Third Regional Assistance Command (TRAC)

 

Mike Sloniker:  The Battle of Loc Ninh was written by the late Ron Timberlake.   I just have to believe where “the cobra pilot” is referred to, it is Ron.   He and I had many discussion via the phone and email on the sequence of events, which he also bounced off Mike Brown, who lived near him in Houston.   I will always admire the clear writing style of Ron Timberlake.  Happy Trails.  

 

 

Left to right:  WO1 Bob Stein, CPT Ron Timberlake, and LT Parks, an aviator that was the Blue Platoon Leader, F Troop 9^th Cav.  3d Bde (Sep) 1^st Cav Div.

 

 

 

The Battle of Loc Ninh

 

                Sloniker note:  Ron started his work with the incidents on 5 April 1972.  During the 1999 reunion at Nashville I learned the first 229^th KIAs were JJ Jelich and his gunner  Owens from the Smiling Tigers of D/229 whose OH-6 was shot down NW of Loc Ninh on the Cambodian border.   Timberlake’s work follows:

 

As the Hunter/Killer Teams prepared to laager at Tay Ninh East on the morning of 5 April, they monitored a dramatic radio transmission: “Attention all aircraft, this is Paris, on Guard.  Loc Ninh is under tank and heavy infantry attack.  I say again, Loc Ninh is under tank and heavy infantry attack.  Any aircraft with armament, please respond.”

 

F Troop, 9^th Cavalry responded immediately with six Cobras and their three Scouts.  A C&C Huey and three slicks full of Browns followed.  Blue Max, always quickly aware of contact missions, would fly the longer distance form their base, and arrive on station by lunchtime.

 

The Hunter/Killer Team Leaders that morning, some veterans of Lam San 719, had more than 6,000 combat hours between the three of them and their wingmen.  Even with that base of experience, the fighting they encountered at Loc Ninh was more intense than anything they had encountered.  Uniformed soldiers were visible around the outside of the perimeter in the hundreds.  To the north there were burned out Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs), and explosions were all around the compound of Loc Ninh.

 

The callsign of the American on the ground who seemed to be holding it all together was Zippo.  He coordinated attacks, relayed information, and although we knew he was an advisor who could not order the Vietnamese soldiers, he seemed to be the cement holding together the defense.  Most of us did not even learn his name until 1998, when several general officers started an effort to have Mark Smith awarded the Medal Of Honor.

 

The morning was extremely confusing.  CW2 Tom Jones and CPT Don Gooch were asked to engage a huge formation of uniformed soldiers that seemed to be ignoring all of us, and each Cobra ripple-fired its entire load of rockets into the group.  Body count and kill claims were ignored by the Troop during the heavy fighting.  Supporting the defense was all that mattered.

 

Most amazing to any of the pilots was the volume of anti-aircraft fire.  Aside from what was later reported to be nine battalions of NVA anti-aircraft, the NVA soldiers had already captured large numbers of US-made Browning .50 caliber heavy s from the APCs of the South Vietnamese (ARVN) 1^st Armored Cavalry Regiment.  Literally hundreds of heavy s and AAA weapons reached for any Cobra that attacked.

 

Zippo asked for a tank to be destroyed on the road just north of the town and compound, where the road ran past the rubber plantation.  The F/9^th Hunter/Killer Team on station advised him that the tank was sitting across the road and appeared to be too obvious to be an NVA tank, and the profile did not seem right.  It appeared that it was either an ARVN tank or an intentional trap.  Could it be an ARVN tank?

 

When Zippo said that the tank had killed ARVN APCs and was blocking his people from joining up from the north, the Team Leader admitted to himself that he was poorly trained at armored vehicle identification, and dove for the tank.  Even from much closer it appeared that it might be an M-41, but the commander joined hundreds of his friends in shooting at the approaching Cobra before the 17-pound HE warheads actually destroyed the vehicle.  There was no joyful feeling at destroying the tank, because the Cobra was very low and the volume of heavy weapons fire was absolutely terrifying.

 

A FAC on station had wasted no time targeting freshly arrived fighters, and rolled a flight of Phantoms in what appeared to be a move to help the Cobra escape.  As the Cobra flew north from the now burning tank, an F-4 pickled its entire load of bombs on an east-west line across its path, with the bombs going directly over the Cobra and impacting into the rubber west of the road.  The silence after that tremendous blast of explosives allowed the Cobra pilot to start breathing again.

 

Not far from where the road turned back west, the Cobra pilot saw five APCs tail-to-tail in a star-shaped defensive formation down in the rubber trees.  They were not only destroyed, but were completely burned out.  Some even appeared to have had fires so hot that their aluminum armor melted.  The desperation of their stand left a lasting impression.  The ARVN cavalry faced and fought overwhelming odds and these, as many others, had died before the American Air Cavalry troopers were even told about the battle.

 

Major Thomas A. Davidson, an ARVN advisor who received a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions at Loc Ninh,  later told of his relief at having that particular tank destroyed.  Years later Mark Smith solved this mystery of armored vehicle identification, explaining why the tank looked like it was an M-41, and why the 17-pounders destroyed it so effectively.

 

The tank had been a PT-76, but unlike most of the published photos of this Soviet vehicle, the ones that morning at Loc Ninh were mounting 12.7mm heavy machine-gun on the turret for the commander, changing their appearance significantly for untrained armor observers.

 

Later that afternoon Blue Max lost the first Cobra and crew of the battle.  On a rocket run at almost 4,000 feet just south of the town of Loc Ninh, CW2 Charles Windeler and CPT Henry Spengler were hit.  Told by his wingman that he was on fire, Windeler tried to make it to the ground, despite the number of enemy soldiers in the area.  It appeared that his controls burned through at about 1,500 feet, and the helicopter impacted on cleared ground on the side of a slight rise.  A Cobra from F/9^th confirmed that the two pilots did not survive the crash.  The entire cockpit area was a crater.

 

The second morning, 6 April, was just as confusing, and perhaps even more frightening for the aircrews.  Although it was uncertain whether the troop would laager from a camp at Song Be, or the former American 1^st Infantry base at Lai Khe that was still active as an ARVN headquarters for the 5^th ARVN Div, for the first sortie a team flew directly to Loc Ninh.  Between Lai Khe and An Loc, the leader noticed that a rocket with 17-pound HE warhead was working its way forward out of an inboard rocket tube.  Aside from the fact that he wanted all his rockets, it had worked itself into a position that would make it dangerous to shoot rockets from that pod, and in any intense maneuver the rocket might work itself free and cause rotor or tail rotor damage.

