My War - Installment 31

*** All of the teams were intent on their missions. We all wanted very badly to relocate the NVA and engage them in another skirmish or full blown battle. We felt that the NVA must have set up a command post somewhere close by, at least within a few kilometers. They may leave their dead on the battle field, but they surely would give some care to their wounded, which had to be numerous after the past week battles. That many soldiers just didn't disappear into thin air. They had to be close by! All we had to do was find them.

We started back to Pony to refuel again. There were some other Scouts behind us that I did not recognize, but that meant little to me at that moment. Ken and I landed at the POL point, and as usual our observers jumped out to refuel us, our engines at idle. GW was with me again on that day. He stood by the door as he filled the left tank. H-13s have two elongated, egg-shaped tanks, one on either side behind the cockpit. GW looked slightly bored while standing there. Abruptly his face contorted into a look of terror. He waved wildly with his hands, motioning for Ken and I to move away as quickly as we could. His gesticulations were infinitely more readable than words. Both Ken and I cranked in the power as fast as we could and lifted away, Ken turned to the left and I turned to the right. We both did hovering pedal turns when we were well clear of the POL.

As we turned the scene that appeared before us was a turbulent one. An H-13 was slowly and recklessly beginning to spin out of control. For some reason the tail rotor had stopped. The tail rotor is really an anti-torque rotor which counteracts the torque of the main rotor and engine. What had happened was that the Scouts who had come in behind us, to refuel after we finished, had come in and tried to set down in the small POL area, immediately to our rear. One of them had set down and his tail rotor had caught on a piece of old loose barbed wire at the perimeter. The barbed wire had twisted around the tail rotor shaft freezing the ninety-degree gear box. The pilot must have felt it and thought he just bumped something with the stinger, the tail rotor guard. Unfortunately, for him, he had lifted off and when he did he started spinning. He should have immediately put the helicopter back down, but he didn't, so it started to spin faster and faster. That was when G.W. had signaled us. The next thing he knew he was up side down in the POL area.

"Apache one-one, one-six."

"Go, one-six."

"Never a dull moment, Eh, Over."

We moved off and waited until we could get in to finish refueling. There was only enough room for one ship to set down. We were quite fortunate that neither the pilot nor his observer had been seriously injured. The pilot had managed to keep away from the rubber fuel bladders, either by luck or skill. Here would be another job for either a Chinook or a Huey. The H-13 would have to be sling-loaded back to a maintenance area for major work.

We were not detained very long and were soon refueled and on our way back to continue our search to find the NVA that had done this outrageous act. This fight would probably be our last recon for the day. We had all been putting our hearts into our missions that day, spurred on by the tragedy at LZ Bird, but to no avail.

Ken and I were working further to the north and west of LZ Bird, but still only a few kilometers by direct line. We were beginning to loose the direct sunlight and it was very hard to see into the jungle very well, harder than normal. The jungle in that particular part mountains terrain seemed exceptionally dense. It actually appeared to be impenetrable in the dwindling light. We made the decision to hang it up for the day, we would return to the same spot in the morning, when we would have better light and be able to see better.

That evening we heard the report on LZ Bird, it was not what we wanted to hear. Investigation revealed that communication lines, concealed and running on the ground around the outside of the entire perimeter had been found. To our disbelief, there had been camouflaged fox holes around Bird, the artillery pieces had been booby-trapped within the compound; booby-trapped so that when fired they would blow up. The NVA had unmistakably spent the entire Christmas truce....setting up to over run LZ Bird. Maybe it was part of a larger plan; maybe it was a retaliatory strike for our killing so many NVA before Christmas. Perhaps someday we would know the reasons or maybe we would never know; even so I speculated.

I went to sleep uneasily that night wondering for a long time if that same kind of thing....the thing that happened at LZ Bird, could happen to us here at Hammond. Then I thought of some Bible verses that renewed my calm:

Luke 12:4 "And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do."

Matthew 10:28 "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

So what difference did it make if we were over run? If it was time to die, then....we would die. I did not know then or even have inkling, that in years to come our....some of our own countrymen, some of them very important, could have cared less if we had all died. We were here fighting for our country even if it was in an obtuse and round about manner.

After mulling all this over in my mind, I slept well and was ready in the morning to resume the search. At the mess tent that morning a number of the Scouts sat together and we discussed our missions of the previous day. Ken mentioned how strange it was the thickness of the vegetation we had noticed yesterday evening at the end of our reconnaissance and that he realized that the jungle was the thickest he had ever seen....but, that....that particular region, the one Ken and I had been working and had left the previous afternoon was by far the densest, and heaviest vegetation that we had ever come across. There was something strange about it. His mentioning that fact gave someone else at the table and idea.

"That sounds a bit fishy to me. The jungle growth doesn't change that abruptly in those mountains, the vegetation and foliage is rather homogeneous. There may be a false canopy in the area of the jungle to hide something. What do you others think?"

"You might have something there Bob," said Dave. "Ken, you and Rollason get back there right after first light. Smitty and Jack will join you guys. Hit that area hard. You say you couldn't see through or into the canopy at all, eh?"

"That's right Cap. Thicker than hair on a dog's back." I said.

"Yep, check it out. I think you may have found them."

We excitedly finished eating breakfast and nervously sloshed down more cups of coffee while waiting for daylight to draw near enough for take off. We were all anxious to see if our collective suspicions were correct. None of us really knew how the difference in foliage mattered that much, it certainly had be poor visibility. It was just a hunch, but a damn good one. We cranked up even before the first hint of daylight broke over the eastern horizon. The sun would have to be up and shining brightly, on that particular piece of jungle real estate, for us to see it properly. By the time we would finish our first light missions and rendezvous at LZ Pony the light would be perfect.

