“Understood, splash.” The jungle about two hundred meters south of the target exploded. The schoolhouse had taught us to bracket the target and walk the rounds in, so technically I should have had them shoot again by adding four hundred meters, but I could see the target and thought there was no point in wasting time and ammo.
“Lai Khe Artillery, add two hundred and fire for effect.”
“Roger, add two hundred and fire for effect.” A minute later: “Chicken-man Two-Seven, shot out.”
“Understood, shot out.”
“Chicken-man Two-Seven, splash.”
“Roger, splash.” And the road intersection disappeared in a cloud of dirt and flying underbrush as six rounds of high-explosive 155 mm impacted.
Tony looked at me and commented, “Nice shooting. I noted you skipped the bracketing.”
“No need to waste time or ammo,” I said, then switched from intercom to the FM1 radio. “Lai Khe Artillery, nice shooting. Mission complete.”
“Roger, Chicken-man Two-Seven. Rounds complete. Mission complete.”
Tony continued to fly in the direction of Tay Ninh. “We’ll head up to Tay Ninh and then fly the perimeter of our area of operations. You follow on the map. Tay Ninh is the west limit of our AO. Our sister battalion, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, is located there. You can’t miss it, as it and Song Be have the only two mountains in the entire area. That’s Song Be to the northeast over there.” He pointed to a lonely peak sticking above the jungle canopy by about a thousand feet.
“Are those two extinct volcanoes?” I asked.
“You think I’m a geologist or something? I have no clue. All I know is there’s an outpost on top of both Song Be Mountain—Nui Ba Ra—and Nui Ba Den, the mountain by Tay Ninh. That ridge line to the north of Nui Ba Den is called the Razorback. There’s a battalion firebase on top of the Razorback, LZ Dolly. The Twenty-Fifth Infantry Division has some troops operating in that area with one of their brigades located at Tay Ninh. Their division headquarters is at Chu Chi.”
As we continued to fly towards Tay Ninh, I tracked our location on the map, which wasn’t easy as there were few roads and everything was flat except the two mountains and the Razorback. Under the three-hundred-foot trees that covered almost everything, I had no idea what the terrain was like and could only assume it was flat as all the trees created a flat carpet of green. However, I noticed large swaths of jungle full of craters laid in a rectangular pattern.
“What caused the craters?” I asked.
“That’s where an arc light went in.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A bomb strike by three B-52 bombers flying out of Guam. They’re given a box and come in at twenty or thirty thousand feet and drop. You do not want to be in that box when they do. The world literally goes up in smoke. You will see trees fly up about seven hundred to a thousand feet. I almost pity the gooks that are on the receiving end of one of those,” Tony explained.
“How do you know if a strike is going in?” I asked.
“About ten minutes before, the artillery will come up on the net and issue a warning. That’s another reason to know where you are at all times and to monitor the arty net. If you call Arty and tell them where you’re flying to and from, they’ll let you know if they’re shooting across or along your flight path. They’ll also give you the gun’s position and impact points as well as max altitude on the shot. If you don’t ask, then you’re applying the ‘Big Sky, Little Bullet’ principle, and you take your chances.”
As we approached Tay Ninh, Tony called the control tower for clearance to land and go to refueling. We’d used half our fuel as the UH-1H had about two and a half hours of flight time on a full load, but twenty minutes of that was considered reserve in case you had trouble finding fuel, so two hours was used for general planning. After two hours, everyone was ready to get out and stretch anyway. As we were in no hurry, Tony shut the aircraft down while Mutt and Jeff refueled the aircraft and we all got out.
The town of Tay Ninh was picturesque, with tile roofs and a heavy French influence as it sat on the edge of the Michelin rubber tree plantation, which covered a sizable area of Three Corps’s and our AO. One problem with the rubber tree plantations, however, was that the enemy loved to hide in them, since we couldn’t bomb it or shoot artillery into the place unless absolutely necessary. If we did, the US government would pay for damaged trees. How stupid is this policy? I wondered. As it was a slow day at the refuel point, Mutt and Jeff broke out the case of C-rations we had and distributed one to each of us.
Tony stopped them. “Okay, you two, turn the case over so you don’t see what you’re drawing and then pass them out. Which one did you get, Dan?”