 

Demonstrating a perfect ignorance of the enemy’s ultimate intentions, he decided to land in a safe area to re-seat the rocket.  There was a provincial capitol along the line of flight, a place where on his first tour he and his crew had not been allowed to eat because they were too dirty from flying missions for the senior advisor all day.  He landed at that sleepy and safe little town of An Loc, corrected the problem by re-seating the rocket, and continued northward.

 

Like most of his fellow team leaders, unaware of the magnitude of the battles in other portions of Vietnam, he did not interpret the battle at Loc Ninh to be a serious push to take the country.  All the pilots were extremely impressed with the size and ferocity of the forces attacking, but assumed that when the NVA took the pounding and suffered large enough losses at Loc Ninh, they would pull back across the Cambodian border as they had done in the past.  From even the first day of the battle, it was obvious that enemy losses would be in record numbers, and no information had been given to the teams about ARVN losses.

 

The anti-aircraft fire was even heavier and more organized than the day before.  During that day COL John Casey, Deputy Commander of the 3^rd Brigade (Separate), 1^st Cavalry Division, called an F/9^th Cobra to engage without collateral damage a 57mm anti-aircraft gun firing at jet fighters from the town square in Loc Ninh.  With about 60% cloud cover, the Cobra engaged the cannon from a steep dive, but the pilot was so… “distracted”…by ground fire that he unintentionally selected the less accurate outboard wing stores instead of the well bore-sighted inboard.  (Normal F/9^th load was HE inboard and flechettes outboard, so outboard pods did not get the attention of the ones “shot for record” every day.)  Although the 57mm cannon was silenced, a nearby building was also damaged, so permission to engage was withdrawn.  The pilot felt bad about the collateral damage and felt terrible about selecting the wrong stores, but was purely relieved not to have to dive back into that boiling cauldron again.

 

The cloud cover worked for and against the helicopters, and more against than for the tactical air support.  About 50-60% cloud cover gave a feeling of occasional concealment to the helicopters flying above it, as most of these aircraft moved to ever higher altitudes.  The helicopter pilots also learned that an F-4 climbing from a bomb run and popping up through the clouds must look just like a large Surface-to-Air Missile, and even when it is not coming directly at you, it certainly appears to be.

 

That afternoon an F/9^th Cobra destroyed a heavy machine-gun set up as an anti-aircraft weapon in the drained swimming pool of the Frenchman’s villa on the west side of the airfield at Quan Loi.   F/9^th also shot for the ARVN units under attack at Quan Loi, and were asked to engage a force of at least 80 personnel in the open on the runway near the Frenchman’s villa.  Because they smiled and waved and refused to shoot at the helicopters, all members of the team, Scout and Cobras, were convinced these Vietnamese, armed with both AK-47s and M-16s, were ARVN.  Everyone was happy the team did not engage, especially the FAC who first    spotted them, but when the team left to rearm, the same men started shooting at the ARVN.  Later a Cobra from F/9^th expended his remaining rockets into the ammo dump on the north side of the runway, to keep the ammunition from being captured.  At the request of the ground personnel, the beckoning target of the POL point at the southwest side of the runway was left intact.

 

Plans were made to insert H Company, 75^th Rangers into Loc Ninh, but those who had been on station knew that no single company of soldiers of any caliber or capability could stem the NVA attack at that point.

 

Air strikes that were not available for the Air Cavalry Troops to attack the NVA when concentrated inside their Cambodian sanctuaries were allocated to stop the multi-division Communist attack, but few of the strikes were allowed to be put in on actual targets developed by the Hunter/Killer Teams.  Air strikes were most often allocated by staff personnel safely bunkered at Long Binh and Bien Hoa, almost a hundred miles from the battle.  Fortunately, FACs on station would often divert their flights from the staff-selected targets to enemy positions actually being engaged by the men at the battle.

 

On the third day of the battle, Loc Ninh fell.  CPT Mike Brown was near by in his Blue Max Cobra the afternoon of April 7th, and recalls the last radio transmissions from the defenders.  Hauntingly, there was a baby crying in the background as the NVA captured the command bunker.  It was assumed that Zippo was killed after his heroic stand.  F/9^th Scout Richard Dey had tried to pick up Zippo earlier that day, but the man we would learn years later was CPT Mark Smith refused to leave his post.

 

It was years before most of us learned that Zippo had survived his 27 or more wounds and his captivity, and he recently gave an excellent insight into what that battle actually cost the Communists, and what American advisors and American airpower actually faced in that battle.  In October of 1998, Mark Smith thanked some of the participants in the effort to have his heroism recognized, and explained events many of us had witnessed.  Parts of his letter follow:

 

“Those of you in the air had a very good view of the battle.  That is probably why your statements are much more in line with the things that George and I have always said about certain events.

 

“There were some hard feelings about my demand that pilots and aircraft not be brought in for a rescue, unless there was a reasonable chance they would survive.  That was my call and I don’t regret it for a moment.  I still don’t know how Dey survived on either occasion he came in on 7 April.

 

“For Ron Timberlake I would like to put your mind at ease on the vehicle.  After reading your statement I realized that you were referring to the tank left on the road after the Cavalry had been ambushed.  Originally there had been five, but the remainder, one PT 76 and three T-54s were marshaling surrendering 1^st Cavalry (Note: 1^st ARVN Cavalry) vehicles to the west.  The reason you initially mistook that tank for an M 41 was that it was, in fact, a PT 76.  What was unusual about the PT 76s at Loc Ninh is that they had been mounted with a 12.7 on the turret.  This gave them a similar ‘look down’ profile to the M 41.  I know you attacked Soviet armor that day and not ARVN.

 

“There was another mistake about armor made on 7 April.  Gentlemen, those APCs that got inside Loc Ninh were not manned by ARVN.  They were 1^st Cavalry APCs, but were loaded with NVA.  I didn’t know that until they lowered the ramp and tried to run out and I saw them.  They all died.  Strangely, I believe the driver of at least one was an ARVN, because after he lowered the ramp, he swung the APC out of the gate and went full bore down the airfield and did a right over the hill and made for Highway 13, toward An Loc.  I’m sure he had agreed to take the guys with guns into the compound, but as soon as they were gone, he headed for home and not back to get some more NVA.

 

“There has been some discussion about who the NVA were at Loc Ninh.  I can assure you that you fought elements of three Divisions and not only the 5^th NVA Division.  I was captured by the 272^nd Regiment, 9^th Division at their blocking position south of Loc Ninh.  They had POWs from the 3^rd Battalion (all wounded) 9^th ARVN Regiment, that had been captured on the first hill mass south of Loc Ninh.  This told me they had been there since the 4^th, in the evening.  General Tra and the Division Commander were also there.  This should tell all of you, that you fought a lot more folks and killed a lot more than you thought you did at Loc Ninh.  We also had POWs from the 9^th Division, early on the first day.

