Thud Ridge (13 page)

We carry a parachute in the tail of the aircraft which we deploy on the runway when we land to slow up our landing roll. His number four man saw the drag chute billow as the tail of Spade's aircraft disintegrated, and shortly after saw Spade's chute and promptly assumed and announced, on the radio, that there were two pilots on the way down. It was not until we were back on the ground that we were able to count noses and figure the basis for this call.

Considering the area that he had jumped into, we figured that we had lost Spade. The condition of his aircraft when he jumped had been bad enough, but he had jumped almost into the outskirts of town and we had never recovered anyone that far up. But the Spads and the choppers were to write a new chapter in rescue history that day. Spade's beeper and the calls from the other flight members triggered the rescue effort and the rescue troops were more than ready when he landed on the crest of a little knoll with a few rock piles on it. In that he had landed in the immediate target area when the strike was only half completed, the noise of the guns and bombs was loud in his ears, and the bad guys of the local guard unit were already on their way up the sides of the hill to pick him up. To his amazement, he was able to establish contact with the rescue forces and they were on him in no time. The Spad flight leader instructed him to crawl into the rock pile and sit tight, which he managed to do despite his broken back and other injuries suffered in the shootdown and the ejection.

The rescue pilots fly the slower Spads and they can get right down in the bushes and look for people on the ground. They can also take quite a beating and with their less sophisticated systems they have a better chance of keeping the mill going. They get some rotten jobs because of their unique capabilities and one of their assignments is working with the choppers on rescue cover missions, or Rescaps in our terminology. Not only can they find a downed crew, they can turn and maneuver tightly enough to keep the rescue scene in view and suppress ground movement with their rockets and guns. Their birds are so much older than ours are that the moniker Spad, borrowed from World War I, is a natural.

The Spad leader called the choppers in from nameless places to the back door of Hanoi, and Spade viewed the most effective close-support demonstration he had ever seen. The Spads set up a gunnery pattern around his rocky hilltop fortress and proceeded to hold the North Vietnamese ground forces at bay while the choppers lumbered onto the scene for the pickup. The Spads strafed and rocketed in every direction from treetop level, and forced back every advance of the ground troops. Their firing passes were so low that as they went past Spade they would go below him and down into the valleys surrounding his knoll. Needless to say, both he and the Spads were targets for all the gunfire the locals could bring to bear on this quintet of invaders in their backyard. One small squad of North Vietnamese almost did him in when they escaped initial observation by the Spads. They were within 50 feet of his rock pile when they lost the cover of the brush and as Spade frantically called out their position on his emergency radio, it looked for a minute like the valiant game was about over. One of the Spads spotted them at the last possible instant, but how to stop them was the problem. He called Spade on the rescue radio and said, "Now just sit tight, this will be a little close, but I've got them clearly in sight." He roared in and fired a full pod of rockets at them, some scant eight body lengths away from Spade in his hastily acquired rock fort. The earth trembled and the fire, noise, and smoke were severe, but when it cleared and the Spad dipped into the valley and back up, the pursuers were done in, and Spade was still secure.

The choppers made it into this inferno and, I am sure to the consternation of the local guard commander, hauled Spade out of Hanoi and back to safety.

We had him back at Takhli a day later and, although he didn't look or feel too great, it was wonderful to see him all propped up in that hospital bed. It was just a temporary stop on the way back to the States and the full-time medical care he would need to get back into shape. I managed to make the right contacts and we got him to the Stateside hospital he wanted, and we also got him the assignment he wanted while he waited for his back to recover fully. I got a kick out of him as he lay there apologizing for not being able to get back in the cockpit and fly some more. He was also concerned about me. "Colonel, why do you fly all those rough ones up there? We have lots of guys like me that can find the target and take the knocks. We need you running the show." I couldn't agree with his analysis of the duties of a combat leader but the thought that my guys were devoted to the point that they considered their behinds less valuable than mine made me try even harder. The last I heard, he was still righting to get back to Southeast Asia and into the fray again. He has to go high on my list of people with spunk.

A few days later and a few miles further north, Joe didn't make out as well as Spade, but he has to go way up at the top of the list as one who probably displayed the utmost calm and presence of mind that I have seen. This particular strike had been an uncomfortable mission for him from the start, as it had been for all concerned. The target was one that had never failed to cause us problems and this day was no exception, as it cost us three birds and three pilots on this mission alone. The weather was stinking en route and the flights had trouble on the tankers. That weather over there is the thickest I have ever seen and when you get inside of one of those big thunder-bumpers you are in for a good ride. Most clouds you fly through have their share of bumps but the visibility inside is usually good enough so that you can sit on the wing of another aircraft and fly formation off him. You just maintain the position you want and when he turns or rolls his aircraft, you roll right along with him. You have no idea where you are if you are on the wing, but that is up to the leader. The only time you get into trouble on the wing is when you try to fly position and also try to outguess the leader. This usually winds up in a case of spatial disorientation called vertigo. If this happens you can be sitting straight and level and swear that you are cocked up in a 60-degree bank going sideways. It is a most distressing sensation and sometimes almost impossible to get rid of. You can shake your head and holler at yourself and sometimes it won't go away, and it can be fatal. In most clouds if all aircraft have their external lights on, you can at least see the wing-tip light of the aircraft next to you and when things get rough you can just fly off that light. The clouds we flew in over there were different and, I am sure, the most dense in the world. You could sit in perfect position and watch the leader's machine just fade away until you could not even see his tip light or your own nose. This is bad enough when you are on the gauges yourself, but quite desperate when you are on the wing. There were always lots of bumps along with the visibility problems and with the speed and weight of our machines, it all made for some real precision work. For a real thrill, I recommend you try this type of flying on a black night.

