War For the Hell of It: A Fighter Pilot's View of Vietnam

by Ed Cobleigh

  Jack's highly negative job satisfaction index was exacerbated by the lack of status awarded to EWOs. An EWO isn't the bomber's pilot or its copilot. He isn't the navigator, the radar navigator, or the bombardier. He is definitely the low man on the bomber crew totem pole, save for the enlisted tail gunner. Additionally, the B-52 is the lowest aircraft on the USAF macho pecking order. The EWO is the lowest status officer on the lowest status aircraft. Accordingly, Jack spent four years lower than whale shit, professionally and mentally. Being the butt of SAC jokes finally pushed poor Jack over the edge; he volunteered for fighters and asked to be sent to the war.

  Crazy Jack now thinks he has found his niche in life and in the USAF. He loves the prestige of flying the USAF's top-of-the-line tactical fighter (don't we all?). The nightly combat action turns him on. Jack digs dropping bombs and mixing it up with the Bad Guys. He loves contributing and being an essential aircrew member instead of enduring twelve-hour B-52 airplane rides fighting to stay awake. Thriving on combat and danger, his natural aggressiveness is totally off the charts.

  Aggression is never lacking in any fighter squadron, only the degree is in play. Fighter pilots tend to be way out there on the aggressiveness scale, to the point of self-endangerment. Self-confidence is also not in short supply. It takes full measure of both confidence and aggressiveness to strap on 50,000 pounds of fighter jet. Another helping of both is required to go out night after night to mix it up with dedicated people who would like nothing better than to kill you. In a group of aggressive, supremely self-confident guys, Crazy Jack stands out as being over the top.

  Most navigators serve as essential voices of reason, curbing the wilder instincts of the jocks in the front seats of the Phantoms. When the pilot is caught up in the heat of battle and intends to press an attack when prudence and self-preservation would dictate otherwise, it is usually the navigator that calms things down. Without the responsibility to actually fly the jet, the GIB can devote more time to thinking instead of reacting emotionally.

  Jack, on the other hand, is always pressing for flying lower, getting in closer, dueling with antiaircraft guns, stretching the fuel reserves, making multiple weapons deliveries, and generally sticking it to the Bad Guys. This attitude comes through the cockpit intercom loud and clear despite Jack's general lack of verbosity. if he says anything at all, it usually to point out that I am not being aggressive enough. If I hear nothing from him in my earphones, I know that he is pleased with how things are going. This always makes me wonder whether we are getting in too deep. If I suggest a bomb release altitude of 7,500 feet, he counters with 5,500 feet. When I want to deliver all the bombs on one pass and get the hell out of there, Jack wants to stick around and stir things up, one bomb at a time.

  Tonight, with no moon yet up for visual reference and no wingman to help watch for ground fire, I am resolved to play things cool. I tell myself that I won't listen to Crazy Jack this evening. I'll ignore him at least until the moon rises to shine some welcome light down into the dank sewer.

  For a change, tonight we are escorting an AC-130 gunship, call sign "Spectre." Gunships were invented a few years ago in South Vietnam. Some bored but ingenious transport driver, probably related to Jack, dreamed up the idea of mounting three mini- Gatling guns sideways in a twin-engined, propeller-driven C-47 "Gooney Bird." The "Goon" was first used in WWII as a troop transport. It has long endurance and a very slow airspeed. The mini guns are all pointed out the left side windows and are aimed with a mark made by a wax pencil on the pilot's left side cockpit window. The pilot circles the combat area in a left hand orbit and places the wax pencil mark, the "death dot", over the intended target. When the geometry is right, he fires the guns through an electric trigger and adjusts the fire storm by observing the visible stream of the tracer bullets. The tracers are clearly visible, as this is a plan that only works at night. The Gooney Bird would be a sitting duck, or rather a circling duck, to ground fire if flown in the daytime. These lethal C-47s are nicknamed "Puff the Magic Dragon" and can put a 5.56-millimeter bullet into every square yard of a football field in three seconds. They operate under the call sign "Spooky." A few transport aircrew members welcomed the invention of the gunship. This ingenious modification to their lumbering airplanes allowed them to actually fight in the war, putting ordnance on target. The gunship mission was judged to be way more rewarding than spending a combat tour flying boring cargo from point A to point B.