 

“Sometimes I wish the NVA were more like a lot of ‘Vietnam Veterans’ I run into who also claim to have been on the ground in that battle.  ‘Just down the road from you.’  Yeah right.  The VNA are more hesitant about revealing how much time and men they expended at Loc Ninh.  But, I met General Tra in Vietnam a few years ago, before he died.  When I said he had lost about seven thousand men at Loc Ninh, he said, “More than that.”

 

“Larry (McKay) (commander or F/79 ARA, Blue Max), I was particularly happy to hear your description of the tanks rolling into An Loc.  The first tanks that came at Loc Ninh and the last ones always opened their hatch covers and the commanders stood in the turret and glared at you as they came in.  If you shot the commander they left.  If you shot the driver they stopped.  It became evident cross training was not a strong suit of the NVA Tank Corps.  Why the tanks seemed to wish to operate alone and only came unescorted, I do not know.  Why they only supported the Infantry from the woodline I can’t figure out either.

 

“I was especially touched by your remembering the baby crying in our bunker Michael (Brown).  As a matter of fact, Ken and Ed also had civilians, dependents of the soldiers, in the underground complex with them also.  One thing I did notice about the NVA, they did not take vengeance that I could see, on the women and children.  They did use the kids from the school as shields, but I believe those were political types with the Sapper Battalion.  I brought this up with General Tra in no uncertain terms and he queried all the others present about who was responsible.  I don’t think that was a show.

 

For the reason Loc Ninh fell, Smith wrote, “We just ran out of soldiers and in many parts of the perimeter where soldiers remained, ammunition was depleted.  As my little band left the perimeter we rearmed and reloaded off the dead NVA in the wire and on the bunker line.  What the Air Force, Navy, Marines and VNAF did with the limited number of fixed wing aircraft available was a great feat of arms and should not be diminished with talk of ‘gaps in air power.’  What helicopter pilots did in a high threat environment was a miracle.  There was every reason not to fly, but fly you good men did.”

 

He concludes his comments about the fighting by noting, “Each of you, from the Generals on down participated in great battles in 1972.  Few men, now living, ever saw such raw power and shear numbers in such a small area.”

 

A valiant attempt was made to pick up the surviving American advisors late the afternoon of 7 April.  Although referred to in some accounts as “Bay Rum”, the official duty log called it “Bay run”.  It was essentially a test of non-lethal chemical agent to attempt to lessen enemy fire.

 

After delays for tactical and logistical reasons, USAF fighters delivered an incapacitating riot gas on the NVA positions.  1LT Richard Dey, Scout for CW2 Tom Jones’ F/9^th Hunter/Killer Team, flew into the compound to pick up the advisors.  The gas did not work as advertised, and to quote the Brigade’s official duty log, “LOH F/9 checking Loc Ninh L.Z.  Took heavy 51 cal fire from E, W, SW, NE.   LOH seriously shot up, going to Song Be.”

 

The true number of NVA casualties will never be known, but more than 7,000 Communist soldiers were killed in a savage three-day battle.  To the men observing and helping to create that carnage it seemed certain that the NVA forces would soon fold from the losses but on they came, to lay siege to the pretty, sleepy little Provincial Capital of An Loc.

 

In front of the main force of NVA in their drive toward An Loc were survivors from Loc Ninh, trying to evade or fight their way to An Loc.  On a small hill by the highway, about midway between Loc Ninh and An Loc, was an ARVN Fire Support Base Smith mentioned in his letter.

 

Early in the morning of April 8^th, a Pink Team Leader from F/9^th noticed that all of the M-101 series 105mm howitzers on the firebase on the little hill were pointed south, instead of north.  Characteristically, the teams had not even been informed that the base had been taken by the NVA, but he radioed An Loc, and they confirmed they were under artillery fire from the north.  The Cobra expended on the firebase and the pilot, not anywhere near the top of his class at the Field Artillery Officers Basic Course the year before, actually recognized an equalibrator soar past him from one of his hits.

 

About halfway between that outpost and Loc Ninh, an evading group of ARVN soldiers and their American advisors trying to regroup at An Loc were pinned down near the intersection of a dirt road going west into the rubber plantations.  NVA forces already sent to recon and isolate the defenses of An Loc, formed the anvil for the huge NVA hammer to the north.

 

The plan to extract the advisors was a complex multi-service exercise.  Hunter/Killer teams had offered to pick up the advisors with their Scouts, or expend rockets on the way in and let the advisors ride the rocket pods out, but apparently Air Force logistics had caught up with the riot agent that might help to reduce possible casualties on the extraction.

 

An old term denoting conspicuous valor is to be “mentioned in the dispatches”, and John Whitehead certainly was.  The task force daily journal mentions few individuals by name, and then only for particular reasons.  Brigadier General Hamlet’s succinct orders designating who would rescue whom, followed by reports from the 3^rd Brigade (Separate) Deputy Commander, COL John Casey, were logged on 8 April:

 

0830 hours – CG: S-3 will rescue personnel from Nui Ba Dinh.  DCO-A, D/229, 75^th Rangers will rescue Cornish 67 from Cat Lo Bridge.  CO 1/21, F/9 Cav will move 2,000 ARVN from Bu Dop to Song Be.

 

This 0830 log entry is as poignant as it is significant.  In the real world, unlike in the movies, soldiers and missions within like units are normally either somewhat or completely interchangeable, and there is not a case of “There’s only one man who could pull this off.”

 

The Commanding General assessed the major missions for his brigade that morning, and without any of the dramatics one learns to expect from the less informed, he designated which missions would be performed by which units and leaders.  Once the missions were tasked to the particular units, it became the luck of the draw as to which particular pilots had already been assigned to be flying that day, and who would be assigned in what order.  No planning the night before, no preparing the roster for a special mission.  The missions were assigned to the units, and they were carried out with the personnel and equipment on hand.

 

So it was that John Whitehead’s unit was tasked to rescue advisors, and his job became to get them out.  Had that mission fallen to the other Cavalry Troop, it would probably have been their Scout Platoon Leader, Joe Harris, who would have attempted the rescue.  Would he or anyone else have succeeded as well as John Whitehead, or would he have died near the Cat Lo bridge instead of in the rubber plantation near Bu Dop?

 

The die was cast as the assignments were divided, and the progress of the missions were logged:

 

1045 hours – DCO-A: Bay run on ground at Cat Lo Bridge, putting CBU around advisors position checking with LOH after CBU.

 

1055 hours – DCO-A: LOH received ground to air fire vicinity of XT 7297, unknown damage.  AH-1G also hit from D/229.

