“We’d rather not get into an area where friendlies are operating as we don’t want to light up any of our guys. What about this area here, along the river?” Mike asked.
“Down here, the Navy has a patrol boat, but they’re aboard tonight and there are no friendlies operating in that area. There are some supposed friendlies living south along the river, so you’ll have to get clearance to engage unless engaged. We have the call sign and frequency for the Navy, and I’m sure they’d be happy to have you working the area.”
“Okay, we’ll wait a couple of hours and then go into this box,” Mike said, and we headed back to the aircraft.
“Why are we waiting to go back out?” I asked.
“Jones needs some time to rest his eyes. Looking through that scope in a moving aircraft will get him airsick if he doesn’t get a break after two hours. Also, the later we go out, the better the chance we’ll catch someone on the water. They saw us working the area earlier. Right now they’re moving their boats to the river and loading them and will shove off, staying close to the shore to hide in the overhang, if we come back. Last two nights I worked up north, so they’ve probably set up some ambush in that area, thinking we’d be back tonight. Wrong. Never fly the same pattern three times in a row. If you do, you’re just asking for trouble. If the ground commander wants you to work the same area a third night, try to talk your way out of it, or certainly change how you work it. Fly two nights north to south, the third night northeast to southwest or east to west. Change it up somehow, but change it up.”
Arriving back at the aircraft, the crew was into a case of C-rations. No one offered me the lima beans this time but asked what I would like. Then it came. “Hey, Mr. Cory, is this your first Night Hunter mission?”
“Yeah. And I’m buying the beer in the morning,” I added with a smile.
“Just glad you know, sir,” Jones interjected with a smile to the crew chief and door gunner.
After
a couple of hours, Mike conferred with the other crews and we prepared to head out. As the power came up, Mike said, “I got it,” and I turned the controls over to him. The crew gave a positive “clear” and we departed towards the river. This time, Mike took us to the vicinity of the Navy patrol boat. Since we had to call for clearance to engage anything on the south side of the river, we positioned the aircraft so the starlight scope was on the free-fire side of the river.
As we approached the river, however, Mike told me to take it. I started down from one thousand feet. Damn, it’s still dark out. I felt like I was in a pitch-black basement and going downstairs very carefully, putting out my foot and reaching for the next step, without a banister to keep me from falling. Okay, two hundred feet above the trees; one hundred feet; wait one. Okay, I can see the tops now. Ease down another fifty feet. Yes. I didn’t fall down the stairs. As we reached the river, I turned south and reduced airspeed. Jones was watching the bank. The vegetation in this region wasn’t as dense as in the Quan Loi area, so the scope was more effective.
“I got a light!” Jones bellowed and turned on the searchlight, but we saw nothing and commenced shooting, hoping to draw some fire. A flare ignited from the flare ship above, and the Cobra was poised to attack, but nothing. We continued on our way up the river. This scenario played out several more times in the next hour.
After about an hour and forty-five minutes, Mike said, “We’ll make one more pass southbound and then call it a night.” I had the controls and was about a hundred feet over the river. The south side of the river was on the side with the starlight scope, and we had to get clearance to shoot in this area. Dawn would be in about thirty minutes. As we rounded a bend in the river, Mike and I simultaneously spotted a dim light on the southern bank even before Jones called it.
“Jonesy, light ten o’clock on the bank!” Mike yelled. The searchlight came on, and son of a bitch—two sampans with four guys and rockets in the sampans were sitting there. They knew they were cooked and scampered up the side of the bank into a house. “Hold your fire while I get clearance,” Mike instructed the gunners.
“Badger Six, this is Chicken-man One-Six, over.” Mike was calling the Brigade S-3 air.
“Chicken-man One-Six, this is Badger Six India, go ahead.”
“Badger Six, enemy sighted with two sampans, four pax and several Katyusha rockets.” Mike gave the coordinates. “Request clearance to engage, over.”
“Chicken-man One-Six, wait one.” After a minute or two, “Chicken-man One-Six, are you taking fire?”
“Badger Six, that’s a negative. The pax ran up the bank into a house. The boats are on the water. Are we cleared to engage the boats?”
“Chicken-man One-Six, wait one.” Again we wait. “Chicken-man One-Six, this is Badger Six India. You are not, repeat not, cleared to engage.”
“Badger Six, the damn boats are on the water. Let me sink the damn things.”
“Chicken-man One-Six, I repeat, you are not cleared to engage.”
“Hey, Badger Six, if I ain’t cleared to engage, then what the hell am I doing out here all night? You can eat these damn rockets tomorrow night. Chicken-man One-Six is end of mission and returning to the Chicken Coop. Out!”
Mike was pissed. I was pissed. The crew was pissed. The Cobra jockeys were pissed. No one said much as we headed back to Lai Khe. As we pulled into our assigned revetment, other aircraft were cranking up and departing on their missions for the day.
“After we get the aircraft serviced and cleaned up,” Mike said, “let’s meet at the mess hall for breakfast and a mission debrief.”
Over powdered eggs and coffee, we discussed the night’s events and how we could change our game for tonight to maybe catch the sampans before they got to the south shore. One of our pilots who had the day off strolled by.
“Good morning, ladies.” Bob was a big guy with a shaved head and a handlebar mustache that would make a walrus envious. He was dressed in flip-flops and pants, no shirt. An unlit cigar of fine quality was in one hand, along with the latest Stars and Stripes newspaper, a cup of coffee in the other.
“Hi, Bob. I take it you’re not flying today,” Mike said.
“Nope, got a down day. This head cold has me all stopped up. Just heading to the library for some reading. See you later.” And he strolled off toward the latrines, which we referred to as the library, about seventy-five yards away. I noticed Bob going into one and the door closed.
Mike continued with the debrief. “Tonight, let’s first work the area around the Navy—”