Abandoned in Hell : The Fight for Vietnam's Firebase Kate (9780698144262)

by Albracht, William; Wolf, Marvin; Galloway, Joseph L. (FRW)

  After his first semester, he cut a political science class to visit the Army recruiter. “One of those life-defining points,” he says. “One sergeant said, ‘How would you like to work on helicopters?’ and I said that it sounded pretty cool.

  “Then his buddy said, ‘What are you doing right now?’ and when I explained that I was in junior college, he says, ‘Do you wear glasses?’ and when I said no, he asked if I’d like to fly. I said, ‘Where do I sign on the dotted line?’”

  A little over a year after he enlisted, Donovan, age 20, flew his first combat mission for the 155th AHC. After learning to fly helicopters on the flat, dry Texas plains and then the flat, low farmland around Fort Stewart, Georgia, he had to learn on the job about the joys of mountain aviation in Vietnam’s Central Highlands: “Our airfield at BMT was at about 2,000 feet,” Donovan explains. “The hotter the air gets and the higher you go, the thinner the air becomes. That impacts the amount of lift that your rotor system can generate. Most of our landings could be best described as controlled crashes. In a Huey, normal-operating-engine RPM was 6,600. Going into an assault landing at around 6,200 engine RPM, the low RPM alarm begins beeping in your ear. The controls start to get a little mushy. Sometimes, when we’d break the trees, the leader would call, ‘Pick your spots,’ and that meant we had permission to move a little out of formation and pick a spot—some LZs were burned-off bamboo with stumps sticking three or four feet out of the ground. At such a low RPM, we often didn’t have enough power to hover. Our own rotor wash caused the bird to run out of what we called ‘left pedal’—the nose would start to turn to the right. It would get pretty interesting.”

  It got even more interesting when flying into and out of Duc Lap; the Special Forces airfield there was more than a mile high.

  After a few months of ash-and-trash missions and flying air assaults for the US 4th and the ARVN 23rd, Donovan and his platoon were “volunteered” to fly for the legendary Special Operations Group. These were hush-hush missions, “black” operations that usually involved either inserting small groups of men into Cambodia to run intelligence and assassination operations, or retrieving them.

  “If you flew slicks, which Donovan did, you’d fly one week supporting the missions going across into Cambodia, typically carrying two or three Americans and five or six of what we called Sioux Indians—South Vietnamese or Chinese mercenaries,” Donovan remembers. “They were all dressed in North Vietnamese Army uniforms and basically wore nothing that would identify them with the US Army. So we’d spend a week flying SOG missions about seventy-five miles on the wrong side of the fence; and then the first platoon would take over that mission from us, and we’d fly regular air assaults, and log missions in-country.”

  As October 1969 and the end of his yearlong tour approached, Donovan decided to extend his tour. The choice seemed simple: “A bunch of us were scheduled to go home in October, and as crazy as it sounds, we said, ‘Do we want to go home, take a leave, report to our new unit, and then come back to duty at Christmastime?’”

  Instead, they all agreed to extend their tours for a few months, go home before Christmas, and then either start a new assignment after Christmas or get out of the Army a little earlier than expected.

  “I think that contributed to our success during LZ Kate and the larger battle of Bu Prang,” Donovan opines. “We had very experienced aircraft commanders. A combat unit is almost a mythical thing. This is hard to explain to civilians, but [most combat unit members believe] it’s better to get killed than to look bad in front of your buddies. And I’m not saying this because I was in one, but I think all aviation units are elite units. I’ve said this on a number of occasions: Ken Donovan is alive today because of the guys he flew with. But every Army unit, to a certain extent, is about the luck of the draw. We had an exceptional group of pilots, crew chiefs, and door gunners.”

  From what I saw of the 155th AHC birds landing on or flying over Kate, it certainly was an elite unit. A few minutes before the end of Halloween, Ken Donovan and Les Davison were among a small group of determined 155th pilots who set out to bring in our desperately needed ammo and supplies.

  “I was flying missions all around Kate,” Donovan recalls. He had helped evacuate other firebases, but this was to be his first time landing on Kate.