 

1110 hours – DCO-A: 3 advisors at Cat Lo Bridge rescued by D/229 and 75^th Rangers.  Critically wounded update to follow.

 

1215 hours – DCO-A: LOH used for extraction at Cat Lo took 4 hits small arms and 51 cal.  Carried 3 U.S., 4 ARVN, pilot and gunner total 9 people.  Pilot CPT Whitehead, Gunner SGT Waite.

 

Nine people on an OH-6A that had been hit by automatic weapons fire.  Nine men on a LOH, with the blood flowing in the airstream.

 

 

 

 

John Whitehead, Dave Ripley, and Ray Waite-D/229, 8 April 1972

9 people in one OH-6A

 

USAF A-37s made passes low over the rubber trees to the west, dispensing a chemical agent said to be similar to CS tear gas, but also causing a temporary burning sensation and nausea.  John Whitehead, a Scout in Delta Troop, 229^th, may have broken the world record for the number of passengers carried by an OH-6A, when he rescued the advisors under heavy fire.  Desperate ARVNs seized the opportunity by mobbing his helicopter, and Whitehead and his gunner flew out with three advisors and four Vietnamese jamming the aircraft and hanging from the skids.  Here are the details:

 

That morning at Lai Khe, Whitehead, Smiling Tiger 16,  had been briefed to lead a second empty D/229 OH-6, flown by the 1LT Dave Ripley on a rescue attempt.  Ripley would be the sole person in his OH-6, Whitehead would have Waite

 

Responding to a call for help from three American advisors  who evading south from Loc Ninh to An Loc, CPT Whitehead landed under withering enemy fire only to have his aircraft swamped by desperate ARVN soldiers seeking to escape the surrounded town of Loc Ninh.  CPT Bill Leach, Blue Max 26 from F/79 AFA remembers thinking the little bird was lost in a cloud of dust and intense ground fire.  However, with 9 people inside or clinging to the aircraft and enemy fire increasing, Whitehead skipped, bounced and forced the OH‑6 into the air. 

 

Whitehead had one panicked ARVN across his arms, the left front seat was empty.  (If you ask John, today, who was in the left side, he will say God.)   On the floor of the aircraft in the rear was an American E-8, who had 3 ARVN stacked on top of him.  On the left side was an American Captain, barely in the rear compartment.  On the right side, Ray Waite was held into the aircraft by a monkey strap and he was holding an American O-5 who was, sort of, on the skids.

 

The aircraft way was out of the center of gravity(CG) limits and would not fly level.  Once clear of the fire, Whitehead landed the aircraft at Chon Thanh, and the 7 pax, 3 US Advisors and 4 ARVN  were placed on larger aircraft and evacuated.  The mission was flown with M‑24 gas masks, because a preceding B‑52 strike had mixed CS with HE, and the gas was floating over the PZ.  Nobody's mask fit and it was the first time, any of the majority of the pilots and crews had ever put the protective gear on.

 

Whitehead was nominated, by the 3d Brigade Commander, then BG James F. Hamlet for the Medal of Honor, and received the Distinguished Service Cross.  Ray Waite also received the Distinguished Service Cross.

 

Dave Ripley recalls: “The Battle of Loc Ninh was written by the late Ron Timberlake.   I just have to believe where “the cobra pilot” is referred to, it is Ron.   He and I had many discussion via the phone and email on the sequence of events, which he also bounced off Mike Brown, who lived near him in Houston.   I will always admire the clear writing style of Ron Timberlake.  Happy Trails.   

 

The Battle of Loc Ninh

 

As the Hunter/Killer Teams prepared to laager at Tay Ninh East on the morning of 5 April, they monitored a dramatic radio transmission: “Attention all aircraft, this is Paris, on Guard.  Loc Ninh is under tank and heavy infantry attack.  I say again, Loc Ninh is under tank and heavy infantry attack.  Any aircraft with armament, please respond.”

 

F Troop, 9^th Cavalry responded immediately with six Cobras and their three Scouts.  A C&C Huey and three slicks full of Browns followed.  Blue Max, always quickly aware of contact missions, would fly the longer distance form their base, and arrive on station by lunchtime.

 

The Hunter/Killer Team Leaders that morning, some veterans of Lam San 719, had more than 6,000 combat hours between the three of them and their wingmen.  Even with that base of experience, the fighting they encountered at Loc Ninh was more intense than anything they had encountered.  Uniformed soldiers were visible around the outside of the perimeter in the hundreds.  To the north there were burned out Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs), and explosions were all around the compound of Loc Ninh.

 

The callsign of the American on the ground who seemed to be holding it all together was Zippo.  He coordinated attacks, relayed information, and although we knew he was an advisor who could not order the Vietnamese soldiers, he seemed to be the cement holding together the defense.  Most of us did not even learn his name until 1998, when several general officers started an effort to have Mark Smith awarded the Medal Of Honor.

 

The morning was extremely confusing.  CW2 Tom Jones and CPT Don Gooch were asked to engage a huge formation of uniformed soldiers that seemed to be ignoring all of us, and each Cobra ripple-fired its entire load of rockets into the group.  Body count and kill claims were ignored by the Troop during the heavy fighting.  Supporting the defense was all that mattered.

 

Most amazing to any of the pilots was the volume of anti-aircraft fire.  Aside from what was later reported to be nine battalions of NVA anti-aircraft, the NVA soldiers had already captured large numbers of US-made Browning .50 caliber heavy s from the APCs of the South Vietnamese (ARVN) 1^st Armored Cavalry Regiment.  Literally hundreds of heavy s and AAA weapons reached for any Cobra that attacked.

 

Zippo asked for a tank to be destroyed on the road just north of the town and compound, where the road ran past the rubber plantation.  The F/9^th Hunter/Killer Team on station advised him that the tank was sitting across the road and appeared to be too obvious to be an NVA tank, and the profile did not seem right.  It appeared that it was either an ARVN tank or an intentional trap.  Could it be an ARVN tank?

 

When Zippo said that the tank had killed ARVN APCs and was blocking his people from joining up from the north, the Team Leader admitted to himself that he was poorly trained at armored vehicle identification, and dove for the tank.  Even from much closer it appeared that it might be an M-41, but the commander joined hundreds of his friends in shooting at the approaching Cobra before the 17-pound HE warheads actually destroyed the vehicle.  There was no joyful feeling at destroying the tank, because the Cobra was very low and the volume of heavy weapons fire was absolutely terrifying.

