An Assault Helicopter Unit in Vietnam (Undaunted Valor 1)

“Flight, this is One, come up trail.” We had assumed this would be the formation as it was the easiest to fly at night. As most things in a lift were done by standard operating procedures, SOP, little communications and directions were necessary. As we departed, Chalk Three provided artillery clearance.

As we attained our altitude of two thousand feet, we could see three separate fire fights in the distance even though all three firebases were ten to twenty klicks to the north, and about nine klicks apart. Tracer rounds in green and red crisscrossed the night sky, along with flares being dropped from an unseen helicopter from our sister company, lighting up the firebases and impacting artillery on the perimeter of each base, either from our guns or the NVA mortars. I thought it must be hell right now on those firebases.

Mr. Fender had learned well the other night and was holding a good position on the aircraft in front of us. Our navigation lights were on but we had turned them down to low intensity, not wishing to give someone on the ground a target.

“Flight, this is One. Starting our approach to the PZ.” With that, Yellow One began our descent. On our previous night formation, we were landing on a lighted airfield; this time we were landing to a black hole.

“I got it,” I sai

d as I reached for the controls.

“You have the aircraft,” Mr. Fender said with some enthusiasm. “Dan, do you have a cigarette?” he asked.

“Afraid not. I don’t smoke.”

“Hey, I got some smokes, Mr. Fender,” Quillin said as he moved up and handed his pack of cigarettes to him along with a lighter. “Keep them up here.” Sitting in the door gunner or crew chief position made it difficult for them to smoke due to the wind, so they only smoked in the cargo area out of the wind. Mr. Fender lit up right away.

As we approached the PZ, we slowed our airspeed based on the aircraft in front of us and reduced our altitude. Crossing over the trees into the PZ we began to see small lights marking the position of each group of soldiers to pick up. We quickly loaded and with a call from Chalk Twelve were lifting off.

Almost as soon as we lifted off, Yellow One came up on the net. “Flight, this is One. The recon elements say that there’s no activity around the LZ so there will be no artillery prep and no suppressive fire going in unless we take fire. Be sure your crews know this. We do not want to tip our hand on this. Eight minutes to touchdown.”

“Mr. Cory, did I just hear the major correctly? No suppressive fire or artillery prep?” asked Posey.

“Yeah, I sort of forgot to tell you guys that. He’s talking to a recon team in the LZ and we don’t want the gooks to know we’re putting these guys in there. So unless we’re taking fire, there will be no shooting. Understood? Pass that on to the grunts so they understand as well,” I instructed Posey. He was not smiling.

As our altitude decreased into the darkness below, I said, “Okay, guys, heads up. Watch for small saplings in the LZ as well as stumps and logs. Last thing we need is a tail rotor strike.” Clearing the trees surrounding the LZ, we decelerated and touched down in a large clearing. The grunts were out in record time and we were out of there.

The insertions went off almost perfectly. It became obvious that everyone’s night formation flying ability had improved considerably with these two hours of additional practice. We took no fire and arrived back at Lai Khe just in time for breakfast and received our missions for the day. The fact that we were off at 0300 hours made no difference. Missions still had to be executed. It was going to be a long day. This made me start to wonder. We were over here attempting to help the Vietnamese people maintain their freedoms, and the best they could do for us was to leave work early. Several small things had happened in the past couple of months that were making me reconsider why I was here. Cambodia and Laos had fallen to the Communists, and South Vietnam appeared to be next. How much further could they go in taking over Southeast Asia? But why should I care, as it appeared the local populace didn’t care? Of what value was Vietnam to US interests? These questions began to eat at me, and the lack of appreciation I was seeing from the locals didn’t help me reach any answers.

Chapter 19

Dark Days Begin, September 1969

Ralph was a good aircraft commander. A quiet man, he was the youngest pilot in the outfit as he’d joined the Army right out of high school. He was not a drinker and spent his evenings working on college correspondence courses. His mission for the day was flying C&C for the division’s engineer battalion commander. The engineer battalion commander wanted to fly out to where his engineers were working on various projects in the AO and see their progress. Not unreasonable, as they were scattered all over the AO improving roads, building a school in Quan Loi and supporting projects on the various firebases. The day started off normal, and they were visiting the various locations. However, just after lunch, things changed.

The colonel wanted to go on a recon of some areas. Ralph agreed to fly to those areas and proceeded to fly between Quan Loi and Song Be. The colonel was focused on looking for clearings. Finally he asked Ralph to take them down and land in one. Ralph asked for the frequency and call sign of the unit in the clearing so he could contact them prior to landing, especially as he didn’t see anyone in the clearing. The colonel came up with an excuse for why he couldn’t provide the information and told Ralph just to land. Ralph insisted on a call sign and frequency before he would take the aircraft down. The colonel became irate, but when he accused Ralph of being a coward, that was when things exploded. Ralph reached up and disconnected his helmet from the intercom system, took the controls from the copilot and headed back to Camp Gorvad. The colonel was livid. Ralph didn’t care.

Reaching Camp Gorvad, Ralph landed at the engineer pad and told the colonel politely but firmly to get out of his aircraft. He then called our battalion headquarters on the radio, which was being monitored by almost every pilot from the battalion, and told them that he had just tossed Engineer Six out of his aircraft and was returning to Lai Khe. To say the least, shit was about to hit the fan. Making that call on the radio alerted every aircraft on the frequency as to what had happened. However, someone saw Ralph’s position in this, and nothing came of it, at least on Ralph.

At this time, we had a new aviation group commander, Colonel Leo F. Soucek, and he looked out for his aviators’ best interest. More than one officer attempted to order an aircraft commander to do something dumb and paid a dear price for it when Colonel Soucek was done with them. Days later, while flying with another unit, Engineer Six did the same thing, and the aircraft managed to clear the supposedly safe LZ with only a few bullet holes in the tail. A few days later, Dave Hanna got the mission to fly him.

When I returned from my mission that evening, Major Saunders approached my aircraft as I was shutting down in the revetment.

“Mr. Cory, a word please,” he said as Posey opened my door. The major was standing in front of my aircraft and hadn’t approached me.

“Yes, sir.” I unstrapped, climbed out and came over to him. It’s Mr. Cory now instead of Dan. What did I do wrong now?

“Let’s walk. Mr. Cooper!” he called over his shoulder, addressing my copilot.

“Sir?” Cooper answered.

“Would you grab Dan’s gear and put it in his room, please?”

“Yes, sir,” he called back with a question mark look.

We walked halfway back to the Chicken Coop with nothing said between us, but were angling towards his hooch. Finally, he said, “Dan, I have some bad news. Dave and YA were shot down today. I’m afraid the entire crew was killed.” YA was Dave’s copilot for the day and fairly new to the unit. I felt like I had just been gut-punched.

“What happened, sir?”