“What was that?” indicated that another escort member had not understood his flight mate.
“He called two at nine level, SAMs.”
“No joy.” The flight lead didn’t see them. He was out of the ball game—and the game was lost.
“Negative contacts. Guns low at twelve o’clock. Very strong guns.” Again the expert weasels in Carbine flight saw no SAMs. They had to be air-to-air missiles.
“There’s a flight behind us, Carbine.” The last chance. Who said it? Who was it? This was all in seconds., as fast as forty people could talk at the same time.
“Say again.” The radio noise was intense.
“There’s a flight behind us. Rog, that’s Finch.” Who in hell was Finch? Were those the Migs?
“Signals up now, moderate indicator, you’re thirteen miles from launch. Still have very strong guns at nine and a signal—a very strong signal—may be a presentation.”
Two of them see it now. “OK, Carbine, he’s looking at us, twelve o’clock.” But that indicated a direction exactly opposite that from which two white objects with fire on the end were now accelerating through the sky.
And again the unidentified and unintelligible voice came from the escort. “OK, we got a SAM at:—ughh—Thrush flight.” Who the hell was Thrush flight? Who was talking? Was Carbine four already down in flames and did someone see air-to-air missiles on the way toward Carbine three? I think so.
And then my chief weasel, one of the nicest and most intense men I have ever known, made his last intelligible airborne transmission, and he made it in his usual precise and definite manner. “This is Carbine three. I’ve flamed out. Carbine three flamed out. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”
The radio exploded. “Rog. You’ve got flame coming out—”
“This is Waco lead. They’re at nine level. Take it around to the right—all Waco flights to the right.” I had Leo’s aircraft in sight and ordered all my flights to turn to cover him.
“Number three, you’re out of control. Get out—GET OUT!”
“I’ll get a fix.”
“I got two chutes—two chutes, I got a fix.”
“Look at the chutes.”
“Pull up so we miss them.”
“OK, who in Waco has them in sight?” I did not see the chutes at first.
“I got them up there about eight thirty.”
“Carbine lead has the two chutes at about sixty-five hundred feet.” The ground gunners were shooting at the chutes on the way down but they didn’t hit them. No sporting blood up there.
“OK, this is Waco lead. We’ve got two guys out and in chutes and we’ve got a pretty fair chance of getting them. We’re still far enough back to do some good so we’re calling the whole thing off and going Rescap.” I ordered my sixteen attacking fighter-bombers, my remaining weasels and escort flights to a new task, and all but one flight of four responded at once.
“Waco, you want us to go on?” came from Oakland, who somehow had missed the intent of the whole operation and was still on course for the original target. Although it made no sense, and although it made no difference in the situation we were faced with at the instant, I was so furious at him for being out ahead by himself, I think I would have punched him in the nose if I’d had him in front of me. Your emotions get quite high in a situation like that. Little things jar you when they don’t go right.
Now, having diverted the force from the briefed strike, my job was to organize and control this rescue operation as best I could. You have to alert the rescue guys and give them all the details, and you have to arrange the flights you have on the scene so that you can give maximum cover to the people on the ground and also cover the rescue machines when they arrive. At the altitudes you have to work on a rescue, the fuel goes pretty fast because you have to keep your speed up or you are liable to join those on the ground. You also have to stay close enough to the downed crew to strafe if necessary to keep the enemy away from them while waiting for the rescue machines. This is difficult to do in a high-performance jet with a little bitty wing like the Thud and it becomes difficult to cover those on the ground without falling out of the sky as you rack the bird around in a tight turn it was not designed for. I gave Carbine the job of getting the rescue forces on the way and I took the low cover. I stacked Tomahawk, Oakland and Neptune flights up at higher altitudes so they could conserve fuel and also watch out for more Migs. That way I could stay until my fuel got low, bring the next flight down in the exact location of the downed crew and then I could depart for the tanker to pick up more fuel and return to the scene. We could shuttle the other nights through the same routine while we got all the tankers we could obtain as far north as they could come. As I circled, I remember noting two plumes of smoke that looked like aircraft impacts against the hills. I noted them as I watched the two doll-like figures floating down with occa:sional red tracers from the ground guns arcing over them, but my thought was that their aircraft must have broken apart and impacted in two sections. The energy available for creative thought is limited at a time like this and it was especially so> at the eastern end of my orbit when I found some 37-millimeter guns intent on curtailing my Rescap activities. They weren’t close enough to the guys in the chutes to hurt them so I just called their position out to the other flights and left them alone. No sense in shooting them up at the moment. Just in case we didn’t get our guys out, a bunch of shot-up gunner’s families would probably not do them any good. I was quite confident that we had things set up as well as we could, and I looked forward to barbing Leo that night back at the base as to how come he had been shot down.
By now we were again aware of a problem that we had pretty well forgotten in the press of events. That beeper was still on and it was screeching at full power, blocking transmissions and generally making things more difficult. Until you have experienced the screech of that thing, you can’t imagine how bothersome it can be, like the scraping of someone’s fingernails up and down a blackboard. We still didn’t know who had it on and there was no chance of going through another process of elimination now. We were stack with it, but we didn’t yet know just how significant it would be in the sequence of the afternoon’s events.
