“Cherokee Six, Chicken-man One-Niner, over.”
“Chicken-man One-Niner, Cherokee Six, go ahead.”
“Cherokee Six, Quan Loi has that aircraft crossing over the border. What are your instructions?” Again a long pause.
“Chicken-man One-Niner, roger, understood. Break off your pursuit and resume normal mission. When you get a chance, come to my location when you refuel. Cherokee Six out.”
I relayed Cherokee Six’s instructions to the flight and could tell there was disappointment in the tone of the response I received. We were all hoping to be the first helicopters to be engaged in aerial combat in Vietnam, but it was not to be.
Back at the TOC, we were met by the brigade commander as well as the NCOIC from Approach Control with a map showing the track of the other aircraft. He had tracked it out of Cambodia to a location north of Loc Ninh and then back across the border. He hadn’t bothered to notify anyone of that aircraft coming out of Cambodia since there was a special operations helicopter unit at Quan Loi and he thought it was one of their aircraft returning for a mission.
Cherokee Six released us from our mission and we started home. The moon had come up and it was a full moon night. A bright full moon. The black jungle terrain was bathed in gray and black, almost as if it was day. There was no turbulence. An absolutely beautiful night to be flying, and so I thought a little music from AFN would be appropriate and tuned it in. We didn’t get music but something better. The announcer was giving a running commentary on the landing of Apollo 11, commanded by Neil Armstrong. We listened intently, not realizing that this was the night of the scheduled landing.
And then we heard the words,
“One small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.”
Instantly, every firebase on that black-and-gray landscape exploded with gunfire and tracer rounds as well as star clusters and parachute flares. Even our flare ship dropped every flare he had on board, making a trail of our flight path. From Tay Ninh to Lai Khe to Song Be to Quan Loi, it was as if, out of the darkness, every weapon in Three Corps was fired on a single command, all against the backdrop of a full moon. As stupid as it sounds, we all strained to see if we could see Neil Armstrong up there taking that first step.
Arriving back at the Chicken Pen after sunrise, we noticed all our aircraft still in the revetments. That was odd as normally everyone would be gone by now. As we walked into the company area, the place was a beehive of activity.
Grabbing one of the other pilots, I asked, “What’s going on?”
“Oh, you just got in. We’re moving across the Chicken Pen, taking over the hooches that were occupied by the Quarter Cav. Best be packing your stuff and find out where you’re moving to. The warrant hooches are the last two next to the mess hall. I think Dave Hanna’s tagged a room for you and him.” And he was off with an armload of personal items.
We spent the rest of the day moving our worldly possessions from the tents across the flight line to hooches. A definite improvement in our living conditions, we quickly came to realize.
To make things even better, we had a new commander arrive in August who was a major improvement, Major Robert Saunders. He was a leader, and we recognized it almost immediately. One of his first actions was to allow us to hire hooch maids. Previous commanders wouldn’t hear of it, so we cleaned our own tents. Now we had hooch maids that would come over from the village and clean our rooms, do our laundry, shine our boots. Mine even insisted on cooking Vietnamese food for us one day, which we bought and she cooked. She was a good lady. Major Saunders made it very clear from the beginning that no sexual activity would be tolerated with the hooch maids, and none was.
In an effort to raise morale, Major Saunders directed that one hooch would be turned into a club for the enlisted members of the unit. There wasn’t another empty hooch available, so he directed that the officers should build our own club. We had an engineer RLO pilot, and he drew up a design for the commander’s approval. With a design, we then began a scavenger hunt throughout Lai Khe for building material, and before long we had an officers’ club. The engineer brigade headquarters collocated at Lai Khe with us poured a concrete floor for us in return for some flight time for their projects.
Chapter 18
Night Formation
“Everyone, wake up!” shouted the operations clerk as he ran through our hooch. “Get your flight gear and meet the CO in the mess hall in fifteen minutes.”
“What? What’s going on?” someone shouted.
“CO wants all pilots in the mess hall now with your flight gear. Briefing in fifteen minutes,” he hollered and was out the door to raise the next hooch. People were scrambling now to wake up, get dressed and find their gear.
Someone asked, “What time is it?”
“One thirty,” someone else answered. Expletives were muttered as we hurried out the door and noticed all the crews’ hooches had lights on and movement as well. At the mess hall, Major Saunders and the ops officer had the mission board and crew assignments posted as we all grabbed seats.
“Here’s the deal,” Major Saunders started off. “Intel says we’re going to get hit hard tonight in about an hour. We have to get all the aircraft out of here now. Yellow One is Captain Bechtold, and crew assignments are listed here. We have sixteen aircraft that need to launch, and quick. The flight will be trail formation, and we’re going to Bear Cat. Get to your aircraft and get them cranked ASAP. Maintenance platoon and company ground personnel will be your passengers. Get as many as you can on board as they’ll be without equipment, so maximize your loads. Now go!”
And with that, there was a mad dash out the door and through the company area to the aircraft. People from the maintenance platoon and company support were already getting to the aircraft in groups of eight to ten, which, without equipment, the aircraft should be able to handle. My crew chief was already at the aircraft and had the blades untied and passengers ready to load. My copilot and I were the last to arrive and conducted a very quick preflight, being assured by the crew chief that he had already done it. Good thing we had done a post-flight when we had come in only a couple of hours earlier. Not going to be much sleep tonight.
I had been flying Night Hunter, so I had night formation flying under my belt, but some of the aircraft commanders had not. Oh, this is going to be fun, I thought. The last time most of these guys had flown night formations was back at flight school, and that was a gaggle. Sarcastic bastard I was. As each aircraft came up to full power, each contacted Yellow One and reported ready. When the last was up, Yellow One notified everyone he was coming out and started moving. At the same time, each aircraft fell into place behind him, hovering to the runway. Lobo was also cranking, as were the Robin Hoods. That was about sixty aircraft all moving to the runway, and surprisingly it was done in a rather orderly fashion. Robin Hood was located along the runway, so they were the first to take the runway and were off, followed by us and then the Lobos. As each flight was off, we separated and headed for our respective destinations.
“Yellow One, Chalk Sixteen, all aircraft are up.”
“Roger, Flight, come up trail formation.”
And the formation began to take shape. My copilot, WO1 Fender, had not flown night formations, so I w
ent into instructor mode and initially had the controls.