- Joined
- May 31, 2004
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April 16, 1967 Just a “little” firefight
When I first saw LZ Montezuma it was a simple triangular earthen fort built by the French/ARVN/Marines, maybe even the Japanese, with a primitive airstrip on the west and a 500 foot mountain sticking up out of the coastal plain like a wart on a witches face. The mountain had been continuously occupied by somebody for as long as anyone knew, and each group had left its mark by planting mines on the sides of the mountain wherever a previous group had left some space after planting theirs. Finally, there was no safe way up or down except by helicopter. The village of Duc Pho lay just to the southwest of the LZ bordering Highway 1.
Geographically, the area was bordered on the south by the range of mountains that ran all the way to the sea and marked the southern border of I Corps, separating the Duc Pho region from that perennial playground of the First Cav, the Bong Son Plain. The Cav had reported, on at least one occasion, a 37mm antiaircraft gun in those mountains, a story that ranks right up there with pink elephants until you suddenly see an airburst at your altitude about a mile in front of you on a clear dark night. Moving north from the mountains, the region widened out into a broad coastal plain of rice paddies and sugar cane fields surrounding small villages. The plain was cut by some fair size rivers, navigable by sampans, that meandered from the mountains to the sea. The coastline was mostly beautiful sandy beaches from a half to a mile wide that ran right up to the rice paddies. A few small peninsulas jutted out into the sea. To the west mountains rose abruptly out of the plain and extended undisturbed all the way to the Cambodia/Laos Border. The population were mostly farmers and fishermen, a large sampan fleet operating off the coast on a nightly basis.
Our briefing flatly emphasized that the VC controlled the area from Duc Pho to Chu Lai, the third most populated region of Vietnam, since they were Viet Minh. The area produced abundant rice crops, constantly diverted to feed VC, and was occupied by NVA and main force PAVN troops as well as VC local forces. The ARVN 2cnd Division based at Quang Ngai were ineffective as allies, if not nominally VC. And this was the good news. The bad news was that a half dozen Special Forces detachments operated in those mountains with a B, or company size detachment in the Quang Ngai area, and they regularly reported movement of NVA regimental size units around their camps. The camps existed simply because the NVA did not want to sacrifice the manpower to take them out, and sacrifice they would, the camps bristled with weaponry and were on a first name basis with “Spooky” and “Puff.” More bad news, the Marines had tried several platoon size operations meeting stiff resistance each time, and in atypical Marine fashion, they had pulled back rather then fix bayonets and charge. Distressing news was provided by a “Spook” detachment operating around Quang Ngai, (those CIA/merc/God only knows types that wear unmarked uniforms and fly in Air America helicopters), a strong possibility existed that American POW’s were being held in camps in those mountains.
Our job, as the crew of 863, was to be the Command and Control aircraft for the CO, 2/35 Infantry Battalion of the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Div as they moved in and picked up the reins from the Marines. The entire 3rd Brigade would eventually move to Duc Pho, but for now there were some loose ends that needed to be tied up. The Marines had developed a plan called Operation LeJeune that would involve search and destroy activities designed to provide cover for Operation Golden Fleece, a rice harvest project in conjunction with the Vietnamese National Police that would protect the local population during the harvest and keep the rice out of VC hands.
Because the 2/35 would be operating so far from their brigade, they would be under the operational control of the 2cnd Brigade of the 1st Cav which was operating in the Bong Son area. B Troop 1/9th Cav moved in to LZ Montezuma just a few days before the 2/35th arrived and, in true 1/9th fashion, they immediately rattled Charley’s cage.
On the morning of April 16 we arrived at Duc Pho and loaded the radios and gear belonging to the battalion CO. The unit had its assignments and was ready to go. A Co would remain at Montezuma as a ready reserve to be committed when needed. B Co would move down the west side of Highway One providing flank security on the western side of Operation Golden Fleece. When the rice was in, they would conduct search and destroy operations on the north end of the AO. C Co was to move west of B Co at the base of the mountains conducting search and destroy operations and looking for the enemy. The Blue Team of B Troop, 1/9th Cav (consisting of a platoon of infantry and 4 UH-1 slicks, one for each squad) would be inserted in an area where the beach sand met the rice paddies, an area where intelligence revealed the operation of 50-75 VC/NVA.