  Because of our situation, and to a lesser extent because of what was going on around Bu Prang, Duc Lap, and their remaining firebases, the 155th had been reinforced with slicks and gunships from other helicopter companies. BMT’s local VC celebrated the new arrivals by lobbing mortar rounds at the 155th base at BMT’s North Field. Donovan and a few other pilots began moving aircraft to East Field to disperse them.

  “As I was moving an aircraft, I got a call to report to Operations, ASAP,” Donovan recalls. “There were already some very senior aircraft commanders there, to include Les Davison and my roommate, J. C. Cole. The Old Man came out, Major Dean Owen, and he said, ‘Okay, guys, we’re going to resupply Kate tonight. You guys are the aircraft commanders; I’ll have a more detailed brief for you in about an hour or so. You have the pick of the unit on who you want to fly with tonight.’

  “Somebody had a really stupid idea to go in with sling loads, from which Dean Owen saved us,” Donovan continues. “It was a pretty straightforward deal—we had four slicks to do the resupply, we had a fifth aircraft for command, control, and recovery of aircraft if needed, and we had four gunships, a team on either side, to escort us in.”

  I was not aware of any of this at the time, of course. But keep in mind that a normal daylight resupply usually involved only one or two slicks, with one or two gunships escorting if they were available. By now, however, everyone flying in the highlands knew that the ground fire around Kate was ferocious. That night, Shadow had the early over-watch mission, so before midnight, when I learned that a resupply was imminent, I got on the radio and kind of double-talked the situation. Shadow fired all around us, keeping our nasty neighbors’ noses dirty. Or so I hoped.

  While the pilots were being briefed, SP5 Mike Wilcox, Donovan’s crew chief and among the unit’s most senior crewmen, was drinking beer. “The First and Second platoons’ crew chiefs and door gunners were well into a drink-a-thon in the enlisted barracks area,” he recalls. “This was not an unusual activity once the aircraft maintenance had been completed and guards posted on the perimeter. We gathered in the Second Platoon hooch, where we had built a bar a few months earlier. Although we had all been very active flying missions around Bu Prang and the firebase areas, we assumed the war was over for the day, and the Schlitz and Falstaff tasted pretty good.

  “Missions into the Bu Prang area were guaranteed to pass the day quickly, as there were a very large number of bad guys around. The gunfights in the LZ Kate area were at the level where you could actually see large numbers of dead [PAVN] laying in the open. Being young and bulletproof, I found it was an exciting way to pass the day.

  “Well after dark, I was summoned to Operations, which was unusual. As I entered, I could sense a buzz of urgency. Something extraordinary was about to happen,” Wilcox continues. He soon learned what was planned. “Plan A was sling loads. Plan B was to load ammo and supplies in the doorways of the ships; two Special Forces guys would kick them out as we hovered over Kate,” he explains. “I was told to ask for volunteers to fly this mission, that things would probably become very ugly, in terms of possible aircraft loss.

  “None of the platoon guys in the 155th knew any of the guys on Kate, but upon requesting volunteers, I was amazed to see that every crewman was ready and willing to go—more than enough to fly a second mission if it was needed,” Wilcox concludes.

  Because the only Falcon gunship pilot senior to him was on R&R in Bangkok, Warrant Officer 1 Les Davison, with less than a year of flying experience, was senior Falcon gunship team leader. “Along with several other Falcon and Stagecoach pilots, I made my way to the Operations hooch in the darkness
of the blacked-out airfield,” he recalls. “As we entered, the clock showed 0010 hours; the CO and platoon leaders were poring over tactical maps, and the Operations officer was on the field phone. Obviously, all had been busy since the mission alert came down. The eyes of the pilots in the audience were mostly bloodshot—and a little scared. We had an idea what was coming.

  “When all were present, Major Owen led the briefing. We had all flown into or near Kate during the fighting, and were familiar with the tactical situation. The firebase was holding out, but the defenders were low on ammunition and weren’t sure they could wait until first light for resupply. We were tasked with delivering four slick loads of M16, carbine, and M60 ammo. Mission planning called for five slicks and four guns.

