by Mark Berent
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
1630 Hours Local, 17 December 1966
F-100 Airborne over Bien Hoa Air Base
Republic of Vietnam
The mission was nearly over yet it hadn't quite registered with Captain Courtland Esclaremonde de Montségur Bannister that he was about to land from his 254th and last combat mission of his tour in Vietnam. Only when he was leading his flight three miles directly above Bien Hoa Air Base down to the traffic pattern did the stark realization strike him that he would never again fly combat in Vietnam.
In an eerie combination of inside-outside, he saw himself both performing actions in the cockpit while viewing them from the outside of the plane five minutes in the future. He was going through the motions of landing his airplane on the runway below. He clearly saw his hand tug the drag chute handle, and from the outside he saw the chute deploy and decelerate the sleek fighter. As the scene of deja-vu played out, he was washed by an unexpected sadness as if he were about to lose something of immense value.
Unbidden, a memory surfaced of that teenage summer when he had a brief affair with a girl in France. She was all Wellesley with dark plaid skirt and knee-highs, and flowing black hair curling in wings around her wide brown eyes. Within two days of their meeting at his father's villa at Cap Ferrat they were in steamy, sensual love. Laughter, secrets exchanged, red wine, sleek bodies swimming in the moonlight, candles, chest aching love, moist skin joining on the warm beach. She had been a house guest with her aunt. Then she was gone; a Hutton-DuPont, her future as ordained as that of a Mayan high priestess. For weeks after he had been empty and sullen. Now he had a presage of the same lost feeling. A presage of sadness at never again doing a thing that had, with startling realization, become the most important thing in his life.
These thoughts and emotions swept Court in an instant leaving him with the realization how much he loved and needed his airplane and the altitude and the sky and his wingmen and the pure sense of flight, and how exhilarated he felt while flying a combat mission, and the joy he felt upon his triumphal returns to base. He would have laughed and blushed if pressed to put these feelings into words.
He shook his head and looked up through his visor. The day had at once taken on a new meaning. The colors and the sounds in the cockpit intensified. The white of the clouds became whiter in contrast to a sky that became a deeper and darker blue. The outlines of the two planes in echelon off his right wing became more distinct. The details of the runways and taxiways of the air base below became vivid and sharp as he had never seen them before. The sound of his engine and the wind rushing over his canopy were as much a part of him as his own heartbeat. He and his big ugly-beautiful fighter were one.
This airplane, this particular airplane, knew who he was. They could not separate. This could not be the last time he soared far above the clouds in this fine craft, this very craft that he loved so, and it loved him. He knew it. It recognized him and sent smooth signals of responsiveness to his slightest whims.
A moment before, he had been fully occupied leading his flight of three F-100s back from attacking a target in the Mekong Delta. Then, with that terrible wrench, awareness had struck him that he would never do any of this again. That simply could not be. There had to be more.
Neither of the other two pilots had called Bingo so he knew they had a few minutes extra fuel. He could prolong, for a moment anyhow, his last combat mission. He gently porpoised his plane as a signal for his two wingmen to slip back into the trail position. No words were necessary. He eased the throttle forward a few percent knowing they would follow as soon as they detected his plane creeping away. They would fly such a tight formation their feet would vibrate on the rudder pedals as their planes were buffeted by the exhaust from the tailpipe of the plane in front.
When they were tucked in, he gently pulled his plane up and, lowering the right wing, rolled easily about the horizon and let the nose fall through until they were inverted over the earth with the sun shining on the flat underside of their planes like a spotlight on ballet dancers. Then, still lazily rolling, they were pointed straight down with speed building up to 1000 feet per second. For a few heartbeats, he watched the mottled green earth grow larger in detail, then pulled up with increasing force until they were headed straight up the side of a newly birthed cumulus too painfully white to look at. Under his guidance, they rolled together and soared effortlessly over the top to hang motionless in the sky for long seconds like seagulls painted on a canvas. Then, carefully, he rolled them level and gradually vanquished gravity by pushing the nose down until they were loose in their straps, and their pencils floated up from their sleeve pockets. They flew behind him as tight as links in a chain. When they were a few degrees below the horizon, he eased in back stick then pulled them up crisply and rolled them twice to the left.