At 6:30 as I was heating up my second cup of coffee, the aircraft of B/1/9th lifted off and ten minutes later the Blues were inserted. About an hour later they grabbed a suspect from the village of Thach Thang (3) who stated that 61 VC/NVA had stayed in his town the night before. The Cav asked for more infantry so the First Platoon of A Co, 2/35 saddled up and boarded the Blue Team slicks. We cranked up at the same time. As the 1st Platoon was being combat assaulted in at about 8:10, the Blue Team made their first enemy contact and killed a VC. The 1st Platoon was placed under the operational control of the Blue Team. B Co had already departed on their mission, but it was decided to commit C Co into the contact area.
The 1st Platoon A Co and the Blue Team formed on an east-west line and began a slow sweep to the north taking sporadic automatic and small arms fire. Cav White Team observation aircraft supported by Red Team gunships provided early warning and flank security. This also kept the enemy retreat at a slow pace and kept them from breaking out on the flanks. By 10 AM C Co had been inserted and began sweeping south into the contact area. The Blue Team and 1/A/2-35 established a blocking position. White Team aircraft observed a large number of enemy retreating toward the beach so artillery fire and airstrikes were called in to close the east side. The enemy tried again to break through the Blues and 1/A/2-35 but ended up bouncing around the inside of a box with troops on the north and south, an open beach on the east and rice paddies to the west. All the while they were pursued and harassed by helicopters. It was about this time that the battalion CO, 2-35th took command. That meant us.
As the two friendly elements closed, the enemy fire became more intense and desperate and soon all of the helicopters were reporting taking hits. At about noon, the Red Team reported one of their aircraft out of contact and asked if we had seen it. Earlier we had seen a single gunship flying north to south at treetop level. It must have been shortly after that it got shot down. It wasn’t until 3 PM that C Co infantry moving from the north found the ship. After taking hits that damaged the hydraulics and fuel systems, the aircraft had gone inverted into a tree line. Everyone was dead including an Air Force officer who had taken the place of the door gunner at the last minute and was just along for some excitement.
As for us, we were putzing along at about 500 feet right over the enemy concentration when all hell broke loose. Bullets started coming through the cabin floor like a sewing machine needle through silk. Radios, ammo cans and combat packs were jumping off the floor. Daylight began streaming through holes in the ceiling. Lieutenant Henry Brant, loved by all, a great bear of a man who single handedly upset the weight and balance charts of every aircraft he flew, happened to be flying left seat. Ordinarily he sat large in the seat, his shoulders high above the seat back and his head brushing the ceiling. The largest chicken plate looked like a sheriff’s badge on his chest. I looked forward and all I could see was the top of his helmet sticking above the armored seat. Somehow he had contrived to shrink his whole huge being into the protection of that seat.
Major Crosby, the battalion S-3 sat in the middle of the aircraft observing the proceedings, and, always the master of understatement, shouted, “Henry, your airplanes getting shot up,” as he brushed flying insulation out of his face.
A thin red mist sprayed around the inside of the aircraft.
A chorus of chatter, “Who’s hit?” “You hit?” “No, you hit?” “No, I’m OK, you hit?” “Where’d he go?” “Henry, you’re crewchief’s gone!” The queries became almost accusatory. When a major asks who’s hit, there better darn well be someone hit. But it wasn’t me, I was on my stomach peering under the aircraft looking for the all important flight sustaining fluids leaking out. Hydraulic fluid is the worst for fire, it’s also red. Incredibly there was nothing.
The Arty officer spoke up, “Beans.”
“What?”