Joe had bounced through the refueling sessions and managed to stick with his leader, but his wingman, who was number four, was not so fortunate. He got bounced off the tanker boom by a particularly rough piece of air and was never able to find the flight again in the murk, so number three had come all the way into the target without the benefit of that wingman for mutual support. The Migs were there, but they made it in and number three beat the big guns over the target. Coming off the target at about 7,000 feet, Sam got him. Nobody saw a Sam and nobody called one, but we already had two guys down at the time and the beepers were squealing and things were moving fast. The first sign of trouble was a large rust-colored ball that enveloped his aircraft. Coming out of the ball, his aircraft appeared intact but he started a stable descent with his left wing dipped slightly low. His only transmission was "I gotta get out. I'll see you guys." With that, he pulled the handles and we saw a chute and heard the beeper as he headed for Hanoi via nylon.

The Sam site that got him didn't have to be there. We let it be there. Why? As fighter pilots, none of us could understand or accept the decision to allow the Sams to move in and construct at will, but then fighter pilots must be different.

Yes, fighter pilots are a different breed of cat. The true fighter must have that balls-out attitude that immediately makes him somewhat suspect to his superiors. You can't push for the maximum from your troops, yourself and your equipment and win any popularity contests. You are bound to tangle with nonfighter supervisors and with the support people up the line who wouldn't have a job if it were not for the airplane drivers. This they don't understand in many cases, and fighter pilots don't know why they don't understand it. Good fighter pilots move fast, and they do what looks like the thing to do to get the job done. They are prone to ignore the printed word when it conflicts with something real and human and physical. This does not always make them the darlings of all those involved in the defense business, but take a look at the history of aerial warfare and see who is always in there slugging—the fighter guys. War is our profession.

I'll give you a "for instance" of how they get into trouble.

This fine gent was one of our strongest and he could handle the full spectrum of jobs within the fighter field. He had gone the staff route when appropriate and had the well-balanced background needed to get to the spot where he could run a squadron in combat. He was a fierce competitor and a fearless airman who always put himself where flying leaders belong—right up in the number one spot, flying combat. Restrictions and regulations have been heavy upon us for many years and you learn to live with or around them. Only a small portion of the total force physically puts the instruments to test in a shooting situation, and those who do, attempt to comply with the rules as best they can. The rule book tends to fade a bit at times but we are all aware of the basic constrictions under which we live.

One of the most difficult restrictions to understand was the one put upon our troops where the Sam sites started rearing their ugly heads in North Vietnam. The sites look like nothing else in this world, and it did not take a great deal of smarts to figure what they were up to. In that the fighter pilots felt most personally involved with these budding sites, and in that they knew the end product was meant for them alone, they were most anxious to dispatch them the moment they started to appear up North. What could be more logical to a stupid fighter pilot than to knock these potentially dangerous developments off the face of the earth as soon as they appeared? But we obviously did not understand the big picture. We did not visualize the merit of allowing the free movement of construction equipment and people as they scratched out the sites and stockpiled the equipment and missiles. We failed to see the logic of allowing them complete freedom until the first six sites were finished and firable before they became targets. We also failed to see why the next sites entering the construction phase got the same immunity as the first six even after the first six were firing. Perhaps I should be more impressed with the importance of protecting blond-haired, blue-eyed missile experts shooting at me. Sorry—I'm not. But, protected they were, and the direct order was out that you would not attack these sites. Period. That's it. No questions please.

The man I am discussing accepted these dictates with the same degree of distaste as many others, but they were the rule. He was on a late afternoon mission way up North and things got hot and heavy as usual during his bomb run. As he pulled off the run, he came under exceptionally heavy fire and as he horsed his Thud to avoid this unexpected fury, he fojind himself looking into the middle of one of the six partially completed sites. The thing was full of construction equipment and people and they were scurrying about their task of getting the defense position ready to shoot at him with the least possible delay. The delay would probably not be too great, as the site had missiles already on hand. The supporting guns were well ahead of schedule and they were already in good positions that had allowed them to cover him as he came off the target, and they were still in fact giving him fits. Those following him would get the same welcome and the chances of losing people were high.

This was the time for action and he plugged in the burner, pulled his Thud up and over the top and attacked the site with his cannon, the only armament he had left. He shot up a storm. He blew up construction gear that burst into flame. He ripped open Sam fire-control gear that would never be recovered to fire at us. He ignited Sams that raced about the area like fiery snakes gone wild and chasing their masters, and he shot the guns and the gunners who were shooting at him.

When he got back to the base and went through his debriefing chores, he was asked the routine question—did you see anything unusual? "You bet your ass I did," he replied, and gave them the full scoop on his destruction of the Sam site, which promptly entered the mechanized reporting system that takes the information to everyone in the government who makes more than forty cents an hour. The difference between debriefing on the late mission and briefing on the early, early mission is only a few hours and he had himself set to go on the first one in the morning as the target was hot and he was the natural one to lead. He had a quick bite of food, a couple of hours of sleep and went back to work.

He got off on schedule the next morning, long before the sun popped into view. He was over the target area of Hanoi before the frenzied telephone calls came cascading down the line of command. Instructions were that he was to be immediately grounded, and court-martial charges were to be prepared against him for striking an unauthorized target. It was academic. By the time the telephone was hung up and confused and bewildered supervisors at wing level tried to figure out what to do, he had been shot down. Ironic? It's more than that, it's sick.