by Hugh Mills
I tore my eyes off the instruments long enough to see that Three Four had finished his second firing run and was headed out. By then the enemy troops had recovered from Paul's last rocket rounds and were rushing toward us. We could see them coming at us. But we couldn't shoot. My minigun was pointed in the wrong direction, and we'd just thrown Parker's M-60 ammo overboard.
I looked back at the instruments. Everything was passing through the yellow arcs and climbing toward the red lines. Screw it! If I don't get this bird out of here now, I ain't gonna get it out of here … ever! I applied all the collective that was left, beyond the governor and as high as it would go, then started pushing the cyclic stick forward and back. Maybe rocking the skids back and forth lengthwise would dislodge them.
Pilots are very sensitive about not exceeding the operating limits of an aircraft. So I felt the pricks of hot sweat stab my face when I looked back at the instruments and saw that my gauges were no longer in the yellow arc. They were in the red. Not just in the red—the needles were hard up against the red pegs. I didn't know what was keeping the OH-6 engine from blowing itself up.
As I pulled up harder on the collective, I sensed that the aircraft might have moved up a slight bit. I continued rocking the cyclic, pleading, “For God's sake, hold together engine. Don't quit on me now. Please … please get us out of here!”
Suddenly I heard a loud, slurping, suction* sound. Then all at once the ship broke loose and popped out of the mud. Under all that power, it literally catapulted fifty to sixty feet in the air, as though we had been shot out of a cannon.
“We're out!” I yelled. I kicked hard left pedal and yanked the cyclic over. Responding instantly, the bird went into a tight climbing left-hand turn to put my tail to the enemy.
Grins broke out all around. Kauffman reached over and gave me a grateful swat on the helmet. “Hey, man … all right! We did it… we're out!”
We all looked back at the little clearing where we had been just seconds before. Charlie had overrun the spot and his AK rounds trailed us as we squirted away.
Thinking that he had successfully cheated the hangman, Kauffman added his personal gesture of triumph to the moment. He leaned out the door, presented a stiff middle finger to the enemy, and yelled, “And fuck you, too!”
The brief celebration ended for me as I lowered the power on the engine and saw that my torque and TOT needles were still tight against the red pegs. That told me for sure. I had flat-out lunched the engine. God only knew how much power I was pulling when the OH-6A finally popped loose and lifted out of the mud. The army allowed you to operate—if necessary—up to thirty minutes in the yellow arc. But even in an emergency, the pilot was never to exceed five to ten seconds with indicators in the red. I wondered what the army would do to a pilot who had destroyed a $20,000 engine.
To hell with that, I thought. The amazing thing was that we were out of there, and the engine was still running, still carrying four heavy people back home to Phu Loi. And with the needles still in the red.
When everybody was home safe and sound, we learned that Two Six had put the ARPs down in the contact area and secured Sinor's airplane. Sidewinder had put in the fast movers, planting a lot of heavy ordnance on Charlie, chasing him out of the area. Pipe Smoke then went in and lifted out Sinor's crippled bird.
The Hughes tech rep examined my OH-6 with a fine-toothed comb, and he couldn't believe what he found under the engine cowling doors. Every piece of machinery in the hot end of the engine was burned to a crisp! He couldn't figure out how that engine continued to run without blowing up. Neither could I.
But it took Kauffman to provide the last word for the day. He came over to talk to me after we had set down at home plate. “Well, god-damnit, One Six, one thing you can be sure about. It'll be a long cold day in hell before I ever fly around lima lima again behind a friggin' scout ship!”
Hugh Mills and LOH #927. Note the XM27E1 minigun and the early 1969 Darkhorse marking on the engine cowl door. The revetment protected the helicopter from mortar and rocket attacks.
Captains Hugh Mills (left) and Rod Willis at the end of Hugh's last tour in Vietnam. Miss Clawd IV was his final mount. OH-6A 17340 is now preserved in the U.S. Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
The pilot occupied the right front seat of the OH-6A with the door gunner/ observer in the right rear. While the pilot's seat had some built-in armor plate, the gunner had only an armor plate strapped beneath his seat.
