An Assault Helicopter Unit in Vietnam (Undaunted Valor 1)
“Chalk Three is hit. I’m going in!” The AC was shot in the ankle and crash-landed, spreading the skids of the aircraft. No one told him or his copilot a helicopter could fly with the skids crushed. The aircraft was flyable. Chalk Five, a Chicken-man aircraft, moved up to pick up the crew. Green One had already left the LZ with his remaining aircraft, leaving only Chicken-man aircraft to cover Chalk Five, attempting to rescue Green One’s crews. As the downed crew was loading Chalk Five, the remaining Chicken-man aircraft initiated their departure.
“Chicken-man Two-Six, Chicken-man Two-Four. Where are you?”
“Chick
en-man Two-Four, I’m still in the LZ. The grunts need a medevac for a guy with a sucking chest wound. I can get him.”
“Roger, but don’t linger in there,” Chicken-man Two-Four instructed him. Within a minute, Chicken-man Two-Six was on the radio.
“Chicken-man Two-Four, we’re hit! My AC just took it through both legs. We’re coming out.” At that instant, Lieutenant Jaquoff leaned forward, in intense pain from a round in his calf and one in his groin. As he did, the front door post exploded from the impact of a .51-caliber round going through it. If he hadn’t leaned forward, the round would have hit him in the head. The result of the first lift was that all seven aircraft had been hit, with six in un-flyable condition once they reached Song Be. Another lift had been scrambled together for the follow-on insertions. Chickenman Two-Four returned twice more to the LZ, taking in ammo and extracting wounded soldiers. Chickenman Two-Four had 107 bullet holes and was still able to limp back to safety.
Our sister companies were having it equally tough. On or about May 18, while refueling at Quan Loi, a Charlie Company aircraft came in and shut down. The pilot exited the aircraft and I could tell he was upset about something. Walking over to him, I saw that the entire crew was upset. I knew the pilot from having flown with Charlie Company on previous missions.
“Hey, Tom, you okay?” I asked as I approached.
“No, I’m not. We just lost a bird up past Bu Dop. It was flying a sniffer mission. Warrant Officer 1 Riley and Captain Larson were killed as well as the crew chief, Specialist Abler, and the gunner, Private Mehlhaff.”
“What happened? Was it shot down? Did the sniffer team make out?”
“No one knows. At this point we just know it went down. Lobo was covering him and said there was no call of taking fire or engine failure. The aircraft just crashed.” Tom stated.
Placing my hand on his shoulder, I said, “Sorry for your loss. I know this hurts. You take care,” and I walked back to my aircraft to inform my crew.
Things did not improve for Charlie Company.
Four days later, tragedy struck them again. That night at our club, Mike George was at the bar, looking as if he was attempting to clean out all the liquor. Mike was on an extension in-country.
“So Mike, how was your day?” I asked as I planted my butt on a seat next to him.
“It was crap, if you really want to know. Pure crap.” I could quickly tell Mike was not in a good mood.
“Hey, what happened? Can I do anything?” I asked.
“Can you bring six guys back from the dead?”
“Oh, shit, did we lose a bird today?”
“No, we didn’t, but Charlie Company did—and a medevac.” Mike took another shot of Jack Daniels, and he normally didn’t drink hard liquor.
“What happened?” I inquired. “Hell, they just lost a bird last week on a sniffer mission.”
“I was up by Loc Ninh and a call came out to join an emergency lift of ARVNs into an LZ. Charlie Company was flight lead, with Captain Dan Foley and Captain Ellis Greene as flight lead—nothing planned but just thrown together due to the situation. The first and second lift went off smoothly. However, the ARVN grunts from the first two lifts only secured one side of the landing zone. As the third lift approached, we came under fire. As the aircraft touched down, an RPG round impacted on Captain Foley’s chair, killing him instantly, I suspect, and seriously wounding Captain Greene. A medevac aircraft couldn’t get in to extract Captain Greene for over an hour. Finally, when they were safely aboard the medevac aircraft, they left to get Greene to a hospital. En route, the aircraft experienced an engine failure over thick jungle and crashed, killing all on board.” Mike took another shot of Jack. We sat in silence, thinking too much.
Each night we would fly our aircraft back to Song Be to refuel before continuing on to Lai Khe. And then the weather started to turn against us. Few of our aircraft were equipped to fly on instruments in overcast and rainy conditions. Back in Lai Khe, the mess hall would remain open until the last crew came in as well as have food placed in the EM Club and the Officers’ Club for the maintenance crews that worked through the night. Besides late chow for everyone, we were running out of beer because of the PX at Lai Khe being closed. Major Sundstrum called me over to his hooch.
“Sir, you wanted to see me?” I asked.
“Yeah, Dan, I have a special mission for you for tomorrow.” He handed me a stack of ration cards. “Take an aircraft tomorrow and fly to Saigon and get a load of beer. These are the ration cards of everyone in the unit, so you should be able to get a hundred cases. Try and get some soda as well. Take Grandpa with you—he could use a break. Any questions?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
The next day, Grandpa and I headed south to the Saigon airport, Tan Son Nhat, instead of north with everyone else. I didn’t think this broke Lovelace’s or Peter’s hearts. The PX was across the street from the helipad, which was convenient for helicopter crews. Going in, I approached an Air Force master sergeant who appeared to be working there. He was clean-shaven and smelled of cheap aftershave, and he wore a pressed uniform.
“Excuse me, Master Sergeant. Do you work here?” I asked. He looked me over, noticing my filthy flight suit, unshaven facial hair and body odor.
“Yes, sir. I’m the PX manager.”
“Just the man I need to talk with. I need one hundred cases of beer and ten cases of soda. Here are our unit’s ration cards.” I handed him the cards. He took them but didn’t even look at them.