by Eric Meyer
“Paul,” I shouted, “go and get Johann, we need to get going.”
He was already running out of the cockpit, through the window I saw him run up to Johann and help him to his feet. Thank God, he didn’t seem to be badly injured. There was another explosion near the terminal, and then the answering sound of heavy machine gun fire as the ARVN detachment guarding the field opened up in the general direction of the mortar. Paul got to the door and I ran back to help him in with Johann. We helped the mechanic climb on board and brought him forward to the cockpit where he sat down on the navigator’s jump seat.
“You ok, Johann?” I asked him.
He smiled. “I will be when we get out of here.”
“Yeah, we’re leaving now, don’t worry.” I sat down in the pilot’s seat, the engines were still ticking over.
“What about clearance?” Paul called to me.
I laughed. “I don’t think they’ll be worrying too much about procedures just at the moment. We’ll get in the air and call them afterwards.”
I throttled forward all the way and the aircraft began to gather speed. Another mortar hit the airfield, this time on the runway about three hundred yards ahead of us. I made a slight correction to avoid the pothole, then we were past and I rotated the plane off the tarmac, we were airborne. Yet another mortar shell hit just where we had taken off, it had been a near thing. I could see the ARVNs crouched behind their M60 machine gun as it blazed away, shredding the distant jungle foliage where they thought the mortar was sited. Scattered groups of them were lying on the ground blazing away with their M16s, but so far none were advancing to tackle the enemy. I wanted to get down there and shout at them to get out and start doing what they were paid for, to kill the enemy. But I was a civilian now, not a soldier, and I had to suffer the consequences of their failures like every other civilian in this country. We gained height rapidly and I set course for Tan Son Nhat and now that we were safely away Paul went back to check on Johann. My headset crackled.
“C-47 SGN-SS1, you departed Vung Tau without proper clearance, please clarify.”
I deliberately didn’t answer for a few moments, sometimes these people went just too far, did they want us to wait to be hit with a mortar shell?
“Vung Tau Control, it was a medical emergency, we’re taking a badly injured man back to Saigon.”
“Understood, SS1.”
It was near enough the truth.
We landed safely at Tan Son Nhat. The loss of the Hotchkiss was a blow, not least to Paul Schuster who regarded it as his personal toy. Helene was waiting for us, she checked Johann over thoroughly and pronounced him fine, except for minor shock and concussion that he would recover from in a day or two. She came and held me tightly.
“Jurgen, things are getting worse here, I was very worried about you.”
“It’s just a blip, I’m sure the government will have it under control soon,” I replied. I was a rotten liar, she pushed me away and looked me in the eyes.
“That’s rubbish and you know it. The only good thing for you is that the more they make trouble, the more you make money transporting people and equipment around this rotten country. This has been going on for nearly twenty years, they beat the French, they’re beating Diem’s people, what next?”
“The Americans, my dear, they’re arriving in force. Every day, more and more of them are coming into the country to fight the Viet Cong.”
“Do you think the Americans will succeed where everyone else had failed?”
I had been thinking about the increased American efforts for some time. We Germans had swept into Russia and were eventually defeated simply by the fact that we alienated most of the population and they fought back willingly, even fanatically. Shoot ten Russians and fifty would step forward to take their place, blinded by their hatred of the Nazis and the golden promises of their commissars. Diem’s troops were becoming no less hated than we were, and the Viet Cong commissars were promising the people everything that the government refused them. Could the Americans reverse things? They would need to change the whole system of government, effectively overthrow the Diem regime and rebuild from top to bottom. But that never worked, only the population could achieve proper change and they were cowed by the brutality and corruption of the Diem regime and enticed by the false future offered by Hanoi.
I looked back into her beautiful eyes. “No, Helene, ultimately they will not. They’ll make a difference, but not enough, I think. I hope I am wrong. If other countries get involved, perhaps it will help.”
Already Australia, a near neighbour, had sent troops to Vietnam to shore up the anti-communist government. But they were few and the VCs were growing rapidly.
“We should leave, Jurgen, get out of here while we still can.” She didn’t say before one or both of us were killed, but I understood.
“You know that we have debts to pay off on the loans that we took out to buy the aircraft. Perhaps when everything is clear we could consider moving then.”
“Let’s hope we’re both still alive to make the move,” she said bitterly as she stalked off.
I went home to a chilly reception and a silent dinner. In bed when I tried to talk she just rolled away from me, what the hell was wrong with her? She had a fiercely independent streak but she wasn’t usually this moody about the future. I satisfied myself that it was Vietnam, this damned country got to all of us in the end.
The next morning she was still ignoring me so I made an early start. I got to the hangar to find Johann already at work hammering away at the bent and broken leg.
“You should be resting, Johann, not at work, you were hurt quite badly. Helene said to take today off.”
“And if you break another wheel leg on the next job, where do we get a spare?” he asked.
I didn’t reply, he was right, of course. Without a spare leg, we’d still be on the field at Vung Tau, a target for every VC mortar crew that happened along.
Paul came into the office, we had a new charter, a cargo to take up to Lang Vei, a small base just south of the DMZ, the local agent had just phoned through, it was already on the way here and would arrive within the hour.