The minigun occupied the left rear of the cabin, its weight counteracted by the pilot and gunner. When no gun was carried, a third crewman occupied the left front seat.
Mills' 0H-6A en route to a mission, as viewed from the Cobra's cockpit. Scouts flew “wing” on the Cobras to and from the contact area. The scout pilot depended on the Cobra's frontseater for map guidance while at low level. Photo by Larry Kauffman.
Dean Sinor's AH-IG, “Satan Snake.” The wing stores mounted M159 19-shot rocket pods inboard and 158 7-shot pods outboard. The turret contained a minigun and 40mm grenade launcher.
A Darkhorse OH-6A over the ARPs in the Iron Triangle. The area had been extensively Rome-plowed, but was honeycombed with twenty years' worth of tunnels and bunkers.
Hugh Mills and Jim Parker scramble from Lai Khe to relieve a crew in contact over the Michelin plantation. A CH-47 Chinook carrying fuel bladders is on approach.
Wayne McAdoo heads the “Four Horsemen” as they deliver the ARPs to the location of a VNAF A-IH Skyraider shot down south of Saigon in February 1969.
The Horsemen trail red smoke indicating kills by the ARPs. Rear area personnel enjoyed these impromptu air shows.
Outcasts OH-6A at a 1st Division fire base. These bases generally supported battalion-size units with fire and logistics.
Scout pilot Rod Willis checks the delinker-feeder of the General Electric M134 7.62mm minigun. Above the gun is the ammo box and colored smoke grenades for marking targets. Photo by Rod Willis.
Cobra pilot Dean Sinor, Dark-horse 31, and Hugh Mills. The rope around Sinor's neck is tied to his radio and frequency codebook, called an SOI (signal operations instructions). Both pilots carry sidearms and Colt CAR-15 submachine-guns. The pouch mounted on Mills' shoulder holster contains a strobe light for emergency signaling.
Mills and Horsemen platoon leader Wayne McAdoo on a slick. The weapon is an M60D 7.62mm door gun used by the UH-IH gunner and crew chief. McAdoo listens to the progress of the hunter-killer teams on the PRC-25 radio next to him.
Rod Willis and Mills “hunt ä& tanks” in the troop area. The weapon is a Soviet RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Darkhorse pilots and ARPs inspect weapons captured after Mills and Jim Parker interdicted and destroyed an NVA 28-man heavy weapons platoon. Scout pilot Fred Jennings (far right) carries a Thompson MIA submachine-gun.
Mills and Capt. John Gott, Darkhorse 3. Troop operations controlled the unit's aircraft throughout the division's area of operations. Note the posted mission statement.
After-action photo: Hugh Mills, Stu Harrell, and Rod Willis. Harrell's riflemen had held off the determined advance of an NVA battalion with help from the hunter-killer teams. The patch on Harrell's right shoulder indicate prior combat service with the 82d Airborne Division. Photo by Stu Harrell.
The ARPs move rapidly from the Horsemen's Hueys on a combat assault. The UH-ls are most vulnerable on the ground and limit this time to seconds. Photo by Bob Harris.
Darkhorse ARPs prior to an insertion. Each man carries extra ammo for the unit's four M60 machine-guns. The soldier in the foreground is Thuong, a Kit Carson scout. Photo by Bob Harris.
The M60 machine-güns were the ARPs' heavy firepower. The gunners carried nearly eighty pounds of gun, extra barrels, and ammo. Photo by Bob Harris.
ARPs practice rappelling from a UH-IH, then climbing back aboard on a troop ladder. In confined areas, rappelling might be the quickest way in and the troop ladder the only way out.
The Horsemen, in trail,
descend into a landing zone for ground reconnaissance following a B-52 Arc Light strike. Note the craters, made by the 750-pound iron bombs from the B-52 Stratofortress.
ARP team leaders mark the landing location for the UH-IH with colored smoke and a colored panel. Other ARPs face outward from the LZ to guard against attack.