  “If we weren’t alert before, we certainly were now. I’d never been on a mission where we took an empty rescue ship. GULP! The best, most experienced pilots had been picked to fly this one, with two senior aircraft commanders in each slick. And credit to Major Owen: He knew it was a tough mission, but he didn’t just send others out to accomplish it. He would be copilot in the lead ship. As the company commander, he didn’t fly enough to be one of our best pilots, so he could not have been as sharp as guys who flew every day. But he knew where he needed to be for that particular mission, and he was there. Not every CO would have flown that mission.

  “In a similar vein, Colonel B. R. Wright, commander of the 17th Aviation Group, appointed himself copilot of the fifth slick, the command and control, and chase aircraft.

  “Our briefing covered the weather, the enemy situation, radio frequencies, and formations. Then Major Owen looked to me (the gunship lead) and asked, ‘Are the Falcons going to go in hot?’

  “Pete Cosmos, brand-new as an aircraft commander but never at a loss for words, piped up, ‘Damn straight we will!’ Major Owen said nothing, but turned his head to look at me.

  “I’ve often wondered whether Pete’s outburst affected my response—and I just don’t know. I said that I’d rather wait to see if Charlie will let us do it without shooting. ‘We’ll be on both sides of you, ready to bring smoke—and if they do start up, we can pinpoint the source and be right on it. But you slick guys are the ones hanging out, so we’ll do whatever you want.’

  “Major Owen didn’t hesitate. ‘Okay, we’ll go in cold unless Chuck starts something. They’re still loading the birds. Start time will be 0110, crank on me. Good luck.’”

  Donovan picks up the story: “We were to take off after midnight, so I went over to the gunners’ hooch, and while they were playing cards, Jim Abbott, who had been flying all day, lay down on a bunk and went to sleep. After a while we walked out to the aircraft revetments. I strapped in, and we started going through the checklist.”

  Davison goes on: “[After the briefing] everybody got their gear and headed to the ships, to find the crews already there. After making sure everything was set, most of us wandered back to the platoon hooches for coffee, smokes, a few quick hands of poker, and probably to write a letter or two home. Even the pilots who weren’t flying joined in, and the Dustoff guys too. As they say, you could have cut the tension with a knife.

  “Although it was still too early, the Falcon card game broke up and we headed slowly toward the revetments. The slick pilots were doing the same. There were quite a few flight crewmen and others around, but it was unusually quiet. We all knew this one was different. We rechecked the ships, again—and then waited. There was little of the usual happy-go-lucky banter between and among the crews; instead, lots of nervous chatter and forced laughter. Time dragged.

  “Finally it was 0110,” Davison continues. “We’d been strapped in for a good five minutes listening for the telltale whine of the CO’s ship starting up, but heard only silence. At 0115, more nervous chatter, but still no crank. What’s the problem? Nobody knows. I sent the door gunner over to the major’s ship to find out. At 0118, still quiet. Then the blare of the public address system covers the compound. ‘Will Mr. Abbott please report to his aircraft.’ The gunner came back, telling us what we already knew: ‘Can’t find Mr. Abbott.’ Jim is one of the coolest heads around—that’s why he’s the lead aircraft commander. This is not like him.”

  Donovan: “I heard somebody in flight operations over the PA system: ‘Will Mr. Abbott report to his aircraft immediately!’

  “He’s flying with the Old Man, but nobody woke him up! In a couple of minutes he comes running out, still zipping up his flight suit.”

  The mission began with Donovan and the other slicks flying to the East Field to be loaded with ammunition boxes. “Two Special Forces guys . . . volunteered as kickers,” Donovan recalls. “They hopped in, and then we launched. I had my crew chief and door gunner give their helmets to the kickers, and I briefed them about what to expect and what would happen in the event that we were shot up. Or shot down.

  “The scariest part of the mission was in the first five minutes. There were some weather issues around BMT; when we were climbing out, we flew into the clouds in formation. J.C. was flying number three and I was chalk four, the last aircraft. He was kind of strobing in and out of the clouds in front of me as we were climbing out. Jim Abbott made a [radio] call, ‘Climbing out at 69 knots at 500 feet,’ so that we didn’t overrun the aircraft in front of us. A good call.