We took off from Pony, Ken and I in the lead, since it was our area we were all headed toward. We pushed it, balls to the wall and within a few minutes we were hovering over the jungle canopy. The weather had cooperated, the sun shown brightly above the eastern horizon. It was Smitty that first detected what the irregularity in the canopy was. After he mentioned it to us it became clear and recognizable. The devilish little yellow bastards had somehow climbed those huge trees and had actually woven a second canopy of leaves and limbs under the natural tops of the trees. It was crazy, crazy, but very effective, crazy like a fox.

We decided to drop a few grenades into the thick matted leaves and try to blow a hole in it to get a better look. We lined up and flew over the same area, each dropping a fragmentation grenade. We succeeded in making a small opening. Sure enough, far below there were NVA scurrying about. The next thing we knew we were being shot at blindly through the false canopy and tree tops. We continued to drop fragmentation and white phosphorus grenades, We hoped to blow more holes with the frags and with the white phosphorus, we were trying to catch some of the canopy on fire.

I backed away and called for Navy air strikes, which we could get relatively fast; there was a carrier not too far off the coast. We could do little damage ourselves, so it became our duty to direct the air strikes from tree top level and wreak as much havoc and damage as possible. We theorized that the NVA were not dug in. They were relying on the false canopy to keep their position undetected. Our hope was that we had caught them off guard and so doing could hurt them.

About twenty minutes after we called for them the Navy was coming in for their first bombing run. We had marked the area with smoke just prior to their arrival so that they could come straight in and make a drop quickly. Then before any additional runs we would hover in and reevaluate and remark if necessary. The bombs would at least open up some larger holes for us to look into.

The Navy pilots came across, strafing the jungle with 20 mm canons before dropping some HE type bombs (High Explosive), and some napalm. As we saw the napalm explode, in their huge fireball explosions, we knew that they would remove some of the thick foliage. After this second pass we hovered over and could see that we had indeed done some damage and had them wounded, confused, and on the run. We remarked some places with smoke and the Navy came back in quickly for their third run. One Navy pilot radioed that he was receiving heavy 20 millimeter canon fire (a large automatic weapon probably 21mm) and wondered how we managed to hover over the enemy at tree top level.

"You guys must have balls the size of coconuts," he stated as he headed out to load up with more bombs.

The Navy continued to bombard the mountain side under our direction. Smitty and Jack had gone to refuel and would be relieving us on station as forward observers; we would alternate for the remainder of the day. The area we were bombing was becoming larger as the NVA unit or units below continued to break up and disperse in all directions. It looked as if we had killed quite a few NVA, but we wouldn't know for sure until we could get some men in on the ground. In the mean time we kept hitting them with bomb after bomb, hoping to add hysteria and fear to the already confused enemy force and the devastation on the jungle covered mountain.

The NVA were going in so many different directions we would probably be chasing them for weeks as they would try to regroup. We had them totally disoriented. Their unit was breaking up completely. We finished out the morning calling in volley after volley of HE artillery rounds from Granite Rock, hitting some areas where the NVA seemed to be headed, cutting off their advance in that direction.

At about 1245 hours we set out for Bong Son, so that we could shut down and have some lunch. We sat our helicopters down alongside the PSP airstrip at Bong Son and broke out the "C" rations. We ate and then relaxed for a little while, discussing our strategy for the afternoon. The large NVA unit had been broken up. There was no way of telling how many had been killed that morning, but we could not relent. We all had to keep the pressure on and push them, striking when and where we could. It would be our job, as Scouts, to do the finding and pushing. To keep an eye on them if possible or to at least continue reconnaissance and by so doing apply pressure. The enemy, would know just by our presence, even if we could not see each other directly, that we were on their tails. We left Bong Son and kept up our recon until darkness began to overtake us.

HEAD 'EM UP, MOVE 'EM OUT

It appeared that we were forcing them to move in a westerly direction into the free fire zone, which had months before, been cleared of civilians. At the OPs meeting that night we learned that when the civilians were moved out that there had been one mistake made; there had been one little item forgotten. Cows! The United States had been shipping U.S. livestock into Vietnam, in a program to help improve the domestic breeds of the region. There was a fairly large herd that was, sort of, running wild in the free fire zone. Now that there was the potential for some real battles in the free fire zone, those in command had thought it best to quickly move the cattle eastward, to relative safety.

"Rollason, I hear tell you have some experience herding livestock with a helicopter and some experience with cows. Is that right?"

"Well, I guess you could say that Sir." Someone must have mentioned my deer chasing in flight school and dairy cow experience as a kid in Pennsylvania.

"Where are these cows located, Sir?"

"You’re the Scout. They shouldn't be too hard to find."

"Yes Sir, no problem."

The other Scouts would continue to hound the NVA as best they could. I would have some fun on the next day herding cattle….Eee Haaa!!

I was kidded all that evening in the Scout tent about the next day's assignment. I went along with it for a few hours. When I got ready to leave I stood up and walked, bow legged, to the doorway. I turned and gave them a "see you later pardner". Then I retreated to the privacy of my own hut to relax away the rest of the evening, or at least until Ops meeting.

Dana had moved out during the Christmas truce so there was, it seemed, plenty of room in our tiny hut. I had not really gotten to know Dana, but that's how it goes. Jack and I had been sharing quarters for months, and had gone through flight school together, although we had not known each other then, and still didn't know each other very well.