The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots

by Jon E. Lewis

  Our missions were usually flown in I Corps or the northern part of II Corps; sometimes we even got across to the Central Highlands, around Kontum and Dak To. The large majority of them were flown from the DMZ to south of Chu Lai. We also went into Laos on a regular basis and did an awful lot of work along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We also flew two or three missions a day up North, hitting the area around Dong Hoi and Vinh and the lower Route Package One areas of North Vietnam. A favorite target was the gun emplacements around the Finger Lakes area, just across the Ben Hai River into North Vietnam.

  We flew seven days a week, day and night. When we were on strip alert we were usually armed with eight 500-pound Snakeye finned bombs, plus our 20mm cannon. A second plane would often carry napalm and 5-inch Zuni rockets. The Snakeyes wore fins that would extend in flight and retard the bombs’ descent, giving us time to get clear of the blast from the bomb if we were releasing at low altitude.

  It was hard work operating out of Da Nang. When we first arrived we were living in open-side tents, with no air-conditioning. The weather could be abominable, with lots of thunderstorms, heavy rain and low ceilings. If you flew at night, it was so hot in the daytime that it was difficult to sleep. We also had problems with our ground support equipment; there were never enough serviceable bomb loaders and our ordnance people often had to manhandle the 500-pound bombs onto the plane, by inserting pipes in the nose and tail where the fuses would go and muscle them on. In comparison, the Air Force on the other side of the base had airconditioned trailers, good equipment and a nice club. When General Seth McKee, one of the Air Force commanders, came to visit his son, who was a pilot in our squadron, he saw our living conditions and said, “Boy, if my guys had to put up with these conditions they would quit!” In spite of this, the squadron morale was very good throughout the tour.

  I had joined the squadron in the summer of 1964, had spent a lot of time in the Crusader and was comfortable in it. I felt pretty invulnerable as far as the missions we were flying were concerned. We were getting a lot of ground fire, but it was nothing compared to what the Navy and Air Force and our A-6s were facing up North in the Red River Valley, Hanoi and Haiphong area. Normally the worst we would see would be 37 and 57mm anti-aircraft fire. Towards the end of our tour we were getting some SAM alerts down in the Route Package One area and around Khe Sanh, but I never saw one fired and, much to my dismay, I never saw a hostile aircraft.

  The day that I was shot down started with a typical in-country mission for my wingman and I. Things started to go wrong when he had to abort on takeoff roll due to smoke in the cockpit. I continued the mission with my full load of eight 500-pound Snakeyes and contacted control to see if they had a single-plane mission for me. Normal SOP called for two aircraft on a mission, but exceptions were the rule, especially if we were operating below the DMZ . . .

  When I asked control if they had any single-plane missions for me, they replied that they had an emergency mission up near the DMZ and gave me a briefing on the way there.25 I climbed to 15,000 feet and flew up the coast, turning inland for the last 14 miles to the target. It was a nice hot summer day and as we were near the end of our tour I had borrowed the Assistant Maintenance Officer’s Nikon camera to take some shots for us both. However, there was to be little chance to do that as the day’s mission turned out to be far from routine.

  As I started to let down southeast of Dong Ha there was an F-4 coming off the target and he had been hit. I took some pictures of him as he went by and then saw him go into the water. It turned out the pilot was a friend of mine, Ray Pendagraff, and neither he nor his backseater got out.

  There was nothing I could do for the F-4, so I went on in and was told to salvo all my ordnance in one go, as there was a lot of anti-aircraft fire in the area – 37 and 57mm and quad 50-caliber machine guns. I received a target description and they told me to go off to the west and then come back flying parallel to the Marines lines, from west to east.

  I set up a ten-degree dive and crossed over the target at 250 feet and 450 knots, but as I released all eight bombs, everything in the cockpit lit up and the aircraft bounced. The fire warning light came on immediately and the utility hydraulic system failed. As I tried to pull up the Forward Air Controller called me and told me that my bombs were “right on.” I had planned to come around again and go in for a strafing run, but when the cockpit lit up I lost all interest in staying in the area.

