The Toughest Nighthawk Mission I Ever Flew.

After Blame it on Bob posted "Tree Top Flyer" on my face book page, I decided to put in additional details from flying Night Hawk missions and switching roles to being a Scout pilot on Hunter Killer missions.

I chalked up a lot of night time flying with Craig and learned a great many things from his mentoring. I considered him to be the most prolific night combat operations pilot that I ever flew with and despite the great experiences I had with the other pilots I flew Night Hawks with, Wolman and I seemed to have the magnet asses that always attracted ground fire from the NVA and VC and racked up more combat time at night than the other guys.  Because of that, I will start with him.

One night, we received a call for help from ground forces that were fighting for their lives in the mountains just above Phan Thiet. That was on the extreme eastern edge of our Area of Operations. As it turned out, one of our patrols had run into an enemy concentration at one of the worst possible areas.

They had a mountain at their back, a stream on their eastern flank, another mountain on their western flank and the bad guys covering their only way out. In short, they were trapped and made the call for us to bring in air support sometime around 9 or 10 o'clock that evening. We scrambled to the Night Hawk Huey and immediately headed to some unknown location that we could only identify by radio beam when we arrived in the general area. It couldn't have been a worse spot.

As we arrived on station but before we began our attack, Puff the Magic Dragon showed up. Some of you may remember that name from a song but from an equipment standpoint, it was an old DC 3 or C 47 airplane, the kind that was used to haul the paratroopers to Normandy on D Day. This particular plane was loaded with miniguns and was perfect for night combat operations in most circumstances.

Wolman gave them priority for the attack but unfortunately, with the mountains so close together, they were not able to get down to the treetop levels because they didn't have enough room to maneuver without hitting the canyon walls. Craig called them and told them not to worry because we were in a Huey and could fly right down the stream, directly to the enemy forces. I was still pretty new to the game and, with all the tracers flying around and the ground commander screaming for help, I remember thinking "Oh, shit. We're all gonna die". Thankfully, Wolman had no such thoughts and called the ground commander asking him to give us a target area to shoot at.

That night, as opposed to others, we had a clear sky and no cloud cover so we had a perfect view of the area where all the fighting was going on. The ground commander told us to take a "marking shot" in an area north of the wall that was behind him and west of a part of the stream that had a turn in it that we could clearly see. He called Puff, told them to enter a holding pattern and stand by.

In less time than it takes to tell it, he lowered the collective and we dropped like a rock to tree top level with a mountain on each side of us and the stream just below us. I was still relatively new at this game and can remember having some knots in my stomach as I knew if we were hit, we had no place to go but in the trees where the bad guys were or in the stream where they would have a clear shot at us from the bank. Despite that, I stood close by the controls in case Wolman was hit and we began the run into the target area that was filled with tracers going back and forth between our guys and theirs.

He told the gunner on the right side of the Huey to point his M 60 or his 50 caliber in the forward firing position ( I forget which gun). He told them to do that and fire a "Marking Round Only". On his command: "Open Fire", the gunner opened fire and the rounds hit exactly where Wolman was pointing the Huey. With that shot, Wolman had the gunner cease fire and he called the ground commander who told us to open up and rake the entire area being careful not to shoot any further south than the area where the marking rounds landed.

Unfortunately for us, the proximity of the mountain, filling our windshield, didn't allow us to make that run and we had to turn around, re-enter the canyon and make another run down the canyon.

We continued to do that time and time again and before long, we were getting low on ammo and fuel and had to announce that to the ground commander. He confirmed the radio call and asked us to bring him some ammo for the M 16s and M 60s when we returned and NOT to take too long.

Craig made a very rapid cyclic climb and handed the controls to me. While he was on the radio, I flew over the top of the mountain and headed to Phan Thiet which was a very short distance away. I'd been there before and had seen some Air America C 46s parked on the ramp and was quite comfortable that I could handle anything that might happen from that moment on.

We landed, never shut down the engine, began refueling and the guy at the ammo dump delivered the wooden crates filled with ammo that Wolman had ordered. We took off and went back to the contact area and made readio contact with the ground commander. When the ground commander asked us to come to a full stop over the trees and drop the ammo out of the Huey to the troops below, I could have easily dropped a load in my shorts but we were too busy trying to figure out where to make the drop without stopping on top of the NVA. They were that close to our guys and the solid rock mountain wall that they were trapped against.

When I realized that where ever Wolman stopped, I would be the closest one to the enemy on the ground and the easiest one to shoot. Luckily for me, Wolman put the Huey exactly where the ground people needed it and, as I heard them say: "Hover right, hover right, a little more, a little more, OKAY, drop it, drop it"..............I began to believe that I was going to survive.

I had my head out the cockpit window and watched the wooden crates of ammo drop away and disappear in the trees. I was really glad when that part of the mission was over with because the fire fight was still going on below us. It didn't occur to me that the bad guys couldn't see us because of the trees but even if I had, it wouldn't have made much difference because seeing big, green NVA tracers didn't necessarily mean that they were aiming at me. They were shooting everywhere and a bullet has no eyes.

With the drop made, Wolman got us out of there in a heart beat but before I knew what was going on, he lined up for his next gun run. Remember, I was still new at this and I didn't know that the night was still young and we were going to fight through the second tank of fuel and many more gun runs. Eventually, we had to return to Phan Thiet to refuel and rearm and run through a third tank of fuel before they released us. It definitely was an all night long mission for us and the longest Night Hawk Mission I ever flew.

I'll close this by saying that we eventually made it back to our rear area and were given the results of our actions that were followed by a "Well Done" from our C.O.