Then it was over. "Bingo minus two," Ramrod Three transmitted in a voice quiet and apologetic. He had just told Court Bannister he was 200 pounds under what he should have to return to base from a 100 mile distance.
Court had one last trick to squeeze every sensation out of this day. He told them to switch to tower frequency.
"Bien Hoa Tower, Ramrod 21 approaching initial with three. Call the command post and ask them to clear us for a flyby then a tactical pitch up for landing."
"Ramrod 21, you're cleared," the voice of Frank Darlington, the new commander of the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing, shot back. As he did with all pilots on their last mission, he was in his command jeep in preparation to meet Bannister in the revetment where fellow pilots would pop champagne and douse the man who had just flown his last combat mission and was going home.
Bannister gratefully acknowledged. He put his flight into a Vee formation and led them, engines screaming above the wind, down runway 27 at 200 feet indicating 530 knots. At the end of the runway he pulled them up into a tight left climbing turn and gave the wing dip to signal the left wing man to slide over to echelon right. They zoomed up to 3000 feet, stayed within the boundary of the air base, then dove down in a left turn to roll out once again onto the initial approach for runway 27. He throttled back to indicate 450 knots. He revolved his gloved forefinger alongside his head then held up two fingers in the signal to his wingmen to pitch up after him in two-second intervals. Two repeated the signal to Three to maintain perfect radio discipline.
They streaked up initial at 200 feet. As they flashed over the beginning edge of the runway, Court racked his F-100 up left in a tight 5-G climbing turn, and at the same time blew his speed boards out into the wind. The sudden deceleration threw him into his harness as he pulled the fighter further up and around to level off at 1500 feet on the downwind leg of the landing pattern. When he had slowed to 230 knots, he threw the gear handle down, followed by the flap handle, and started a left turn onto the base leg. Behind him, in precise two second intervals, Two and Three had zoomed left and up into the same pattern. The engine scream and the wind roar and the boom of the speed boards as the planes, one after the other, flashed low over the field then climb to pattern altitude, let everybody know this by God was a fighter base and three pilots had just returned from combat.
The wingtips of each plane trailed gossamer threads of white from the vortices created by the wracking turns in the humid air. The vortices faded quickly to be replaced by white puffs of smoke when rubber met runway as each pilot set his plane down on the same place as the man landing in front of him. Each man pulled his handle at the same spot, deploying his drag chute to billow and spin white behind him as he rolled down the runway, decelerating rapidly. After turn off, they aligned perfectly with each other in the de-arming area. Upon unspoken agreement, Two and Three opened their canopies at the exact moment their leader opened his. The de-arming crew looked at each other; this was one sharp flight.
After de-arm, Court Bannister taxied with his hands and forearms resting on the rails beneath the open canopy. He had loosened his mask so that it hung to one side of his helmet. The melancholy strains
of Yesterday came over his earphones from the AFVN station he had tuned on his ADF. He waved to the company of paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne, their faces so young, who sat on the brown sunburnt grass bordering the taxiway to await airlift to a remote jungle battle zone. They waved back and stared at the jeep trailing smoke leading Court to his parking place.
This can't be it. This can't be the end, he thought as he taxied behind the jeep. There has to be more. They can't expect a man to live 365 intense days, flying combat with some of the best men ever made, then expect him to suddenly pack up and go home. It's all over for you, many thanks, see you next time. No, that couldn't be the way it was supposed to be. There has to be a period of...of transition, or change, or something. Christ, he wasn't ready for decent society. Just look, everything was yellowed about him. His fingers were stained yellow from his Luckies. He had no clothes that weren't yellow and worn from too many pounding cold water naphtha soap washings. Even his skin was tight and yellowish. Hell, he bet his teeth were yellow, too.
