Читать книгу Through the Valley - William Reeder - Страница 14
ОглавлениеI flew missions almost every day as a front-seater, but I coveted the back seat. The front seat, also known as the bullet catcher, was the copilot and gunner, responsible for aiming and firing the 7.62-mm minigun and 40-mm grenade launcher, the chunker. The front-seater relieved the pilot on the flight controls when asked. In the back seat was the pilot-in-command, responsible for the aircraft. He made the radio calls and shot the 2.75-inch rockets from pods on the helicopter’s stubby wings. He also fired the awesome 20-mm Gatling gun on the birds that had them. He was in charge. I had proven myself in the front seat. I was ready for the back.
I flew daily for two months. I worked hard at my front-seat duties. As platoon commander, I could have made myself a back-seater, but the unit instructor pilots normally said when a pilot was ready. I wanted the legitimacy of the IP’s endorsement.
When some “old-guy” pilots completed their tours of duty and headed home, I was elated to be moved to the back seat. I wanted to be the best I could be. As platoon leader, I got the ship of my choice. I took tail number 295, one of the few Gatling-gun birds, a most awesome killing machine.
All Special Forces operations had been publicly declared over in Vietnam. In reality, the SOG teams replaced their berets with Army baseball caps and continued to conduct missions, some of which involved training South Vietnamese special operators to take over for them. Our classified missions remained intense.
SOG missions often ended in a firefight, the team surrounded by a hugely superior enemy force. A prairie fire emergency was declared whenever the survival of the team was in question. Every available military asset was sent to support the extraction. We shot next to the guys on the ground and under them as the Hueys lifted them out. It was crazy. Team members sometimes suffered minor wounds from fragments of friendly fire. We shot where they asked. They were always thankful for Cobra support.
As spring came to the Central Highlands, the enemy moved along the range of mountains that formed the border with Laos and Cambodia. They also infiltrated further eastward, across the high country north of the highlands into the lesser mountains ranging north-south between the highlands and the coast. The North Vietnamese Army had long planned this move into South Vietnam from base camps in Laos and Cambodia. They probed and then launched outright attacks on a scale not seen before in the Vietnam War.1 The 1972 Easter Offensive had begun.
I became AMC (air mission commander), leading missions made up of two to four Cobras, Hueys from our sister company, the Gladiators, or a variety of other aircraft. I was responsible for all the helicopters in the flight and their actions in battle. This made me part of something larger than myself, and I felt an increasing commitment to a greater cause. In my first tour I grew from a boy to a man. On this second tour, slammed right back into the cauldron of war, I was learning much more what that man was made of. The war was changing into something none of us could have imagined. We would soon face the greatest challenges of our lives.
In late March 1972, I was in a flight of two Cobras diverted to support an ARVN patrol with an American advisor operating west of Rocket Ridge. Rocket Ridge overlooked Highway 14 from south of Dak To to northwest of Kontum. From the ridge, the Viet Cong used to launch rockets onto the highway and villages below. A string of firebases spaced along the ridgeline had stopped that.
The ARVN patrol had been on routine reconnaissance to the west of one of the firebases. Now they were fighting desperately to break contact with a strong NVA force, withdraw to the east, and get back inside the perimeter of Firebase 5. We heard the American advisor, 1st Lt. Terry “Buddha” Griswold, on the radio. “In heavy contact. Large enemy force, at least a company. We are withdrawing back to Firebase 5. Enemy moving to flank and cut us off. Need help.”
I radioed, “This is Panther Lead. Flight of two Cobras, inbound. Pop smoke.”
“Roger. Look for orange smoke.”
We crested the ridge over Firebase 5, and I called, “Got your smoke.”
Buddha responded, “Roger, Panthers. Enemy is to the west and south of smoke. Moving in on us quickly.”
I replied, “Got your position. Got the bad guys. In hot.” We made several runs, expending our ordnance. My 20-mm was devastating, blasting small trees to oblivion and decimating the attacking force. The patrol broke contact with the enemy and withdrew back to the firebase. We’d saved their bacon, but we had witnessed an unusual display of enemy strength within South Vietnam.
In the weeks ahead, we got more and more in-country missions as enemy activity inside South Vietnam increased. On March 27, an urgent request came to launch on a mission to rescue a VNAF (Vietnamese Air Force) helicopter crew shot down west of Firebase Charlie, near the center of Rocket Ridge. A Gladiator Huey was with us at Tan Canh. The pilot, CWO Larry Woods, laid out a plan to surprise the enemy, get in, pick up the downed crew, and get out.