“What are we carrying?” I asked him. “Freight or people?”
If it was people we had snap down seats in the fuselage of the aircraft, but on this occasion it was freight. A civilian lorry turned up driven by a Vietnamese, it was loaded with more of the inevitable anonymous wooden crates, they may as well have stencilled them ‘military equipment’, everyone knew what they were. Two Americans jumped out of the passenger side, another four men, Vietnamese, got out of the back and began transferring the crates to the C-47. The two Americans approached us.
“Change of plan Mr Hoffman, we’re going to accompany the load to Lang Vei. Any problems?”
I looked at them warily, jeans, t-shirts, shoulder holsters with Colt automatics, each carried an AR-15. Short crew cuts, jungle boots and canvas packs on their backs, they could only have been Special Forces. It was fine with me, if we had to make an emergency landing they would come in handy if we hit any trouble.
“No problem at all,” I smiled and shook hands with them. “What’s up at Lang Vei, why are you taking so much equipment up there?”
They both looked at me suspiciously. Then one of them said in a friendly way, “I guess if you’re flying us up there you’ll know soon enough anyway. It’s a CIDG camp we’re setting up near a village called Khe Sanh.”
I’d never heard of Khe Sanh, but we had all heard about the Civilian Irregular Defense Group programme. It was a programme developed by the United States to develop South Vietnamese irregular military units from the minority populations. It had been devised by the CIA in early 1961 to counter expanding Viet Cong influence in South Vietnam's Central Highlands. Beginning in the village of Buon Enao, small Special Forces A teams moved into villages and set up Area Development Centres. Focusing on local defence and civic action, the Special Forces teams did the majority of the training. Vill
agers were trained and armed for village defence for two weeks, while localised Strike Forces would receive better training and weapons and served as a quick reaction force to react to Viet Cong attacks. The vast majority of the CIDG camps were initially manned by inhabitants of ethnic minority regions in the country especially Montagnards, who disliked both the North and South Vietnamese and therefore quickly took to the American advisors.
I nodded and went to supervise the loading. Paul was already at work lashing down the crates, I told him about the CIDG camp we were headed for.
“Let’s hope it works, this CIDG programme, he said gloomily. “From what I’ve seen the locals will just sell their arms and equipment to the VCs.”
I laughed, it wasn’t entirely fair, from what I’d heard and encountered the CIDG programme was proving to be quite successful, even though it was unlikely that there would ever be enough recruits to fully counter the Viet Cong who had limitless numbers of ethnic Viet peasants from which to recruit. Unlike the fortified hamlets scheme which appeared to have exactly the opposite effect and did little or nothing to deter the communists. While the loading was going on, Johann finished fuelling the aircraft. When he was finished he came with me for the pre-flight inspection.
“Will you be back tonight?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “It’s not likely, Lang Vei is fairly new, there won’t be any lights for us to attempt a night take off, so we’ll leave at first light, we’ll be back late morning. Johann, things are not getting any better here, would you mind if I sent Helene to sleep here in the hangar with you?”
He looked surprised. “In the same bed?”
I felt my anger rising, then saw the grin on his face. I gave him a friendly punch. “Schweinhund! But it’s much easier to defend here than our bungalow.”
“Of course, send her over, I’ll look after her.”
When I went back to the bungalow, Helene almost spat fire at me for suggesting that it would not be safe for her to spend the night in her own home, but in the end I pressured her and she gave in.
“At least I’ll be safe with Johann,” she grinned.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that he’s not overly fond of women, Jurgen, hadn’t you noticed?”
“So, you’re saying that…”
“He’s queer, Jurgen, haven’t you seen him in town with one of the local pretty boys on his arm?”
I was astonished, so Johann was a homosexual. Well, that was his business, I’d encountered plenty of men that were that way inclined, it made no difference to me as long as they did their job. My face must have looked shocked, because she said to me, “You don’t need to worry about him either, Jurgen.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re too damned old and ugly, not his type at all,” she laughed
“That’s alright then. But please will you stay in the hangar tonight, I’m thinking about strengthening security around the bungalow, but until then you need to be more careful.”
“I will, yes, I promise,” she said.
She came and kissed me, I felt the love and the warmth flowing out of her. If anything happened to this woman I knew I would have little or nothing left to live for. I picked up the pack she had prepared with food and drinks for the flight, then walked across to the airfield, we had yet to replace the Hotchkiss.
The cargo was already loaded, the two Special Forces soldiers were laying in the grass sipping cold cans of beer, without doubt Paul’s gesture to keep the paying customers happy.
“I’ll radio the tower for advance clearance, as soon as we’re ready I’ll give you a call and we can take off.”