“Beans. Muthahs and beans.” He pointed forward. There behind Henry’s seat where someone had placed his C ration lunch for safe keeping was a can of beans fatally injured. It had been blown completely out of the box and while airborne had spewed its liquid contents far and wide. Unfortunately, the red goop had blown around the inside of the left side of the aircraft, where all the lower ranking people were seated. I regained my seat just in time to get hit under the left eye by a single bean and the accompanying glop. Most of us looked like we had held down the victim at an ax murder, but anyone of the rank of major and above was pristine. I hate to think that even C rations respect rank.
At the moment I was too preoccupied to be concerned about lunch. Under the cabin floor were two fuel cells, a large bundle of wires and all of the control tubes. Every control movement the pilots made was relayed back under their seats, then made a 90 degree turn and converged in the middle of the ship. From there, the control tubes made their way aft under the center of the floor to the transmission compartment where they split into their various functions. If any one of those tubes was injured we had way too much altitude, we needed to be on the ground. I asked Henry to please not make any violent maneuvers until we could pull the panels and look things over. He caught my meaning and flew very gingerly until we could lie about needing fuel. At the POL point I hurriedly pulled panels and found, much to my relief, that only sheet metal had been damaged, we were still in one piece.
We now had far more then any 75 enemy closed in our box and the harder we squeezed, the crankier they got. Soon small arms and automatic weapons fire was so intense the helicopters were forced to the fringes, but by this time everyone wanted a piece of the action. We had no Army artillery in direct support, but artillery from somewhere wanted to shoot, so they fired into the box, then a Navy destroyer was allowed to do its thing. A “Guns-a-go-go” armed CH-47 from the 1st Cav came up on the radio and asked if he could expend his ammo, so the artillery was shifted to the west and he made runs from the east to the west firing 20mm, 40 mm grenades and 50 cal, plus 2.75 rockets. It was a pretty gutsy move, he was flying under the gun-target line from the Navy offshore. The arty officer on my aircraft was co-ordinating all this action and was having a field day. Meanwhile, the enemy was trying to escape through the troops on the north and across the rice paddies to the west so we were constantly engaging small groups or individuals we spotted. Using all of this as a diversion, the First Platoon of A Company moved to the beach and sealed the east side of the box.
By the time the CH-47 was out of ammo, the area was quiet enough for the infantry to move into the trap and conduct a thorough search. They found enemy dead and a lot of blood trails but the enemy was gone. We didn’t know it at the time but this was our introduction into the most sophisticated system of “spider holes” found in Vietnam. It would take several weeks for the 2/35 to figure out how to find them and clean them out, but eventually they would and it would be written up in the book “A Distant Challenge.”
Shortly after the fighting in the trap had died down, Henry Brant spotted 40-50 enemy who had evaded west then turned north and were crossing the rice paddies. We engaged them and called for two Cav White Teams to help, but many escaped, once again the area was saturated with spider holes and tunnels in the hedgerows and treelines.
At 4:20 PM the rest of A Company was brought in to the location of the downed Cav gunship and began a sweep to the north where we had engaged the last group of enemy, halting only to allow gunships to break up any pockets of resistance.
At 6 PM the Blue Team was extracted and B Company walked back to Montezuma to become the ready reserve. Both A and C Companies were pulled back to the downed Cav gunship to set up for the night and be resupplied. Besides the gunship crew, the only other casualty was in C Company, a wounded soldier who didn’t require med evac. We counted 43 enemy bodies, had 2 prisoners and were talking to 11 suspects.
Back at Montezuma we parked the aircraft on the south end of the base close to B Troop and shut her down. The Arty officer started to walk away, then with a grin he turned around and came back. With his felt tip pen he drew stick figures on the door post recording the kills our ship got that day. When I took my helmet off I could hear the bullet holes in the blades singing like that old asthmatic harmonica again, the pitch lowering as they slowed down. The cure for this condition was to take a strip of what we called “600 MPH tape” and hold it in the middle at the leading edge and fold it over the hole on both the top and bottom, trimming the tape at the trailing edge. This stopped the music but it also created an unbalanced condition so another strip of tape had to be added in exactly the same place on the other blade. When a bullet passed through the blade it never actually removed any material, it just rearranged it. As long as the bullet missed the spar in the blade, the aircraft was flyable as long as we could tolerate the music.