  The success of Spooky in South Vietnam generated a similar idea for the more demanding air war in Laos. Various automatic guns, from 7.62-millimeter mini-guns, to 20-millimeter Gatling guns, up to 40-millimeter cannons are mounted in the cargo hold of a C­130 Herky Bird. Instead of a wax pencil dot on the windscreen, the Herky has infrared scopes and low-light sensors for target acquisition and a real computing gunsight near the pilot's left shoulder.

  These flying gun platforms are proving to be devastating to the truck convoys on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In our fast-moving fighters, we are lucky to be able to attack two or three trucks at a time at night, when we can find them, which isn't often. The Spectres orbit slowly for hours at medium altitudes and watch the dirt roads that make up the "trail" through their night-piercing, all-seeing sensors. When a convoy of trucks is spotted, a sensor is locked on to the front truck and multiple rounds are sent on their way with a single pull of the trigger. Tracers are not needed. The sensors and the computers that drive the gunsight are so good, the first truck is usually torched with the first burst. Then the last truck is blasted to bits, preventing the others from escaping back along the single-track, muddy road. Once the convoy is trapped, the Spectre can pick off the doomed trucks at will. It is not unusual for one Spectre to kill 100 or more trucks in a single night.

  The expensive AC-130 gunship is a valuable war machine and the USAF employs fewer than a dozen. Each giant plane also carries twelve to fifteen crewmen; pilots, navigators, sensor operators, and gunners. Thus, an order has been given from on high that they will not be shot down. Each Spectre flies every night with constant fighter escort. Tonight, that would be us.

  The black-painted gunship is invisible from the ground while flying at medium altitudes. The Bad Guys can and do fire blindly toward the droning sound of its turboprop engines or failing that, shoot wildly into the air hoping for a lucky hit. Slow, big, and a converted transport plane with no armor plating, Spectre can't take much ground fire and still survive. Tonight, Jack and I have the mission of enhancing the odds of survival for Spectre and its crew.

  My jet has six cluster bombs on board, three under each wing. These bombs are canisters about the size and shape of a large garbage can fitted with tail fins. Each cluster bomb is stuffed with hundreds of bomblets the size and shape of baseballs. My job is to try to pinpoint the location of any gun firing at Spectre. I will attempt to do this by visually following the trails of Bad Guys' tracer bullets back to their point of origin on the night ground. Then, I will have to make a dive bomb pass targeting the gun site and release a cluster bomb. As it falls, the cluster bomb reads its altitude above the ground with a radar fuse. At the right altitude, about 2,000 feet, the fuse blows open the canister and the bomblets fall free like a dense cloud of iron baseballs. Each bomblet detonates when it hits the ground, spraying a hail of shrapnel. The swarm of bomblets covers a wide area; all the better to place at least one inside the pit containing the offending gun. An exploding baseball won't destroy the gun, but it will kill the crew, damping the enthusiasm of other gunners for further target practice on Spectre. Or at least that is tonight's plan. What isn't in the plan is what happens to Jack and me before we release the cluster bomb.

  We'll be dive bombing toward the muzzle of a gun specifically designed to shoot down aircraft. I guess the trade-off is judged acceptable, risking an expendable F-4, an aggressive pilot, and a nut-case navigator in order to keep the convoy's nemesis, Spectre, safe.

  We are entering the Laotian area of operations patrolled by Spectre and I raise th
e pilot on the radio. After checking in, I set up my own left hand orbit above 20,000 feet and look down into the night for the gunship. I can see off to the west the first dim glow of the rising moon. It will slowly appear out of the unseen South China Sea like a one-eyed Chinese lantern in less than an hour.