Larry, his copilot, door gunner, and crew chief loaded up and cranked the Huey. I flew with Dan Jones in my front seat. My wingman and I started our Cobras. My right hand held the cyclic stick, which controlled the tilt of the rotor’s axis. My feet were positioned on the pedals that maintained the direction of the aircraft’s nose. My left hand gripped the cylindrical collective, which made the helicopter rise or settle and adjusted speed in flight. I was one with the machine as I pulled the collective steadily and eased the cyclic ever so slightly forward, bringing the Cobra off the ground behind the departing Huey. The other Cobra followed closely on my right rear.
We headed southwest, angling toward Rocket Ridge, flying fast just above the trees. A little south of Firebase Charlie, we rose up the hillside together in formation. Near the top, we slowed. We floated up and over the ridgeline, banking sharply to the right, sliding back down to the tops of the trees, picking up speed. After changing course about ninety degrees, we moved north, accelerating just above the jungle along the west side of the hills.
Woods spotted the downed VNAF helicopter. I confirmed it by smoke rising from a clearing on the hillside ahead. Larry’s Huey swooped in and rapidly decelerated to land next to the downed aircraft. Small arms fire erupted as the Huey slowed. The streak of a B-40 (40-mm rocket-propelled grenade) found its target and detonated. I watched in disbelief as the entire helicopter exploded in a violent burst of orange and yellow flame. It hung there for an instant, the tips of the rotors still visible, turning through the fireball. Then the whole ship slammed into the ground, and rolled on its back, continuing to burn. My heart sank. I loved the Gladiators and respected their courage. We covered the scene, searching for survivors until another flight of Cobras replaced us on station. We flew home to Camp Holloway, our spirits crushed.2
On April 1, a Chinook was shot down outside Firebase Delta on approach to the camp. The firebase straddled the crest of Rocket Ridge about a mile and a half south of Firebase Charlie. The crew got inside the firebase, but the enemy repulsed every effort to extract them. HQ put together a plan to rescue the crew at first light on the third day. We launched before sunrise. John Debay was flying in my front seat. The rescuers included every available Cobra gunship from Camp Holloway.
A thousand NVA soldiers launched a dawn assault against Firebase Delta that morning. As we approached the firebase, my transmission oil pressure light came on. I had to abort. If we lost all oil pressure, our transmission would seize, and we would fall out of the sky like a rock. The rest of the Cobra crews repulsed the attack and killed more than three hundred of the enemy.
A few days later, we had a heavy fire team of three Cobras that linked up with a small fixed-wing spotter airplane to form a hunter-killer team. We searched for enemy reinforcements building up inside Laos. Bob Hutchinson, our company executive officer, was in my front seat. Debay and Jones piloted the other two Cobras. We headed out.
“Headhunter Two-Six, this is Panther Three-Six,” I radioed.3
Capt. Ed Smith, the spotter pilot, replied, “Panther, Headhunter Two-Six. I’ve got several trucks out here and a bunch of troops along the road. I can put you guys right to work. I’m at five thousand feet in a left-hand orbit over Route 110 just across the border. Call when you see me.”
“Two-six, we’ve got you in sight. Where are the targets?”
“Watch me, Three-six.”
Smith rolled the single-engine O-1 Bird Dog light-observation plane onto its back and dove steeply, firing a rocket. White phosphorous smoke billowed where it hit the ground.
“That’s it Panther. Right there. Trucks and a bunch of gomers.”
The trucks fled down the middle of the dirt track. Dozens of soldiers scurried into the jungle as we dropped to the treetops. Bob raked the NVA troops with the minigun and grenade launcher while I did my best to hit the trucks with rockets, a challenging task.
My first pair of rockets hit short of a truck and off to one side, exploding in the midst of a group dashing for cover. They were blown to bits, and others nearby were surely wounded badly. We banked hard left, coming around for another pass. I was flying way too slow for my heavily laden Cobra, dragging the skids through tree limbs scaring the shit out of my front-seater. More turret firing. Another pair of rockets. A hit. Right on the hood. Hallelujah!
We kept attacking, taking enemy fire, until we’d shot all our ordnance. “Headhunter Two-Six, Panther Three-Six. We’re done. You can count the trucks damaged and destroyed. Not sure how many we actually hit. Killed lots of people. No idea how many. Looks like Charlie is really building up over here. Up to no good. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Roger, Three-Six. Thanks.”
On April 11, NVA forces in the northern reaches of the highlands swung into action along Highway 19, below An Khe Pass. The area was far to the east of Pleiku, but the highway connected Pleiku to essential ports along the coast. The enemy overran South Vietnamese and Korean outposts and closed the highway. I led a fire team in response, and we joined others already working the battle. It was a day of hard fighting, rapid reversals, and confusion on the ground.