  In Vietnam we had been told that the enemy owned the land but we owned the water, so if you were hit you should try and make it out over the water before ejecting. When it became obvious that the airplane was holding together, I began to climb and head out to sea. I put out a “Mayday” call and some A-4s with the callsign “Miss Muffet” that were on their way in came alongside to escort me out of the area. The flight leader said, “You have a very thin trail of smoke around your tail section, but I can’t really see any big holes or anything.” So I continued to climb and asked him to tell me if it got any worse.

  I got out to the water and turned south and began to think about getting the aircraft back, or at least maybe to Phu Bai where they had arresting gear on the runway. I called Red Crown, the destroyer that coordinates all the rescue efforts, on the Guard channel and as I was speaking to him I looked to my right and saw that the fellow in the A-4 was giving me a vigorous “eject” signal. I looked at my instruments and saw that the exhaust gas temperature gauge was going up and heading toward the maximum reading. I looked in my mirror and there was a big cloud of black smoke behind me. Without further ado I reached up and pulled the face curtain to initiate the ejection sequence.

  I felt the sensation of the aircraft falling away from me and then a lot of twisting and girating and then a terrific impact as the parachute opened. I looked around but couldn’t see the airplane. I was later told that it had exploded about ten seconds after I ejected.

  Since I was about six miles off the coast I reviewed what I had been told about water landings when I had jumped as FAC with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. I also recalled an article that I had seen in the National Geographic that talked about the population of sea snakes in the Tonkin Gulf and how they could raft up a quarter of a mile wide by about ten miles long. I thought that it hadn’t been a very good day so far, and I really hoped I didn’t land amongst those.

  A number of people had been lost over the years in water landings, when they had become entangled in their parachute or shroud lines. As the parachute filled with water it had dragged them down. I was concerned about that and as I got lower I took off my oxygen mask and dropped it to gauge my height. It seemed like I still had a way to go before I hit the water. The usual procedure is to look at the horizon and wait until your feet touch the water and then release your chute and I knew that. However, I was not comfortable with that, so when it looked like I was about ten feet from the water I released the parachute and had about the longest two or three seconds of falling that anyone could imagine, because I was a little bit higher than I thought!

  My lifejacket was already inflated, although the camera that I had tucked into it had, needless to say, disappeared. Once I got into the water I swam to my life raft, which had been stored in the seatpack and had come down ahead of me, inflated it and climbed in. I felt pretty good and decided to use all of the available survival aids, so I got out the signal mirror and was starting to unpack the salt water distillation kit, when I looked up, and hovering in front of me was an Air Force HH-53B Jolly Green helicopter.

  They put a swimmer in the water, a para-rescueman, and I got out of the raft and into the water as well, because the downdraft from the helicopter blades was blowing the raft away. The PJ put the horsecollar around me and they pulled me up into the helicopter.

  When the PJ was back on board we headed for Da Nang and it was on the way there that I realized I had been hurt. I started to stiffen up and by the time I got back to the field I was hobbling around like a 90-year-old man. It was mostly cervical strain, later diagnosed a
s a compression fracture, and abrasions, but at least I didn’t have any holes in me.

  I asked the helicopter pilot how they had got to me so quickly and he said that they were out looking for the Phantom that had gone down and saw an F-8 going by with smoke pouring out of the ass end of it. They said “That’s a customer for sure” and just turned around and followed me.

  I spent a night in the base hospital and had to wear a neck brace for about ten days, and then I went back flying again. Months later, back in the USA, I received a package in the mail. When I was shot down, I had been carrying an Air Force style plastic briefing book, with codes, procedures, radio frequencies and other information in it. Apparently the charred book had been washed ashore and found by a Marine Recon Team, who saw my name in it and thoughtfully packaged it up and sent it back to me.

  NIGHT MISSION ON THE HO CHI MINH TRAIL

  MARK E. BERENT

  Mark Berent served with the 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the USAAF during the Vietnam War, flying F-4s on night missions out of Thailand.

  It’s cool this evening, thank God. The night is beautiful, moody, an easy rain falling. Thunder rumbles comfortably in the distance. Just the right texture to erase the oppressive heat memories of a few hours ago. Strange how the Thai monsoon heat sucks the energy from your mind and body by day, only to restore it by the cool night rain.