  To allow escorts to see and avoid the Spectre, the AC-130 displays a cross of low intensity lights, similar to the green-glowing formation lights on my Phantom. The circular lights are mounted in a line down the top of the fuselage, crossed with another line of lights transversing the wing's upper surface. I spot the slow-moving green lights far below. They are invisible from the ground, only from above. The pale cross drifts silently beneath me through the night searching for prey along the unseen trails.

  The Spectre gunship is emulating its pagan namesake while displaying the universal symbol of Christianity, the cross, on its black wings. The communist masters of North Vietnam are suppressing the dominant religion of the country, Buddhism. No competing allegiances are allowed in the north. If we defeat the commies, Buddhism will flower in the north as it does now in the south. Tonight, and every other night, a deadly ghost plane flown by Christians and Jews, marked with the sign of the cross, is trying to make the world safer for Buddhists. I can taste the irony on my tongue. Or is that metallic residue from the oxygen system?

  I have my armament switches set up, the bombs are armed, the cockpit is dim, and the gunsight is on. Now, all it takes to rain a hail of deadly baseballs is a tap on the pickle button. When and if I do pickle off a cluster bomb, the light show will be spectacular. Each bomblet detonates in a bright white flash. The hundreds of bomblet going off in a circular pattern on the ground will resemble an oval football stadium full of sparklers during a rock concert.

  The low cloud deck is periodically obscuring the trail and Spectre has to work in and out of gaps in the misty coverage. From my position high overhead, I can see the first circle of the rising moon in the east; it is up, almost out of the South China Sea. Already blue-white instead of moon-dawn orange, it is now cresting the Laotian mountains. Once the moon breaks the tops of the hills, Spectre will have to be more careful, as the big, black AC-130 is easily silhouetted against moonlit clouds. That's all the gunners will need to direct their fire. But for now, things are quiet. Even Jack is more silent than usual. He is probably trying to spot the muzzle flashes of guns for us to dive toward.

  Spectre calls on the radio that he has a good target and he sets up a left-hand orbit. I can see nothing but the pale formation lights on top of the slowly turning gunship. Suddenly a red fire flares on the ground like a struck match. It flames angrily and then is reduced to a dim pinpoint of embers. Spectre calls, "Lead truck." His sensor operators have found a blacked-out convoy on the Ho Chi Minh dirt road headed south. After another ninety degrees of turn by Spectre, another fire sparks into existence on the ground. This one keeps burning brightly. The first truck was carrying ammo that exploded all at once when struck by Spectre's first shots. This second one looks like fuel burning, probably the last truck, carrying diesel fuel for the convoy.

  Spectre will have to work quickly to get the rest of the trucks before the moon is any higher. Already I can see the flat tops of the cloud deck shinning like white cotton instead of the previous dirty black wool as the moon's rays climb more overhead and ever brighter.

  One by one I see individual trucks flare as invisible shells hit them, raining down from the big gunship. Some burn for a few seconds, some for a minute or two, and some are only revealed in the instant when Spectre's rounds hit home. After three full firing orbits by Spectre, I can see a line of burning trucks laying in a serpentine curve, indicating on the dark night ground the path of the road where they are dying along with the men driving and riding in them.

  The burning, destroyed convoy looks to me like a strand of pink pearls hurriedly dropped on a lady's hastily discarded black velvet dress in a darkened motel room. The rising moon is casting its pseudo blue-neon glow to add more fantasy to the image. This sexually suggestive carnal scene pops into my head because I haven't seen anything like it for real in months and months. I had better bear down and concentrate on the here and now or I won't live to see it again.

  Without warning, my earphones erupt with the frenetic sound of a desert rattlesnake, a big one, but not very loud.

  Jack yells into his microphone, "Firecan!"

  I don't know if the Spectre has picked it up, but if he hasn't, he should. I push my radio mike button and try to speak calmly, slowly.

  "Spectre, Satan's got a Firecan on the air."

  The reply comes back, "Roger, Satan, nothing here."

  I ask Jack, "Are you sure?"

  He replies in a tone of voice reserved for little children, simpletons, and fighter pilots.

  "Of course I'm sure, that's a Firecan, no shit."