“Lima beans and ham,” I responded with a look of disgust as Mutt and Jeff put it back in the box with equal looks of disgust for being caught. They had set me up, again.
“Okay,” Tony said. “I’ll select and pass out the chow.” With the case upside down, there were no labels to read, so it was luck of the draw. Tony pulled one out and handed it to me. Franks and beans. Okay, that was pretty good. Next he handed Mutt his, and it was spaghetti. Not bad. Out came Jeff’s—oh, sweet justice, lima beans and ham—and he was not happy. Tony drew his and we dug in, except Jeff, who just took out the crackers and cheese. Inwardly, I was laughing—well, maybe smiling outwardly too.
After our pause, we cranked up, this time with me doing the start-up procedures from memory. First, scan the AC electrical panel next to my left leg. Then on to the center console. Fuel off, hydraulics on, radios off, then overhead, DC circuit breakers in, nonessential bus off, battery on. In my left hand, throttle set, press starter button with my right hand, fuel on, watch N1, fifteen percent, main rotor turning; N1, forty percent, release starter; N1, sixty-eight percent, roll throttle and slowly bring up engine rpm to 6600 and rotor rpm to 325, engine oil pressure coming up, transmission oil pressure coming up. Both engine and transmission oil temps were good. Radios on and frequencies set on UHF, VHF and FM. Transponder set to correct code. Flight controls normal. Crew chief and door gunner aboard.
Tony called the tower for takeoff instructions and told me I had the aircraft. Tower cleared us to depart from the fuel area, and Tony pointed north towards the Razorback. “This isn’t a hot LZ, so no combat departure,” he cautioned me. “You’ll scare the crap out of the control tower. Just a nice schoolhouse departure.”
“Got it,” I responded. Mutt and Jeff remained quiet for once. They were learning not to screw with the new guy.
We flew past Nui Ba Den with its communications outpost on the top. Tony told me that we owned the top and the enemy owned the very steep sides. As this was the highest point in all of Three Corps, the Army Security Agency had a listening post on top of the mountain. Nui Ba Ra, Song Be Mountain, was in front of us, about forty minutes’ flying time. Like Nui Ba Ra, it was only about ten miles from the Cambodian border. We passed over the Razorback, and I saw that there was a firebase on the northeast end.
Firebases were generally round fortifications where bulldozers pushed up a berm of dirt five or six feet high, thus creating a circle about two hundred yards or more across. Concertina wire was strung completely around the outside of the berm about fifty to seventy-five feet, just far enough that someone in the wire couldn’t throw a hand grenade into the berm. Tin cans and trip flares were suspended in the wire to give early warning if someone was attempting to crawl through the wire. Claymore mines were placed between the berm and wire to blow away large groups of enemy attempting to cross the wire. In addition, fifty-five-gallon drums were buried on their sides, filled with a slurry of diesel fuel and detergent. Inside the barrel at the bottom was a pound or two of C-4 plastic explosive. When detonated, it simulated a napalm bomb. Inside the perimeter, there was generally a battalion headquarters, forward supply elements, usually an artillery battery of five 105 mm howitzers, a mortar platoon of four 81 mm mortars and a rifle company. The other two or three rifle companies would be off in the jungle conducting patrols and ambushes as well as search-and-destroy missions. The rifle companies would be rotated back to the firebase on a scheduled basis. The artillery and mortars on the firebase were in direct support of that battalion, which meant that battalion had first priority on call for fire missions. However, if we called in a fire mission to the artillery, they would decide who could shoot best from a number of firebases and would direct our mission to one of those. Firebases were normally established so the artillery on one firebase could support another firebase if it became necessary, and it had several times in the past three years.
As we approached Song Be, Tony pointed out the Song Dong Nai River. “That river wanders right down to Bien Hoa, where we’re mostly operating now. Charlie’s moving his shit from Cambodia down the river, past here and on to the Bien Hoa area with the Fifth NVA Division. We’re supporting around Bien Hoa, and SF is attempting to interdict movement on and along the river from that SF camp over there,” he said, pointing to a small outpost in the middle of the jungle. “About four months ago, five of our aircraft were operating out of and supporting that SF camp.” Turning south, Tony said, “Let’s head to the Chicken Pen. You got it.” This was a test to see if I’d been paying attention to where we were and where we needed to go.