Aside from the blades I was never really sure how many hits we took, could have been nine, could have been fifteen. Some of them just kind of blended together. I taped and probed and poked and was finally satisfied that we were still flyable. The hardest part was cleaning the bean juice from the inside of the windshield. Finally, just as the sun was going down I set up my cot beside the tailboom and tied my jungle hammock to the top of the cargo door. I was in the process of tying the other hammock line to the horizontal stabilizer when I heard thwack - zing - crack and a green 50 cal tracer went by in front and above me. Now the zing and crack I understood, that was typical 50 cal stuff, but the thwack was out of place although part of it was the familiar sound of the tail rotor hitting the stops. I untied the main blade and walked it around so I could get a look at the tail rotor, and sure enough, in the blade that had been pointing up there was a neat bullet hole a half inch in diameter. We were grounded. The tail rotor traveled some 5 times faster then the main rotor and there wasn’t that much material to play with in the first place so you took no chances with a hit like this one. After all we went through that day and here we were, one shot, one kill. The clown that pulled the trigger couldn’t even set it up so it wouldn’t jam after the first round. The most expensive single shot weapon in Vietnam.
We used the infantry radio net to call our company to tell them we needed to be replaced as C and C.
I was later told the conversation at the company went something like this, “We got a broke bird at Duc Pho.”
“Wrecked or shot?”
“Shot.”
“Shot up or shot down?” (There is a difference)
“Shot up.”
“I bet it’s 863, right?”
“Yep.”
“Figures. Magnet ass.”
(written with memory jogging assistance from the after action report of 2/35 Inf Bn)
Rotorwash
When I first saw LZ Montezuma it was a simple triangular earthen fort built by the French/ARVN/Marines, maybe even the Japanese, with a primitive airstrip on the west and a 500 foot mountain sticking up out of the coastal plain like a wart on a witches face. The mountain had been continuously occupied by somebody for as long as anyone knew, and each group had left its mark by planting mines on the sides of the mountain wherever a previous group had left some space after planting theirs. Finally, there was no safe way up or down except by helicopter. The village of Duc Pho lay just to the southwest of the LZ bordering Highway 1.
Geographically, the area was bordered on the south by the range of mountains that ran all the way to the sea and marked the southern border of I Corps, separating the Duc Pho region from that perennial playground of the First Cav, the Bong Son Plain. The Cav had reported, on at least one occasion, a 37mm antiaircraft gun in those mountains, a story that ranks right up there with pink elephants until you suddenly see an airburst at your altitude about a mile in front of you on a clear dark night. Moving north from the mountains, the region widened out into a broad coastal plain of rice paddies and sugar cane fields surrounding small villages. The plain was cut by some fair size rivers, navigable by sampans, that meandered from the mountains to the sea. The coastline was mostly beautiful sandy beaches from a half to a mile wide that ran right up to the rice paddies. A few small peninsulas jutted out into the sea. To the west mountains rose abruptly out of the plain and extended undisturbed all the way to the Cambodia/Laos Border. The population were mostly farmers and fishermen, a large sampan fleet operating off the coast on a nightly basis.
Our briefing flatly emphasized that the VC controlled the area from Duc Pho to Chu Lai, the third most populated region of Vietnam, since they were Viet Minh. The area produced abundant rice crops, constantly diverted to feed VC, and was occupied by NVA and main force PAVN troops as well as VC local forces. The ARVN 2cnd Division based at Quang Ngai were ineffective as allies, if not nominally VC. And this was the good news. The bad news was that a half dozen Special Forces detachments operated in those mountains with a B, or company size detachment in the Quang Ngai area, and they regularly reported movement of NVA regimental size units around their camps. The camps existed simply because the NVA did not want to sacrifice the manpower to take them out, and sacrifice they would, the camps bristled with weaponry and were on a first name basis with “Spooky” and “Puff.” More bad news, the Marines had tried several platoon size operations meeting stiff resistance each time, and in atypical Marine fashion, they had pulled back rather then fix bayonets and charge. Distressing news was provided by a “Spook” detachment operating around Quang Ngai, (those CIA/merc/God only knows types that wear unmarked uniforms and fly in Air America helicopters), a strong possibility existed that American POW’s were being held in camps in those mountains.