  Firecan is the NATO code word for a Soviet-built, ground-based fire control radar. It is used to lock on to and to track airborne targets when those targets can't be seen in an optical sight, as at night. The radar's tracking solution is fed to automatic anti-aircraft guns, allowing accurately aimed fire at unseen aircraft. During his days in SAC, Jack was drilled for hours and hours on the identification of a wide range of radars using only the sound their emissions produce on an aircraft's electronic receivers. To keep in practice, he frequently lies on his bunk in the officers' quarters and listens to cassette tapes of those sounds. These aural workouts keep his senses sharp and allow him to practice identifying the rattles, beeps, and squawks. That's what an EWO does. If Jack says it is a Firecan, who am I to argue? Even so, there has never been a report of a Firecan in Laos; this sophisticated sensor is normally reserved for the defense of North Vietnam itself.

  If the electronic signature we hear is really that of a Firecan, if it is in this area, and if it is linked to the guns we know are already here, this is very bad news for Spectre. Very bad news indeed. The big gunship's survival is dependent on it being invisible in the night sky. The barn-sized transport with its four rotating, radar-reflecting propellers makes an excellent radar target. The dumbest Firecan operator in the North Vietnamese Army could lock on to an AC-130 in nothing flat. The size of this slow airborne target doesn't require pinpoint shooting accuracy. If the guns are in range, Spectre will take deadly hits on the first burst from the ground.

  I transmit again, a sense of urgency creeping into my voice, "Spectre, Satan's still getting a Firecan signal."

  I get back, "Roger, Satan, nothing here."

  Maybe we are getting a stray Firecan emission leaking from inside North Vietnam, not from Laos. At our altitude, we have a clear line of sight across the border. The mountains shield the Spectre in its lower orbit. However, the green dashed strobe on the ECM scope in both our cockpits points to the target area near the dying convoy as we circle, and not from the east.

  Maybe the Firecan isn't linked to the guns yet. Maybe this is a test: "This is only a test; do not adjust your set."

  Maybe the Spectre crew is too busy shooting to notice the sinister rattlesnake sound or to even turn on their ECM gear. With Gatling guns spitting fire and lead next to your ears, it would be easy to miss a radar signal, particularly one not supposed to be there. Maybe the Firecan is out of range of the low-flying Spectre's ECM gear even if the set is turned on.

  On the other gloved hand, maybe Spectre is about to get nailed. The trucks are certainly getting their asses handed to them. Even from my altitude, I can see two dozen or more aflame and Spectre is circling for more, firing all the while. Every truck torched is one less load of war material destined for use against our troops in the south.

  The Bad Guys are in a helluva fix and justly so. They can do nothing and watch their convoy go up in flames truck by truck. Or they can use their Firecan in Laos, which they have never done before, and escalate the war to a new level. Or they can shoot blindly at Spectre. The last two options get them bombed by Jack and me. I have left on my green-and-red navigation li
ghts, the red flashing beacon on the tail, and the white lights under the jet. There are few guns that can reach to 20,000 feet; we are relatively safe up here. But the Bad Guys can see us orbiting and thus know that Spectre has an Phantom escort. My lights are intended to announce our presence and bad intentions. Hopefully that message will deter them from shooting.

  No such luck. I see a burst of 37-millimeter AAA fire climb up from an area of black nothingness near the line of burning trucks. The Bad Guys have cracked. The line of tracers climbs quickly into the night sky, probing, searching for the vulnerable gunship. The Firecan isn't aiming these guns as the shells miss the Spectre by a fair distance. They fire another clip of seven rounds and more red tracers climb into the night sky like lethal lightning bugs. This was a big mistake on their part. The first clip attracted my attention to the general area, but I didn't have time to locate the gun site. The second burst allowed me to follow the thin red line of tracers back to its origin on the ground.

  Now, I'm flying by feel alone, my eyes "padlocked" on the amorphous ink spot on the surface of Laos hosting the gun site. I can't look anywhere but there. I can't take my eyes off the spot for a second. If I do, I'll never reacquire the target. I try to triangulate the position of the gun site in relationship to the string of flaming trucks.