 

A FAC on station had wasted no time targeting freshly arrived fighters, and rolled a flight of Phantoms in what appeared to be a move to help the Cobra escape.  As the Cobra flew north from the now burning tank, an F-4 pickled its entire load of bombs on an east-west line across its path, with the bombs going directly over the Cobra and impacting into the rubber west of the road.  The silence after that tremendous blast of explosives allowed the Cobra pilot to start breathing again.

 

Not far from where the road turned back west, the Cobra pilot saw five APCs tail-to-tail in a star-shaped defensive formation down in the rubber trees.  They were not only destroyed, but were completely burned out.  Some even appeared to have had fires so hot that their aluminum armor melted.  The desperation of their stand left a lasting impression.  The ARVN cavalry faced and fought overwhelming odds and these, as many others, had died before the American Air Cavalry troopers were even told about the battle.

 

Major Thomas A. Davidson, an ARVN advisor who received a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions at Loc Ninh,  later told of his relief at having that particular tank destroyed.  Years later Mark Smith solved this mystery of armored vehicle identification, explaining why the tank looked like it was an M-41, and why the 17-pounders destroyed it so effectively.

 

The tank had been a PT-76, but unlike most of the published photos of this Soviet vehicle, the ones that morning at Loc Ninh were mounting 12.7mm heavy machine-gun on the turret for the commander, changing their appearance significantly for untrained armor observers.

 

Later that afternoon Blue Max lost the first Cobra and crew of the battle.  On a rocket run at almost 4,000 feet just south of the town of Loc Ninh, CW2 Charles Windeler and CPT Henry Spengler were hit.  Told by his wingman that he was on fire, Windeler tried to make it to the ground, despite the number of enemy soldiers in the area.  It appeared that his controls burned through at about 1,500 feet, and the helicopter impacted on cleared ground on the side of a slight rise.  A Cobra from F/9^th confirmed that the two pilots did not survive the crash.  The entire cockpit area was a crater.

 

The second morning, 6 April, was just as confusing, and perhaps even more frightening for the aircrews.  Although it was uncertain whether the troop would laager from a camp at Song Be, or the former American 1^st Infantry base at Lai Khe that was still active as an ARVN headquarters for the 5^th ARVN Div, for the first sortie a team flew directly to Loc Ninh.  Between Lai Khe and An Loc, the leader noticed that a rocket with 17-pound HE warhead was working its way forward out of an inboard rocket tube.  Aside from the fact that he wanted all his rockets, it had worked itself into a position that would make it dangerous to shoot rockets from that pod, and in any intense maneuver the rocket might work itself free and cause rotor or tail rotor damage.

 

Demonstrating a perfect ignorance of the enemy’s ultimate intentions, he decided to land in a safe area to re-seat the rocket.  There was a provincial capitol along the line of flight, a place where on his first tour he and his crew had not been allowed to eat because they were too dirty from flying missions for the senior advisor all day.  He landed at that sleepy and safe little town of An Loc, corrected the problem by re-seating the rocket, and continued northward.

 

Like most of his fellow team leaders, unaware of the magnitude of the battles in other portions of Vietnam, he did not interpret the battle at Loc Ninh to be a serious push to take the country.  All the pilots were extremely impressed with the size and ferocity of the forces attacking, but assumed that when the NVA took the pounding and suffered large enough losses at Loc Ninh, they would pull back across the Cambodian border as they had done in the past.  From even the first day of the battle, it was obvious that enemy losses would be in record numbers, and no information had been given to the teams about ARVN losses.

 

The anti-aircraft fire was even heavier and more organized than the day before.  During that day COL John Casey, Deputy Commander of the 3^rd Brigade (Separate), 1^st Cavalry Division, called an F/9^th Cobra to engage without collateral damage a 57mm anti-aircraft gun firing at jet fighters from the town square in Loc Ninh.  With about 60% cloud cover, the Cobra engaged the cannon from a steep dive, but the pilot was so… “distracted”…by ground fire that he unintentionally selected the less accurate outboard wing stores instead of the well bore-sighted inboard.  (Normal F/9^th load was HE inboard and flechettes outboard, so outboard pods did not get the attention of the ones “shot for record” every day.)  Although the 57mm cannon was silenced, a nearby building was also damaged, so permission to engage was withdrawn.  The pilot felt bad about the collateral damage and felt terrible about selecting the wrong stores, but was purely relieved not to have to dive back into that boiling cauldron again.

 

The cloud cover worked for and against the helicopters, and more against than for the tactical air support.  About 50-60% cloud cover gave a feeling of occasional concealment to the helicopters flying above it, as most of these aircraft moved to ever higher altitudes.  The helicopter pilots also learned that an F-4 climbing from a bomb run and popping up through the clouds must look just like a large Surface-to-Air Missile, and even when it is not coming directly at you, it certainly appears to be.

 

That afternoon an F/9^th Cobra destroyed a heavy machine-gun set up as an anti-aircraft weapon in the drained swimming pool of the Frenchman’s villa on the west side of the airfield at Quan Loi.   F/9^th also shot for the ARVN units under attack at Quan Loi, and were asked to engage a force of at least 80 personnel in the open on the runway near the Frenchman’s villa.  Because they smiled and waved and refused to shoot at the helicopters, all members of the team, Scout and Cobras, were convinced these Vietnamese, armed with both AK-47s and M-16s, were ARVN.  Everyone was happy the team did not engage, especially the FAC who first    spotted them, but when the team left to rearm, the same men started shooting at the ARVN.  Later a Cobra from F/9^th expended his remaining rockets into the ammo dump on the north side of the runway, to keep the ammunition from being captured.  At the request of the ground personnel, the beckoning target of the POL point at the southwest side of the runway was left intact.

 

Plans were made to insert H Company, 75^th Rangers into Loc Ninh, but those who had been on station knew that no single company of soldiers of any caliber or capability could stem the NVA attack at that point.

 

Air strikes that were not available for the Air Cavalry Troops to attack the NVA when concentrated inside their Cambodian sanctuaries were allocated to stop the multi-division Communist attack, but few of the strikes were allowed to be put in on actual targets developed by the Hunter/Killer Teams.  Air strikes were most often allocated by staff personnel safely bunkered at Long Binh and Bien Hoa, almost a hundred miles from the battle.  Fortunately, FACs on station would often divert their flights from the staff-selected targets to enemy positions actually being engaged by the men at the battle.

 

On the third day of the battle, Loc Ninh fell.  CPT Mike Brown was near by in his Blue Max Cobra the afternoon of April 7th, and recalls the last radio transmissions from the defenders.  Hauntingly, there was a baby crying in the background as the NVA captured the command bunker.  It was assumed that Zippo was killed after his heroic stand.  F/9^th Scout Richard Dey had tried to pick up Zippo earlier that day, but the man we would learn years later was CPT Mark Smith refused to leave his post.