The enemy tried to do what they had done in 1954 against the French. French Group Mobile 100 was nearly wiped out at Mang Yang Pass, thirty miles east of Pleiku, with 500 killed, 600 wounded, and 800 captured out of a force of 2,500. Southern Vietnam was cut in half right through the Central Highlands. That war ended after this debacle was added to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. The French signed an armistice a month later and withdrew from Indochina.
The South Vietnamese, Americans, and Koreans fought unsuccessfully to reopen Highway 19. Henceforth, resupply of bases in the Central Highlands would be exclusively by air, and we Pink Panthers engaged in actions along the length of the highway as fighting continued. On each of these missions, we flew over the Mang Yang Pass. I reflected on that long-ago fight. I’d read about the battle in Bernard B. Fall’s book, Street Without Joy. All those who died with Group Mobile 100 had been buried in a cemetery in the hills above the pass, standing up facing France. Returning from a mission one day, I circled it, taking pictures of the white markers on the hillside. I talked about it at the club that night. One of the old hands said, “Bad luck to take pictures in the Mang Yang!”
“Bullshit!” I said.
On April 14, we received a radio call that Firebase Charlie was under attack by two regiments, three thousand soldiers, of the 320th NVA Infantry Division, and 130-mm artillery shells were pounding the position. It was defended by 470 South Vietnamese paratroopers and one American advisor, a Special Forces infantry major named John Joseph Duffy.
Dan Jones, the most seasoned pilot in my platoon, was within a couple of weeks of going home. He led the flight. I was his wingman. Dan pointed our flight toward Rocket Ridge, and we coaxed as much speed as our Cobras would give.
Map 2. The core of our mission area in the Central Highlands
“Firebase Charlie, this is Panther One-Three.”
“Panther Lead, this is Dusty Cyanide. I have multiple targets for you. All .51-caliber machine guns.”
“Oh shit!” My front-seater remarked over the intercom.
Oh shit? How about, Oh fuck! I thought as I set my weapons for combat. The .51-caliber machine gun seemed designed specifically to shoot down helicopters. They’d done plenty of damage over the past weeks.
Dan calmly acknowledged, “Roger, Dusty Cyanide. We’re inbound. Give us the positions when we get there.”
We made several passes on enemy guns. Bullets streamed past our cockpits as the NVA gunners tried to bring us down. Rolling in on a .51 position is always dicey. Tracers come at you and miss by a few feet. You try to get rockets onto him before he gets lucky and blasts you out of the sky. We took small arms hits. My knees vibrated like a sewing machine, but I focused on controlling the helicopter, lining up the gunsights and shooting. I was scared but had no time for it.
Dan radioed, “Dusty Cyanide, Panther One-Three. Be advised, running low on fuel. Out of ammo. We’re breaking station for rearm-refuel.”
“Roger, One-Three. Four gun crews destroyed, four guns taken out. Good work. Hurry back!”
By the time we got back, the situation had deteriorated dramatically. Other teams of Cobras had worked while we rearmed. VNAF A-1 Skyraiders and U.S. jet fighters dropped napalm and high-explosive bombs on the advancing enemy as well, but the NVA attack was intensifying, pushing back the South Vietnamese defenders. One of the A-1s was shot down and the pilot killed. The enemy overran outlying posts and breached the perimeter of Charlie itself. As dusk settled in, fires and chaos raged across the hilltop.
“Panther, the battalion commander is dead, acting commander wounded. Enemy broken through on the southwest. Put it there first. Then all around us—but real close.”
“Roger, Dusty. We’ve got ’em,” Dan said.
After a number of Cobra attack runs, Duffy called. “Panther Lead, this is Dusty Cyanide. You have broken the enemy attack, for now. Hundreds of bodies in the wire—maybe a thousand. But we cannot hold.” After a short break, he continued, “We are leaving Firebase Charlie, now. Stop them from following us. Whatever it takes. Put your stuff right on top of the firebase, NOW.”
Another Cobra team joined us, with Forrest Snyder in one of the front seats. We finished laying waste to Firebase Charlie and made our way back to Camp Holloway. The flight picked its way through hills and valleys below a worsening layer of low clouds in the pitch black of night.
