stop to flying TDY troops with the O-1s.
As a result, a T-28, from Project Waterpump at Udorn, arrived to pick me up and I was deployed into Laos to augment Captain Farmer and Master Sergeant Charlie Jones at Long Tieng. Our mission was to fly as airborne forward air controllers using the call sign Butterfly. We flew with civilian contract pilots in Air America or Continental Air Service Pilatus Porter aircraft. Thus, we became intimately familiar with the terrain and provided the link between the fighter pilots and their targets. This was the one thing that was lacking between U.S, Thai, and Laotian strike aircraft.
Most of the time we flew alone with the pilot, whose job was to get us to and from the targets. Flying from sun up until dark everyday, we bounced from target to target in Military Region II. We worked daily with the indigenous Hmong troops. A vital part of our mission was to protect and support them in anyway we could.
Moving to and from the operational areas in Laos was a low-key operation. In between air strikes we would often airdrop rice and other supplies to remote areas, and air-land troops and ammunition at other remote locations. Laotian General Vang Pao selected most targets each evening at his strategy meetings. However, other targets that showed up during our daily reconnaissance could be hit immediately if strike aircraft became available.
You do develop FAC-eyes from flying low and slow over the same terrain – flying up and down valleys shrouded in fog or wet from storms. Often I would find POL storage areas or underwater bridge crossings. Sometimes I could even catch moving troops with vehicles, or piles of crates under camouflage. Most of our Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) came later from the indigenous Hmong troops sent in to check on our results. How well we did, I guess, depended on the smoke and explosions or how long the target burned.
Later I moved to site 118A to provide air support for Tony Poe (CIA case officer). I learned that when Tony didn’t get air support, he had plenty of ways to hit the targets. From the air we would drop 100 pound high-explosive bombs lashed to 100 pound white phosphorous bombs, sometimes with timed fuses or just loaded up with rocks. (Note: White phosphorous ignites when exposed to air.)
One of the best weapons was the poor man’s Cluster Bomb Unit (CBU) dispenser. These were simply tubes lashed together over the drop doors of the Porter. We would fill these tubes with hand grenades, six each, pins pulled but with small pieces of tape over the spoons. As we flew over the selected target location we would open drop doors and saturate the area with a couple hundred grenades. Because there were times when I worked beyond the fast-movers (jet fighters) fuel range, I used A-1 Firefly’s and the Thai Air Force T-28s. Also, I occasionally had to use H-34 helicopters as the FAC platform because of their UHF radios. We used portable UHF radios in the Pilatus Porters and at site 20A. Some missions were better than others and no one mission really stands out. Unless you consider flaming out, on two different occasions, and having to dead stick land at the same site you were defending with air strikes – then pumping enough fuel into the airplane from 55-gallon fuel drums to get airborne again and work the next wave of fast movers. Or, watching things blow up and burn all day. I guess you could say it was all in a day’s work and a privilege to work beside the Hmong people defending their freedom.