  I am pleased by the tranquil sights and sounds outside the BOQ room door. Distant ramp lights, glare softened by the rain, glisten the leaves and flowers. The straight-down, light rain splashes gently, nicely on the walkways, on the roads, the roofs. Inside the room I put some slow California swing on the recorder (You gotta go where you wanta go . . .) and warm some soup on the hot-plate. Warm music, warm smell . . . I am in a different world. (Do what you wanta, wanta do. . . .) I’ve left the door open – I like the sound of the rain out there.

  A few hours later, slightly after midnight, I am sitting in the cockpit of my airplane. It is a jet fighter, a Phantom, and it’s a good airplane. We don’t actually get into the thing – we put it on. I am attached to my craft by two hoses, three wires, lap belt, shoulder harness and two calf garters to keep my legs from flailing about in a highspeed bailout. The gear I wear – gun, G-suit, survival vest, parachute harness – is bulky, uncomfortable, and means life or death.

  I start the engines, check the myriad systems – electronic, radar, engine, fire control, navigation – all systems; receive certain information from the control tower, and am ready to taxi. With hand signals we are cleared out of the revetment and down the ramp to the arming area.

  I have closed the canopy to keep the rain out, and switch the heavy windscreen blower on and off to hold visibility. I can only keep its hot air on for seconds at a time while on the ground, to prevent cracking the heavy screen. The arming crew, wearing bright colours to indicate their duties, swarm under the plane: electrical continuity – checked; weapons – armed; pins – pulled. Last all-round look-see by the chief – a salute, a thumbs-up, we are cleared. God, the rapport between pilot and ground crew – their last sign, thumbs-up – they are with me. You see them quivering, straining bodies posed forward as they watch their airplane take off and leave them.

  And we are ready, my craft and I. Throttles forward and outboard, gauges OK, afterburners ignite, nose-wheel steering, rudder effective, line speed, rotation speed – we are off, leaving behind only a ripping, tearing, gut noise as we split into the low black overcast, afterburner glow not even visible anymore.

  Steadily we climb, turning a few degrees, easing stick forward some, trimming, climbing, then suddenly – on top! On top where the moonlight is so damn marvellously bright and the undercast appears a gently rolling snow-covered field. It’s just so clear and good up here, I could fly forever. This is part of what flying is all about. I surge and strain against my harness, taking a few seconds to stretch and enjoy this privileged sight.

  I’ve already set course to rendezvous with a tanker, to take on more fuel for my work tonight. We meet after a long cut-off turn, and I nestle under him as he flies his long, delicate boom toward my innards. A slight thump/bump, and I’m receiving. No words – all light signals. Can’t even thank the boomer. We cruise silently together for several minutes. Suddenly he snatches it back, a clean break, and I’m cleared, off and away.

  Now I turn east and very soon cross the fence far below. Those tanker guys will take you to hell, then come in and pull you right out again with their flying fuel trucks. Hairy work. They’re grand guys.

  Soon I make radio contact with another craft, a big one, a gunship, painted black and flying very low. Like the proverbial spectre, he wheels and turns just above the guns, the limestone outcropping, called karst, and the mountains – probing, searching with infra-red eyes for supply trucks headed south. He has many engines and more guns. His scanner gets something in his scope, and the pilot goes into a steep bank – right over the target. His guns flick and flash, scream and moan, long amber tongues lick the ground, the trail, the trucks. I am there to keep enemy guns off him and to help him kill trucks. Funny – he can see the trucks but not the guns till they’re on him. I cannot see the trucks but pick the guns up as soon as the first rounds flash out of the muzzles.

  Inside my cockpit all the lights are off or down to a dim glow, showing the instruments I need. The headset in my helmet tells me in a crackling, sometimes joking voice the information I must have: how high and how close the nearest karst, target elevation, altimeter setting, safe bailout area, guns, what the other pilot sees on the trails, where he will be when I roll in.

  Then, in the blackest of black, he lets out an air-burning flare to float down and illuminate the sharp rising ground. At least then I can mentally photograph the target area. Or he might throw out a big log, a flare marker, that will fall to the ground and give off a steady glow. From that point he will tell me where to strike: 50 metres east, or 100 metres south, or, if there are two logs, hit between the two.