Our job, as the crew of 863, was to be the Command and Control aircraft for the CO, 2/35 Infantry Battalion of the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Div as they moved in and picked up the reins from the Marines. The entire 3rd Brigade would eventually move to Duc Pho, but for now there were some loose ends that needed to be tied up. The Marines had developed a plan called Operation LeJeune that would involve search and destroy activities designed to provide cover for Operation Golden Fleece, a rice harvest project in conjunction with the Vietnamese National Police that would protect the local population during the harvest and keep the rice out of VC hands.
Because the 2/35 would be operating so far from their brigade, they would be under the operational control of the 2cnd Brigade of the 1st Cav which was operating in the Bong Son area. B Troop 1/9th Cav moved in to LZ Montezuma just a few days before the 2/35th arrived and, in true 1/9th fashion, they immediately rattled Charley’s cage.
On the morning of April 16 we arrived at Duc Pho and loaded the radios and gear belonging to the battalion CO. The unit had its assignments and was ready to go. A Co would remain at Montezuma as a ready reserve to be committed when needed. B Co would move down the west side of Highway One providing flank security on the western side of Operation Golden Fleece. When the rice was in, they would conduct search and destroy operations on the north end of the AO. C Co was to move west of B Co at the base of the mountains conducting search and destroy operations and looking for the enemy. The Blue Team of B Troop, 1/9th Cav (consisting of a platoon of infantry and 4 UH-1 slicks, one for each squad) would be inserted in an area where the beach sand met the rice paddies, an area where intelligence revealed the operation of 50-75 VC/NVA.
At 6:30 as I was heating up my second cup of coffee, the aircraft of B/1/9th lifted off and ten minutes later the Blues were inserted. About an hour later they grabbed a suspect from the village of Thach Thang (3) who stated that 61 VC/NVA had stayed in his town the night before. The Cav asked for more infantry so the First Platoon of A Co, 2/35 saddled up and boarded the Blue Team slicks. We cranked up at the same time. As the 1st Platoon was being combat assaulted in at about 8:10, the Blue Team made their first enemy contact and killed a VC. The 1st Platoon was placed under the operational control of the Blue Team. B Co had already departed on their mission, but it was decided to commit C Co into the contact area.
The 1st Platoon A Co and the Blue Team formed on an east-west line and began a slow sweep to the north taking sporadic automatic and small arms fire. Cav White Team observation aircraft supported by Red Team gunships provided early warning and flank security. This also kept the enemy retreat at a slow pace and kept them from breaking out on the flanks. By 10 AM C Co had been inserted and began sweeping south into the contact area. The Blue Team and 1/A/2-35 established a blocking position. White Team aircraft observed a large number of enemy retreating toward the beach so artillery fire and airstrikes were called in to close the east side. The enemy tried again to break through the Blues and 1/A/2-35 but ended up bouncing around the inside of a box with troops on the north and south, an open beach on the east and rice paddies to the west. All the while they were pursued and harassed by helicopters. It was about this time that the battalion CO, 2-35th took command. That meant us.
As the two friendly elements closed, the enemy fire became more intense and desperate and soon all of the helicopters were reporting taking hits. At about noon, the Red Team reported one of their aircraft out of contact and asked if we had seen it. Earlier we had seen a single gunship flying north to south at treetop level. It must have been shortly after that it got shot down. It wasn’t until 3 PM that C Co infantry moving from the north found the ship. After taking hits that damaged the hydraulics and fuel systems, the aircraft had gone inverted into a tree line. Everyone was dead including an Air Force officer who had taken the place of the door gunner at the last minute and was just along for some excitement.
