My War - Installment 28

Pushing his intercom button G.W spoke. "Sa, come back round the east side of thet hedge row again, I believe that ders a bunker concealed in it; I saw some NVA dive into da hedge."

"Right, GW, I'll bring it around. I saw 'em too."

During this time Ken and his observer were enjoying the ride west of us in the valley, not really paying us any mind. I brought the H-13 around sharply, all in a matter of a few seconds, so that we would be able to catch another glimpse of the N.V.A. before they disappeared. Even as fast as I had come around the NVA were ready for us. When we came down along the hedge row the top of the suspected bunker lifted open and two 31 caliber machine guns started popping away at us.

"I think you were right GW there seems to be a few NVA around here and that's a fact."

"We Scouts must really be crazy cusses." I said to myself. Both GW and I, although excited, conversed in a calm, matter-of-fact manner. I moved away in a sprightly manner while considering different ways that I could attack the bunker.

"Let's come around again GW We'll move down on their backside; I'll do a pedal turn around the bunker while you lay down some machine gun fire, I'll toss out a few frag' (fragmentation) grenades and we'll see what happens."

"Got ya', Sa. Let's us do it!"

I maneuvered around and came in on their backside. Very slowly I started my pedal turn keeping G.W's machine gun lined up with the top of the bunker, which was still open. GW was a magnificent example of dexterity. He was not only firing away with the machine gun, he was doing that with one hand and throwing grenades with the other. Originally the H-13's had skid mounted machine guns, one on each side. They had been pneumatically operated and frequently jammed. A change had been made, removing the fixed guns. Since the removal of the heavy fixed machine guns the observer would carry one M-60 machine gun, on his lap. He could place fire more accurately, and to top it off we could carry more total ammunition. It made me proud to have GW flying with me. We completed one run on the bunker before I called Ken. We had surprised them from behind and played havoc on them.

"Apache one-one - Apache one-six, over."

"Go, one-six."

"One-one, we are receiving heavy automatic weapons fire."

"Roger, one-six. We'll come by and check it out with you."

Apparently, other NVA, that were in the area, immediately became aware of the contact that we had made with their bunker.

"One-six, one-one."

"Roger, one-one. Go!"

"One-six, we too are now receiving heavy automatic weapons fire!"

"It looks like we stumbled onto something, one-one!"

"Roger one-six. Let's check it out some more, partner."

"Roger one-one. This could be the start of something big."

GW and I set up to make another pass on the enemy bunker while Ken and I talked. We attacked again by doing a fast pedal turn around the bunker from almost directly overhead. I figured that it would be very hard for the enemy to get their fixed, mounted machine guns to shoot up at us at that sharp an angle, but then they did have automatic rifles in the bunker.

We continued our attack as tracers and bullets seemed to continually whizz past and through our bubble. We managed to place a few grenades in the top of the bunker and finally wiped it out. I looked up for a moment to check on Ken. We were receiving more fire from a number of different quadrants by that time. Ken and I discussed further recon of the area and the possibility of calling in some air strikes if it seemed that the situation warranted it. It certainly appeared that we were onto a large NVA unit.

The CO had our recon platoon in the air, and in transit, to Bong Son, during the time that we were initially engaged with the enemy.

"Apache one-six, six-five (our CO)."

"Roger, six-five, go."

"I have our recon platoon in the air. I'll have them put in at your location to do a ground reconnaissance."

"Negative, Six-five, one-one and I advise against putting a recon unit in. We request permission to do further aerial reconnaissance first."

"One-one and one-six, Be advised, I will put the recon platoon in at your location. Be ready to give close in support and direction, Over."

"Roger six-five."

There was nothing else that either one-one or I could do at that point, other than to obey the orders that we had just been given.

"Lovely," I said to GW over the intercom.

CO or not he wasn't there. He couldn't make that sort of decision or rather shouldn't, over the suggestions of his Scouts. "Shit!" There just was no point at all to reconnaissance if it was to be totally ignored.

We had evidently come upon some sort of enemy concentration. In fact it was beginning to look as if it was a heavy concentration, and it was just to the south of one of our fire bases and POL points, LZ Pony. I wondered about the exact purpose of this build up. It was good for us that we had caught them by surprise. The more Ken and I reconned the area the more we realized that there was a very large NVA force grouped in the vicinity. We continued our recon until the Lift ships were on station and ready to put the grunts in. Ken and I didn't even get a chance to advise the Lift section on an LZ for setting down. The CO told the Lift leader where he wanted ground force put down. I don't know why there were no Lift ships knocked down during that landing, maybe it was shear dumb luck. The CO had picked an LZ which was right in the very middle of the enemy. The only good thing was that there were the, ever present, heavy hedge rows surrounding the LZ, which gave the troops some limited protection.

The Lift helicopters were in and out very quickly, all of their ships sustained hits. Only Ken and I were left to give close in support and direct the grunt's movements. For some reason there were no gun ships in the area at that time. The biggest problem that faced the grunts was that there was absolutely NO place for them to move to. They were completely surrounded and pinned down by the enemy, with bullets flying everywhere.

Ken and I worked the fields around our grunts and came across bunker after bunker stuffed full of NVA, which we had surprised. Fortunately, we really did surprise them, so that was to our advantage. Gun ships were in the area by that time and were making runs on some of the emplacements which we had marked with smoke.