Maybe something was wrong with him, he mused. He'd seen all the others, they had seemed happy enough to be going home. So why wasn't he? Now that he thought about it, he did recollect seeing a certain something, was it mist or nostalgia, in the eyes of those who had flown their last mission. Was that what he was feeling? Whimpering nostalgia?
Nuts, he hadn't even left yet, so how could that be it? Was that how he looked now to an outsider? Did he have that odd look in his eyes, too? Just what did he look like, he wondered. For months he hadn't looked in a mirror except to shave. Had someone told him, he would know his eyes were now cold and hard. But no one told him because they all looked that way, the combat fliers, and no one could see anything different about themselves. Nor did they know they were more cold and hard inside than when they arrived young and eager a year earlier.
He came out of his reverie when he became aware the jeep had led him to the revetment. He saw the group of squadron pilots he didn't really know waiting for him. All his buddies had either gone home, or were dead. Jack Ward, Joe Howard, Fairchild, Freeman, had gone home. Phil Travers was dead. Ron Bender was missing in action. Bob Derham was in Command and Staff, Colonel Jake Friedlander, whose name just came out on the new BG list, was at TAC headquarters. Baby Huey was back at Brooks for some refresher training. Even Ramrod the snake was long missing. He didn't even know the wingmen he had just flown with, except that they were two fine pilots. The only person he really knew in the squadron now was Bob Putney, his replacement; and Colonel Frank Darlington who had replaced Jake Friedlander as Wing Commander.
He pulled up and tapped the toe brakes lightly to bob the scoop shovel nose of his fighter as a salute to those waiting. The crew chief positioned the ladder and ran up to help Court unstrap and climb out.
Corks popped and champagne spewed. The pilots applauded and cheered and rubbed it in his hair, then gave him the bottle to drink. Court was pleased at the reception by these new guys. How times have changed, he thought, from that day one year ago when he had first walked as a new guy, stiff and aloof, into the 531st.
Court Bannister didn't realize it, but he had become a well known and respected fighter pilot. His exploits in F-100s and F-105s to help set up the fast FAC program were considered top staff work done under formidable conditions. His MiG encounters with Frederick were legend. Now it was merely incidental that he was the son of a famous movie actor.
Colonel Frank Darlington got out of his jeep and walked up to the crowd of pilots who made way for him as he went straight to Bannister. He had a stern look on his face and some official looking papers in his hand. Court looked at him, surprised he wasn't smiling.
"Bannister," Darlington snapped, "do you know what's the minimum altitude for a flyby?"
Court furiously searched his memory. It occurred to him he hadn't the faintest idea if there even was a regulation or SOP on the subject. The other pilots stood still, looking at one another. It was plain they didn't know either.
"No, Sir, I don't know," he replied.
"What was your altitude and airspeed on your first pass?" Darlington asked, as stern as before.
"Two hundred feet and 530 knots, Sir," Court answered.
"Gentlemen," the colonel said, turning to the crowd, "you all heard that." His face broke into a broad grin. "From now on no one will perform a flyby at less than 200 feet or more than 530 knots. As of now, that is the newest; and, I might add, only, SOP on the subject of flybys."
It took a second for the news to dawn on Court and the stunned crowd that he wasn't really on the carpet. Another bottle of champagne magically appeared. The colonel was given the first drink. He took a swig and handed the bottle to Court. Flash bulbs went off when he tilted the bottle up while many pilots took pictures of the man they instinctively knew they wanted some day to say they flew with.
The colonel assumed an expression more stern than before. He peered at the sewn black bars denoting captain on each of Bannister's shoulders. He shook his head in mock sorrow. The crowd grew silent again. Now what?
"It is my sad duty to inform you that you are out of uniform, Major Bannister."