 

It was years before most of us learned that Zippo had survived his 27 or more wounds and his captivity, and he recently gave an excellent insight into what that battle actually cost the Communists, and what American advisors and American airpower actually faced in that battle.  In October of 1998, Mark Smith thanked some of the participants in the effort to have his heroism recognized, and explained events many of us had witnessed.  Parts of his letter follow:

 

“Those of you in the air had a very good view of the battle.  That is probably why your statements are much more in line with the things that George and I have always said about certain events.

 

“There were some hard feelings about my demand that pilots and aircraft not be brought in for a rescue, unless there was a reasonable chance they would survive.  That was my call and I don’t regret it for a moment.  I still don’t know how Dey survived on either occasion he came in on 7 April.

 

“For Ron Timberlake I would like to put your mind at ease on the vehicle.  After reading your statement I realized that you were referring to the tank left on the road after the Cavalry had been ambushed.  Originally there had been five, but the remainder, one PT 76 and three T-54s were marshaling surrendering 1^st Cavalry (Note: 1^st ARVN Cavalry) vehicles to the west.  The reason you initially mistook that tank for an M 41 was that it was, in fact, a PT 76.  What was unusual about the PT 76s at Loc Ninh is that they had been mounted with a 12.7 on the turret.  This gave them a similar ‘look down’ profile to the M 41.  I know you attacked Soviet armor that day and not ARVN.

 

“There was another mistake about armor made on 7 April.  Gentlemen, those APCs that got inside Loc Ninh were not manned by ARVN.  They were 1^st Cavalry APCs, but were loaded with NVA.  I didn’t know that until they lowered the ramp and tried to run out and I saw them.  They all died.  Strangely, I believe the driver of at least one was an ARVN, because after he lowered the ramp, he swung the APC out of the gate and went full bore down the airfield and did a right over the hill and made for Highway 13, toward An Loc.  I’m sure he had agreed to take the guys with guns into the compound, but as soon as they were gone, he headed for home and not back to get some more NVA.

 

“There has been some discussion about who the NVA were at Loc Ninh.  I can assure you that you fought elements of three Divisions and not only the 5^th NVA Division.  I was captured by the 272^nd Regiment, 9^th Division at their blocking position south of Loc Ninh.  They had POWs from the 3^rd Battalion (all wounded) 9^th ARVN Regiment, that had been captured on the first hill mass south of Loc Ninh.  This told me they had been there since the 4^th, in the evening.  General Tra and the Division Commander were also there.  This should tell all of you, that you fought a lot more folks and killed a lot more than you thought you did at Loc Ninh.  We also had POWs from the 9^th Division, early on the first day.

 

“Sometimes I wish the NVA were more like a lot of ‘Vietnam Veterans’ I run into who also claim to have been on the ground in that battle.  ‘Just down the road from you.’  Yeah right.  The VNA are more hesitant about revealing how much time and men they expended at Loc Ninh.  But, I met General Tra in Vietnam a few years ago, before he died.  When I said he had lost about seven thousand men at Loc Ninh, he said, “More than that.”

 

“Larry (McKay) (commander or F/79 ARA, Blue Max), I was particularly happy to hear your description of the tanks rolling into An Loc.  The first tanks that came at Loc Ninh and the last ones always opened their hatch covers and the commanders stood in the turret and glared at you as they came in.  If you shot the commander they left.  If you shot the driver they stopped.  It became evident cross training was not a strong suit of the NVA Tank Corps.  Why the tanks seemed to wish to operate alone and only came unescorted, I do not know.  Why they only supported the Infantry from the woodline I can’t figure out either.

 

“I was especially touched by your remembering the baby crying in our bunker Michael (Brown).  As a matter of fact, Ken and Ed also had civilians, dependents of the soldiers, in the underground complex with them also.  One thing I did notice about the NVA, they did not take vengeance that I could see, on the women and children.  They did use the kids from the school as shields, but I believe those were political types with the Sapper Battalion.  I brought this up with General Tra in no uncertain terms and he queried all the others present about who was responsible.  I don’t think that was a show.

 

For the reason Loc Ninh fell, Smith wrote, “We just ran out of soldiers and in many parts of the perimeter where soldiers remained, ammunition was depleted.  As my little band left the perimeter we rearmed and reloaded off the dead NVA in the wire and on the bunker line.  What the Air Force, Navy, Marines and VNAF did with the limited number of fixed wing aircraft available was a great feat of arms and should not be diminished with talk of ‘gaps in air power.’  What helicopter pilots did in a high threat environment was a miracle.  There was every reason not to fly, but fly you good men did.”

 

He concludes his comments about the fighting by noting, “Each of you, from the Generals on down participated in great battles in 1972.  Few men, now living, ever saw such raw power and shear numbers in such a small area.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

A valiant attempt was made to pick up the surviving American advisors late the afternoon of 7 April.  Although referred to in some accounts as “Bay Rum”, the official duty log called it “Bay run”.  It was essentially a test of non-lethal chemical agent to attempt to lessen enemy fire.

 

After delays for tactical and logistical reasons, USAF fighters delivered an incapacitating riot gas on the NVA positions.  1LT Richard Dey, Scout for CW2 Tom Jones’ F/9^th Hunter/Killer Team, flew into the compound to pick up the advisors.  The gas did not work as advertised, and to quote the Brigade’s official duty log, “LOH F/9 checking Loc Ninh L.Z.  Took heavy 51 cal fire from E, W, SW, NE.   LOH seriously shot up, going to Song Be.”

 

The true number of NVA casualties will never be known, but more than 7,000 Communist soldiers were killed in a savage three-day battle.  To the men observing and helping to create that carnage it seemed certain that the NVA forces would soon fold from the losses but on they came, to lay siege to the pretty, sleepy little Provincial Capital of An Loc.

 

In front of the main force of NVA in their drive toward An Loc were survivors from Loc Ninh, trying to evade or fight their way to An Loc.  On a small hill by the highway, about midway between Loc Ninh and An Loc, was an ARVN Fire Support Base Smith mentioned in his letter.

 

Early in the morning of April 8^th, a Pink Team Leader from F/9^th noticed that all of the M-101 series 105mm howitzers on the firebase on the little hill were pointed south, instead of north.  Characteristically, the teams had not even been informed that the base had been taken by the NVA, but he radioed An Loc, and they confirmed they were under artillery fire from the north.  The Cobra expended on the firebase and the pilot, not anywhere near the top of his class at the Field Artillery Officers Basic Course the year before, actually recognized an equalibrator soar past him from one of his hits.