As for us, we were putzing along at about 500 feet right over the enemy concentration when all hell broke loose. Bullets started coming through the cabin floor like a sewing machine needle through silk. Radios, ammo cans and combat packs were jumping off the floor. Daylight began streaming through holes in the ceiling. Lieutenant Henry Brant, loved by all, a great bear of a man who single handedly upset the weight and balance charts of every aircraft he flew, happened to be flying left seat. Ordinarily he sat large in the seat, his shoulders high above the seat back and his head brushing the ceiling. The largest chicken plate looked like a sheriff’s badge on his chest. I looked forward and all I could see was the top of his helmet sticking above the armored seat. Somehow he had contrived to shrink his whole huge being into the protection of that seat.
Major Crosby, the battalion S-3 sat in the middle of the aircraft observing the proceedings, and, always the master of understatement, shouted, “Henry, your airplanes getting shot up,” as he brushed flying insulation out of his face.
A thin red mist sprayed around the inside of the aircraft.
A chorus of chatter, “Who’s hit?” “You hit?” “No, you hit?” “No, I’m OK, you hit?” “Where’d he go?” “Henry, you’re crewchief’s gone!” The queries became almost accusatory. When a major asks who’s hit, there better darn well be someone hit. But it wasn’t me, I was on my stomach peering under the aircraft looking for the all important flight sustaining fluids leaking out. Hydraulic fluid is the worst for fire, it’s also red. Incredibly there was nothing.
The Arty officer spoke up, “Beans.”
“What?”
“Beans. Muthahs and beans.” He pointed forward. There behind Henry’s seat where someone had placed his C ration lunch for safe keeping was a can of beans fatally injured. It had been blown completely out of the box and while airborne had spewed its liquid contents far and wide. Unfortunately, the red goop had blown around the inside of the left side of the aircraft, where all the lower ranking people were seated. I regained my seat just in time to get hit under the left eye by a single bean and the accompanying glop. Most of us looked like we had held down the victim at an ax murder, but anyone of the rank of major and above was pristine. I hate to think that even C rations respect rank.
At the moment I was too preoccupied to be concerned about lunch. Under the cabin floor were two fuel cells, a large bundle of wires and all of the control tubes. Every control movement the pilots made was relayed back under their seats, then made a 90 degree turn and converged in the middle of the ship. From there, the control tubes made their way aft under the center of the floor to the transmission compartment where they split into their various functions. If any one of those tubes was injured we had way too much altitude, we needed to be on the ground. I asked Henry to please not make any violent maneuvers until we could pull the panels and look things over. He caught my meaning and flew very gingerly until we could lie about needing fuel. At the POL point I hurriedly pulled panels and found, much to my relief, that only sheet metal had been damaged, we were still in one piece.
We now had far more then any 75 enemy closed in our box and the harder we squeezed, the crankier they got. Soon small arms and automatic weapons fire was so intense the helicopters were forced to the fringes, but by this time everyone wanted a piece of the action. We had no Army artillery in direct support, but artillery from somewhere wanted to shoot, so they fired into the box, then a Navy destroyer was allowed to do its thing. A “Guns-a-go-go” armed CH-47 from the 1st Cav came up on the radio and asked if he could expend his ammo, so the artillery was shifted to the west and he made runs from the east to the west firing 20mm, 40 mm grenades and 50 cal, plus 2.75 rockets. It was a pretty gutsy move, he was flying under the gun-target line from the Navy offshore. The arty officer on my aircraft was co-ordinating all this action and was having a field day. Meanwhile, the enemy was trying to escape through the troops on the north and across the rice paddies to the west so we were constantly engaging small groups or individuals we spotted. Using all of this as a diversion, the First Platoon of A Company moved to the beach and sealed the east side of the box.
By the time the CH-47 was out of ammo, the area was quiet enough for the infantry to move into the trap and conduct a thorough search. They found enemy dead and a lot of blood trails but the enemy was gone. We didn’t know it at the time but this was our introduction into the most sophisticated system of “spider holes” found in Vietnam. It would take several weeks for the 2/35 to figure out how to find them and clean them out, but eventually they would and it would be written up in the book “A Distant Challenge.”