  I push the power up now, recheck the weapons settings, gun switches, gunsight setting, airspeed, altitude – roll in! Peering, straining, leaning way forward in the harness, trying so hard to pick up the area where I know the target to be – it’s so dark down there.

  Sometimes when I drop, pass after pass, great fire balls will roll and boil upward and a large, rather rectangular fire will let us know we’ve hit another supply truck. Then we will probe with firepower all around that truck to find if there are more. Often we will touch off several, their fires outlining the trail or truck park. There are no villages or hooches for miles around; the locals have been gone for years. They silently stole away the first day those big trucks started plunging down the trails from up north. But there are gun pits down there – pits, holes, reveted sites, guns in caves, guns on the karst, guns on the hills, in the jungles, big ones, little ones.

  Many times garden-hose streams of cherry balls will arc and curve up, seeming to float so slowly toward me. Those from the smaller-calibre, rapid-fire quads; and then the big stuff opens up, clip after clip of 37 mm and 57 mm follow the garden hose, which is trying to pinpoint me like a search light. Good fire discipline – no one shoots except on command.

  But my lights are out, and I’m moving, jinking. The master fire controller down there tries to find me by sound. His rising shells burst harmlessly around me. The heavier stuff in clips of five and seven rounds goes off way behind.

  Tonight we are lucky – no “golden BB”. The golden BB is that one stray shell that gets you. Not always so lucky. One night we had four down in Death Valley – that’s just south of Mu Gia Pass. Only got two people out the next day, and that cost a Sandy (A-1) pilot. “And if the big guns don’t get you, the black karst will,” goes the song. It is black, karsty country down there.

  Soon I have no more ammunition. We, the gunship and I, gravely thank each other, and I pull up to thirty or so thousand feet, turn my navigation lights back on, and start across the Lao border to my home base.
In spite of an air-conditioning system working hard enough to cool a five-room house, I’m sweating. I’m tired. My neck is sore. In fact, I’m sore all over. All those roll-ins and diving pull-outs, jinking, craning your head, looking, always looking around, in the cockpit, outside, behind, left, right, up, down. But I am headed home, my aircraft is light and more responsive.

  Too quickly I am in the thick, puffy thunder clouds and rain of the southwest monsoon. Wild, the psychedelic green, wiry, and twisty St Elmo’s fire flows liquid and surrealistic on the canopy a few inches away. I am used to it – fascinating. It’s comforting, actually, sitting snugged up in the cockpit, harness and lap belt tight, seat lowered, facing a panel of red-glowing instruments, plane buffeting slightly from the storm. Moving without conscious thought, I place the stick and rudder pedals and throttles in this or that position – not so much mechanically moving things, rather just willing the craft to do what I see should be done by what the instruments tell me.

  I’m used to flying night missions now. We “night owls” do feel rather elite, I suppose. We speak of the day pilots in somewhat condescending tones. We have a black pilot who says, “Well, day pilots are OK, I guess, but I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry one.” We have all kinds: quiet guys, jokey guys (the Jewish pilot with the fierce black bristly moustache who asks, “What is a nice Jewish boy like me doing over here, killing Buddhists to make the world safe for Christianity?”), noisy guys, scared guys, whatever. But all of them do their job. I mean night after night they go out and get hammered and hosed, and yet keep right at it. And all that effort, sacrifice, blood going down the tubes. Well, these thoughts aren’t going to get me home. This is not time to be thinking about anything but what I’m doing right now.

  I call up some people on the ground who are sitting in darkened, black-out rooms, staring at phosphorescent screens that are their eyes to the night sky. Radar energy reflecting from me shows them where I am. I flick a switch at their command and trigger an extra burst of energy at them so they have positive identification. By radio they direct me, crisply, clearly, to a point in space and time that another man in another darkened room by a runway watches anxiously. His eyes follow a little electronic bug crawling down a radar screen between two converging lines. His voice tells me how the bug is doing, or how it should be doing. In a flat, precise voice the radar controller keeps up a constant patter – “Turn left two degrees . . . approaching glide path . . . prepare to start descent in four miles.”