The next morning, the badly wounded and exhausted advisor was rescued from the valley below Rocket Ridge along with 36 survivors of the 11th Vietnamese Airborne battalion. The remaining 434 members of the battalion had been killed or captured or were missing in action. Some would infiltrate through the enemy and later return to friendly lines. Major Duffy was recommended for the Medal of Honor. He would receive the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions on Firebase Charlie, our nation’s second-highest award for heroism. The battle remains an icon in Vietnamese folk culture, the subject of film, song, and poetry both in Vietnam and among the expat community in the United States.4
1st Lt. Tim Conry, a new pilot, was assigned to my platoon a day later, on April 16. He was immediately impressive: great bearing, well-spoken, intelligent, an exceptional aviator, and a really likeable guy. He was engaged to be married. I knew this young officer would go places in the Army. As his platoon leader, I made him my front-seater. We grew close and became a great fighting team.
The war raged in the Central Highlands. The North Vietnamese launched all-out conventional attacks with every unit its army could muster. They assaulted across the demilitarized zone into the northern portions of South Vietnam. They attacked from Cambodia thrusting toward Saigon. They came out of Laos and northern Cambodia into the Central Highlands. Three months before, most of us thought we’d won.
Toward the end of April, long-ranging NVA 130-mm guns sent a thousand artillery shells into the 22 ARVN division headquarters at Tan Canh. Wire-guided Soviet Sagger antitank missiles destroyed the few South Vietnamese tanks at Tan Canh and Dak To. The enemy launched Soviet SA-7 heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles against U.S. helicopters.
At dawn the next day, April 24, the North Vietnamese attacked Tan Canh and Dak To with an infantry division, a tank regiment, and supporting artillery and sappers. Outmanned and outgunned, the South Vietnamese defenders at Tan Canh were overwhelmed within two hours, and those at Dak To succumbed shortly after. North Vietnamese tanks rolled inside Tan Canh, onto the runway at Dak To, and along the highway between the two.
Tim and I saw plenty of action that day. A Gladiator Huey that had rescued five U.S. advisors was hit by enemy fire and fell from the sky in flames. Advisors escaped from Tan Canh, the Dak To airstrip, and the district headquarters in Dak To village. Helicopters rescued most of them later in the day. Two remained missing in action.
Hundreds of ARVN soldiers lay dead and wounded. Others tried to evade the enemy and work their way to friendly positions. Some succeeded, but others were hunted down and killed or captured. It was the first time a South Vietnamese division had been overrun. The division commander and his entire staff were missing.
During one run back into Kontum to rearm and refuel, I got a call to land at the military headquarters and shut down.
Tim asked, “What’s up?”
“Somebody wants to know what’s going on at Tan Canh and Dak To, I guess.”
I shot an approach to the HQ helipad, landed, and shut down. An American captain escorted us into the dining hall. A number of folks were finishing their breakfast.
Tim muttered quietly to me as we walked in, “What the fuck?” I shrugged. Some contrast.
Officers, all senior to me, sat at one table. Must be visiting staff from the headquarters at Pleiku, I surmised. They offered us a cup of coffee. Neither of us sat down. We stood, enjoying the hot brew.
“What’s going on at Tan Canh?”
“They’re overrun. Tanks and infantry. Probably more than a regiment. Maybe two. Could be more. Lots of antiaircraft fire, also.”
“You sure there’s tanks?”
“Yes. Absolutely sure. We saw them.”
One of the staff colonels asked, “Are you going to get back out there?”
“As soon as we get out of here, get some gas and bullets.” I added, “In spite of the twenty-three-millimeter and thirty-seven-millimeter triple-A threat.”
Another staff officer said, “Large caliber antiaircraft? Nothing like that in South Vietnam. Never has been.”
“Well, there is now. Antiaircraft is all over Dak To and the road to Ben Het, including thirty-seven millimeter,” I said.
“How would you know it was thirty-sevens since we’ve never seen it before?”
“I’ve seen it, plenty of times. Used to fly Mohawks over the trail and saw a bunch of twenty-threes and thirty-sevens. Got shot down by a thirty-seven and had to punch out in an ejection seat for a very short parachute ride into Laos. We also see it sometimes on our FOB missions across the border. I know my triple-A. There are twenty-threes and thirty-sevens at Dak To right now.”
He responded glibly, “OK, Ace. Got it.”
I glared at him. He continued, “Come up on our radio push and stay with us. Keep us up to speed on what’s going on.”
We cranked our aircraft and returned to the war.
In spite of the war protests at home, I felt proud of what we were doing. I believed in preserving the South against communist aggression from the North. We all fought hard to quell the North Vietnamese advance. By the end of the month, the 23rd ARVN Division was deployed from Ban Me Thuot to replace the decimated 22nd. Only a few places in the highlands remained in government hands: Pleiku and Kontum, Camp Holloway, and the outposts: Polei Kleng, twelve miles due west of Kontum, and Ben Het at the triborder.