 

About halfway between that outpost and Loc Ninh, an evading group of ARVN soldiers and their American advisors trying to regroup at An Loc were pinned down near the intersection of a dirt road going west into the rubber plantations.  NVA forces already sent to recon and isolate the defenses of An Loc, formed the anvil for the huge NVA hammer to the north.

 

The plan to extract the advisors was a complex multi-service exercise.  Hunter/Killer teams had offered to pick up the advisors with their Scouts, or expend rockets on the way in and let the advisors ride the rocket pods out, but apparently Air Force logistics had caught up with the riot agent that might help to reduce possible casualties on the extraction.

 

An old term denoting conspicuous valor is to be “mentioned in the dispatches”, and John Whitehead certainly was.  The task force daily journal mentions few individuals by name, and then only for particular reasons.  Brigadier General Hamlet’s succinct orders designating who would rescue whom, followed by reports from the 3^rd Brigade (Separate) Deputy Commander, COL John Casey, were logged on 8 April:

 

0830 hours – CG: S-3 will rescue personnel from Nui Ba Dinh.  DCO-A, D/229, 75^th Rangers will rescue Cornish 67 from Cat Lo Bridge.  CO 1/21, F/9 Cav will move 2,000 ARVN from Bu Dop to Song Be.

 

This 0830 log entry is as poignant as it is significant.  In the real world, unlike in the movies, soldiers and missions within like units are normally either somewhat or completely interchangeable, and there is not a case of “There’s only one man who could pull this off.”

 

The Commanding General assessed the major missions for his brigade that morning, and without any of the dramatics one learns to expect from the less informed, he designated which missions would be performed by which units and leaders.  Once the missions were tasked to the particular units, it became the luck of the draw as to which particular pilots had already been assigned to be flying that day, and who would be assigned in what order.  No planning the night before, no preparing the roster for a special mission.  The missions were assigned to the units, and they were carried out with the personnel and equipment on hand.

 

So it was that John Whitehead’s unit was tasked to rescue advisors, and his job became to get them out.  Had that mission fallen to the other Cavalry Troop, it would probably have been their Scout Platoon Leader, Joe Harris, who would have attempted the rescue.  Would he or anyone else have succeeded as well as John Whitehead, or would he have died near the Cat Lo bridge instead of in the rubber plantation near Bu Dop?

 

The die was cast as the assignments were divided, and the progress of the missions were logged:

 

1045 hours – DCO-A: Bay run on ground at Cat Lo Bridge, putting CBU around advisors position checking with LOH after CBU.

 

1055 hours – DCO-A: LOH received ground to air fire vicinity of XT 7297, unknown damage.  AH-1G also hit from D/229.

 

1110 hours – DCO-A: 3 advisors at Cat Lo Bridge rescued by D/229 and 75^th Rangers.  Critically wounded update to follow.

 

1215 hours – DCO-A: LOH used for extraction at Cat Lo took 4 hits small arms and 51 cal.  Carried 3 U.S., 4 ARVN, pilot and gunner total 9 people.  Pilot CPT Whitehead, Gunner SGT Waite.

 

Nine people on an OH-6A that had been hit by automatic weapons fire.  Nine men on a LOH, with the blood flowing in the airstream.

 

 

 

In an August 1999 email, one of the Advisors at An Loc, Jim Willbanks, now a retired LTC at the Army Command and General College at Ft Leavenworth KS recalled:   “For your information, the advisors that CPT Whitehead picked up were LTC Walter Ginger, CPT Marvin Zumwalt, and SFC Floyd Winlan.  They were with TF 52, which was from the 18th ARVN and OPCON to the 5th ARVN.  I have always considered CPT Whitehead's actions to be worthy of the Medal of Honor; what he was almost unbelievable.”

 

CPT Bill Leach, Blue Max 26 from F/79 AFA remembers thinking the little bird was lost in a cloud of dust and intense ground fire.  However, with 9 people inside or clinging to the aircraft and enemy fire increasing, Whitehead skipped, bounced and forced the OH‑6 into the air. 

 

 

 

The aircraft way was out of the center of gravity(CG) limits and would not fly level.  Once clear of the fire, Whitehead landed the aircraft at Chon Thanh, and the 7 pax, 3 US Advisors and 4 ARVN  were placed on larger aircraft and evacuated.  The mission was flown with M‑24 gas masks, because a preceding B‑52 strike had mixed CS with HE, and the gas was floating over the PZ.  Nobody's mask fit and it was the first time, any of the majority of the pilots and crews had ever put the protective gear on.

 

Whitehead was nominated, by the 3d Brigade Commander, then BG James F. Hamlet for the Medal of Honor, and received the Distinguished Service Cross.  Ray Waite also received the Distinguished Service Cross.

 

Dave Ripley recalls: “ John was my platoon leader and was indeed  the lead ship in this action.  He was flying with SGT Waite, who was  to assist with loading the three advisors on board.  When he landed,  his ship was swamped by people.  I was in the second loach, and as when I put down the same thing happened to me, except I had the advantage of being second in, so I stopped at a hover.  One guy in particular, I remember vividly, jumped in the front and tried to pull himself in by the cyclic.  I started to go left (toward the tree line full of the entire NVA Army )and down, as if in a low level left hand turn.  All of a sudden, he went stiff, blood splattered across the left seat and chin bubble, and he fell backwards out of the loach.  John was just struggling to get in the air.  I had three guys on board, and several standing/hanging on the skid base.  There were guys hanging all over John's loach, and I didn't think he was coming up, but he did.  Right as we took off, a pretty wicked burst got him, and most of the hangers‑on got shot, falling back to the road.  I think that SFC Floyd Winlan was wounded in this particular burst.  I remember thinking that I was flying right into it, but for some reason, it missed the front of my ship, and hit the tail boom and the vertical stabilizer several times. 

 

 

In 1998, an unsuccessful effort was made to have John Whitehead’s award upgraded to a well-deserved Medal of Honor.  As the Deputy Brigade Commander remarked on the day it happened, if John Whitehead had landed within sight of journalists, he would have been assured the Medal Of Honor.

Sloniker notes:  Dave Ripley received the Silver Star for his action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On April 8^th, F/9^th planned to laager at Lai Khe, but when the Commanding General tasked them to evacuate 2,000 ARVN from the imperiled Special Forces camp of Bu Dop, the teams flew to work out of the small firebase in the red clay of Song Be.  The level of opposition would have been considered heavy at any previous time, but after the astounding ground fire of the past three days, it seemed almost restful there.

 

That afternoon a Hunter/Killer Team was bounced to respond to a request for assistance from the CH-47 unit engaged in the evacuation of the Special Forces camp across the river to the northwest of Song Be.