  “Maybe fifteen minutes out of BMT, we broke out on top of the clouds, and we had more than a half-moon; it was a fairly bright night. As we approached LZ Kate, we were blacked out at altitude, in trail formation, with two gunships on either side of us. The game plan was that [the men on Kate] were going to dig a hole in the ground and put a strobe light in it,” recalls Donovan.

  When I got the word that our ammo was inbound, I had my strikers go to a hundred percent alert and told them to prepare to return fire if the enemy shot at those choppers.

  Donovan picks up the resupply sequence: “For some reason there were a bunch of artillery guys on the FM frequency and I think they were shooting or something, and it got so cluttered that I told Jim Hitch, my copilot, to turn off my number one switch; that way I was no longer monitoring the FM.”

  Davison: “It was nearly 0130 when we finally cranked. The flight out to Kate was uneventful—except for the damn lump in my throat. And that as we approached Kate, Falcon 4—Denny Fenlon—quite clearly told me that he was moving his team to the slicks’ right side—but I had to ask him to repeat it three times before I could understand. Even my ears were scared!

  “As we neared the LZ, any hope for surprise—as if a flight of nine Hueys at altitude on a quiet, clear night could surprise anybody—was lost when we couldn’t pick up Kate’s strobe light,” Davison continues. “We had to make a 360-degree orbit over the area. The lump in my throat just kept getting bigger and bigger.

  “When Stagecoach 6 turned inbound, our two Falcon gun teams were in position to follow him in, one team on each side. High above, Chalk Five, the command aircraft, vectored the lead slick to the strobe. Down into the darkness we went, all eyes on Stagecoach Lead. At 500 meters [from the LZ], Jim began to slow the helicopter. Over the firebase he came to a hover just long enough for the ammo boxes to be pushed out—then we heard, ‘Six is coming out.’

  “OK! But—were the bad guys just setting up for Chalk Two? Two was in right behind Lead, and he made it OK, and then Three was in,” Davison recalls.

  Donovan was Chalk Four. “I shot an approach at around 30 knots and 25 feet,” he says. “The H-model Huey has a chin bubble on both sides of the aircraft so that the pilot could look down between his feet. When I saw the strobe light between my feet, I gave the order to kick it, and they kicked about 2,000 pounds of ammo out in about ten or fifteen seconds. Crew chief Mike Wilcox said, ‘We’re up, sir!’

  “We lifted out and I was stunned—the bad guys never even shot at us!”

  Davison: “The drop went off without a hitch. I’d never admit it to them, but those Stagecoach guys
had big [gonads]!”

  We finally had our ammo. And a macabre surprise: A very large number of body bags that I had not requested.

  As for me, I have a good idea why the neighbors didn’t come out for midnight target practice: Shadow and an AC-130H Spectre, the biggest and baddest Air Force gunship of all. He remained in the area, orbiting high above the Falcon and Stagecoach resupply. When Spooky 41 came on to relieve Shadow, Alabama asked for my needs. I told him to fire a little here and there, keep the PAVN heads down, keep them guessing about who would be next.

  Because just then, everyone on Kate was busy pulling 20-round cardboard boxes of 5.56 mm ammo out of the wooden shipping crates, ripping the boxes open, and jamming one bullet at a time into one magazine after another. Before dawn we had filled all our magazines, and had several crates of ammo in reserve—almost enough, I reckoned, to stop another major assault. Almost.

  • • •

  SOMETIME that night, an Air Force EC-47 intercepted a radio message from the B3 Front—PAVN headquarters for the Central Highlands—to the commander of the 66th PAVN Regiment. US Army cryptologists at Long Binh decoded it, but it was a long time before I knew anything about it. The message was that our nasty neighbors had been ordered to end all their foolish dithering, all their fruitless mass assaults on our perimeter, and all their subsequent retreats, dragging their dead and wounded. The 66th was told that no more delays were acceptable. They were to take Firebase Kate immediately.

  “All quiet along the Potomac,” they say,