In some of the adjoining fields there were so many NVA, that they were literally stuffed like sardines in bunkers, I saw some bunkers where men were holding banana leaves over the openings trying to conceal themselves. GW and I would hover overhead and as the frightened faces peeked out from behind the banana leaves I would drop fragmentation grenades in the door on top of them. I would then do a pedal turn to let GW blast away with his machine gun. GW and I were literally killing North Vietnamese Army soldiers, ten to twenty at a time.

Our men were stuck in their field position while Ken and I made continual contact trying to clear out more and more of the surrounding area to give our men room to move. I found it strange that our grunts just sat in their field, seemingly oblivious to the battle that raged around and above them. I saw one young man sitting on his helmet writing a letter when I hovered by one time. Another man, a friend of mine, stupidly walked over to one of the hedge rows, showing curiosity he peered through only to catch a burst from an automatic weapon in his face. He fell to the ground almost headless as I watched from above, feeling helpless, doing all I could, which didn't seem to be enough. We fiercely attacked the emplacement that had killed Bud, although at that point it seemed a vain effort on his behalf.

We, that is Ken and I, decided to call in everything we could get a hold of, this was a force of considerable size, although we didn't have any numbers, it was obvious to us that the number of NVA was very large. Having our men in the middle of the action would make it harder, but we would take the chances that we had to and call in some strikes. The first strike that we were able to arrange was carried out by a group of Chinook gunships, these were large tandem rotor helicopters equipped with five fifty caliber machine guns and an automatic, turret mounted, M-79 grenade launcher on the nose.

They made pass after pass strafing everything, except our grunts, but to no avail. While the Chinooks were at work we called for Puff the Magic Dragon. Puff was a converted DC-3 equipped with mini-guns, mini-guns are electrically driven Gatling guns with six barrels. Each mini-gun is capable of firing around six thousand rounds per minute. I don't know how many mini-guns were on board Puff but when they flew by and fired it was like a wall of fire moving across a field from so many tracers. Watching Puff was awesome, but the mini-guns seemed ineffective with the enemy holed up the way that they were.

Our first priority continued to be one of trying to clear a buffer zone around our, men then we could call in some bomb strikes and then additional ground forces could be brought in to the out laying areas to fight against the enemy and move toward our pinned down reconnaissance squad.

Everywhere we turned there was more and more enemy. We were drawing fire from so many places I wondered how they could possibly keep missing GW and I in our tiny little helicopter. I kept the ship moving at tree top level, zigzagging around the tops of high palms, dipping, bobbing and weaving while engaging the NVA emplacements. I was on the radio constantly talking on both FM and UHF and on the intercom with GW. He and I kept killing enemy and taking hit after hit all over the helicopter. Bodies lay strewn about the emplacements where we had thrown grenades and shot up with M-60 fire. The noise of automatic weapons fire resounded continually, even above the popping of our rotor system.

I lost track of Ken, maybe he had been shot down, I didn't know. GW and I eventually had to go to LZ Pony to refuel after informing our ground unit that we would be right back to work with them.

I returned from refueling and continued to monitor our ground force. They were still pinned down where they had started. I directed more Navy air strikes at positions running along the west side of highway number one. The constant bombardment, the sound of the explosions, and the concussion from them, seemingly gathered together to rock and rattle the very air that we were flying through. When the Navy had finished I had the Air Force on their way to continue the pounding, by making additional runs. Nothing seemed to be working to root the enemy from his position.

Bullets popped through the Plexiglas, rattling at us from every direction. There was so much shooting going on that I continued to hear it clearly even through my helmet and ear phones, and even when the radios were all blaring away. Birth Control had continued to sustain hits and I started to question her air worthiness. The controls were overcome with jerky feedback from the severely wounded machinery. Even with these problems GW and I stayed on station and continued killing enemy soldiers and directing strikes until relief came. I found out that Ken had been shot down, but he was all right; he had been picked up earlier in the day, while I had continued to fly. I called in my situation and then turned the battered helicopter for home and eased her on in. The crew chief wondered how I had managed to keep the machine air borne as long as I had, I wondered too. I said a prayer of thanks.

"You were shot down hours ago, Mr. Rollason, didn't anybody tell you? This machine should have come down... I just don't know...or see how..."

GW and I grabbed a bite to eat and then made arrangements for another H-13 to use for a return to the site of engagement. We got to rest for a little while before we took off for the 506 Valley again, to relieve the Scouts that were on station there. In my absence there had been some other ground units lifted into the area, by Chinooks, it would be up to me to try and continue the consolidation of the ground units before darkness set in.

Our grunts were still in the same field they had started out in even though we had jointly worked on establishing a buffer around their field. They had, under our direction, taken up positions along the hedges and together we had worked on engaging and overtaking more and more enemy emplacements. We were so busy that there had not been time to think of anything, other than the task at hand. Additional troops had been put in on the east side of Highway One. Strangely enough there didn't seem to be any enemy positions on that side of the highway, so the troops to the east were getting ready to move in a westward direction and try to join up with our men. We would attempt to direct this final joining of our forces; it would never do to have our recon platoon pinned down alone, without reinforcements. Especially if they had to spend the night stuck in that field.

GW and I had killed, literally, well over one hundred NVA, by late afternoon, not counting those we had shot, or blown up earlier in the day. And, that was just in the area surrounding our men. We had sustained numerous hits our second helicopter, but continued to direct the operation, as we had been ordered. The continual air-strikes that we pounded the area with had apparently softened the enemy to some degree, enabling us to eventually join our ground forces. We had flown back and forth between the ground units constantly laying down suppressive fire until the units joined and settled in.