As the chutes floated down, the drama continued. “The coordinates now are—Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”
“Two, you still with me? Still have them?”
“Carbine, let’s go rescue frequency.”
The rescue people have coordinators who are tasked with controlling the entire show when you get into a spot like this. They have radios and radars at their disposal, some airborne in large transport aircraft and some on the ground. They had a call sign for radio transmissions like everyone else, and Royal one might represent an airborne rescue controller while Royal five could represent a ground station to the south. Through these resources they coordinate and control any rescue operation, directing the fighters, the choppers who accomplish any pickup of downed crewmen, and the prop-driven AIE’s who pinpoint the downed crew’s location, attempt to keep the enemy away from him, and fly a protective escort for the choppers while they are making a pickup. While the AIE’s are known in general as Spads, they too have a radio call sign, and Nomad one might be the leader of a pair of Spads working a specific rescue while his wingman might be identified as Nomad two.
The distances involved are critical. You often have a tough time getting the rescue people on the radio, and until you do, nothing gets started. Charged with the responsibility of contacting them and getting the show on the road, Carbine lead started acting.
“Hello Royal, hello Royal—Carbine one.” The only answer was the interminable beeper screeching in defiance.
Two more calls mocked by the beeper and Royal replied weakly, “Carbine—Royal.”
“Roger, Royal. Carbine three was hit and has ejected. Both chutes were sighted. They have not touched down yet. Right now they are at two thousand feet. Are you ready for coodi-nates? They are going down slowly and it looks like they might be
able to hit on the west side of a ridge and we are in the area now.”
Then came a most welcome voice booming through on the radio. “This is Carbine three on the ground, can you hear me?” Leo was down and talking to the troops he knew were bent on getting him out of there. The answer to his urgent call was the screech of the lost beeper. Since he had turned his own beeper off as he hit the ground, his first thought was that his backseat Partner had failed to turn his beeper off. “Bear, your beeper’s still on. Your beeper’s still on.”
There has always been a strange relationship between single-engine fighter pilots and those who ride with them in the back of two-place aircraft on specialized missions. Very seldom do the .front seat men admit that the guy in back is doing quite a job and that the mission would never be successful without him. They carry all sorts of impolite names and are the brant of many jokes.
The Phantom guys started calling their backseaters “Gibs,” standing for guy in the backseat. Everyone has to be different so our backseaters became known and referred to as trained bears. Leo’s call to his bear reverberated with the strongest sense of comradeship and the reply came back, “My beeper’s off and the Bear is OK.”
I was over the spot now and watched as they gathered in their multicolored chutes and pulled them back into the trees. They had hit the ground quite close together, near a narrow dirt road that ran the length of a valley between two ridges. There were rice paddies on one side and the trees covering a small ridge crept right down to the road on the other side. The road made a U-turn to go around a small peak in the ridge line and they had landed on opposite legs of the U, with the hill in between them, and thus could not see each other. I called, “Roger, Roger, we got you in sight, Leo. Roger, Carbine three, we do hear you intermittently and we do see both chutes.”
“Carbine, they are on the ground and hi contact and we see the chutes.”
“Hello Royal, hello Royal—Carbine here—” and the beeper squealed on to tell us that it did not belong to Leo or the Bear.
“OK, Royal, they hit on a hill just northeast of the position I gave you. Second ridge over.”
I had swung past their position out into the area I had just told myself and all others not to enter. “Flak. Don’t get out here, baby.”
Leo knew who was who and guessed rightly that I would be close by with the lead flight. “Waco—this is Carbine,” came up from the paddies of the enemy on the scratchy, hard-to-understand emergency radio, with that lousy beeper on top of it all. “Waco—this is Carbine three. We are OK and are going to move up the ridge so—”
“Roger, Roger, I understand you are OK and are moving up the ridge—”
“Hello, Royal—this is Nomad.” This was the first indication that the Rescap was in progress as the first of the Spads checked in.
“Hello, Royal—Carbine here. Where in hell is everybody? OK, Waco, this is Carbine one.”
“Go ahead Carbine—Waco.”
“Rog, I think I better leave the area. I think that stuck beeper is goofing up the works and I think it is in my flight.”
“Rog, I just talked to Leo and they are OK and are edging up the ridge.”
As Carbine flight acknowledged and started moving for the tankers, the next revolting chapter began to unfold. “Carbine flight check in. Carbine four, you on? Carbine four, this is one.”
“Carbine—Tomahawk here. How’s the flak?”
“There was some shooting on the next ridge over, just east of where they got hit.”
“Carbine four, come up channel one one.”
“Carbine—this is Waco. You make good contact with Royal?”
“I’ll call them again and relay to you outbound. Hello, Royal—Carbine. Carbine two, give them a call.” Sometimes one radio in a flight will do the job, for no apparent reason, while another will not. Two was able to get Royal up on frequency and they brought the rescue commander up to speed and gave him some updated coordinates.