Shortly after the fighting in the trap had died down, Henry Brant spotted 40-50 enemy who had evaded west then turned north and were crossing the rice paddies. We engaged them and called for two Cav White Teams to help, but many escaped, once again the area was saturated with spider holes and tunnels in the hedgerows and treelines.
At 4:20 PM the rest of A Company was brought in to the location of the downed Cav gunship and began a sweep to the north where we had engaged the last group of enemy, halting only to allow gunships to break up any pockets of resistance.
At 6 PM the Blue Team was extracted and B Company walked back to Montezuma to become the ready reserve. Both A and C Companies were pulled back to the downed Cav gunship to set up for the night and be resupplied. Besides the gunship crew, the only other casualty was in C Company, a wounded soldier who didn’t require med evac. We counted 43 enemy bodies, had 2 prisoners and were talking to 11 suspects.
Back at Montezuma we parked the aircraft on the south end of the base close to B Troop and shut her down. The Arty officer started to walk away, then with a grin he turned around and came back. With his felt tip pen he drew stick figures on the door post recording the kills our ship got that day. When I took my helmet off I could hear the bullet holes in the blades singing like that old asthmatic harmonica again, the pitch lowering as they slowed down. The cure for this condition was to take a strip of what we called “600 MPH tape” and hold it in the middle at the leading edge and fold it over the hole on both the top and bottom, trimming the tape at the trailing edge. This stopped the music but it also created an unbalanced condition so another strip of tape had to be added in exactly the same place on the other blade. When a bullet passed through the blade it never actually removed any material, it just rearranged it. As long as the bullet missed the spar in the blade, the aircraft was flyable as long as we could tolerate the music.
Aside from the blades I was never really sure how many hits we took, could have been nine, could have been fifteen. Some of them just kind of blended together. I taped and probed and poked and was finally satisfied that we were still flyable. The hardest part was cleaning the bean juice from the inside of the windshield. Finally, just as the sun was going down I set up my cot beside the tailboom and tied my jungle hammock to the top of the cargo door. I was in the process of tying the other hammock line to the horizontal stabilizer when I heard thwack - zing - crack and a green 50 cal tracer went by in front and above me. Now the zing and crack I understood, that was typical 50 cal stuff, but the thwack was out of place although part of it was the familiar sound of the tail rotor hitting the stops. I untied the main blade and walked it around so I could get a look at the tail rotor, and sure enough, in the blade that had been pointing up there was a neat bullet hole a half inch in diameter. We were grounded. The tail rotor traveled some 5 times faster then the main rotor and there wasn’t that much material to play with in the first place so you took no chances with a hit like this one. After all we went through that day and here we were, one shot, one kill. The clown that pulled the trigger couldn’t even set it up so it wouldn’t jam after the first round. The most expensive single shot weapon in Vietnam.
We used the infantry radio net to call our company to tell them we needed to be replaced as C and C.
I was later told the conversation at the company went something like this, “We got a broke bird at Duc Pho.”
“Wrecked or shot?”
“Shot.”
“Shot up or shot down?” (There is a difference)
“Shot up.”
“I bet it’s 863, right?”
“Yep.”
“Figures. Magnet ass.”
(written with memory jogging assistance from the after action report of 2/35 Inf Bn)
Rotorwash
. Do you remember, or even know about, a chopper going down during a CA? This was like the 13 or 14MAY. Some of you guys were taking my company into an LZ that heated up real quick. One of the birds came down with 6-7 of us on it [not me]. One of our guys was killed, but I don't know if it was from the crash or enemy fire. I don't remember how the crew made out. I was on the ground already, trying like hell to secure the LZ. The LZ could only take 2-3 choppers at a time. This was one of Charlie's favorite tactics on small LZs. They'd let a couple drop us off and then hit us, making it a hot LZ to where they wouldn't bring in anymore of us as reinforcements. Then they'd "hug" us real close so the helicoptors couldn't open up on them without hitting us, too. Luckily, we were able to push them back pretty quick so the doorgunners could open up on them. Could of turned nasty.