Mills and Jim Parker fly low level over the Iron Triangle. Scouting missions were flown low and slow; high-speed travel was at a higher elevation.
Armored cavalry assault vehicles (ACAVs) and M106 mortar carriers of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment beat down jungle, guided by a Darkhorse aeroscout. Photo by Al Farrar.
Rod Willis's OH-6A, one of several he crashed. The truss A-frame of the OH-6A made it the most survivable helicopter in a crash. Pilots and gunners were rarely injured unless the ship went in vertically.
Blood-spattered cockpit of Mills ‘s LOH, shot down near FSB Tennessee.
The bubble of Mills' OH-6A, shattered by a tree strike. Dead trees were a constant threat at the altitudes at which the Outcasts flew; this photo is a testimonial to the structural strength of the OH-6A.
Cobra-eye view of an ambush on a convoy along Highway 13 by the NVA. The highway was the principal line from Dian to Quan Loi and An Loc.
CHAPTER 11
ENGINE OUT
Once in awhile the Outcasts would catch a mission up on the Saigon River. On 22 August, Dean Sinor and I were assigned the VR-1 flight to recon a section of the Big Blue. The area started down around the Mushroom and FSB Tennessee, then went on up northwest to the outskirts of the village of Dau Tieng. Troop ops had briefed us that division was experiencing an increase in the enemy sampans infiltrating down the Saigon in that area. The sampans were known to be carrying soldiers and supplies downriver to support enemy operations against us in the northwest Trapezoid.
Our job was to put early morning aerial scout cover over the navy riverine and 1st Division engineer boats, to help them search out unauthorized river traffic and, more specifically, to track the ground movements of any bad guys who might have come ashore from enemy sampans. Along that stretch of the Big Blue, there were no settlements or villages, so no Vietnamese civilians should be out on the river. Also, no friendly military troops were authorized to travel the river between the Mushroom and Dau Tieng. Therefore, any craft or people discovered on or in the water, except our riverine boats on patrol, were immediately considered to be unfriendly.
None of the infiltrating enemy sampans risked traveling on the river during daylight hours. This would have exposed them to observation either by our aerial scouts or friendly ground troops. So the enemy moved on the river at night. By day they tied up, carefully camouflaged their sampans, then moved into the heavy foliage near the river.
Sinor and I left Phu Loi at about 5 A.M. It was still dark as we passed over the Iron Triangle en route to our search starting point near FSB Tennessee. From the air, Vietnam at night looked black and desolate, since the countryside was mostly without electricity. Therefore, the terrain below was totally unrecognizable.
The early morning, however, was always the best time for our aerial reconnaissance missions. The smoke and haze had cleared from the air and we could see much better.
As Sinor and I flew along at altitude, I lit another cigarette and decided that it was going to be a fine morning for checking Charlie on the river and seeing what mischief he might be up to. I didn't realize, watching that fine dawn, that I would still be along the Saigon River some sixteen hours later, watching the darkness envelop us again—from the ground.
Several U.S. fire support bases were strung along the eastern side of the Saigon in the area we were going to work: Junction City and Aachen were just downriver from the Mushroom, Tennessee was located right in the stem of the Mushroom, and Mahone (known after 14 September 1969 as FSB Kien honoring ARVN Lt. Col. Thein Ta Kien, KIA) was situated upriver and located at the edge of a large rubber plantation just southeast of Dau Tieng. Troop ops had instructed me to drop out of altitude and pick up the river at the Mushroom, then move my search pattern to the northwest along the Saigon, checking out both banks and tributaries as I went, as well as creating a search corridor about four to five kilometers wide on the east side of the river.
As Sinor and I neared the Mushroom, I radioed him. “Hey, Thirty-one, will you be able to see me down there? It's still pretty dark.”
“I think it will be OK, One Six,” Sinor answered. “But if I can't track you when you get down, you can always turn on your anticollision lights.”
Before heading down, I needed to set the shoot-not shoot guidelines for the day with Parker. I came up on the intercom. “We're ready to go lima lima … standard rules, Jimbo—if you see anything that looks like it's hostile, and it checks hostile, go ahead and open up, then we'll deal with it from there. Any questions?”