“Roger, Carbine, and how long can you stay in the area?”
“We are departing the area now as I think one of my flight has a beeper stuck and we are clearing out so we don’t interfere with the rescue.”
“Roger. Is there anyone else in the area who could maintain a tallyho on them?” This indicated trouble to come. It was apparent that the rescue coordinator did not appreciate the fact that there were many machines already on the scene in a well-controlled Cap effort. Carbine explained it again but the message apparently never was well understood. Those controlling the effort are understandably reluctant to commit rescue craft to a hostile area until adequate forces are available to protect them, but here we had more than enough planes in position, had already wasted valuable time, and were to waste more before the afternoon was over.
“Rog, the whole force is in there and Waco is the commander and he has taken charge of the whole thing. If you can give me any estimates, I can pass them on to him.”
“OK, it will be about forty minutes before we can get anything in there, and if you can get Waco to come up on this frequency I would appreciate it.”
“OK, Waco may have to put somebody higher to relay. Stand by, I’ll be right back.”
“Waco—Carbine.”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“I just talked to Royal and they said it would be forty minutes before they could get anyone into the area, and I told him that you would be in the area and would be in charge.”
“OK, get those tankers as far north as you can get them so we can hit them in a hurry.”
“Rog, I passed two good chutes and contact with the front seat, and he would like to have someone high over your position for radio relay.”
“OK, Tomahawk, you’re the top guy. You go high, OK?”
“Rog. Tomahawk, let’s go rescue freq.”
In the background a feeble transmission from far to the south forced itself through the beeper scream and gave us another indication that the wheels were turning and that we had hope of getting our boys out. “OK, Chopper lead—Royal. I’ve got you on my radarscope, and the fighters are in the area. They have tally on the two who are down and Waco is in charge. Both people landed safely and they have voice contact with one now, over.”
“Royal—Carbine.”
“Carbine—Royal two. Go.” This told us that another cog had slipped into place. The emergency standby rescue controller, Royal two, had scrambled from far to the south and had progressed far enough into the area to assume his role of on-scene controller. We could hear him all the way up to the area where we orbited, looked and waited.
“Roger, Waco is low and Tomahawk is coming up this frequency to relay.”
“Roger, Roger, understand, thank you.”
“Royal—Tomahawk on.”
“Roger, Tomahawk, how long will you be able to stay in the area?”
“We’ll be able to stay about forty-five minutes.”
“Roger, understand forty-five minutes, and are you groomed for Migs?”
“Affirmative.”
“Rog, and I am not reading anyone else up there. Are there any others up there we can use for Cap?” Once again it was apparent that there was confusion within the control element as to what they had to work with.
“Roger, Waco, a flight of four, Carbine with three, Oakland with four and Neptune with four plus the Phantoms in the area.”
“Carbine two, you still getting the beeper?”
“Not at this time.” The beeper has a limited range, even at altitude, and Carbine must now have realized that they had left the beeper behind in the area of the Rescap.
“Carbine one—two here. Let’s go button three for one.”
Such a switch, going to a less commonly used radio channel for one minute, is the only way you can talk to your flight members when the chatter gets real bad, and Carbine two wanted to talk with his leader in private, high in the unfriendly skies of the North.
Completing the channel change he checked in, “Carbine two.”
“One. Go ahead.”
“Rog, I think our number four got hit just prior to Leo getting hit.”
“You do?” The tone of startled disbelief was pitiful, such a familiar voice that you could almost see the leader’s face. He didn’t want to believe that he had lost another good young kid but he already knew it was true. Why else no contact with Bob? Nobody had seen him or talked with him in the last few crazy minutes. Bob was brand-new when he walked into our wing. He had been through the normal training routines, but the cocky little lieutenant was on his first real job in the fighter business and he progressed well. He had earned his spurs on some of the toughest ones we had, and was now one of our sharp-eyed wingmen enjoying the respect of his comrades, but his progress had come to a flaming halt against a hilltop in North Vietnam. Did he get out of the aircraft? Who knows—I don’t even know what happened to the machine, but now I know what that second pillar of smoke meant. This was all quite difficult to explain to his parents later, especially by mail. His Dad wrote that Bob’s mother had been ill since being notified—could I tell him more? I didn’t know any more. Bob’s Dad said he had taught Bob to be a good woodsman and that he could go for days in the hills—did I think he had a chance of being in the hills? I didn’t know.
This meant that there was only one of the lieutenants left in the squadron. We had received a group of them all at once and they were all great kids. Now there was only one left. The guys in the squadron took care of that the same evening, partly to boost the spirits of all concerned and partly to break the hex. Although the remaining lieutenant had a couple of years to go before anyone would be seriously considering him for promotion to captain, the squadron jester announced that the air in the local area was obviously unhealthy for lieutenants, and that from now on until the end of his combat tour all squadron members would address the surviving lieutenant as brevet captain. They made believe they didn’t have any lieutenants and the lad in question successfully completed his tour with one real and one imaginary bar on his shoulder.
Thud Ridge Page 19