 

The Chinooks reported taking fire from east and slightly south of the camp, and the Pink Team quickly located the source of fire, then scouted and identified a clear path for the heavily loaded cargo helicopters.  The annoying fire was originating from a rubber plantation on rolling terrain, and the relieving team was advised of its location and briefed on the route selected for the Chinooks.  The enemy location, and indeed Bu Dop itself, was far out of range of supporting artillery, without Tactical Air or even ARA support readily available.  With no way to prosecute the enemy force, and especially since it was already late in the afternoon, it was judged best to continue to screen as cavalry instead of try to develop an unproductive and unsupported contact with a force of unknown size.

 

By the time the original Hunter/Killer Team re-armed at Song Be, the relieving Scout was reported down in the rubber.  The team scrambled back to the location, where the Cobra flown by CPT Don Gooch had experienced a complete failure of his armament systems, and CW2 Tom Jones had lost all radio communications.  With no radios, Jones remained on station and fired whenever he identified a target.

 

COL John Casey, called The Silver Fox by his troops, arrived overhead, assessed the situation, and made assets available.  Blue Max was now en route to the crash site, but had not yet arrived.  The Cav pilots were unaware of what an eventful day COL Casey had already experienced.

 

CPT Larry Corn, a lift pilot with F/9^th, hovered at the tops of the rubber trees as his load of eight Browns rappelled into the crash site.  The original Hunter/Killer Team Leader put his Scout at altitude, and with Louis K. Breuer flying wingman, covered the insertion at treetop level.  They kept the NVA from rushing the crash site, and drew the fire that would otherwise have been directed at the hovering Huey.

 

Once again, the Browns proved their value.  Though under almost constant fire, they comforted the slightly wounded gunner, SP4 Neidel, and recovered the body of the pilot, CPT Joseph Harris.  A short time later a Blue Max Fire Team from F/79^th and a Medevac helicopter arrived.  The Pink Team escorted the Medevac in, and it used its jungle penetrator to extract the Scout crew.  CPT Harris’ body was to be transported to a morgue facility, but the aircraft needed fuel, so Neidel was taken to where the Troop was now located at Song Be.

 

Recovery of the Browns presented a dilemma for the crews on station.  With the recovery of the aircrew, some considered the mission to be over.  The eight soldiers on the ground faced an enemy force far too strong to be assaulted or repulsed without reinforcements, and they could not move to the closest available landing zone about a kilometer to their northeast.  The sun was low on the horizon, and they would lose the light within the hour.

 

Eight soldiers would die if they could not be extracted quickly.  The men flying in support of them did not know even their nationality for certain, and it was possible that at least some of the soldiers had fought against them at some point in the war.  But on 8 April, those eight soldiers were US Cavalry, and were fighting for their lives in a rubber plantation many miles from any other support because they had rescued another Scout crew.

 

F Troop’s Blues had been brought forward to Song Be, and were assembling rockets and supporting the fastest possible turnarounds of the Cobras.  As the Pink Team Leader rearmed and refueled, the Medevac helicopter dropped off SP4 Neidel, and the two captains talked briefly at POL.  The Medevac helicopter cut short its refueling and took off to the northwest.  CPT Harris was left at POL for a while, watched over by the Blues.  Minutes later, with darkness fast approaching, the two Cobras of the Heavy Pink Team arrived back at the crash site to monitor a radio discussion about leaving the Browns.

 

Resuming the Air Mission Commander role at the direction of The Silver Fox, the Pink Team Leader radioed that he needed medical evacuation of eight “wounded” from the crash site.  Surprisingly for all but two of the crews, the Medevac pilot radioed that he was on short final to pick up eight wounded.  With the Pink Team circling him at treetop level, under fire the entire time, the Medevac helicopter hovered over the rubber trees, raising and lowering his jungle penetrator repeatedly.

 

At one point he lost power for some unexplained reason, and began to settle into the treetops.  He recovered, and continued the extraction of the “wounded” Browns.  With the Browns extracted after their courageous rescue, the Loach was destroyed by the Pink Team’s rockets, and the team went back to Song Be to inspect for damage.

 

The evacuation of Bu Dop had continued during the recovery.  Sent to evacuate 2,000 ARVN, the effort resulted in the removal of 1,500 ARVN, 2,000 civilians, six 105mm howitzers, and two 155mm howitzers.  Assets were available to lift out all the ARVN, but many chose to stay behind, either to be with their families and about 500 Montagnards, or to let their families move to a safer location instead of themselves.

 

The lead F/9^th Cobra had taken hits during each sortie, with one round hitting the frame beneath the pilot’s feet with such impact that his foot was knocked from the pedals and he thought for an instant that he had been hit himself.  Another hit on the left side of the aircraft directly below the pilot made a huge hole.  Inspection revealed that it was only a 7.62mm round that had been fired from directly below and almost missed, but tore along the aircraft skin upward to form a fist-sized elongated hole.  Although hits in the rotor blades would require their replacement, it was deemed safe for a one-time flight home.  The troop flew from Song Be to Bien Hoa in the darkness.

 

This interesting action would be covered in the official duty logs by two entries:

 

1605 hours – ARTY LNO: F/9 LOH down at XV 971290 cause unk GAF (Ground-to-Air Fire) in area; Pilot trapped in A/C, gunner wounded and trying to get pilot out DCO-A enroute with gunships.

 

1645 hours – DCO-A: Pilot of F/9 LOH KIA, going in W/Medevac now complete at 1700.

 

The DCO-A was Colonel John Casey, and the 1605 entry is an excellent demonstration of the artillery chain of communications, which was reporting as F/79^th was responding.

 

Only years later did the Hunter/Killer Team Leader realize that in three days of flying, his flight times were 10.8, 10.7, and 12.1, for 33.6 hours of the most hotly contested fighting he had seen in 2,000 hours of combat flying.  And the main battle had not yet started.

 

An Loc

 

On 9 April, F/9^th fielded five Cobras, which were launched from Lai Khe without Scouts for the first and only mass attack by the Air Cavalry Troop.  These Aircraft Commanders were accustomed to operating on their own, usually without any support at all, and being extremely judicious in placing their rockets.  A strike as a flight of five was a unique and exciting opportunity.  When the coordinates were decoded and the map was checked, the leader asked the other aircraft to check to make certain.  Hand signals indicated surprise at the target, and the leader asked the Liaison Officer to re-shack the grid.  The second set of alpha-numerics decoded to indicate the same target, so the flight flew on.

 

As they approached the target over 70% cloud cover, the leader called Operations Forward, and asked for the grid in the clear, and to confirm that the target was the village just southwest of An Loc, inside the rubber plantation.<