“Nope,” Parker answered. “Let ‘er rip, Lieutenant.”
I kicked the ship over into a descending right-hand spiral. The dropdown put me at treetop level right in the middle of the Mushroom. I could see some small cooking fires and a few lights within fire support base Tennessee. Our guys were just beginning to crank up for the day. They waved as Parker and I zipped over the base at about thirty feet and seventy knots. Then I pulled an easy right turn that headed me back to the northwest, to a point on the Big Blue where the river began to form the western outline of the Mushroom. That's where I would begin my scouting orbits. At this point, also, Highway 14 snugged up close on the east side of the river. That gave me the opportunity to set up my scout pattern to sweep as far as the west riverbank on one end, then east past Highway 14 and two to three kilometers into the countryside beyond.
As the day brightened and we started our sweeps, the river was quiet. Moving our orbits farther north toward a fairly sharp bend in the river, we saw a pair of American boats pulled up tight against the west bank, just downstream from the bend. One boat was a navy patrol boat, riverine (PBR), working upriver from its base at Phu Cuong. The other was what we called a Swift boat. Larger than the PBR, it was reminiscent of an old Louisiana oil field construction boat. Both types of craft were jet propelled, had a shallow draft, and carried plenty of weapons. In addition, they were outfitted with Starlight Scopes and searchlights for operating along the river at night.
The two boats were situated so they could intercept any craft coming downriver around the bend. They had probably been stationed there most of the night, watching and waiting for anything on the river that tried to run the curfew.
We waved and the boat crewmen waved back. I moved our orbits to the north and lamented that so far we hadn't spotted a thing on or near the river.
As the Saigon snaked along under us toward the northwest, I noticed a small tributary (Rach Suoi) that emptied into the Big Blue. The stream was on the west bank of the river and headed off to the northwest into the 25th Division area of operations. Though technically the junction of the Rach Suoi and the Song Saigon was not in the 1st Division territory, boundary responsibility was, out of necessity, a little loose. The two divisions frequently worked back and forth with artillery and whatever other means were necessary to cover each other, and to keep Charlie from operating more freely at a point where U.S. tactical unit operations were split. So I lengthened the western swing of my orbit to take a look around this area. It paid off immediately.
As we dropped in low over the north bank of the tributary, both Parker and I spotted a group of sampans tied up not more than fifty meters back from where the two rivers joined. The vegetation was extremely heavy and grew right down to the riverbank. But we could still see the shapes of several sampans huddled in a niche of the shoreline and carefully covered with fresh nipa palm branches.
No people were around, though. I headed off over the tree line and searched in vain for several minutes. There were no signs of trails, camp fires, or bunkers—nothing that told us where the people from the sampans had gone. But at least we had found six enemy boats, and it was time to go back
and deal with them.
I keyed Parker on the intercom. “I don't want to waste the time or ammo trying to bust those boats with the M-60. Grab your M-79 and I'll hover over near the sampans while you thump ‘em off with grenade rounds.”
Parker reached under his jump seat where he stowed the 40mm M-79, and loaded up. I came in slowly, keeping the moored sampans about forty feet from my right door. As I came to a dead hover, I heard the first high-pitched c-r-u-m-p erupt from the back cabin. Then another … another … and then three more times. Six shots from Parker's grenade launcher, and six enemy sampans quickly settled to the muddy bottom of the Rach Suoi River. I looked over my right shoulder and gave Parker a sharp thumbs-up.
Circling back to the Saigon, we resumed our regular east-west search pattern. We saw no river traffic or signs of enemy activity ashore. It began to look as though six sampans would be our score for the day.
Finally, another seven kilometers up the river, we came to another tributary. This one took off north from the east bank of the Big Blue. Tom Chambers, my Cobra front-seater who read the maps, told me that this little stream was called Rach Can Nom. Since we had had some luck in the other tributary, I pulled in over Rach Can Nom at treetop level, looking for another jackpot.