They both waved an acknowledgment and I got into the cockpit and contacted the tower. Paul had lodged our flight plan and they were expecting me, quite apart from the small envelope of U.S. dollars that I gave the airport manager each month, so they cleared us to leave straight away. I started the engines and beckoned our two passengers onboard. They scrambled up and climbed into the cabin, Paul closed the door and I opened up the throttles for take-off. Soon we were airborne and I set course for north, the trip would take us about six hours and we took turns at the controls. Using the auto pilot was an option we rarely used, this was a war zone and pilots needed to keep alert for the enemy, more than once a MIG 17 had wandered south bent on causing mayhem. Then there were the friendlies to consider, many of the South Vietnamese pilots were recruited more on family connections than skill, they were just as likely to shoot at us as the communists. Yet it was an uneventful journey, we landed on time at Lang Vei and a crew of Vietnamese immediately began to unload the crates. They were dressed in a rough approximation of paramilitary uniforms, no two were alike, but their faces were unmistakably Montagnard. The camp they were building was not impressive, I hoped they would develop some sort of effective well defended fire base before the Viet Cong attempted to overrun it, as they did with every camp that was built.
Our passengers had gone away when the crates were finally unloaded, one of them returned to invite us to the mess for drinks.
“Hi, we were never introduced, my name’s Ed, I guess you knew we were army.”
I shook his hand. “I’m Jurgen, this is Paul. Yes, I’m afraid it was pretty obvious. If you’re an American in civilian clothes in this country armed with an M16 it normally means US Army Special Forces. We’ve transported a lot of your equipment around Vietnam, and a few of your people.”
We wandered into their mess tent, a bar was set up and one end and everyone was sprawled around folding chairs and tables, some were lying on the floor. Ed ordered us a cold beer each with condensation running down the outside of the glass, we drank it thankfully in the extreme humidity which was even worse here than at Tan Son Nhat.
“Someone said you were here before, Foreign Legion, right?”
I nodded to him. “Yes, it was before the country was partitioned.”
“Well, we hope to do better this time.”
I didn’t reply. Paul looked away and took a deep sip of his drink. Ed looked at us intently.
“You don’t think we will?”
“Ed, Paul and I were soldiers during the Second World War, on the Eastern Front.”
“SS?” I nodded. “Waffen-SS. We were soldiers, like the French, like the Americans, like you. We went into Russia using overwhelming force, a mechanised army and air force the like of which the world had never seen before. And they beat us.”
He listened intently. I noticed that heads had turned to listen too, well, let them. He had asked a question, I would give him a straight answer.
“They beat us because when our rear echelon forces were terrorising the population, stealing their land, enslaving them, the communists promised them everything if they would fight for Stalin. Land, wealth, food, freedom, everything a man could want. And of course, it they refused to fight for Stalin, there was a bullet for them. So they fought, in their millions and millions. The communists here are making a similar offer. While the government gives them nothing, no hope, only endless corruption so that everything they own is liable to be stolen from them by the officials, the Viet Cong offer them peace, bread and land,” I smiled. “In fact, that was the slogan of Lenin, the architect of Soviet Communism. Peace, bread and land. Whoever can offer them that will win.”
There was a silence in the mess tent. Then a voice came from a dark corner at the back of the tent.
“Ain’t no fucking Nazi gonna tell the U.S. Army it’s beat before we’ve even fought a battle.”
We looked over as a tall man got up. He must have been six feet six inches tall and almost as broad, unusual for Special Forces who tended to be more conventional in appearance, often slight and wiry. He came over to us.
“You hear me, Nazi? Are you telling us that we’re beat before we even start?”
“No, leave it Jerry,” Ed said to him, “they’re drinking with me.”
“It’s ok, Ed,” I smiled. I believed I had the big guy’s measure
, undoubtedly a bully, very strong but a heavy drinker and right now he’d clearly been indulging for some time.
“In the first place, my friend, I am not a Nazi. And in the second place I did not suggest that the Viet Cong would beat the U.S. Army.”
He lunged forward, shouting, “You’re a shitfaced liar, you fucking Nazi bastard.”
He telegraphed his move very obviously. Even before he launched the blow I was ready for him. A huge fist came around that would have broken my jaw if it had connected, but I stepped slightly to one side and scooped his ankle away, chopping the side of his neck as he went down. He lay quietly, unconscious. The tent was silent, the other soldiers astonished that their huge comrade had been knocked out so easily. I looked around the room.
“Before I go, let me be clear. The American forces will probably beat the Viet Cong, but the day you leave Vietnam the Viet Cong will roll through this country like a knife through butter. Good night, gentlemen.”
We walked back to the plane. The wind had risen and it had started to rain. Through the blackness we could see the trees bending in the wind. We checked the ground anchors to make sure the Douglas was securely tied down.
“What do you think?” I asked Paul.
“Monsoon,” he replied, “it’ll be here by morning, it’s going to be a bastard to take off.”
“We’ve done it in worse,” I replied. I heard him grunt. He didn’t sound happy.
As usual when we were away from Tan Son Nhat, we took turns on watch. There was little to worry about, the Special Forces patrolled regularly, they were taking no chances this close to the DMZ. By morning the storm was just as bad and we sat in the cockpit to wait it out. We heard a noise at the door and looked around, a captain was climbing in. He walked through to the cockpit.
“Gentlemen, my name is Captain Forester, I’m in command at this base. We’ve has a message from Saigon, you’re required to return immediately to Tan Son Nhat.”
